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26-letter words containing i, n, e, r, t, a

  • computer-aided instruction — (application, education)   (CAI, or "- assisted", "- learning", CAL, Computer-Based Training CBT, "e-learning") The use of computers for education and training. The programs and data used in CAI, known as "courseware", may be supplied on media such as CD-ROM or delivered via a network which also enables centralised logging of student progress. CAI may constitute the whole or part of a course, may be done individually or in groups ("Computer Supported Collaborative Learning", CSCL), with or without human guidance.
  • computer-assisted learning — Computer-Aided Instruction
  • computer-generated imagery — (graphics)   (CGI) Animatied graphics produced by computer and used in film or television.
  • concentrate someone's mind — If you say that an unpleasant fact or situation concentrates someone's mind, you mean that it makes them think clearly, because they are aware of the serious consequences if they do not.
  • conditional sale agreement — a type of hire-purchase agreement
  • contrary to popular belief — You use contrary to popular belief to introduce a statement that is the opposite to what is thought to be true by most ordinary people.
  • conversational implicature — an inference that can be drawn from an utterance, as from one that is seemingly illogical or irrelevant, by examining the degree to which it conforms to the canons of normal conversation and the way it functions pragmatically within the situation, as when “The phone is ringing,” said in a situation where both speaker and listener can clearly hear the phone, can be taken as a suggestion to answer the phone.
  • convertible term insurance — A convertible term insurance is a life insurance policy which pays out if the policyholder dies within a specified period of time, but also allows them to convert to another type of plan.
  • coordinated universal time — Universal Time as periodically adjusted to coordinate with atomic clocks: it serves as the official international basis for standard time
  • copying garbage collection — A garbage collection method where memory is divided into two equal halves, known as the "from space" and "to space". Garbage collection copies active cells from the from space to the to space and leaves behind an invisible pointer (an "indirection") from the old position to the new copy. Once all active cells have been copied in one direction, the spaces are swapped and the process repeated in the opposite direction.
  • critical illness insurance — Critical illness insurance is an insurance policy which pays out if the policyholder is diagnosed with a serious medical condition, such as a stroke, cancer, or heart disease.
  • damage limitation exercise — an activity pursued to make the bad results of something as small as possible, when it is impossible to avoid bad results completely
  • davisson-germer experiment — an experiment that verified the wave properties of matter by showing that a beam of electrons is diffracted by a crystal at an angle dependent upon the velocity of the electrons.
  • de bonis non administratis — of the part of the estate of a deceased person that has not been administered: administration or an administrator de bonis non administratis.
  • degenerative joint disease — osteoarthritis
  • department of the interior — the department of the U.S. federal government charged with the conservation and development of the natural resources of the U.S. and its possessions. Abbreviation: DOI.
  • dichlorophenoxyacetic acid — a chloride derivative of phenol and acetic acid, C6H3Cl2OCH2COOH, used to destroy broad-leaved weeds without injuring grass; 2,4-D
  • diethylcarbamazine citrate — a chemical substance, C 16 H 29 O 8 N 3 , used to treat worms in humans, dogs, and cats.
  • digital library initiative — A project to research digital libraries which aims to provide real collections to real users (high school students, University researchers and students, users in public libraries). The project is sponsored jointly by three US federal funding agencies, led by the National Science Foundation. The University of Michigan, one of the six sites selected in 1994 to collaborate, will provide collections on earth and space sciences. The project, known there as the University of Michigan Digital Library Project (UMDL), is a large, multi-year project headed by Daniel Atkins, Dean of the School of Information and Library Studies.
  • digital signature standard — (cryptography, standard)   The NIST's standard for digital signatures (authenticating both a message and the signer) that was first announced in 1991. It is based on an algorithm using discrete logarithms, which is a variant of the Elgamal algorithm with Schnorr's improvements. DSS's security is currently considered very strong - comparable to RSA. It is estimated that DSS's 1024-bit keys would take 1.4E16 MIPS-years to crack.
  • dinosaur national monument — a national monument in NE Utah and NW Colorado: site of prehistoric animal fossils. 322 sq. mi. (834 sq. km).
  • discrete fourier transform — (mathematics)   (DFT) A Fourier transform, specialized to the case where the abscissas are integers. The DFT is central to many kinds of signal processing, including the analysis and compression of video and sound information. A common implementation of the DFT is the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). See also discrete cosine transform.
  • einstein's mass-energy law — the principle that mass (m) and energy (E) are equivalent according to the equation E = mc2, where c is the velocity of light
  • electrochemical equivalent — the mass of an element liberated from its ions or converted into them by one coulomb of electric charge
  • electronic countermeasures — (in electronic warfare) actions intended to interfere with an enemy's use of electromagnetic radiation equipment
  • electronic data processing — 1.   (application)   (EDP) data processing by computers. 2.   (company)   The name of Honeywell's computer business between 1960, when it gained complete ownership of Datamatic Corporation, and 1963, when it was officially renamed Honeywell Inc.
