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20-letter words containing s, c, i, e, n

  • finite state machine — (mathematics, algorithm, theory)   (FSM or "Finite State Automaton", "transducer") An abstract machine consisting of a set of states (including the initial state), a set of input events, a set of output events, and a state transition function. The function takes the current state and an input event and returns the new set of output events and the next state. Some states may be designated as "terminal states". The state machine can also be viewed as a function which maps an ordered sequence of input events into a corresponding sequence of (sets of) output events. A deterministic FSM (DFA) is one where the next state is uniquely determinied by a single input event. The next state of a nondeterministic FSM (NFA) depends not only on the current input event, but also on an arbitrary number of subsequent input events. Until these subsequent events occur it is not possible to determine which state the machine is in. It is possible to automatically translate any nondeterministic FSM into a deterministic one which will produce the same output given the same input. Each state in the DFA represents the set of states the NFA might be in at a given time. In a probabilistic FSM [proper name?], there is a predetermined probability of each next state given the current state and input (compare Markov chain). The terms "acceptor" and "transducer" are used particularly in language theory where automata are often considered as abstract machines capable of recognising a language (certain sequences of input events). An acceptor has a single Boolean output and accepts or rejects the input sequence by outputting true or false respectively, whereas a transducer translates the input into a sequence of output events. FSMs are used in computability theory and in some practical applications such as regular expressions and digital logic design. See also state transition diagram, Turing Machine.
  • first-cause argument — an argument for the existence of God, asserting the necessity of an uncaused cause of all subsequent series of causes, on the assumption that an infinite regress is impossible.
  • five-elements school — Yin-Yang School.
  • flame-fusion process — Verneuil process.
  • fontainebleau school — a group of artists, many of them Italian and Flemish, who worked on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau in the 16th century.
  • for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
  • force-field analysis — a decision-making technique, often presented graphically, that identifies all the positive and negative forces impinging on a problem
  • frosting on the cake — a sweet mixture, cooked or uncooked, for coating or filling cakes, cookies, and the like; icing.
  • general public virus — (software, legal)   A pejorative name for some versions of the GNU project copyleft or General Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or application programs incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same terms as GNU code. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft "infects" software generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code.
  • generative semantics — a theory of generative grammar holding that the deep structure of a sentence is equivalent to its semantic representation, from which the surface structure can then be derived using only one set of rules that relate underlying meaning and surface form rather than separate sets of semantic and syntactic rules.
  • glucosamine sulphate — a compound used in some herbal remedies and dietary supplements, esp to strengthen joint cartilage
  • good driver discount — A good driver discount is a discount on insurance that is available to drivers who have no at-fault accidents and no traffic offenses during a particular period.
  • gravimetric analysis — analysis by weight.
  • great-circle sailing — sailing between two points more or less according to an arc of a great circle, in practice almost always using a series of rhumb lines of different bearings to approximate the arc, whose own bearing changes constantly unless it coincides with a meridian or the equator.
  • green light district — an area in which prostitution is officially tolerated
  • group life insurance — a form of life insurance available to members of a group, typically employees of a company, under a master policy.
  • hard gelatin capsule — A hard gelatin capsule is a type of capsule that is usually used to contain medicine in the form of dry powder or very small pellets.
  • harmonic minor scale — minor scale (def 1).
  • harmonic progression — a series of numbers the reciprocals of which are in arithmetic progression.
  • have had one's chips — to be defeated, condemned to die, killed, etc
  • heat of condensation — the heat liberated by a unit mass of gas at its boiling point as it condenses to a liquid: equal to the heat of vaporization.
  • holder in due course — a person who has received a negotiable instrument in good faith and without notice that it is overdue, that there is any prior claim, or that there is a defect in the title of the person who negotiated it.
  • horizontal scan rate — (hardware)   (HSR) The measure of how many scan lines of pixels a monitor can display in one second, expressed in kHz (generally somewhere between 20 and 100 kHz). The HSR is controlled by the horizontal sync signal generated by the video controller, but is limited by the speed with which the monitor can scan the electron beam horizontally across the screen and then return it to the beginning of the next line.
  • household appliances — devices or machines, usually electrical, that are in your home and which you use to do jobs such as cleaning or cooking
  • hydraulic suspension — a system of motor-vehicle suspension using hydraulic members, often with hydraulic compensation between front and rear systems (hydroelastic suspension)
  • hyperadrenocorticism — Cushing's syndrome.
  • hyperhomocysteinemia — (medicine) The presence of an excessive amount of homocysteine in the blood.
  • immunohistochemistry — the application of immunologic techniques to the chemical analysis of cells and tissues.
  • in a class by itself — unique
  • in bad circumstances — (of a person) in a bad financial situation
  • in case/just in case — If you do something in case or just in case a particular thing happens, you do it because that thing might happen.
  • in the circumstances — a condition, detail, part, or attribute, with respect to time, place, manner,agent, etc., that accompanies, determines, or modifies a fact or event; a modifying or influencing factor: Do not judge his behavior without considering every circumstance.
  • in-service education — training and education given to employed teachers throughout their career
  • income tax inspector — a person whose job is to assess individuals' income tax liability
  • incomprehensibleness — The state of being incomprehensible.
  • incontrovertibleness — The quality of being incontrovertible.
  • incremental analysis — (testing)   Partial analysis of an incomplete product to allow early feedback on its development.
  • indicated horsepower — the horsepower of a reciprocating engine as shown by an indicator record. Abbreviation: ihp, IHP.
  • inductive statistics — the branch of statistics dealing with conclusions, generalizations, predictions, and estimations based on data from samples.
  • industrial democracy — control of an organization by the people who work for it, esp by workers holding positions on its board of directors
  • industrial insurance — industrial life insurance.
  • inelastic scattering — a scattering of particles due to an inelastic collision that also changes their wavelengths and phases.
  • infectious hepatitis — hepatitis A.
  • insolvency provision — the right of employees of a firm that goes bankrupt or into receivership to receive money owed to them as wages, etc
  • instruction mnemonic — (programming)   A word or acronym used in assembly language to represent a binary machine instruction operation code. Different processors have different instruction sets and therefore use a different set of mnemonics to represent them. E.g. ADD, B (branch), BLT (branch if less than), SVC, MOVE, LDR (load register).
  • instruction prefetch — (architecture)   A technique which attempts to minimise the time a processor spends waiting for instructions to be fetched from memory. Instructions following the one currently being executed are loaded into a prefetch queue when the processor's external bus is otherwise idle. If the processor executes a branch instruction or receives an interrupt then the queue must be flushed and reloaded from the new address. Instruction prefetch is often combined with pipelining in an attempt to keep the pipeline busy. By 1995 most processors used prefetching, e.g. Motorola 680x0, Intel 80x86.
  • insulin-coma therapy — a former treatment for mental illness, especially schizophrenia, employing insulin-induced hypoglycemia as a method for producing convulsive seizures.
  • integrity constraint — (database)   A constraint (rule) that must remain true for a database to preserve data integrity. Integrity constraints are specified at database creation time and enforced by the database management system. Examples from a genealogical database would be that every individual must be their parent's child or that they can have no more than two natural parents.
  • intelligence service — the government department that is responsible for collecting and analyzing information about enemies
  • intercalary meristem — meristem in the internode of a stem.
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