16,295 research outputs found
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
Adaptive Process Management in Cyber-Physical Domains
The increasing application of process-oriented approaches in new challenging cyber-physical domains beyond business computing (e.g., personalized healthcare, emergency management, factories of the future, home automation, etc.) has led to reconsider the level of flexibility and support required to manage complex processes in such domains. A cyber-physical domain is characterized by the presence of a cyber-physical system coordinating heterogeneous ICT components (PCs, smartphones, sensors, actuators) and involving real world entities (humans, machines, agents, robots, etc.) that perform complex tasks in the âphysicalâ real world to achieve a common goal. The physical world, however, is not entirely predictable, and processes enacted in cyber-physical domains must be robust to unexpected conditions and adaptable to unanticipated exceptions. This demands a more flexible approach in process design and enactment, recognizing that in real-world environments it is not adequate to assume that all possible recovery activities can be predefined for dealing with the exceptions that can ensue. In this chapter, we tackle the above issue and we propose a general approach, a concrete framework and a process management system implementation, called SmartPM, for automatically adapting processes enacted in cyber-physical domains in case of unanticipated exceptions and exogenous events. The adaptation mechanism provided by SmartPM is based on declarative task specifications, execution monitoring for detecting failures and context changes at run-time, and automated planning techniques to self-repair the running process, without requiring to predefine any specific adaptation policy or exception handler at design-time
DeSyRe: on-Demand System Reliability
The DeSyRe project builds on-demand adaptive and reliable Systems-on-Chips (SoCs). As fabrication technology scales down, chips are becoming less reliable, thereby incurring increased power and performance costs for fault tolerance. To make matters worse, power density is becoming a significant limiting factor in SoC design, in general. In the face of such changes in the technological landscape, current solutions for fault tolerance are expected to introduce excessive overheads in future systems. Moreover, attempting to design and manufacture a totally defect and fault-free system, would impact heavily, even prohibitively, the design, manufacturing, and testing costs, as well as the system performance and power consumption. In this context, DeSyRe delivers a new generation of systems that are reliable by design at well-balanced power, performance, and design costs. In our attempt to reduce the overheads of fault-tolerance, only a small fraction of the chip is built to be fault-free. This fault-free part is then employed to manage the remaining fault-prone resources of the SoC. The DeSyRe framework is applied to two medical systems with high safety requirements (measured using the IEC 61508 functional safety standard) and tight power and performance constraints
Ami-deu : un cadre sémantique pour des applications adaptables dans des environnements intelligents
Cette thĂšse vise Ă Ă©tendre lâutilisation de l'Internet des objets (IdO) en facilitant le dĂ©veloppement dâapplications par des personnes non experts en dĂ©veloppement logiciel. La thĂšse propose une nouvelle approche pour augmenter la sĂ©mantique des applications dâIdO et lâimplication des experts du domaine dans le dĂ©veloppement dâapplications sensibles au contexte. Notre approche permet de gĂ©rer le contexte changeant de lâenvironnement et de gĂ©nĂ©rer des applications qui sâexĂ©cutent dans plusieurs environnements intelligents pour fournir des actions requises dans divers contextes. Notre approche est mise en Ćuvre dans un cadriciel (AmI-DEU) qui inclut les composants pour le dĂ©veloppement dâapplications IdO. AmI-DEU intĂšgre les services dâenvironnement, favorise lâinteraction de lâutilisateur et fournit les moyens de reprĂ©senter le domaine dâapplication, le profil de lâutilisateur et les intentions de lâutilisateur. Le cadriciel permet la dĂ©finition dâapplications IoT avec une intention dâactivitĂ© autodĂ©crite qui contient les connaissances requises pour rĂ©aliser lâactivitĂ©. Ensuite, le cadriciel gĂ©nĂšre Intention as a Context (IaaC), qui comprend une intention dâactivitĂ© autodĂ©crite avec des connaissances colligĂ©es Ă Ă©valuer pour une meilleure adaptation dans des environnements intelligents.
