Computer Science

There is an increasing growth in the amount of data produced by numerous resources. For example, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator, produces 30 petabytes (PB) of data per year (a petabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information equal to a million gigabytes). Data are also generated on the Internet and in social networks.

Daily data production for Facebook is also measured in petabytes. According to Internet Live Stats, Twitter produced more than 450,000 tweets per minute in mid-2017. Internet Live Stats also provides information about the number of Internet users, e-mails, social media posts, blog posts, and other Internet use per minute. Besides textual data published on the Web, multimedia data are tracked, including, for example, the number of images uploaded daily to social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram, and the number of videos viewed daily on YouTube.

[Page 423]This situation has led to new challenges related to information retrieval: (a) Data are stored in raw form, which is predominantly semi-structured or unstructured, so how can people get relevant information from this huge sea of data? (b) Is it possible to get the information fast? (c) Is it possible to reduce the amount of memory required to store information? (d) Is it worth keeping data or not? (e) How can the quality of search be improved?

In addition, social questions arise: (a) How can people collaborate to help others in disaster scenarios such as earthquakes and forest fires? (b) How can individuals help detect false information in social networks? (c) How can officials take advantage of social users who can crowdsource with their devices? For example, during disaster scenarios, such as earthquakes or hurricanes, people can help propagate messages with information or alarms to other people affected by the disaster. Or the devices of those located in the affected area can be used to build an unstructured network of communication for people who are at risk to search.

All these issues are studied through the field computer science. This entry describes the field of computer science, social applications of computer science, and goals for future technological advances in this field.