24-letter words containing m, o, i, r, a
- confederate memorial day — a day set aside in the South to pay tribute to those who served with the Confederate forces during the American Civil War. It is observed on April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; on May 10 in North Carolina and South Carolina; on May 30 in Virginia; and on June 3 in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee.
- configuration management — (job, system management) A discipline applying technical and administrative controls to identifying, documentating and reporting on configuration items, their physical and functional characteristics and changes to characteristics of those configuration items.
- conservation of momentum — the principle that the total linear or angular momentum in any isolated system is constant, provided that no external force is applied
- cooperative multitasking — (parallel, operating system) A form of multitasking where it is the responsibility of the currently running task to give up the processor to allow other tasks to run. This contrasts with pre-emptive multitasking where the task scheduler periodically suspends the running task and restarts another. Cooperative multitasking requires the programmer to place calls at suitable points in his code to allow his task to be descheduled which is not always easy if there is no obvious top-level main loop or some routines run for a long time. If a task does not allow itself to be descheduled all other tasks on the system will appear to "freeze" and will not respond to user action. The advantage of cooperative multitasking is that the programmer knows where the program will be descheduled and can make sure that this will not cause unwanted interaction with other processes. Under pre-emptive multitasking, the scheduler must ensure that sufficient state for each process is saved and restored that they will not interfere. Thus cooperative multitasking can have lower overheads than pre-emptive multitasking because of the greater control it offers over when a task may be descheduled. Cooperative multitasking is used in RISC OS, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh System 7.
- dead white european male — a man whose importance and talents may have been exaggerated because he belonged to a historically dominant gender and ethnic group
- detoxification programme — a programme of treatment for alcoholism or drug addiction
- diphenylaminechlorarsine — adamsite.
- domestic relations court — in some states, a court with jurisdiction over matters involving relations within the family or household, as between husband and wife or parent and child
- domestic-relations court — court of domestic relations.
- ductal carcinoma in situ — a form of breast cancer originating in the breast itself rather than spreading from another site
- dynamic adaptive routing — Automatic rerouting of traffic based on analysis of current network conditions. This does not include routing decisions based on predefined information.
- ecole normale superieure — (body) (ENS) A higher education and research institution in Paris, France.
- electromagnetic spectrum — the complete range of electromagnetic radiation from the longest radio waves (wavelength 105 metres) to the shortest gamma radiation (wavelength 10–13 metre)
- emotional roller coaster — a situation or experience that alternates between making you feel excited, exhilarated, or happy and making you feel sad, disappointed, or desperate
- environmental assessment — a formal assessment of the impact a project will have on the environment
- environmental management — controlled and planned management of the environment
- environmentally friendly — that has no or the least possible impact on the environment
- ethyl-para-aminobenzoate — benzocaine
- european investment bank — a financial institution of the European Union which is based in Luxembourg and which provides loans, especially to the less economically developed countries of the EU
- evolutionary computation — Computer-based problem solving systems that use computational models of evolutionary processes as the key elements in design and implementation. A number of evolutionary computational models have been proposed, including evolutionary algorithms, genetic algorithms, the evolution strategy, evolutionary programming, and artificial life.
- evolutionary programming — (EP) A stochastic optimisation strategy originally conceived by Lawrence J. Fogel in 1960. An initially random population of individuals (trial solutions) is created. Mutations are then applied to each individual to create new individuals. Mutations vary in the severity of their effect on the behaviour of the individual. The new individuals are then compared in a "tournament" to select which should survive to form the new population. EP is similar to a genetic algorithm, but models only the behavioural linkage between parents and their offspring, rather than seeking to emulate specific genetic operators from nature such as the encoding of behaviour in a genome and recombination by genetic crossover. EP is also similar to an evolution strategy (ES) although the two approaches developed independently. In EP, selection is by comparison with a randomly chosen set of other individuals whereas ES typically uses deterministic selection in which the worst individuals are purged from the population.
- federal power commission — FPC.
- federal trade commission — FTC.
- geographical determinism — the theory that human activity is determined by geographical conditions
- glasgow haskell compiler — (language) (GHC) A Haskell 1.2 compiler written in Haskell by the AQUA project at Glasgow University, headed by Simon Peyton Jones <[email protected]> throughout the 1990's [started?]. GHC can generate either C or native code for SPARC, DEC Alpha and other platforms. It can take advantage of features of gcc such as global register variables and has an extensive set of optimisations. GHC features an extensible I/O system based on a "monad", in-line C code, fully fledged unboxed data types, incrementally-updatable arrays, mutable reference types, generational garbage collector, concurrent threads. Time and space profiling is also supported. It requires GNU gcc 2.1+ and Perl. GHC runs on Sun-4, DEC Alpha, Sun-3, NeXT, DECstation, HP-PA and SGI. E-mail: <[email protected]>.
