Agentic AI describes the use of LLMs in novel AI agents that can answer questions or collaborate to achieve goals. These LLM agents can be used to build a novel generation of recommender systems. However, little is known about the LLM agents or their relationships needed to provide recommendations. Once identified, a framework can be constructed. Moreover, evaluating this framework is still not well understood. In this paper, we propose an agentic AI-based, multi-agent framework for recommender systems. We first identify LLM agents proposed in the literature, followed by the identification of their relationships and we propose a framework to represent them. Next, we evaluate this framework with respect to the LLM agents and functionalities of a recommender system based on published studies. This study is a stepping stone in a novel paradigm shift in the construction of recommender systems.

Identifying regions of high demand for transportation services can help drivers maximize their profits, assist companies in dynamic pricing or resource allocation, and reduce passenger’s wait times. However, their identification is not trivial because of the many factors that impact the demand, such as the weather or time of the day, and the possible lack of communication between drivers. In this paper, we present a framework to identify regions of high demand for transportation services based on cluster evolution and graph analysis. The framework identifies how clusters of moving objects evolve, creates a graph to represent the evolution, and use cluster relationships to calculate a rate of change based on the objects that enter of leave the cluster. Results can be described based on the day or the evolution of a cluster. A use case with taxis in Rome is performed and two main regions of high demand for taxis are identified, one near hotels and another near a bus, taxi, and train terminal.

Graphs have been used as the foundation for several types of analysis methods in multiple application domains. In our study, we investigate spatial-temporal data analysis using graphs that capture knowledge about clusters of moving objects, their relationships, and their evolution. The study cope with the need to provide analysis techniques that consider cluster evolution. In this paper, we describe our ongoing study on knowledge graphs in spatial-temporal cluster evolution and potential research directions.

Spatial-temporal data analysis helps uncover value from data that moves through space and time. One such data analysis technique is clustering, which groups data based on a distance function to identify outliers or assist in classification tasks. Once spatial-temporal data is clustered with respect to space and time, cluster relationships can be observed, such as clusters entering or leaving another, merging, or splitting. A cluster lifetime describes the relationships that a given cluster had from its start to finish. The set of all cluster lifetimes that are related by the relationships describe a cluster dynamic. In this paper, we report our work in progress on a graph-based analysis approach to cluster lifetime dynamics. We discuss how cluster dynamics can be represented using graphs and the opportunities resulting from this approach, including visualization, graph pattern mining, graph classification, and graph compression. Enabled by graph-processing techniques, the proposed approach facilitates tasks such as the detection of regions of significant increase or decrease in the number of cluster elements (e.g. traffic jams), the calculation of a rise or decay parameter to describe this behavior for classification or comparison tasks, and the identification of a cluster’s lifetime, direction, and distance from or to a given point of interest.

Spatial-temporal data analysis aims at uncovering useful insights and patterns from data that is associated with a location and that changes with time. Spatial-temporal data can comprise massive datasets obtained from multiple sources, including mobile devices, cameras, radar, and other types of sensors. Traditional analysis techniques allow researchers to perform several tasks, including classification, regression, and clustering. Specifically, clustering methods have been widely adopted in domains such as transportation, smart cities, and astronomy. However, current clustering techniques fail to analyze a moving cluster from its start to finish, limiting themselves to investigating static clusters. This study introduces a framework that takes into consideration the entire life of a mobile cluster and describes its lifetime based on dynamic spatial-temporal relationships that the cluster has with other clusters or trajectories. The framework is evaluated using two case studies, which involve taxi trajectories and human mobility.

Spatial-temporal data analysis relates to the application of data analysis techniques to data where space and time are both relevant. Usually, the results of these techniques are used to classify or predict a phenomenon, but little attention is given to the explanation of how such phenomenon happened. For example, one may predict that a sporting event will happen at a particular location and date, but little is known about the indications that such event will happen (e.g. a higher number of vehicles on certain streets, parking lots becoming full, large number of vehicles going to supermarkets, or a sudden drop in pedestrian and vehicular traffic movement when the match starts). In this paper, we report on our ongoing work on using spatial-temporal cluster relationships to identify cluster lifecycles. These lifecycles are a series of stages through which a cluster passes during its lifetime, much like a human lifecycle of birth, growth, reproduction, and death. We focus on the identification of cluster lifecycle stages, namely start, expand, shrink, and end, and on their use to predict spatial-temporal phenomena, such as traffic congestion, human events, or animal movement.

