MDC 2012 Participation Instructions - Nokia Research Center

Mobile Data Challenge 2012:

Dear Participant of the Mobile Data Challenge Workshop,
We are happy to welcome you to join the Mobile Data Challenge 2012 Workshop, organized in connection with
the Pervasive 2012 in Newcastle, UK. This event aims to serve as a forum to share recent findings, create new
innovations and strengthen the community around our interesting field of mobile computing. Simultaneously, this
workshop will be crowning the Mobile Data Challenge (MDC) 2012 - a large-scale research initiative showing
visible outcome of nearly three years of work in this direction. The challenge was built on the top of the earlier
Lausanne Data Collection Campaign (LDCC), in which longitudinal smartphone data was collected from nearly 200
volunteers in the Lake Geneva region over more than one year of time.
The Mobile Data Challenge by Nokia was motivated by our belief in the value of mobile computing research for
the common good – which can result in a deeper scientific understanding of human and social behavior, advanced
mobile experiences and technological innovations. The challenge provided researchers with an opportunity to
analyze a relatively unexplored data set including rich interaction, mobility and communication information. The
MDC comprised of two research alternatives through an Open Research Track and a Dedicated Research Track. In
the Open Track, researchers were given opportunity to approach the data set from an exploratory perspective, by
proposing their own tasks according to their interests and background. The Dedicated Track gave researchers
possibility to take on up to three tasks to solve - related with prediction of mobility patterns, recognition of place
categories, and estimation of demographic attributes.
The MDC registration process was launched in early November 2011 and closed in mid-December 2011. The
challenge was received enthusiastically by the research community. In early January 2012, the MDC data was
released to more than 500 individual researchers. The participants were affiliated with hundreds of different
universities and research institutes, with a worldwide geographical distribution (Asia 23%, Europe 51%, USA 22%,
other regions 4%). Many leading universities were represented in the challenge.
A total of 108 challenge submissions were received on April 15, 2012, corresponding to 59 entries to the
Dedicated Track and 49 entries to the Open Track. All the submitted contributions were evaluated by a Technical
Program Committee (TPC), composed of senior members of the mobile and pervasive computing communities.
The complete list of the TPC members can be found on the following pages.
As a result of the reviewing process, 22 entries to the Open Track and 18 entries to the Dedicated Track were
accepted, resulting in an overall acceptance rate of 37% (less than 20% for oral presentations). The program of the
workshop will consist both of the oral and poster sessions – the related details can be found on the following
pages.
The contributions to the MDC addressed various interesting angles from the perspective of mobile computing
research – covering e.g. investigations on predictability of human behavior or opportunities to share/capture data
based on mobility patterns, visualization techniques for complex data as well as correlation between human
behavior and external environmental variables (like weather). The Mobile Data Challenge produced interesting
findings and multidisciplinary scientific advances – and we expect this workshop to serve its purpose to advance
related research and innovation even further. The journey and momentum around this interesting research field
and resources is expected to continue and expand also after the Mobile Data Challenge itself.
We hope that you enjoy your stay in Newcastle !
Sincerely,
Juha Laurila and Daniel Gatica-Perez
Chairs of the Mobile Data Challenge Workshop

Mobile Data Challenge 2012 – Organizing Committee:
Workshop Chairs:
Juha Laurila, Nokia Research Center - Lausanne
Daniel Gatica-Perez, Idiap Research Institute / EPFL
Dedicated Challenge Leaders:
Olivier Dousse, Nokia Research Center - Lausanne
Trinh Minh Tri Do, Idiap Research Institute
Markus Miettinen, Nokia Research Center - Lausanne
Open Challenge Leaders:
Imad Aad, Nokia Research Center - Lausanne
Jan Blom, Nokia Research Center - Lausanne
Administration:
Emma Dorée, Nokia Research Center - Lausanne
Julien Eberle, Nokia Research Center - Lausanne
Olivier Bornet, Idiap Research Institute
Henry Tirri
CTO, EVP, Nokia
Mobile Data Challenge 2012 - Awards Committee:
Prof. Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland –
MIT (Human Dynamics Laboratory, Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program)
Prof. Tony Jebara
Columbia University (Machine Learning Laboratory)

