Information Technology (IT)

Introduction to IT
Information Technology (IT): describes any technology that helps to produce, store, manipulate,
communicate, and/or distribute information.

Information Technologies are systems of hardware and/or software that capture, process,
exchange, store and/or present information using electrical, magnetic and/or electromagnetic
energy.

IT incorporates 2 terminologies:

• computer technology

• communication technology

computer technology
A computer is a programmable, multiuse machine that accepts data—raw facts and figures —and
processes, or manipulates, it into information we can use, such as summaries, totals, or reports.

Its purpose is to speed up problem-solving and increase productivity.

hardware is electronic components that we can see and touch

software is a computer programs that control the operations of the computer.

Data & information

what goes in the computers is data

data in computer terminology mean raw facts and figures

Ex: names, DoB, .etc.

what comes out of computers is information

means what we get after processing

information is data that has been sorted and arranged

it consists of organized facts and opinions people receive during daily life

Changing data into information is called data processing or information processing

• Memory consist of switches which can be either on or off - Off=0 On=1

• Each on/off switch is called a bit

• Eight bits make up a byte

communication technology
Communications technology, also called telecommunications technology, consists of
electromagnetic devices and systems for communicating over long distances.

The principal examples are telephone, radio, and broadcast television.

Communication is simply the act of transferring information from one place to another.

Communication Exchanging Information from one computer to another computer

The classic communication system is made up of an information source, an encoder, a

transmitter, a receiver, a decoder, storage, retrieval, and an information destination.

network is a communications system connecting two or more computers

the internet is the largest such network

The world Wide Web

✓ The multimedia part of the Internet

✓ An interconnected system of servers that support specially formatted documents in multimedia

form

✓ Includes text, still images, moving images, sound

✓ Responsible for the growth and popularity of the Internet

Networking and Communication

Communication Network

• is defined as a set of devices (nodes) connected by communication links and is used to

transfer information between users located at various geographical points.

• is defined as a collection of computers, printers, and other equipment that is connected

together so that they can communicate with each other.

• using hardware and software, these interconnected computing devices can communicate
with each other through defined rules of data communications.

• in a network, computers can exchange and share information and resource

Uses/ benefits of communication networks:

❑ Resource and File sharing ❑ Collaboration ❑ Organization ❑ Teleconferencing ❑ Mobile

telephony ❑ E-Business ❑ Online Education ❑ E-Banking ❑ Long Distance Communication ❑
Centralized Software Management ❑ Workgroup Computing ❑ Interactive Entertainment

Disadvantages:
❑ Expensive

❑ Danger of hacking

❑ Rapid Spread of Computer Viruses

❑ Managing a large network is complicated

❑ The performance degrades unless the network is designed properly

Types of communication networks:

1. LAN

local area network (LAN) is a computer network covering small physical area like home,
office.

2. MAN

metropolitan area network Connects two or more local area networks but does not extend
beyond the boundaries of the

immediate town/city.

3. WAN

wide area network is a computer network that covers a broad area like countries.

Network topologies
The way that devices can connect to each other.

Common topologies:

• Bus

All nodes are connected to a common transmission medium with two endpoints.

• Star

is one of the most common network setups where each of the devices and computers on a network
connect to a central hub.
 • Ring

each node in the network is connected to the next node forming a closed loop giving the
appearance of a ring-like structure.

• Tree

combines characteristics of linear bus and star topologies. It consists of groups of star-configured
workstations connected to a linear bus backbone cable.

• Hybrid

is a combination of any two or more network topologies in such a way that the resulting network
does not have one of the standard forms.
Telecommunication system

a transmitter: that takes information and converts it to a signal.

a transmission medium: that carries the signal and,

a receiver: that receives the signal and converts it back into usable information.

Like: Telephone, Radio, TV.

Transmission Media

Guided Media
Guided Media has a physical link between sender and receiver.

• Twisted pair cable

 o Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) cable

includes shielding to reduce cross-talk as well as to limit the effects of external interference.

