16-letter words containing p, a, t, o, n
- aversion therapy — a method of suppressing an undesirable habit, such as excessive smoking, by causing the subject to associate an unpleasant effect, such as an electric shock or nausea, with the habit
- back-propagation — (Or "backpropagation") A learning algorithm for modifying a feed-forward neural network which minimises a continuous "error function" or "objective function." Back-propagation is a "gradient descent" method of training in that it uses gradient information to modify the network weights to decrease the value of the error function on subsequent tests of the inputs. Other gradient-based methods from numerical analysis can be used to train networks more efficiently. Back-propagation makes use of a mathematical trick when the network is simulated on a digital computer, yielding in just two traversals of the network (once forward, and once back) both the difference between the desired and actual output, and the derivatives of this difference with respect to the connection weights.
- bacterioplankton — (biology) The bacterial component of marine plankton.
- bankruptcy court — a section of the United States federal court which specializes in the handling of bankruptcy cases
- bankruptcy order — a court order appointing a receiver to manage the property of a debtor or bankrupt
- basement complex — the undifferentiated assemblage of rock (basement rock) underlying the oldest stratified rocks in any region: usually crystalline, metamorphosed, and mostly, but not necessarily, Precambrian in age.
- bastard pointing — an imitation of tuck pointing, having a fillet made from the mortar of the joint.
- batch processing — manufacturing products or treating materials in batches, by passing the output of one process to subsequent processes
- batch production — production of goods in batches, rather than continuously
- bayonet practice — drill in the use of a bayonet
- behavior pattern — a recurrent way of acting by an individual or group toward a given object or in a given situation.
- bicapitalisation — The act said to have been performed on trademarks (such as PostScript, NeXT, NeWS, VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalisation. Too many marketroid types think this sort of thing is really cute, even the 2,317th time they do it. Compare studlycaps.
- binary operation — a mathematical operation in which two elements are combined to yield a single result: Addition and multiplication are binary operations on the set of real numbers.
- biotic potential — the capacity of a population of organisms to increase in numbers under optimum environmental conditions.
- blink comparator — an optical instrument used to detect small differences in two photographs of the same field or object by viewing them alternately, switching rapidly from one to the other.
- boatswain's pipe — a whistle used formerly to give orders on board ship
- boolean-operator — any operation in which each of the operands and the result take one of two values.
- boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
- boston tea party — a raid in 1773 made by citizens of Boston (disguised as Indians) on three British ships in the harbour as a protest against taxes on tea and the monopoly given to the East India Company. The contents of several hundred chests of tea were dumped into the harbour
- boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
- branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
- break-even point — When a company reaches break-even point, the money it makes from the sale of goods or services is just enough to cover the cost of supplying those goods or services, but not enough to make a profit.
- bypass operation — an operation involving redirection of blood flow, either to avoid a diseased blood vessel or in order to perform heart surgery
- can-not help but — to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need; contribute strength or means to; render assistance to; cooperate effectively with; aid; assist: He planned to help me with my work. Let me help you with those packages.
- cantor's paradox — the paradox derived from the supposition of an all-inclusive universal set, since every set has more subsets than members while every subset of such a universal set would be a member of it
- capacity booking — a time when someone has booked the whole of a venue or the maximum amount of something available
- capillary action — Also called capillary action, capillary attraction. Physics. a manifestation of surface tension by which the portion of the surface of a liquid coming in contact with a solid is elevated or depressed, depending on the adhesive or cohesive properties of the liquid.
- capillary-action — Also called capillary action, capillary attraction. Physics. a manifestation of surface tension by which the portion of the surface of a liquid coming in contact with a solid is elevated or depressed, depending on the adhesive or cohesive properties of the liquid.
- capital movement — the payments that flow between countries
- capitation grant — a grant of money given to every person who qualifies under certain conditions
- capsizing moment — the moment of an upsetting couple.
- carbon footprint — Your carbon footprint is a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by your activities over a particular period.
- carnot principle — the principle that no heat engine can be more efficient than one operating on a Carnot cycle of reversible changes
- carpatho-ukraine — a region in W Ukraine: ceded by Czechoslovakia in 1945.
- carpenter gothic — (sometimes initial capital letters) a style of Victorian Gothic architecture adapted to the resources of contemporary woodworking tools and machinery.
- castor-oil plant — a tall euphorbiaceous Indian plant, Ricinus communis, cultivated in tropical regions for ornament and for its poisonous seeds, from which castor oil is extracted
- category planner — A category planner is a person whose job to plan and co-ordinate future inventory and sales volume in one or more product categories.
- central european — involving or denoting the people, countries, cultures, or languages of Central Europe
- chattel personal — an item of movable personal property, such as furniture, domestic animals, etc
- chernobyl packet — (networking) /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ A network packet that induces a broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, named in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and destination Ethernet address and IP address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare Christmas tree packet.
- chlorophenothane — DDT.
- chromium plating — plating, often for decorative effect, made of chromium
- cleaning product — a detergent or other household cleaner
- closed-captioned — (of a video recording) having subtitles which appear on screen only if the cassette is played through a special decoder
- cochlear implant — a device that stimulates the acoustic nerve in the inner ear in order to produce some form of hearing in people who are deaf from inner ear disease
- collection plate — a plate that is used in church to collect money for charity or the support of the church
- common partridge — a small Old World gallinaceous game bird, Perdix perdix
- companionability — The state of being companionable, suitability for companionship.
- compartmentalise — to divide into categories or compartments.
- compartmentalize — To compartmentalize something means to divide it into separate sections.