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20-letter words containing s, d

  • basic encoding rules — (protocol, standard)   (BER) ASN.1 encoding rules for producing self-identifying and self-delimiting transfer syntax for data structures described in ASN.1 notations. BER is an self-identifying and self-delimiting encoding scheme, which means that each data value can be identified, extracted and decoded individually. Huw Rogers once described BER as "a triumph of bloated theory over clean implementation". He also criticises it as designed around bitstreams with arbitrary boundaries between data which can only be determined at a high level. Documents: ITU-T X.690, ISO 8825-1. See also CER, DER, PER.
  • basic lead carbonate — ceruse.
  • basic object adapter — (architecture)   (BOA) Part of the CORBA architecture.
  • be hard pushed to do — If you are hard pushed to do something, you find it very difficult to do it.
  • beat around the bush — to talk around a subject without getting to the point
  • beaverhead mountains — a mountain range on the border of E Idaho and SW Montana, in the Bitterroot Range. 10,961 feet (3343 meters).
  • belgian shepherd dog — a medium-sized well-proportioned dog of a breed that resembles an Alsatian in appearance and is often used as a sheepdog or a guard dog
  • belgorod-dnestrovski — a port in SW Ukraine, on the Dniester estuary: belonged to Romania from 1918 until 1940; under Soviet rule (1944–91). Pop: 48 100 (2004 est)
  • belgorod-dnestrovsky — a seaport in SW Ukraine, on the Black Sea.
  • benzenesulfonic acid — a fine, needlelike substance, C 6 H 6 SO 3 , used chiefly as a catalyst and in the synthesis of phenol, resorcinol, and other organic products.
  • bernese mountain dog — a strong sturdy dog of a breed with a bushy tail and a long silky black coat with reddish-brown and white markings, often used as a working farm dog
  • bimodal distribution — a frequency distribution with two modes
  • binge-purge syndrome — bulimia.
  • biological diversity — Biological diversity is the same as biodiversity.
  • bird-footed dinosaur — theropod.
  • black lung (disease) — a disease of the lungs caused by the inhalation of coal dust; anthracosis
  • blood on one's hands — If you say that someone has a person's blood on their hands, you mean that they are responsible for that person's death.
  • bloodless revolution — the events of 1688–89 by which James II was expelled and the sovereignty conferred on William and Mary.
  • blue ridge mountains — a mountain range in the eastern US, extending from West Virginia into Georgia: part of the Appalachian mountains. Highest peak: Mount Mitchell, 2038 m (6684 ft)
  • blue screen of death — (humour)   (BSOD) The infamous white-on-blue text screen which appears when Microsoft Windows crashes. BSOD is mostly seen on the 16-bit systems such as Windows 3.1, but also on Windows 95 and apparently even under Windows NT 4. It is most likely to be caused by a GPF, although Windows 95 can do it if you've removed a required CD-ROM from the drive. It is often impossible to recover cleanly from a BSOD. The acronym BSOD is sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "Windoze just keeps BSODing on me today".
  • board of supervisors — the governing body of a county in many U.S. states, especially in the Midwest and the East, consisting of from 15 to 100 members elected from towns, townships, cities, or wards.
  • bomb disposal expert — an expert in bomb disposal
  • bone mineral density — a measurement of the amount of calcium and other minerals in a segment of bone, a higher mineral content indicating a higher bone density and strength, used to detect osteoporosis or monitor its treatment.
  • bottle-nosed dolphin — any of several dolphins of the genus Tursiops, common in North Atlantic and Mediterranean waters, having a rounded forehead and well-defined beak.
  • bouvier des flandres — any of a breed of large, strong dog with a rough, wiry coat and pointed, erect ears
  • breadth-first search — (algorithm)   A graph search algorithm which tries all one-step extensions of current paths before trying larger extensions. This requires all current paths to be kept in memory simultaneously, or at least their end points. Opposite of depth-first search. See also best first search.
  • breakfast and dinner — Breakfast and dinner is a system of accommodations in a hotel or guest house, in which you pay for a room and breakfast and dinner the following day.
