This book provides a review of advanced topics relating to the theory, research, analysis and implementation in the context of big data platforms and their applications, with a focus on methods, techniques, and performance evaluation. The explosive growth in the volume, speed, and variety of data being produced every day requires a continuous increase in the processing speeds of servers and of entire network infrastructures, as well as new resource management models. This poses significant challenges (and provides striking development opportunities) for data intensive and high-performance computing, i.e., how to efficiently turn extremely large datasets into valuable information and meaningful knowledge. The task of context data management is further complicated by the variety of sources such data derives from, resulting in different data formats, with varying storage, transformation, delivery, and archiving requirements. At the same time rapid responses are needed for real-time applications. With the emergence of cloud infrastructures, achieving highly scalable data management in such contexts is a critical problem, as the overall application performance is highly dependent on the properties of the data management service.
Sediments in aqueous systems are of increasing interest to academics, researchers, practitioners and stakeholders around the world. This book not only covers the characteristics of the sediments themselves, but also their physico-chemical impact on aquatic habitats and subsequent management implications. There is a strong focus on methods and instrumentation for collecting data and monitoring of environmental sediment quality and as a result, a wide range of environments are considered - from urban areas to freshwater estuaries and marine ecosystems. The chapters have been written by international specialists in the field, ensuring a good breadth of examples, experiences and case studies throughout. This book will appeal to a broad spectrum of interests from geographers, to engineers and environmental scientists, and at undergraduate to post graduate and academic researcher levels.