INFORMATİON TECHNOLOGİES

Data are symbols representing the features of objects and events. They also refer to the products of observations. They are unprocessed collection of raw facts gathered from various sources explicitly or implicitly and do not have any values without making them useful, that is, without being converted into the information. Thus, ‘data’ and ‘raw fact’ basically refer to the same concept. Information, on the other hand, is generated by processing data. During the processing, data are transformed into a meaningful form and their usefulness increases. Information is the data that represent the relational connection. Knowledge is a collection of relevant information. It is a deterministic process that involves transformation of information into instructions. Wisdom corresponds to the ability to see the long-term consequences of any act and to evaluate them relative to the ideal of total control. It includes the exercise of judgment or decision. The correct option is B.

An electrical circuit has only two states: ON and OFF. The binary number system has only two values corresponding to these states that represent high and low voltage levels, “1” (5 V) and “0” (0 V). These values are simply called as binary digits (bit, denoted by ‘b’) in computer systems. In computing, other than binary, octal and hexadecimal number systems are also used as more compact forms for representing binary numbers. In computer systems, a byte (denoted by ‘B’) is a unit of data that consists of 8 bits. It is used to represent a character. A nibble is half byte. A word is a standard memory bus width in computer architecture. It can have a length of 16 bits, 32 bits, 64 bits etc. The correct option is A.

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) code is used to represent information such as character-based data. ASCII code includes 94 characters that consists of 26 uppercase letters, 26 lowercase letters, 10 numerals, and 32 special characters. Besides, 34 characters are used for various control functions. The correct option is E.

Unicode is a 16-bit code words that extends ASCII to 216= 65536 universal characters codes. Since the base coding of Unicode is 16 bits, it has the capacity to encode the majority of characters used in every language in the world. The correct answer is Choice D.

In order to convert raw data into useful information, the information processing steps that should be present in the information systems are classified as follows:

The correct option is C.

In the “store/retrieve step”, the process of storing the data and retrieving the previously recorded data or information for further Storage devices are used in computers to store the data. There are various types of storage devices. Some examples are random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM) and cache as primary storage, hard disk drive as secondary storage, magnetic tape and optical disk as tertiary storage, USB flash drive and memory card as offline storage. The correct answer is Choice A.

Converting companies into successful e-businesses has become an important objective for today’s businesses. In order to achieve this goal, the requirements of global networking, integrated business processes, agility in responding to the market, intelligent decision-making and support of supply-chain management, customer relationship management and e-commerce features must be met and some of the main benefits of e-business: (1) reducing operating costs of business and its processes and avoiding consumption,(2) increasing market opportunity (Faster access to the market and customer trends), (3) fast access to customer: enabling them to access the information about products or services they need at any time (7/24), (4) elimination of processing errors, (5) strengthening internal management, supply chain management: provide uninterrupted (continuous) supply chain, (6) reduction of sales cycle, (7) increasing visibility, (8) communication improvement, and (9) predicting the fall in the probable life curve of product. The difficulty and high cost of transformation 
and change, and especially high expectation of performance lead to certain challenges in e-business. The main challenges in e-business are: (1) determining customer’s changing needs, (2) organizational structure, (3) the high speed of the development of IT, (4) Integration of the front and back-end sytems of the organization, (5) a lack of quality human resources, (6) the complexity of ensuring security, (6) growing competition, (7) effective and efficient customer service (high availability, ease of use, personalized systems), (8) high quality Access, and (9) expensive infrastructure of information system. The correct answer is Choice D.

A mainframe is a very powerful multi-user computer that can support thousands of users at the same time. A server is similar to a mainframe that serve many uses with the main difference that the users (called clients) usually do their own processing. A minicomputer is a multi-user computer that supports hundreds of users simultaneously. Microcomputer is also called as personal computer (PC). PC is usually used by single person at home, Office and business environments. Nowadays, it is the most common type of computer. PC can be in the form of desktop, laptop or tablet form. A supercomputer is an extremely fast computer that can perform hundreds of millions of instructions (or more) per second using parallel processing. They are often used for very complex calculations in science and engineering problems. The correct answer is Choice D.

In the first generation (Vacuum Tubes-1940-1956) the vacuum tubes were used as the basic components for memory in the first generation computers. Punch cards, magnetic tape, and paper Regarding the main features of the first generation computers, in general, their sizes were very large (non-portable), their energy consumption and heat release to the environment were too high. Those computers were relatively very slow (solve only one problem at a time) and quite expensive. They used machine code as the programming language and used batch processing operating system. In the second generation (Transistors-1956 - 1963) transistors replaced vacuum tubes in the second generation computers. Those computers were cheaper, consuming less power, smaller in size, more reliable and faster than the first generation computers. In this generation, magnetic cores were used for the primary memory and magnetic tape and magnetic disks for secondary storage devices. Low-level programming languages such as assembly language, batch processing and multiprogramming operating system were used as well. The computers belonging to the third generation (Integrated Circuits-1964- 1971) used integrated circuits instead of transistors. These computers were smaller in size, more reliable, faster and more efficient than the previously developed ones. In this generation, remote processing, high- level programming languages, multiprogramming operating system were used. The fourth generation computers (Microprocessors-1971-Present used Very or even thousands of integrated circuits were built onto a single silicon chip to form a microprocessor. These computers became more compact, powerful, portable, reliable, cheaper, and easily available. Real time networks, time-sharing, distributed operating system and high-level languages were used in this generation. The fifth generation computers (Artificial Intelligence-Present and Future), based on artificial intelligence, are still in development, though certain applications such as computer vision and pattern recognition are being used today. The use of parallel processing enabled hardware and software allow computers to perform artificial intelligence based tasks. It is evident that quantum computation and nanotechnology would change the computers dramatically in the near future. The correct answer is Choice B.

System software maintains the relationship between hardware and application software. It controls the operations of computer hardware. Utility software, device driver, firmware and operating system are fundamental examples to system software. Utility software provide improved functionality of managing, maintaining and controlling computer resources. Some examples to utility software are antivirus and backup software. Application software is a program developed specifically for end users. Application software can be classified into two categories, general and special purpose software. Some examples to general-purpose software are word-processing programs, database programs, presentation programs, etc. Examples of special purpose application software with a limited number of goals are commercial software and entertainment software such as games. The correct answer is Choice A.

The main benefits of e-business: • Reducing operating costs of business and its processes and avoiding consumption, • Increasing market opportunity (Faster access to the market and customer trends), • Fast access to customers: enabling them to access the information about products or services they need at any time (7/24), • Elimination of processing errors, • Strengthening internal management, • Supply chain management: Provide uninterrupted (continuous) supply chain, • Reduction of sales cycles, • Increasing visibility, • Communication improvements, • Predicting the fall in the probable life curve of product.

The main challenges in e-business are: • Determining customer’s changing needs, • Organizational structure, • The high speed of the development of IT, • Integration of the front and back-end systems of the organization, • A lack of qualified human resources, • The complexity of ensuring security,• Growing competition, • Effective and efficient customer service (high availability, ease of use, personalized systems), • High quality access, • Expensive.

While A, B, C, D are the benefits of e-business, E is one of the challenges.