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23-letter words containing c, l, o, a, m

  • differential compaction — differences in the extent to which sediment is compacted owing to topographic irregularities of the surface on which it is deposited.
  • direct primary election — a preliminary election at which candidates for public office are chosen by direct vote of the people instead of by delegates at a convention: in closed primary elections voters must declare party affiliation and may vote only for candidates of their party
  • discrimination learning — a learning process in which an organism learns to react differently to different stimuli
  • 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).
  • dissociate oneself from — to deny or repudiate any connection with
  • electronic mail address — (messaging)   (Usually "e-mail address") The string used to specify the source or destination of an electronic mail message. E.g. "[email protected]". The RFC 822 standard is probably the most widely used on the Internet. X.400 was once used in Europe and Canada. UUCP-style (bang path) addresses or other kinds of source route became virtually extinct in the 1990s. In the example above, "john" is the local part which is the name of a mailbox on the destination computer. If the sender and recipient use the same computer, or the same LAN, for electronic mail then the local part is usually all that is required. If they use different computers, e.g. they work at different companies or use different Internet service providers, then the "host part", e.g. "sales.acme.com" must be appended after an "@". This usually takes the form of a fully qualified domain name or, within a large organisation, it may be just the hostname part, e.g. "sales". The destination computer named by the host part is usually a server of some kind rather than an individual's workstation or PC. The user's mail is stored on the server and read later via client mail software running on the user's computer. Large organisations, such as universities will often set up a global alias directory which maps a simple user name such as "jsmith" to an address which contains more information such as "[email protected]". This hides the detailed knowledge of where the message will be delivered from the sender, making it much easier to redirect mail if a user leaves or moves to a different department for example.
  • execute channel program — (operating system)   (EXCP) An IBM system for low-level file access, where the programmer is completely responsible for providing a list of device-specific "channel comands" to be executed by I/O channels, control units and/or devices. The operating system will simply check the "CCW" chains for security purposes (access invalid memory or outside of file extents) and then schedule them for execution.
  • experimental psychology — the scientific study of the individual behaviour of man and other animals, esp of perception, learning, memory, motor skills, and thinking
  • 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.
  • flow-matic or flowmatic — (Originally B-0) Possibly the first English-like DP language. Developed at Remington Rand in 1958 for the UNIVAC I.
  • four colour map theorem — (mathematics, application)   (Or "four colour theorem") The theorem stating that if the plane is divided into connected regions which are to be coloured so that no two adjacent regions have the same colour (as when colouring countries on a map of the world), it is never necessary to use more than four colours. The proof, due to Appel and Haken, attained notoriety by using a computer to check tens of thousands of cases and is thus not humanly checkable, even in principle. Some thought that this brought the philosophical status of the proof into doubt. There are now rumours of a simpler proof, not requiring the use of a computer. See also chromatic number
  • 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
  • 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
  • grant-maintained school — a school funded directly by central government
  • hook-and-ladder company — a company of firefighters equipped with a hook-and-ladder truck.
  • human leukocyte antigen — HLA.
  • hypothetical imperative — (esp in the moral philosophy of Kant) any conditional rule of action, concerned with means and ends rather than with duty for its own sake
  • immunological tolerance — the absence of antibody production in response to the presence of antigens, usually as a result of previous exposure to the antigens
  • interchange file format — (file format)   (IFF, full name "EA IFF 1985") A generic file format published by Electronic Arts as an open standard. IFF is chunk-based and hierarchical so files can include other files. It is easily extensible and an all round Good Idea. An IFF file starts with one of the following "group IDs": 'FORM', 'LIST' or 'CAT '. This is followed by an unsigned 32-bit number of bytes in the remainder of the file. Then comes an ID that indicates which type of IFF file this is. The main image type is ILBM, audio is either AIFF or 8SVX, animations are ANIM etc. An IFF file will probably have a filename extension related to this file type stored in the file. The rest of the file is divided into chunks each of which also has a four-byte header and byte count.
  • intermediate technology — technology which combines sophisticated ideas with cheap and readily available materials, esp for use in developing countries
  • largemouth (black) bass — a black bass (Micropterus salmoides) found in warm, sluggish waters
  • law enforcement officer — an official employee who prevents and detects crime and who maintains and upholds the police, such as a police officer, sheriff, customs officer etc
  • lawrence livermore labs — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
  • lead replacement petrol — a less toxic fuel introduced in 2000 for cars requiring leaded petrol
  • lossy audio compression — (audio, compression)   Any audio compression algorithm which does not retain every bit of data but only reproduces a signal that sounds more or less like the original. Examples are MP1, MP2, MP3, AAC.
  • lower of cost or market — Lower of cost or market is a method of valuing assets where the asset is valued at either the historical cost or the fair market value, whichever is lower.
  • lymphoblastic leukaemia — a severe blood disorder in which abnormal leukocytes are identified as immature forms of lymphocytes
  • made out of whole cloth — completely fictitious or false; made up
  • magneto-encephalography — a record of the magnetic field of the brain. Abbreviation: MEG.
  • magnetohydrodynamically — In a magnetohydrodynamic way.
  • magnetomechanical ratio — the ratio of the angular momentum of a rotating charged particle to its magnetic moment; the reciprocal of the gyromagnetic ratio.
  • make allowances for sth — If you make allowances for something, you take it into account in your decisions, plans, or actions.
  • mass sociogenic illness — a condition in which a large group of people report similar physical symptoms that are traceable to social factors, as social interaction within an environment.
  • micro assembly language — (language)   (MAL) A microprogramming language with high-level syntax, used in the reference below. See also Mic-1, Mac-1.
  • micropachycephalosaurus — A very small pachycephalosaurid, ornithischian dinosaur of the genus Micropachycephalosaurus.
  • mpeg-4 aac main profile — (compression, standard, algorithm)   A successor of MP3 allowing transparent coding at data rates of 70-75% of that of MP3. It is very different from MP3, only used MDCT, no subband coding. It is much more complex that MP3 and MPEG-2 AAC Low Profile.
  • multimedia compact disc — (storage)   (MMCD) A CD-ROM standard for storing 4.7 GB of data including video. MMCD is being developed by a large numer of computer manufacturers and is expected to be shipped in late 1996 or early 1997. Initially it will be aimed at the consumer market, then perhaps in CD-ROM format for computers, and maybe later on erasble CD.
  • nondisclosure agreement — a legal contract in which one or more parties agree to keep information, as a trade secret, confidential and protected for a specific amount of time. Abbreviation: NDA.
  • nonessential amino acid — an amino acid that can be synthesized in the body
  • nonverbal communication — gesture and facial expression
  • on someone's coat-tails — thanks to the popularity or success of someone else
  • parametric polymorphism — Polymorphism was first identified by Christopher Strachey in 1967 and developed by Hindley and Milner. For example we could specify that the argument of the "head" function was a list without specifying a type for the elements of the list. In Haskell we would write: head :: [a] -> a meaning head has type function from "list of a" to "a" where "a" is a type variable). This is known as parametric polymorphism. Polymorphic typing allows strong type checking as well as generic functions. ML in 1976 was the first language with polymorphic typing. See also generic type variable.
  • parliamentary democracy — a system of government in which people elect representatives to a parliament to make laws, for example Canada and the UK
  • performance-related pay — salary based on individual assessment
  • peroxymonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
  • pest control department — the local government department responsible for controlling such pests as rats and mice
  • pharmaceuticals company — a company specialising in developing and marketing pharmaceuticals
  • photoelectric magnitude — the magnitude of a star determined using a photometer plus a filter to select light or other radiation of the desired wavelength
  • physical memory address — physical address
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