Abstract. In order to achieve the concept of ubiquitous computing, popularized by Mark Weiser, is necessary to sense the environment. One alternative is use traditional wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, WSNs have their limita-tions, for instance in the sensing of large areas, such as metropolises, because it incurs in high costs to build and maintain such networks. The ubiquity of smart phones associated with the adoption of social media websites, forming what is called participatory sensing systems (PSSs), enables unprecedented opportunities to sense the environment. Particularly, the data sensed by PSSs is very interesting to study city dynamics and urban social behavior. The goal of this work is to sur-vey approaches and models applied to PSSs data aiming the study city dynamics and urban social behavior. Besides that it is also an objective of this work discuss some of the challenges and opportunities when using social media as a source of sensing. 1

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