19-letter words containing l, a, s, d
- digital electronics — (electronics) The implementation of two-valued logic using electronic logic gates such as and gates, or gates and flip-flops. In such circuits the logical values true and false are represented by two different voltages, e.g. 0V for false and +5V for true. Similarly, numbers are normally represented in binary using two different voltages to represented zero and one. Digital electronics contrasts with analogue electronics which represents continuously varying quantities like sound pressure using continuously varying voltages. Digital electronics is the foundation of modern computers and digital communications. Massively complex digital logic circuits with millions of gates can now be built onto a single integrated circuit such as a microprocessor and these circuits can perform millions of operations per second.
- dimethylnitrosamine — a yellow, water-soluble carcinogenic liquid, C 2 H 6 N 2 O, found in tobacco smoke and certain foods: known to be a potent carcinogen. Abbreviation: DMN, DMNA.
- direct grant school — (in Britain, formerly) a school financed by endowment, fees, and a state grant conditional upon admittance of a percentage of nonpaying pupils nominated by the local education authority
- disablement benefit — (in Britain) a noncontributory benefit payable to a person disabled through injury or disease caused by their work
- disaster capitalism — the practice (by a government, regime, etc) of taking advantage of a major disaster to adopt liberal economic policies that the population would be less likely to accept under normal circumstances
- disciplinary action — punishment or caution
- dispersion relation — the relationship between the angular frequency (ω;) of a wave and the magnitude of its wave vector (k). Thus the wave's speed is ω/k
- displaced homemaker — a woman recently divorced, separated, or widowed after many years as a homemaker.
- displacement engine — any engine employing the rectilinear motion of one or more pistons in cylinders.
- display advertising — display ads taken collectively.
- distillation column — a type of still fitted with interior baffles, used for fractional distillation. Compare still2 (def 1).
- distinguishableness — The state or quality of being distinguishable.
- diversional therapy — the structured use of leisure time in recreation and play as a form of or supplement to conventional therapy
- dobsonian telescope — a relatively inexpensive Newtonian telescope, suitable for visual but not photographic use, in which the tube assembly slips freely in the lower base.
- dollard-des-ormeaux — a town in S Quebec, in E Canada: suburb of Montreal.
- drill-down analysis — drill down
- dry-bulk cargo ship — a ship that carries an unpackaged dry cargo such as coal or grain; bulk carrier
- dynamic translation — (architecture) A virtual machine implementation approach, used to speed up execution of byte-code programs. To execute a program unit such as a method or a function, the virtual machine compiles its bytecodes into (hardware) machine code. The translated code is also placed in a cache, so that next time that unit's machine code can be executed immediately, without repeating the translation. This technique was pioneered by the commercial Smalltalk implementation currently known as VisualWorks, in the early 1980s. Currently it is also used by some implementations of the Java Virtual Machine under the name JIT (Just In Time compilation).
- dynatron oscillator — type of oscillator
- ebola virus disease — Also called Ebola fever, Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Ebola virus disease. a usually fatal disease, a type of hemorrhagic fever, caused by the Ebola virus and marked by high fever, severe gastrointestinal distress, and bleeding.
- ecatepec de morelos — a city in S central Mexico, a suburb of Mexico City: on a 12th-century Aztec site.
- educational adviser — a person who provides advice and training to teachers about teaching methods and educational policies
- eilean donan castle — a castle near the Kyle of Lochalsh in Highland, Scotland: built in the 13th century; famous for its picturesque setting
- elastic deformation — In elastic deformation a material changes shape when a stress is applied to it but goes back to its original state when the stress is removed.
- electrocardiographs — Plural form of electrocardiograph.
- electrodynamometers — Plural form of electrodynamometer.
- electrostatic field — an electric field associated with static electric charges
- extensible database — (database) A DBMS that allows access to data from remote sources as if the remote data were part of the database.
- fall by the wayside — to cease or fail to continue doing something
- fallacy of division — the fallacy of inferring that a property of the whole is also a property of parts or members of the whole (opposed to fallacy of composition).
- family-sized packet — a large packet
- fault-based testing — (testing) Software testing using test data designed to demonstrate the absence of a set of pre-specified faults; typically, frequently occurring faults. For example, to demonstrate that the software handles or avoids divide by zero correctly, the test data would include zero.
- financial ombudsman — any of five British ombudsmen: the Banking Ombudsman, set up in 1986 to investigate complaints from bank customers; the Building Society Ombudsman, set up in 1987 to investigate complaints from building society customers; the Insurance Ombudsman, set up in 1981 to investigate complaints by policyholders (since 1988 this ombudsman has also operated a Unit Trust Ombudsman scheme); the Investment Ombudsman set up in 1989 to investigate complaints by investors (the Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman is responsible for investigating complaints by personal investors); and the Pensions Ombudsman, set up in 1993 to investigate complaints regarding pension schemes
- first-sale doctrine — a legal principle allowing the purchaser of a lawfully made copy of a copyright-protected work to sell or give away that copy without permission but not to reproduce it.
- five o'clock shadow — the rather dark stubble that appears on a man's face some hours after shaving, typically in the late afternoon if he shaved in the morning.
- five-o'clock shadow — the rather dark stubble that appears on a man's face some hours after shaving, typically in the late afternoon if he shaved in the morning.
- fluophosphoric acid — fluorophosphoric acid.
- fluoride toothpaste — toothpaste containing a small amount of fluoride as protection against tooth decay
- free alongside quay — (of a shipment of goods) delivered to the quay without charge to the buyer
- free alongside ship — (of a shipment of goods) delivered to the dock without charge to the buyer, but excluding the cost of loading onto the vessel
- 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].
- germander speedwell — a speedwell, Veronica chamaedrys, having blue flowers.
- giovanni da fiesole — Giovanni da [Italian jaw-vahn-nee dah] /Italian dʒɔˈvɑn ni dɑ/ (Show IPA), Angelico, Fra.
- giraldus cambrensis — literary name of Gerald de Barri. ?1146–?1223, Welsh chronicler and churchman, noted for his accounts of his travels in Ireland and Wales
- gold-rimmed glasses — spectacles with gold-coloured frames
- goodwill ambassador — an ambassador who shows goodwill to another country, organization, etc, on behalf of his or her own country, organization, etc
- grand duke nicholas — of Cusa [kyoo-zuh] /ˈkyu zə/ (Show IPA), 1401–1464, German cardinal, mathematician, and philosopher. German Nikolaus von Cusa.
- grandfather's clock — a pendulum floor clock having a case as tall as or taller than a person; tall-case clock; long-case clock.
- grandmother's clock — a pendulum clock similar to a grandfather's clock but shorter.
- guillaume de lorris — 13th-century French poet who wrote the first 4058 lines of the allegorical romance, the Roman de la rose, continued by Jean de Meung