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21-letter words containing p, y, t

  • forensic anthropology — the branch of physical anthropology in which anthropological data, criteria, and techniques are used to determine the sex, age, genetic population, or parentage of skeletal or biological materials in questions of civil or criminal law.
  • forward compatibility — (jargon)   The ability to accept input from later versions of itself. Forward compatibility is harder to achieve than backward compatibility, since, in the backward case, the input format is know whereas a forward compatible system needs to cope gracefully with unknown future features. An example of future compatibility is the stipulation that a web browser should ignore HTML tags it does not recognise. See also extensible.
  • functional dependency — (database)   Given a relation R (in a relational database), attribute Y of R is functionally dependent on attribute X of R and X of R functionally determines Y of R (in symbols R.X -> R.Y) if and only if each X in R has associated with it precisely one Y in R (at any one time). Attributes X and Y may be composite. This is very close to a function in the mathematical sense.
  • generic type variable — (programming)   (Also known as a "schematic type variable"). Different occurrences of a generic type variable in a type expression may be instantiated to different types. Thus, in the expression let id x = x in (id True, id 1) id's type is (for all a: a -> a). The universal quantifier "for all a:" means that a is a generic type variable. For the two uses of id, a is instantiated to Bool and Int. Compare this with let id x = x in let f g = (g True, g 1) in f id This looks similar but f has no legal Hindley-Milner type. If we say f :: (a -> b) -> (b, b) this would permit g's type to be any instance of (a -> b) rather than requiring it to be at least as general as (a -> b). Furthermore, it constrains both instances of g to have the same result type whereas they do not. The type variables a and b in the above are implicitly quantified at the top level: f :: for all a: for all b: (a -> b) -> (b, b) so instantiating them (removing the quantifiers) can only be done once, at the top level. To correctly describe the type of f requires that they be locally quantified: f :: ((for all a: a) -> (for all b: b)) -> (c, d) which means that each time g is applied, a and b may be instantiated differently. f's actual argument must have a type at least as general as ((for all a: a) -> (for all b: b)), and may not be some less general instance of this type. Type variables c and d are still implicitly quantified at the top level and, now that g's result type is a generic type variable, any types chosen for c and d are guaranteed to be instances of it. This type for f does not express the fact that b only needs to be at least as general as the types c and d. For example, if c and d were both Bool then any function of type (for all a: a -> Bool) would be a suitable argument to f but it would not match the above type for f.
  • gestalt psychotherapy — a therapy devised in the US in the 1960s in which patients are encouraged to concentrate on the immediate present and to express their true feelings
  • glyceryl tripalmitate — palmitin.
  • happy little vegemite — a person who is in good humour
  • hay-pauncefote treaty — an agreement (1901) between the U.S. and Great Britain giving the U.S. the sole right to build a canal across Central America connecting the Atlantic and Pacific.
  • humanistic psychology — an approach to psychology that emphasizes emotions and the better understanding of the self in terms of observation of oneself and one's relations with others
  • hypercholesterolaemia — the condition of having a high concentration of cholesterol in the blood
  • hyperkinetic disorder — another name for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
  • hyperlipoproteinaemia — the condition of having an abnormally high level of lipoproteins in the blood
  • hypothetico-deductive — pertaining to or governed by the supposed method of scientific progress whereby a general hypothesis is tested by deducing predictions that may be experimentally tested. When such a prediction is falsified the theory is rejected and a new hypothesis is required
  • hysterosalpingography — (medicine) X-ray examination of the uterus and oviducts following injection of a radiopaque substance.
  • ieee computer society — (body)   The society of the IEEE which publishes the journal "Computer".
  • imprecise probability — (probability)   A probability that is represented as an interval (as opposed to a single number) included in [0,1].
