Data

Data (/ˈdeɪtə/ DAY-tə, /ˈdætə/ DA-tə, or /ˈdɑːtə/ DAH-tə) is a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables; restated, pieces of data are individual pieces of information. Data is measured, collected and reported, and analyzed, whereupon it can be visualized using graphs or images. Data as a general concept refers to the fact that some existing information or knowledge is represented or coded in some form suitable for better usage or processing.

Raw data, i.e. unprocessed data, is a collection of numbers, characters; data processing commonly occurs by stages, and the "processed data" from one stage may be considered the "raw data" of the next. Field data is raw data that is collected in an uncontrolled in situ environment. Experimental data is data that is generated within the context of a scientific investigation by observation and recording.

The Latin word "data" is the plural of "datum", and still may be used as a plural noun in this sense. Nowadays, though, "data" is most commonly used in the singular, as a mass noun (like "information", "sand" or "rain").

Data segment

In computing, a data segment (often denoted .data) is a portion of an object file or the corresponding virtual address space of a program that contains initialized static variables, that is, global variables and static local variables. The size of this segment is determined by the size of the values in the program's source code, and does not change at run time.

The data segment is read-write, since the values of variables can be altered at run time. This is in contrast to the read-only data segment (rodata segment or .rodata), which contains static constants rather than variables; it also contrasts to the code segment, also known as the text segment, which is read-only on many architectures. Uninitialized data, both variables and constants, is instead in the BSS segment.

Historically, to be able to support memory address spaces larger than the native size of the internal address register would allow, early CPUs implemented a system of segmentation whereby they would store a small set of indexes to use as offsets to certain areas. The Intel 8086 family of CPUs provided four segments: the code segment, the data segment, the stack segment and the extra segment. Each segment was placed at a specific location in memory by the software being executed and all instructions that operated on the data within those segments were performed relative to the start of that segment. This allowed a 16-bit address register, which would normally provide 64KiB (65536 bytes) of memory space, to access a 1MiB (1048576 bytes) address space.

Data (disambiguation)

Data is uninterpreted information.

Data or DATA may also refer to:

Music

Jap

Jap is an English abbreviation of the word "Japanese." Today it is generally regarded as an ethnic slur among Japanese minority populations in other countries, although English-speaking countries differ in the degree to which they consider the term offensive. In the United States, Japanese Americans have come to find the term controversial or offensive, even when used as an abbreviation. In the past, Jap was not considered primarily offensive; however, during and after the events of World War II, the term became derogatory.

History and etymology

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Jap" as an abbreviation for "Japanese" was in colloquial use in London around 1880. An example of benign usage was the previous naming of Boondocks Road in Jefferson County, Texas, originally named "Jap Road" when it was built in 1905 to honor a popular local rice farmer from Japan.

Later popularized during World War II to describe those of Japanese descent, "Jap" was then commonly used in newspaper headlines to refer to the Japanese and Imperial Japan. "Jap" became a derogatory term during the war, more so than "Nip." Veteran and author Paul Fussell explains the usefulness of the word during the war for creating effective propaganda by saying that "Japs" "was a brisk monosyllable handy for slogans like 'Rap the Jap' or 'Let's Blast the Jap Clean Off the Map.'" Some in the United States Marine Corps tried to combine the word "Japs" with "apes" to create a new description, "Japes", for the Japanese; this neologism never became popular.

JA Prestwich Industries

JA Prestwich Industries, was an English manufacturing company named after founder John Alfred Prestwich, which was formed in 1951 by the amalgamation of J.A.Prestwich and Company Limited and Pencils Ltd.

History

John Prestwich, an engineer, commenced manufacture of scientific instruments in 1895, when he was 20, initially behind his father's house at 1 Lansdowne Road, Tottenham, London. By 1911 he had moved to new premises in Tariff Road, within the Northumberland Park area of Tottenham, London, and which still exists as of 2015. Prestwich was initially best known for his cinematography cameras and projectors He worked with S.Z. de Ferranti and later the cinema pioneer William Friese-Greene.

In about 1902 J.A.Prestwich and Company started the manufacture of motorcycle engines which were used in many famous motorcycle marques. The motorcycle engines were associated with racing and record success and were still used in speedway bikes well into the 1960s. Prestwich also made some engines for aeroplanes. In 1919 Prestwich formed Pencils Limited to exploit his invention of new machinery and the company made Master Pencils, also in Tariff Road. In the nineteen thirties engine production increasingly focused on small industrial and agricultural engines. During WWII Prestwich produced around 240,000 industrial petrol engines in support of the war effort, together with millions of aircraft parts, fuses, etc.