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23-letter words containing c, i, r, u

  • constitutional monarchy — a monarchy governed according to a constitution that limits and defines the powers of the sovereign
  • constructive cost model — (programming)   (COCOMO) A method for estimating the cost of a software package, proposed by Dr Barry Boehm. The Basic COCOMO Model estimates the effort required to develop software in three modes of development (Organic Mode, Semidetached Mode, or Embedded Mode) using only DSIs as an input. The Basic model is good for quick estimates. The Intermediate Model extends the Basic Model with an Effort Adjustment Factor (EAF) and different coefficients for the effort equation. The user supplies settings for cost drivers that determine the effort and duration of the software projects. It also allows DSI values and cost drivers to be chosen for individual components instead of for the system as a whole. The Detailed COCOMO Model uses effort multipliers for each phase of the project and provides a three-level product hierarchy and has some other capabilities such as a procedure for adjusting the phase distribution of the development schedule.
  • consultant psychiatrist — a psychiatrist who has attained the rank of consultant
  • contributory negligence — failure by an injured person to have taken proper precautions to prevent an accident
  • corporate restructuring — a change in the business strategy of an organization resulting in diversification, closing parts of the business, etc, to increase its long-term profitability
  • correlative conjunction — either member of a matched pair of words, of which the second is a coordinating conjunction, as either … or, neither … nor, both … and, or not only … but.
  • corridor of uncertainty — an area of a wicket just outside a batsman's off stump, so located that the batsman will have difficulty in deciding whether or not to play a ball bowled into it
  • court of first instance — a court in which legal proceedings are begun or first heard
  • creative writing course — a course in which people are taught creative writing skills
  • criminal justice system — the combination of courts and legal processes that deal with crime
  • criminal records bureau — (in England and Wales) a service offering employers and voluntary organizations access to police, health, and education records
  • critique of pure reason — a philosophical work (1781) by Immanuel Kant.
  • current-cost accounting — a method of accounting that values assets at their current replacement cost rather than their original cost
  • cut sb's umbilical cord — If you say that one person, organization, or country has cut its umbilical cord with another, you mean that they have done something that makes them more independent.
  • cyclic redundancy check — (algorithm)   (CRC or "cyclic redundancy code") A number derived from, and stored or transmitted with, a block of data in order to detect corruption. By recalculating the CRC and comparing it to the value originally transmitted, the receiver can detect some types of transmission errors. A CRC is more complicated than a checksum. It is calculated using division either using shifts and exclusive ORs or table lookup (modulo 256 or 65536). The CRC is "redundant" in that it adds no information. A single corrupted bit in the data will result in a one bit change in the calculated CRC but multiple corrupted bits may cancel each other out. CRCs treat blocks of input bits as coefficient-sets for polynomials. E.g., binary 10100000 implies the polynomial: 1*x^7 + 0*x^6 + 1*x^5 + 0*x^4 + 0*x^3 + 0*x^2 + 0*x^1 + 0*x^0. This is the "message polynomial". A second polynomial, with constant coefficients, is called the "generator polynomial". This is divided into the message polynomial, giving a quotient and remainder. The coefficients of the remainder form the bits of the final CRC. So, an order-33 generator polynomial is necessary to generate a 32-bit CRC. The exact bit-set used for the generator polynomial will naturally affect the CRC that is computed. Most CRC implementations seem to operate 8 bits at a time by building a table of 256 entries, representing all 256 possible 8-bit byte combinations, and determining the effect that each byte will have. CRCs are then computed using an input byte to select a 16- or 32-bit value from the table. This value is then used to update the CRC.
  • cylinder vacuum cleaner — a type of vacuum cleaner in which dirt, dust, etc, is sucked into a hard cylinder rather than a bag
  • d'entrecasteaux islands — a group of volcanic islands in the Pacific, off the SE coast of New Guinea: part of Papua New Guinea. Pop: 49 167 (1990 est). Area: 3141 sq km (1213 sq miles)
  • decision support system — a system in which one or more computers and computer programs assist in decision-making by providing information
  • department of education — the department of the U.S. federal government that administers federal programs dealing with education: created in 1979, largely by transfer from part of the former Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Abbreviation: ED.
  • descriptive linguistics — the study of the description of the internal phonological, grammatical, and semantic structures of languages at given points in time without reference to their histories or to one another
  • deterministic automaton — (theory)   A finite-state automaton in which the overall course of the computation is completely determined by the program, the starting state, and the initial inputs. The class of problems solvable by such automata is the class P (see polynomial-time algorithm).
  • dichlorodiethyl sulfide — mustard gas.