Mobile Data Challenge 2012 – Technical Program Committee (TPC):
Aad, Imad: Nokia Research Center - Lausanne
Aberer, Karl: EPFL
Bailey, Marc: Nokia Research Center - Moscow
Bickel, Steffen: Location & Commerce, Nokia
Corp
Blom, Jan: Nokia Research Center - Lausanne
Blondel, Vincent: UC Louvain
Campbell, Andrew: Dartmouth College
Chaintreau, Augustin: Columbia
Chakraborty, Dipanjan: IBM Research India
Chalmers, Matthew: Glasgow University
Chin, Alvin: Nokia Research Center – Beijing
Cramer, Henriette: SICS/Mobile Life Centre
De Oliveira, Rodrigo: Telefonica I+D
Dousse, Olivier: Nokia Research Center -
Lausanne
Farrahi, Katayoun: Linz University
Gatica-Perez, Daniel: IDIAP
Grossglauser, Matthias: EPFL
Hong, Jason: CMU
Jadliwala, Murtuza: Wichita State University
Kärkkäinen, Leo: Nokia Research Center -
Helsinki
Kawsar, Fahim: Alcatel Lucent
Kortuem, Gerd: Lancaster University
Krueger, Antonio: DFKI
Kryszczuk, Krzysztof: Nokia Research Center -
Lausanne
Lane, Nic: Microsoft Research Asia
Laurila, Juha: Nokia Research Center - Lausanne
Lu, Hong: Dartmouth College
Lyons, Kent: Nokia Research Center - North
America
Mascolo, Cecilia: University of Cambridge
Michaelles, Florian: ETH-Z
Mielikäinen, Taneli: Nokia Research Center -
North America
Miettinen, Markus: Nokia Research Center -
Lausanne
Miluzzo, Emiliano: AT&T Research
Misra, Archan: Singapore Management
University
Murray-Smith, Roderick: Glasgow University
Nurmi, Petteri: HIIT
Offenhuber, Dietmar: SENSEable City Lab, MIT
Onnela, Jukka-Pekka: Harvard University
Patterson, Donald: UC Irvine
Phithakkitnukoon, Santi: MIT
Quercia, Daniele: University of Cambridge
Quigley, Aaron: St Andrews University
Racz, David: Nokia Research Center - North
America
Rentfrow, Jason: University of Cambridge
Rohs, Michael: LMU Munich
Seppänen, Jarno: Nokia Research Center -
Helsinki
Smoreda, Zbigniew: Orange Labs
Tang, Jie: Tsinghua University
Thiran, Patrick: EPFL
Tian, Jilei: Nokia Research Center - Beijing
Trinh Minh Tri Do: IDIAP
Wang, Jianyong: Tsinghua University
Wang, Xiaojie: Beijing University of Posts and
Telecommunications
Xing, Xie: Microsoft Research Asia
Zheng, Yu: Microsoft Research Asia

Workshop Programme
Day 1 (18.6)
09.00-09.20: MDC overview
The Mobile Data Challenge: Big Data for Mobile Computing Research. Juha Laurila*, Daniel Gatica-Perez §, Imad
Aad*, Jan Blom*, Olivier Bornet ¤, Trinh-Minh-Tri Do ¤, Olivier Dousse*, Julien Eberle*, and Markus Miettinen*.
Nokia Research Centre*, IDIAP and EPFL §, IDIAP ¤.
09.20-10.30: Open track session I: Insights through visualization and other techniques (3 talks + 10 min open
discussion)
Generating storylines from sensor data. Jordan Frank, Shie Mannor, Doina Precup, McGill University
Visual analysis of social networks in space and time. Aidan Slingsby, Roger Beecham, Jo Wood, City University
London
Nokia MDC Atlas: An Exploration of Mobile Phone Users, Land Cover, Time, and Space. André Skupin, Harvey J.
Miller, San Diego State University
10.30-11.00: Coffee break
11.00-12.20: Dedicated task 1: Semantic place prediction (intro (10 min) + 3 talks + 10 min open discussion)
Introduction, Julien Eberle, Nokia Research Center Lausanne
Semantic Place Prediction by Combining Smart Binary Classifiers. Raul Montoliu, Adolfo Martínez-Uso, Jose
Martínez-Sotoca, Institute of New Imaging Technologies
Feature Engineering for Place Category Classification. Yin Zhu, Erheng Zhong, Bin Wu, Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology
Mining Users’ Behavior and Environment for Semantic Place Prediction. Chi-Min Huang, Josh Jia-Ching Ying, Vincent
S. Tseng, National Cheng Kung University
12.20-14.00: Lunch
14.00-15.30: Open track session II: Human behaviour and perceptions (4 talks + 10 min open discussion)
Interdependence and Predictability of Human Mobility and Social Interactions. Manlio De Domenico, Antonio Lima,
Mirco Musolesi, University of Birmingham
Estimating People Perception of Intimacy in Daily Life from Context Data Collected with Their Mobile Phone. Mattia
Gustarini, Katarzyna Wac, University of Geneva
Exploring Periods of Low Predictability in Daily Life Mobility. James McInerney, Sebastian Stein, Alex Rogers,
Nicholas R. Jennings, University of Southampton
Exploring Social Interactions via Multi-Modal Learning. Aarti Munjal, Thyago Mota, Tracy Camp, Colorado School of
Mines

