Data systems convert raw data into valuable and actionable data read for numerous industries and applications. They encompass all technologies used in the collection, processing, sending and storing data. They include hardware, software storage, networks, switching and interconnection devices and mechanisms. Data systems also include middleware software, which allows disparate operating and administrative systems to communicate with one and each.
For example the CDC’s Pandemic-Ready Data Modernization Initiative aims to improve data systems in the health departments of local and state governments to better respond to health emergencies that affect the public, such as COVID-19. This effort is an important element of President Biden’s plan to prepare for the possibility of another pandemic. Colleges are essential to this effort since they play an important role in developing and testing the fundamental elements of a data-driven system.
In essence, any organized collection of symbols or symbol-manipulating operations can be considered an information system. Human-speech analysis at the level of phonemes is just one example, as are an Incan artefact called the khipu or image that is stored as pixels.
Spacecrafts in space produce continuous flow of information that needs to be stored, processed and sent back to Earth. This data handling onboard is a computer, but not the kind we have on our desktops. The components of spacecraft’s onboard data systems must be designed and built for the particular challenges of space, which is covered in radiation, which rapidly degrades microprocessors that are not protected. The onboard data handling systems also have to handle telecommands that are sent to the spacecraft to control it and collect telemetry for housekeeping, which is needed for downlinking to Earth.
