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22-letter words containing y, e, s, m

  • java community process — (project)   (JCP) An organization controlled by Sun Microsystems to further the growth of the Java language and runtime. The JCP produces standards called Java Standard Requests, which are "requests" in the same sense as RFCs.
  • klinefelter's syndrome — an abnormal condition in which at least one extra X chromosome is present in a male: characterized by reduced or absent sperm production, small testicles, and in some cases enlarged breasts.
  • knowledge-based system — (artificial intelligence)   (KBS) A program for extending and/or querying a knowledge base. The related term expert system is normally used to refer to a highly domain-specific type of KBS used for a specialised purpose such as medical diagnosis. The Cyc project is an example of a large KBS.
  • limited access highway — expressway
  • lynx real-time systems — A company in Los Gatos, California who distribute LynxOS. E-mail: <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>. Address: 16780 Lark Avenue, Los Gatos, CA 95030, USA. Telephone:: +1 (408) 354 7770, +1 (800) 255 LYNX. Fax: +1 (408) 354 7085.
  • management consultancy — a company of professionals who are employed to help an organization improve efficiency and performance
  • merry wives of windsor — a comedy (1598–1602?) by Shakespeare.
  • metasyntactic variable — (grammar)   Strictly, a variable used in metasyntax, but often used for any name used in examples and understood to stand for whatever thing is under discussion, or any random member of a class of things under discussion. The word foo is the canonical example. To avoid confusion, hackers never (well, hardly ever) use "foo" or other words like it as permanent names for anything. In filenames, a common convention is that any filename beginning with a metasyntactic-variable name is a scratch file that may be deleted at any time. To some extent, the list of one's preferred metasyntactic variables is a cultural signature. They occur both in series (used for related groups of variables or objects) and as singletons. Here are a few common signatures: bazola, ztesch: Stanford (from mid-'70s on). zxc, spqr, wombat: Cambridge University (England). shme: Berkeley, GeoWorks, Ingres. Pronounced /shme/ with a short /e/. blarg, wibble: New Zealand Of all these, only "foo" and "bar" are universal (and baz nearly so). The compounds foobar and "foobaz" also enjoy very wide currency. Some jargon terms are also used as metasyntactic names; barf and mumble, for example. See also Commonwealth Hackish for discussion of numerous metasyntactic variables found in Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
  • methyl isobutyl ketone — a colorless, slightly water-soluble, flammable liquid, C 6 H 1 2 O, having a pleasant odor: used as a solvent for nitrocellulose, gums, resins, fats, waxes, and oils.
  • microspectrophotometry — a spectrophotometer for examining light emitted, transmitted, or reflected by minute objects.
  • microwave spectroscopy — the determination of those frequencies of the microwave spectrum that are selectively absorbed by certain materials, providing information about atomic, molecular, and crystalline structure.
  • mind your own business — an occupation, profession, or trade: His business is poultry farming.
  • mind-your-own-business — baby's-tears.
  • monday morning disease — azoturia (def 2).
  • mother carey's chicken — any of various small petrels, especially the stormy petrel, Oceanites oceanicus.
  • native language system — (NLS) A set of interfaces specified by X/Open for developing applications to run in different natural language environments.
  • nodal switching system — (NSS) Main routing nodes in the NSFnet backbone.
  • nonmonetary advantages — the beneficial aspects of an employment, such as the stimulation of the work, attractiveness of the workplace, or its nearness to one's home, that do not reflect its financial remuneration
  • oak processionary moth — a moth, (Thaumetopoea processionea), of the family Thaumetopoeidae, the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
  • ousterhout's dichotomy — (language)   John Ousterhout's division of high-level languages into "system programming languages" and "scripting languages". This distinction underlies the design of his language Tcl. System programming languages (or "applications languages") are strongly typed, allow arbitrarily complex data structures, and programs in them are compiled, and are meant to operate largely independently of other programs. Prototypical system programming languages are C and Modula-2. By contrast, scripting languages (or "glue languages") are weakly typed or untyped, have little or no provision for complex data structures, and programs in them ("scripts") are interpreted. Scripts need to interact either with other programs (often as glue) or with a set of functions provided by the interpreter, as with the file system functions provided in a UNIX shell and with Tcl's GUI functions. Prototypical scripting languages are AppleScript, C Shell, MS-DOS batch files and Tcl. Many believe that this is a highly arbitrary dichotomy, and refer to it as "Ousterhout's fallacy" or "Ousterhout's false dichotomy". While strong-versus-weak typing, data structure complexity, and independent versus stand-alone might be said to be unrelated features, the usual critique of Ousterhout's dichotomy is of its distinction of compilation versus interpretation, since neither semantics nor syntax depend significantly on whether code is compiled into machine-language, interpreted, tokenized, or byte-compiled at the start of each run, or any mixture of these. Many languages fall between being interpreted or compiled (e.g. Lisp, Forth, UCSD Pascal, Perl, and Java). This makes compilation versus interpretation a dubious parameter in a taxonomy of programming languages.
