26-letter words containing o, s, t, i, n, a
- official production system — (language) (OPS) The first production system (i.e. rule based) programming language, developed at CMU in 1970 and used for building expert systems. OPS was originally written in Franz Lisp and later ported to other LISP dialects.
- on the straight and narrow — If something keeps people on the straight and narrow, it helps to keep them living an honest or healthy life.
- open database connectivity — (standard, database) (ODBC) A standard for accessing different database systems. There are interfaces for Visual Basic, Visual C++, SQL and the ODBC driver pack contains drivers for the Access, Paradox, dBase, Text, Excel and Btrieve databases. An application can submit statements to ODBC using the ODBC flavor of SQL. ODBC then translates these to whatever flavor the database understands. ODBC 1.0 was released in September 1992. ODBC is based on Call-Level Interface and was defined by the SQL Access Group. Microsoft was one member of the group and was the first company to release a commercial product based on its work (under Microsoft Windows) but ODBC is not a Microsoft standard (as many people believe). ODBC drivers and development tools are available now for Microsoft Windows, Unix, OS/2, and Macintosh.
- or otherwise/and otherwise — You use or otherwise or and otherwise to mention something that is not the thing just referred to or is the opposite of that thing.
- orbiting solar observatory — OSO.
- orthogonal instruction set — (architecture) An instruction set where all (or most) instructions have the same format and all registers and addressing modes can be used interchangeably - the choices of op code, register, and addressing mode are mutually independent (loosely speaking, the choices are "orthogonal"). This contrasts with some early Intel microprocessors where only certain registers could be used by certain instructions. Examples include the PDP-11, 680x0, ARM, VAX.
- paraconsistent probability — (logic) A notion introduced by Florentin Smarandache: The probability (T, I, F) that an event occurs is calculated from different sources which may be contradictory or may overlap information; here T, I, F are real subsets representing the truth, indeterminacy, and falsity percentages respectively, and n_sup = sup(T)+sup(I)+sup(F) > 100. See neutrosophic probability
- parent teacher association — an organization of teachers and the parents of their students, as within a public school, to promote mutual understanding and to increase the effectiveness of the educational program. Abbreviation: PTA, P.T.A.
- parent-teacher association — an organization of teachers and the parents of their students, as within a public school, to promote mutual understanding and to increase the effectiveness of the educational program. Abbreviation: PTA, P.T.A.
- period-luminosity relation — the relationship between the period of light variation and of the absolute magnitude of Cepheid variable stars.
- personal digital assistant — a handheld computer, often pen-based, that provides especially organizational software, as an appointment calendar, and communications hardware, as a fax modem. Abbreviation: PDA.
- philosophical anthropology — anthropology (def 4).
- philosophical-anthropology — the science that deals with the origins, physical and cultural development, biological characteristics, and social customs and beliefs of humankind.
- physical transport network — (communications) (PTN) The actual hardware through which data transfer devices are connected.
- plain old telephone system — Public Switched Telephone Network
- post-and-beam construction — wall construction in which beams rather than studs are used to support heavy posts.
- postprandial thermogenesis — the rate at which food is broken down after a meal and used by your body
- professional office system — (messaging) (PROFS) An office messaging system from IBM, used worldwide, mainly on IBM mainframes.
- public-service corporation — a private or quasi-private corporation chartered to provide an essential commodity or service to the public.
- pulse-amplitude modulation — modulation of the amplitude of a train of electric pulses used to carry signals (pulse carrier) Abbreviation: PAM.
- put a bug in someone's ear — Also called true bug, hemipteran, hemipteron. a hemipterous insect.
- put one's signature to sth — If you put your signature to a document, you sign it as a way of officially showing that you agree with what is written.
- quake in one's boots/shoes — If you are quaking in your boots or quaking in your shoes, you feel extremely nervous or afraid.
- quite apart from something — used to indicate that you are aware of one aspect of a situation, but that you are going to focus on another aspect
- real-time operating system — (operating system) (RTOS) Any operating system where interrupts are guaranteed to be handled within a certain specified maximum time, thereby making it suitable for control of hardware in embedded systems and other time-critical applications. RTOS is not a specific product but a class of operating systems.