  • bring down the house — to receive enthusiastic applause from the audience
  • bring the house down — to win great applause
  • brittle bone disease — bone disorder
  • broadcast journalism — journalism as practiced in radio and television.
  • broadcasting station — a television or radio station
  • broaden o's/the mind — If an experience broadens your mind, it makes you more willing to accept other people's beliefs and customs.
  • brown lung (disease) — a chronic disease of the lungs caused by inhalation of fine textile fibers, esp. cotton; byssinosis
  • brown recluse spider — a very poisonous, medium-sized spider (Loxosceles reclusa), common in the U.S., having a violin-shaped mark on its cephalothorax and only six eyes
  • bundle of isoglosses — bundle (def 6).
  • by fits (and starts) — in an irregular way; in bursts of activity followed by periods of inactivity
  • caesar and cleopatra — a comedy (1898) by G. B. Shaw.
  • call a spade a spade — to speak plainly and frankly
  • can do sth blindfold — If you say that you can do something blindfold, you are emphasizing that you can do it easily, for example because you have done it many times before.
  • card up one's sleeve — a plan or resource kept secret or held in reserve
  • carl friedrich gauss — (person)   A German mathematician (1777 - 1855), one of all time greatest. Gauss discovered the method of least squares and Gaussian elimination. Gauss was something of a child prodigy; the most commonly told story relates that when he was 10 his teacher, wanting a rest, told his class to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100. Gauss did it in seconds, having noticed that 1+...+100 = 100+...+1 = (101+...+101)/2. He did important work in almost every area of mathematics. Such eclecticism is probably impossible today, since further progress in most areas of mathematics requires much hard background study. Some idea of the range of his work can be obtained by noting the many mathematical terms with "Gauss" in their names. E.g. Gaussian elimination (linear algebra); Gaussian primes (number theory); Gaussian distribution (statistics); Gauss [unit] (electromagnetism); Gaussian curvature (differential geometry); Gaussian quadrature (numerical analysis); Gauss-Bonnet formula (differential geometry); Gauss's identity (hypergeometric functions); Gauss sums (number theory). His favourite area of mathematics was number theory. He conjectured the Prime Number Theorem, pioneered the theory of quadratic forms, proved the quadratic reciprocity theorem, and much more. He was "the first mathematician to use complex numbers in a really confident and scientific way" (Hardy & Wright, chapter 12). He nearly went into architecture rather than mathematics; what decided him on mathematics was his proof, at age 18, of the startling theorem that a regular N-sided polygon can be constructed with ruler and compasses if and only if N is a power of 2 times a product of distinct Fermat primes.
  • cartesian coordinate — Usually, Cartesian coordinates. a member of a system of coordinates for locating a point on a plane (Cartesian plane) by its distance from each of two intersecting lines, or in space by its distance from each of three planes intersecting at a point.
  • case based reasoning — (artificial intelligence)   (CBR) A technique for problem solving which looks for previous examples which are similar to the current problem. This is useful where heuristic knowledge is not available. There are many situations where experts are not happy to be questioned about their knowledge by people who want to write the knowledge in rules, for use in expert systems. In most of these situations, the natural way for an expert to describe his or her knowledge is through examples, stories or cases (which are all basically the same thing). Such an expert will teach trainees about the expertise by apprenticeship, i.e. by giving examples and by asking the trainees to remember them, copy them and adapt them in solving new problems if they describe situations that are similar to the new problems. CBR aims to exploit such knowledge. Some key research areas are efficient indexing, how to define "similarity" between cases and how to use temporal information.
  • casing head pressure — The casing head pressure is the pressure on the casing, which is measured at the wellhead.
  • cat's-tail speedwell — a widely cultivated Eurasian plant, Veronica spicata, of the figwort family, having blue flowers in long, spikelike clusters.
  • catherine de medicis — (Caterina de' Medici) 1518–89, queen of Henry II of France (mother of Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III).
  • cavendish experiment — the experiment, conducted by Henry Cavendish, that determined the constant of gravitation by using a torsion balance and measuring the torsion produced by two masses placed at given distances from the masses on the balance.
  • central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
  • change-speed gearbox — A change-speed gearbox is a set of movable or constant gears which allows the speed ratio between input and output shafts to be changed either manually or automatically.
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