- graduated pension scheme — (between 1961 and 1975) an earnings-related pension scheme which was based on the amount of an employee's National Insurance contributions
- greenhouse gas emissions — gases given off that damage ozone layer
- guaranteed annual income — Also called guaranteed income. compensation provided by the government to any family or individual whose annual income falls below a specified level.
- hairdressing appointment — an appointment to have your hair cut, styled, coloured, etc, at a hairdresser
- hierarchical data format — (file format, data) (HDF) A library and multi-object file format for the transfer of graphical and numerical data between computeres. The freely available HDF distribution consists of the library, command line utilities, test suite source, Java interface, and the Java-based HDF Viewer (JHV). HDF supports several different data models, including multidimensional arrays, raster images, and tables. Each defines a specific aggregate data type and provides an API for reading, writing, and organising the data and metadata. New data models can be added by the HDF developers or users. HDF is self-describing, allowing an application to interpret the structure and contents of a file without any outside information. One HDF file can hold a mixture of related objects which can be accessed as a group or as individual objects. Users can create their own grouping structures called "vgroups". HDF files can be shared across most common platforms, including many workstations and high performance computers. An HDF file created on one computer can be read on a different system without modification.
- high performance fortran — (language) (HPF) A data parallel language extension to Fortran 90 which provides a portable programming interface for a wide variety of target platforms. The original HPF language specification was produced by the High Performance Fortran Forum, a broad consortium of industry and academia, which met regularly throughout 1992 and early 1993. HPF compilers are now available on most commonly-used computing systems, and users are beginning to gain first hand experience with this language. The Forum has continued to meet in order to address advanced topics.
- high performance routing — (networking) (HPR) Routing designed to work in conjunction with APPN Intermediate Session Routing (ISR) network nodes. HPR nodes perform many of the same functions as ISR nodes. For example, HPR nodes use the same method of calculating routes based on the Topology Routing Service database and class of service tables. HPR nodes also supports such APPN features as connection networks and support for parallel transmission groups (TGs). In the HPR architecture, both partner nodes must support HPR for RTP connections to take place between the nodes. If one node supports HPR and the partner node does not, then the link will support ISR functionality only.
- homolographic projection — an equal-area projection in which the proportion between regions of unequal area is correctly shown.
- human-computer interface — (software, hardware) (HCI) Any software or hardware that allows a user to interact with a computer. Examples are WIMP, command-line interpreter, or virtual reality. See also Human-Computer Interaction.
- hyperbetalipoproteinemia — An abnormally high level of betalipoprotein in the blood.
- immunofluorescence assay — a diagnostic blood test using the technique of immunofluorescence. Abbreviation: IFA.
- implicit differentiation — a method of finding the derivative of an implicit function by taking the derivative of each term with respect to the independent variable while keeping the derivative of the dependent variable with respect to the independent variable in symbolic form and then solving for that derivative.
- in someone's good graces — elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action: We watched her skate with effortless grace across the ice. Synonyms: attractiveness, charm, gracefulness, comeliness, ease, lissomeness, fluidity. Antonyms: stiffness, ugliness, awkwardness, clumsiness; klutziness.
- incomplete metamorphosis — insect development, as in the grasshopper and cricket, in which the change is gradual and characterized by the absence of a pupal stage. Compare complete metamorphosis.
- information architecture — the design and organization of an online resource, usually with regard to usability.
- information superhighway — internet
- internal auditory meatus — the canal extending through the petrous portion of the temporal bone, through which the glossopharyngeal nerve, the facial nerve, and the auditory nerve and artery pass.
- international morse code — a form of Morse code used in international radiotelegraphy.
- involuntary manslaughter — the unlawful but unintentional killing of a human being
- irritable bowel syndrome — any combination of common disturbances of the bowel, as diarrhea or constipation, occurring with abdominal pain, sometimes accompanied by psychological stress. Abbreviation: IBS.
- iterated function system — (graphics) (IFS) A class of fractals that yield natural-looking forms like ferns or snowflakes. Iterated Function Systems use a very easy transformation that is done recursively.
- jam programming language — (language) (JPL) A string-based imperative language from JYACC Corporation, part of the JAM tool for developing screen (non-window) applications.
- jewish autonomous region — an autonomous region in the Khabarovsk territory of the Russian Federation in E Siberia. 13,900 sq. mi. (36,000 sq. km). Capital: Birobidzhan.
- kinetic theory of matter — a theory that matter is composed of small particles, all in random motion.
- knight in shining armour — If you refer to someone as a knight in shining armour, you mean that they are kind and brave, and likely to rescue you from a difficult situation.