CSI: A Paradigm for Behavior-oriented Delivery Services in Mobile Human Networks

We propose behavior-oriented services as a new paradigm of communication in mobile human networks. Our study is motivated by the tight user-network coupling in future mobile societies. In such a paradigm, messages are sent to inferred behavioral profiles, instead of explicit IDs. Our paper provides a systematic framework in providing such services. First, user behavioral profiles are constructed based on traces collected from two large wireless networks, and their spatio-temporal stability is analyzed. The implicit relationship discovered between mobile users could be utilized to provide a service for message delivery and discovery in various network environments. As an example application, we provide a detailed design of such a service in challenged opportunistic network architecture, named CSI. We provide a fully distributed solution using behavioral profile space gradients and small world structures. Our analysis shows that user behavioral profiles are surprisingly stable, i.e., the similarity of the behavioral profile of a user to its future behavioral profile is above 0.8 for two days and 0.75 for one week, and remains above 0.6 for five weeks. The correlation coefficient of the similarity metrics between a user pair at different time instants is above 0.7 for four days, 0.62 for a week, and remains above 0.5 for two weeks. Leveraging such a stability in user behaviors, the CSI service achieves delivery rate very close to the delay-optimal strategy (above 94%), with minimal overhead (less than 84% of the optimal). We believe that this new paradigm will act as an enabler of multiple new services in mobile societies, and is potentially applicable in server-based, heterogeneous or infrastructure-less wireless environments.