Advanced Technology and Social Media Influence on Research, Industry and Community

The rapid development in technology and social media has gradually shifted the focus in research, industry and community from traditional into dynamic environments where creativity and innovation dominate various aspects of the daily life. This facilitated the automated collection and storage of huge amount of data which is necessary for effective decision making. Indeed, the value of data is increasingly realized and there is a tremendous need for effective techniques to maintain and handle the collected data starting from storage to processing and analysis leading to knowledge discovery. This chapter will cite our accomplished works which focus on techniques and structures which could maximize the benefit from data beyond what is traditionally supported. In the listed published work, we emphasized data intensive domains which require developing and utilizing advance computational techniques for informative discoveries. We described some of our accomplishments, ongoing research and future research plans. The notion of big data has been addressed to show how it is possible to process incrementally available big data using limited computing resources. The benefit of various data mining and network modeling mechanisms for data analysis and prediction has been addressed with emphasize on some practical applications ranging from forums and reviews to social media as effective means for communication, sharing and discussion leading to collaborative decision making and shaping of future plans.