The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is hosting a workshop on the use of "big data"—a term referring to massive amounts of stored and streaming digital information—at its Gaithersburg, Md., campus's Green Auditorium, June 13-14, 2012. 

The Big Data Workshop should interest everyone, from medical professionals to marketing firms, who must mine large data sets for specific information. Computers can sift through huge amounts of data to find relevant information, but both the programs used – called algorithms – and the underlying infrastructure on which they run, frequently have limitations that analysts would like to minimize.

"Over the years, companies have mined large data sets to, for example, identify trends in consumer shopping," says NIST computer scientist Mary Brady. "But more and more, it's being explored for quantitative use—to aid a surgeon in detecting abnormalities through real-time analysis of video captured during a surgical procedure, for instance. In this other type of situation, the accuracy of the analysis is very important."

NIST is holding the workshop in part to raise awareness that data mining algorithms have some degree of uncertainty, and then discuss what can be done to address it from a measurement science and standards perspective. Key national priority topics will be explored, including examples from science, health, disaster management, security and finance.  

The workshop, sponsored by NIST and the University of Maryland – Baltimore Campus, is free and open to the public, but attendees must register online. For additional information, including the workshop agenda, please visit www.nist.gov/itl/ssd/is/big-data.cfm.