A mobile-based solution for supporting end-users in the composition of services

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11042-016-3910-4Currently, technologies and applications evolve to create eco-systems made up of a myriad of heterogeneous and distributed services that are accessible anytime and anywhere. Even though these services can be used individually, it is their coordinated and combined usage what provide an added value to end-users. In addition, user¿s wide adoption of mobile devices for daily activities have fostered a shift in the role played by end-users towards Internet data and services. However, existing solutions to service composition are not targeted to ordinary end-users. More easy-to-use tools have to be offered to end-users to make sure that they are successfully accepted and used by them. To this end, the work presented in this paper supports end-users in the creation of service compositions by using mobile devices. We present a Domain Specific Visual Language (DSVL) for end-users that allows them to create service compositions. A tool specifically designed for mobile devices supports this DSVL.This work has been developed with the support of MINECO under the project SMART ADAPT TIN2013-42981-P and co-financed with ERDF.Valderas Aranda, PJ.; Torres Bosch, MV.; Mansanet Benavent, I.; Pelechano Ferragud, V. (2016). A mobile-based solution for supporting end-users in the composition of services. Multimedia Tools and Applications. 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-016-3910-4S131Athreya B, Bahmani F, Diede A, Scaffidi C (2012) End-user programmers on the loose: a study of programming on the phone for the phone. In IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), Innsbruck, Austria, pp. 75–82Atoma (2015) Atoomam, a touch of magic. Accesible at: https://www.atooma.com/ . Last time accessed: December 2015Ayora C, Torres V, Weber B, Reichert M, Pelechano V (2013) Enhancing modeling and change support for process families through change patterns. In: Enterprise, business-process and information systems modeling. Springer, Berlin, pp. 246–260Boehm B, Abts C, Brown A, Chulani S, Clark B, Horowitz E, Madchy R, Reifer D, Steece B (2000) Software Cost Estimation with COCOMOII. Upper Saddle River: Prentice HallBPDM (2014) Business Process Defintion Metamodel, volume ii: Process Definitions. http://www.omg.org/spec/BPDM/1.0/volume2/PDFCasati F (1998) Models, semantics, and formal methods for the design of workflows and their exceptions. PhD thesis, MilanoCouper MP, Tourangeau R, Conrad FG, Crawford SD (2004) What they see is what we get: response options for web surveys. Soc Sci Comput Rev 22(1):111–127Cuccurullo S, Francese R, Risi M, Tortora G (2011) MicroApps development on mobile phones. In: End-user development. Springer, Berlin, pp. 289–294Dadam P, Reichert M (2009) The ADEPT project: a decade of research and development for robust and flexible process support. Comput Sci - R&D 23:81–97Danado J, Paternò F (2014) Puzzle: a mobile application development environment using a jigsaw metaphor. J Vis Lang Comput 25(4):297–315Danado J, Davies M, Ricca P, Fensel A (2010) An authoring tool for user generated mobile services. In: Future internet-FIS 2010. Springer, Berlin, pp. 118–127Dey AK, Sohn T, Streng S, Kodama J (2006) iCAP: interactive prototyping of context-aware applications. In: Pervasive computing. Springer, Berlin, pp. 254–271Engeström Y, Miettinen R, Punamäki RL (1999) Perspectives on activity theory. