An Autonomic Cross-Platform Operating Environment for On-Demand Internet Computing

The Internet has evolved into a global and ubiquitous communication medium interconnecting powerful application servers, diverse desktop computers and mobile notebooks. Along with recent developments in computer technology, such as the convergence of computing and communication devices, the way how people use computers and the Internet has changed people´s working habits and has led to new application scenarios. On the one hand, pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing and nomadic computing become more and more important since different computing devices like PDAs and notebooks may be used concurrently and alternately, e.g. while the user is on the move. On the other hand, the ubiquitous availability and pervasive interconnection of computing systems have fostered various trends towards the dynamic utilization and spontaneous collaboration of available remote computing resources, which are addressed by approaches like utility computing, grid computing, cloud computing and public computing. From a general point of view, the common objective of this development is the use of Internet applications on demand, i.e. applications that are not installed in advance by a platform administrator but are dynamically deployed and run as they are requested by the application user. The heterogeneous and unmanaged nature of the Internet represents a major challenge for the on demand use of custom Internet applications across heterogeneous hardware platforms, operating systems and network environments. Promising remedies are autonomic computing systems that are supposed to maintain themselves without particular user or application intervention. In this thesis, an Autonomic Cross-Platform Operating Environment (ACOE) is presented that supports On Demand Internet Computing (ODIC), such as dynamic application composition and ad hoc execution migration. The approach is based on an integration middleware called crossware that does not replace existing middleware but operates as a self-managing mediator between diverse application requirements and heterogeneous platform configurations. A Java implementation of the Crossware Development Kit (XDK) is presented, followed by the description of the On Demand Internet Computing System (ODIX). The feasibility of the approach is shown by the implementation of an Internet Application Workbench, an Internet Application Factory and an Internet Peer Federation. They illustrate the use of ODIX to support local, remote and distributed ODIC, respectively. Finally, the suitability of the approach is discussed with respect to the support of ODIC

Using Technology Enabled Qualitative Research to Develop Products for the Social Good, An Overview

This paper discusses the potential benefits of the convergence of three recent trends for the design of socially beneficial products and services: the increasing application of qualitative research techniques in a wide range of disciplines, the rapid mainstreaming of social media and mobile technologies, and the emergence of software as a service. Presented is a scenario facilitating the complex data collection, analysis, storage, and reporting required for the qualitative research recommended for the task of designing relevant solutions to address needs of the underserved. A pilot study is used as a basis for describing the infrastructure and services required to realize this scenario. Implications for innovation of enhanced forms of qualitative research are presented

Designing for Seamless Task Migration in MPUIs: Bridging Task-Disconnects

Today, the proliferation of mobile computing has changed the work environment forever. As a consequence, users are forced to orchestrate a complex interaction between multiple devices, moving data and information back and forth, to accomplish their tasks. Users trudge out USB key drives, remote desktop software, e-mail and network file storage in an attempt to mitigate this orchestration. We refer to this break from the task at hand as task-disconnect. Task-disconnect represents the break in continuity that occurs when a user attempts to accomplish his or her tasks using more than one device. Our objective is to study how software can bridge this task-disconnect, enabling users to seamlessly transition their tasks among their devices. We present the theory, definition, and discussion of task-disconnect; our approach towards bridging this disconnect; and our prototype application that was built to be used across the desktop computer and the Tablet PC platforms. We then describe our subjective evaluation to measure the effectiveness of the prototype in bridging the task-disconnect. We then conclude with the results and insights gained from our evaluation

Acceptance of a Web OS as a Commercial Consumer Service Bundle

The web is fundamentally changing. The many facets of this change are usually abstracted as Web 2.0. The core of Web 2.0 consists of the evolutionary step that interoperation and content-creating applications are provided via the web in addition to traditional static documents. Ahead of this evolution are web operating systems (WebOS) like g.ho.st that enable the consumer to migrate their complete operating system desktop to the web – a revolutionary step of personal computing. The required computational and storage resources may be procured on demand e.g. from cloud computing services by the WebOS service provider. This research-in-progress-article introduces an adoption model (TAM) for a WebOS as a consumer service. The subject of our survey will be a service bundle comparable to a mobile phone plan. The aim of the adoption model is to measure the acceptance of this service bundle and to identify the major determinants which influence the consumer’s adoption intention in order to specify which consumers may be future customers and to learn how to attract them from a marketing perspective. At the current early stage of adoption we intend to contribute insights that can be directly transformed into advice how this new technology can be successfully established

Simulation of Wireless Grid Computmg

For the last decade we have seen that there is an extensive increase in the computer and network area. There is faster hardware and sophisticated software that are been release time to time. Even so there are still problems in the field of science, engineering, and business which cannot dealt effectively with the new era of supercomputers. The objective of this paper is to design and implement the wireless simulation for grid computing architecture. The problem that has been state here is whether it is possible or not to design and implement the wireless grid computing in order to enhance the grid computing utilization. This paper is focus onthe designing and implementing the wireless grid computing architecture that will enhance the performance. This project will have 3 phases which is phase 1 consist of system identification and requirement analysis, phase 2 consist of project design and project development and lastly code and unit testing for phase 3. For this project, it will focus on how the wireless architecture can enhance the grid computing usage in the network management.

Customization of Web applications through an intelligent environment exploiting logical interface descriptions

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Interacting with Computers. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Interacting with Computers, 20, 1 (2008) DOI:10.1016/j.intcom.2007.07.007Customization of Web-based applications is often considered a designer skill rather than an end-user need. However, there is an ongoing shift to end-user-centred technology, and even users with poor or no skill in Web-based languages may feel the need to customize Web applications according to their preferences. Although Web authoring environments have an increasing number of features, the challenge of providing end-users with the ability to easily customize entire Web applications still remains unsolved. In this paper, we propose an intelligent approach to customizing Web-based applications. Customizations rules are automatically inferred by the system from changes that users supply as examples. They remain as long-term knowledge that can be applied to support future interactions, thus minimizing the amount of authoring that end-users need to do for this purpose. In order to better understand the implications of the user's modifications, they are analysed using the logical descriptions of the corresponding Web pages.The work reported in this paper is supported by the European Training Network ADVISES (Analysis Design and Validation of Interactive Safety-critical and Error-tolerant Systems), funded through the European Commission. Project number EU HPRN-CT-2002-00288

A Survey of Quality of Service in Mobile Computing Environments

Accepted versio