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24-letter words containing t, a, m, p

  • european monetary system — the system used in the European Union for stabilizing exchange rates between the currencies of member states and financing the balance-of-payments support mechanism. The original Exchange Rate Mechanism was formed in 1979 but superseded in 1999 when the euro was adopted as official currency of 11 EU member states. A new exchange rate mechanism (ERM II) based on the euro is used to regulate the currencies of participating states that have not adopted the euro
  • evolutionary computation — Computer-based problem solving systems that use computational models of evolutionary processes as the key elements in design and implementation. A number of evolutionary computational models have been proposed, including evolutionary algorithms, genetic algorithms, the evolution strategy, evolutionary programming, and artificial life.
  • evolutionary programming — (EP) A stochastic optimisation strategy originally conceived by Lawrence J. Fogel in 1960. An initially random population of individuals (trial solutions) is created. Mutations are then applied to each individual to create new individuals. Mutations vary in the severity of their effect on the behaviour of the individual. The new individuals are then compared in a "tournament" to select which should survive to form the new population. EP is similar to a genetic algorithm, but models only the behavioural linkage between parents and their offspring, rather than seeking to emulate specific genetic operators from nature such as the encoding of behaviour in a genome and recombination by genetic crossover. EP is also similar to an evolution strategy (ES) although the two approaches developed independently. In EP, selection is by comparison with a randomly chosen set of other individuals whereas ES typically uses deterministic selection in which the worst individuals are purged from the population.
  • family income supplement — a benefit formerly paid to low-income families
  • floating decimal (point) — a decimal (point) whose position is not fixed
  • free and accepted masons — a member of a widely distributed secret order (Free and Accepted Masons) having for its object mutual assistance and the promotion of brotherly love among its members.
  • frequent shopper program — A frequent shopper program is one that rewards customers for purchases made on multiple visits, and builds up points entitling them to reduced prices and free items.
  • frequent-flyer programme — a plan or system under which frequent flyers earn rewards for being regular customers
  • geographical determinism — the theory that human activity is determined by geographical conditions
  • graduated pension scheme — (between 1961 and 1975) an earnings-related pension scheme which was based on the amount of an employee's National Insurance contributions
  • hairdressing appointment — an appointment to have your hair cut, styled, coloured, etc, at a hairdresser
  • have had a drop too much — to be drunk
  • have the drop on someone — to have the advantage over someone
  • high performance fortran — (language)   (HPF) A data parallel language extension to Fortran 90 which provides a portable programming interface for a wide variety of target platforms. The original HPF language specification was produced by the High Performance Fortran Forum, a broad consortium of industry and academia, which met regularly throughout 1992 and early 1993. HPF compilers are now available on most commonly-used computing systems, and users are beginning to gain first hand experience with this language. The Forum has continued to meet in order to address advanced topics.
  • high performance routing — (networking)   (HPR) Routing designed to work in conjunction with APPN Intermediate Session Routing (ISR) network nodes. HPR nodes perform many of the same functions as ISR nodes. For example, HPR nodes use the same method of calculating routes based on the Topology Routing Service database and class of service tables. HPR nodes also supports such APPN features as connection networks and support for parallel transmission groups (TGs). In the HPR architecture, both partner nodes must support HPR for RTP connections to take place between the nodes. If one node supports HPR and the partner node does not, then the link will support ISR functionality only.
  • homolographic projection — an equal-area projection in which the proportion between regions of unequal area is correctly shown.
  • human potential movement — a movement in psychology that includes group therapy, encounter therapy, primal therapy, etc., is based mainly on Freudian and Gestalt psychology, and is aimed at self-realization
  • human-computer interface — (software, hardware)   (HCI) Any software or hardware that allows a user to interact with a computer. Examples are WIMP, command-line interpreter, or virtual reality. See also Human-Computer Interaction.
  • hyperbetalipoproteinemia — An abnormally high level of betalipoprotein in the blood.
  • implicit differentiation — a method of finding the derivative of an implicit function by taking the derivative of each term with respect to the independent variable while keeping the derivative of the dependent variable with respect to the independent variable in symbolic form and then solving for that derivative.
  • incomplete metamorphosis — insect development, as in the grasshopper and cricket, in which the change is gradual and characterized by the absence of a pupal stage. Compare complete metamorphosis.
