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14-letter words containing p, c, r

  • processor farm — (computer, parallel)   A parallel processor where tasks are distributed, or "farmed out", by one "farmer" processor to several "worker" processors, and results are sent back to the farmer. This arrangement is suitable for applications which can be partitioned into many separate, independent tasks, the canonical examples being ray tracing and the Mandelbrot set. In order to be efficient, the extra time spent on communications must be small compared to the time spent processing each task.
  • processor time — (software)   The amount of time a process takes to run, given that it has exclusive and uninterrupted use of the CPU. Note that in a modern computer, this would be very unusual, and so the processor time calculation for most processes involves adding up all the small amounts of time the CPU actually spends on the process. Some systems break processor time down into user time and system time. Compare wall clock time.
  • procrastinated — to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.
  • procrastinator — to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.
  • producer goods — goods, such as raw materials and machines, that are used in producing other goods
  • productibility — the ability to produce
  • production run — all of the processes necessary to manufacture a certain product etc
  • productiveness — having the power of producing; generative; creative: a productive effort.
  • productivities — the quality, state, or fact of being able to generate, create, enhance, or bring forth goods and services: The productivity of the group's effort surprised everyone.
  • prognostically — of or relating to prognosis.
  • prognosticator — to forecast or predict (something future) from present indications or signs; prophesy.
  • project athena — (project)   A distributed system project for support of educational and research computing at MIT. Much of the software developed is now in wider use, especially the X Window System.
  • project leader — leader of a task or programme
  • projectisation — the direction of aid to developing countries towards a specific project, without regard to wider issues or needs
  • projectization — the direction of aid to developing countries towards a specific project, without regard to wider issues or needs
  • promenade deck — an upper deck or part of a deck on a passenger ship where passengers can stroll, often covered with a light shade deck.
  • pronunciamento — a proclamation; manifesto; edict.
  • propaedeutical — relating to preliminary instruction; introductory
  • propagandistic — a person involved in producing or spreading propaganda.
  • propanoic acid — propionic acid.
  • propenoic acid — systematic name of acrylic acid
  • propionic acid — a colorless, oily, water-soluble liquid, C 3 H 6 O 2 , having a pungent odor: used in making bread-mold-inhibiting propionates, in perfumery, and in medicine as a topical fungicide.
  • proprioception — perception governed by proprioceptors, as awareness of the position of one's body.
  • proprioceptive — pertaining to proprioceptors, the stimuli acting upon them, or the nerve impulses initiated by them.
  • propyl alcohol — a colorless, water-soluble liquid, C 3 H 8 O, used chiefly in organic synthesis and as a solvent.
  • prosencephalon — the forebrain.
  • prosthetically — a device, either external or implanted, that substitutes for or supplements a missing or defective part of the body.
  • prosthodontics — the branch of dentistry that deals with the restoration and maintenance of oral function by the replacement of missing teeth and other oral structures by artificial devices.
  • protectability — to defend or guard from attack, invasion, loss, annoyance, insult, etc.; cover or shield from injury or danger.
