INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATICS.

(DSI~131)

ASSIGNMENT.1
Qsn.1. Distinguish between the following:

(a) Theoretical and Applied Informatics

Theoretical informatics studies the underlying principles and mechanism of

computers in general, logic, and programming. In this field we find areas like discrete
mathematics, theory of algorithms, cryptography and much more. These principles
are very important, and to have a good understanding of some of these theoretical
sciences is important to drive the industry forward, and to optimize solutions already
implemented.

Anyway, applied computers science sounds a lot like what it really is. Writing codes,
making games, editing pictures and movies and web design. So the difference is that
theoretical studies in detail the underlying mechanism of how it all works, while
applied informatics is about the upper layers of developing and programming.
(https://www.techtarget.com, 15/10/2022)

(b)theory of computation and theory of information

Theory of computation is a scientific discipline concerned with the study of general

properties of computation be it natural, man-made or imaginary. Most importantly, it
aims to understand the nature of efficient computation. In theoretic informatics and
mathematics, the theory of computation is the branch that deals with how efficiently
problems can be solved on a model of computation, using an algorithm. Areas of
theory of computational include automata.

While information theory is the branch of mathematics that overlaps into

communications engineering, biology, medical science, sociology, and psychology.
The theory is devoted to the discovery and exploration of mathematical laws that
govern the behavior of data as it is transferred, stored, or retrieved. Important sub-
fields of information theory include source coding, algorithm complexity theory,
algorithmic information theory and information theoretic security.
(https://www.quora.com, 14/10/2022)
 (b) Flow chart and Pseudocode

The main difference between pseudocode and flow chart is that pseudocode is
an informal high level description of an algorithm while flow chart is a
pictorial/diagrammatic representation of an algorithm. Pseudocode are written in
natural language and mathematically notations help to write pseudocode while
flowchart written using various symbols. Example of a pseudocode to find the
total of two numbers:

sum of two numbers ( )

begin
set sum=0;
Read: number 1 , number 2;
set sum= number 1 + number 2;
print sum;
end

Flow chart in it, the oval shape denotes the start, and the end. And the rhombus
shape represents inputs and outputs. Further, the diamond shape symbol represents
the decision selection. For example;
 start

Enter mark

Is mark > 5

yes no
Display
Display “Fail”
“pass”

stop
(d)Virtual reality and augmented reality

Augmented is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer
generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including
visual, auditory, haptic, and olfactory while virtual reality is simulated experience that
employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye display to give the user an immersive real of
a virtual world. Application of virtual reality include entertainment, education, and
business. The distinctions between virtual reality and augmented come down to the
devices require and the experience itself: Augmented reality uses a real world setting
while virtual i9s completely virtual. Augmented reality users can control their
presence in the real world; virtual reality users are controlled by the system. Also
virtual reality requires a headset device, bit augmented reality can be accessed with
a smartphone. Lastly augmented reality enhances both the virtual and real world
while virtual reality only enhances a fictional reality. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org,
15/10/2022)

(e) Social and Psycho informatics

Psycho informatics is an emerging interdisciplinary field that uses principles from

computer science for the acquisition, organization, and synthesis of data collected
from psychology to reveal information about psychological traits such as personality
and mood. Psychology has historically relied on experiments and questionnaires in
order to collect data. These methods face several disadvantages, namely that
experiments often consist of a small quantity of users and self-reported
questionnaires and interviews are subject to bias and unreliable memory. Psycho
informatics solves the problems by storing big data related to psychology and then
data mining for relevant psychological information.

While Social Informatics refers to the body of research and study that examines
social aspects of computerization. Including the roles of information technology in
social and organizational change and the ways that the social organization of
information technologies are influenced by social forces and social practices.
(Christian,2016)

Qsn .2. Using relevant examples show the relationship between information and the
following fundamentals of science:
(a) Cybernetics (b)electronics

(a)Weiner used the term cybernetics to characterize the common elements of his
work on computing machines, with Yuk Wing Lee on electrical networks, with Julian
Bigelow on the prediction of flight paths, and with Arturo M on neuromuscular
behavior and neurophysiology. Fundamentally, Wiener concluded that control in both
mechanical and biological system depends on feedback, which in turn requires
communication of information within the system. Secondly, the ultra-rapid computing
machine, depending as it does on consecutive switching devices, must represent an
ideal model of the problems arising in the nervous system and conversely was in
principle an ideal central nervous system to an apparatus for automatic control.

