21-letter words containing m, a, l, c, o
- open telecom platform — (communications, library) (OTP) A set of standard, open source libraries and tools for use with Erlang.
- operational semantics — (theory) A set of rules specifying how the state of an actual or hypothetical computer changes while executing a program. The overall state is typically divided into a number of components, e.g. stack, heap, registers etc. Each rule specifies certain preconditions on the contents of some components and their new contents after the application of the rule. It is similar in spirit to the notion of a Turing machine, in which actions are precisely described in a mathematical way. Compuare axiomatic semantics, denotational semantics.
- partial reinforcement — the process of randomly rewarding an organism for making a response on only some of the occasions it makes it
- performance appraisal — the assessment, at regular intervals, of an employee's performance at work
- personalized medicine — an approach to the practice of medicine that uses information about a patient’s unique genetic makeup and environment to customize the patient's medical care to fit his or her individual requirements.
- piezoelectric ceramic — any ceramic that exhibits piezoelectric properties.
- pneumoencephalography — encephalography.
- polarizing microscope — a microscope that utilizes polarized light to reveal detail in an object, used especially to study crystalline and fibrous structures.
- politically motivated — If an act of violence is politically motivated, it is carried out in the interests of a particular government or political party.
- portable commodore 64 — (computer) A version of the Commodore 64 modelled after the original Osborne portable PCs, with a flip-down keyboard that revealed a 5-inch colour monitor, and a built-in 1541 floppy disk drive. It is thought that few were made but that they did go on sale, at least in Canada.
- portable common loops — (PCL) A language which started out as an implementation of CommonLoops and turned into a portable CLOS implementation. Version 1992-08-28. It runs under Lucid Common LISP 4.0.1 and CMU Common LISP 16e.
- premature ejaculation — a male psychosexual disorder in which ejaculation occurs soon after the commencement of sexual intercourse.
- programmed cell death — a normal, genetically regulated process leading to the death of cells and triggered by the presence or absence of certain stimuli, as DNA damage.
- psychological primary — one of a set of perceived colours (red, yellow, blue, green, black, and white) that can be used to characterize all other perceived colours
- public administration — the implementation of public policy, largely by the executive branch.
- pulmonary circulation — the circulation of blood from the heart to the lungs for oxygenation and back to the heart.
- pulse code modulation — a form of modulation that transforms a wave-form, as an audio signal, into a binary signal in which information is conveyed by a coded order of pulses for transmission, storage on a disk, or processing by a computer. Abbreviation: PCM.
- pulse-code modulation — a form of modulation that transforms a wave-form, as an audio signal, into a binary signal in which information is conveyed by a coded order of pulses for transmission, storage on a disk, or processing by a computer. Abbreviation: PCM.
- racial discrimination — prejudice based on race
- rattle someone's cage — to upset or anger someone
- redevelopment company — a private corporation or a public agency that stimulates the improvement of land, as through a building project subject to certain designs and controls, by financing, selling, or leasing such real estate to interested buyers or lessees.
- remote procedure call — (networking, programming) (RPC) A protocol which allows a program running on one host to cause code to be executed on another host without the programmer needing to explicitly code for this. RPC is an easy and popular paradigm for implementing the client-server model of distributed computing. An RPC is initiated by the caller (client) sending request message to a remote system (the server) to execute a certain procedure using arguments supplied. A result message is returned to the caller. There are many variations and subtleties in various implementations, resulting in a variety of different (incompatible) RPC protocols.
- replacement algorithm — The method used to determine which entry in an associative cache to flush to main memory when it is desired to cache a new block of data. The "least recently used" algorithm flushed the block which has not been accessed for the longest time. A random replacement algorithm picks any block with equal probability.
- rocky mountain locust — a migratory locust, Melanoplus spretus, that occurs in North America, especially the Great Plains, where swarms cause great damage to crops and other vegetation.
- roman catholic church — the Christian church of which the pope, or bishop of Rome, is the supreme head.
- sales finance company — a finance company that purchases, at a discount, installment contracts from dealers or that finances retail sales.
- scalar multiplication — an operation used in the definition of a vector space in which the product of a scalar and a vector is a vector, the operation is distributive over the addition of both scalars and vectors, and is associative with multiplication of scalars
- scarlet monkey flower — any of various plants belonging to the genus Mimulus, of the figwort family, as M. cardinalis (scarlet monkey flower) having spotted flowers that resemble a face.
- secure hash algorithm —
- simple actor language — (language) (SAL) A minimal actor language, used for teaching in:
- social administration — the administration and maintenance of issues to do with social policies and welfare
- special court-martial — a court-martial established to try violations of military law less serious than those tried by a general court-martial but more serious than those tried by a summary court-martial.
- stock list department — (in an American stock exchange) the department dealing with monitoring compliance with its listing requirements and rules
- subliminal perception — perception of or reaction to a stimulus that occurs without awareness or consciousness
- summary court-martial — a court-martial composed of one commissioned officer, authorized to try minor offenses against military law.
- teleological argument — the argument purporting to prove the existence of God from empirical facts, the premise being that the universe shows evidence of order and hence design
- tetrabromofluorescein — eosin (def 1).
- thermal decomposition — Thermal decomposition is the process in which a chemical species breaks down when its temperature is increased.
- to kill a mockingbird — a novel (1960) by Harper Lee.
- tool command language — (language) /tik*l/ (Tcl) An interpreted string processing language for issuing commands to interactive programs, developed by John Ousterhout at UCB. Each application program can extend tcl with its own set of commands. Tcl is like a text-oriented Lisp, but lets you write algebraic expressions for simplicity and to avoid scaring people away. Though originally designed to be a "scripting language" rather than for serious programming, Tcl has been used successfully for programs with hundreds of thousands of lines. It has a peculiar but simple syntax. It may be used as an embedded interpreter in application programs. It has exceptions and packages (called libraries), name-spaces for procedures and variables, and provide/require. It supports dynamic loading of object code. It is eight-bit clean. It has only three variable types: strings, lists and associative arrays but no structures. Tcl and its associated GUI toolkit, Tk run on all flavors of Unix, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and VMS. Tcl runs on the Amiga and many other platforms. See also expect (control interactive programs and pattern match on their output), Cygnus Tcl Tools, [incr Tcl] (adds classes and inheritence to Tcl), Scriptics (John Ousterhout's company that is the home of Tcl development and the TclPro tool suite), Tcl Consortium (a non-profit agency dedicated to promoting Tcl), tclhttpd (an embeddable Tcl-based web server), tclx (adds many commands to Tcl), tcl-debug.
- trichloronitromethane — chloropicrin.
- volunteers of america — a religious reform and relief organization, similar to the Salvation Army, founded in New York City in 1896 by Ballington Booth, son of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Abbreviation: VOA.
- warm silence software — A small company run by(?) Robin Watts, producing software for the Acorn Archimedes.
- william the conqueror — ("the Conqueror") 1027–87, duke of Normandy 1035–87; king of England 1066–87 (son of Robert I, duke of Normandy).