- record management services — (operating system) (RMS) Procedures in the VMS operating system that programs call to process files and records within files. RMS allows programs to issue GET and PUT requests at the record level (record I/O) as well as read and write blocks (block I/O). VMS RMS is an integral part of the system software; its procedures run in executive mode.
- remembrance of things past — a novel (1913–27) by Marcel Proust.
- repetitive strain disorder — overuse strain injury
- replacement cost insurance — Replacement cost insurance is insurance in which the cost of replacing property is calculated without a reduction for depreciation.
- resistance transfer factor — R factor.
- reticuloendothelial system — the aggregate of the phagocytic cells, including certain cells of the bone marrow, lymphatic system, liver, and spleen, that have reticular and endothelial characteristics and function in the immune system's defense against foreign bodies. Abbreviation: RES.
- sangre de cristo mountains — a mountain range in S Colorado and N New Mexico: part of the Rocky Mountains. Highest peak: Blanca Peak, 4364 m (14 317 ft)
- santiago de los caballeros — a city in the N central Dominican Republic.
- scintillation spectrometer — a scintillation counter adapted for measuring the energy distribution of particles emitted in radioactive processes.
- search engine optimization — the process of adjusting the content, structure, etc, of a website so that it will be displayed prominently by a search engine
- serotonin receptor agonist — A serotonin receptor agonist is any compound that activates serotonin receptors when serotonin is not present.
- set someone's mind at rest — to reassure someone or settle someone's mind
- simple algebraic extension — a simple extension in which the specified element is a root of an algebraic equation in the given field.
- sixty-four-dollar question — the critical or basic question or problem: Whether the measure will get through Congress this session or not is the sixty-four-dollar question.
- software writer's language — (language) (SWL) /swil/ An industrial strength dialect of Pascal that allowed multiple source code files, originally developed at Control Data Corporation (CDC) prior to 1973. Development continued at the Integrated Systems Laboratory. SWL was adopted by NCR as its corporate operating system and compiler implementation language (1978-1982+). The NCR SWL dialect was renamed NCRL (NCR Language) in 1981 and continued development [until ?].
- ssh file transfer protocol — (networking) (SFTP) A version of File Transfer Protocol (FTP) using an encrypted network connection provided by Secure Shell (SSH), usually SSH 2. The SFTP protocol allows for a range of operations on remote files, making it more like a remote file system protocol. SFTP clients can resume interrupted transfers, get directory listings and remove remote files. SFTP has largely replaced Secure Copy (SCP).
- stand in the way of sth/sb — If you stand in the way of something or stand in a person's way, you prevent that thing from happening or prevent that person from doing something.
- state of the union address — an annual message to Congress in which the president reports on the state of the nation and outlines a legislative program: required by the Constitution (Article II, Section 3). Abbreviation: SOTU.
- state of the union message — an annual message to Congress in which the president reports on the state of the nation and outlines a legislative program: required by the Constitution (Article II, Section 3). Abbreviation: SOTU.
- statistical-thermodynamics — the science that deals with average properties of the molecules, atoms, or elementary particles in random motion in a system of many such particles and relates these properties to the thermodynamic and other macroscopic properties of the system.
- sth will take some beating — If you say that something will take some beating, you mean that it is very good and it is unlikely that anything better will be done or made.
- straight-line depreciation — Straight-line depreciation is a method of depreciation in which an equal amount of depreciation is taken each year.
- string processing language — (language) (SPRING)
- strong nuclear interaction — an interaction between elementary particles responsible for the forces between nucleons in the nucleus. It operates at distances less than about 10–15 metres, and is about a hundred times more powerful than the electromagnetic interaction
- subset-equational language — (SEL) A declarative language for set processing by Bharat Jayaraman with subset and equational program clauses; pattern matching over sets (it supports efficient iteration over sets); annotations to say which functions distribute over union in which arguments (for point-wise/incremental computation over sets); defining transitive closures through circular constraints (implemented by mixed top-down/memoisation and bottom-up strategy); meta-programming and simple higher-order programming; modest user-interface including tracing. The SEL compiler, written in Quintus Prolog, generates WAM-like code, extended to deal with set-matching, memoisation, and the novel control structure of the language. The run-time system is written in C. E-mail: Bharat Jayaraman <[email protected]>.