Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of network theory and network science. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are reflected in this article. In a or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions and logic Logic is the study of reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, and computer science. Logic examines general forms which arguments may take, which forms are valid, and which are fallacies. It is one kind of critical thinking. In philosophy, the study of logic since before Aristotle Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most, though analysis as a formal concept is a relatively recent development.^[1]

The word is a transcription of the ancient Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of ἀνάλυσις (analusis, "a breaking up", from ana- "up, throughout" and lysis "a loosening").^[2]

As a formal concept, the method has variously been ascribed to Ibn al-Haytham Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham (Arabic: ابو علي، الحسن بن الحسن بن الهيثم, Persian: ابن هیثم, Latinized: Alhacen or Alhazen) (965 in Basra - c. 1039 in Cairo) was an Arab or Persian scientist and polymath. He made significant contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to physics,,^[3] René Descartes René Descartes , (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650), also known as Renatus Cartesius (Latinized form; adjectival form: "Cartesian"), was a French philosopher, mathematician, physicist, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy", and much of (Discourse on the Method The Discourse on the Method is a philosophical and mathematical treatise published by René Descartes in 1637. Its full name is Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences . The Discourse on Method is best known as the source of the famous quotation "Je pense, donc je suis" ("I) and Galileo Galilei Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy,". It has also been ascribed to Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton FRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential people in human history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the, in the form of a practical method of physical discovery (which he did not name or formally describe).

Use in specific fields

Chemistry

The field of chemistry Chemistry is the science of matter and the changes it undergoes. The science of matter is also addressed by physics, but while physics takes a more general and fundamental approach, chemistry is more specialized, being concerned with the composition, behavior, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical uses analysis in at least three ways: to identify the components of a particular chemical compound A chemical compound is a pure chemical substance consisting of two or more different chemical elements that can be separated into simpler substances by chemical reactions. Chemical compounds have a unique and defined chemical structure; they consist of a fixed ratio of atoms that are held together in a defined spatial arrangement by chemical bonds (qualitative analysis), to identify the proportions of components in a mixture In chemistry, a mixture is a material system made up by two or more different substances which are together but are not combined chemically. Mixture refers to the physical combination of two or more substances the identities of which are retained. The molecules of two or more different substances are mixed in the form of alloys, solutions, (quantitative analysis), and to break down chemical processes In a "scientific" sense, a chemical process is a method or means of somehow changing one or more chemicals or chemical compounds. Such a chemical process can occur by itself or be caused by somebody. Such ad chemical process commonly involves a chemical reaction of some sort. In an "engineering" sense, a chemical process is a and examine chemical reactions A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Chemical reactions can be either spontaneous, requiring no input of energy, or non-spontaneous, often coming about only after the input of some type of energy, viz. heat, light or electricity. Classically, chemical reactions encompass between elements A chemical element is a pure chemical substance consisting of one type of atom distinguished by its atomic number, which is the number of protons in its nucleus. The term is also used to refer to a pure chemical substance composed of atoms with the same number of protons. Common examples of elements are iron, copper, silver, gold, hydrogen, carbon, of matter The term matter traditionally refers to the substance that objects are made of. One common way to identify this "substance" is through its properties: for example, matter is anything that has both mass and volume. For an example of its use, analysis of the concentration of elements is important in managing a nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate, control, and sustain a nuclear chain reaction. The most common use of nuclear reactors is for the generation of electrical power and for the power in some ships (see Nuclear marine propulsion). This is usually accomplished by methods that involve using heat from the nuclear reaction to power steam, so nuclear scientists The nucleus of an atom is the very dense region, consisting of nucleons , at the center of an atom. Almost all of the mass in an atom is made up from the protons and neutrons in the nucleus, with a very small contribution from the orbiting electrons will analyze neutron activation Neutron Activation Analysis is a nuclear process used for determining certain concentrations of elements in a vast amount of materials. NAA allows discrete sampling of elements as it disregards the chemical form of a sample, and focuses solely on its nucleus. The method is based on neutron activation and therefore requires a source of neutrons; a to develop discrete measurements within vast samples. A matrix In chemical analysis, matrix refers to the components of a sample other than the analyte. The matrix can have a considerable effect on the way the analysis is conducted and the quality of the results obtained; such effects are called matrix effects. For example, the ionic strength of the solution can have an effect on the activity coefficients of can have a considerable effect on the way a chemical analysis is conducted and the quality of its results. Analysis can be done manually or with a device An analyser, also spelt analyzer, is a device that analyses given data. It examines in detail the structure of the given data and tries to find patterns and relationships between parts of the data. An analyser can be a piece of hardware or a software program running on a computer. Chemical analysis is an important element of national security National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the nation-state through the use of economic, military and political power and the exercise of diplomacy among the major world powers A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess economic, military, diplomatic, and cultural strength, which may cause other smaller nations to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions of their own. International relations theorists have with Materials Materials MASINT is one of the six major disciplines generally accepted to make up the field of Measurement and Signature Intelligence , with due regard that the MASINT subdisciplines may overlap, and MASINT, in turn, is complementary to more traditional intelligence collection and analysis disciplines such as SIGINT and IMINT. MASINT encompasses Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) Measurement and Signature Intelligence, or MASINT, refers to intelligence gathering activities that bring together disparate elements that do not fit within the definitions of the major disciplines mentioned above capabilities.