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeGalitz WO (2002) The essential guide to user interface design: an introduction to GUI. In: Design principles and techniques. Wiley, New YorkGil M, Serral E, Valderas P, Pelechano V (2013) Designing for user attention: a method for supporting unobtrusive routine tasks. Sci Comput Program 78(10):1987–2008Gubbi J, Buyya R, Marusic S, Palaniswami M (2013) Internet of things (IoT): a vision, architectural elements, and future directions. Futur Gener Comput Syst 29(7):1645–1660Haines W, Gervasio M, Spaulding A, Peintner B (2010) Recommendations for end-user development. In ACM Workshop on User-Centric Evaluation of Recommender Systems and their Interfaces, Barcelona, Spain, pp. 42-49Häkkilä J, Korpipää P, Ronkainen S, Tuomela U (2005) Interaction and end-user programming with a context-aware mobile application. In: Human-computer interaction-INTERACT 2005. Springer, Berlin, pp. 927–937ICIS (2015) Internet Computing in the Internet of Services. Summer School. Department of Informatics Engineering of the University of Coimbra. Available at: http://icis.uc.pt/ . Last time accessed: December 2015Ifttt (2015) Ifttt, If This Then That. Accesible at: https://ifttt.com/ . Last time accessed: December 2015Larman C, Basili VR (2003) Iterative and incremental development: a brief history. Computer 6:47–56Lewis JR (1995) IBM computer usability satisfaction questionnaires: psychometric evaluation and instructions for use. Int J Hum Comput Interact 7(1):57–78Liberman H, Paternò F, Klann M, Wulf V (2006) End user development. In: Liberman H, Paternò F, Wulf V (eds) End-user development: an emerging paradigm, vol 9, pp. 427–457Locale (2015) Accesible at: http://www.twofortyfouram.com . Last time accessed: December 2015Lucci G, Paternò F (2014) Understanding end-user development of context-dependent applications in smartphones. In: Human-centered software engineering. Springer, Berlin, pp. 182–198Mansanet I, Torres V, Valderas P, Pelechano V (2014) A Mobile End-Use Tool for service Compositions. X Jornadas de Ciencia e Ingeniería de Servicios (JCIS 2014), 25–35Mansanet I, Torres V, Valderas P, Pelechano V (2015) IoT Compositions by and for the Crowd. XI Jornadas de Ciencia e Ingeniería de Servicios (JCIS 2015)Neil T (2014) Mobile design pattern gallery: UI patterns for smartphone apps. “O’Reilly Media, Inc.”, SebastopolNielsen J (2005) Ten usability heuristics. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics . Last time accessed: February 2016Renger M, Kolfschoten GL, de Vreede GJ (2008) Challenges in collaborative modeling: A literature review. In Advances in enterprise engineering I, held at CAiSE 2008, Montpellier, 10. 61–77Repenning A, Ioannidou A (2006) What makes end-user development tick? 13 design guidelines. End user development, Human-Computer Interaction Series, vol 9, pp. 51–85Runeson P, Höst M (2009) Guidelines for conducting and reporting case study research in software engineering. Empir Softw Eng 14(2):131–164Segal J (2005) Two principles of end-user software engineering research, In ACM SIGSOFT software engineering notes (Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 1–5). ACM, New YorkSerral E, Valderas P, Pelechano V (2013) Context-adaptive coordination of pervasive services by interpreting models during runtime†. Comput J 56(1):87–114Tasker (2015) Tasker, Total Automation for Android. Accesible at: http://tasker.dinglisch.net/ . Last time accessed: December 2015.Uden L, Valderas P, Pastor O (2008) An activity-theory-based model to analyse Web application requirements. Inf Res 13(2):1Valderas P, Pelechano V, Pastor O (2006) A transformational approach to produce web application prototypes from a web requirements model. Int J Web Eng Technol 3(1):4–42Van Deursen A, Klint P, Visser J (2000) Domain-specific languages: an annotated bibliography. Sigplan Notices 35(6):26–36Van Welie M, Trætteberg H (2000) Interaction patterns in user interfaces. In 7th. Pattern Languages of Programs Conference (pp. 13–16)Weber B, Reichert M, Rinderle S (2008) Change patterns and change support features - enhancing flexibility in process-aware information systems. Data Knowl Eng 66:438–466Yu J, Sheng QZ, Han J, Wu Y, Liu C (2012) A semantically enhanced service repository for user-centric service discovery and management. Data Knowl Eng 72:202–21

