Bits and Bytes

Figure 5-3. a) Main organization of a database or container the basic units of a field are bits and bytes, b) Example of data organization in a flat-file. 

The previous discussion concentrated on arithmetical operations by computing in binary numbers represented as bits and bytes. However, other computer functions also use bytes of information. 

Migrating only the raw data - the characters, numbers, bits, and bytes - forward is not enough to ensure usability. The meta data and the context for the application or database must also be migrated forward. Meta data are the code to the machine-stored bits and bytes. Meta data are the data about the data. They describe the data in the database. The meta data documentation describes the method of data capture, the application used to access the data, security rules for the tables and columns, and other descriptive and procedural information. For derived or calculated data, the algorithm or protocol that was used must be known. The documentation then becomes something else that must be preserved. Without the meta data, the reader will only see a series of alphabetic characters. Without the entire described context associated with the data, the data have no meaning. 

To a computer scientist, VS is nothing but another text mining, only the bits and bytes stored that contain molecular information adopt a format quite different from natural language and without adequate warning cannot be quickly interpreted. It is not that modem day text does not contain text that is not natural language, but that they are adequately flagged and do not stop the NLP software. For example,... 

Size, in computer terms, uses idiosyncratic units in addition to the bit and byte. Outside the world of computing, the prefixes kilo, mega, giga, and tera ordinarily refer to 10, 10, 10, and 10, respectively. However, when used with byte, they refer instead to 2, 2 , 2, and 2 . That is, a kilobyte is not 1000 bytes but 1024 bytes. The reason is that addresses, the numbers that refer to the location of digital data, are binary numbers, so a kilobyte is the total number of bytes that can be addressed by a ten bit address, and it carries the kho prefix because it is the power of 2 closest to 1000. Likewise a megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes because it is the power of 2 closest to 1,000,000, and represents the number of locations addressable by 20 bits. 

In manual recording the entries made on a sheet of paper can be dated and signed to attest to the validity of data and to accept responsibility corrections to them remain visible unless the erasure of the superseded data has been done very artistically. These safeguards have to be retained in the use of computers for data capture, processing and storage, since, e.g., the bits and bytes in computer memory are invisible, and corrections to them will under normal circumstances leave no trace. GLP therefore wants to ensure that data safety and integrity remains the same in electronically as in manually recorded data, irrespective of how they were recorded, and that reconstruction of the way in which the final results and conclusions were obtained remains fully possible. 

ASCII code ASCII is short for American Standard Code for Information Interchange the code regulates the use of bits and bytes, aspect ratio Aspect ratio is the ratio of the wingspan length divided by the cord, assembly drawing An assembly drawing is a pictorial drawing that shows the parts of an object placed in their correct location. 

The section layer provides basic functions that are required before the information contained within the SONET signal can be extracted and processed. Framing is the process of finding the alignment of the constituent bits and bytes within a serial bit stream so that the information contained can be located. Scrambling is the process of pseudorandomizing the outgoing bitstream. A certain density of 0-1 and 1-0... 

Parallel buses such as Futurebus-l- have a small market compared to the PC board market. Interconnection of PCs with fast links is the modern trend to get more power and more reliability (uninterruptible systems). Inside the PC, the need for a bus for interconnecting the essential peripherals has disappeared since the serial, parallel, and disk ports are available on the processor itself. With USB and Firewire, the only other need for an extension bus is for memory access and ultrafast transactions with the graphic board. New solutions will have to appear over the next 10 years. They will be based on very fast synchronous block transfers, large caches being available on every device. The width of the bus will determine the cost of the solution 128-bit buses will be proposed, but the huge market will be for bit and byte serial buses. 

In today s age of bits and bytes and with actual progression of information technology, computers will be used for more and more purposes. This trend is not only observable in private life but also in many lines of business as well. 

Mass storage. Information on disk or tape consists of bits and bytes organized into blocks (and tracks and sectors). Physical data formats on mass storage media... 

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