. login
A hidden file containing a shell script. If you use the C shell, this script runs automatically every time you log in.

L2CAP:
Logical Link and Control Adaptation Protocol (a Bluetooth Specific Protocol).

label
Part of a DNS domain name, corresponding to a component within a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN)

Labview
A package from National Instruments Corp originally developed to provide a graphical interface to instruments connected by the IEEE 488 IEEE-488 (GPIB) bus. It has powerful graphical editing facilities for defining and interconnecting "virtual instruments".

LAMPF
Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (An 800 MeV proton and negative H ion high-current LINAC, 1mA average, 12mA peak).

LAN
Local area network Local-area-network

LAN
Local Area Network: A network designed to move data between stations within a campus.

LAN
See Local Area Network (LAN) /.

LAN:
Local Area Network.

LANE LAN Emulation: The set of services, functional groups and protocols which provide for the emulation of LANS utilizing ATM as a backbone to allow connectivity among LAN and ATM attached end stations.

Language-Based Editor
An editor that is aware of the syntactic, semantic and in some cases the structural rules of a specific programming language and provides a framework for the user to enter source code. Programs or changes to previously stored programs are incrementally parsed into an abstract syntax tree and automatically checked for correctness.

LANL
Los Alamos National Laboratory - Los Alamos, NM, USA - .

LAPD
Link Access Procedure D: A layer 2 protocol defined by CCITT (original name of ITU-T). This protocol reliably transfers blocks of information across a single Layer 1 link and supports multiplexing of different connections at Layer 2.

laser printer
A printer that works like a photocopying machine, except that, rather than a paper original, the information to copy is drawn on the drum by a laser. Pretty cool

LaTeX
A document preparation system based on TeX TeX, popular in the HEP community. It adds a collection of commands to simplify typesetting, and lets the user concentrate on the structure of the text rather than on formatting commands - . /TeX

Layer Entity
An active element within a layer.

Layer Function
A part of the activity of the layer entities.

Layer Service
A capability of a layer and the layers beneath it that is provided to the upper layer entities at the boundary between that layer and the next higher layer.

Layer User Data
Data transferred between corresponding entities on behalf of the upper layer or layer management entities for which they are providing services.

LB
Leaky Bucket: Leaky Bucket is the term used as an analogous description of the algorithm used for conformance checking of cell flows from a user or network. See GCRA, UPC and NPC. The "leaking hole in the bucket" applies to the sustained rate at which cells can be accommodated, while the "bucket depth" applies to the tolerance to cell bursting over a given time period.

LBE
Language-Based Editor Language-Based-Editor.

LBL
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.

LBO
See line buildout (LBO) /.

LCF
Logic for Computable Functions. A system for interactive automated reasoning.

LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.

LDAP
See Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) /.

LE
LAN Emulation. Refer to LANE.

LE_ARP
LAN Emulation Address Resolution Protocol: A message issued by a LE client to solicit the ATM address of another function.

Leadership Priority
The priority with which a logical node wishes to be elected peer group leader of its peer group. Generally, of all nodes in a peer group, the one with the highest leadership priority will be elected as peer group leader.

Leaky Bucket
An informal term for the Generic Cell Rate Algorithm.

LEAR
Low Energy Antiproton Ring.

LEC
LAN Emulation Client: The entity in end systems which performs data forwarding, address resolution, and other control functions.

LEC
Local Exchange Carrier: A telephone company affiliate of a Regional Bell Operating Company or an Independent Telephone Company.

LECID
LAN Emulation Client Identifier: This identifier, contained in the LAN Emulation header, indicates the ID of the ATM host or ATM-LAN bridge. It is unique for every ATM Client.

LECS
LAN Emulation Configuration Server: This implements the policy controlled assignment of individual LE clients to different emulated LANs by providing the LES ATM addresses.

LED
See Light Emitting Diode (LED) /.

LEDA
Library of Efficient Data types and Algorithms. A class library Class-libraryfor C++ C++with graph classes from Uni Saarbruecken.

Legacy
Legacy system is a term used to describe old software systems still in use but which could benefit from re-engineering using more modern methods.

legacy method
A method developed by some means other than the current version of ADE /a; for example, a C program, a shell script or other non-CORBA /c-compatible routine.

LEP
Large Electron Positron Collider. A 27km circumference accelerator at CERN /, which brings bunches of electrons and positrons into collision.

LES
LAN Emulation Server: This implements the control coordination function for the Emulated LAN, examples are enabling a LEC to join an ELAN, resolving MAC to ATM addresses.

lex
A lexical analysis tool for the UNIX UNIX environment.

