Resumen de Viewpoint: Data and decisions for bridge maintenance
Mungo Stacy discusses the condition of the UK's bridges and the challenges faced by structural engineers in assessing and maintaining bridges in the years ahead.
Physics and metaphysics Eliot’s words from the pageant-play The Rock were written as a metaphysical plea, lamenting the loss of spiritual meaning beneath shallow material interests and rationality. However, in information science, these lines are often read at face value to indicate the challenges of drawing conclusions from large-scale data processing, the challenge of ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’. Authors such as Lucky1 use the Eliot quote to introduce the ‘information hierarchy’ – data is processed to become information;
internalised to become knowledge; and understood to become wisdom. From this comes the truism, applicable also in asset management, that to take good decisions (wisdom), one needs good data.