15.30-16.00: Coffee break
16.00-17.30: Poster session: 20 posters
Dedicated Challenge 1:
Topic Modeling-based Semantic Annotation of Place using Personal Behavior and Environmental Features. Yohan
Chon, Yungeun Kim, Hyojeong Shin, Hojung Cha, Yonsei University
Predicting Semantic Place and Next Place via Mobile Data. Ying Zhu, Yong Sun, Yu Wang, University of North Carolina
at Charlotte
Report on Dedicated Task 1: Semantic Place Prediction. Abson Sae-Tang, Michele Catasta, Luke K. McDowell, EPFL
Dedicated Challenge 2:
PnLUM : System for Prediction of Next Location for Users with Mobility. Le T. Nguyen, Heng-Tze Cheng, Pang Wu,
Senaka Buthpitiya, and Ying Zhang, Carnegie Mellon University
Report on Dedicated Task 2: Next Place Prediction. Le-Hung Tran, Michele Catasta, Luke K. McDowell, EPFL
Next Place Prediction with Powered Transition Matrices. Zhongqi Lu, Yin Zhu, Vincent Zheng, Institute of Infocomm
Research
Dedicated Challenge 3:
Demographic Prediction of Mobile User from Phone Usage. Shahram Mohrehkesh, Shuiwang Ji, Michele C. Weigle.,
Old Dominion University
Open Challenge:
Where Do People Go When It Rains? Marko Niinimäki and Tapio Niemi, Helsinki Institute of Physics at CERN
Predicting next network cell IDs for moving users with Discriminative and Generative Models. Stefan Michaelis, Nico
Piatkowski, Katharina Morik, TU Dortmund University
Prediction for Mobile Application Usage Patterns. Chang Tan, Qi Liu, Enhong Chen, Hui Xiong, University of Science
and Techology of China
MobReduce: Reducing State Complexity of Mobility Traces. Fabian Hartmann, Christoph P. Mayer, Ingmar Baumgart,
Karslruhe Insitute of Techology
A Trajectory Cleaning Framework for Trajectory Clustering. Agzam Idrissov, Mario A. Nascimento, University of
Alberta
Deriving Connectivity and Application Usage Patterns From Longitudinal Mobile Phone Usage Data. Sokratis
Barmpounakis, Katarzyna Wac, University of Geneva
Visual Analytics of Mobile Data. Benjamin Höferlin, Markus Höferlin, Jürgen Räuchle, University of Stuttgart
Evaluation of an Epidemic Information Distribution Scheme in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks. Sebastian VanSyckel,
Dominik Schäfer, Gregor Schiele, Christian Becker, University of Mannheim

Day 2 (19.6)
Human Mobility from GSM Data - A Valid Alternative to GPS? Daniel Schulz, Sebastian Bothe, Christine Körner,
Fraunhofer IAIS
Discovery of User Groups within Mobile Data. Syed Agha Muhammad, Kristof Van Laerhoven, Technical University
Darmstadt
Habitualisation: localisation without location data. Rory McGrath, Cathal Coffey, Alexei Pozdnoukhov, National
University of Ireland Maynooth
09.10-10.30: Dedicated task 2: Next place prediction (intro (10 min) + 3 talks + 10 min open discussion)
Introduction, Trinh-Minh-Tri Do, IDIAP
Mobile Location Prediction in Spatio-Temporal Context. Huiji Gao, Jiliang Tang, Huan Liu, Arizona State University
Periodicity Based Next Place Prediction. Jingjing Wang, Bhaskar Prabhala, University of Illinois at Urbana –
Champaign
Human Mobility Prediction. Vincent Etter, Mohamed Kafsi, Ehsan Kazemi, EPFL
10.30-11.00: Coffee break
11.00-12.10: Open track session III: Networking and connectivity (3 talks + 10 min open discussion)
Analysis of Smart Phone User Mobility Traces for Opportunistic Data Collection. Xiuchao Wu, Kenneth N. Brown,
Cormac J. Sreenan, Department of Computer Science, University College Cork, Ireland
On the Analysis of Periodic Mobility Behaviour. Zhiyu Wang, Mario A. Nascimento, M.H. MacGregor, University of
Alberta
On the Feasibility of Opportunistic Ad Hoc Music Sharing. Barbara Keller, Philippe von Bergen, Samuel Welten, ETH-
Zurich
12.10-14.00: Lunch
14.00-15.20: Dedicated task 3: Demographic prediction (intro (10 min) + 3 talks + 10 min open transition)
Introduction, Markus Miettinen, Nokia Research Center Lausanne
Demographic Attributes Prediction on the Real-World Mobile Data. Sanja Brdar, Dubravko Ćulibrk, Vladimir
Crnojević, Trg Dositeja Obradovića
Your Phone Understands You. Kaixiang Mo, Ben Tan, Erheng Zhong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Demographic prediction based on user’s mobile behavior. Josh Jia-Ching Ying, Yao-Jen Chang, Vincent S. Tseng.,
National Cheng Kung University
15.20-16.00: Coffee break
16.00-17.00: Awards and final discussion

http://research.nokia.com/mdc
Email: mobiledata.challenge2012@nokia.com