17-letter words containing o, n, c, a, m
- first commandment — “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”: first of the Ten Commandments.
- first performance — the first time that a play or concert is performed
- foucault pendulum — a pendulum that demonstrates the rotation of the earth by exhibiting an apparent change in its plane of oscillation.
- fractal dimension — (mathematics) A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by "measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object. Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object. For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by repeatedly replacing ___ with _/\_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/\_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
- frames per second — (unit) (fps) The unit of measurement of the frame rate of a moving image.
- french somaliland — a former name of Djibouti (def 1).
- functional isomer — any of several structural isomers that have the same molecular formula but with the atoms connected in different ways and therefore falling into different functional groups.
- garlic mayonnaise — mayonnaise flavoured with garlic
- genetic algorithm — (GA) An evolutionary algorithm which generates each individual from some encoded form known as a "chromosome" or "genome". Chromosomes are combined or mutated to breed new individuals. "Crossover", the kind of recombination of chromosomes found in sexual reproduction in nature, is often also used in GAs. Here, an offspring's chromosome is created by joining segments choosen alternately from each of two parents' chromosomes which are of fixed length. GAs are useful for multidimensional optimisation problems in which the chromosome can encode the values for the different variables being optimised.
- geomagnetic storm — magnetic storm.
- giovanni demedici — Catherine de', Catherine de Médicis.
- glove compartment — a compartment in the dashboard of an automobile for storing small items.
- glycosaminoglycan — any of a class of polysaccharides derived from hexosamine that form mucins when complexed with proteins: formerly called mucopolysaccharide.
- government action — intervention by a government, esp to influence financial markets
- grandmother clock — a pendulum clock similar to a grandfather's clock but shorter.
- guglielmo marconi — Guglielmo [goo-lyel-maw] /guˈlyɛl mɔ/ (Show IPA), Marchese, 1874–1937, Italian electrical engineer and inventor, especially in the field of wireless telegraphy: Nobel Prize in physics 1909.
- gunboat diplomacy — diplomatic relations involving the use or threat of military force, especially by a powerful nation against a weaker one.
- haematocrystallin — Alternative form of hematocrystallin.
- hamiltonian cycle — Hamiltonian problem
- hanging committee — a group of people that selects and hangs works of art to exhibit
- harmonic analysis — the calculation of Fourier series and their generalization.
- harmonic interval — an intervening period of time: an interval of 50 years.
- hemoconcentration — an increase in the concentration of cellular elements in the blood, resulting from loss of plasma.
- histamine blocker — any of various substances that act at a specific receptor site to block certain actions of histamine.
- ho chi minh trail — a network of jungle paths winding from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam, used as a military route by North Vietnam to supply the Vietcong during the Vietnam War.
- homeland security — national defence
- homogentisic acid — an intermediate compound in the metabolism of tyrosine and of phenylalanine, found in excess in the blood and urine of persons affected with alkaptonuria.
- homovanillic acid — the end product of dopamine metabolism, C 9 H 10 O 4 , found in human urine.
- image recognition — (graphics, artificial intelligence) The identification of objects in an image. This process would probably start with image processing techniques such as noise removal, followed by (low-level) feature extraction to locate lines, regions and possibly areas with certain textures. The clever bit is to interpret collections of these shapes as single objects, e.g. cars on a road, boxes on a conveyor belt or cancerous cells on a microscope slide. One reason this is an AI problem is that an object can appear very different when viewed from different angles or under different lighting. Another problem is deciding what features belong to what object and which are background or shadows etc. The human visual system performs these tasks mostly unconsciously but a computer requires skillful programming and lots of processing power to approach human performance.
- immunodiagnostics — the determination of immunologic characteristics of individuals, cells, and other biologic entities.
- immunotherapeutic — (immunology, medicine) Of a pharmaceutical, acting on the immune system to treat disease; used in immunotherapy.
- impersonification — (archaic) the act of impersonating; impersonation.
- improper fraction — a fraction having the numerator greater than the denominator.
- in someone's face — the front part of the head, from the forehead to the chin.
- in the same canoe — of the same tribe
- income inequality — a situation in which there is great disparity in income within a society
- incommunicability — incapable of being communicated, imparted, shared, etc.
- incompatibilities — not compatible; unable to exist together in harmony: She asked for a divorce because they were utterly incompatible.
- indicator diagram — a graphical or other representation of the cyclic variations of pressure and volume within the cylinder of a reciprocating engine obtained by using an indicator
- insurance company — company that sells insurance policies
- intercolumniation — the space between two adjacent columns, usually the clear space between the lower parts of the shafts.
- intercommunicated — Simple past tense and past participle of intercommunicate.
- intercommunicates — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of intercommunicate.
- intersectionalism — The study of minorities within minorities, or intersections between minorities; specifically, the study of the interactions of multiple systems of oppression or discrimination.
- jumping-off place — a place for use as a starting point: Paris was the jumping-off place for our tour of Europe.
- jus primae noctis — droit du seigneur.
- keyboard commando — (messaging) A bulletin board user who posts authoritatively on military or combat topics, but who has never served in uniform or heard a shot fired in anger. A poseur.
- lame-duck session — (formerly) the December to March session of those members of the U.S. Congress who were defeated for reelection the previous November.
- landlocked salmon — a variety of the Atlantic Ocean salmon, Salmo salar, confined to the freshwater lakes of New England and adjacent areas of Canada.
- laplace transform — a map of a function, as a signal, defined especially for positive real values, as time greater than zero, into another domain where the function is represented as a sum of exponentials.