Researchers have examined crowd behaviour in the past by employing a variety of methods including ethnographic studies, computer vision techniques and manual annotation-based data analysis. However, because of the resources to collect, process and analyse data, it remains difficult to obtain large data sets for study. Mobile phones offer easier means for data collection that is easy to analyse and can preserve the user's privacy. The aim of this thesis is to identify and model different qualities of social interactions inside crowds using mobile sensing technology. This Ph.D. research makes three main contributions centred around the mobile sensing and crowd sensing area. Firstly, an open-source licensed mobile sensing framework is developed, named SensingKit, that is capable of collecting mobile sensor data from iOS and Android devices, supporting most sensors available in modern smartphones. The framework has been evaluated in a case study that investigates the pedestrian gait synchronisation phenomenon. Secondly, a novel algorithm based on graph theory is proposed capable of detecting stationary social interactions within crowds. It uses sensor data available in a modern smartphone device, such as the Bluetooth Smart (BLE) sensor, as an indication of user proximity, and accelerometer sensor, as an indication of each user's motion state. Finally, a machine learning model is introduced that uses multi-modal mobile sensor data extracted from Bluetooth Smart, accelerometer and gyroscope sensors. The validation was performed using a relatively large dataset with 24 participants, where they were asked to socialise with each other for 45 minutes. By using supervised machine learning based on gradient-boosted trees, a performance increase of 26.7% was achieved over a proximity-based approach. Such model can be beneficial to the design and implementation of in-the-wild crowd behavioural analysis, design of influence strategies, and algorithms for crowd reconfiguration.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:766263 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Katevas, Kleomenis |
| Publisher | Queen Mary, University of London |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/54059 |
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