Adaptive task assignment in spatial crowd sourcing

Spatial crowdsourcing has emerged as a new paradigm for solving difficult problems in the physical world. It engages a large number of human workers in scenarios such as crisis management and smart cities. The utility of spatial crowdsourcing is generally dependent on who performs the task. On one hand, the workers may not perform assigned tasks within time. On the other hand, the performed tasks may not meet the predefined quality criteria. In the case of spatial crowdsourcing, the success of an assignment depends on factors such as task location, travel distance, or expected reward. This necessitates an appropriate task assignment process to optimize the utility of spatial crowdsourcing.


The design of the task assignment process faces three primary research challenges: dynamism, heterogeneity, and uncertainty. The goal of this thesis is to address these research challenges; therefore, it proposes a conceptual framework to analyze the dimensions of dynamic task assignment in spatial crowdsourcing. To formalize the research problem, this thesis defines dynamic task assignment as a repeated decision-making problem under uncertainty and heterogeneity. Uncertainty defines the limited knowledge about the reliability of workers for assigned tasks, and heterogeneity characterizes the differences in reliability and expertise of workers. The proposed formalization is referred to as the adaptive assignment problem in spatial crowdsourcing. The adaptive assignment problem combines online optimization with heuristic-based learning for balancing the exploration-exploitation trade-o during repeated assignments. The problem is instantiated in four different scenarios of spatial crowdsourcing to highlight
specific requirements of assignment algorithms. An agent-based simulation methodology is employed to evaluate the algorithms proposed for each scenario. Empirical evaluation provides evidence of the performance of algorithms using synthetic and real-world data.

