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APCSP
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| abstraction | removing detail to simplify a complex object or concept; generalizing an idea to identify its essence |
| high level languages | programming languages most programmers use |
| assembly language | language of operating systems |
| machine language | converted to binary numbers |
| electric signals | what the machine language gets converted to |
| data | a bunch of facts that are not in any sort of order; usually unreadable |
| information | data that has been processed and organized into a meaningful format |
| analog | continuous data |
| digital | discreet pieces of data; takes less space; breaks between data |
| Two's Complement | used to add and store negative integers |
| overflow | a situation that occurs when a calculation in a computer results in a number too big for the allowable bits |
| integers | whole numbers, including zeroes and negatives |
| floating point numbers | numbers with decimals |
| radix point | "decimal" point for all bases |
| American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) | text that matches up numerical values with western language; 0-127 characters |
| Extended ASCII Table | 256 characters; includes more detailed characters |
| Unicode | 65,536 characters; includes characters for languages such as Chinese and Japanese; international; first 256 characters same as Extended ASCII |
| compression | taking up less space; used with data |
| lossless | when you decompress it you don't lose anything |
| lossy | when you decompress it you will lose something; compresses it smaller |
| keyword encoding | frequently used words are replaced with a single character |
| run-length encoding | capitalizes on situations involving the repetition of a single character |
| Huffman encoding | uses variable-length bit strings to represent each character |
| digitize | the process of analog to digital |
| sampling | digitizes audio |
| .wav | audio; compressed or not; older, used for windows; compression: small |
| .aiff | audio; older; Mac; low compression |
| .mp3 | audio; cross-platform; high compression; lossy and lossless |
| photoreceptors | distinguish between 3 primary colors |
| pixels | one tiny fraction of an image |
| resolution | the number of pixels being stored or displayed |
| raster-graphics | breaking down an image into pixels |
| .bmp | image; Bitmap File; pretty common; not compressed; pixel by pixel file |
| .gif | image; Graphics Interchange Format; usually limits color palate; reduces storage; compressed; good format for Internet images |
| .jpeg | image; compressed but much higher quality; averages pixels together; format you use for photographic quality |
| .png | Portable Network Graphics; highly compressed; more colors and compression than gif; good for small index images |
| logic gate | building blocks for circuits; computer components that take in one or more electrical signal and produce one electrical output signal; made of transistors |
| transistors | act as a wire (conducting electricity) or as a resistor (blocking electricity) depending on the voltage of the signal; act like a switch; made up of semiconductor material |
| circuits | a combination of logic gates |
| circuit equivalence | when two circuits have the same set of outputs for the same inputs |
| half-adder | adds up two binary bits |
| full-adder | adds 3 bits; 5 gates |
| multiplexor (MUX) | chooses a path based on an input |
| integrated circuit (IC) | full name for a chip; a bunch of gates tied together |
| solder | take hot metal/allow; to permanently secure chip to board |
| Small Scale Integration (SSI) | 1-10 gates (MUX) |
| Medium Scale Integration (MSI) | 10-100 gates |
| Large Scale Integration (LSI) | 100-100,000 gates |
| Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) | 100,000+ gates |
| Control Unit | controls what happens in the computer; directs the slow of everything |
| ALU | Arithmetic Logic Unit |
| computer architecture | the design/makeup of a computer |
| von Neumann Architecture | data and instructions can be stored in the same place |
| registers | quick access; small amounts of memory |
| buses | wires connecting all the circuits; in the motherboard |
| Central Processing Unit (CPU) | most important IC of computer; brain of computer; usually 2 inch square chip mounted on motherboard along with power control and RAM |
| Control Unit | coordinates the computer's activities; runs the fetch-execute cycle |
| Arithmetic Logic Unit | performs mathematical and logical operations |
| registers | storage cells for temporary storage of data and instructions; faster than accessing RAM |
| Main Bus | wires carrying signals |
| dual processor | 2 IC's on a single chip |
| microprocessor | CPU found in smaller devices |
| Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) | separate from CPU games and graphics software; send some commands to GPU to control the screen without tying up the CPU |
| KB | 1,000 bytes |
| MB | 1,000,000 bytes |
| GB | 10^9 bytes |
| TB | 10^12 bytes |
| RAM | outside of CPU; stores data and instructions running but not being executed at the moment |
