Abstract: Big Data has become a popular phrase to describe technology and practices that have been in use for many years. However, ever-increasing storage capacity and reduction in storage costs along with vast improvements in data analytics have recently made Big Data available to a variety of firms and industries. It is no surprise that the rise of Big Data has coincided with the rapid adoption of cloud computing services. As the technology continues to advance, the question for many businesses is how to benefit from Big Data and how to use cloud computing to make it happen. In this presentation, the suitability and performance analysis of cloud infrastructure for various applications will be briefly discussed.

Subsequently, an overview of Big Data and its compelling combination with cloud will be provided. I present my recent research on an enterprise project in health informatics in which main challenges related to Big Data have been investigated and addressed. Data acquisition, security and privacy, data storage, in-motion and at-rest analytics, architecture and infrastructure design are among such challenges. Preliminary results demonstrate that the proper use and management of physiological data can promote the health and reduce mortality as well as disability rates of critical condition patients. More specifically, through an effective harness of Big Data power within neonatal intensive care units, we realize a new wave of clinical discovery that enables the creation of innovative online health analytics approaches for disease prevention or earlier condition onset detection.   


Short Bio.: Dr. Hamzeh Khazaei is a postdoctoral research scientist at IBM Canada Research and Development Centre. He received his PhD degree in Computer Science from University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (2009-2012). Earlier, he received his both BSc. and MSc. degrees in Computer Science from Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran (2000-2008). His research areas are cloud computing, Big Data platforms, Analytics at rest & in motion, and computing systems modeling.


Time and Location: Wednesday Nov 26th, 2014  14:30pm, in TEL 2003b