Mathematical Sciences: Produce a World Wide Web Program of the Conference on Statistical ChallengeÐ and Possible Approaches in the Analysis of Massive Data Sets

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Proposal: DMS 95-22317 PI: John Alexander Institution: National Academy of Sciences Title: Produce a World Wide Wed Program of the Conference on Statistical Challenges and Possible Approaches in the Analysis of Massive Data Sets ABSTRACT The workshop on Statistics and Massive Data Sets, hosted by the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Research Council, focuses on how to deal effectively with massive amounts of data that need statistical analyses. In numerous practical contexts, researchers are confronted with the inadequacy of standard statistical techniques to handle the explosion in the size of current data sets, where the number of observations can easily run into the giga- and even terabyte ranges. Statistical assumptions underlying many of the most popular methods, such as "homogeneity" of the data, may simply be wrong in these cases, thus rendering common statistical tools ineffective and even dangerous. A corresponding problem is the growth in the number of dimensions in many current problems. Again standard approaches, which were developed in a different era, even predating the computer in many cases, are not powerful enough for these challenges. The workshop on Statistics and Massive Datasets explores the challenges presented by massive data sets, and does so in the context of a variety of real world and currently pressing application areas, including the atmospheric, biological and geo sciences, business and marketing, ecology, and engineering and technology. With these areas as a backdrop, specific over-arching multi-disciplinary research issues on common needs, including relevant statistical principles, computational aspects, data analysis, and visualization of massive data sets are identified. The workshop involves highly animated discussions among scientists. These discussions are not easily captured in a traditional published proceedings format. In contrast, the activities are capture d and distributed via the preparation of a videotape of the workshop followed by a World Wide Web (WWW) dissemination. This new dissemination method brings the benefit of the actual discussions to a wide audience in a timely fashion.