Spatial-temporal data refers to potentially massive amounts of data gathered across both space and time. Spatial-temporal data analysis helps uncover the value that this type of data holds to domains such as transportation operations, traffic management, service demand, and trip planning. Specifically, cluster analysis groups data into sets known as clusters such that elements inside a cluster are more similar to each other than elements in other clusters. Cluster analysis has been successfully applied in domains such as transportation, ecology, medicine, and astronomy. However, current cluster analysis techniques limit themselves to static cluster analysis, thereby missing the identification of interesting insights and patterns related to the evolution of clusters over time. In this paper, we clarify the concept of dynamic clusters and support new forms of cluster analyses by introducing, describing, and formalizing cluster relationships that represent important events, such as split or merge, that a cluster may go through from its start to its end. These relationships provide a foundation for investigating cluster evolution and providing novel insights for better operational and business decision making.

Cluster analysis has helped to uncover changes over time in numerous studies on the dynamics of entities such as people and groups of animals in areas such as human mobility, health, transportation, commerce, and ecology. However, there is a lack of methods that focus on aspects related to the cluster lifecycle, including dynamic analyses on how clusters are formed, change, and disappear. Specifically, how objects enter and exit from the clusters, and how clusters are (de-)composed to form new clusters. In this paper, we introduce our work in progress about an approach to trajectory cluster lifecycle analysis based on big data that supports an evolutionary analysis of clusters throughout their lifecycle. The knowledge that can be captured as a result of such novel forms of analysis will advance the state of the art in a wide range of applications that require information about cluster evolution, and thus provide deeper insights on cluster genesis, existence, and disappearance.

Novel forms of data analysis methods have emerged as a significant research direction in the transportation domain. These methods can potentially help to improve our understanding of the dynamic flows of vehicles, people, and goods. Understanding these dynamics has economic and social consequences, which can improve the quality of life locally or worldwide. Aiming at this objective, a significant amount of research has focused on clustering moving objects to address problems in many domains, including the transportation, health and environment. However, previous research has not investigated the lifecycle of a cluster, including cluster genesis, existence, and disappearance. The representation and analysis of cluster lifecycles can create novel avenues for research, result in new insights for analyses, and allow unique forms of prediction. This paper focuses on studying the lifecycle of clusters by investigating the relations that a cluster has with moving elements and other clusters. This paper also proposes a big data framework that manages the identification and processing of a cluster lifecycle. The ongoing research approach will lead to new ways to perform cluster analysis and advance the state of the art by leading to new insights related to cluster lifecycle. These results can have a significant impact on transport industry data science applications in a wide variety of areas, including congestion management, resource optimization, and hotspot management.

Spatial-temporal computing refers to the modeling, management, and analysis of spatial and temporal information. Despite the recent advances in massive data manipulation, software system approaches that support the massive spatial-temporal data integration and analysis still face numerous challenges, including the lack of: (i) a high-level architectural framework for massive data integration and analysis; (ii) explicit integration and analysis abstractions; (iii) representations of integration and analysis resources; (iv) explicit provenance representation; (v) reusability of integration and analysis steps; (vi) reproducibility of studies; and (vii) models to build and customize integration and analysis applications. This paper proposes the design and implementation of a high-level domain-specific architecture for data integration and analysis that supports building applications in the spatial-temporal domain. The proposed approach describes three types of first-class citizens, which include abstractions to represent data sources, analysis models, and integration operations. It also benefits from domain-specific languages (DSLs) for high-level representations. To make provenance explicit, the proposed approach identifies three types of provenance information, namely description, analysis, and execution, which help to address reusability and reproducibility. Finally, this approach also supports a model-driven technique to generate integration and analysis steps.