Merger of IT and R&D by Dr. Gunmala Suri, Faculty, University Business School , Punjab University , Chandigarh . g_suri@yahoo.com
Information technology includes all matters concerned with the furtherance of computer science and technology and with the design, development, installation, and implementation of information systems and applications. Information technology architecture is an integrated framework for acquiring and evolving IT to achieve strategic goals. It has both logical and technical components. Logical components include mission, functional and information requirements, system configurations, and information flows. Technical components include IT standards and rules that will be used to implement the logical architecture. Forged from decades of prior R&D investment and triggered by research breakthroughs in computing. Hardware, software, and networking, an explosive expansion in IT occurred during this period, proceeding simultaneously in many directions. The effects of this process are profound: The most exciting developments occur at the “wave-front,” i.e., at the intersection of IT with other areas. There are many examples of new science and technology fields, such as bioinformatics, nanotechnology, computer-assisted learning, embedded software and real-time systems, and many others that have yielded new disciplines and have the potential to jumpstart important new industries. IT is becoming so pervasive that the classical structure of IT research and industry is changing drastically. For example, the tight integration of physical and information processes in embedded systems requires the development of a new systems science, which is simultaneously computational and physical. These advances will ultimately require new educational approaches and project management structures representing radical departures from existing models. At the heart of the IT-driven transformation of our economy is high-quality software for complex computing and information systems. At stake are the very success and future progress of our technological dominance in the world.
Revolutionizing Health Care through Information Technology On one of the most fundamental and pervasive problems of Health care delivery: the paper-based medical record. From prescriptions to medical histories and life-critical hospital charts, patient care today relies on an increasingly antiquated, costly, and Error-prone system of pen-and-paper notations. We heard repeatedly from health care providers and practitioners that the potential of information technology to reduce the number of medical Errors, reduce costs, and improve patient care is enormous. Like a) Electronic health records for all Americans that provide every Patient and his or her caregivers the necessary information required for optimal care while reducing costs and administrative overhead. b) Computer-assisted clinical decision supports to increase the ability of Health care providers to take advantage of state-of-the-art medical Knowledge as they make treatment decisions. c) Computerized provider order entry—such as for tests, medicine, and procedures— Both for outpatient care and within the hospital environment
Information Technology's Role In Life Sciences R & D. Information technology (IT) has dramatically reduced the costs, increased the speed, and improved the productivity of life sciences research and development (R&D). Life sciences R&D, in turn, has opened up new challenges and opportunities for IT applications. This virtuous cycle has contributed to a whole new frontier for knowledge generation. For example, the confluence of IT and biological advances made possible the mapping of the entire human Genome and genomes of many other organisms in just over a decade. These discoveries, along with current efforts to determine gene and protein functions, have improved our ability to understand the root causes of human, animal and plant diseases and find new cures. Furthermore, many future IT innovations will likely be spurred by the data and analysis demands of the life sciences.
Large-scale, Network-centric Systems Next-generation commercial and military applications will operate in large-scale, network-centric configurations that take input from many remote sensors and provide geographically dispersed operators with the ability to interact with the collected information and to control remote effectors. In circumstances where the presence of humans in the loop is too expensive or their responses are too slow, these systems must respond autonomously and flexibly to unanticipated combinations of events during execution. Moreover, these systems are increasingly being networked to form long-lived “systems of systems” that must run unobtrusively and largely autonomously, shielding operators from unnecessary details (but keeping them apprised so they may react during emergencies), while simultaneously communicating and responding to mission critical Information at heretofore infeasible rates. Examples of these types of systems include (but are not limited to): • Metropolitan area traffic control systems that process sensor data from thousands of vehicles • Coordinated swarms of unmanned air vehicles • Command and control systems for theater-level battle management • Supply chain management • Community analysis of scientific data • Home power management • Integrated health-care delivery systems • Terrorist tracking and identification systems Future of Information Technology Despite periodic economic downturns driven by business cycles, it is clear that IT will continue to gain momentum. The exponential expansion driven by the relentless progress in processor and networking technologies is predicted to continue well into the next decade. IT will increasingly pervade and transform our quality of life as it impacts application domains and global competitiveness. Emerging technology related to research is Data Warehousing and Data Mining. It involves capture of data, which is stored in computers in a virtual warehouse and used to find patterns, test hypothesis as in normal research.
|