Adaptive service discovery on service-oriented and spontaneous sensor systems

Service-oriented architecture, Spontaneous networks, Self-organisation, Self-configuration, Sensor systems, Social patternsNatural and man-made disasters can significantly impact both people and environments. Enhanced effect can be achieved through dynamic networking of people, systems and procedures and seamless integration of them to fulfil mission objectives with service-oriented sensor systems. However, the benefits of integration of services will not be realised unless we have a dependable method to discover all required services in dynamic environments. In this paper, we propose an Adaptive and Efficient Peer-to-peer Search (AEPS) approach for dependable service integration on service-oriented architecture based on a number of social behaviour patterns. In the AEPS network, the networked nodes can autonomously support and co-operate with each other in a peer-to-peer (P2P) manner to quickly discover and self-configure any services available on the disaster area and deliver a real-time capability by self-organising themselves in spontaneous groups to provide higher flexibility and adaptability for disaster monitoring and relief

Semantics, sensors, and the social web: The live social semantics experiments

The Live Social Semantics is an innovative application that encourages and guides social networking between researchers at conferences and similar events. The application integrates data and technologies from the Semantic Web, online social networks, and a face-to-face contact sensing platform. It helps researchers to find like-minded and influential researchers, to identify and meet people in their community of practice, and to capture and later retrace their real-world networking activities at conferences. The application was successfully deployed at two international conferences, attracting more than 300 users in total. This paper describes this application, and discusses and evaluates the results of its two deployment

Investigating impacts of environmental factors on the cycling behavior of bicycle-sharing users

As it is widely accepted, cycling tends to produce health benefits and reduce air pollution. Policymakers encourage people to use bikes by improving cycling facilities as well as developing bicycle-sharing systems (BSS). It is increasingly interesting to investigate how environmental factors influence the cycling behavior of users of bicycle-sharing systems, as users of bicycle-sharing systems tend to be different from regular cyclists. Although earlier studies have examined effects of safety and convenience on the cycling behavior of regular riders, they rarely explored effects of safety and convenience on the cycling behavior of BSS riders. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to investigate how road safety, convenience, and public safety affect the cycling behavior of BSS riders by controlling for other environmental factors. Specifically, in this study, we investigated the impacts of environmental characteristics, including population density, employment density, land use mix, accessibility to point-of-interests (schools, shops, parks and gyms), road infrastructure, public transit accessibility, road safety, convenience, and public safety on the usage of BSS. Additionally, for a more accurate measure of public transit accessibility, road safety, convenience, and public safety, we used spatiotemporally varying measurements instead of spatially varying measurements, which have been widely used in earlier studies. We conducted an empirical investigation in Chicago with cycling data from a BSS called Divvy. In this study, we particularly attempted to answer the following questions: (1) how traffic accidents and congestion influence the usage of BSS; (2) how violent crime influences the usage of BSS; and (3) how public transit accessibility influences the usage of BSS. Moreover, we tried to offer implications for policies aiming to increase the usage of BSS or for the site selection of new docking stations. Empirical results demonstrate that density of bicycle lanes, public transit accessibility, and public safety influence the usage of BSS, which provides answers for our research questions. Empirical results also suggest policy implications that improving bicycle facilities and reducing the rate of violent crime rates tend to increase the usage of BSS. Moreover, some environmental factors could be considered in selecting a site for a new docking station

Anticipating Information Needs Based on Check-in Activity

In this work we address the development of a smart personal assistant that is capable of anticipating a user's information needs based on a novel type of context: the person's activity inferred from her check-in records on a location-based social network. Our main contribution is a method that translates a check-in activity into an information need, which is in turn addressed with an appropriate information card. This task is challenging because of the large number of possible activities and related information needs, which need to be addressed in a mobile dashboard that is limited in size. Our approach considers each possible activity that might follow after the last (and already finished) activity, and selects the top information cards such that they maximize the likelihood of satisfying the user's information needs for all possible future scenarios. The proposed models also incorporate knowledge about the temporal dynamics of information needs. Using a combination of historical check-in data and manual assessments collected via crowdsourcing, we show experimentally the effectiveness of our approach.Comment: Proceedings of the 10th ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM '17), 201

A qualitative enquiry into OpenStreetMap making

Based on a case study on the OpenStreetMap community, this paper provides a contextual and embodied understanding of the user-led, user-participatory and user-generated produsage phenomenon. It employs Grounded Theory, Social Worlds Theory, and qualitative methods to illuminate and explores the produsage processes of OpenStreetMap making, and how knowledge artefacts such as maps can be collectively and collaboratively produced by a community of people, who are situated in different places around the world but engaged with the same repertoire of mapping practices. The empirical data illustrate that OpenStreetMap itself acts as a boundary object that enables actors from different social worlds to co-produce the Map through interacting with each other and negotiating the meanings of mapping, the mapping data and the Map itself. The discourses also show that unlike traditional maps that black-box cartographic knowledge and offer a single dominant perspective of cities or places, OpenStreetMap is an embodied epistemic object that embraces different world views. The paper also explores how contributors build their identities as an OpenStreetMaper alongside some other identities they have. Understanding the identity-building process helps to understand mapping as an embodied activity with emotional, cognitive and social repertoires