High Resolution Dynamical Mapping of Social Interactions With Active RFID.

Alain Barrat, Ciro Cattuto, Vittoria Colizza, Jean-Francois Pinton, Wouter Van den Broeck, and Alessandro Vespignani. Informal arXiv.org publication, Nov 2008.

Abstract

In this paper we present an experimental framework to gather data on face-to-face social interactions between individuals, with a high spatial and temporal resolution. We use active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) devices that assess contacts with one another by exchanging low-power radio packets. When individuals wear the beacons as a badge, a persistent radio contact between the RFID devices can be used as a proxy for a social interaction between individuals. We present the results of a pilot study recently performed during a conference, and a subsequent preliminary data analysis, that provides an assessment of our method and highlights its versatility and applicability in many areas concerned with human dynamics.

URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/0811.4170v2

PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0811.4170v2

BIBTEX:

@ARTICLE{2008arXiv0811.4170B,
  author = {Barrat, Alain and Cattuto, Ciro and Colizza, Vittoria and Pinton, {Jean-François}
 and {Van den Broeck}, Wouter and Vespignani, Alessandro},
  title = {High Resolution Dynamical Mapping of Social Interactions With Active RFID},
  journal = {ArXiv e-prints},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  eprint = {0811.4170},
  primaryClass = {cs.CY},
  keywords = {Computer Science - Computers and Society, Computer Science
 - Human-Computer Interaction, Physics - Physics and Society},
  year = 2008,
  month = nov,
  adsurl = {http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008arXiv0811.4170B},
  adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System},
  keywords = {SocioPatterns}
}