LGN
Logical Group Node: LGN is a single node that represents the lowest level peer groups in the respective higher level peer group.

LHC
Large Hadron Collider: proposed to be built in the LEP LEP tunnel at CERN /.

library object (LO)
A common source of information about the known types of objects /o. There is one library object per TMR /t.

Library Object Adapter (LOA)
Library routines which provide an interface to ORB /o services that is convenient for the library object / implementation.

Lifecycle
See Life-Cycle Life-Cycle.

Life-Cycle
The software life-cycle consists of phases: requirements analysis, design, construction, testing and maintenance. The development process tends to run iteratively through these phases rather than linearly; several models (spiral, waterfall etc) have been proposed to describe this process.

LIFIA
Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale et d'Intelligence Artificielle.

LIFN
Location Independent File Name

Light Emitting Diode (LED)
A diode, or two-state device, that emits light in one state ("on") and does not emit light in the other ("off"). LEDs are used to indicate problems or diagnostic codes.

LIGHT
LIfecycle Global HyperText. A project in the CERN ECP/IPT group /CERN/Divisions/ECP/PT/Welcome whereby documents resulting from the software life cycle are available as hypertext - . /Light/

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
A protocol (defined in RFC 1777 ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1777.txt and RFC 2251 ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2251.txt) for user information suitable for address books or phone books, based on the OSI /o X.500 /x standard.

LIJP
Leaf Initiated Joint Parameter: Root screening options and Information Element (IE) instructions carried in SETUP message.

Linda
A portable parallel language to simplify parallel programming. Extensions to C and Fortran, available from Scientific Computing Associates, Inc. - . /Linda

line buildout (LBO)
Engineering or designing the interface between two telecommunications devices, such as Private Branch eXchanges (PBX) /p.

line editor
A text editor that deals with text one line at a time. Most modern text editors let you see and work with the file an entire screen at a time. The ed program is a line editor; we recommend that you use something better.

Linearity
Comparison of a character size to the size of adjacent characters.

Link Aggregation Token
Refer to Aggregation Token.

link
An additional name for a file. When you create a file, you create its contents,which are stored on the disk somewhere, and you give it a name, which is stored in a directory. There is a connection between the filename and its contents. You can create additional filenames and connect them to the same contents using the ln command.

Link
An entity that defines a topological relationship (including available transport capacity) between two nodes in different subnetworks. Multiple links may exist between a pair of subnetworks. Synonymous with logical link.

Link Attribute
A link state parameter that is considered individually to determine whether a given link is acceptable and/or desirable for carrying a given connection.

Link Connection
A link connection (e.g., at the VP-level) is a connection capable of transferring information transparently across a link without adding any overhead, such as cells for purposes for monitoring. It is delineated by connection points at the boundary of the subnetwork.

Link Constraint
A restriction on the use of links for path selection for a specific connection.

Link Metric
A link parameter that requires the values of the parameter for all links along a given path to be combined to determine whether the path is acceptable and/or desirable for carrying a given connection.

link see Hypertext Hypertext

Link State Parameter
Information that captures an aspect or property of a link.

lint A
C language preprocessor which carries out more thorough checks on the code than is usual with C compilers themselves.

Linux
An implementation of UNIX UNIX written from scratch with no proprietary code for IBM PC compatibles by Linus Torvalds and distributed under the GNU GNUpublic licence - . /Linux

LISP
A List Processing Language suitable for symbolic and logical programming - .

LispView CLOS
CLOS based windowing system on OpenWindows OpenWindows.

Literate programming
Combining the use of a language such as TeX TeX and a conventional programming language, so as to maintain documentation and source together - . /Litprog

LitProg
Literate Programming Literate-Programming

Lml
A functional language functional-language(Johnson 1984).

LMP:
Link Manager Protocol is the layer of the Bluetooth protocol stack responsible for the set up of the link between Bluetooth devices. This includes security aspects (authentication, encryption), the control and negotiation of packet sizes, power mode control and connection states of a Bluetooth unit in a piconet.

LNNI LANE NNI:
The standardized interface between two LAN servers (LES-LES, BUS-BUS, LECS-LECS and LECS-LES).

LO
See library object (LO) /.

LOA
See Library Object Adapter (LOA) /.

LOC
Line of code. Used as a simple software metric.

LOC
Loss of Cell Delineation: A condition at the receiver or a maintenance signal transmitted in the PHY overhead indicating that the receiving equipment has lost cell delineation. Used to monitor the performance of the PHY layer.

Local Area Network (LAN)
A network of machines generally limited to a local area, such as one or more floors of a building, or nearby buildings. See also network /n, Wide Area Network (WAN) /w.