La sĂ©mantique de lâAmI-DEU est basĂ©e sur celle du ContextAA (Context-Aware Agents) â une plateforme pour fournir une connaissance du contexte dans plusieurs environnements. Le cadriciel effectue une compilation des connaissances par des rĂšgles et l'appariement sĂ©mantique pour produire des applications IdO autonomes capables de sâexĂ©cuter en ContextAA. AmI- DEU inclut Ă©galement un outil de dĂ©veloppement visuel pour le dĂ©veloppement et le dĂ©ploiement rapide d'applications sur ContextAA. L'interface graphique dâAmI-DEU adopte la mĂ©taphore du flux avec des aides visuelles pour simplifier le dĂ©veloppement d'applications en permettant des dĂ©finitions de rĂšgles Ă©tape par Ă©tape. Dans le cadre de lâexpĂ©rimentation, AmI-DEU comprend un banc dâessai pour le dĂ©veloppement dâapplications IdO. Les rĂ©sultats expĂ©rimentaux montrent une optimisation sĂ©mantique potentielle des ressources pour les applications IoT dynamiques dans les maisons intelligentes et les villes intelligentes.
Notre approche favorise l'adoption de la technologie pour amĂ©liorer le bienĂȘtre et la qualitĂ© de vie des personnes. Cette thĂšse se termine par des orientations de recherche que le cadriciel AmI-DEU dĂ©voile pour rĂ©aliser des environnements intelligents omniprĂ©sents fournissant des adaptations appropriĂ©es pour soutenir les intentions des personnes.Abstract: This thesis aims at expanding the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) by facilitating the development of applications by people who are not experts in software development. The thesis proposes a new approach to augment IoT applicationsâ semantics and domain expert involvement in context-aware application development. Our approach enables us to manage the changing environment context and generate applications that run in multiple smart environments to provide required actions in diverse settings. Our approach is implemented in a framework (AmI-DEU) that includes the components for IoT application development. AmI- DEU integrates environment services, promotes end-user interaction, and provides the means to represent the application domain, end-user profile, and end-user intentions. The framework enables the definition of IoT applications with a self-described activity intention that contains the required knowledge to achieve the activity. Then, the framework generates Intention as a Context (IaaC), which includes a self-described activity intention with compiled knowledge to be assessed for augmented adaptations in smart environments. AmI-DEU framework semantics adopts ContextAA (Context-Aware Agents) â a platform to provide context-awareness in multiple environments. The framework performs a knowledge compilation by rules and semantic matching to produce autonomic IoT applications to run in ContextAA. AmI-DEU also includes a visual tool for quick application development and deployment to ContextAA. The AmI-DEU GUI adopts the flow metaphor with visual aids to simplify developing applications by allowing step-by-step rule definitions. As part of the experimentation, AmI-DEU includes a testbed for IoT application development. Experimental results show a potential semantic optimization for dynamic IoT applications in smart homes and smart cities. Our approach promotes technology adoption to improve peopleâs well-being and quality of life. This thesis concludes with research directions that the AmI-DEU framework uncovers to achieve pervasive smart environments providing suitable adaptations to support peopleâs intentions
Supporting adaptiveness of cyber-physical processes through action-based formalisms
Cyber Physical Processes (CPPs) refer to a new generation of business processes enacted in many application environments (e.g., emergency management, smart manufacturing, etc.), in which the presence of Internet-of-Things devices and embedded ICT systems (e.g., smartphones, sensors, actuators) strongly influences the coordination of the real-world entities (e.g., humans, robots, etc.) inhabitating such environments. A Process Management System (PMS) employed for executing CPPs is required to automatically adapt its running processes to anomalous situations and exogenous events by minimising any human intervention. In this paper, we tackle this issue by introducing an approach and an adaptive Cognitive PMS, called SmartPM, which combines process execution monitoring, unanticipated exception detection and automated resolution strategies leveraging on three well-established action-based formalisms developed for reasoning about actions in Artificial Intelligence (AI), including the situation calculus, IndiGolog and automated planning. Interestingly, the use of SmartPM does not require any expertise of the internal working of the AI tools involved in the system
Smart Grid Technologies in Europe: An Overview
The old electricity network infrastructure has proven to be inadequate, with respect to modern challenges such as alternative energy sources, electricity demand and energy saving policies. Moreover, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) seem to have reached an adequate level of reliability and flexibility in order to support a new concept of electricity networkâthe smart grid. In this work, we will analyse the state-of-the-art of smart grids, in their technical, management, security, and optimization aspects. We will also provide a brief overview of the regulatory aspects involved in the development of a smart grid, mainly from the viewpoint of the European Unio
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