| registers | inside CPU; store instructions and data currently being processed; faster than RAM |
| cache | inside CPU; small amount of memory stores a copy of data and instructions being executed to save time sending/retrieving info to/from RAM |
| Hard Disk Drive (HDD) | spinning magnetic disk; data stored in sectors and tracks access speeds slow down speed of computer; more susceptible to damage; can be wiped by large magnet |
| Soft State Drive (SSD) | electronic storage; each data cell has an address; faster access speed; can be damaged by power outage |
| CD/DVD | optical disk; stored and read by laser; data stored in sectors and tracks; speed listed as nX, meaning data transfer is n times faster than a video DVD player |
| Flash Drive | electrical storage; stable without external power for years; no moving parts=high speed data transfer |
| SD Card | secure digital memory card; electronic storage; small; often used for photos, music, phones, etc. |
| Universal Serial Bus (USB) | generation 1, 2, 3 |
| High Def Multimedia Interface (HDMI) | usually for audio/visual devices |
| Video Graphics Adaptor (VGA) | connects to display or projector |
| Ethernet | connects to router for modern networking |
| firewire | very fast data transfer; high performance devices |
| Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) | most monitors are this |
| Light Emitting Diode (LED) | cooler and longer lasting than fluorescent lighting |
| Moore's Law | a projection that the number of circuits that can be placed on a single integrated circuit will double each year |
| planned obsolescence | changing the design of a product to increase sales without really improving it |
| seek time | time it takes for the arm to move over the right track on a disk |
| latency | how long it takes the disk to rotate to the right sector |
| access time | sum of seek time and latency |
| transfer rate | how long it takes to get from secondary storage to RAM |
| Random Access Memory (RAM) | primary memory; electronic; no moving parts |
| volatile | cleared at shutdown |
| Read Only Memory (ROM) | hardwired/burned at creation; non-volatile |
| parallel computing | using multiple processors to increase capacity and/or decrease speed; must have some shared access to programs and/or memory |
| synchronous processing | multiple processors performing the same task on different data sets at the same time |
| pipeline processing | multiple processors performing different tasks on the same data set in succession OR multiple processors performing different tasks on different parts of the same data at the same time |
| information systems | software to organize, analyze and present data |
| data | raw facts |
| information | data that has been organized or analyzed |
| spreadsheets | an application that enables data analysis based on formulas that define relationships among the data |
| dynamic (spreadsheet) | changes to the data are reflected in the calculations immediately |
| circular reference | a formula in one cell references another cell that contains a formula based on the value of the first cell; creates a situation that cannot be resolved |
| database | a structured set of data |
| Database Management Systems (DBMS) | manages data |
| physical database | files that contain the data |
| database schema | structure of the data |
| database engine | program allowing user to enter, search, filter and retrieve the data |
| Structured Query Language (SQL) | database programming language for managing databases |
| digital libraries | collections of digital objects that include text, visual, audio and video files |
| digital archive | primary sources of information rather than the secondary sources found in a library; easily reproducible and may have been reduced from elsewhere |
| metadata | data to provide information about other data |
| search engines | use metadata; not necessarily the same thing as a web browser |
| spider | database that does the searching |
| e-Commerce | applications that allow the purchase and sale of goods and services via the World Wide Web |
| data mining | looking for patterns in static data collections called data warehouses; seeks to identify previously unknown patterns |
| Class Description | characterizes similar groups of data |
| Class Discrimination | identifies properties that divide groups of data |
| Cluster Analysis | looks for new ways to group data |
| Association Analysis | looks for links between groups |
| Outlier Analysis | looks for data pieces that don't comply with the group norm; used for error and fraud detection |
| Open Access | online research materials that are free of tolls and copyright restrictions |
| Creative Commons | used when an author wants to give people the right to share, use and build work they created |
| US Privacy Act of 1974 | required government agencies to publish notice of their databases in the Federal Register to allow citizens to access and correct information |
| The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) | regulates the use and disclosure of protected health information by health insurers and medical service providers |