Local Area Network (LAN)
A network that is restricted to a local area-a single building, group of buildings, or even a single room. A LAN often has only one server, but can have many if desired.

Local Area Network Usually abbreviated to LAN:
a communications network which is geographically limited (typically to a 1 km. radius) allowing easy interconnection of terminals, microprocessors and computers within adjacent buildings. Ethernet and FDDI are examples of standard LANs.

Local mount
To logically connect several disk drives on the same machine so that they appear as one file system.

Local Procedure Call (LPC)
A mechanism that loops remote procedure call without the presence of a network so that the client and server portion of an application can reside on the same machine. Local procedure calls look like remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the client and server sides of a distributed application.

Local Support Center (LSC)
A regional or local support center, containing one or more personnel, responsible for local hands-on support of network-related equipment.

Locus
A distributed system project supporting transparent access to data through a network-wide file system.

LOF Loss of Frame:
A condition at the receiver or a maintenance signal transmitted in the PHY overhead indicating that the receiving equipment has lost frame delineation. This is used to monitor the performance of the PHY layer.

Log in
To identify yourself to the Unix system and provide your password so that Unix believes that it's really you and lets you use the computer. You have a login ID, or user ID, or user name, that is the name by which Unix knows you. When you finish working you log out.

Logic Programming
Programming in a language such as Prolog Prolog, which allows the programmer to make a series of assertions which are interpreted by an inference engine inference-engine -

Logical Group Node
A logical node that represents a lower level peer group as a single point for purposes of operating at one level of the PNNI routing hierarchy.

Logical Link
An abstract representation of the connectivity between two logical nodes. This includes individual physical links, individual virtual path connections, and parallel physical links and/or virtual path connections.

Logical Node
An abstract representation of a peer group or a switching system as a single point.

Logical Node ID
A string of bits that unambiguously identifies a logical node within a routing domain.

Login directory
See home directory.

LOGISCOPE
Software quality analysis tools from Verilog SA, used to evaluate the quality of software both statically (based on software metrics) and dynamically - . /PTTOOL/Logiscope/Tool

Lojban
An artificial language designed to be used by people in communication with each other, and possibly in the future with computers -

Looking Glass A
desktop manager desktop-manager for UNIX from Visix.

Lookup
Looking up an IP address from its name in DNS See also reverse lookup .

Loop A set of JavaScript statements that is executed a number of times or until a certain condition is met.

LOOPS
Lisp Lisp Object-oriented Object-oriented Programming System from Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.

LOP
Loss of Pointer: A condition at the receiver or a maintenance signal transmitted in the PHY overhead indicating that the receiving equipment has lost the pointer to the start of cell in the payload. This is used to monitor the performance of the PHY layer.

LOS
Loss of Signal: A condition at the receiver or a maintenance signal transmitted in the PHY overhead indicating that the receiving equipment has lost the received signal. This is used to monitor the performance of the PHY layer.

LOTOS
A formal description technique used for protocol specfication in ISO ISO OSI OSI standards (ISO 8807).

LPF Low Pass Filter:
In an MPEG-2 clock recovery circuit, it is a technique for smoothing or averaging changes to the system clock.

LSAP Link Service Access Point:
Logical address of boundary between layer 3 and LLC sublayer 2.

LSB Least Significant Bit:
The lowest order bit in the binary representation of a numerical value.

LSC
See Local Support Center (LSC) /.

LSE
Language Sensitive Editor: from DEC .

LSR Leaf Setup Request:
A setup message type used when a leaf node requests connection to existing point-to-multipoint connection or requests creation of a new multipoint connection.

LT Lower Tester:
The representation in ISO/IEC 9646 of the means of providing, during test execution, indirect control and observation of the lower service boundary of the IUT using the underlying service provider.

LTE SONET Lite Terminating Equipment:
ATM equipment terminating a communications facility using a SONET Lite Transmission Convergence (TC) layer. This is usually reserved for end user or LAN equipment. The SONET Lite TC does not implement some of the maintenance functions used in long haul networks such as termination of path, line and section overhead.

LUNI LANE UNI:
The standardized interface between a LE client and a LE Server (LES,LECS and BUS).

LYNX
A UNIX program which allows character based terminals to access websites. Lynx users do not ordinarily see the graphics on a web page.

Lynx A WWW
WWW browser from University of Kansas - . See also LynxOS

LynxOS A POSIX
POSIX compliant real-time real-time operating system from Lynx Real-Time Systems, Los Gatos, California, with a UNIX UNIX-like interface to application programs.

LZW Lempel-Ziv-Welch
data compression compression algorithm.