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18-letter words containing o, n, i, s

  • aristotelian logic — the logical theories of Aristotle as developed in the Middle Ages, concerned mainly with syllogistic reasoning: traditional as opposed to modern or symbolic logic
  • aristotles-lantern — a complex arrangement of muscles and calcareous teeth and plates forming an eversible organ in most echinoids, functioning in mastication.
  • arkansas toothpick — a bowie knife or similar sharp knifelike implement.
  • assignment problem — (mathematics, algorithm)   (Or "linear assignment") Any problem involving minimising the sum of C(a, b) over a set P of pairs (a, b) where a is an element of some set A and b is an element of set B, and C is some function, under constraints such as "each element of A must appear exactly once in P" or similarly for B, or both. For example, the a's could be workers and the b's projects. The problem is "linear" because the "cost function" C() depends only on the particular pairing (a, b) and is independent of all other pairings.
  • associated company — a company which is largely controlled by its parent company because the latter owns anything up to 50% of the shares
  • association cortex — any of the regions of the cerebral cortex of the brain connected by numerous nerve fibers to all parts of both cerebral hemispheres and coordinating such higher activities as learning and reasoning.
  • assortative mating — the reproductive pairing of individuals that have more traits in common than would likely be the case if mating were random (contrasted with disassortative mating).
  • assumption of risk — Assumption of risk is the practice of paying for minor losses yourself, but protecting against catastrophic losses by buying insurance cover.
  • astrometric binary — a binary star that can be recognized as such because of its undulating proper motion.
  • astronomical clock — a complex clock showing astronomical phenomena, such as the phases of the moon
  • asynchronous logic — (architecture)   A data-driven circuit design technique where, instead of the components sharing a common clock and exchanging data on clock edges, data is passed on as soon as it is available. This removes the need to distribute a common clock signal throughout the circuit with acceptable clock skew. It also helps to reduce power dissipation in CMOS circuits because gates only switch when they are doing useful work rather than on every clock edge. There are many kinds of asynchronous logic. Data signals may use either "dual rail encoding" or "data bundling". Each dual rail encoded Boolean is implemented as two wires. This allows the value and the timing information to be communicated for each data bit. Bundled data has one wire for each data bit and another for timing. Level sensitive circuits typically represent a logic one by a high voltage and a logic zero by a low voltage whereas transition signalling uses a change in the signal level to convey information. A speed independent design is tolerant to variations in gate speeds but not to propagation delays in wires; a delay insensitive circuit is tolerant to variations in wire delays as well. The purest form of circuit is delay-insensitive and uses dual-rail encoding with transition signalling. A transition on one wire indicates the arrival of a zero, a transition on the other the arrival of a one. The levels on the wires are of no significance. Such an approach enables the design of fully delay-insensitive circuits and automatic layout as the delays introduced by the layout compiler can't affect the functionality (only the performance). Level sensitive designs can use simpler, stateless logic gates but require a "return to zero" phase in each transition.
  • at one's wit's end — the last part or extremity, lengthwise, of anything that is longer than it is wide or broad: the end of a street; the end of a rope.
  • at one's wits' end — at a loss to know how to proceed
  • at the instance of — at the suggestion or instigation of
  • at your fingertips — If you say that something is at your fingertips, you approve of the fact that you can reach it easily or that it is easily available to you.
  • at/from a distance — If you are at a distance from something, or if you see it or remember it from a distance, you are a long way away from it in space or time.
  • atmospheric engine — an early form of single-acting engine in which the power stroke is provided by atmospheric pressure acting upon a piston in an exhausted cylinder.
  • atmospheric window — wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be transmitted through the earth's atmosphere. Atmospheric windows occur in the visible, infrared, and radio regions of the spectrum
  • auditory phonetics — the branch of phonetics concerned with the perception of speech sounds by humans
  • australian doubles — an unusual formation in doubles in which the server's partner is positioned on the same side of the court as the server.
  • australopithecines — Plural form of australopithecine.
  • authorized version — the revised English translation of the Bible published in England in 1611 with the authorization of King James I
  • autoimmune disease — a disease resulting from a disordered immune reaction in which antibodies are produced against one's own tissues, as systemic lupus erythematosus or rheumatoid arthritis.
