Data, Information, and Time: The DIT Model (SpringerBriefs in Computer Science)

✍ Scribed by Hermann Kopetz

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 82
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This SpringerBrief presents the data- information-and-time (DIT) model that precisely clarifies the semantics behind the terms data, information and their relations to the passage of real time. According to the DIT model a data item is a symbol that appears as a pattern (e.g., visual, sound, gesture, or any bit pattern) in physical space. It is generated by a human or a machine in the current contextual situation and is linked to a concept in the human mind or a set of operations of a machine. An information item delivers the sense or the idea that a human mind extracts out of a given natural language proposition that contains meaningful data items. Since the given tangible, intangible and temporal context are part of the explanation of a data item, a change of context can have an effect on the meaning of data and the sense of a proposition.
The DIT model provides a framework to show how the flow of time can change the truth-value of a proposition. This book compares our notions of data, information, and time in differing contexts: in human communication, in the operation of a computer system and in a biological system. In the final Section a few simple examples demonstrate how the lessons learned from the DIT-model can help to improve the design of a computer system.

✦ Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Overview of the DIT Model
Chapter 3: Fundamental Terms
3.1 Time and Space
3.2 Entities, Properties, and Categories
3.3 Symbols
3.4 Models
Chapter 4: Context
4.1 Inner Context
4.2 Outer Context
Chapter 5: Language and Information
5.1 Meaning of a Word
5.2 Basic Sentence
5.3 Temporal Validity Function
5.4 Information Item—Itom
Chapter 6: Data in Communication
6.1 Communication Among Humans
6.2 Stigmergic Communication
6.3 Data in Cyberspace
Chapter 7: Data in Archival Systems
7.1 Data Structures
7.2 Knowledge Graphs
7.3 The Semantic Web
7.4 Big Data Analytics
Chapter 8: Data in Real-Time Control Systems
8.1 Four Real-Time (RT) Applications
8.2 Precision Versus Timeliness of Real-Time Data
8.3 Semiautonomous Control Systems
8.4 Fully Autonomous Systems
Chapter 9: Data in Biological Systems
9.1 Phases in the Life of a Plant
9.2 The Control Database—The DNA
9.3 Data in Computers, Plants, and Human Communication
Chapter 10: Generation and Explanation of Data
10.1 Generation of Data
10.2 Explanation of Data
Chapter 11: Consequences for System Design
11.1 Specification Dilemma
11.2 Human-Machine Interface (HMI) Design
11.3 Benefits of a Global Time
11.4 Reduction of Context Data (c-Data) in Data Transmission
11.5 Partitioning of a Safety-Critical Control System
Chapter 12: Conclusions
Glossary
References