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:
“To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it—all my life.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“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)