Snapshot Processing in Streaming Environments

Computational issues related to streaming data, and in particular the monitoring and rapid correlation of multiple sources of streaming data, are becoming increasingly important in contexts ranging from business processes to crisis detection. Applications include automated commodities trading (streams of stock and commodity ticker data), medical monitoring (streams of medical information from instruments worn by or in the vicinity of patients), and the detection of security threats such as biological and chemical weapons (streams of readings from radiation and biohazard detectors, intelligence services, immigration checkpoints, and more). For example, a government system to detect bioterror attacks must correlate multiple streams of possibly low-confidence data from sensors and local and national public health information networks with cues from indicators such as news and government sources indicating geographical locations, tactics and timing of possible attacks. The results of this correlation trigger appropriate responses, such as flagging information for more in-depth analysis or sending alerts to public health officials.