ATD: Quantifying Human Mobility using Topological and Time-Frequency Analysis

现代应用程序中手头的海量数据给存储、处理和挖掘数据带来了挑战。当数据涉及人类行为并同时涉及空间和时间部分时，这些挑战尤其困难。该项目旨在解决这类数据集带来的挑战，以努力更好地了解人类动态和流动性。这个项目有可能在几个方面造福社会。首先，通过开发更准确、更高效的时空数据处理数学算法，项目成果可以改进异常和威胁检测。其次，该项目将通过培训研究生和博士后助理、课程开发和外联活动，为STEM劳动力发展做出贡献。第三，该项目的结果将提供纳入新算法的途径，用于分析描述人类行为的数据集。第四，该项目将解决这项研究的伦理、法律和社会影响，特别是关于数据收集和分析的社会关切以及数据处理所产生的不同影响。该项目旨在开发适用于各种时空数据集的新结果和算法工具包，用于异常检测的拓扑数据分析。这些新的结果和算法侧重于将拓扑数据分析用于表示数据集的空间分量和时频分析用于表示时间分量。新算法将专注于体积交通数据和美国人口普查数据中的异常检测，但将适用于其他时空数据集。拟议的研究还将解决算法不公平和有偏见的数据集，开发策略以减轻由于我们的新算法可能发生的不同影响。该项目将对跨越多个尺度的政治边界的人的流动性进行建模，以识别和预测住宅的不稳定。该项目还将解决在人类动力背景下部署自动化决策技术--如人工智能--的社会关切。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The immense amount of data at hand in modern applications creates challenges in storing, processing, and mining the data. These challenges are particularly difficult when the data concerns human behavior and involves both spatial and temporal components. This project aims to address challenges posed by such datasets in an effort to better understand human dynamics and mobility. This project has the potential to benefit society in several ways. First, by developing more accurate and efficient mathematical algorithms for processing spatiotemporal data, the project results can lead to improved anomaly and threat detection. Second, the project will contribute to STEM workforce development through training of graduate students and postdoctoral associates, curriculum development, and outreach activities. Third, results of the project will provide avenues for incorporation of new algorithms for analyzing datasets that describe human behavior. Fourth, the project will address the ethical, legal, and societal impacts of the research, especially societal concerns regarding the collection and analysis of data as well as disparate impacts resulting from the processing of that data.This project aims to develop new results and a toolkit of algorithms, applicable to a wide variety of spatiotemporal datasets, in topological data analysis for anomaly detection. These new results and algorithms focus on combining topological data analysis for the representation of spatial components of datasets and time-frequency analysis for the representation of the temporal components. The new algorithms will focus on anomaly detection in volumetric traffic data and US census data, but will be generalizable to other spatiotemporal datasets. The proposed research will also address algorithmic unfairness and biased datasets, developing strategies to mitigate disparate impacts that may occur as a result of our novel algorithms. The project will model human mobility across political boundaries across multiple scales, in order to identify and predict residential instability. The project will also address societal concerns regarding the deployment of automated decision making technologies--such as artificial intelligence--in the context of human dynamics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.