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20-letter words containing c, o, r, b, i

  • 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)
  • checkbook journalism — the practice of paying for a news story or an interview, or for exclusive broadcasting or publishing rights.
  • christopher columbus — Christopher (Sp. Cristóbal Colón; It. Cristoforo Colombo) 1446?–1506, Italian navigator in Spanish service: traditionally considered the discoverer of America 1492.
  • 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
  • computability theory — (mathematics)   The area of theoretical computer science concerning what problems can be solved by any computer. A function is computable if an algorithm can be implemented which will give the correct output for any valid input. Since computer programs are countable but real numbers are not, it follows that there must exist real numbers that cannot be calculated by any program. Unfortunately, by definition, there isn't an easy way of describing any of them! In fact, there are many tasks (not just calculating real numbers) that computers cannot perform. The most well-known is the halting problem, the busy beaver problem is less famous but just as fascinating.
  • conservative baptist — a member of a Protestant denomination (Conservative Baptist Association of America) organized in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1948.
  • convertible currency — A convertible currency is a currency that can be bought and sold on the open market for other currencies.
  • curry favour with sb — If one person tries to curry favour with another, they do things in order to try to gain their support or co-operation.
  • 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).
  • deduct from the bill — If you deduct an item or expense from the bill at a restaurant or hotel, you take a charge out of a customer's bill.
  • demographic timebomb — a predicted shortage of school-leavers and consequently of available workers, caused by an earlier drop in the birth rate, resulting in an older workforce
  • 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
  • distribution channel — trade: retailer
  • district of columbia — a federal area in the E United States, on the Potomac, coextensive with the federal capital, Washington. 69 sq. mi. (179 sq. km). Abbreviation: DC (for use with zip code), D.C.
  • double-trailer truck — tandem trailer (def 1).
  • duck-billed dinosaur — hadrosaur.
  • electoral boundaries — the way that a country or area is divided for the purposes of voting in an election
  • 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
  • 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.
  • for sb's consumption — If you do or say something for a particular person's or group's consumption, you do or say it especially for them, although your private thoughts or plans may be very different.
  • for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
  • frederick barbarossa — ("Frederick Barbarossa") 1123?–90, king of Germany 1152–90; king of Italy 1152–90: emperor of the Holy Roman Empire 1152–90.
  • front-to-back engine — an engine in which the crankshaft is arranged front to back along the axis of the vehicle
  • good neighbor policy — a diplomatic policy of the U.S., first presented in 1933 by President Franklin Roosevelt, for the encouragement of friendly relations and mutual defense among the nations of the Western Hemisphere.
  • gorno-altai republic — a constituent republic of S Russia: mountainous, rising over 4350 m (14 500 ft) in the Altai Mountains of the south. Capital: Gorno-Altaisk. Pop: 202 900 (2002). Area: 92 600 sq km (35 740 sq miles)
  • hyperbolic cotangent — a hyperbolic function that is the ratio of cosh to sinh, being the reciprocal of tanh; coth
  • incomprehensibleness — The state of being incomprehensible.
  • incontrovertibleness — The quality of being incontrovertible.
  • indian cucumber root — a North American plant, Medeola virginiana, of the lily family, having whorled leaves, nodding, greenish-yellow flowers, and an edible root.
  • labour-saving device — a machine, gadget, etc, that reduces (human) effort, hard work or labour
  • like a ton of bricks — (used esp of the manner of punishing or reprimanding someone) with great force; severely
  • member of the public — a member of the general population
  • meta-dichlorobenzene — a colorless liquid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , soluble in alcohol and ether: used as a fumigant and insecticide.
  • microwave background — a background of microwave electromagnetic radiation with a black-body spectrum discovered in 1965, understood to be the thermal remnant of the big bang with which the universe began
  • miliary tuberculosis — tuberculosis in which the bacilli are spread by the blood from one point of infection, producing small tubercles in other parts of the body.
  • nickel tetracarbonyl — nickel carbonyl.
  • object role modeling — (programming)   (ORM) A conceptual modelling approach that pictures the application world as a set of objects that play roles (parts in relationships, which may be unary, binary or higher order). ORM provides both graphical and textual languages that enable models to be expressed naturally. For data modelling purposes, its graphical language is more expressive than ER or UML.
  • objective relativism — the doctrine that knowledge of real objects is relative to the individual.
  • para-dichlorobenzene — a white, crystalline, volatile, water-insoluble solid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , of the benzene series, having a penetrating odor: used chiefly as a moth repellent.
  • particle beam weapon — a weapon that fires particle beams into the atmosphere or space
  • physical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
  • pick someone's brain — to obtain information or ideas from someone
  • postcode prescribing — the practice of prescribing more or less expensive and effective medical treatments to patients depending on where they live in a country, and which treatments their health board is willing and able to provide
  • potassium bichromate — an orange-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous powder, K 2 Cr 2 O 7 , used chiefly in dyeing, photography, and as a laboratory reagent.
  • proactive inhibition — the tendency for earlier memories to interfere with the retrieval of material learned later
  • probability function — the function the values of which are probabilities of the distinct outcomes of a discrete random variable
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