This encyclopedia will be an essential resource for our times, reflecting the fact that we currently are living in an expanding data-driven world. Technological advancements and other related trends are contributing to the production of an astoundingly large and exponentially increasing collection of data and information, referred to in popular vernacular as "Big Data." Social media and crowdsourcing platforms and various applications ― "apps" ― are producing reams of information from the instantaneous transactions and input of millions and millions of people around the globe. The...