Creating human digital memories with the aid of pervasive mobile devices

• Published in: Pervasive and mobile computing 2014-06, Vol.12, p.160-178
• Main Authors: Dobbins, Chelsea, Merabti, Madjid, Fergus, Paul, Llewellyn-Jones, David
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Human digital memory; Lifelogging; Linked data; Sensor networks; Supervised machine learning; Ubiquitous computing
• ISSN: 1574-1192; 1873-1589
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pmcj.2013.10.009

The abundance of mobile and sensing devices, within our environment, has led to a society in which any object, embedded with sensors, is capable of providing us with information. A human digital memory, created with the data from these pervasive devices, produces a more dynamic and data rich memory. Information such as how you felt, where you were and the context of the environment can be established. This paper presents the DigMem system, which utilizes distributed mobile services, linked data and machine learning to create such memories. Along with the design of the system, a prototype has also been developed, and two case studies have been undertaken, which successfully create memories. As well as demonstrating how memories are created, a key concern in human digital memory research relates to the amount of data that is generated and stored. In particular, searching this set of big data is a key challenge. In response to this, the paper evaluates the use of machine learning algorithms, as an alternative to SPARQL, and treats searching as a classification problem. In particular, supervised machine learning algorithms are used to find information in semantic annotations, based on probabilistic reasoning. Our approach produces good results with 100% sensitivity, 93% specificity, 93% positive predicted value, 100% negative predicted value, and an overall accuracy of 97%.