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21-letter words containing s, i, g, n, a

  • consciousness-raising — Psychology. a group-therapy technique in which the aim is to enhance the participants' awareness of their particular needs and goals as individuals or as a group.
  • constantine the great — (Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus"the Great") a.d. 288?–337, Roman emperor 324–337: named Constantinople as the new capital; legally sanctioned Christian worship.
  • conway's game of life — (simulation)   The first popular cellular automata based artificial life simulation. Life was invented by British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970 and was first introduced publicly in "Scientific American" later that year. Conway first devised what he called "The Game of Life" and "ran" it using plates placed on floor tiles in his house. Because of he ran out of floor space and kept stepping on the plates, he later moved to doing it on paper or on a checkerboard and then moved to running Life as a computer program on a PDP-7. That first implementation of Life as a computer program was written by M. J. T. Guy and S. R. Bourne (the author of Unix's Bourne shell). Life uses a rectangular grid of binary (live or dead) cells each of which is updated at each step according to the previous state of its eight neighbours as follows: a live cell with less than two, or more than three, live neighbours dies. A dead cell with exactly three neighbours becomes alive. Other cells do not change. While the rules are fairly simple, the patterns that can arise are of a complexity resembling that of organic systems -- hence the name "Life". Many hackers pass through a stage of fascination with Life, and hackers at various places contributed heavily to the mathematical analysis of this game (most notably Bill Gosper at MIT, who even implemented Life in TECO!; see Gosperism). When a hacker mentions "life", he is more likely to mean this game than the magazine, the breakfast cereal, the 1950s-era board game or the human state of existence.
  • cosmological argument — one of the arguments that purport to prove the existence of God from empirical facts about the universe, esp the argument to the existence of a first cause
  • cosmological constant — a term introduced by Einstein into his field equations of general relativity to permit a stationary, nonexpanding universe: it has since been abandoned in most models of the universe.
  • cross-cousin marriage — marriage between the children of a brother and sister.
  • data set organization — (operating system, storage)   (DSORG) An IBM term for file structure. These include PS physical sequential, DA direct access, IS indexed sequential, PO partitioned (a library). This system dates from OS/360, and breaks down beginning with VSAM and VTAM, where it is no longer applied. Sequential and indexed data sets can be accessed using either a "basic" or a "queued" "access method." For example a DSORG=PS file can use either BSAM (basic sequential access method) or QSAM (queued sequential access method). It can also be processed as a direct file using BDAM. Likewise a library can be processed using BPAM (basic partitioned access method), BSAM, QSAM, or BDAM. DSORG and access method are somewhat, but not completely, orthogonal. The "basic" access method deals with physical blocks rather than records, and usually provides more control over the specific device. Each I/O operation using the "basic" access method reads or writes a single block. A "basic" read or write starts an asynchronous I/O operation, and the programmer is responsible for waiting for completion and checking for errors. The "queued" access method deals with logical records and provides blocking and deblocking services. It is "queued" because it provides read-ahead and write-behind services. While a program is processing records in one input block, for example, QSAM may be reading one or more blocks ahead. Queued "get" or "put" operations are synchronous as far as the programmer is concerned. The operation is complete when the next logical record has been successfully processed. EXCP (Execute Channel Program) is a lower-level method of accessing data. IBM manuals usually named "Data Administration Guide", e.g. SC26-4505-1 for MVS/ESA DFP 3.1, provide more detail about data set organizations and access methods.
  • de-ontological ethics — the branch of ethics dealing with right action and the nature of duty, without regard to the goodness or value of motives or the desirability of the ends of any act.
  • deep scattering layer — any of the stratified zones in the ocean which reflect sound during echo sounding, usually composed of marine organisms which migrate vertically from c. 250 to 800 m (c. 820 to 2,625 ft)
  • delusions of grandeur — If someone has delusions of grandeur, they think and behave as if they are much more important or powerful than they really are.
