What's New - 2014
Should Data Determine Salaries?
Companies are always on the lookout for top tech talent, and one of the best ways to recruit and retain such individuals is by offering competitive salaries. To align compensation with the job description, geographic area, and a candidate’s expertise, recruiters are turning to big-data platforms, which are setting the salaries for workers with in-demand skills based on a greater variety of timely information than ever before.
Better Healthcare Through Data
It’s no surprise that keeping people healthy is costing more money. From the price of medications and the cost of hospital stays to doctors’ fees and medical tests, health-care costs around the world are skyrocketing. The World Health Organization attributes much of this to wasteful spending on such things as ineffective drugs and duplicate procedures and paperwork, as well as missed disease-prevention opportunities.
Ask The Experts: Big Data
Our September issue of The Institute highlights important uses of big data. Health care agencies can improve treatments based on data from medical reports, and law enforcement can now predict and prevent crimes using the latest software programs. All of the facts, figures, files, and records making up this data will be up for analysis, with the hope that the results will provide insight into the world we live in and, hopefully, help to improve it.
Intel Tries to Tackle Tough Disease with Big Data
Intel is diving into an explosive field of research: applying Big Data to medicine.
The giant chip maker said Wednesday it is working with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research in a new pilot aimed at using data mining from wearable devices to detect patterns in the progression of the disease.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal.
ENTREVESTOR: Dal eyes future with data program
Dalhousie University will soon launch an Institute for Big Data Analytics to nurture research into the burgeoning field that has already produced some of the most exciting startups in Atlantic Canada.
As part of the effort to boost data analytics education in the region, Dalhousie will also initiate a specialization in data science as part of its bachelor of computer science program, starting this autumn.
These developments are important because a broad swath of government and industry has targeted big data as a key economic sector in the region, and universities are a key component in making it happen.
Read more at The Chronicle Herald.