  • dichlorodifluoromethane — a colourless nonflammable gas easily liquefied by pressure: used as a propellant in aerosols and fire extinguishers and as a refrigerant. Formula: CCl2F2
  • dictionary of computing — Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
  • digital subscriber line — (communications, protocol)   (DSL, or Digital Subscriber Loop, xDSL - see below) A family of digital telecommunications protocols designed to allow high speed data communication over the existing copper telephone lines between end-users and telephone companies. When two conventional modems are connected through the telephone system (PSTN), it treats the communication the same as voice conversations. This has the advantage that there is no investment required from the telephone company (telco) but the disadvantage is that the bandwidth available for the communication is the same as that available for voice conversations, usually 64 kb/s (DS0) at most. The twisted-pair copper cables into individual homes or offices can usually carry significantly more than 64 kb/s but the telco needs to handle the signal as digital rather than analog. There are many implementation of the basic scheme, differing in the communication protocol used and providing varying service levels. The throughput of the communication can be anything from about 128 kb/s to over 8 Mb/s, the communication can be either symmetric or asymmetric (i.e. the available bandwidth may or may not be the same upstream and downstream). Equipment prices and service fees also vary considerably. The first technology based on DSL was ISDN, although ISDN is not often recognised as such nowadays. Since then a large number of other protocols have been developed, collectively referred to as xDSL, including HDSL, SDSL, ADSL, and VDSL. As yet none of these have reached very wide deployment but wider deployment is expected for 1998-1999.
  • digital subscriber loop — Digital Subscriber Line
  • discontinuous variation — variation in phenotypic traits in which types are grouped into discrete categories with few or no intermediate phenotypes. Compare continuous variation.
  • dishonourable discharge — dismissal from the US armed forces by a court martial as a result of serious misconduct
  • disjunctive normal form — (DNF) A logical formula consisting of a disjunction of conjunctions where no conjunction contains a disjunction. E.g. the DNF of (A or B) and C is (A and C) or (B and C).
  • education correspondent — a journalist who reports news in the field of education or teaching
  • electronic surveillance — use of electronic devices to spy, observe
  • encapsulated postscript — (EPS) An extension of the PostScript graphics file format developed by Adobe Systems. EPS is used for PostScript graphics files that are to be incorporated into other documents. An EPS file includes pragmas (special PostScript comments) giving information such as the bounding box, page number and fonts used. On some computers, EPS files include a low resolution version of the PostScript image. On the Macintosh this is in PICT format, while on the IBM PC it is in TIFF or Microsoft Windows metafile format.
  • entrance qualifications — academic requirements
  • eurovision song contest — an annual singing competition broadcast on live television and participated in by European countries who are members of the European Broadcasting Union. Each country submits one song and the other countries cast votes on the song to determine the winner.
  • extravehicular activity — the act or an instance of floating and manoeuvring in space, outside but attached by a lifeline to a spacecraft
  • extrinsic semiconductor — a semiconductor into which a doping agent has been introduced, giving it different electrical properties than the intrinsic semiconductor
  • ferric ammonium oxalate — a green, crystalline, water-soluble, synthetically produced powder, (NH 4) 3 Fe(C 2 O 4) 3 ⋅3H 2 O, used chiefly in the manufacture of blueprint paper.
  • foreign currency income — the income earned by a country from foreign currency
  • friction reducing agent — A friction reducing agent is an additive used to reduce friction exerted downhole on tools and pipes.
  • frictional unemployment — those people who are in the process of moving from one job to another and who therefore appear in the unemployment statistics collected at any given time
  • function graph language — (language)   (FGL) The machine language for the AMPS (Applicative Multi-Processing System) proposed by Robert Keller, Gary Lindstrom and Suhas Patil at the University of Utah.
  • functional requirements — (specification)   What a system should be able to do, the functions it should perform. This term is used at both the user requirements analysis and software requirements specifications phases in the software life-cycle. An example of a non-functional requirement is an initialisation sequence incorporated into the software that is specific to a given customer.
  • fundamental interaction — any of the four basic interactions that occur in nature: the gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak interactions
  • gamma-aminobutyric acid — GABA.
  • german southwest africa — a former name of Namibia.
  • have struck/hit paydirt — If you say that someone has struck paydirt or has hit paydirt, you mean that they have achieved sudden success or gained a lot of money very quickly.
  • heterogeneous catalysis — Heterogeneous catalysis is catalysis in which the catalyst does not take part in the reaction that it increases.
  • hire purchase agreement — an agreement between a seller and a buyer for the buyer to purchase something on hire purchase
  • homonymous construction — a construction that consists of the same morphemes in the same order as those of another construction, as Flying planes can be dangerous, in which planes in one construction is the object of flying, and in another the subject of can; a terminal string of formatives having two or more structural descriptions.
  • human rights campaigner — a person who campaigns for human rights
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