Data (information)

Data (/ˈdeɪtə/ DAY-tə, /ˈdætə/ DAT-ə, /ˈdɑːtə/ DAH-tə) is a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables.

Data and information are often used interchangeably; however, the extent to which a set of data is informative to someone depends on the extent to which it is unexpected by that person. The amount of information content in a data stream may be characterized by its Shannon entropy.

While the concept of data is commonly associated with scientific research, data is collected by a huge range of organizations and institutions, including businesses (e.g., sales data, revenue, profits, ), governments (e.g., crime rates, unemployment rates, literacy rates) and non-governmental organizations (e.g., censuses of the number of homeless people by non-profit organizations).

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