23-letter words containing i, m, p, a
- human rights campaigner — a person who campaigns for human rights
- hypergeometric equation — a differential equation of the form, (x 2 − x) d 2 y / d 2 x + [(a+b +1) x−c ] dy/dx + abx =0, where a, b, and c are arbitrary constants.
- hypobetalipoproteinemia — (pathology) A low level of betalipoprotein (low-density lipoprotein) in the bloodstream.
- hypothetical imperative — (esp in the moral philosophy of Kant) any conditional rule of action, concerned with means and ends rather than with duty for its own sake
- implementation language — (language) (IMP) An extension of B with floating-point operations, developed by W. Davidsen at General Electric in 1970 for the GE 600. It was also cross-compiled to VAX and Intel 8080.
- in a manner of speaking — a way of doing, being done, or happening; mode of action, occurrence, etc.: I don't like the manner in which he complained.
- in the arms of morpheus — sleeping
- indeterminacy principle — uncertainty principle.
- informatics corporation — (company) Renamed to Sterling Software Corp.
- l'apres-midi d'un faune — L'Après-midi d'un Faune.
- liquefied petroleum gas — a mixture of various petroleum gases, esp propane and butane, stored as a liquid under pressure and used as an engine fuel
- 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.
- lymphoblastic leukaemia — a severe blood disorder in which abnormal leukocytes are identified as immature forms of lymphocytes
- magnetic susceptibility — the coefficient or set of coefficients of the magnetic intensity in any expression giving the components of magnetization as linear combinations of the components of magnetic intensity.
- maximal free expression — (MFE) A free expression is sub-expression of a lambda abstraction not containing the bound variable. A maximal free expression is a free expression not contained within any other free expression. See full laziness.
- meaningful relationship — a romantic relationship based upon mutual respect and supportiveness and marked by a sense of commitment and fulfillment.
- micropachycephalosaurus — A very small pachycephalosaurid, ornithischian dinosaur of the genus Micropachycephalosaurus.
- mpeg-4 aac main profile — (compression, standard, algorithm) A successor of MP3 allowing transparent coding at data rates of 70-75% of that of MP3. It is very different from MP3, only used MDCT, no subband coding. It is much more complex that MP3 and MPEG-2 AAC Low Profile.
- multimedia compact disc — (storage) (MMCD) A CD-ROM standard for storing 4.7 GB of data including video. MMCD is being developed by a large numer of computer manufacturers and is expected to be shipped in late 1996 or early 1997. Initially it will be aimed at the consumer market, then perhaps in CD-ROM format for computers, and maybe later on erasble CD.
- multiple-risk insurance — insurance that covers several risks
- multiplicative identity — an identity that when used to multiply a given element in a specified set leaves that element unchanged, as the number 1 for the real-number system.
- not put it past someone — to consider someone capable of (the action specified)
- osteogenesis imperfecta — a rare hereditary disease in which abnormal connective tissue development leads to fragile bones subject to fracture.
- parametric polymorphism — Polymorphism was first identified by Christopher Strachey in 1967 and developed by Hindley and Milner. For example we could specify that the argument of the "head" function was a list without specifying a type for the elements of the list. In Haskell we would write: head :: [a] -> a meaning head has type function from "list of a" to "a" where "a" is a type variable). This is known as parametric polymorphism. Polymorphic typing allows strong type checking as well as generic functions. ML in 1976 was the first language with polymorphic typing. See also generic type variable.
- parliamentary candidate — sb standing for election to government
- parliamentary democracy — a system of government in which people elect representatives to a parliament to make laws, for example Canada and the UK
- parliamentary privilege — legal immunity allowing lawmakers to speak freely without being subject to the usual laws of slander
- parliamentary secretary — government minister's assistant
- participatory democracy — individual participation by citizens in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, especially directly rather than through elected representatives.
- peroxymonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
- pharmaceuticals company — a company specialising in developing and marketing pharmaceuticals
- photoelectric magnitude — the magnitude of a star determined using a photometer plus a filter to select light or other radiation of the desired wavelength
- physical memory address — physical address
- pin someone's ears back — the organ of hearing and equilibrium in vertebrates, in humans consisting of an external ear that gathers sound vibrations, a middle ear in which the vibrations resonate against the tympanic membrane, and a fluid-filled internal ear that maintains balance and that conducts the tympanic vibrations to the auditory nerve, which transmits them as impulses to the brain.
- plain old documentation — (text) (pod, occasionally "POD") A simple markup language used to embed documentation, literate programming-style, in Perl programs. Pod readers and converters are part of the standard Perl distribution and the documentation provided with Perl is all in pod format.
- planetesimal hypothesis — one of the small celestial bodies that, according to one theory (planetesimal hypothesis) were fused together to form the planets of the solar system.
- play by electronic mail — (games) A kind of game where the players use electronic mail to communicate. This may be done via a human moderator or an automatic mailing list exploder on some central machine or it may be fully distributed with each player just addressing his mail to all other players. This is a natural extension of "play by mail" games conducted via snail mail.
- polybrominated biphenyl — PBB.
- positive discrimination — special opportunities
- postcode discrimination — discrimination on the basis of the area where someone lives, with relation to employment, credit rating, etc
- potassium acid tartrate — cream of tartar.
- potassium monophosphate — any of the three orthophosphates of potassium ((potassium monophosphate) (K 2 HPO 4), (potassium diphosphate) (KH 2 PO 4), and (tripotassium phosphate) (K 3 PO 4) )
- praxis critical systems — (company) The company that supplies SPARK.
- presidential government — a system of government in which the powers of the president are constitutionally separate from those of the legislature.
- price out of the market — to charge so highly for as to prevent the sale, hire, etc, of
- private limited company — a company whose shares can be bought by the public
- probabilistic automaton — nondeterministic automaton
- process gas compression — Process gas compression is a procedure for pressurizing and circulating gas through a process by compressing it in a cylinder, to enhance conditions for chemical reaction.
- professional misconduct — a violation of the rules or boundaries set by the governing body of a profession
- program design language — Any of a large class of formal and profoundly useless pseudo-languages in which management forces one to design programs. Too often, management expects PDL descriptions to be maintained in parallel with the code, imposing massive overhead of little or no benefit. See also flow chart.