The intimate link between control and communication shifted attention from the
specifics of electrical engineering to the more general notion of the message,
however transmitted. Viewed as time series, messages become predictable through
statistical analysis, and prediction can be optimized by means of the calculus of
variations. Messages transmitted over physical channels are subject to distortion by
background noise and hence raise the problem of their accurate reconstruction.
Consideration of that problem led Wiener to the question of the measure of
information and through it to the relation of information and entropy, by which he
arrived again at the living organism.

The nature of information linked Wiener`s work to Shannon`s, whose paper had the
more narrowly defined goal of defining the capacity of a communications channel, of
determining the effect of statistical knowledge about the source in reducing the
required capacity of the channel, by the use of proper encoding of the information
and of setting the limits of possibility of correctly construing a message transmitted in
the presence of noise. Starting from the principle that information resolves
uncertainty, Shannon measured information with reference to the number of possible
messages that could be sent in a given time using a given set of symbols. The
precise form of measure being arbitrary, Shannon chose as the unit of information
for discrete channels the single binary digit or bit.

Viewed as a measure of uncertainty or surprise, information can be construed as a

form of entropy, and Shannon chose his function with Boltzmann`s H theorem in
mind. By increasing the uncertainty about the source of signals and hence about the
message being transmitted, noise adds to the entropy of a channel, detracting from
its useful capacity. However, as Shannon showed, given sufficient capacity, l the
entropy of noise can be overcome to an arbitrary degree by a suitable encoding of
the message, which in essence lowers the entropy of the source through
redundancy. That one pays for certainty at the cost of information places a premium
on efficiency of coding, a subject which, already under investigation at the time,
gained new impetus from Shannon`s results.

Cybernetics followed a similar pattern of enthusiastic reception followed by

overextension and disenchantment. By the late 60s the term itself gradually
disappeared from use in the United States and Western Europe, although it is still
common in the eastern bloc. Yet the themes and approaches it encompassed have
continued to develop since then, pursued separately in the disciplines Wiener sought
to bring together and in new discipline spawned from them. Both the fate of
cybernetics and its effect on other subjects are perhaps best understood by
examining more closely the technological context in which it arose.

As Wiener himself emphasized, in both conception and implementation cybernetics

was intimately tied to the new forms of automatic computation developing rapidly
during the decade from the 30s to the late 40s. In addition to provide a tool for
solving the problems in applied mathematics that Wiener`s methods entailed, it
served as his model of the nervous system. The design of computers in turn posed
problems of a cybernetic nature and hence constituted a field of application for his
methods, as it did for Shannon`s. Yet, the computer had its own intellectual and
technical roots, which determined its development independently of its role in
cybernetics and which thereby conditioned that role. Especially for those who viewed
cybernetics in the wider sense of systems theory, the computer ultimately offered
resource that far exceeded Wiener`s vision or even contradicted it.

In particular, the computer both accommodated and encouraged a broader view of

information and of and how it can be transformed and communicated over time and
space, than that which underlay the new theory. It thereby transformed traditional
methods of accounting and record-keeping into a new industry of data processing,
posing both unprecedented possibilities and unanticipated dangers. Since the 1950s
the computer, both as processor of information and as vehicle of communication
over both space and time, has come to form the core of modern information
technology. What the English-speaking world refers to as computer science is known
to the rest of western Europe as informatique. Much of the concern over information
as a commodity and as a natural resource derives from the computer and from
computer-based communications technology. (Mahoney,1989)

(b) Electronic and information technology is a term used in the 1998 amendments to
section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. The term is used to define the scope of
products covered under section 508. Section 508 requires that electronic and
information technology that is developed, procured, maintained, or used by the
federal government be accessible. Electronic and
information technology includes computer hardware and software, operating system,
web-based information and applications, telephones and other telecommunications
products, video equipment and multimedia products, information kiosks, and office
products such as photocopies and fax machines.

Informally, all of these devices are commonly referred to simply as information

technology or IT. However, from a legal standpoint, there was a need to expand
upon an existing federal definition of information technology, while maintaining
consistency with that early definition. The federal agency charged with establishing
this definition was the Architectural and transportation Barriers Compliance Board.
Here is the formal definition of both “electronic and information technology” and
“information technology”.

