19-letter words containing f, a, s, c
- from rags to riches — a worthless piece of cloth, especially one that is torn or worn.
- functional analysis — the branch of mathematics that deals with the theory of vector spaces and linear functionals.
- functional calculus — the branch of symbolic logic that includes the sentential calculus and that deals with sentential functions and quantifiers and with logical relations between sentences containing quantifiers.
- functional database — (database, language) A database which uses a functional language as its query language. Databases would seem to be an inappropriate application for functional languages since, a purely functional language would have to return a new copy of the entire database every time (part of) it was updated. To be practically scalable, the update mechanism must clearly be destructive rather than functional; however it is quite feasible for the query language to be purely functional so long as the database is considered as an argument. One approach to the update problem would use a monad to encapsulate database access and ensure it was single threaded. Alternative approaches have been suggested by Trinder, who suggests non-destructive updating with shared data structures, and Sutton who uses a variant of a Phil Wadler's linear type system. There are two main classes of functional database languages. The first is based upon Backus' FP language, of which FQL is probably the best known example. Adaplan is a more recent language which falls into this category. More recently, people have been working on languages which are syntactically very similar to modern functional programming languages, but which also provide all of the features of a database language, e.g. bulk data structures which can be incrementally updated, type systems which can be incrementally updated, and all data persisting in a database. Examples are PFL [Poulovassilis&Small, VLDB-91], and Machiavelli [Ohori et al, ACM SIGMOD Conference, 1998].
- general post office — (in the U.S. postal system) the main post office of a city, county, etc., that also has branch post offices. Abbreviation: G.P.O., GPO.
- grandfather's chair — wing chair.
- grandfather's clock — a pendulum floor clock having a case as tall as or taller than a person; tall-case clock; long-case clock.
- greenstick fracture — an incomplete fracture of a long bone, in which one side is broken and the other side is still intact.
- hospital facilities — the equipment and services provided by a hospital
- hyperfocal distance — the distance, at a given f number, between a camera lens and the nearest point (hyperfocal point) having satisfactory definition when focused at infinity.
- in consideration of — the act of considering; careful thought; meditation; deliberation: I will give your project full consideration.
- information science — the study of the nature, collection, and management of information and of its uses, especially involving computer storage and retrievals.
- information service — a service which provides information
- interesterification — transesterification.
- interfacial tension — the surface tension at the interface of two liquids.
- invasion of privacy — an encroachment upon the right to be let alone or to be free from publicity.
- italian east africa — a former Italian territory in E Africa, formed in 1936 by the merging of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland with newly conquered Ethiopia: taken by the British Imperial forces 1941.
- jacques montgolfier — Jacques Étienne [zhahk ey-tyen] /ʒɑk eɪˈtyɛn/ (Show IPA), 1745–99, and his brother Joseph Michel [zhaw-zef mee-shel] /ʒɔˈzɛf miˈʃɛl/ (Show IPA) 1740–1810, French aeronauts: inventors of the first practical balloon 1783.
- juan de fuca strait — strait between Vancouver Island and NW Wash.: c. 100 mi (161 km) long
- languages of choice — C and Lisp. Nearly every hacker knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities. There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with Fortran, or even assembler, as their language of choice. They often prefer to be known as Real Programmers, and other hackers consider them a bit odd (see "The Story of Mel"). Assembler is generally no longer considered interesting or appropriate for anything but HLL implementation, glue, and a few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems programs. Fortran occupies a shrinking niche in scientific programming. Most hackers tend to frown on languages like Pascal and Ada, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered necessary for hacking (see bondage-and-discipline language), and to regard everything even remotely connected with COBOL or other traditional card walloper languages as a total and unmitigated loss.
- library of congress — one of the major library collections in the world, located in Washington, D.C., and functioning in some ways as the national library of the U.S. although not officially designated as such: established by Congress in 1800 for service to its members, but now also serving government agencies, other libraries, and the public.
- logical shift right — logical shift
- loss-of-containment — Loss-of-containment happens when a fluid which is usually contained somewhere escapes from that place.
- lyon office of arms — Heralds' Office.
- make oneself scarce — insufficient to satisfy the need or demand; not abundant: Meat and butter were scarce during the war.
- malicious falsehood — a lie told by someone who knows the lie is false or knows it will do harm to the person it is concerning
- manned space flight — space travel in vehicles with a human crew
- mary wollstonecraft — Mary (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin) 1759–97, English author and feminist (mother of Mary Shelley).
- means of production — resources: equipment, workers
- miracle of st. mark — a painting (1548) by Tintoretto.
- nasty piece of work — malicious person
- neats vs. scruffies — (artificial intelligence, jargon) The label used to refer to one of the continuing holy wars in artificial intelligence research. This conflict tangles together two separate issues. One is the relationship between human reasoning and AI; "neats" tend to try to build systems that "reason" in some way identifiably similar to the way humans report themselves as doing, while "scruffies" profess not to care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the least as long as it works. More importantly, neats tend to believe that logic is king, while scruffies favour looser, more ad-hoc methods driven by empirical knowledge. To a neat, scruffy methods appear promiscuous, successful only by accident and not productive of insights about how intelligence actually works; to a scruffy, neat methods appear to be hung up on formalism and irrelevant to the hard-to-capture "common sense" of living intelligences.
- neufchâtel (cheese) — a soft white cheese prepared from whole milk or skim milk and eaten fresh or cured
- objectfuscated code — (humour, programming) Object-oriented code which has been abstracted to so many levels that no-one can understand it anymore. A play on obfuscated code.
- of one's own accord — to be in agreement or harmony; agree.
- on cue/as if on cue — If you say that something happened on cue or as if on cue, you mean that it happened just when it was expected to happen, or just at the right time.
- pancreatic fibrosis — cystic fibrosis.
- paschen-back effect — a splitting of spectral lines observed when the source of a radiation is subjected to a strong magnetic field, caused when the vectors associated with the spin and orbital angular momentum exhibit individual rather than common precession.
- performance figures — the statistics that indicate how well or badly a company or organization has performed
- performance targets — the expected or predicted success level of an individual, company or organization
- peroxysulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
- personal watercraft — a jet-propelled boat ridden like a motorcycle.
- phacoemulsification — the removal of a cataract by first liquefying the affected lens with ultrasonic vibrations and then extracting it by suction.
- phakoemulsification — the removal of a cataract by first liquefying the affected lens with ultrasonic vibrations and then extracting it by suction.
- pillars of hercules — the two promontories at the E end of the Strait of Gibraltar: the Rock of Gibraltar on the European side and the Jebel Musa on the African side; according to legend, formed by Hercules
- pirates of penzance — an operetta (1879) by Sir William S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan.
- plastic deformation — In plastic deformation a material changes shape when a stress is applied to it and does not go back to its original state when the stress is removed.
- post-and-rail fence — a fence constructed of upright wooden posts with horizontal timber slotted through it
- presumption of fact — a presumption based on experience or knowledge of the relationship between a known fact and a fact inferred from it.
- private first class — a soldier ranking above a private and below a corporal or specialist fourth class in the U.S. Army, and above a private and below a lance corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps.