A Robust Missing Data-Recovering Technique for Mobility Data Mining

Based on location information, users’ mobility profile building is the main task for making different useful systems such as early warning system, next destination and route prediction, tourist guide, mobile users’ behavior-aware applications, and potential friend recommendation. For mobility profile building, frequent trajectory patterns are required. The trajectory building is based on significant location extraction and the user’s actual movement prediction. Previous works have focused on significant places extraction without considering the change in GSM (global system for mobile communication) network and is based on complete data analysis. Since network operators change the GSM network periodically, there are possibilities of missing values and outliers. These missing values and outliers must be addressed to ensure actual mobility and for the efficient extraction of significant places, which are the basis for users’ trajectory building. In this paper, we propose a methodology to convert geo-coordinates into semantic tags and we also purposed a clustering methodology for recovering missing values and outlier detection. Experimental results prove the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Uncertainty handling in rule-based mobile context-aware systems

Uncertainty handling is one of the most important aspects of modelling of context-aware systems. It has direct impact on the adaptability, understood as an ability of the system to adjust to changing environmental conditions or hardware configuration (missing data), changing user habits (ambiguous concepts), or imperfect information (low quality sensors). In mobile context-aware systems, data is most often acquired from device’s hardware sensors (like GPS, accelerometer), virtual sensors (like activity recognition sensor provided by the Google API) or directly from the user. Uncertainty of such data is inevitable, and therefore it is obligatory to provide mechanisms for modelling and processing it. In this paper, we propose three complementary methods for dealing with most common uncertainty types present in mobile context-aware systems. We combine modified certainty factors algebra, probabilistic interpretation of rule-based model, and time-parametrised operators into a comprehensive toolkit for modelling and building robust mobile context-aware systems. Presented approach was implemented and evaluated on the practical use-case.     

情景感知的P2P移动社交网络构造及发现算法

如何通过情景感知,获得用户的行为特征,从而自动发现潜在的社会关系,是移动社交网络重要的研究内容之一.该文提出了情景感知的移动P2P社交网络系统架构、聚合模型及发现算法,将用户的位置信息、环境特征、运动轨迹等引入到聚合算法中,智能地聚合成潜在的P2P社交网络,根据用户需求自主发现匹配的社会关系,避免了社交活动的盲目性和随意性.最后对该方案和算法进行了理论分析及实验验证,结果表明该文所提出的方案和算法具有较高的响应速度、准确率及用户满意度.     

密集型传感器网络中移动sink的路径选择机制

针对密集型无线传感器网络,以最大化网络寿命为优化目标,将网络转换成相应的网络流图,利用网络最大流问题估算sink采用不同路径下的网络寿命并以此为标准进行路径选择,提出了一种基于网络流理论的高效sink路径选择机制。仿真结果表明,本方案同采用固定路径采集及类似解决方案相比,能有效均匀网络能耗,延长网络寿命,取得了较好的网络性能。     

Usability study of ME2.0

Mobile context-aware applications execute in the background of hosts mobile devices. The applications source process and aggregate hosts’ contextual and personal information. This information is disclosed to ubiquitously pervasive services that adapt their offerings to individual preferences. Unfortunately, many developers continue to ignore the user perspective in context-aware application designs as they complicate their overall task and generate exponential requirements. The additional incorporation of privacy mechanisms in context-aware applications to safeguard context and personal information disclosures also complicates users’ tasks resulting to misconfigured or completely abandoned applications. Misconfigured applications give end-users a false assurance of privacy exposing them to comprising services. We present a usability study on Mobile Electronic Personality Version 2 a privacy enhanced context-aware mobile application for personalising ubiquitous services and adapting pervasive smart-spaces. We draw conclusions on key issues related to user needs, based on user interviews, surveys, prototypes and field evaluations. Users’ needs are evaluated against five themes, learn-ability, efficiency, memorability, errors, satisfaction and privacy contention. In addition, design layout preferences, privacy manageability and consensus design comprehension are also evaluated. Clarity of priorities in context-aware mobile applications shaped by usability studies effectively increases the acceptance of levels of potential users.     

