INTERFACE - 2013 SYMPOSIUM ON BIG DATA AND ANALYTICS

   Earlier this year, Chapman University (Orange, California) hosted 44th Symposium on the Interface of Computing Science and Statistics - Symposium on Big Data and Analytics. 

 Traditionally, the joint Chapman-Interface symposium emphasizes scientific contribution dealing with Big Data to advance core scientific and technological means of managing, analyzing, visualizing, and extracting useful information from large and diverse data sets.

  This year Symposium was focused on Big Data subthemes in Earth Systems Science and Healthcare Systems. James Doti, President of Chapman University and Janeen Hill, Dean of College of Science and Technology welcomed the event. Hesham El-Askary, Director of Hazards, Global and Environmental Change and Computational Science Programs at College of Science and Technology welcomed Arnold Goodman, the founder and first Chairman of the Symposium. Scientists from Caltech, Stanford, George Mason, University of California, University of Heidelberg, and Vanderbilt Universities among others, as well as from NASA GSFC and JPL presented their results.

  The Symposium was widely attended by high-tech companies and venture capital firms working in the Healthcare and IT industries.  IBM, Experian, Nexus, Frost Venture, and others discussed topics such as computational statistics, statistical software, exploratory data analysis, data mining, pattern recognition, scientific visualization and related fields with applications to Earth Systems Science and Healthcare Systems. Almost each presentation discussed Hadoop framework as “must use” technology in this field.

 Discussions on Earth Systems Science emphasized data mining/fusion/assimilation, uncertainty analysis, modeling/forecasting with large datasets, sensor webs, and community frameworks. Science topics included handling big data addressing specific phenomena in one of the spheres namely, atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and cryosphere. Mostly attended by scientists, the sessions on Earth Sciences emphasized many challenges requiring immediate attention by the research and industrial communities.

  Life sciences and Healthcare are the critical areas where Big Data technologies promise tremendous opportunities. Genomics, Translational Medicine, clinical data analysis in Healthcare experienced explosion in big data flow for the last several years. Healthcare complexity requires elaborated information systems to manage Big Data, processes to implement Healthcare delivery, planning to improve Healthcare, data mining to pose Healthcare questions, and finally statistical analysis to find major Healthcare answers.

  The lack of a unified electronic records system for Healthcare in the U.S. was widely discussed at the Symposium. The representatives from hospitals, universities, and industries pinpointed importance of creation such a system that would allow exchanging of medical records data. Presenters from Veteran’s Hospital, IBM, University of California, and others discussed this topic. However, some participants expressed concern about the readiness and willingness of healthcare institutions to exchange data.

 A number of presentations on Genomics and Translational Medicine pinpointed requirements for still additional funds injection in these fields of research to sustain development. However, Arnold Goodman and other attendees questioned if it make sense to inject additional money in genomic research, which already operates the budget much higher than many other industries combined? This question may be especially interesting in view of recent advances in Systems Biology and multiple paradoxes reported in cancerogenesis and other Healthcare areas.

  Discussion around data analysis in Healthcare pinpointed that there was not enough attention from IT community to Healthcare in comparison with e.g. Finances, which was the main reasons for current problems with data overflow in this field. The question is do we want Healthcare to get a similar input from IT community that facilitated the crisis in Banking Industry in 2008? Healthcare is somewhat different from Finances simply because it deals which our lives directly.

Oleks Goushcha, Ph.D.

CTO & SVP of NuPortSoft
www.nuportsoft.com