| The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act | governs access of educational information and records; gives parents access to students' education records until they are 18; gives students 18+ enrolled in any post-secondary institution right of privacy |
| Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978) | established FISA Court |
| FISA Court | oversees surveillance warrants against foreign spies within the US |
| artificial intelligence | the study/implementation of computer systems that model and apply the intelligence of the human mind |
| Turing Test | test to see if something is intelligent |
| Knowledge Representation | how we simulate the decision making process; uses different techniques to represent knowledge; semantic networks |
| semantic networks | mindmap; used to make decisions |
| search trees | a structure that represents all of the possible consequences of a decision |
| Expert Systems | computer systems that embody the knowledge of human experts in a specific field; asks user questions based on set of programmed rules and ultimately renders a decision; uses interference engine to determine how rules are followed |
| Neural Networks | computer systems that mimic the processing of the human brain; often used in decision making, optical character/image recognition, and explosive detection; more it runs, more it produces accurate results |
| Natural Language Processing | computer systems that process human language through voice recognition, comprehension and synthesis; breaks sounds into units called phonemes and requires database of phonetics for words |
| Robotics | autonomous, mobile robots that require Artificial Intelligence to interact with their surroundings |
| models | creating a representation of a complex system and altering that model to observe the results |
| virtual reality (VR) | computer technologies that generate realistic images, sounds and other sensations that replicate an environment and enables the user to interact with this space |
| augmented reality (AR) | superimposes a computer generated environment not he user's view of the real world |
| 2-D Graphics Software | converts 2-D shapes into pixel data to produce an image that can be manipulated or animated |
| Image Processing Software | analyzes pixels in an image to identify patterns or even understand images |
| polygonal mesh | a set of polygons that cover the surface of the object |
| particle system | particles are assigned behavioral formulas to make them move to form a shape |
| rendering the scene | determining how the objects in a scene graph would appear when projected onto a 2-D projection plane |
| clipping | the process of slicing off the objects that are not in the view volume |
| scan conversion/rasterization | process of assigning patches on remaining scene graph to pixels on 2-D image by passing straight lines from camera to objects |
| Hidden Surface Removal | process of discarding points on the scene that are blocked by other points |
| animation | displaying a sequence of 2-D images in rapid succession |
| storyboard | sequence of 2-D images that tell the story |
| Operating System (OS) | the main component of the system software and it has two main jobs |
| Utility Software | programs that extend or customize the OS |
| User Interface | how the user opens and storms programs and documents |
| Graphical User Interface | icons and windows |
| Kernel | coordinates all of the computer's activities |
| Process Management | scheduling the use of the CPU |
| Memory Management | allocates space within RAM for programs and data; OS must move parts of programs in and out of RAM as needed |
| paging | moving parts of programs in and out of RAM as needed |
| File Management | coordinates the use of mass storage, the location of files, accessibility of files, storing new files |
| File Organization | allows users to organize files in folders or directories; each file has a directory path |
| Device Driver Communication | communicates with peripheral devices |
| bootstrapping | when the computer is turned on, all or part of the OS is transferred from mass storage to main memory; boot loader is stored in ROM and tells the computer to transfer OS to RAM and run it when it is turned on |
| algorithm | an ordered set of executable sets that solve a problem or complete a task |
| pseudocode | generic coding without syntax rules |
| syntax | specific commands, punctuation, arguments etc. |
| variable | name of a memory location used to store a value |
| input | when you get a value from the user it must be assigned to a variable |
| output | value of variable or specific string |
| nesting | putting decision statements inside other decision statements |
| computer network | two or more computers connected via communication devices and media |
| Internet | a collection of networks that link billions of businesses, government agencies, educational institutions, and individuals |
| NPL | British network; nationwide; established in 1965 |
| ARPANET | US network; nationwide; established in 1969 |
| CYCLADES | French network; nationwide; established in 1973 |
