Division Of Computer and Network Systems (CNS)

In this project, the research team and WECAN Community Task Force, with representatives from the City of Dallas, nonprofits, and for-profit entities, will advance these goals by jointly undertaking the following tasks: (1) project planning meetings to execute the project and develop a sound SCC-IRG proposal; (2) focus groups (with community development professionals and residents) and key decision-maker interviews to identify barriers to equitable neighborhood infrastructure decision making and opportunities for WECAN to overcome these barriers; and (3) WECAN Toolkit software requirements meetings. The research questions and intellectual merit are: (1) WECAN Data Discovery: How do smart multilevel social and physical infrastructure networks evolve and impact community wellbeing in neighborhoods? A novel multilevel network approach to social and infrastructure network analysis (SINA) will be developed for predicting wellbeing. (2) WECAN Data Analytics: Can interactions among diverse social and physical infrastructure network data be better interpreted and synthesized using a novel spatiotemporal analysis called multi-modal Granger clustering, compared to traditional spatiotemporal clustering algorithms? The Granger time series clustering method will be extended to cluster spatiotemporal data based upon response to events and spatial location, rather than direct measures of similarity. (3) WECAN Toolkit Impact: How and to what extent do the WECAN tools shift equity-based infrastructure decision making? The view of ?experts? will be expanded by formally integrating opinions of community members, nonprofits, for-profits, and infrastructure users into a participatory prioritization process, as compared to existing decision-making approaches.