Introduction to the special section on Big data and IoT in e-healthcare

Background Big data storage and processing are considered as one of the main applications for cloud computing systems. Moreover, the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm has advanced the research on Machine to Machine (M2M) communications and enabled novel tele-monitoring architectures for e-health applications. E-health is an emergent topic that poses many challenges to multiple disciplines, such as Computer Science, Engineering, Health, and Social Sciences. Cloud Computing, Big data and Internet of Things (IoT) are the prevalent ICT paradigms whose attributes can collaborate to structure the future of e-health systems. Big data in e-health enables the metamorphosis of hypothesis-driven research to data-driven research by processing large volumes of hypothetical medical data. Furthermore, by using a search based routine, it is probable to realize feeble signals in Big data. In particular, given the e-health application, it is probable to leverage trivial and non-trivial connections among various distinct discrete sensor signals and existing Big data in order to discover new methods to provide remote diagnostics, superior understanding of disease, and evolution of innovative solutions for therapy. The aggregation and analysis of such signals will provide evidence of relations between health problems and environmental affairs more rapidly and superiorly than trivial mining of sensor data. As a consequence, the software has a significant potential for coupling e-health applications and critical challenges that are related in a subtle way in IoT scenarios. This special section has acknowledged overwhelming responses from researchers, and it has received many high-quality submissions from authors around the world. All the submitted papers have been reviewed by at least three independent experts. We expect that this special section focuses on cohesive information related to the Big data and IoT in e-healthcare, and it also delivers stimulations for future research.