Clarifying sensor anomalies using social network feeds

The explosive growth in social networks that publish real-time content begs the question of whether their feeds can complement traditional sensors to achieve augmented sensing capabilities. One such capability is to explain anomalous sensor readings. Towards that end, in this work, we build an automated anomaly clarification service, called ClariSense. It explains sensor anomalies using social network feeds. Explanation goes beyond detection. When a sensor network detects anomalous conditions, our system automatically suggests hypotheses that explain the likely causes of the anomaly to a human by identifying unusual social network feeds that seem to be correlated with the sensor anomaly in time and in space. To evaluate this service, we use real-time data feeds from the California traffic system that shares vehicle count and traffic speed on major California highways at 5 minute intervals. When anomalies are detected, our system automatically diagnoses their root cause by correlating the anomaly with feeds on Twitter. The identified cause is then compared to official traffic and incident reports, showing a great correspondence with ground truth.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Giridhar, Prasanna

Contributors dc:contributor

• Abdelzaher, Tarek F.

• Anomaly detection
• Social data

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2014 Prasanna Giridhar

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/49394

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/49394