基于uSD的情境感知系统设计与实现*

基于移动终端、情境感知以及无线传感器网络的结合需求,提出了一种应用于移动终端的情境感知系统,包括若干无线传感器节点、情境感知及处理终端、应用服务及执行装置等。针对移动电子设备一般都不具备接入无线传感器网络所需功能单元的现状,利用uSD概念为移动终端设计了一个ZigBee通信功能扩展模块,使移动终端能够从无线传感器网络中获取情境信息,并提供相应的情境感知和处理功能。最后,设计了包含位置等信息的情境感知服务演示系统,初步验证了基于uSD的情境感知系统在移动终端上应用的新颖性和有效性。     

基于轨迹特征及动态邻近性的轨迹匿名方法研究

移动社会网络的兴起以及移动智能终端的发展产生了大量的时空轨迹数据,发布并分析这样的时空数据有助于改善智能交通,研究商圈的动态变化等.然而,如果攻击者能够识别出轨迹对应的用户身份,将会严重威胁到用户的隐私信息.现有的轨迹匿名算法在度量相似性时仅考虑轨迹在采样点位置的邻近性,忽略轨迹位置的动态邻近性,因此产生的匿名轨迹集合可用性相对较低.针对这一问题,本文提出了邻域扭曲密度和邻域相似性的概念,充分考虑轨迹位置的动态邻近性,并分别提出了基于邻域相似性和邻域扭曲密度的轨迹匿名算法;前者仅考虑了轨迹位置的动态邻近性,后者不仅能衡量轨迹位置的动态邻近性,而且在聚类过程中通过最小化邻域扭曲密度来减少匿名集合的信息损失.最后,在合成轨迹数据集和真实轨迹数据集上的实验结果表明,本文提出的算法具有更高的数据可用性.     

An improved ant colony optimization-based approach with mobile sink for wireless sensor networks

Traditional wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with one static sink node suffer from the well-known hot spot problem, that of sensor nodes near the static sink bear more traffic load than outlying nodes. Thus, the overall network lifetime is reduced due to the fact some nodes deplete their energy reserves much faster compared to the rest. Recently, adopting sink mobility has been considered as a good strategy to overcome the hot spot problem. Mobile sink(s) physically move within the network and communicate with selected nodes, such as cluster heads (CHs), to perform direct data collection through short-range communications that requires no routing. Finding an optimal mobility trajectory for the mobile sink is critical in order to achieve energy efficiency. Taking hints from nature, the ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm has been seen as a good solution to finding an optimal traversal path. Whereas the traditional ACO algorithm will guide ants to take a small step to the next node using current information, over time they will deviate from the target. Likewise, a mobile sink may communicate with selected node for a relatively long time making the traditional ACO algorithm delays not suitable for high real-time WSNs applications. In this paper, we propose an improved ACO algorithm approach for WSNs that use mobile sinks by considering CH distances. In this research, the network is divided into several clusters and each cluster has one CH. While the distance between CHs is considered under the traditional ACO algorithm, the mobile sink node finds an optimal mobility trajectory to communicate with CHs under our improved ACO algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can significantly improve wireless sensor network performance compared to other routing algorithms.     

A web-based pervasive recommendation system for mobile tourist guides

Mobile tourist guides have attracted considerable research interest during the past decade, resulting in numerous standalone and web-based mobile applications. Particular emphasis has been given to personalization of services, typically based on travel recommender systems used to assist tourists in choosing places to visit; these systems address an important aspect of personalization and hence reduce the information burden for the user. However, existing systems fail to exploit information, behaviours, evaluations or ratings of other tourists with similar interests, which would potentially provide ground for the cooperative production of improved tourist content and travel recommendations. In this paper, we extend this notion of travel recommender systems utilizing collaborative filtering techniques while also taking into account contextual information (such as the current user’s location, time, weather conditions and places already visited by the user) for deriving improved recommendations in pervasive environments. We also propose the use of wireless sensor network (WSN) installations around tourist sites for enabling precise localization and also providing mobile users convenient and inexpensive means for uploading tourist information and ratings about points of interest (POI) via their mobile devices. We also introduce the concept of ‘context-aware rating’, whereby user ratings uploaded through WSN infrastructures are weighted higher to differentiate among users that rate POIs using the mobile tourist guide application while onsite and others using the Internet away from the POI.     