Towards the Composition of Services by End-Users: A Mobile-Based Solution

[EN] Nowadays, we live surrounded by heterogeneous and distributed services that are available to people anytime and anywhere. Even though these services can be used individually, it is through their synchronized and combined usage that end-users are provided with added value. However, existing solutions to service composition are not targeted at ordinary end-users. In fact, these solutions require technical knowledge to deal with the technological heterogeneity in which they are offered to the market. To this end, the paper presents a tool-supported platform that is aided by: (1) EUCalipTool, an end-user mobile tool that implements a Domain Specific Visual Language, which has been specifically designed to compose services on mobile devices; (2) a Faceted Service Registry, which plays the role of gateway between service implementations and end-users, hiding technological issues from the latter when including services in a composition; and (3) a Generation Module, which transforms end-user descriptions into BPMN specification that are interpreted by an execution infrastructure developed for that purpose.This work has been developed with the financial support of the Spanish State Research Agency under the project TIN2017-84094-R and co-financed with ERDF.Valderas, P.; Torres Bosch, MV.; Pelechano Ferragud, V. (2020). Towards the Composition of Services by End-Users: A Mobile-Based Solution. Business & Information Systems Engineering. 62(4):305-321. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-019-00617-zS305321624Amir R, Zeid A (2004) A UML profile for service-oriented architectures. In: Companion to the 19th annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications, Vancouver. ACM, New York, pp 192–193Athreya B, Bahmani F, Diede A, Scaffidi C (2012) End-user programmers on the loose: a study of programming on the phone for the phone. In: IEEE symposium on visual languages and human-centric computing, Innsbruck. IEEE, pp 75–82Atooma (2015) Atooma, a touch of magic. https://www.atooma.com/ . Accessed 1 Oct 2018Ayora C, Torres V, Weber B, Reichert M, Pelechano V (2013) Enhancing modeling and change support for process families through change patterns. In: Nurcan S et al (eds) Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling. BPMDS 2013, EMMSAD 2013, vol 147. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 246–260Benedek J, Miner T (2002) Measuring desirability: new methods for evaluating desirability in a usability lab setting. In: Proceedings from the Usability’s Professionals Association (UPA)Broke J (1996) SUS. A “quick and dirty” usability scale. In: Jordan P et al (eds) Usability evaluation in industry. Taylor & Francis, London, pp 189–194Cuccurullo S, Francese R, Risi M, Tortora G (2011) MicroApps development on mobile phones. In: Costabile MF, Dittrich Y, Fischer G, Piccinno A (eds) End-User Development. IS-EUD 2011, vol 6654. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 289–294Danado J, Paternò F (2014) Puzzle: a mobile application development environment using a jigsaw metaphor. J Vis Lang Comput 25(4):297–315Danado J, Davies M, Ricca P, Fensel A (2010) An authoring tool for user generated mobile services. In: Berre AJ, Gómez-Pérez A, Tutschku K, Fensel D (eds) Future internet—FIS 2010. FIS 2010, vol 6369. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 118–127Dey AK, Sohn T, Streng S, Kodama J (2006) iCAP: interactive prototyping of context-aware applications. In: Fishkin KP, Schiele B, Nixon P, Quigley A (eds) Pervasive Computing. Pervasive 2006, vol 3968. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 254–271Engeström Y, Miettinen R, Punamäki RL (1999) Perspectives on activity theory. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeErmagan V, Krüger IH (2007) A UML2 profile for service modeling. In: Engels G, Opdyke B, Schmidt DC, Weil F (eds) Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems. MODELS 2007, vol 4735. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 360–374Galitz WO (2002) The essential guide to user interface design: an introduction to GUI. Design principles and techniques. Wiley, New YorkGuillen J, Miranda J, Berrocal J, Garcia-Alonso J, Murillo JM, Canal C (2014) People as a service: a mobile-centric model for providing collective sociological profiles. IEEE Softw 31(2):48–53Häkkilä J, Korpipää P, Ronkainen S, Tuomela U (2005) Interaction and end-user programming with a context-aware mobile application. In: Costabile MF, Paternò F (eds) Human-Computer Interaction—INTERACT 2005, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3585. Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 927–937IFTTT (2015) IFTTT, if this then that. https://IFTTT.com/ . Accessed 1 Oct 2018Klusch M, Sycara K (2001) Brokering and matchmaking for coordination of agent societies: a survey. In: Omicini A, Zambonelli F, Klusch M, Tolksdorf R (eds) Coordination of Internet Agents. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 197–224Locale (2015). http://www.twofortyfouram.com . Accessed 1 Oct 2018Lucci G, Paternò F (2014) Understanding end-user development of context-dependent applications in smartphones. In: Sauer S, Bogdan C, Forbrig P, Bernhaupt R, Winckler M (eds) Human-Centered Software Engineering. HCSE 2014, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8742. Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 182–198Paolucci M, Kawamura T, Payne TR, Sycara K (2002) Semantic matching of web services capabilities. In: Horrocks I, Hendler J (eds) The Semantic Web—ISWC 2002, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2342. Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 333–347Renger M, Kolfschoten GL, de Vreede GJ (2008) Challenges in collaborative modeling: a literature review. In: Advances in enterprise engineering I, vol 10, Montpellier, pp 61–77Repenning A, Ioannidou A (2006) What makes end-user development tick? 13 design guidelines. In: End user development. Human-computer interaction series, vol 9. Springer, Berlin, pp 51–85Rumbaugh J, Jacobson I, Booch G (2004) The unified modeling language reference manual. Pearson, LondonSegal J (2005) Two principles of end-user software engineering research. ACM SIGSOFT Softw Eng Notes 30(4):1–5Serral E, Valderas P, Pelechano V (2013) Context-adaptive coordination of pervasive services by interpreting models during runtime. Comput J 56(1):87–114Tasker (2015) Tasker, total automation for Android. http://tasker.dinglisch.net/ . Accessed 1 Oct 2018Uden L, Valderas P, Pastor O (2008) An activity-theory-based model to analyse web application requirements. Inf Res 13(2):1Valderas P, Pelechano V, Pastor O (2006) A transformational approach to produce web application prototypes from a web requirements model. Int J Web Eng Technol 3(1):4–42Valderas P, Torres V, Mansanet I, Pelechano V (2017) A mobile-based solution for supporting end-users in the composition of services. Multimed Tools Appl 76(15):16315–16345Workflow.is (2018) Workflow. Spend less taps, get more done. https://workflow.is/ . Accessed 1 Oct 2018Yu J, Sheng QZ, Han J, Wu Y, Liu C (2012) A semantically enhanced service repository for user-centric service discovery and management. Data Knowl Eng 72:202–21