  • designated employment — (in Britain) any of certain kinds of jobs reserved for handicapped workers under the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944
  • devil's walking-stick — Hercules'-club (sense 1)
  • devil's-walking-stick — Hercules-club (def 2).
  • disassortative mating — the reproductive pairing of individuals that have traits more dissimilar than would likely be the case if mating were random (contrasted with assortative mating).
  • disk operating system — DOS.
  • distant early warning — a US radar detection system to warn of missile attack
  • duccio di buoninsegna — c1255–1319? Italian painter.
  • dumfries and galloway — a region in S Scotland. 2460 sq. mi. (6371 sq. km).
  • eastern daylight time — a time zone applicable to many eastern areas of the United States during the summer months, being a daylight-saving variant of Eastern Standard Time
  • ecological succession — succession (def 6).
  • ecological-succession — the coming of one person or thing after another in order, sequence, or in the course of events: many troubles in succession.
  • educational sociology — the application of sociological principles and methods to the solution of problems in an educational system.
  • electromagnetic pulse — a surge of electromagnetic radiation, esp one resulting from a nuclear explosion, which can disrupt electronic devices and, occasionally, larger structures and equipment
  • empire state building — New York City skyscraper
  • first-round financing — First round financing is the first time a new company raises money from investors.
  • 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.
  • framing specification — A specification of the "protocol bits" that surround the "data bits" on a communications channel to allow the data to be "framed" into chunks, like start and stop bits in EIA-232. It allows a receiver to synchronize at points along the data stream.
  • franco-belgian system — French system.
  • free alongside vessel — (of a shipment of goods) delivered to the dock without charge to the buyer, but excluding the cost of loading onto the vessel
  • fuming sulphuric acid — a mixture of pyrosulphuric acid, H2S2O7, and other condensed acids, made by dissolving sulphur trioxide in concentrated sulphuric acid
  • gas analysis recorder — A gas analysis recorder is a device which samples, records, and analyses gas.
  • gastrohepatic omentum — lesser omentum.
  • gaussian distribution — normal distribution
  • gender disappointment — a feeling of depression or anxiety experienced by an expectant parent when the gender of the baby does not match his or her preference
  • general of the armies — a special rank held by John J. Pershing, equivalent to general of the army.
  • get in someone's hair — any of the numerous fine, usually cylindrical, keratinous filaments growing from the skin of humans and animals; a pilus.
  • gideons international — an interdenominational lay society organized in 1899 to place Bibles in hotel rooms.
  • give place to someone — to make room for or be superseded by someone
  • give sb a green light — If someone in authority gives you a green light, they give you permission to do something.
  • give sb the runaround — If someone gives you the runaround, they deliberately do not give you all the information or help that you want, and send you to another person or place to get it.
  • give someone a leg up — to help someone to climb an obstacle by pushing upwards
  • give someone a tinkle — to call someone on the telephone
  • give someone his head — to allow a person greater freedom or responsibility
  • give someone the gate — a movable barrier, usually on hinges, closing an opening in a fence, wall, or other enclosure.
  • go (in) to bat for sb — If you go to bat for someone or go in to bat for them, you give them your support.
  • gold bullion standard — a gold standard in which gold is not coined but may be purchased at a fixed price for foreign exchange.
  • great smoky mountains — the W part of the Appalachians, in W North Carolina and E Tennessee. Highest peak: Clingman's Dome, 2024 m (6642 ft)
  • greater sunda islands — a group of islands in the W Malay Archipelago, forming the larger part of the Sunda Islands: consists of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and Sulawesi
  • greenwich observatory — the national astronomical observatory of Great Britain, housed in a castle in E Sussex; formerly located at Greenwich.
  • guaranteed scheduling — (algorithm)   A scheduling algorithm used in multitasking operating systems that guarantees fairness by monitoring the amount of CPU time spent by each user and allocating resources accordingly.
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