基于移动节点的无线传感器网络定位算法

节点定位技术是无线传感器网络应用的重要支撑技术之一,为了提高定位算法的准确性,提出了一种基于移动目标节点的两步定位算法。该算法利用一个移动目标节点遍历整个网络,并周期性地广播包含自身当前位置的信息。而传感器节点的自身定位过程则可用基于无迹卡尔曼滤波(UKF)的目标跟踪方法实现。由于所用的目标状态模型和量测模型有一定的不确定性,所以先选取不共线的3个拥有RSSI测距能力的目标节点信息,利用Euclidean定位法提高滤波的初始位置精度,从而改善定位效果。通过仿真、分析和比较该目标节点在多种移动轨迹情况下的定位误差,这种两步定位法可以改善对目标节点移动轨迹的特殊要求的限制,能取得较好的定位精度,而且更适合于实际情况。     

Privacy threats in a mobile enterprise social network

The ‘Instant Knowledge’ system is an enterprise based social network that aims to introduce employees of the enterprise to contacts within the organization who may have skills relevant to particular tasks. The skills database is maintained through context-aware devices, and mobile devices in particular. The aim is to populate the database automatically based on user context data and to provide automatic introductions, again based on context data. This paper examines the security and privacy implications of this system and shows that while threat modelling on its own provides a solid base from which to secure the system, this is not enough to ensure that all privacy issues are considered. This is demonstrated by applying a mis-use case analysis that shows how personal identifying information can be inadvertantly leaked to malicious parties.     

紧耦合的移动端实时位姿优化方法

位姿估计一直是三维重建领域的关键性问题.为保证移动端有限计算资源下的实时性并提高轨迹计算的准确性,提出一种紧耦合的移动端实时位姿优化方法.首先,获取图像信息与运动传感器信息进行特征提取、预积分等预处理;然后根据对极几何约束,计算重投影误差与惯性传感器误差;最后采用加权误差联合优化计算位姿轨迹.紧耦合策略可以有效利用图像...     

Optimal,quality-aware scheduling of data consumption in mobile ad hoc networks

In this paper we study the delivery of quality contextual information in mobile ad-hoc networks. We consider that information has a certain quality level that fades over time. Mobile context-aware applications receive and process disseminated information given that the corresponding quality is above the lowest level. The necessity for optimally scheduling information delivery arises from the dynamic nature of the network, e.g., probabilistic spreading, caching, deferred delivery, and mobility of nodes. We propose two policies for optimal scheduling information delivery consumption based on the Optimal Stopping Theory. The mobile nodes delay the reporting of information to mobile context-aware applications in search for better quality. The proposed policies efficiently deal with the delivery of quality information in mobile ad-hoc networks.     

Design and validation of a light inference system to support embedded context reasoning

Embedded context management in resource-constrained devices (e.g. mobile phones, autonomous sensors or smart objects) imposes special requirements in terms of lightness for data modelling and reasoning. In this paper, we explore the state-of-the-art on data representation and reasoning tools for embedded mobile reasoning and propose a light inference system (LIS) aiming at simplifying embedded inference processes offering a set of functionalities to avoid redundancy in context management operations. The system is part of a service-oriented mobile software framework, conceived to facilitate the creation of context-aware applications—it decouples sensor data acquisition and context processing from the application logic. LIS, composed of several modules, encapsulates existing lightweight tools for ontology data management and rule-based reasoning, and it is ready to run on Java-enabled handheld devices. Data management and reasoning processes are designed to handle a general ontology that enables communication among framework components. Both the applications running on top of the framework and the framework components themselves can configure the rule and query sets in order to retrieve the information they need from LIS. In order to test LIS features in a real application scenario, an ‘Activity Monitor’ has been designed and implemented: a personal health-persuasive application that provides feedback on the user’s lifestyle, combining data from physical and virtual sensors. In this case of use, LIS is used to timely evaluate the user’s activity level, to decide on the convenience of triggering notifications and to determine the best interface or channel to deliver these context-aware alerts.     