| World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) | oversees research and sets standards and guidelines |
| Internet 2 (I2) | develops and tests advanced Internet technologies |
| Internet Service Provider (ISP) | company that provides access to the Internet to users or subscribers of its service |
| Tier 1 ISP | very high capacity WANs operated by very large telecom companies |
| Tier 2 ISP | regional WANs operated by large telecom companies |
| Local Access ISP | smaller WANs |
| dial-up access | home or business; computer, modem, regular telephone line |
| high speed access | home or business; digital subscriber line; cable modem |
| digital subscriber line (DSL) | provides high speed Internet connections over regular copper telephone line |
| cable modem | provides high speed Internet connections through cable television network |
| World Wide Web | an information space of the Internet where electronic documents are identified by URL, interlinked by hyperlinks |
| URL | name of file that is website |
| HTML | language of website |
| web browser | addition to ISP; software application that allows you to access and view web pages via their URL |
| search engine | software program that searches for information on the Web; maintains information by running an algorithm on a web crawler |
| web crawler | a bot that constantly browses web sites to update an index |
| Personal Area Network (PAN) | |
| Local Area Network (LAN) | a single building/campus |
| Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) | a community/city |
| Wide Area Network (WAN) | cities/countries |
| star topology | computers are connected to a central computer; all communications must go through a central computer; the basis for most Wifi networks |
| bus topology | all computers on the network can communicate with each other; Ethernet networks use this |
| hub | small pus with several inputs connecting computers in a small area to the bus network |
| repeater | device to connect two bus networks; amplifies signals |
| bridge | device to connect two bus networks; any signals intended for a computer on the origin side is returned |
| switch | like a bridge but it connects more than 2 bus networks |
| router | a computer for connecting incompatible networks |
| twisted-pair wire | regular phone lines; simplest and slowest |
| coaxial cable | standard cable lines; copper wires surrounded by thick insulation |
| fiber optics | fast, accurate, durable; electrons translated into light pulses |
| Client/Server Model | clients make requests; device on network is considered a server and other networks are considered clients; servers satisfy the requests of clients |
| Peer to Peer (P2P) Model | devices on network provide service to and receive services from each other; collaboration |
| distributed system | type of network communication; programs that are executed on different computers |
| Cluster Computing | many independent computers work together to provide computating services comparable to a larger computer |
| Grid Computer | members of the grid volunteer their computing power to the grid while not in use for themselves |
| Cloud Computing | generally owned; huge pools of shared computers can be allocated for use by clients as needed |
| redundancy | additional instances of network devices, equipment and communications mediums are installed within the network infrastructure to ensure network availability in case a device fails or is unavailable |
| latency | amount of time a signal takes to traverse a network |
| sensor network | devices distributed throughout a network to monitor environmental conditions like temperature, sound, pressure, etc. |
| Network Interface Cards (NICs) | expansion card to connect to Ethernet |
| Bluetooth | a type of short range wireless interconnection |
| bandwidth | bit-rate of available information capacity |
| protocols | rules that govern electronic communication |
| Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) | used for most emails |
| Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) | used for most web pages |
| Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) | encrypted; supposed to be more secure |
| Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) | sets up and monitors transmission; manages sending and receiving of packets; makes sure message is divided up properly and addresses with origin and destination IP addresses when sent |
| Internet Protocol (IP) | handles transmission of data on the Internet; manages how data travels on the Internet |
| Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) | allocates blocks of IP addresses to 5 regional RIRs that distribute the addresses to ISPs within their systems |
| IPv4 | current 32-bit IP address format; allows for roughly 4 billion unique addresses |
| IPv6 | multi-year transition to 128-bit IP address format happening right now; 340 undecillion unique addresses |
| packet routing | most messages are too large to travel over the Internet; broken into smaller units called packets |
| routers | devices on Internet to keep packets moving; chooses best path to take at each intersection |