  • information superhighway — internet
  • komi autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the NW Russian Federation in Europe. 145,221 sq. mi. (376,122 sq. km). Capital: Syktyvkar.
  • lab for computer science — MIT. http://lcs.mit.edu/.
  • liquid components of gas — Liquid components of gas are associated hydrocarbons in natural gas, which include ethane, propane, and butane.
  • machine independent sail — (MAINSAIL) From XIDAK, Palo Alto CA, +1 (415) 855 9271.
  • make a production out of — to make an unnecessary fuss about
  • make one's presence felt — If you make your presence felt, you do something which makes people notice you or pay attention to you.
  • mari autonomous republic — autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Europe. 8994 sq. mi. (23,294 sq. km). Capital: Ioshkar-Ola.
  • master-slave manipulator — any of various devices, guided by the hand of the operator, for imitating the motions and tactile sensitivity of the human hand to a greater or lesser extent: used in situations in which direct handling of the objects or materials involved would be dangerous or impossible.
  • mathematical expectation — Mathematics. the product of the probability of the occurrence of an event and the value associated with the occurrence of a given event.
  • mathematical probability — the probability of an event consisting of n out of m possible equally likely occurrences, defined to be n/m
  • minister plenipotentiary — plenipotentiary.
  • multiple virtual storage — (operating system)   (MVS) Release 2 of OS/VS2, called MVS because it had multiple 16 MB virtual address spaces, in contrast to SVS. MVS ran on the IBM 390 series mainframes. It became MVS/SP, then MVS/XA (with 31-bit addressing) and then MVS/ESA. MVS/Open Edition (MVS/OE), aimed at the growing open systems market, added TCP/IP and Unix support in an MVS address space, allowing users to run IBM, CICS-type applications, batch applications and Unix. MVS/ESA was repackaged as OS/390 as a marketing exercise but it's basically the same thing. Version: 5.1.
  • multiple-valued function — function (def 4b).
  • mutual insurance company — an insurance company owned by the policyholders and not by shareholders
  • network operating system — (operating system)   (NOS) The operating system on Control Data Corporation's Cyber Computer.
  • nonparametric statistics — the branch of statistics that studies data measurable on an ordinal or nominal scale, to which arithmetic operations cannot be applied
  • not ready for prime time — Usable, but only just so; not very robust; for internal use only. Said of a program or device. Often connotes that the thing will be made more solid Real Soon Now. This term comes from the ensemble name of the original cast of "Saturday Night Live", the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players". It has extra flavour for hackers because of the special (though now semi-obsolescent) meaning of prime time. Compare beta.
  • open system architecture — (operating system)   (OSA) A competitor to IBM's SNA.
  • operational requirements — (programming)   Qualitative and quantitative parameters that specify the desired capabilities of a system and serve as a basis for determining the operational effectiveness and suitability of a system prior to deployment.
  • parallel virtual machine — (parallel, networking, tool)   (PVM) 1. A software system designed to allow a network of heterogeneous machines to be used as a single distributed parallel processor. PVM was developed by the University of Tennessee, The Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Emory University. 2. The intermediate language used by the Gambit compiler for Scheme.
  • parliamentary government — government by a body of cabinet ministers who are chosen from and responsible to the legislature and act as advisers to a nominal chief of state.
  • people's liberation army — See under Huk (def 1).
  • permeability coefficient — the volume of an incompressible fluid that will flow in unit time through a unit cube of a porous substance across which a unit pressure difference is maintained
  • photomechanical transfer — a method of producing photographic prints or offset printing plates from paper negatives by a chemical transfer process rather than by exposure to light
  • phrase-structure grammar — a grammar that consists of phrase-structure rules.
  • physiological atmosphere — ecosphere.
  • polymer matrix composite — A polymer matrix composite is a material consisting of a composite made stronger by adding fibers or particles to it.
  • portable document format — (file format)   (PDF) The native file format for Adobe Systems' Acrobat. PDF is the file format for representing documents in a manner that is independent of the original application software, hardware, and operating system used to create those documents. A PDF file can describe documents containing any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device-independent and resolution independent format. These documents can be one page or thousands of pages, very simple or extremely complex with a rich use of fonts, graphics, colour, and images.
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