This work proposes the use of Information Theory for the characterization of vehicles behavior through their velocities. Three public data sets were used: (i) Mobile Century data set collected on Highway I-880, near Union City, California; (ii) Borlange GPS data set collected in the Swedish city of Borlange; and (iii) Beijing taxicabs data set collected in Beijing, China, where each vehicle speed is stored as a time series. The Bandt-Pompe methodology combined with the Complexity-Entropy plane were used to identify different regimes and behaviors. The global velocity is compatible with a correlated noise with f − k Power Spectrum with k ≥ 0. With this we identify traffic behaviors as, for instance, random velocities (k ≃ 0) when there is congestion, and more correlated velocities (k ≃ 3) in the presence of free traffic flow. Copyright EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015
In this paper, the complexity-entropy causality plane approach is applied to analyze traffic data. The R S analysis and detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) methods are also used to compare with this approach. Moreover, based on the concept of entropy, we propose to use permutation to calculate the probability distribution of the time series when applying the representation plane. The empirical results indicate that traffic dynamics exhibit different levels of traffic congestion and demonstrate that this statistical method can give a more refined classification of traffic states than the R S analysis and DFA. A new methodology based on information theory is used to explore the evolution of the surface air temperature climate network over the Tropical Pacific region. Topological changes over the period 1948–2009 are investigated using windows of one year duration. Alternating states of lower higher efficiency in information transfer are consistently captured during the opposing phases of ENSO (i.e., El Nino and La Nina years). This cyclic information transfer behavior reflects a higher climatic stability for La Nina years which is in good agreement with current observations. In addition, after the 1976 77 climate shift, a change towards more frequent conditions of decreased information transfer efficiency is detected. Copyright EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012 Entropy is a powerful tool for the analysis of time series, as it allows describing the probability distributions of the possible state of a system, and therefore the information encoded in it. Nevertheless, important information may be codified also in the temporal dynamics, an aspect which is not usually taken into account. The idea of calculating entropy based on permutation patterns (that is, permutations defined by the order relations among values of a time series) has received a lot of attention in the last years, especially for the understanding of complex and chaotic systems. Permutation entropy directly accounts for the temporal information contained in the time series; furthermore, it has the quality of simplicity, robustness and very low computational cost. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the original work, here we analyze the theoretical foundations of the permutation entropy, as well as the main recent applications to the analysis of economical markets and to the understanding of biomedical systems.