24-letter words containing s, t, l
- rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
- reciprocal translocation — an exchange of segments between two nonhomologous chromosomes.
- reconnaissance satellite — a military satellite designed to carry out photographic surveillance, gather electronic intelligence, detect nuclear explosions, or provide early warning of strategic-missile launchings.
- referential transparency — (programming) An expression E is referentially transparent if any subexpression and its value (the result of evaluating it) can be interchanged without changing the value of E. This is not the case if the value of an expression depends on global state which can change value. The most common example of changing global state is assignment to a global variable. For example, if y is a global variable in: f(x) { return x+y; } g(z) { a = f(1); y = y + z; return a + f(1); } function g has the "side-effect" that it alters the value of y. Since f's result depends on y, the two calls to f(1) will return different results even though the argument is the same. Thus f is not referentially transparent. Changing the order of evaluation of the statements in g will change its result. We could make f above referentially transparent by passing in y as an argument: f(x, y) = x+y Similarly, g would need to take y as an argument and return its new value as part of the result: g(z, y) { a = f(1, y); y' = y+z; return (a + f(1, y'), y'); } Referentially transparent programs are more amenable to formal methods and easier to reason about because the meaning of an expression depends only on the meaning of its subexpressions and not on the order of evaluation or side-effects of other expressions. We can stretch the concept of referential transparency to include input and output if we consider the whole program to be a function from its input to its output. The program as a whole is referentially transparent because it will always produce the same output when given the same input. This is stretching the concept because the program's input may include what the user types, the content of certain files or even the time of day. If we do not consider global state like the contents of files as input, then writing to a file and reading what was written behaves just like assignment to a global variable. However, if we must consider the state of the universe as an input rather than global state then any deterministic system would be referentially transparent! See also extensional equality, observational equivalence.
- registered general nurse — (in Britain) a nurse who has completed a three-year training course in all aspects of nursing care to enable him or her to be registered with the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery, and Health Visiting
- relative record data set — (database) (RRDS) One of the access methods used by IBM's VSAM.
- renewable term insurance — Renewable term insurance is term life insurance that may be renewed for another period without the policyholder needing to provide further evidence of their insurability.
- repondez s'il vous plait — Répondez s'il vous plait
- republic of south africa — Republic of, a country in S Africa; member of the Commonwealth of Nations until 1961. 472,000 sq. mi. (1,222,480 sq. km). Capitals: Pretoria and Cape Town.
- resale price maintenance — the practice by which a manufacturer establishes a fixed or minimum price for the resale of a brand product by retailers or other distributors
- research and development — the part of a commercial company's activity concerned with applying the results of scientific research to develop new products and improve existing ones
- responsibility allowance — payment made to somebody who has special responsibilities
- robot exclusion standard — standard for robot exclusion
- rose-coloured spectacles — If you look at a person or situation through rose-coloured glasses or rose-tinted glasses, you see only their good points and therefore your view of them is unrealistic. In British English, you can also say that someone is looking through rose-coloured spectacles.
- saint ignatius of loyola — Saint Ignatius of (Iñigo López de Loyola) 1491–1556, Spanish soldier and ecclesiastic: founder of the Society of Jesus.
- santa coloma de gramanet — a city in NE Spain.
- scalable vector graphics — (graphics, web) A W3C standard for vector graphics, based on XML.
- scholastic aptitude test — a standard assessment test for entry into college in the United States
- secondary school teacher — a person who teaches at a secondary school
- selective service system — the U.S. federal agency that facilitates the mobilization of military forces by requiring the registration of males between the ages of 18 and 26 years. Abbreviation: SSS.
- self-extensible language — ["SEL - A Self-Extensible Programming Language", G. Molnar, Computer J 14(3):238-242 (Aug 1971)].
- sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
- serial interface adaptor — (SIA) The Ethernet driver chip used on a Filtabyte Ethernet card.
- set the wheels in motion — If someone sets the wheels in motion, they take the necessary action to make something start happening.
- shenandoah national park — a national park in N Virginia, including part of the Blue Ridge mountain range. 302 sq. mi. (782 sq. km).
- show one's (true) colors — to reveal one's true self
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- simultaneous translation — a form of translation in which the interpreter translates into the target language as quickly as possible while the speaker is still speaking in the source language
- single connection attach — (hardware) (SCA, "Single Connector Attachment") A non-standard type of SCSI connector, used mostly by OEMs, which carries both power and data on one 80-pin connector. SCA SCSI drives tend to be cheaper but use with standard SCSI cables requires an adaptor and external termination.
- single person supplement — an additional sum of money that a hotel charges for one person to stay in a room meant for two people
- single transferable vote — of or relating to a system of voting in which voters list the candidates in order of preference. Any candidate achieving a predetermined proportion of the votes in a constituency is elected. Votes exceeding this amount and those cast for the bottom candidate are redistributed according to the stated preferences. Redistribution continues until all the seats are filled
- skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
- slop oil recovery system — A slop oil recovery system is a method and the equipment used for cleaning and disposing of mixtures of oil, chemicals, and water from various sources in a refinery or oilfield.
- socialist workers' party — one of the biggest extreme left wing parties in Britain
- solution based modelling — (SBM) A software development process described in the book "Developing Object-Oriented Software for the Macintosh" written by Neal Goldstein and Jeff Alger, published by Addison Wesley in 1992.
- south equatorial current — an ocean current, flowing westward, found near the equator in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
- southern british english — the dialect of spoken English regarded as standard in England and considered as having high social status in comparison with other British English dialects. Historically, it is derived from the S East Midland dialect of Middle English
- southern cornstalk borer — the larva of a grass moth, Diatraea crambidoides, occurring in the southeastern U.S. from Maryland to Georgia, that is sometimes a serious pest, especially of corn.
- special checking account — a checking account that requires no minimum balance but in which a small charge is made for each check issued or drawn and for monthly maintenance.
- special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
- split image range finder — a range finder in which opposing halves of a split field move relative to each other and coincide when the object centered in the field is in focus.
- st. kitts-nevis-anguilla — a former British colony (1967–71) in the Leeward Islands, in the E West Indies: comprising St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, and adjacent small islands: a member of the former West Indies Associated States.
- st.-bruno-de-montarville — a town in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Montreal.
- stand in one's own light — to harm one's reputation by acting unwisely
- statistical independence — the condition or state of events or values of being statistically independent.
- sth bodes ill/augurs ill — If something bodes ill or augurs ill, it gives you a reason to fear that something harmful might happen soon.
- stratificational grammar — a grammar based upon the theory that language is made up of successive strata that are interconnected by established rules.
- stratified random sample — a random sample of a population in which the population is first divided into distinct subpopulations, or strata, and random samples are then taken separately from each stratum.
- structural functionalism — functionalism (def 3).
- sulphur-crested cockatoo — a large Australian white parrot, Kakatoe galerita, with a yellow erectile crest