Team

Umair ul Hassan

Dr Edward Curry

Institution: NUI Galway

Funder

Relevant Publications

2021
[22] Umair ul Hassan, Edward Curry, "Stakeholder Analysis of Data Ecosystems", Chapter in The Elements of Big Data Value, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 21-39, 2021. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
[21] Edward Curry, Sonja Zillner, Andreas Metzger, Arne J. Berre, Sören Auer, Ray Walshe, Marija Despenic, Milan Petkovic, Dumitru Roman, Walter Waterfeld, Robert Seidl, Souleiman Hasan, Umair ul Hassan, Adegboyega Ojo, "Technical Research Priorities for Big Data", Chapter in The Elements of Big Data Value, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 97-126, 2021. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
2020
[20] Umair ul Hassan, Edward Curry, "Human-in-the-Loop Tasks for Data Management, Citizen Sensing, and Actuation in Smart Environments", Chapter in Real-time Linked Dataspaces, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 139-158, 2020. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
[19] Umair ul Hassan, Adegboyega Ojo, Edward Curry, "Catalog and Entity Management Service for Internet of Things-Based Smart Environments", Chapter in Real-time Linked Dataspaces, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 89-103, 2020. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
[18] Edward Curry, Willem Fabritius, Souleiman Hasan, Christos Kouroupetroglou, Umair ul Hassan, Wassim Derguech, "A Model for Internet of Things Enhanced User Experience in Smart Environments", Chapter in Real-time Linked Dataspaces, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 271-294, 2020. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
[17] Edward Curry, Wassim Derguech, Souleiman Hasan, Christos Kouroupetroglou, Umair ul Hassan, Willem Fabritius, "Building Internet of Things-Enabled Digital Twins and Intelligent Applications Using a Real-time Linked Dataspace", Chapter in Real-time Linked Dataspaces, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 255-270, 2020. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
2019
[16] Edward Curry, Wassim Derguech, Souleiman Hasan, Christos Kouroupetroglou, Umair ul Hassan, "A Real-time Linked Dataspace for the Internet of Things: Enabling “Pay-As-You-Go” Data Management in Smart Environments", In Future Generation Computer Systems, vol. 90, pp. 405-422, 2019. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
2018
[15] Edward Curry, Souleiman Hasan, Christos Kouroupetroglou, Willem Fabritius, Umair ul Hassan, Wassim Derguech, "Internet of Things Enhanced User Experience for Smart Water and Energy Management", In IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 18-28, 2018. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
2017
[14] Piyush Yadav, Umair ul Hassan, Souleiman Hasan, Edward Curry, "The Event Crowd", In Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Conference on Distributed and Event-based Systems, ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp. 44-53, 2017. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
[13] Tarek Zaarour, Niki Pavlopoulou, Souleiman Hasan, Umair ul Hassan, Edward Curry, "Automatic Anomaly Detection over Sliding Windows", In Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Conference on Distributed and Event-based Systems, ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp. 310-314, 2017. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
[12] Umair ul Hassan, Souleiman Hasan, Wassim Derguech, Louise Hannon, Eoghan Clifford, Christos Kouroupetroglou, Sander Smit, Edward Curry, "Water Analytics and Management with Real-Time Linked Dataspaces", Chapter in Government 3.0 – Next Generation Government Technology Infrastructure and Services, Springer, pp. 173-196, 2017. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
2016
[11] Umair ul Hassan, Edward Curry, "Efficient task assignment for spatial crowdsourcing: A combinatorial fractional optimization approach with semi-bandit learning", In Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 58, pp. 36-56, 2016. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
[10] Umair ul Hassan, Amrapali Zaveri, Edgard Marx, Edward Curry, Jens Lehmann, "ACRyLIQ: Leveraging DBpedia for Adaptive Crowdsourcing in Linked Data Quality Assessment", Chapter in 20th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (EKAW2016), Springer, Bologna, Italy, pp. 681-696, 2016. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
2015
[9] Umair ul Hassan, Edward Curry, "Flag-Verify-Fix: Adaptive Spatial Crowdsourcing leveraging Location-based Social Networks", In Proceedings of the 23rd SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp. 1-4, 2015. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
2014
[8] Umair Ul Hassan, Edward Curry, "A Multi-armed Bandit Approach to Online Spatial Task Assignment", In 2014 IEEE 11th Intl Conf on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing, IEEE, pp. 212-219, 2014. Best Paper Award [bib] [pdf] [doi]
2013
[7] Umair ul Hassan, Edward Curry, "A Capability Requirements Approach for Predicting Worker Performance in Crowdsourcing", In Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing, ICST, Austin, Texas, pp. 1-9, 2013. 25% acceptance rate [bib] [pdf] [doi]
[6] Umair ul Hassan, Sean O'Riain, Edward Curry, "Effects of Expertise Assessment on the Quality of Task Routing in Human Computation", In 2nd International Workshop on Social Media for Crowdsourcing and Human Computation, Paris, France, pp. 1-8, 2013. [bib] [pdf]
[5] Umair ul Hassan, Murilo Bassora, Ali Vahid, Sean O'Riain, Edward Curry, "A Collaborative Approach for Metadata Management for Internet of Things", In Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing, ICST, Austin, Texas, pp. 1-6, 2013. [bib] [pdf] [doi]
[4] Umair ul Hassan, Sean O'Riain, Edward Curry, "SLUA: Towards Semantic Linking of Users with Actions in Crowdsourcing", In International Workshop on Crowdsourcing the Semantic Web, Sydney, Australia, pp. 32-44, 2013. [bib] [pdf]
2012
[3] Umair ul Hassan, Sean O'Riain, Edward Curry, "Leveraging Matching Dependencies for Guided User Feedback in Linked Data Applications", In 9th International Workshop on Information Integration on the Web (IIWeb2012), ACM, Scottsdale, Arizona,, 2012. [slides] [bib] [pdf] [doi]
[2] Umair ul Hassan, Sean O'Riain, Edward Curry, "Towards Expertise Modelling for Routing Data Cleaning Tasks within a Community of Knowledge Workers", In 17th International Conference on Information Quality (ICIQ 2012), Paris, France, pp. 58-69, 2012. [bib] [pdf]
2011
[1] Edward Curry, Souleiman Hasan, Umair ul Hassan, Micah Herstand, Sean O'Riain, "An Entity-Centric Approach To Green Information Systems", In Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2011), Helsinki, Finland, pp. 1-7, 2011. [bib] [pdf]
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