Visualizing the medical data explosion

Medical scans produce thousands of images and terabytes of data for a single patient in mere seconds. How do doctors parse this information and determine what's useful?

Visualization expert Anders Ynnerman shows us sophisticated new tools for analyzing this myriad data, and a glimpse at some sci-fi-sounding medical technologies in development.

Win by the competence of processing growing, flowing 'big data'

Around 1.200 exabytes of data will be generated in 2011, compared to 287 exabytes in 2009. Data, generated by companies, exponentially grows (estimated 60% per annum) because it's increasingly being gathered by ubiquitous information-sensing mobile devices, software logs, RFID readers, wireless sensor networks and large scale e-commerce.

This growing, flowing data (hundreds of petabytes of data in a single data set) allows companies to spot business trends in an early stage; to generate data-driven actionable insights and pro-actively act upon these insights (creating innovative 'offerings', new revenue streams or saving millions of euros).

Managed well, the data can be used to unlock new sources of economic value. To benefit from this exponential growth of data, being able to make sense of this structured and unstructured stream of data is a must. Data is meaningless without intelligence and interpretation. Once you have figured out how to capture and store your data, you need to extract meaning in a way that allows you to act upon it.

The ability to efficiently process (capture, store, search, analyze and visualize) and transform - real-time - the growing, flowing stream of 'big data' into individually relevant, valuable 'offerings' will become a key competence for the winning companies of tomorrow.

Only the companies that 'earn' the best data engineers, enterprise architects, developers, analysts, data mining talents and business intelligence professionals, by respecting our 'electronic soul', are equipped to compete on analytics .... and have a chance to become winning data-driven organizations.

Three key-themes:
1. Respecting ownership of our 'electronic soul': the collection of our individual electronic data.
The 'electronic soul' is an asset with value attached to it. Hans Peter Brøndmo argues that designing systems to address privacy issues needs an asset model for both depositing and withdrawing personal information.

Such an asset model for depositing (grant access to electronic soul in return for special offers, or access to a service) and withdrawing (revoke access to electronic soul if you find that data is being misused) personal information would need appropriate controls, as well as transparency.

To ensure your 'electronic soul' is not used against your best interests a framework is needed for every individual giving this individual transparancy about where your data is 'deposited', for what purpose, who has access and is allowed to retrieve personal data when that matters. Yet the framework for doing so does not exist.

2. Figuring out the relevance algorythm: Relevance in real-time
Figuring out the most optimal real-time relevance algorythm is the main focus of the winning Media Companies. How to give people, real-time, the most valuable information for them, wherever they are? How to optimize for Return on Attention? How to help people pay only attention to stuff that really matters to them, without generating a feeling of missing some important stuff. There is a lot of iteration around the 'relevance algorythm' by Twitter's scientists and math people, figuring out relevance in real-time. Figuring out, which of the 100 million tweets per day matter the most for each specific individual.



3. Visualization & Understanding.
People feel overwhelmed with data. But the problem is not with the amount of data. The problem is that data is not presented in a form that people can understand and use. Be prepared to be able to present data in enjoyable and rewarding ways.

Innovations at the intersection of TV, digital platforms and gaming

When improving effective marketing with a smart second screen strategy, figuring out relevance in real-time will become a key-science.

Central question: How to improve, for each individual, his (or her) Return on Attention?

Innovations at the intersection of physics, biology and nanotechnology

In nanotechnology tiny building blocks (atoms and molecules) are edited and/or manipulated. By shifting atoms and molecules scientists create new material.

Worldwide there are experiments with nanotechnology to create new medicines that improve quality of life and human life. For instance, Nanotechnology enables Philips to produce a lab-on-a-chip.

At the intersection of Nanotechnology, Biology and Physics a new science mash-up is emerging: Nano-bio-physics.



In the Netherlands, Cees Dekker (TU Delft) and Dave Blanc (TU Twente) specialize in nano-science.