  • overstay one's welcome — to stay (at a party, on a visit, etc), longer than pleases the host or hostess
  • passive matrix display — (hardware)   A type of liquid crystal display which relies on persistence to maintain the state of each display element (pixel) between refresh scans. The resolution of such displays is limited by the ratio between the time to set a pixel and the time it takes to fade. Contrast active matrix display.
  • planetary transmission — A planetary transmission is a special form of geared drive in which the input and output shafts are on the same axis.
  • pneumocystis pneumonia — a pulmonary infection caused by the protozoan Pneumocystis carinii, occurring as an opportunistic disease in persons with impaired immune systems, as AIDS victims. Abbreviation: PCP.
  • potassium ferricyanide — a bright-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, K 3 Fe(CN) 6 , used chiefly in the manufacture of pigments, as Prussian blue, and of paper, especially blueprint paper.
  • potassium ferrocyanide — a lemon-yellow, crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 4 Fe(CN) 6 ⋅3H 2 O, used chiefly in casehardening alloys having an iron base and in dyeing wool and silk.
  • preestablished harmony — (in the philosophy of Leibnitz) synchronous operation of all monads, since their simultaneous creation, in accordance with the preexisting plan of God.
  • pressure relief system — A pressure relief system is a device or method for reducing pressure in vessels, stages, or equipment when pressure has increased above a particular limit.
  • process cinematography — cinematography in which the main or foreground action or scene is superimposed on or combined with simulated or separately filmed background action or scenery to produce special visual effects.
  • pulmonary tuberculosis — tuberculosis of the lungs.
  • pyridostigmine bromide — a cholinesterase inhibitor, C 9 H 1 3 BrN 2 O 2 , used in its bromide form in the treatment of myasthenia gravis.
  • research systems, inc. — (RSI) Distributors of Interactive Data Language (IDL).
  • rheumatoid spondylitis — ankylosing spondylitis.
  • rocky mountain oysters — mountain oyster.
  • safety-critical system — A computer, electronic or electromechanical system whose failure may cause injury or death to human beings. E.g. an aircraft or nuclear power station control system. Common tools used in the design of safety-critical systems are redundancy and formal methods. See also aeroplane rule.
  • satisfiability problem — A problem used as an example in complexity theory. It can be stated thus: Given a Boolean expression E, decide if there is some assignment to the variables in E such that E is true. A Boolean expression is composed of Boolean variables, (logical) negation (NOT), (logical) conjunction (AND) and parentheses for grouping. The satisfiability problem was the first problem to be proved to be NP-complete (by Cook).
  • secondary spermatocyte — See under spermatocyte.
  • sick building syndrome — an illness caused by exposure to pollutants or germs inside an airtight building.
  • social security number — A Social Security number is a nine digit number that is given to U.S. citizens and to people living in the U.S. You need it to get a job, collect Social Security benefits and receive some government services.
  • somatic nervous system — the section of the nervous system responsible for sensation and control of the skeletal muscles
  • special delivery stamp — a stamp of special design, having a value indicating an extra fee in addition to the regular postage, and affixed to an item of mail to ensure its special delivery.
  • speckle interferometry — a photographic technique for clarifying the telescopic images of a star by taking short exposures of the electronic images of the star's speckle pattern and extrapolating properties of the starlight to create a more accurate composite image.
  • spectrophotometrically — an instrument for making photometric comparisons between parts of spectra.
  • spherical trigonometry — the branch of trigonometry that deals with spherical triangles.
  • stereospecific polymer — an organic polymer in which the steric arrangements of groups on asymmetric carbon atoms occur in a regular sequence
  • student volunteer army — a students' voluntary organization that aims to undertake useful work in communities, founded in 2010 to help clear up after a damaging earthquake in Christchurch
  • sun microsystems, inc. — (company)   One of the first, and now biggest, US computer manufacturers. They also manufacture in Europe. The Sun-2 and 3 series of workstations and servers were based on the Motorola 680x0 family of microprocessors and the Sun-4 series on the SPARC. Sun also produce their own version of Unix, originally called SunOS and now Solaris. Their Network File System has become the de facto standard for sharing files between Unix systems. Sun own MySQL AB. Sun was bought by Oracle Corporation on 2009-04-20. Quarterly sales $1403M, profits $78M (Aug 1994). Address: 2550 Garcia Ave., Mt. View, CA 94043 -1100 USA.
  • supplementary question — a question asked in Parliament by an MP during Questions to the Prime Minister
  • sweet william catchfly — a southern European plant, Silene armeria, of the pink family, having a flat-topped cluster of pink flowers.
  • sympathetic ophthalmia — inflammation of one eye due to injury or disease of the other eye.
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