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24-letter words containing i, n, s, c, a

  • nonparametric statistics — the branch of statistics that studies data measurable on an ordinal or nominal scale, to which arithmetic operations cannot be applied
  • object-oriented analysis — (programming)   (OOA) The first phase of object-oriented design.
  • object-oriented database — (database)   (OODB) A system offering DBMS facilities in an object-oriented programming environment. Data is stored as objects and can be interpreted only using the methods specified by its class. The relationship between similar objects is preserved (inheritance) as are references between objects. Queries can be faster because joins are often not needed (as in a relational database). This is because an object can be retrieved directly without a search, by following its object id. The same programming language can be used for both data definition and data manipulation. The full power of the database programming language's type system can be used to model data structures and the relationship between the different data items. OODBs typically provide better support for versioning. An object can be viewed as the set of all its versions. Also, object versions can be treated as full fledged objects. OODBs also provide systematic support for triggers and constraints which are the basis of active databases. Most, if not all, object-oriented application programs that have database needs will benefit from using an OODB.
  • officers' training corps — part of the British Army which provides military leadership training to students at UK universities
  • open system architecture — (operating system)   (OSA) A competitor to IBM's SNA.
  • optical signal processor — optical computing
  • parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
  • passbook savings account — a type of savings account in which transactions are entered into a passbook in the possession of the account holder.
  • passive balance of trade — a negative balance of trade
  • photomechanical transfer — a method of producing photographic prints or offset printing plates from paper negatives by a chemical transfer process rather than by exposure to light
  • potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
  • private health insurance — insurance against the need for medical treatment as a private patient
  • professional association — a body of persons engaged in the same profession, formed usually to control entry into the profession, maintain standards, and represent the profession in discussions with other bodies
  • professional corporation — a corporation formed by one or more licensed practitioners, especially medical or legal, to operate their practices on a corporate plan. Abbreviation: PC, P.C.
  • progressive conservative — a member of the Progressive Conservative party of Canada.
  • psychopathic personality — an antisocial personality characterized by the failure to develop any sense of moral responsibility and the capability of performing violent or antisocial acts
  • public access television — television in which local producers or individuals can participate
  • public relations officer — a person who is responsible for communications with the public
  • public-access television — a noncommercial system of broadcasting on television channels made available to independent or community groups for programs of general interest to the community.
  • punch above one's weight — to do something that is considered to be beyond one's ability
  • quick-assembly furniture — furniture such as shelves and cupboards which you buy as a number of separate pieces and assemble yourself
  • recharge one's batteries — If you recharge a battery, you put an electrical charge back into the battery by connecting it to a machine that draws power from another source of electricity.
  • reciprocal translocation — an exchange of segments between two nonhomologous chromosomes.
  • reconnaissance satellite — a military satellite designed to carry out photographic surveillance, gather electronic intelligence, detect nuclear explosions, or provide early warning of strategic-missile launchings.
  • recursive descent parser — (grammar)   A "top-down" parser built from a set of mutually-recursive procedures or a non-recursive equivalent where each such procedure usually implements one of the productions of the grammar. Thus the structure of the resulting program closely mirrors that of the grammar it recognises.
  • referential transparency — (programming)   An expression E is referentially transparent if any subexpression and its value (the result of evaluating it) can be interchanged without changing the value of E. This is not the case if the value of an expression depends on global state which can change value. The most common example of changing global state is assignment to a global variable. For example, if y is a global variable in: f(x) { return x+y; } g(z) { a = f(1); y = y + z; return a + f(1); } function g has the "side-effect" that it alters the value of y. Since f's result depends on y, the two calls to f(1) will return different results even though the argument is the same. Thus f is not referentially transparent. Changing the order of evaluation of the statements in g will change its result. We could make f above referentially transparent by passing in y as an argument: f(x, y) = x+y Similarly, g would need to take y as an argument and return its new value as part of the result: g(z, y) { a = f(1, y); y' = y+z; return (a + f(1, y'), y'); } Referentially transparent programs are more amenable to formal methods and easier to reason about because the meaning of an expression depends only on the meaning of its subexpressions and not on the order of evaluation or side-effects of other expressions. We can stretch the concept of referential transparency to include input and output if we consider the whole program to be a function from its input to its output. The program as a whole is referentially transparent because it will always produce the same output when given the same input. This is stretching the concept because the program's input may include what the user types, the content of certain files or even the time of day. If we do not consider global state like the contents of files as input, then writing to a file and reading what was written behaves just like assignment to a global variable. However, if we must consider the state of the universe as an input rather than global state then any deterministic system would be referentially transparent! See also extensional equality, observational equivalence.
  • renewable term insurance — Renewable term insurance is term life insurance that may be renewed for another period without the policyholder needing to provide further evidence of their insurability.
  • representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
  • resale price maintenance — the practice by which a manufacturer establishes a fixed or minimum price for the resale of a brand product by retailers or other distributors
  • responsibility allowance — payment made to somebody who has special responsibilities
  • robot exclusion standard — standard for robot exclusion
  • rocky mountain whitefish — mountain whitefish.
  • san francisco de macoris — a city in the N Dominican Republic.
  • scottish country dancing — a type of Scottish folk dancing, including reels, jigs, and strathspeys, in which couples are arranged in sets and perform a series of movements, esp facing one another in a line
  • senegambia confederation — an economic and political union (1982–89) between Senegal and The Gambia
  • sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
  • serial interface adaptor — (SIA) The Ethernet driver chip used on a Filtabyte Ethernet card.
  • shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
  • sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
  • single connection attach — (hardware)   (SCA, "Single Connector Attachment") A non-standard type of SCSI connector, used mostly by OEMs, which carries both power and data on one 80-pin connector. SCA SCSI drives tend to be cheaper but use with standard SCSI cables requires an adaptor and external termination.
  • single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
  • single premium insurance — Single premium insurance is insurance where all the premium is paid at once, in one payment.
  • six nations championship — the annual competition involving national sides representing England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales. Until the admission of Italy in 2000, it was known as the Five Nations Championship
  • skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
  • south equatorial current — an ocean current, flowing westward, found near the equator in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
  • special checking account — a checking account that requires no minimum balance but in which a small charge is made for each check issued or drawn and for monthly maintenance.
  • special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
  • stab someone in the back — If you say that someone has stabbed you in the back, you mean that they have done something very harmful to you when you thought that you could trust them. You can refer to an action of this kind as a stab in the back.
  • statistical independence — the condition or state of events or values of being statistically independent.
  • stereographic projection — a one-to-one correspondence between the points on a sphere and the extended complex plane where the north pole on the sphere corresponds to the point at infinity of the plane.
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