  • protected mode — An operating mode of Intel 80x86 processors. The opposite of real mode. The Intel 8088, Intel 8086, Intel 80188 and Intel 80186 had only real mode, processors beginning with the Intel 80286 feature a second mode called protected mode. In real mode, addresses are generated by adding an address offset to the value of a segment register shifted left four bits. As the segment register and address offset are 16 bits long this results in a 20-bit address. This is the origin of the one megabyte (2^20) limit in real mode. There are 4 segment registers on processors before the Intel 80386. The 80386 introduced two more segment registers. Which segment register is used depends on the instruction, on the addressing mode and of an optional instruction prefix which selects the segment register explicitly. In protected mode, the segment registers contain an index into a table of segment descriptors. Each segment descriptor contains the start address of the segment, to which the offset is added to generate the address. In addition, the segment descriptor contains memory protection information. This includes an offset limit and bits for write and read permission. This allows the processor to prevent memory accesses to certain data. The operating system can use this to protect different processes' memory from each other, hence the name "protected mode". While the standard register set belongs to the CPU, the segment registers lie "at the boundary" between the CPU and MMU. Each time a new value is loaded into a segment register while in protected mode, the corresponding descriptor is loaded into a descriptor cache in the (Segment-)MMU. On processors before the Pentium this takes longer than just loading the segment register in real mode. Addresses generated by the CPU (which are segment offsets) are passed to the MMU to be checked against the limit in the segment descriptor and are there added to the segment base address in the descriptor to form a linear address. On a 80386 or later, the linear address is further processed by the paged MMU before the result (the physical address) appears on the chip's address pins. The 80286 doesn't have a paged MMU so the linear address is output directly as the physical address. The paged MMU allows for arbitrary remapping of four klilobyte memory blocks (pages) through a translation table stored in memory. A few entries of this table are cached in the MMU's Translation Lookaside Buffer to avoid excessive memory accesses. After processor reset, all processors start in real mode. Protected mode has to be enabled by software. On the 80286 there exists no documented way back to real mode apart from resetting the processor. Later processors allow switching back to real mode by software. Software which has been written or compiled to run in protected mode must only use segment register values given to it by the operating system. Unfortunately, most application code for MS-DOS, written before the 286, will fail in protected mode because it assumes real mode addressing and writes arbitrary values to segment registers, e.g. in order to perform address calculations. Such use of segment registers is only really necessary with data structures that are larger than 64 kilobytes and thus don't fit into a single segment. This is usually dealt with by the huge memory model in compilers. In this model, compilers generate address arithmetic involving segment registers. A solution which is portable to protected mode with almost the same efficiency would involve using a table of segments instead of calculating new segment register values ad hoc. To ease the transition to protected mode, Intel 80386 and later processors provide "virtual 86 mode".
  • protectiveness — having the quality or function of protecting: a protective covering.
  • proto-germanic — the unattested prehistoric parent language of the Germanic languages; Germanic.
  • proto-oncogene — a normally present gene that appears to have a role in the regulation of normal cell growth, but that is converted to an oncogene by mutation.
  • protocol layer — (networking)   The software and/or hardware environment of two or more communications devices or computers in which a particular network protocol operates. A network connection may be thought of as a set of more or less independent protocols, each in a different layer or level. The lowest layer governs direct host-to-host communication between the hardware at different hosts; the highest consists of user application programs. Each layer uses the layer beneath it and provides a service for the layer above. Each networking component hardware or software on one host uses protocols appropriate to its layer to communicate with the corresponding component (its "peer") on another host. Such layered protocols are sometimes known as peer-to-peer protocols. The advantages of layered protocols is that the methods of passing information from one layer to another are specified clearly as part of the protocol suite, and changes within a protocol layer are prevented from affecting the other layers. This greatly simplifies the task of designing and maintaining communication systems. Examples of layered protocols are TCP/IP's five layer protocol stack and the OSI seven layer model.
  • protocol stack — (protocol)   A layered set of protocols which work together to provide a set of network functions. Each intermediate protocol layer uses the layer below it to provide a service to the layer above. The OSI seven layer model is an attempt to provide a standard framework within which to describe protocol stacks.
  • protocontinent — an actual or hypothetical landmass that might later be enlarged into a major continent or broken up into smaller ones.
  • protogeometric — pertaining to or designating a style of vase painting developed in Greece chiefly during the 10th century b.c. and characterized by use of abstract geometrical motifs.
  • prototypically — in a prototypical manner
  • proventriculus — the glandular portion of the stomach of birds, in which food is partially digested before passing to the ventriculus or gizzard.
  • provident club — a hire-purchase system offered by some large retail organizations
  • provincialised — to make provincial in character.
  • proxy conflict — a conflict between third parties, through whom enemies attack each other
  • pseudo-archaic — marked by the characteristics of an earlier period; antiquated: an archaic manner; an archaic notion.
  • pseudo-generic — of, applicable to, or referring to all the members of a genus, class, group, or kind; general.
  • pseudoscorpion — any of several small arachnids of the order Chelonethida that resemble a tailless scorpion and that feed chiefly on small insects.
  • psychic energy — according to Freud, the force that lies behind all mental processes, having its basic source as the id.
  • psycho-history — history or the writing of history employing the techniques of psychoanalysis to explore motivations, explain actions, etc.
  • psychographics — the use of demographics to determine the attitudes and tastes of a particular segment of a population, as in marketing studies.
  • psychoneurosis — neurosis (def 1).
  • pterylographic — relating to pterylography
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