Controlling services in a mobile context-aware infrastructure

Context-aware application behaviors can be described as logic rules following the Event-Control-Action (ECA) pattern. In this pattern, an Event models an occurrence of interest (e.g., a change in context); Control specifies a condition that must hold prior to the execution of the action; and an Action represents the invocation of arbitrary services. We have defined a Controlling service aiming at facilitating the dynamic configuration of ECA rule specifications by means of a mobile rule engine and a mechanism that distributes context reasoning activities to a network of context processing nodes. In this paper we present a novel context modeling approach that provides application developers and users with more appropriate means to define context information and ECA rules. Our approach makes use of ontologies to model context information and has been developed on top of web services technology

The simplicity project: easing the burden of using complex and heterogeneous ICT devices and services

As of today, to exploit the variety of different "services", users need to configure each of their devices by using different procedures and need to explicitly select among heterogeneous access technologies and protocols. In addition to that, users are authenticated and charged by different means. The lack of implicit human computer interaction, context-awareness and standardisation places an enormous burden of complexity on the shoulders of the final users. The IST-Simplicity project aims at leveraging such problems by: i) automatically creating and customizing a user communication space; ii) adapting services to user terminal characteristics and to users preferences; iii) orchestrating network capabilities. The aim of this paper is to present the technical framework of the IST-Simplicity project. This paper is a thorough analysis and qualitative evaluation of the different technologies, standards and works presented in the literature related to the Simplicity system to be developed

Context Aware Computing for The Internet of Things: A Survey

As we are moving towards the Internet of Things (IoT), the number of sensors deployed around the world is growing at a rapid pace. Market research has shown a significant growth of sensor deployments over the past decade and has predicted a significant increment of the growth rate in the future. These sensors continuously generate enormous amounts of data. However, in order to add value to raw sensor data we need to understand it. Collection, modelling, reasoning, and distribution of context in relation to sensor data plays critical role in this challenge. Context-aware computing has proven to be successful in understanding sensor data. In this paper, we survey context awareness from an IoT perspective. We present the necessary background by introducing the IoT paradigm and context-aware fundamentals at the beginning. Then we provide an in-depth analysis of context life cycle. We evaluate a subset of projects (50) which represent the majority of research and commercial solutions proposed in the field of context-aware computing conducted over the last decade (2001-2011) based on our own taxonomy. Finally, based on our evaluation, we highlight the lessons to be learnt from the past and some possible directions for future research. The survey addresses a broad range of techniques, methods, models, functionalities, systems, applications, and middleware solutions related to context awareness and IoT. Our goal is not only to analyse, compare and consolidate past research work but also to appreciate their findings and discuss their applicability towards the IoT.Comment: IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials Journal, 201

City Data Fusion: Sensor Data Fusion in the Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) has gained substantial attention recently and play a significant role in smart city application deployments. A number of such smart city applications depend on sensor fusion capabilities in the cloud from diverse data sources. We introduce the concept of IoT and present in detail ten different parameters that govern our sensor data fusion evaluation framework. We then evaluate the current state-of-the art in sensor data fusion against our sensor data fusion framework. Our main goal is to examine and survey different sensor data fusion research efforts based on our evaluation framework. The major open research issues related to sensor data fusion are also presented.Comment: Accepted to be published in International Journal of Distributed Systems and Technologies (IJDST), 201