Advantages:

▪ not very cost.

▪ installation is easy.

▪ It has a higher capacity.

▪ higher data transmission rate.

Disadvantages:

▪ more expensive as compared to UTP and Coaxial cables.

• Coaxial Cable

Commonly used transmission media, for example, TV wire.

The name of the cable is coaxial as it contains two conductors parallel to each other. • It has a
higher frequency as compared to Twisted pair cable.

The copper mesh prevents from the EMI(Electromagnetic interference).

o Coaxial cable is of two types:

▪ Baseband transmission: It is defined as the process of transmitting a single

signal at high speed.

▪ Broadband transmission: It is defined as the process of transmitting

multiple signals simultaneously.

o Advantages:

▪ The data can be transmitted at high speed.

▪ It has better shielding as compared to twisted pair cable.

▪ It provides higher bandwidth

o Disadvantages:

▪ It is more expensive as compared to twisted pair cable.

▪ If any fault occurs in the cable causes the failure in the entire network.

• Fiber Optic Cable

Fiber optic cable transmits light signals rather than electrical signals.

It is enormously more efficient than the other network transmission media.

Fiber optic is a cable that holds the optical fibers coated in plastic that are used to send the data by
pulses of light.

The plastic coating protects the optical fibers from heat, cold, and electromagnetic interference
from other types of wiring.

o Advantages:

▪ Noise resistance: it is immune to Electromagnetic Interference (EMI).

▪ Less signal attenuation.

▪ Higher bandwidth.

o Disadvantages:

▪ most expensive among all the cables

▪ Installation / maintenance: is high

▪ glas fiber is more easily broken than wire

Unguided Media
Unguided/non-physical/wireless/unbounded media have no physical link between sender and
receiver.

Air is the media through which the electromagnetic energy can flow easily.

• Radio waves

Radio waves are electromagnetic waves that are transmitted in all the directions of free space.

o Applications:

▪ A Radio wave is useful for multicasting when there is one sender and many
receivers.

▪ An FM radio, television, cordless phones are examples of a radio wave.

• Microwave Waves

Microwaves are the electromagnetic waves having the frequency in the range from 1GHz to 1000
GHz.

Terrestrial Microwave transmission is a technology that transmits the focused beam of a radio
signal from one ground-based microwave transmission antenna to another.

• Infrared Waves

o An infrared transmission is a wireless technology used for communication over

short ranges.
 o It is used for short-range communication such as data transfer between two cell
phones, TV remote operation, data transfer between a computer and cell phone
resides in the same closed area.

Introduction to Digital Image Processing

## Introduction to Digital Image Processing

Signal is a mathemtical function that conveys some information.

Signal can be one dimensional or two dimensional signals

One dimensional signal is measured over time such as voice signal.

Two dimensional signals are measured over some other physical quantities such as a digital
image.

An image may be defined as a two-dimensional function, f (x, y), where x and y are spatial
(plane) coordinates.

When x, y, and the intensity values of f are all finite, discrete quantities, we call the image a
digital image

One of the simplest ways to develop a basic understanding of the extent of image processing
applications is to categorize images according to their source

Each massless particle contains a certain amount (or bundle) of energy.

Each bundle of energy is called a photon

Fields related to Digital Image

Computer Graphics: Creation of images synthetically.

Image Processing: Enhancement or manipulation of the image – the result of which is usually
another image.

Video Processing (new!): Similar with image processing, but processing of multiple
images/frames.

Computer Vision: Analysis and understanding of image content.

Pattern recognition: the automated recognition of patterns and regularities in data.

Application Areas of Digital Image Processing

Digital image processing techniques are now used in many fields such as:

- Medicine

- Agriculture

- Weather forecasting
- Security

- Banking

- Defense

- Industrial

- automation

- Forensics

- Underwater image restoration and enhancement

Image Enhancement The process of manipulating an image so the result is more suitable than
the original for a specific application.

Autonomous segmentation is one of the most difficult tasks in digital image processing.