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Patterns, Entropy, and Predictability of Human Mobility and Life

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  • Shao-Meng Qin
  • Hannu Verkasalo
  • Mikael Mohtaschemi
  • Tuomo Hartonen
  • Mikko Alava

Abstract

Cellular phones are now offering an ubiquitous means for scientists to observe life: how people act, move and respond to external influences. They can be utilized as measurement devices of individual persons and for groups of people of the social context and the related interactions. The picture of human life that emerges shows complexity, which is manifested in such data in properties of the spatiotemporal tracks of individuals. We extract from smartphone-based data for a set of persons important locations such as “home”, “work” and so forth over fixed length time-slots covering the days in the data-set (see also [1], [2]). This set of typical places is heavy-tailed, a power-law distribution with an exponent close to −1.7. To analyze the regularities and stochastic features present, the days are classified for each person into regular, personal patterns. To this are superimposed fluctuations for each day. This randomness is measured by “life” entropy, computed both before and after finding the clustering so as to subtract the contribution of a number of patterns. The main issue that we then address is how predictable individuals are in their mobility. The patterns and entropy are reflected in the predictability of the mobility of the life both individually and on average. We explore the simple approaches to guess the location from the typical behavior, and of exploiting the transition probabilities with time from location or activity A to B. The patterns allow an enhanced predictability, at least up to a few hours into the future from the current location. Such fixed habits are most clearly visible in the working-day length.

Suggested Citation

  • Shao-Meng Qin & Hannu Verkasalo & Mikael Mohtaschemi & Tuomo Hartonen & Mikko Alava, 2012. "Patterns, Entropy, and Predictability of Human Mobility and Life," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-8, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0051353
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0051353
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    Cited by:

    1. Martínez-Aroza, J. & Gómez-Lopera, J.F. & Blanco-Navarro, D. & Rodríguez-Camacho, J., 2021. "Clustered entropy for edge detection," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 620-645.
    2. Jaroonchokanan, Nawee & Termsaithong, Teerasit & Suwanna, Sujin, 2022. "Dynamics of hierarchical clustering in stocks market during financial crises," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 607(C).
    3. Chun-Chih Lo & Kuo-Hsuan Hsu & Shen-Chien Chen & Chin-Shiuh Shieh & Mong-Fong Horng, 2023. "Periodic Behavioral Routine Discovery Based on Implicit Spatial Correlations for Smart Home," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-26, January.
    4. Shirin Enshaeifar & Ahmed Zoha & Andreas Markides & Severin Skillman & Sahr Thomas Acton & Tarek Elsaleh & Masoud Hassanpour & Alireza Ahrabian & Mark Kenny & Stuart Klein & Helen Rostill & Ramin Nilf, 2018. "Health management and pattern analysis of daily living activities of people with dementia using in-home sensors and machine learning techniques," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-20, May.
    5. Carlos F Alvarez & Luis E Palafox & Leocundo Aguilar & Mauricio A Sanchez & Luis G Martinez, 2016. "Using Link Disconnection Entropy Disorder to Detect Fast Moving Nodes in MANETs," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-15, May.
    6. Liu, Xin & Jiao, Pengfei & Yuan, Ning & Wang, Wenjun, 2016. "Identification of multi-attribute functional urban areas under a perspective of community detection: A case study," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 462(C), pages 827-836.

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