Book excerpt: Serving as a flagship driver towards advance research in the area of Big Data platforms and applications, this book provides a platform for the dissemination of advanced topics of theory, research efforts and analysis, and implementation oriented on methods, techniques and performance evaluation. In 23 chapters, several important formulations of the architecture design, optimization techniques, advanced analytics methods, biological, medical and social media applications are presented. These chapters discuss the research of members from the ICT COST Action IC1406 High-Performance Modelling and Simulation for Big Data Applications (cHiPSet). This volume is ideal as a reference for students, researchers and industry practitioners working in or interested in joining interdisciplinary works in the areas of intelligent decision systems using emergent distributed computing paradigms. It will also allow newcomers to grasp the key concerns and their potential solutions.