On the job: validating data

Any job in engineering, including most certainly those in electrical and computer engineering, inevitably involves the generation of large amounts of data. The data can come from analysis, computation and/or measurement. Data can be associated with tasks ranging from basic research to development to design and testing. As a result, many questions can arise over its reliability and validity. While bad decisions and bad conclusions can be reached, even when the data is perfect, good decisions and good conclusions certainly cannot be made when the data is faulty. The article briefly considers some aspects of the fundamental question, "How can data be validated?".