Electronic and information technology includes information technology and any

equipment or interconnected system or subsystem of equipment, that is used in the
creation, conversion, or duplication of data or information. The term electronic and
information technology includes, but is not limited to, telecommunication products,
information kiosks and transaction machines and office equipment such as copiers
and fax machines. The term does not include any equipment that contains
embedded information technology that is used as an integral part of the product, but
the principal function of which is not the acquisition, storage, manipulation,
management, control, movement, display, switching, or reception of data or
 information. For example, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning such as
thermostats or temperature control devices, and medical equipment where
information technology is integral to its operation, are not information technology.

Information technology. Any equipment or interconnected system or subsystem of

equipment, that is used in the automatic acquisition, storage, manipulation,
management, movement, control, display, transmission or reception of data or
information. The term information technology includes computers, ancillary
equipment, software, firmware and similar procedures, services and related
resources. anon (1992)

Qsn.3. Explain how semiotics in computing has influenced the development of

computer language and programming language.

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols their use or interpretation and it teaches us that
reality is a system of signs. In computing, its attempt is to emulate the semiosis cycle within a
digital computer that stimulates the construction of autonomous intelligent systems able to
perform intelligent behavior. How did we come to use programming language? What are the
fundamental concepts that lead to the idea of artificial languages and how they connect to our
use of natural language asked Linda Bardha. The application lies under human computer
interaction and the fundamental devices of recognition.

In digital computers, the user’s input is transmitted as electrical pulses, only having two
states, on or off, respectively represented as 1 or 0 and this sequence of 0’s and 1’s
represents the “computer’s language”. But how did something so easy in concept, just having
two states, become so fundamental? This led to the idea of the extraction of meaning behind
different signs and symbols (semiotics). In summary on and off as natural languages where
symbolically represented as 1 (on) and 0 (off) in computer language which clearly shows that
the application of semiotics had been applied and due to human cognitive it is easier for them
to understand symbols.

It is interesting to view computers as signs and symptoms whose main function is to be

perceived and interpreted by a group of users. We can look at programming and
programming languages as a process of sign creation and most importantly consider the
semiotic approach behind it. The interface of a system is an example of a computer sign, and
using this system means that it involves the interpretation and manipulation of text and
pictures. And underneath the interface, there are other signs that we see. The system itself is
specified by a program text or a language which on its own is a sign. Then, the actual
execution of the program requires a compiler, which its main function is to transform code
written in one programming language into another programming language. That makes the
compiler a sign.

Tanaka Ishii in her book, “semiotics in programming” makes the point that computer
languages have their own type of interpretative system, external to the interpretative system
of natural languages. Many of concepts principles of computer programming have derived
from technological needs without explicitly stating the context of human thoughts. An
example of this idea is the paradigm of object-oriented programming and involves the use of
codes. Just by looking at the code and reading the words you can guess what the program
does. So, this explains how powerful the meaning behind symbols and sign is and how
important they are, especially to a field like computing.

In conclusion, looking at computers from a semiotic perspective, we can understand the

meaning behind the system and different layers that make the system. From the interface of
the system to machine code, signs and symptoms are found all the way down. Humans as
cognitive beings have the advantages of having a symbolic faculty and many sign systems
that helps to make mental relations between perceptions and thought. (Aunderson,1990)

(b). Using a table, show how a decimal number can be converted into a binary equivalent
number.

Below is a table showing how to convert a decimal number into a binary equivalent number

Decimal 2^7 2^6 2^5 2^4 2^3 2^2 2^1 2^0

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

Binary 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0

(c). Advantages of using spreadsheet model:

 *Spreadsheets require minimal training.

* It is easy to manipulate and analyse data using spreadsheet.

* Spreadsheets can be more collaborative than other tools.

* Spreadsheets are quick and easy to add into a workflow.

Aunderson, C. P, B. (1990). A theory of computer semiotics approaches to constructional

and assessment of computer system. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Christian, M. Duke, Eilish. Alexander, M. (2016). Toward Pyschoinformatics: computer
science Meets Psychology.
Mahoney, M, S. (1989). History of modern science. Published in R. C. Olby. London:
Routledge, Chapman and Hall