Defence in the field of computer science, Talayeh Aledavood, M.Sc.

The title of the dissertation is: Temporal patterns of human behavior

Talayeh Aledavood, M.Sc., will defend the dissertation "Temporal patterns of human behavior" on 5 December 2017 at 12 noon at the Aalto University School of Science, lecture hall T2, Konemiehentie 2, Espoo. This dissertation studies people's behavioral patterns using anonymized data on their mobile phone usage. It shows, among other things, that our intrinsic daily rhythms--whether we are night owls or morning-active larks--correlate with the size of our social network.

Mobile phones and other digital devices are an important part of our lives. While they make everything easier, they also collect the digital breadcrumbs that we leave behind--wherever we go and whatever we do. These traces can be used to monitor our behavior; they provide a picture of our activities, movements, and communication. The focus of this dissertation is to use such traces to study temporal patterns of human behavior.

The findings of this dissertation can serve as a starting point for understanding how mental health and well-being depend on regular sleep and social interactions. In particular, auto-recorded data may allow detecting changes in sleep or social behavior; such changes can act as a warning sign for, e.g., mental-health outpatients. The dissertation also outlines a data collection system developed for this purpose.

Dissertation release (pdf)

Opponent: Dr. Ciro Cattuto, ISI Foundation, Italy

Custos: Professor Jari Saramäki, Aalto University School of Science, Department of Computer Science

Electronic dissertation: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-60-7724-6