  • electronic programme guide — an on-screen guide that enables viewers of digital television to select programmes using a handheld device
  • enhanced capabilities port — (hardware)   (ECP) The most common parallel printer interface on current (1997) IBM PC compatibles. Enhanced Capabilities Port is defined in standard IEEE 1284. It is bi-directional and faster than earlier parallel ports. Not to be confused with Extended Capabilities Port.
  • enhanced directory service — (operating system)   (EDS) A common, distributed, integrated, directory service with centralized and/or replicated administration.
  • equal opportunity employer — An equal opportunity employer is an employer who gives people the same opportunities for employment, pay, and promotion, without discrimination against anyone.
  • ethylenediaminetetraacetic — Alternative spelling of ethylenediaminetetracetic.
  • european defence community — a plan proposed in 1950 to form a defence force including countries such as West Germany, France, and Italy. This plan was never carried out.
  • event description language — (language)   (EDL)
  • exchange rate mechanism ii — the mechanism used to stabilize the currencies of European Union states that have not adopted the euro but wish to maintain the value of their currency in relation to it
  • exponential-time algorithm — (complexity)   An algorithm (or Turing Machine) that is guaranteed to terminate within a number of steps which is a exponential function of the size of the problem. For example, if you have to check every number of n digits to find a solution, the complexity is O(10^n), and if you add an extra digit, you must check ten times as many numbers. Even if such an algorithm is practical for some given value of n, it is likely to become impractical for larger values. This is in contrast to a polynomial-time algorithm which grows more slowly. See also computational complexity, polynomial-time, NP-complete.
  • extemporaneous preparation — An extemporaneous preparation is a drug specially prepared by a pharmacist because an appropriate drug is not readily available.
  • extended capabilities port — (hardware)   (ECP) A parallel printer interface for IBM PC compatibles, supported by several, mainly US, manufacturers. Not to be confused with the more common Enhanced Capabilities Port.
  • extensible markup language — (language, text)   (XML) An initiative from the W3C defining an "extremely simple" dialect of SGML suitable for use on the web.
  • external machine interface — (protocol)   (EMI) A protocol primarily used to connect to short message service centres for mobile telephones. EMI is an extension to Universal Computer Protocol (UCP). EMI was was developed by CMG, now a part of LogicaCMG, the current SMSC market leader. Each byte of the message is encoded as two hexadecimal characters using an encoding not quite like ASCII.
  • external-combustion engine — a heat engine in which the working fluid is heated in an external boiler or heat exchanger and is thus isolated from the process of fuel combustion
  • feast of st peter's chains — a former festival in England, held on August 1, in which bread made from the first harvest of corn was blessed.
  • federal networking council — (FNC) The coordinating group of representatives from federal agencies involved in the development and use of federal networking, especially those networks using TCP/IP and the Internet. Current members include representatives from DOD, DOE, DARPA, NSF, NASA, and HHS.
  • federation of south arabia — the former name (1963–67) of South Yemen (excluding Aden)
  • first marquis of lansdowne — Richard, born 1937, U.S. racing-car driver.
  • first-class honours degree — an honours degree of the highest class
  • fixed-point representation — the representation of numbers by a single set of digits such that the radix point has a predetermined location, the value of the number depending on the position of each digit relative to the radix point
  • floating-point accelerator — (hardware)   (FPA) Additional hardware to perform functions on floating point numbers such as addition, multiplication, logarithms, exponentials, trigonometric functions and various kinds of rounding and error detection. A floating point accelerator often functions as a co-processor to the CPU. The term "floating-point accelerator" suggests a physically larger system, often an extra circuit board, whereas a "floating-point unit" is probably a single chip or even part of a chip.
  • fourth generation computer — (architecture)   A computer built using Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) integrated circuits, especially a microcomputer based on a microprocesseor, or a parallel processor containing two to thousands of CPUs. VLSI made it routine to fabricate an entire CPU, main memory, or similar device with a single integrated circuit that can be mass produced at very low cost. This has resulted in new classes of machines such as personal computers, and high performance parallel processors that contains thousands of CPUs.
  • fourth generation language — (language)   (4GL, or "report generator language") An "application specific" language, one with built-in knowledge of an application domain, in the way that SQL has built-in knowledge of the relational database domain. The term was invented by Jim Martin to refer to non-procedural high level languages built around database systems. Fourth generation languages are close to natural language and were built with the concept that certain applications could be generalised by adding limited programming ability to them. When given a description of the data format and the report to generate, a 4GL system produces COBOL (or other 3GL) code, that actually reads and processes the data and formats the results. Some examples of 4GL are: database query language e.g.SQL; Focus, Metafont, PostScript, S, IDL-PV, WAVE, Gauss, Mathematica, and data-stream languages such as AVS, APE, Iris Explorer.
  • franklin d. roosevelt lake — a reservoir in NE Washington, formed by the Grand Coulee Dam. 130 sq. mi. (337 sq. km).
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