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20-letter words containing o, r, i, e

  • modify a reservation — If you modify a reservation, you change a detail of a booking because someone who has booked a room has asked you to.
  • molecular geneticist — a specialist in the study of the molecular constitution of genes and chromosomes
  • mollweide projection — homolographic projection.
  • mopping-up operation — an operation after a battle or campaign to root out remaining enemy forces or installations
  • most general unifier — (logic)   If U is the most general unifier of a set of expressions then any other unifier, V, can be expressed as V = UW, where W is another substitution. See also unification.
  • motor neuron disease — Motor neuron disease is a disease which destroys the part of a person's nervous system that controls movement.
  • mountain rescue team — a group of people who conduct search and rescue on a mountain, for example of someone who has fallen, got lost, etc
  • mpeg-1 audio layer 1 — (audio, compression, algorithm)   (MP1) A simple 32-subband audio compressor using a floating point representation for subband samples. Resolution and scale factor are stored for groups of 12 subsamples. MP1 is only used for Philips DCC Digital Compact cassette with data rates of 384 kbps.
  • mpeg-1 audio layer 3 — (music, file format)   (MP3) A digital audio compression algorithm that acheives a compression factor of about twelve while preserving sound quality. It does this by optimising the compression according to the range of sound that people can actually hear. MP3 is currently (July 1999) the most powerful algorithm in a series of audio encoding standards developed under the sponsorship of the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and formalised by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). MP3 is very different from Layer 2, using an additional MDCT layer to increase frequency resolution. Its scale factor groups are more optimised for the human ear, and it uses nonlinear sample quantisation and Huffman coding. MP3 files (filename extension ".mp3") can be downloaded from many websites and can be played using software available for most operating systems (also downloadable), e.g. Winamp for PC, MacAmp for Macintosh, and mpeg123 for Unix. MP3 files are usually downloaded completely before playing but streaming MP3 is also possible. A program called a "ripper" can be used to copy a selection from a music CD onto your hard disk and another program called an encoder can convert it to an MP3 file.
  • mpeg-2 audio layer 3 — (compression, standard, algorithm, file format)   An extention of MPEG-1 audio layer 3 for lower sampling rates (16-24 kHz) targeting bit rates from 32-64 kbps (possibly 8-160 kbps). It is often combined with MPEG-2 LSF.
  • muller-lyer illusion — a geometric illusion in which two lines of equal length appear unequal depending on whether angular lines forming arrowheads at each end point toward or away from each other.
  • multi-user dimension — (games)   (MUD) (Or Multi-User Domain, originally "Multi-User Dungeon") A class of multi-player interactive game, accessible via the Internet or a modem. A MUD is like a real-time chat forum with structure; it has multiple "locations" like an adventure game and may include combat, traps, puzzles, magic and a simple economic system. A MUD where characters can build more structure onto the database that represents the existing world is sometimes known as a "MUSH". Most MUDs allow you to log in as a guest to look around before you create your own character. Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names of MU- form) derive from a hack by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw on the University of Essex's DEC-10 in 1979. It was a game similar to the classic Colossal Cave adventure, except that it allowed multiple people to play at the same time and interact with each other. Descendants of that game still exist today and are sometimes generically called BartleMUDs. There is a widespread myth that the name MUD was trademarked to the commercial MUD run by Bartle on British Telecom (the motto: "You haven't *lived* 'til you've *died* on MUD!"); however, this is false - Richard Bartle explicitly placed "MUD" in the PD in 1985. BT was upset at this, as they had already printed trademark claims on some maps and posters, which were released and created the myth. Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on the MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD, AberMUD, LPMUD). Many of these had associated bulletin-board systems for social interaction. Because these had an image as "research" they often survived administrative hostility to BBSs in general. This, together with the fact that Usenet feeds have been spotty and difficult to get in the UK, made the MUDs major foci of hackish social interaction there. AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988 and quickly gained popularity in the US; they became nuclei for large hacker communities with only loose ties to traditional hackerdom (some observers see parallels with the growth of Usenet in the early 1980s). The second wave of MUDs (TinyMUD and variants) tended to emphasise social interaction, puzzles, and cooperative world-building as opposed to combat and competition. In 1991, over 50% of MUD sites are of a third major variety, LPMUD, which synthesises the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems with the extensibility of TinyMud. The trend toward greater programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue. The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very rapidly, with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly) every month. There is now a move afoot to deprecate the term MUD itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety of names corresponding to the different simulation styles being explored. See also bonk/oif, FOD, link-dead, mudhead, MOO, MUCK, MUG, MUSE, chat.
