[temp234]

This is an incredibly interesting question but I have no idea how you would ever be able to figure out the answer. What defines a data set? What about huge data sets that reference back to a relatively small mapping table, is that one big data set or two data sets of different size? Maybe a cloud hosting provider would have some insight into hosted data sets but even if the public had that information we still wouldn't know anything about data sets that are collected and stored on local machines. Similar problems arise for cataloguing models by their complexity. What is the broader question here, what are you trying to figure out?

There is definitely research being done on sparse data sets. Early stats methods were applied to what we would consider small data. Tukey did a lot of work on data viz and exploratory data analysis that was important and applies to small data sets. Many medical experiments use small data sets. Bayesian methods can apply to small data sets.

[pklee]

Yeah I am not just talking about analytics.. even basic merging across data-sources and simple visualizations based on the blended data and the ability to go across environments.