A Stream of Better Information
Dennis McCafferty | Date: 03-03-10 | Comments: 0
- Better stock forecasting, health-care providing for infants and even outer-space monitoring are all possible via a new "stream computing" software product.
The price of a stock can turn on a dime—influenced by
factors as disparate as a commodity price swing, a currency shift or even a
snowstorm. The long-term health of a sick infant can depend upon genetics,
heart rate and respiratory function. And scientists who are now studying the
intriguing world of "space weather" are constantly monitoring the
state of sunspot activity, electromagnetic storms and other forms of solar
activity.
Typically, this kind of data crunching plays out in
piecemeal fashion, with separate devices and software programs monitoring the
information. But Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM is
positioning itself to change all that with its "stream computing" IBM
InfoSphere Streams software. The product analyzes massive amounts of data in
real time to deliver faster, more accurate conclusions. Via perpetual
analytics, InfoSphere Streams combines streaming architecture and mathematical
algorithms to create a forward-looking analysis of data from any source—narrowing
down precisely what users are looking for and continuously refining the answer
as additional data is made available.
For the stockbroker, that means inventory data, retail
sales, weather reports and even the latest global taxation/import regulations
can be analyzed at once to come up with an on-the-money forecast. And there are
two uses of the product that are expected to improve the state of health care
and science:
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In Sweden,
researchers are using InfoSphere Streams to better understand “space weather,”
which can influence satellite operations, energy transmission over power lines,
communications via radio and TV signals, and airline and space travel. By using
the LOIS Space
Center radio facility in Sweden
to analyze radio emissions from space in three dimensions, scientists from Uppsala
University use this technology to
compile large amounts of data and extract predictions on activities in space.
Since researchers need to measure signals from space over large time spans, the
raw data generated by even one antenna quickly becomes too large to handle or
store. InfoSphere Streams analyzes the data immediately as it streams from
sensors. Over the next year or so, the project is expected to perform analytics
at no less than 6 gigabytes per second, or 21,600 gigabytes per hour—the
equivalent of all the Web pages on the Internet.
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IBM and the University
of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) are using the product to help doctors
detect subtle changes in the condition of critically ill premature babies. The
software ingests a constant stream of biomedical data, such as heart rate and
respiration, along with clinical information about the babies. Monitoring these
babies as a patient group is especially important as certain life-threatening
conditions such as infection may be detected up to 24 hours in advance by
observing changes in physiological data streams. Currently, physicians
monitoring preemies rely on a paper-based process that involves manually
looking at the readings from various monitors and getting feedback from the
nurses providing care.
“This research has
the potential to really impact neonatal care through reduced mortality and
morbidity rates and overall health care costs,” says Dr. Carolyn McGregor, an associate
professor at UOIT and a lead researcher on the product testing effort. “By
merging our research and technology, we’re able to collect more detailed
patient data in a systematic manner, do online health analysis and decision
support, and get advanced early warning of emerging patterns that could predict
a medical event.”
