17-letter words containing c, o, n, t, r
- forward contracts — Forward contracts are agreements to buy something in the future for a price that has been agreed today.
- foundation course — A foundation course is a course that you do at some colleges and universities in order to prepare yourself for a longer or more advanced course.
- fractal dimension — (mathematics) A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by "measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object. Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object. For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by repeatedly replacing ___ with _/\_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/\_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
- fractionalization — Separation into parts by fractionalizing.
- fraternal society — a club or other association, usually of men, having a limited membership and devoted to professional, religious, charitable, or social activities.
- freezer container — a rigid plastic container used to hold food that is to be frozen
- french revolution — the revolution that began in 1789, overthrew the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons and the system of aristocratic privileges, and ended with Napoleon's overthrow of the Directory and seizure of power in 1799.
- full load current — A full load current is the largest current that a motor or other device is designed to carry under particular conditions.
- functional isomer — any of several structural isomers that have the same molecular formula but with the atoms connected in different ways and therefore falling into different functional groups.
- further education — adult education.
- genealogical tree — family tree.
- genetic algorithm — (GA) An evolutionary algorithm which generates each individual from some encoded form known as a "chromosome" or "genome". Chromosomes are combined or mutated to breed new individuals. "Crossover", the kind of recombination of chromosomes found in sexual reproduction in nature, is often also used in GAs. Here, an offspring's chromosome is created by joining segments choosen alternately from each of two parents' chromosomes which are of fixed length. GAs are useful for multidimensional optimisation problems in which the chromosome can encode the values for the different variables being optimised.
- geomagnetic storm — magnetic storm.
- gigaelectron volt — one billion electron-volts. Abbreviation: GeV, Gev.
- glastonbury chair — a folding chair having legs crossed front-to-back and having arms connected to the back and to the front seat rail.
- glove compartment — a compartment in the dashboard of an automobile for storing small items.
- go to the country — If a head of government or a government goes to the country, they hold a general election.
- government action — intervention by a government, esp to influence financial markets
- grand touring car — GT (def 2).
- grandfather clock — a pendulum floor clock having a case as tall as or taller than a person; tall-case clock; long-case clock.
- grandmother clock — a pendulum clock similar to a grandfather's clock but shorter.
- greenhouse effect — an atmospheric heating phenomenon, caused by short-wave solar radiation being readily transmitted inward through the earth's atmosphere but longer-wavelength heat radiation less readily transmitted outward, owing to its absorption by atmospheric carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, and other gases; thus, the rising level of carbon dioxide is viewed with concern.
- grignard reaction — the reaction of a Grignard reagent with any of the numerous types of compounds with which it can combine, as alcohols, acids, aldehydes, ketones, or esters: used chiefly in organic synthesis.
- ground connection — the conductor used to establish a ground.
- gupta corporation — (company) The vendor of SQLWindows. Gupta Corporation provides application development and deployment software for client-server applications, consisting of a relational database, application development tools and transparent connectivity software. Gupta employs 400 people in 15 offices worldwide, including the United States, Europe and Asia. Gupta's 1993 fiscal year income was $5.6 million and their revenue was $56.1 million. Gupta sells client-server system components for networks of personal computers. Address: 1060 Marsh Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA. Telephone: +1 (415) 321 9500. Fax: +1 (415) 321 5471.
- haematocrystallin — Alternative form of hematocrystallin.
- hard nut to crack — a dry fruit consisting of an edible kernel or meat enclosed in a woody or leathery shell.
- harmonic interval — an intervening period of time: an interval of 50 years.
- helicopter parent — a style of child rearing in which an overprotective mother or father discourages a child's independence by being too involved in the child's life: In typical helicopter parenting, a mother or father swoops in at any sign of challenge or discomfort.
- hemoconcentration — an increase in the concentration of cellular elements in the blood, resulting from loss of plasma.
- henry cabot lodge — Henry Cabot, 1850–1924, U.S. public servant and author: senator 1893–1924.
- high-carbon steel — steel containing between 0.5 and 1.5 per cent carbon
- histamine blocker — any of various substances that act at a specific receptor site to block certain actions of histamine.
- ho chi minh trail — a network of jungle paths winding from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam, used as a military route by North Vietnam to supply the Vietcong during the Vietnam War.
- homeland security — national defence
- horatio kitchener — Horatio Herbert (1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum and of Broome) 1850–1916, English field marshal and statesman.
- hornblende schist — a variety of schist containing needles of hornblende that lie in parallel planes.
- housekeeping cart — A housekeeping cart is a large metal basket on wheels which is used by a cleaner in a hotel to move clean bed linen, towels, and cleaning equipment.
- hydrogasification — a high-temperature, high-pressure process for producing liquid or gaseous fuels from fine particles of coal and hydrogen gas
- hyperbolic secant — a hyperbolic function that is the reciprocal of cosh; sech
- hyperchlorination — Chemistry. to combine or treat with chlorine. to introduce chlorine atoms into an organic compound by an addition or substitution reaction.
- hyperconnectivity — Hyperconnectivity is the use of many systems and devices so that you are always connected to social networks and other sources of information.
- ichthyosarcotoxin — a term applied to any poison found in the flesh of poisonous fishes.
- icositetrahedrons — Plural form of icositetrahedron.
- idiosyncratically — pertaining to the nature of idiosyncrasy, or something peculiar to an individual: The best minds are idiosyncratic and unpredictable as they follow the course of scientific discovery.
- ignoratio elenchi — the fallacy of offering proof irrelevant to the proposition in question.
- illocutionary act — an act performed by a speaker by virtue of uttering certain words, as for example the acts of promising or of threatening
- image recognition — (graphics, artificial intelligence) The identification of objects in an image. This process would probably start with image processing techniques such as noise removal, followed by (low-level) feature extraction to locate lines, regions and possibly areas with certain textures. The clever bit is to interpret collections of these shapes as single objects, e.g. cars on a road, boxes on a conveyor belt or cancerous cells on a microscope slide. One reason this is an AI problem is that an object can appear very different when viewed from different angles or under different lighting. Another problem is deciding what features belong to what object and which are background or shadows etc. The human visual system performs these tasks mostly unconsciously but a computer requires skillful programming and lots of processing power to approach human performance.
- immunofluorescent — Of, pertaining to, or using immunofluorescence.
- immunotherapeutic — (immunology, medicine) Of a pharmaceutical, acting on the immune system to treat disease; used in immunotherapy.