A broad and low tech survey of research in the golden age of data. Since no reader is likely to know all of these domains, there is surely something to be learned. The price can't be beat; the eBook is free online from Microsoft. ( )

Computational science -- problems posed by scientific datasets of many terabytes, now starting to be petabytes. Many authors, from many different areas. Handsomely produced -- in fact, I found most of the pictures to be more captivating than most of the text.

“We have to do better producing tools to support the whole research cycle – from data capture and data curation to data analysis and data visualization.” - Jim Gray

The Fourth Paradigm is a collection of papers talks on research areas that aim to improve the research cycle. The talks are a memorial to Microsoft Tech Fellow Jim Gray. Gray had the insight that science has gone through four paradigms so far. The first paradigm, which has lasted over the last few thousand years, was empirical science which describes natural phenomena. Over the last few hindered years, the second paradigm of theoretical science using models and generalizations has occurred. Within the last 50 to 70 years, the third paradigm of computational science has developed to simulate complex phenomena. Finally, the fourth paradigm (also known as eScience) has developed to unify theory, experiment, and simulation. Jim Gray says:“… it is worth distinguishing data-intensive science from computational science as a new, fourth paradigm for scientific exploration.”

The book itself is divided into four major sections: Earth and Environment, Health and Wellbeing, Scientific Infrastructure, and Scholarly Communications with 6 to 8 papers per section. The emphasis here is on science; however, I’d assert that all these areas directly impact engineering as well. For example, the flight test of a new product involves an enormous amount of data, which produces much analysis, knowledge, and understanding. The principle idea of eScience (and eEngineering) is that the data and analysis interoperate with each other, such that information is at your fingertips for everyone, everywhere. The payoff is a large increase in information velocity and productivity. In the end, an analysis or report will be an overlay on the data. I have seen this start to happen, and agree with Jim Gray that our current tools are very primitive – a lot of new tools are going to be required.

A paper that I found particularly interesting was “Discovering the Wiring of the Brain” Their summary is: “Decoding the complete connectome of the human brain is one of the great challenges of the 21st century.” I agree – and discovering the scientific and engineering applications that will emerge will be even more of a challenge. This is an area that requires an entire new way to handle all the data – consider that a snapshot 1 cubic mm of image data from a human brain contains a petabyte of data, and that a human brain contains about one million cubic mm.

This fascinating book is availed for free download at the Microsoft Research website at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/fourthparadigm/ I think any working scientist or engineer will find much to learn and think about in this collection of papers on the emerging Fourth Paradigm and the world of eScience (and eEnginnering) ( )