24-letter words containing p, a, l, o, t
- exponential distribution — a continuous single-parameter distribution used esp when making statements about the length of life of certain materials or waiting times between randomly occurring events. Its density function is p(x) = λe–λx for positive λ and nonnegative x, and it is a special case of the gamma distribution
- family income supplement — a benefit formerly paid to low-income families
- floating decimal (point) — a decimal (point) whose position is not fixed
- floating point underflow — underflow
- floating-point specratio — SPECfp92
- frequent-flyer programme — a plan or system under which frequent flyers earn rewards for being regular customers
- functional specification — (programming, project) A description of what a system (e.g. a piece of software) does or should do (but not how it should do it). The functional specification is one of the inputs to the design process. See IEEE/ANSI Std. 610.12-1990.
- general protection fault — General Protection Failure
- geographical determinism — the theory that human activity is determined by geographical conditions
- ground-fault interrupter — a circuit breaker that senses currents caused by ground faults and quickly shuts off power before damage can occur to generating equipment.
- gulf cooperation council — an association of Persian Gulf nations formed for the purpose of collective defense against aggression. Abbreviation: GCC.
- have sth up one's sleeve — If you have something up your sleeve, you have an idea or plan which you have not told anyone about. You can also say that someone has an ace, card, or trick up their sleeve.
- hexaethyl tetraphosphate — a yellow, very poisonous liquid, (C 2 H 5 O) 6 P 4 O 7 , soluble in water, used as an insecticide.
- homolographic projection — an equal-area projection in which the proportion between regions of unequal area is correctly shown.
- human potential movement — a movement in psychology that includes group therapy, encounter therapy, primal therapy, etc., is based mainly on Freudian and Gestalt psychology, and is aimed at self-realization
- hyperbetalipoproteinemia — An abnormally high level of betalipoprotein in the blood.
- 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.
- 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.
- independent logical file — (database) (ILF) One kind of dynamic database management system. Examples of ILF databases are INQUIRE, ADABAS, NOMAD, FOCUS and DATACOM.
- industrial correspondent — a journalist who specializes in reporting the industrial news
- international ice patrol — an annual U.S. Coast Guard patrol of the North Atlantic during the ice season to ascertain the locations of icebergs and to warn ships: undertaken under a 1914 international agreement between 14 maritime countries.
- knowledge representation — The subfield of artificial intelligence concerned with designing and using systems for storing knowledge - facts and rules about some subject. A body of formally represented knowledge is based on a conceptualisation - an abstract view of the world that we wish to represent. In order to manipulate this knowledge we must specify how the abstract conceptualisation is represented as a concrete data structure. An ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualisation.
- komi autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the NW Russian Federation in Europe. 145,221 sq. mi. (376,122 sq. km). Capital: Syktyvkar.
- lab for computer science — MIT. http://lcs.mit.edu/.
- lease with option to buy — A lease with option to buy is a lease that states that the person leasing the property has the right to purchase it at the end of the lease period.
- liquid components of gas — Liquid components of gas are associated hydrocarbons in natural gas, which include ethane, propane, and butane.
- make one's presence felt — If you make your presence felt, you do something which makes people notice you or pay attention to you.
- mari autonomous republic — autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Europe. 8994 sq. mi. (23,294 sq. km). Capital: Ioshkar-Ola.
- master-slave manipulator — any of various devices, guided by the hand of the operator, for imitating the motions and tactile sensitivity of the human hand to a greater or lesser extent: used in situations in which direct handling of the objects or materials involved would be dangerous or impossible.
- mathematical expectation — Mathematics. the product of the probability of the occurrence of an event and the value associated with the occurrence of a given event.
- mathematical probability — the probability of an event consisting of n out of m possible equally likely occurrences, defined to be n/m
- minister plenipotentiary — plenipotentiary.
- multiple virtual storage — (operating system) (MVS) Release 2 of OS/VS2, called MVS because it had multiple 16 MB virtual address spaces, in contrast to SVS. MVS ran on the IBM 390 series mainframes. It became MVS/SP, then MVS/XA (with 31-bit addressing) and then MVS/ESA. MVS/Open Edition (MVS/OE), aimed at the growing open systems market, added TCP/IP and Unix support in an MVS address space, allowing users to run IBM, CICS-type applications, batch applications and Unix. MVS/ESA was repackaged as OS/390 as a marketing exercise but it's basically the same thing. Version: 5.1.
- multiple-valued function — function (def 4b).
- mutual insurance company — an insurance company owned by the policyholders and not by shareholders
- narcissistic personality — a personality disorder characterized by extreme self-centeredness and self-absorption, fantasies involving unrealistic goals, an excessive need for attention and admiration, and disturbed interpersonal relationships.
- neutrosophic probability — (logic) An extended form of probability based on Neutrosophy, in which a statement is held to be t true, i indeterminate, and f false, where t, i, f are real values from the ranges T, I, F, with no restriction on T, I, F or the sum n=t+i+f.
- non-proliferation treaty — an international agreement signed in 1968 which aims to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons
- not sb's place to do sth — If you say that it is not your place to do something, you mean that it is not right or appropriate for you to do it, or that it is not your responsibility to do it.
- open data-link interface — (networking, standard) (ODI) A Novell-developed network card API that provides media and protocol independence. It allows the sharing of a single card by multiple transport layer protocols and resolves conflicts.
- operational requirements — (programming) Qualitative and quantitative parameters that specify the desired capabilities of a system and serve as a basis for determining the operational effectiveness and suitability of a system prior to deployment.
- optical character reader — the process or technology of reading data in printed form by a device (optical character reader) that scans and identifies characters. Abbreviation: OCR.
- optical signal processor — optical computing
- out of all proportion to — If you say that something is out of all proportion to something else, you think that it is far greater or more serious than it should be.
- parliamentary government — government by a body of cabinet ministers who are chosen from and responsible to the legislature and act as advisers to a nominal chief of state.
- particulate fluidization — Particulate fluidization is a condition when particles in a fluidized bed are individually suspended.
- passive balance of trade — a negative balance of trade
- people's liberation army — See under Huk (def 1).
- permeability coefficient — the volume of an incompressible fluid that will flow in unit time through a unit cube of a porous substance across which a unit pressure difference is maintained
- photomechanical transfer — a method of producing photographic prints or offset printing plates from paper negatives by a chemical transfer process rather than by exposure to light