Information #

1) Meaning of Information

Information is a specialized term in modern science and has been widely applied across various social domains. Narrowly defined information theory describes information as “the difference between two uncertainties,” referring to the disparity in one’s understanding of things before and after acquiring information. Broadly defined information theory posits that information is a form of interaction between a subject (human, organism, or machine) and an external object (environment, other humans, organisms, or machines). It encompasses all useful messages or knowledge between the subject and object, serving as a universal representation of the characteristics of things. The definition adopted in this book is: Information is knowledge that provides people or machines with new facts about the real world. It is the meaning contained within data or messages and does not change with alterations in the physical form of its carrier.

2) Characteristics of Information

Information has the following characteristics:

• Objectivity: Any information is closely related to objective facts, which is the guarantee of the correctness and accuracy of the information;

• Practicality: Information is very important for decision-making, information systems collect, organize, and manage large data streams in geospatial space, and process, transform, and analyze them into useful information that is important for production, management, and decision making;

• Transportability: Information can be transmitted between the sender and the recipient of the information, including the system sending useful information to the terminal device (including the remote terminal) and providing it to the relevant user in a certain form or format, also includes the transfer and exchange of information between subsystems within the system, such as network transmission technology;

• Sharability: Information is different from physical objects, information can be transmitted to multiple users and shared by multiple users without loss. These characteristics of information make information an important resource for the development of contemporary society.

Data #

Data refers to raw materials that qualitatively or quantitatively describe a specific object, including forms such as numbers, text, symbols, graphics, images, and their convertible data formats. Data are physical symbols used to carry information, and they hold no inherent meaning in themselves, for example, the number “1.” Information can exist independently of information systems or their components and stages, whereas the format of data is often tied to computer systems and changes with the form of the physical device that carries it.

Information and data are inseparable. Information is expressed by data related to physical media, and the meaning contained in the data is information. Data is a kind of recognizable symbol recorded, which has a variety of forms, and can also be converted from one data form to other data forms, but the content of the information contained in it will not change. Data is the carrier of information, but it is not information. Only when we understand the meaning of the data and explain the data, can we extract the information contained in the data. The purpose of data processing (operation, sorting, coding, classification, enhancement, etc.) is to get the information contained in the data. Although the concepts of data and information are not very clear in daily life, they have different meanings. Data can be compared to raw materials, and information is the result of processing raw materials. Like a carpenter, with the help of some tools, wood can be made into useful furniture. Similarly, computer professionals use computer hardware and software to convert raw data into information. This transformation process can be illustrated in Fig. 1 .

Data consists of raw facts, while information refers to data processed into meaningful and useful forms. For instance, each student’s test scores represent raw data for a teacher. By aggregating these scores and calculating the class average, the teacher can evaluate the overall class performance, these results then become information for the teacher. Compared to data, information possesses the following characteristics: data comprises raw facts while information is the product of data processing; what constitutes information for one person may simply be data for another; information must be meaningful or useful; and the information utilized must be complete, accurate, relevant, and timely.

Human knowledge and experience can be used to obtain information, and the amount of information obtained is related to the level of human knowledge .

Geographical information and data #

Geographic Data

Geographic data refers to the collective term for numbers, text, images, and graphics that characterize the quantity, quality, distribution, relationships, and patterns of inherent elements or substances in the geographical sphere or environment. Geographic information, on the other hand, represents the properties, characteristics, and dynamic states of geographical entities, encompassing all useful knowledge derived from the interpretation of geographic data. A distinctive feature that sets geographic information apart from other types of information is that its spatial position is explicitly identified through data.

Geographic Data

It is a symbolic representation of relationships between various geographical features and phenomena, comprising three components: spatial position, attribute characteristics, and temporal characteristics. Spatial position data describes the location of features, which can be defined either through geodetic reference systems (such as geographic coordinates of latitude and longitude) or as relative positional relationships between features (such as spatial distance, adjacency, overlap, and containment). Attribute data, also referred to as non-spatial data, consists of qualitative or quantitative indicators that describe the characteristics of specific features, representing the non-spatial components of information, including semantic and statistical data. Temporal characteristics refer to the moments or periods when geographical data is collected or geographical phenomena occur. Temporal data is crucial for environmental simulation and analysis and is receiving increasing attention within the geographic information systems community. The progression from geographical entities to geographical data, and from geographical data to geographical information, reflects a significant leap in human cognition.