  • induction loop system — a system enabling partially deaf people to hear dialogue and sound in theatres, cinemas, etc, consisting of a loop of wire placed round the perimeter of a designated area. This emits an electromagnetic signal which is picked up by a hearing aid
  • industrial psychology — the application of psychological principles and techniques to business and industrial problems, as in the selection of personnel or development of training programs.
  • infiltration capacity — the maximum rate at which a soil in a given condition will absorb water.
  • innateness hypothesis — the theory that humans are biologically equipped with a knowledge of certain universal elements of language structure that is brought into play in the course of native-language acquisition.
  • input-output analysis — an analysis of production relationships between the industries of an economy involving a study of each industry's inputs and outputs, esp as used in social accounting
  • insulin shock therapy — a former treatment for mental illness, especially schizophrenia, employing insulin-induced hypoglycemia as a method for producing convulsive seizures.
  • intellectual property — Law. property that results from original creative thought, as patents, copyright material, and trademarks.
  • interpersonal therapy — a type of psychotherapy that focuses on conflicts in one's personal relationships.
  • isopropylideneacetone — mesityl oxide.
  • junior varsity sports — sports played at the second highest rank for university sports, ranking first after varsity
  • limit-proportionality — elastic limit.
  • linguistic philosophy — an approach to philosophical problems used especially by certain British and American philosophers, inspired by G. E. Moore, and marked by the elucidation of difficult and controversial concepts by resolving them into their elements.
  • locally compact space — a topological space in which each point has a neighborhood that is compact.
  • magnetic permeability — permeability (def 2).
  • magnetoplasmadynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
  • manufacturing company — a company that manufactures goods
  • metopon hydrochloride — a narcotic drug, C18H21O3N·HCl, derived from morphine, but slightly more potent: used in medicine to relieve pain
  • miniature photography — photography with a camera using film that is 35 millimeters wide or less.
  • multilayer perceptron — A network composed of more than one layer of neurons, with some or all of the outputs of each layer connected to one or more of the inputs of another layer. The first layer is called the input layer, the last one is the output layer, and in between there may be one or more hidden layers.
  • olympic national park — a national park in NW Washington. 1323 sq. mi. (3425 sq. km).
  • pacific daylight time — the version of Pacific Standard Time that is in use when daylight saving time is being observed
  • parliamentary inquiry — a question asked of the presiding officer of a parliament in relation to parliamentary law
  • partially ordered set — a set in which a relation as “less than or equal to” holds for some pairs of elements of the set, but not for all.
  • past its sell-by date — the last date on which perishable food should be sold, usually established with some allowance for home storage under refrigeration. Compare shelf life.
  • payload assist module — a U.S. solid-propellant rocket used to boost a medium-weight spacecraft from a circular low-earth orbit to an elliptical transfer orbit for later insertion into a geosynchronous orbit. Abbreviation: PAM.
  • pellitory-of-the-wall — an urticaceous plant, P. diffusa, of the S and W European genus Parietaria, which grows in crevices and has long narrow leaves and small pink flowers
  • pentamethylenediamine — cadaverine.
  • persistence of memory — a painting (1931) by Salvador Dali.
  • personality inventory — a questionnaire designed to measure personality types or characteristics.
  • physical anthropology — the branch of anthropology dealing with the evolutionary changes in human anatomy and physiology, using mensurational and descriptive techniques.
  • physician's assistant — a person trained to perform under the supervision of a physician many clinical procedures traditionally performed by a physician, as diagnosing and treating minor ailments. Abbreviation: PA.
  • picture quality scale — (graphics)   (PQS) A system for rating image quality based upon features of images that affect their perception by the human eye, rather than the traditional signal-to-noise ratio which examines differences for every single pixel.
  • piezoelectric crystal — a crystal, such as quartz, that produces a potential difference across its opposite faces when under mechanical stress
  • place of safety order — (in Britain) under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, an order granted by a justice to a person or agency granting authority to detain a child or young person and take him or her to a place of safety for not more than 28 days, because of the child's actual or likely ill-treatment or neglect, etc
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