  • multipart stationery — continuous stationery comprising two or more sheets, either carbonless or with carbon paper between the sheets
  • multiple personality — a rare disorder in which an individual displays several functionally dissociated personalities, each of a complexity comparable to that of a normal individual.
  • multiplicative group — a group in which the operation of the group is multiplication.
  • multipurpose vehicle — a large car, similar to a van, designed to carry up to eight passengers
  • multistep hydroplane — a motorship having a flat bottom built as a series of planes inclined forward, the ship planing on each from stem to stern as its speed increases.
  • multistorey car park — a car park consisting of several levels
  • mum-and-dad investor — a small-scale non-professional investor
  • music of the spheres — a music, imperceptible to human ears, formerly supposed to be produced by the movements of the spheres or heavenly bodies.
  • neapolitan ice cream — variously flavored and colored ice cream and ice mixtures frozen in layers.
  • neighbourhood warden — a person employed by a local authority to patrol residential areas and deal with antisocial behaviour
  • nemine contradicente — no one contradicting; unanimously.
  • nephroangiosclerosis — (pathology) sclerosis of the renal arterioles.
  • net domestic product — the gross domestic product minus an allowance for the depreciation of capital goods
  • net national product — the gross national product less allowance for depreciation of capital goods. Abbreviation: NNP.
  • net register tonnage — the taxable gross tonnage of a merchant ship.
  • neurophysiologically — In terms of, or with regard to, neurophysiology.
  • neuropsychiatrically — In terms of neuropsychiatry.
  • neuropsychologically — In terms of or by means of neuropsychology.
  • neutral interconnect — Network infrastructure where network service providers can freely exchange traffic without policy restrictions. Examples are the GIX (Global Internet Exchange) at MAE-East (A Metropolitan Area Ethernet around Washington), and the Ebone (European Backbone). There is currently (November 1993) no UK Neutral Interconnect.
  • new democratic party — the Canadian social democratic party formed in 1961
  • nickel tetracarbonyl — nickel carbonyl.
  • night storage heater — a heater or radiator that stores heat at night-time because electricity is cheaper
  • nikkei stock average — an index of prices on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
  • nine plus zero array — the arrangement of microtubules characteristic of basal bodies and centrioles, consisting of nine evenly spaced triplets between the outer and inner walls of the structure and having no central microtubules. Symbol: 9 + 0.
  • non-volatile storage — (storage)   (NVS, persistent storage, memory) A term describing a storage device whose contents are preserved when its power is off. Storage using magnetic media (e.g. magnetic disks, magnetic tape or bubble memory) is normally non-volatile by nature whereas semiconductor memories (static RAM and especially dynamic RAM) are normally volatile but can be made into non-volatile storage by having a (rechargable) battery permanently connected. Other examples of non-volatile storage are EEPROM, CD-ROM, paper tape and punched cards.
  • nonaccidental injury — damage, such as a bruise, burn, or fracture, deliberately inflicted on a child or an old person
  • noncatalytic reactor — A noncatalytic reactor is a reactor in which no catalyst is used.
  • nondirective therapy — client-centered therapy.
  • nonintrusive testing — (testing)   Testing that is transparent to the software under test, i.e., does not change its timing or processing characteristics. Nonintrusive testing usually involves additional hardware that collects timing or processing information and processes that information on another platform.
  • nonrepeating decimal — a decimal representation of any irrational number, having the property that no sequence of digits is repeated ad infinitum.
  • nonsense correlation — a correlation supported by data but having no basis in reality, as between incidence of the common cold and ownership of televisions
  • north american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising Greenland and the continent of North America and the suboceanic Labrador and North American Basins, and bounded on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the south by the Caribbean and South American Plates, and on the west by the San Andreas fault and Aleutian Trench.
  • north canadian river — a river in NE New Mexico, E Texas, and E Oklahoma, flowing SE to the Canadian River. 760 miles (1223 km) long.
  • north celestial pole — the point of intersection of the earth's extended axis and the northern half of the celestial sphere, lying about 1° from Polaris
  • northern leaf blight — a disease of corn caused by the fungus Exsherohilum turcicum, characterized by elongate tan-gray elliptical spots with subsequent blighting and necrosis of leaves.
  • northern territories — a territory in N Australia. 523,620 sq. mi. (1,356,175 sq. km). Capital: Darwin.
  • northern white cedar — any of several chiefly coniferous trees valued for their wood, especially Chamaecyparis thyoides, of the eastern U.S., or Thuja occidentalis (northern white cedar) of northeastern North America.
  • norwegian forest cat — a breed of long-haired cat with a long bushy tail and a long mane
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