An efficient trajectory design for mobile sink in a wireless sensor network

Mobile sink trajectory plays a pivotal role for network coverage, data collection and data dissemination in wireless sensor networks. Considering this, we propose a novel approach for mobile sink trajectory in wireless sensor networks. Our proposed approach is based on Hilbert Space Filling Curve, however, the proposed approach is different from the previous work in a sense that the curve order changes according to node density. In this paper, we investigate the mobile sink trajectory based on Hilbert Curve Order which depends upon the size of the network. Second, we calculate the Hilbert Curve Order based on node density to re-dimension the mobile sink trajectory. Finally, we perform extensive simulations to evaluate the effectiveness of proposed approach in terms of network coverage and scalability. Simulation results confirm that our proposed approach outperforms with size based Hilbert Curve in terms of network coverage, packet delivery ratio and average energy consumption.     

WSN数据收集中移动sink的路径规划和蔟头节点选取问题的综合研究

针对较大规模的无线传感器网络通过多跳传输进行数据收集而引起的能量空洞问题,本文提出了一种基于移动sink的簇头节点数据收集算法（MSRDG）,该算法基于图论原理,在满足时延性的条件下,综合考虑了普通节点到簇头节点路由和移动sink遍历路经选取的问题,构建了一条通过的簇头节点尽可能多的移动轨迹。通过NS-2仿真软件对算法的性能进行评估,结果显示出该算法能减少数据的多跳传输,降低无线传感器网络节点的能量消耗,延长网络寿命。     

Experimental investigation on coverage performance of a chaotic autonomous mobile robot

In many autonomous mobile robotic missions the complete and fast coverage of the workspace, scanned by an unpredictable trajectory, plays a crucial role. To satisfy these special demands in the design of an autonomous mobile robot, a motion controller, based on the dynamical behavior of a known discrete chaotic system, the Logistic map, is presented in this paper. The proposed method is based on a microcontroller for realizing a chaotic random bit generator and converting the produced chaotic bit sequence, to the robot’s trajectory of motion. The experimental results confirm that this approach, with an appropriate sensor for obstacle avoidance, can obtain very satisfactory results in regard to the fast scanning of the robot’s workspace with unpredictable way.     

VeSense: High-performance and energy-efficient vehicular sensing platform

Although vehicular sensing where mobile users in vehicles continuously gather, process, and share location-sensitive and context-sensitive sensor data (e.g., street images, road condition, traffic flow) is emerging, little effort has been investigated in a model-based energy-efficient network paradigm of sensor information sharing in vehicular environments. Upon these optimization frameworks, a suite of optimization subproblems: a program partitioning and network resource allocation problem, we propose a distributed vehicular sensing platform, called VeSense where mobile users in vehicles publish/access sensor data via a cloud computing-based distributed P2P overlay network. The key objective is to satisfy the vehicular sensing application’s quality of service requirements by modeling each subsystem: mobile clients, wireless network medium, and distributed cloud services. By simulations based on experimental data, we present the proposed system can achieve up to 37 times more energy-efficient and 73 times faster compared to a standalone mobile application, in various vehicular sensing scenarios applying a realistic mobility model.     

A user-centric evaluation of context-aware recommendations for a mobile news service

Traditional recommender systems provide personal suggestions based on the user’s preferences, without taking into account any additional contextual information, such as time or device type. The added value of contextual information for the recommendation process is highly dependent on the application domain, the type of contextual information, and variations in users’ usage behavior in different contextual situations. This paper investigates whether users utilize a mobile news service in different contextual situations and whether the context has an influence on their consumption behavior. Furthermore, the importance of context for the recommendation process is investigated by comparing the user satisfaction with recommendations based on an explicit static profile, content-based recommendations using the actual user behavior but ignoring the context, and context-aware content-based recommendations incorporating user behavior as well as context. Considering the recommendations based on the static profile as a reference condition, the results indicate a significant improvement for recommendations that are based on the actual user behavior. This improvement is due to the discrepancy between explicitly stated preferences (initial profile) and the actual consumption behavior of the user. The context-aware content-based recommendations did not significantly outperform the content-based recommendations in our user study. Context-aware content-based recommendations may induce a higher user satisfaction after a longer period of service operation, enabling the recommender to overcome the cold-start problem and distinguish user preferences in various contextual situations.