| scalable | work with large and small numbers |
| redundant | have repeated elements |
| fault tolerance | because of redundancy, networks won't collapse when part of it breaks down |
| web page | electronic document; must follow HTTP protocol |
| World Wide Web | collection of web pages |
| website | collection of related web pages |
| hyperlinks | built-in connections to other documents |
| Domain Name System (DNS) | associates text names with device IP addresses |
| DNS Servers | connect to Internet set up in a hierarchy to store and look up IP addresses |
| DNS Spoofing | when a hacker breaks into a DNS server and assigns the wrong IP address to a domain name; sends web page users to an imposter website where they are vulnerable |
| registrars | agencies assigned by ICANN |
| Top Level Domain (TLD) | suffix on the end of domain name |
| Sub Domains | user that registers a domain name can extend that name to obtain identifiers for items that belong to that domain |
| Uniform Resource Locator (URL) | unique address for a web page; includes protocol, domain name, and file directory path and document |
| web cookies | stored on browser with information that identifies you; sent to web page so that it will remember you |
| Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) | programming language used to create documents to be displayed on the Web |
| tags | markup codes |
| Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) | style definitions used in HTML |
| Java Applets | programs embedded into an HTML document; executed by the browser |
| Java Scriplets | small pieces of executable code intertwined with traditional HTML content that are executed by the computer hosting the web page |
| information security | the protection of data from being leaked |
| confidentiality | prevents your personal data from being leaked |
| Data integrity | makes sure only certain people/software have access to change data |
| malware | malicious software transferred to/executed on a computer |
| virus | inserts itself into existing programs to corrupt data |
| worms | autonomous program forwards itself to other computers |
| Trojan Horses | enters disguised as harmless program |
| spyware/sniffing software | collects info about computer activities and reports back to instigator |
| phishing | obtaining info from victim and pretending to be benign |
| Denial of Service (DoS) | overloads a computer with messages to distort activity; to hack a website |
| spoofing | a computer pretending to be another computing by faking its IP address |
| spam | unwanted junk email; not generally malicious |
| firewall | network software that blocks dangerous/inappropriate messages from going in or out |
| proxy server | limits access; software between client and server shielding the client from harmful actions of the server |
| antivirus software | software to detect and remove viruses and/or spyware |
| spam filter | firewall intended to block unwanted mail; learns to identify spam by user's reactions |
| passwords | controls access to network but not the data once it leaves the network |
| biometrics/smart cards | fingerprints; retina scans; cards with chips/stripes |
| encryption | coding and decoding messages so that if they are intercepted they cannot be interpreted |
| Symmetric Encryption | sender and receiver have to have same encryption code |
| public key encryption | public and private keys |
| digital certificates | used by HTTPS to ensure website downloading is actually a secure website |
| CAPTCHA | software to verify that a web form is submitted by a human not a machine |
| intellectual property | original work to which one has the rights and for which one may apply for a patent, copyright or trademark |
| copyright | the exclusive legal right to print, publish, sell etc. the expression of an idea and authorize others to do the same |
| patent | for inventions |
| trademark | for identifiers like company names and logos |
| World Intellectual Property Organization | an agency of the United Nations to promote and protect intellectual property |
| Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) | a 1998 US copyright law intended to protect the rights of both the copyright owners and consumers which as usually in conflict |
| Creatie Commons License | license that enables free distribution of copyrighted work; owner sets up rules for sharing of and building upon their work; can apply to any copyrighted material |
| Open Source Software | license for software that makes the source code available for others to study, change and distribute of any purpose; encourages a collaborative environment |
| Crowd Sourcing | getting input or information from a large number of people; paid or unpaid |
| Citizen Science | when professional scientists and people from the general public collaborate on specific studies |
| net neutrality | the principle that Internet service providers and governments regulating the Internet should treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or charging differentially |
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catherine_alexander
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