STEM Technology Lecture Notes Flashcards

Practice vocabulary flashcards covering the basics of binary computing, logic gates, data representation, and database management systems based on the Grade 11 STEM curriculum.

Binary

A numeric system that only uses two digits — $0$ and $1$.

Bit

Short for BInary DigiT, it is the smallest unit of measurement used to quantify computer data, containing a single value of $0$ or $1$.

Byte

A data measurement unit that contains $8$ bits, capable of representing $2^{8}$ or $256$ different values.

Hekat

An ancient volume unit used in Egypt to measure grains and liquids, which utilized binary fractions ($1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64$).

Ching

An ancient Chinese divination text (I Ching) containing binary notations based on the duality of Ying and Yang, featuring $64$ Hexagrams.

Prosody

The study and use of the basic rhythmic structure of poetry; Indian scholar Pingala used binary numbers in the form of short and long syllables to describe it.

Boolean algebra

A branch of algebra where the values of the variables are the truth values TRUE and FALSE, denoted as $1$ and $0$.

NOT Gate

Also called an INVERTER, this logic gate takes one bit as an input and produces its opposite as an output.

AND Gate

A logic gate with two inputs where the output $Q$ is $1$ only if both inputs $A$ and $B$ are $1$.

OR Gate

A logic gate where the output $Q$ is $1$ if input $A$ is $1$, or input $B$ is $1$, or both are $1$.

NOR Gate

A combination of an OR gate and a NOT gate; it performs the OR operation and then inverts the result.

Z1 Computer

The first freely programmable computer in the world, designed by Konrad Zuse between 1936 and 1937, which used Boolean Logic and Binary Floating Point Numbers.

Transistor

A fundamental building block of computer circuitry that acts as a tiny binary switch, either allowing (representing $1$) or preventing (representing $0$) the flow of electrical current.

Decimal Numeral System

A number system that employs $10$ as its base and utilizes ten different numeral digits: $0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,$ and $9$.

Binary Number System

A number system that employs $2$ as its base and contains only two values: $0$ and $1$.

Octal Number System

A digital number system that operates at a base of $8$ and uses the numbers $0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7$.

Hexadecimal Number System

A base-$16$ system comprising ten decimal digits and six extra symbols: $A, B, C, D, E,$ and $F$.

Nibble

A term in computer jargon referring to a group of four bits.

Integers

Whole numbers that are not fractions, represented in computers by counting in binary $0$s and $1$s.

Characters

Any letter, number, space, punctuation mark, or symbol that can be typed on a computer.

ASCII

Standing for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, it is a coding scheme that uses $7$ or $8$ bits to represent characters as numeric codes.

One’s Complement

A way to represent integers in binary obtained by toggling all bits, transforming the $0$ bit to $1$ and the $1$ bit to $0$.

Two’s Complement

A method to represent negative integers by adding $1$ to the One’s Complement of a binary number.

Floating Point

A number without a fixed number of digits before and after the decimal point, stored by splitting it into sign, exponent, and mantissa.

Mantissa

The section of a floating point representation that occurs before the decimal place.

Pixel

Short for Picture Element, the basic unit of a digital image representing a single color or level of brightness.

Bit-plane

A representation of colors where each bit doubles the number of available colors (e.g., $1$-bit equals $2$ colors).

Monochrome image

A digital image made of pixels where each pixel is stored as a single bit, representing either black ($1$) or white ($0$).

Colour depth

The number of bits used to store each pixel in an image, where more bits allow for a larger range of colors.

Metadata

Text information pertaining to a file, such as the resolution (rows and columns) of an image, embedded within or associated with the file.

Resolution

A way of describing how tightly packed the pixels are in an image, expressed as the total number of pixels.

Amplitude

In sound waves, the measure of the height of the wave which determines the volume.

Pitch

Determined by frequency, it is the number of times per second a sound wave repeats itself.

Sample Rate

The frequency at which audio wave samples are taken, measured in Hertz ($\text{Hz}$).

Database

An organized collection of data generally stored and accessed electronically from a computer system.

Database Management System (DBMS)

A collection of inter-related data and a set of programs used to store and access those data in an easy and effective way.

Database Architecture

The design of a database and its related elements including connectivity, application programs, and user manipulation layers.

3-Tier Architecture

A database design comprising the User (Presentation) Tier, the Application (Middle) Tier, and the Database (Data) Tier.

Data Abstraction

The process where developers hide internal irrelevant details from users, consisting of the Physical, Logical, and View levels.

Schema

The design or structural view of a database, referring to variable declarations in tables.

Instance

The data stored in a database at a particular moment in time, which changes as records are added or deleted.

DDL (Data Definition Language)

A language used for specifying the database schema, including creating, altering, and dropping tables.

DML (Data Manipulation Language)

A language used for accessing and manipulating data, such as selecting, inserting, and deleting records.

Entity

An object or component of data (person, place, or thing) to be tracked in a database, represented by a rectangle in ER diagrams.

Weak Entity

An entity that is not uniquely identified by its own attributes and relies on its relationship with other entities.

Attribute

A property that describes an entity, represented by an oval in ER diagrams.

Cardinality

A numerical context that defines the minimum and maximum instances of one entity associated with another.

Primary Key

An attribute or set of attributes that uniquely identifies a row (tuple) in a table.

Foreign Key

A column in a table that points to the primary key of another table, acting as a cross-reference.

Generalization

A bottom-up process where common attributes of multiple entities are combined to form a new higher-level generalized entity.

Specialization

A top-down process where an entity is divided into sub-entities based on distinguishing attributes.

Aggregation

A process where a relationship between two entities is treated as a single entity because they do not make sense individually.

Relational Database Model

A model where data is represented as tables consisting of rows (records) and columns (fields).

Domain

A setting that permits only a certain type of data values to be entered into a specific table column.

Hierarchical Model

A data model organized into a tree-like structure where each record has one parent and many children.

Input Mask

An expression that specifies exactly how data should be entered into a field to maintain data integrity.

Query

A method to search the database by specifying exact fields, tables, and filtering criteria.

Macro

A set of actions that can be run automatically to simplify common, repetitive tasks within a database.

AutoExec

A special name for a macro in MS Access that causes it to run every time the database is opened.