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19-letter words containing g

  • preliminary hearing — initial court session
  • prescription charge — a charge, set by the government, to be paid by a patient for medicines
  • pretty good privacy — (tool, cryptography)   (PGP) A high security RSA public-key encryption application for MS-DOS, Unix, VAX/VMS, and other computers. It was written by Philip R. Zimmermann <[email protected]> of Phil's Pretty Good(tm) Software and later augmented by a cast of thousands, especially including Hal Finney, Branko Lankester, and Peter Gutmann. PGP was distributed as "guerrilla freeware". The authors don't mind if it is distributed widely, just don't ask Philip Zimmermann to send you a copy. PGP uses a public-key encryption algorithm claimed by US patent #4,405,829. The exclusive rights to this patent are held by a California company called Public Key Partners, and you may be infringing this patent if you use PGP in the USA. This is explained in the PGP User's Guide, Volume II. PGP allows people to exchange files or messages with privacy and authentication. Privacy and authentication are provided without managing the keys associated with conventional cryptographic software. No secure channels are needed to exchange keys between users, which makes PGP much easier to use. This is because PGP is based on public-key cryptography. PGP encrypts data using the International Data Encryption Algorithm with a random session key, and uses the RSA algorithm to encrypt the session key. In December 1994 Philip Zimmermann faced prosecution for "exporting" PGP out of the United States but in January 1996 the US Goverment dropped the case. A US law prohibits the export of encryption software out of the country. Zimmermann did not do this, but the US government hoped to establish the proposition that posting an encryption program on a BBS or on the Internet constitutes exporting it - in effect, stretching export control into domestic censorship. If the government had won it would have had a chilling effect on the free flow of information on the global network, as well as on everyone's privacy from government snooping.
  • printing discussion — [XEROX PARC] A protracted, low-level, time-consuming, generally pointless discussion of something only peripherally interesting to all.
  • priority scheduling — (operating system)   Processes scheduling in which the scheduler selects tasks to run based on their priority as opposed to, say, a simple round-robin. Priorities may be static or dynamic. Static priorities are assigned at the time of creation, while dynamic priorities are based on the processes' behaviour while in the system. For example, the scheduler may favour I/O-intensive tasks so that expensive requests can be issued as early as possible. A danger of priority scheduling is starvation, in which processes with lower priorities are not given the opportunity to run. In order to avoid starvation, in preemptive scheduling, the priority of a process is gradually reduced while it is running. Eventually, the priority of the running process will no longer be the highest, and the next process will start running. This method is called aging.
  • procedural language — (language)   Any programming language in which the programmer specifies an explicit sequences of steps to follow to produce a result (an algorithm). The term should not be confused with "imperative language" - a language that specifies explicit manipulation of state. An example (non-imperative) procedural language is LOGO, which specifies sequences of steps to perform but does not have an internal state. Other procedural languages include Basic, Pascal, C, and Modula-2. Both procedural and imperative languages are in contrast to declarative languages, in which the programmer specifies neither explicit steps nor explicit state manipulation.
  • process engineering — the branch of engineering concerned with industrial processes, esp continuous ones, such as the production of petrochemicals
  • proctosigmoidoscope — sigmoidoscope.
  • proctosigmoidoscopy — sigmoidoscopy.
  • programmed learning — a progressively monitored, step-by-step teaching method, employing small units of information or learning material and frequent testing, whereby the student must complete or pass one stage before moving on to the next.
  • programmer's switch — (hardware)   A button on the front of some Apple Macintosh computers which, when pressed, causes a command line prompt to appear. This gives access to the built-in mini-debugger, which has commands to dump memory, return to the application that was broken out, and others. A more sophisticated debugger must be installed in order to inspect breakpoints, etc.
  • progressive judaism — Reform Judaism.
  • projection printing — the act or process of making projection prints.
  • projective geometry — the geometric study of projective properties.
  • propositional logic — (logic)   (or "propositional calculus") A system of symbolic logic using symbols to stand for whole propositions and logical connectives. Propositional logic only considers whether a proposition is true or false. In contrast to predicate logic, it does not consider the internal structure of propositions.
  • pseudo-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
  • pseudo-hieroglyphic — noting or pertaining to a script dating from the second millennium b.c. that appears to be syllabic and to represent the Phoenician language and that is inscribed on objects found at Byblos.