Isotopes

Chemists can use isotopes Isotopes are different types of atoms of the same chemical element, each having a different number of neutrons. In a corresponding manner, isotopes differ in mass number (or number of nucleons) but never in atomic number. The number of protons (the atomic number) is the same because that is what characterizes a chemical element. For example, to assist analysts with issues in anthropology Anthropology is the study of humanity. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, the humanities, and social sciences. The term "anthropology", pronounced /ænθrɵˈpɒlədʒi/, is from the Greek ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, "human", and -λογία, -logia, "discourse" or "study", and was first, archeology Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of past human societies, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data which they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes. Due to the fact that archaeology employs a wide range of different procedures, it can be, food chemistry Food chemistry is the study of chemical processes and interactions of all biological and non-biological components of foods. The biological substances include such items as meat, poultry, lettuce, beer, and milk as examples. It is similar to biochemistry in its main components such as carbohydrates, lipids, and protein, but it also includes areas, forensics Forensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action. Besides its relevance to a legal system, forensics encompasses the accepted scholarly or scientific methodology and norms under which the facts regarding an event, an artifact,, geology Geology is the science and study of the physical matter and energy that constitute the Earth. The field of geology encompasses the study of the composition, structure, properties, and history of the planet's physical material, the processes by which it is formed, moved, and changed, the history of life on Earth, and human interactions with the, and a host of other questions of physical science Physical Science is an encompassing term for the branches of natural science and science that study non-living systems, in contrast to the biological sciences. However, the term "physical" creates an unintended, somewhat arbitrary distinction, since many branches of physical science also study biological phenomena. Analysts can discern the origins of natural and man-made isotopes in the study of environmental radioactivity Environmental radioactivity is the study of radioactive materials in the human environment. While some radioisotopes are only found on Earth as a result of human activity, such as Strontium-90 and Technetium-99 (99Tc), and some isotopes like Potassium-40 (40K) are only present due to natural processes, a few isotopes are present as a result of.

Business

• Financial statement analysis Financial statement analysis refers to an assessment of the viability, stability and profitability of a business, sub-business or project – the analysis of the accounts and the economic prospects of a firm
• Fundamental analysis Fundamental analysis of a business involves analyzing its financial statements and health, its management and competitive advantages, and its competitors and markets. When applied to futures and forex, it focuses on the overall state of the economy, interest rates, production, earnings, and management. When analyzing a stock, futures contract, or – a stock valuation method that uses financial analysis
• Technical analysis In finance, technical analysis is a security analysis discipline for forecasting the future direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume – the study of price action in securities markets in order to forecast future prices
• Business analysis Business analysis is the discipline of identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems. Solutions often include a systems development component, but may also consist of process improvement or organizational change or strategic planning and policy development. The person who carries out this task is called a business – involves identifying the needs and determining the solutions to business problems
• Price analysis Price analysis involves the breakdown of a price to a unit figure. Usually per square metre or square foot of accommodation or per hectare or even square metre of land. The price with suitable adjustment for various differences, is then applied to the valuation problem – involves the breakdown of a price to a unit figure
• Market analysis A Market analysis is a documented investigation of a Market that is used to inform a firm's planning activities particularly around decision of: inventory, purchase, work force expansion/contraction, facility expansion, purchases of capital equipment, promotional activities, and many other aspects of a company – consists of suppliers and customers, and price is determined by the interaction of supply and demand

