Leveraging Big Data and Machine Learning for Digital Transformation

Abstract

The fast diffusion of new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, Wireless Communication, Mobile Computing, Big Data, AI (including Machine Learning), Cyber-Physical Systems, Blockchain, and others, has been leading to a pervasive digital transformation (Foster, 2020; Huang, 2017). In this transformation, many traditional artifacts and business processes are digitalized. Examples include digital medical records, digital media, digital currencies, digital twin, digital manufacturing, and digital engineering (US DoD, 2018). Beyond the digital forms of artifacts and processes and the associated big data phenomenon, the digitalization enables fast dissemination of digital information and much-enhanced knowledge sharing, enables virtualization of various services, enables innovations by leveraging digital technologies, and fosters the creation of new “data products” and “digital knowledge products”. Digital transformation is reshaping the landscape of systems design (Huang et al., 2020). Digital transformation and the associated technologies are efficiently and effectively helping the world to cope with the challenging Covid-19 pandemic. On the other hand, they have also been impacting many aspects of the fast-transforming human society and lead to many issues to deal, to think, and to explore. In today’s rapid-changing and highly competitive environment with an unprecedented richness of information, it is an essential capability to turn big data into knowledge, in order to support effective and efficient decision making and operations processes, no matter in a field of scientific research, engineering, business, healthcare, public services, or others. In the transformation of data into knowledge, machine learning and data analytics play a central role, where efficient big data platforms are fundamental for handling the big data. This issue of JIDPS presents four papers, reflecting research topics on the aspects of deep neural