EAGER: Data Analytics over Location Based Services

基于位置的服务非常受欢迎，数百万用户每天都在使用谷歌和必应地图等地图服务，以及集成到Twitter和Yelp等许多其他系统中的基于位置的功能。对这些服务的后端数据库进行数据分析可以揭示有趣的“全景”信息，例如兴趣点的地理分布和用户行为的地区差异。在这个项目中，我们展示了这种有趣的数据分析可以由用户通过可用的编程和查询接口限制对数据库的访问。该项目的研究成果将对国家高等教育系统和高科技产业产生影响。各种各样的公司、政府和安全机构中的知识工作者都需要通过基于位置的服务提出高级分析查询的能力。该项目的一部分正在被整合到教学中，这将潜在地吸引有动力的学生攻读博士学位。研究涉及开发一套算法和技术，以了解数据分析相对于基于位置的服务的机遇和挑战。考虑的各种数据分析和挖掘任务包括点和路径聚合估计以及受可用数据访问接口限制的基于位置的服务的双重挖掘。这项研究通过展示如何将经过理论验证的算法与现实世界基于位置的服务的特定应用细节相结合，使工程取得了根本性的进步。一个数据分析原型也在开发中，并将在几个现实世界中基于位置的服务上进行评估。

Location Based Services are extremely popular, with millions of users making daily use of mapping services such as Google and Bing maps, as well as location based features integrated into numerous other systems such as Twitter and Yelp. Data analytics over the backend databases of these services can reveal interesting "big picture" information, such as geographic distribution of points of interest and regional variation in user behavior. In this project we show that such interesting data analytics can be performed by users whose access to the databases is limited via the available programming and query interfaces. The research results of this project will impact the nation's higher education system and high-tech industries. The ability to pose high-level analytical queries over location based services is needed by knowledge workers in a wide variety of corporations, governments, and security agencies. Parts of this project are being integrated into teaching, which will potentially attract motivated students to pursue doctoral degrees.The research involves developing a suite of algorithms and techniques for understanding the opportunities and challenges of data analytics over location based services. The various data analytics and mining tasks considered include point and path aggregate estimation as well as dual mining over location based services limited by available data access interfaces. The research makes fundamental advancements to engineering by showing how to integrate theoretically-proven algorithms with application-specific details of real-world location based services. A data analytics prototype is also being developed and will be evaluated over several real-world location based services.