Computer science

• Competitive analysis (online algorithm) Competitive analysis is a method invented for analyzing online algorithms, in which the performance of an online algorithm is compared to the performance of an optimal offline algorithm that can view the sequence of requests in advance. An algorithm is competitive if its competitive ratio—the ratio between its performance and the offline – shows how online algorithms perform and demonstrates the power of randomization in algorithms
• Lexical analysis In computer science, lexical analysis is the process of converting a sequence of characters into a sequence of tokens. A program or function which performs lexical analysis is called a lexical analyzer, lexer or scanner. A lexer often exists as a single function which is called by a parser or another function – the process of processing an input sequence of characters and producing as output a sequence of symbols
• Object-oriented analysis and design Object-oriented analysis and design is a software engineering approach that models a system as a group of interacting objects. Each object represents some entity of interest in the system being modeled, and is characterised by its class, its state (data elements), and its behavior. Various models can be created to show the static structure, – à la Booch The Booch method is a technique used in software engineering. It is an object modeling language and methodology that was widely used in object-oriented analysis and design. It was developed by Grady Booch, while at Rational Software
• Program analysis (computer science) Two main approaches in program analysis are static program analysis and dynamic program analysis – the process of automatically analyzing the behavior of computer programs
• Semantic analysis (computer science) A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a computer language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code). The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program – a pass by a compiler that adds semantical information to the parse tree and performs certain checks
• Static code analysis – the analysis of computer software that is performed without actually executing programs built from that software
• Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology – à la Yourdon
• Syntax analysis – a process in compilers that recognizes the structure of programming languages, also known as parsing
• Worst-case execution time – determines the longest time that a piece of software can take to run

Economics

• Agroecosystem analysis Agroecosystem analysis is a thorough analysis of an agricultural environment which considers aspects from ecology, sociology, economics, and politics with equal weight. There are many aspects to consider; however, it is literally impossible to account for all of them. This is one of the issues when trying to conduct an analysis of an agricultural
• Input-output model if applied to a region, is called Regional Impact Multiplier System
• Principal components analysis – a technique that can be used to simplify a dataset

Engineering

Analysts in the field of engineering look at structures, mechanisms, systems and dimensions. Electrical engineers analyze systems in electronics. Life cycles and system failures are broken down and studied by engineers. It is also looking at different factors encorporated within the design.

Intelligence

The field of intelligence employs analysts to break down and understand a wide array of questions. Intelligence agencies may use heuristics, inductive and deductive reasoning, social network analysis, dynamic network analysis, link analysis, and brainstorming to sort through problems they face. Military intelligence may explore issues through the use of game theory, Red Teaming, and wargaming. Signals intelligence applies cryptanalysis and frequency analysis to break codes and ciphers. Business intelligence applies theories of competitive intelligence analysis and competitor analysis to resolve questions in the marketplace. Law enforcement intelligence applies a number of theories in crime analysis.

Linguistics

Linguistics began with the analysis of Sanskrit and Tamil; today it looks at individual languages and language in general. It breaks language down and analyzes its component parts: theory, sounds and their meaning, utterance usage, word origins, the history of words, the meaning of words and word combinations, sentence construction, basic construction beyond the sentence level, stylistics, and conversation. It examines the above using statistics and modeling, and semantics. It analyzes language in context of anthropology, biology, evolution, geography, history, neurology, psychology, and sociology. It also takes the applied approach, looking at individual language development and clinical issues.

Literature

Literary theory is the analysis of literature. Some say that literary criticism is a subset of literary theory. The focus can be as diverse as the analysis of Homer or Freud. This is mainly to do with the breaking up of a topic to make it easier to understand.

Mathematics

Mathematical analysis can be applied in the study of classical concepts of real numbers, such as the complex variables, trigonometric functions, and algorithms, or of non-classical concepts like constructivism, harmonics, infinity, and vectors.

Music

• Musical analysis – a process attempting to answer the question "How does this music work?"
• Schenkerian analysis

Philosophy

• Philosophical analysis – a general term for the techniques used by philosophers
• Analysis is the name of a prominent journal in philosophy.

Psychotherapy

• Psychoanalysis – seeks to elucidate connections among unconscious components of patients' mental processes
• Transactional analysis

Signal processing

• Finite element analysis – a computer simulation technique used in engineering analysis
• Independent component analysis
• Link quality analysis – the analysis of signal quality
• Path quality analysis

Statistics

• Analysis of variance (ANOVA) – a collection of statistical models and their associated procedures which compare means by splitting the overall observed variance into different parts
• Meta-analysis – combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses
• Time-series analysis – methods that attempt to understand a sequence of data points spaced apart at uniform time intervals

Other

• Aura analysis – a technique in which supporters of the method claim that the body's aura, or energy field is analyzed
• Bowling analysis – a notation summarizing a cricket bowler's performance
• Lithic analysis – the analysis of stone tools using basic scientific techniques
• Protocol analysis – a means for extracting persons' thoughts while they are performing a task

See also

• List of thinking-related topics
• Scientific method

References

1. ^ Analysis
2. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary
3. ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Al-Haytham.html .

Categories: Critical thinking | Greek loanwords | Thought | Research methods | Analysis

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