  • pseudopsychological — of or relating to psychology.
  • psychoendocrinology — the study of the relationship between the endocrine system and various symptoms or types of mental illness.
  • psychological novel — a novel that focuses on the complex mental and emotional lives of its characters and explores the various levels of mental activity.
  • psychophysiological — of or relating to psychophysiology.
  • psychotechnological — of or relating to psychotechnology
  • pugwash conferences — international peace conferences of scientists held regularly to discuss world problems: Nobel peace prize 1995 awarded to Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005) , one of the founders of the conferences, secretary-general (1957–73), and president (1988–97)
  • purse-string suture — a suture for a circular opening, stitched around the edge, that closes it when pulled.
  • put a figure on sth — When you put a figure on an amount, you say exactly how much it is.
  • put on the feed bag — Also called nose bag. a bag for feeding horses, placed before the mouth and fastened around the head with straps.
  • put one's finger on — any of the terminal members of the hand, especially one other than the thumb.
  • pythagoras' theorem — (spelling)   It's Pythagoras's Theorem.
  • pythagorean theorem — Pythagoras's Theorem
  • quantitative easing — the policy by which a central bank creates money and uses it to purchase financial assets, thereby increasing the money supply and stimulating a weak economy. Abbreviation: QE.
  • queen's regulations — (in Britain and certain other Commonwealth countries when the sovereign is female) the code of conduct for members of the armed forces
  • queensland lungfish — a lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri, reaching a length of six feet: occurs in Queensland rivers but introduced elsewhere
  • quick-change artist — a person adept at changing from one thing to another, as an entertainer who changes costumes quickly during a performance.
  • radiational cooling — the cooling of the earth's surface and adjacent air, primarily at night, caused by a loss of heat due to surface emission of infrared radiation.
  • radiochromatography — chromatography in which radiolabeled substances on the chromatogram are determined quantitatively or qualitatively by measuring their radioactivity.
  • rag-tag and bobtail — the riffraff; rabble: The ragtag and bobtail of every nation poured into the frontier in search of gold.
  • rayleigh scattering — the scattering of light by particles that are very small in relation to the wavelength of the light, and in which the intensity of the scattered light varies inversely with the fourth power of the wavelength.
  • reciprocal exchange — an unincorporated association formed so that its members can participate in reciprocal insurance.
  • reciprocal leveling — leveling between two widely separated points in which observations are made in both directions to eliminate the effects of atmospheric refraction and the curvature of the earth.
  • recording equipment — devices used for sound reproduction
  • recording secretary — an officer charged with keeping the minutes of meetings and responsible for the records.
  • reflux oesophagitis — inflammation of the gullet caused by regurgitation of stomach acids, producing heartburn: may be associated with a hiatus hernia
  • register allocation — (compiler, algorithm)   The phase of a compiler that determines which values will be placed in registers. Register allocation may be combined with register assignment. This problem can be shown to be isomorphic to graph colouring by relating values to nodes in the graph and registers to colours. Values (nodes) which must be valid simultaneously are linked by edges and cannot be stored in the same register (coloured the same). See also register dancing and register spilling.
  • register assignment — (compiler, algorithm)   The phase of a compiler that determines which register to use for each program value selected during register allocation.
  • registered disabled — on a local authority register under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970
  • registration number — number on vehicle licence plate
  • regression analysis — Statistics. a procedure for determining a relationship between a dependent variable, as predicted success in college, and an independent variable, as a score on a scholastic aptitude test, for a given population. The relationship is expressed as an equation for a line (regres·sion·line) or curve (regres·sion·curve) in which any coefficient (regression coefficient) of the independent variable in the equation has been determined from a sample population.
  • regular icosahedron — an icosahedron in which each of the faces is an equilateral triangle
  • relational language — (language)   Any kind of programming language that specifies output in terms of some property and some arguments. For example, if Tom has two brothers, Dick and Harry, a relational language will respond to the query "Who is Tom's brother?" with either Dick or Harry. Notice that unlike functional languages, relational languages do not require a unique output for each predicate/argument pair. Prolog is the best known relational language.
  • releasing mechanism — a hypothetical control complex in the central nervous system of animals that triggers the appropriate behavioral response to a releaser.
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