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Data

​Big data primarily refers to data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data-processing application software. Data with many entries (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with higher complexity (more attributes or columns) may lead to a higher false discovery rate.[2] Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller amounts.[3]

Big data analysis challenges include capturing data, data storage, data analysis, search, sharing, transfer, visualization, querying, updating, information privacy, and data source. Big data was originally associated with three key concepts: volume, variety, and velocity.[4] The analysis of big data presents challenges in sampling, and thus previously allowing for only observations and sampling. Thus a fourth concept, veracity, refers to the quality or insightfulness of the data. Without sufficient investment in expertise for big data veracity, then the volume and variety of data can produce costs and risks that exceed an organization's capacity to create and capture value from big data.[5]

Current usage of the term big data tends to refer to the use of predictive analytics, user behavior analytics, or certain other advanced data analytics methods that extract value from big data, and seldom to a particular size of data set. "There is little doubt that the quantities of data now available are indeed large, but that's not the most relevant characteristic of this new data ecosystem."[6] Analysis of data sets can find new correlations to "spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on".[7] Scientists, business executives, medical practitioners, advertising and governments alike regularly meet difficulties with large data-sets in areas including Internet searches, fintech, healthcare analytics, geographic information systems, urban informatics, and business informatics. Scientists encounter limitations in e-Science work, including meteorology, genomics,[8] connectomics, complex physics simulations, biology, and environmental research.[9]

The size and number of available data sets have grown rapidly as data is collected by devices such as mobile devices, cheap and numerous information-sensing Internet of things devices, aerial (remote sensing), software logs, cameras, microphones, radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers and wireless sensor networks.[10][11] The world's technological per-capita capacity to store information has roughly doubled every 40 months since the 1980s;[12] as of 2012, every day 2.5 exabytes (2.5×260 bytes) of data are generated.[13] Based on an IDC report prediction, the global data volume was predicted to grow exponentially from 4.4 zettabytes to 44 zettabytes between 2013 and 2020. By 2025, IDC predicts there will be 163 zettabytes of data.[14] According to IDC, global spending on big data and business analytics (BDA) solutions is estimated to reach $215.7 billion in 2021.[15][16] While Statista report, the global big data market is forecasted to grow to $103 billion by 2027.[17] In 2011 McKinsey & Company reported, if US healthcare were to use big data creatively and effectively to drive efficiency and quality, the sector could create more than $300 billion in value every year.[18] In the developed economies of Europe, government administrators could save more than €100 billion ($149 billion) in operational efficiency improvements alone by using big data.[18] And users of services enabled by personal-location data could capture $600 billion in consumer surplus.[18] One question for large enterprises is determining who should own big-data initiatives that affect the entire organization.[19]

Relational database management systems and desktop statistical software packages used to visualize data often have difficulty processing and analyzing big data. The processing and analysis of big data may require "massively parallel software running on tens, hundreds, or even thousands of servers".[20] What qualifies as "big data" varies depending on the capabilities of those analyzing it and their tools. Furthermore, expanding capabilities make big data a moving target. "For some organizations, facing hundreds of gigabytes of data for the first time may trigger a need to reconsider data management options. For others, it may take tens or hundreds of terabytes before data size becomes a significant consideration."[21]

​Sleaford (historically known as New Sleaford) is a market town and civil parish in Lincolnshire, England. Since 1973, the parish boundaries have included Quarrington to the south-west, Holdingham to the north and Old Sleaford to the east – contiguous settlements and former civil parishes which, with New Sleaford, had formed an Urban District. The town is on the edge of the fertile Fenlands, about 11 miles (18 kilometres) north-east of Grantham, 16 mi (26 km) west of Boston, and 17 mi (27 km) south of Lincoln. With a population of 17,671 at the 2011 Census, the town is the largest settlement in the North Kesteven district. Bypassed by the A17 and the A15, it is connected to Lincoln, Newark, Peterborough and King's Lynn. Sleaford railway station is on the Nottingham to Skegness (via Grantham) and Peterborough to Lincoln Lines.

The first settlement formed in the Iron Age where a prehistoric track crossed the River Slea. It was a tribal centre and home to a mint for the Corieltauvi in the 1st centuries BC and AD. Evidence of Roman and Anglo-Saxon settlement has been uncovered. In the medieval period, records differentiate between Old and New Sleaford, the latter emerging by the 12th century around the present-day market place and St Denys' Church; Sleaford Castle was also built at that time for the Bishops of Lincoln, who owned the manor. Granted the right to hold a market in the mid-12th century, New Sleaford developed into a market town and became locally important in the wool trade, while Old Sleaford declined.

From the 16th century, the landowners were the Carre family, who operated tight control over the town, and it grew little in the early modern period. The manor passed from the Carre family to the Hervey family by the marriage of Isabella Carre to John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, in 1688. The town's common land and fields were legally enclosed by 1794, giving ownership mostly to the Hervey family; this coincided with the Slea's canalisation; the Sleaford Navigation brought economic growth until it was superseded by the railways in the mid-1850s. In the 20th century, the sale of farmland around Sleaford by Bristol Estates led to the development of large housing estates. The subsequent availability of affordable housing combined with the town's educational facilities and low crime rates made it an attractive destination for home-buyers. As a result, the town's population underwent the fastest growth of any town in the county in the 1990s.

Sleaford was primarily an agricultural town until the 20th century, supporting a cattle market, with seed companies, such as Hubbard and Phillips, and Sharpes International Seeds, being established in the late 19th century. The arrival of the railway made the town favourable for malting. Industry has declined, and in 2011 the most common occupations are in wholesale and retail trade, health and social care, public administration and defence and manufacturing. Regeneration of the town centre has led to the redevelopment of the old industrial areas, including the construction of the National Centre for Craft & Design on an old wharf.