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20-letter words containing b, e, o, n

  • case based reasoning — (artificial intelligence)   (CBR) A technique for problem solving which looks for previous examples which are similar to the current problem. This is useful where heuristic knowledge is not available. There are many situations where experts are not happy to be questioned about their knowledge by people who want to write the knowledge in rules, for use in expert systems. In most of these situations, the natural way for an expert to describe his or her knowledge is through examples, stories or cases (which are all basically the same thing). Such an expert will teach trainees about the expertise by apprenticeship, i.e. by giving examples and by asking the trainees to remember them, copy them and adapt them in solving new problems if they describe situations that are similar to the new problems. CBR aims to exploit such knowledge. Some key research areas are efficient indexing, how to define "similarity" between cases and how to use temporal information.
  • central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
  • change-speed gearbox — A change-speed gearbox is a set of movable or constant gears which allows the speed ratio between input and output shafts to be changed either manually or automatically.
  • chebyshev polynomial — a polynomial solution of the Tchebycheff equation, of the form T n (x) = cos(n cos −1 x), where n is an integer.
  • checkbook journalism — the practice of paying for a news story or an interview, or for exclusive broadcasting or publishing rights.
  • checkerboard pattern — checked pattern that looks like a draughtboard
  • chromatic aberration — a defect in a lens system in which different wavelengths of light are focused at different distances because they are refracted through different angles. It produces a blurred image with coloured fringes
  • clean bill of health — a good report of one's physical condition
  • clean-bill-of-health — a certificate, carried by a ship, attesting to the presence or absence of infectious diseases among the ship's crew and at the port from which it has come.
  • come back to someone — (of something forgotten) to return to someone's memory
  • come off second best — to be defeated in competition
  • compensating balance — Also, compensated balance, compensation balance. a balance wheel in a timepiece, designed to compensate for variations in tension in the hair spring caused by changes in temperature.
  • complete blood count — a diagnostic test that determines the exact numbers of each type of blood cell in a fixed quantity of blood. Abbreviation: CBC.
  • conservative baptist — a member of a Protestant denomination (Conservative Baptist Association of America) organized in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1948.
  • constant de rebecque — Henri Benjamin [ahn-ree ban-zha-man] /ɑ̃ˈri bɛ̃ ʒaˈmɛ̃/ (Show IPA), (Benjamin Constant) 1767–1830, French statesman and author, born in Switzerland.
  • constituent assembly — A constituent assembly is a body of representatives that is elected to create or change their country's constitution.
  • contingent liability — a possible liability that is dependent on the outcome of a future event
  • controlled substance — a drug regulated by the Federal Controlled Substances Acts, including opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens
  • convertible currency — A convertible currency is a currency that can be bought and sold on the open market for other currencies.
  • cut of someone's jib — someone's manner, behaviour, style, etc
  • cytosine arabinoside — cytarabine.
  • database transaction — (database)   A set of related changes applied to a database. The term typically implies that either all of the changes should be applied or, in the event of an error, none of them, i.e. the transaction should be atomic. Atomicity is one of the ACID properties a transaction can have, another is isolation - preventing interference between processes trying to access the database cocurrently. This is usually achieved by some form of locking - where one process takes exclusive control of a database table or row for the duration of the transaction, preventing other processes from accessing the locked data. The canonical example of a transaction is transferring money between two bank accounts by subtracting it from one and adding it to the other. Some relational database management systems require the user to explicitly start a transaction and then either commit it (if all the individual steps are successful) or roll it back (if there are any errors).
  • deep vein thrombosis — Deep vein thrombosis is a serious medical condition caused by blood clots in the legs moving up to the lungs. The abbreviation DVT is also used.
  • deep-vein thrombosis — a condition in which a blood clot forms in a vein deep beneath the skin, typically in the leg or pelvic area: Immobility and lack of exercise are risk factors for deep-vein thrombosis.
  • defender of the bond — an official appointed in each diocese to uphold marriages of disputed validity.
  • deoxyribonucleotides — Plural form of deoxyribonucleotide.
  • diabetic retinopathy — a disorder of the blood vessels of the retina occurring as a complication of poorly controlled diabetes mellitus and often leading to blindness.
  • diamondback terrapin — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
  • disability allowance — an amount of money paid by the government to people who are unable to work because of a disability. This is a general term or, in the UK, a shorter way of referring to what is officially called the Disability Living Allowance
  • distribution channel — trade: retailer
  • do someone's bidding — command; summons; invitation: I went there at his bidding.
  • double decomposition — a reaction whose result is the interchange of two parts of two substances to form two new substances, as AgNO 3 + NaCl → AgCl + NaNO 3 .
  • double fertilization — the fertilization process characteristic of flowering plants, in which one sperm cell of a pollen grain fertilizes an egg cell while a second fuses with two polar nuclei to produce a triploid body that gives rise to the endosperm.
  • drum and bugle corps — a marching band of drum players and buglers.
  • duck-billed dinosaur — hadrosaur.
  • eat out of sb's hand — If you have someone eating out of your hand, they are completely under your control.
  • eight queens problem — eight queens puzzle
  • electoral boundaries — the way that a country or area is divided for the purposes of voting in an election
  • elizabeth of hungary — Saint. 1207–31, Hungarian princess who devoted herself to charity and asceticism. Feast day: Nov 17 and 19
  • embryo vitrification — a method of in vitro fertilization in which the embryo is exposed to a vitreous solution and frozen before being thawed and implanted into the uterus
  • enabling legislation — legislation conferring certain specified powers on a person or organization
  • endorsement in blank — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
  • environment variable — (programming, operating system)   A variable that is bound in the current environment. When evaluating an expression in some environment, the evaluation of a variable consists of looking up its name in the environment and substituting its value. Most programming languages have some concept of an environment but in Unix shell scripts it has a specific meaning slightly different from other contexts. In shell scripts, environment variables are one kind of shell variable. They differ from local variables and command line arguments in that they are inheritted by a child process. Examples are the PATH variable that tells the shell the file system paths to search to find command executables and the TZ variable which contains the local time zone. The variable called "SHELL" specifies the type of shell being used. These variables are used by commands or shell scripts to discover things about the environment they are operating in. Environment variables can be changed or created by the user or a program. To see a list of environment variables type "setenv" at the csh or tcsh prompt or "set" at the sh, bash, jsh or ksh prompt. In other programming languages, e.g. functional programming languages, the environment is extended with new bindings when a function's parameters are bound to its actual arguments or when new variables are declared. In a block-structured procedural language, the environment usually consists of a linked list of activation records.
  • equilibrium constant — The equilibrium constant is the ratio between the amount of reactants and the amount of product for a particular chemical reaction, used to calculate chemical behavior.
  • feast of tabernacles — Sukkoth.
  • fold-and-thrust belt — a linear or arcuate region of the earth's surface that has been subjected to severe folding and thrust faulting
  • fondue bourguignonne — a dish consisting of pieces of steak impaled on forks, cooked in oil at the table and dipped in sauces
  • fontainebleau school — a group of artists, many of them Italian and Flemish, who worked on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau in the 16th century.
  • for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
  • forbidden transition — an electronic transition in an atom, molecule, etc, that is not permitted by electric dipole selection rules
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