Finding Commonalities in RFID Semantic Streams

A stream is a time-ordered sequence of data values. It is possible to define a semantic stream as a time-ordered sequence of metadata, i.e., a concept stream. It may derive from a collection of semantic annotations referred to objects/subjects whose status evolves during a process as in case of product flow in supply chains. Although a concrete added value comes from the annotation of products and processes, several issues are inherited. Particularly, concept streams typically assume a not compact form, hence a fully comprehensive concise representation is needed. Leveraging capabilities allowed by EPCglobal RFID protocol standard, the paper proposes a general framework able to provide a compact representation of large concept streams also finding informative commonalities in them so allowing automated pattern analysis and trend discovery. A case study is presented to clarify the approach.