Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 7
Using Big Data
Nigam H. Shah
By the End of this Chapter, Readers Should be Able to
D e fi ne what is big data
Understand how big data change biomedical science
Identify the key questions to ask when analyzing big data
Understand the limitations to be aware of when reasoning with or analyzing big
data.
7.1
Introduction
“Big Data” is term that is diffi cult to fully defi ne. As a concept, Big Data have
existed since there was ever a notion of data that required mechanical devices for
processing or analyzing. Indeed, the fi rst notion of Big Data may very well be attrib-
uted to the motivation of Charles Babbage's differential and analytic engines, which
were originally contemplated to develop nautical charts. In recent years, Big Data
are defi ned as those that data that are challenging relative to available computational
processing [
1
,
2
]. Generally speaking, data sets that are so large and complex that
traditional data processing applications are unable to process them are referred to as
Big Data. Of course, what is traditional is highly dependent on the fi eld of use; and
what is Big Data in healthcare, might be considered routine (or even “small”) in
high energy physics research. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the boundary
at which a fi eld would term a dataset as “Big” and to understand the associated
change in mindset that Big Data analysis entails [
3
].
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