Geographic information is characterized by regional specificity, multi-dimensional structural features, and dynamic variability:

1. Regionality is the identification of spatial position by establishing geographic coordinates such as longitude and latitude network.

2. The multi-dimensional structural feature is to realize the third-dimensional structure of multi-thematics on the basis of two-dimensional space;

3. The time series characteristics of geographic information are very obvious, geographic information can be divided into ultra-short-term (such as typhoon, earthquake), short-term (such as river flood, low temperature in autumn), and medium-term (such as land use, crop estimation), long-term (such as urbanization, soil erosion), ultra-long-term (such as crustal changes, climate change).

Information system #

An information system is a system capable of collecting, managing, analyzing, and representing data, providing useful information for individual or organized decision-making processes. In the computer era, information systems are partially or fully supported by computer systems. People often use computers to collect data and process it into information. The use of computers has led to an information revolution, and today, computers have permeated every field. A computer-based information system comprises four key elements: computer hardware, software, data, and users.

1. Computer hardware includes all kinds of computer processing and terminal equipment, which helps people to process large amounts of data, store information and get help quickly in a very short time.

2. Software is a computer program system that supports data acquisition, storage, processing, reproduction and answering user’s questions, which receives valid data and processes data correctly; provides applicable and correct information within a certain period of time; and stores information for future use;

3. Data is the object of systemanalysis and processing, and constitutesthe application basis of the system.

4. Users are the objects served by information systems. Because the information system is not fully automated, there are always some complex factors in the system, human’s role is to input data, use information and operate information system, the establishment of information system also requires human’s participation.

In computer-based information systems, the role of the processing component is to illustrate the interrelationships among various parts (as shown in Fig. 2 ).

Types of information systems #

The need for information depends entirely on the level of management. Designing a system to meet the information needs of people at all levels of the organization is very complex because the information used in the organization is variable and unpredictable in terms of quantity, state, and type. In the organization, the information system is divided into three management levels: operation layer (bottom layer), tactical layer (middle layer) and strategic layer (top layer). The operational layer includes personnel such as accountants, salespeople, and store supervisors who carry out daily work and plans made by superior management; the tactical layer includes senior managers in the organization and middle managers involved in top management; and management is responsible for determining the direction of the organization. To solve the problem of system complexity, most organizations build different types of systems to meet their needs, as shown in the information system type diagram ( Fig. 3 ):

Transaction Process System (TPS)

It is primarily used to support the daily activities of operational-level personnel and is mainly responsible for handling routine tasks.

Management Information System (MIS)

It is necessary to include the transaction processing system in the organization and provide data in an internal integrated form, as well as general and large-scale data of the external organization. The information provided by many tactical layers can be provided in a familiar and preferred form as desired by the managers of that layer. However, another part of the information provided to tactical managers and most of the information provided to strategic managers cannot be determined in advance. These uncertainties are a great challenge for the designers of management information systems.

Decision Support System (DSS)

It can obtain information from the management information system to help managers make sound decisions. This system consists of a set of analytical programs that process data and perform inferences to support managerial decision-making. As a computer-based interactive information system, it combines analytical decision models, information from management information systems, and decision-makers’ inferences to achieve optimal decision outcomes.

Artificial Intelligence and Expert System (ES)

It is a computer-based information system capable of mimicking human decision-making processes. Expert systems have expanded the scope of computer applications, shifting from traditional data processing to intelligent reasoning. While MIS provides information to aid decision-making and DSS helps improve decision quality, only expert systems can apply intelligent reasoning to make decisions and explain the rationale behind them. An expert system consists of five components: a knowledge base, an inference engine, an explanation system, a user interface, and a knowledge acquisition system.