  • aviation insurance — Aviation insurance is insurance cover for aircraft, and for damage, injury, or loss of life or cargo while traveling on aircraft.
  • axis of revolution — an axis in a plane, about which an area is revolved to form a solid of revolution.
  • baritone saxophone — the second lowest instrument in the family of saxophones
  • bartholin's glands — two small reddish-yellow glands, one on each side of the vaginal orifice, that secrete a mucous lubricating substance during sexual stimulation in females
  • be lost in thought — If you are lost in thought, you give all your attention to what you are thinking about and do not notice what is going on around you.
  • beaujolais nouveau — the first Beaujolais wine of the season, usually available for sale within two months after the grapes are harvested.
  • behavioral science — any of several studies, as sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc., that examine human activities in an attempt to discover recurrent patterns and to formulate rules about social behavior
  • behaviour patterns — the characteristic ways in which a person or animal acts
  • benchmark position — a public service job used for comparison with a similar position, such as a position in commerce, for wage settlements
  • bill of quantities — a document drawn up by a quantity surveyor providing details of the prices, dimensions, etc, of the materials required to build a large structure, such as a factory
  • biodiversification — the process by which the diversity of plants or animals develops or is increased within a particular region or group of organisms.
  • bioinstrumentation — the use of instruments, as sensors, to detect and measure certain body functions, as of persons in spaceflight, and transmit the data to a point where it is evaluated
  • biological parents — the biological mother and father of a child
  • bipolar transistor — (electronics)   A transistor made from a sandwich of n- and p-type semiconductor material: either npn or pnp. The middle section is known as the "base" and the other two as the "collector" and "emitter". When used as an amplifying element, the base to emitter junction is in a "forward-biased" (conducting) condition, and the base to collector junction is "reverse-biased" or non-conducting. Small changes in the base to emitter current (the input signal) cause either holes (for pnp devices) or free electrons (for npn) to enter the base from the emitter. The attracting voltage of the collector causes the majority of these charges to cross into and be collected by the collector, resulting in amplification. Contrast field effect transistor.
  • bird's-nest orchid — a brown parasitic Eurasian orchid, Neottia nidus-avis, whose thick fleshy roots resemble a bird's nest and contain a fungus on which the orchid feeds
  • bitwise complement — The bitwise complement of a bit field is a bit field of the same length but with each zero changed to a one and vice versa. This is the same as the ones complement of a binary integer.
  • blanche of castile — ?1188–1252, queen consort (1223–26) of Louis VIII of France, born in Spain. The mother of Louis IX, she acted as regent during his minority (1226–36) and his absence on a crusade (1248–52)
  • blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
  • board of elections — a bipartisan board appointed usually by local authorities and charged with control of elections and voting procedure.
  • board of examiners — a group of people who officially administer examinations
  • bomb disposal unit — a unit of the police or armed services specializing in bomb disposal
  • boole's inequality — the theorem that the probability of several events occurring is less than or equal to the sum of the probabilities of each event occurring.
  • bosnia-herzegovina — a country in SE Europe; a constituent republic of Yugoslavia until 1991; in a state of civil war (1992–95); Serbian and Croatian forces were also involved: mostly barren and mountainous, with forests in the east. Languages: Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian (formerly all regarded together as Serbo-Croat). Religion: Muslim, Serbian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic. Currency: marka (pegged to the euro). Capital: Sarajevo. Pop: 3 875 723 (2013 est). Area: 51 129 sq km (19 737 sq miles)
  • bottlenose dolphin — any dolphin of the genus Tursiops, esp T. truncatus, some of which have been kept in captivity and trained to perform tricks
  • boulogne-sur-seine — an industrial suburb of SW Paris. Pop: 106 367 (1999)
  • branch instruction — a machine-language or assembly-language instruction that causes the computer to branch to another instruction
  • branch to fishkill — (IBM: from the location of one of the corporation's facilities) Any unexpected jump in a program that produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See jump off into never-never land, hyperspace.
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