10 ANALYTICAL AND LABORATORY EQUIPMENT
Te healthcare and life science industries are no strangers to large data sets, having collected scientific research results across many disciplines, patient profiles, high-throughput screening for active compounds, and drug compliance and regulatory databases for many years. Tese activities continue and the data collected is also expected to grow exponentially in the coming years, holding out the promise of new treatments, new drugs, better clinical decision-making and increased quality of life. However, to make good on
the promises, we need to ensure – as far as possible – the quality, consistency and integrity of this data. And we need the tools to interrogate and visualise the results of these datasets that are so large and complex they challenge relational database software and desktop data and statistical packages. Only with tools that enable us to discover hidden correlations within the data and understand the patterns and trends of these associations, will we be able to leverage and take advantage of this data explosion. Finally, to ensure that the insights we derive are current, collecting and analysing these big data sets in real-time, is a critical requirement for the healthcare and life science sectors.
A multi-dimensional, unstructured analytical engine Given that big data has the potential to cut research lead times, lower costs, improve care and save lives, establishing massively parallel relational database software running on tens or even hundreds of powerful servers may seem a logical approach. However, a better approach is to adopt a multidimensional database that is optimised for data warehouse and online analytical processing (OLAP) applications driven by a specialised language optimised for speed.
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Tis is the concept behind Cosmos – a true visual analytics solution for research purposes. Powered by a multi-dimensional, unstructured analytical engine, written entirely in Dyalog APL, Cosmos can quickly – and flexibly – analyse vast quantities of data, and show the analysis in an interactive and dynamic display of interconnected data points.
Cosmos was developed in
the UK by Optima Systems, and MD Paul Grosvenor is clear about the challenges facing the medical and pharmaceutical industries as they find themselves in a battle of understanding; trying to delve into the mass of information that is now routinely available to researchers and extract only the data of interest. “Researchers know that cause and effect are very hard to identify and even harder to prove in a world of multiple inputs,” he begins. “For instance, it is easy to say that smoking is bad for you,
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