23-letter words containing c, u, r, s, e
- 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
- 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).
- eastern orthodox church — Orthodox Church (def 1).
- 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.
- extrinsic semiconductor — a semiconductor into which a doping agent has been introduced, giving it different electrical properties than the intrinsic semiconductor
- fall through the cracks — to break without complete separation of parts; become fissured: The plate cracked when I dropped it, but it was still usable.
- fraunhofer gesellschaft — (company) (FhG, FhG IIS, Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen) A german company, named after the physicist. IIS is Integrated Circuit Institute. FhG are known for their research on audio compression, especially MPEG-1 Layer-3 (MP3).
- 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.
- german southwest africa — a former name of Namibia.
- grand duchess charlotte — Grand Duchess (Charlotte Aldegonde Elise Marie Wilhelmine) 1896–1985, sovereign of Luxembourg 1919–64.
- have one's work cut out — to have as much work as one can manage
- 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
- human rights campaigner — a person who campaigns for human rights
- in your stockinged feet — wearing stockings or socks but no shoes
- inland marine insurance — insurance chiefly covering risks to goods and means of transportation involved in the transporting of goods overland or by inland waterways.
- interfascicular cambium — cambium that develops between the vascular bundles.
- internal reconstruction — the hypothetical reconstruction of an earlier stage of a language or of some part of it, as its phonology, by deductions from irregularities in its present structure, as the reconstruction of a stage in English when certain instances of r were related to s in a systematic way by comparing the pair was:were to other pairs, as lose:forlorn.
- intrinsic semiconductor — an almost pure semiconductor to which no impurities have been added and in which the electron and hole densities are equal at thermal equilibrium
- joint test action group —
- katmai new instructions — Streaming SIMD Extensions
- largemouth (black) bass — a black bass (Micropterus salmoides) found in warm, sluggish waters
- laughlin air force base — U.S. Air Force installation in SW Texas, SE of Del Rio.
- light and shade surface — (in architectural shades and shadows) a surface in a plane tangent to the parallel rays from the theoretical light source, treated as a shade surface.
- 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.
- 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.
- mild mercurous chloride — calomel.
- minimum security prison — A minimum security prison is a prison where there are fewer restrictions on prisoners than in a normal prison.
- modern sequence dancing — a form of dancing in which ballroom dance steps are used as the basis of a wide variety of different dances typically performed in a sequence
- multiple-risk insurance — insurance that covers several risks
- network solutions, inc. — (company) (NSI) One of the three companies that provide and coordinate InterNIC services for the NSFNet. NSI is responsible for registration. NSI has been bought by, and is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
- neutrosophic statistics — (statistics) Analysis of events described by neutrosophic probability.
- nigger of the narcissus — a novel (1897) by Joseph Conrad.
- non-destructive testing — Non-destructive testing is the examination of the quality of a component without changing it in any way.
- 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.
- north ossetian republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the N slopes of the central Caucasus Mountains. Capital: Vladikavkaz. Pop: 709 900 (2002). Area: about 8000 sq km (3088 sq miles)
- nuclear test ban treaty — an agreement signed by Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. in 1963, committing nations to halt atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons: by the end of 1963, 96 additional nations had signed the treaty.
- nuclear test-ban treaty — an agreement signed by Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. in 1963, committing nations to halt atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons: by the end of 1963, 96 additional nations had signed the treaty.
- on-line computer system — (OLC) A predecessor of the Culler-Fried System from UCSB ca. 1966.
- ordinary life insurance — life insurance with premiums paid throughout the lifetime of the insured.
- orthodox eastern church — Eastern Orthodox Church
- out of a clear blue sky — the region of the clouds or the upper air; the upper atmosphere of the earth: airplanes in the sky; cloudy skies.