Data Analysis
When the domain from which data are harvested is a science or engineering field, the terms data processing and information systems are considered too broad, and the more specialized term data analysis is typically used. Data analysis, arguably a special kind of data processing, focusses on highly-specialized and highly-accurate algorithmic derivations and statistical calculations that are less often observed in the typical general business environment.
A divergence of culture between data processing in general and data analysis is exhibited in the numerical representations generally used; In data processing, measurements are typically stored as integers, fixed-point or binary-coded decimal representations of numbers, whereas the majority of measurements in data analysis are stored as floating-point representations of rational numbers.
For data analysis, packages like DAP, gretl or PSPP are often used.
Read more about this topic: Computer Data Processing
Famous quotes containing the words data and/or analysis:
“Mental health data from the 1950’s on middle-aged women showed them to be a particularly distressed group, vulnerable to depression and feelings of uselessness. This isn’t surprising. If society tells you that your main role is to be attractive to men and you are getting crow’s feet, and to be a mother to children and yours are leaving home, no wonder you are distressed.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“Ask anyone committed to Marxist analysis how many angels on the head of a pin, and you will be asked in return to never mind the angels, tell me who controls the production of pins.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)