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

A Review of Platforms for the Development of Agent Systems

Agent-based computing is an active field of research with the goal of building autonomous software of hardware entities. This task is often facilitated by the use of dedicated, specialized frameworks. For almost thirty years, many such agent platforms have been developed. Meanwhile, some of them have been abandoned, others continue their development and new platforms are released. This paper presents a up-to-date review of the existing agent platforms and also a historical perspective of this domain. It aims to serve as a reference point for people interested in developing agent systems. This work details the main characteristics of the included agent platforms, together with links to specific projects where they have been used. It distinguishes between the active platforms and those no longer under development or with unclear status. It also classifies the agent platforms as general purpose ones, free or commercial, and specialized ones, which can be used for particular types of applications.Comment: 40 pages, 2 figures, 9 tables, 83 reference

Cyber–Physical–Social Frameworks for Urban Big Data Systems: A Survey

The integration of things’ data on the Web and Web linking for things’ description and discovery is leading the way towards smart Cyber–Physical Systems (CPS). The data generated in CPS represents observations gathered by sensor devices about the ambient environment that can be manipulated by computational processes of the cyber world. Alongside this, the growing use of social networks offers near real-time citizen sensing capabilities as a complementary information source. The resulting Cyber–Physical–Social System (CPSS) can help to understand the real world and provide proactive services to users. The nature of CPSS data brings new requirements and challenges to different stages of data manipulation, including identification of data sources, processing and fusion of different types and scales of data. To gain an understanding of the existing methods and techniques which can be useful for a data-oriented CPSS implementation, this paper presents a survey of the existing research and commercial solutions. We define a conceptual framework for a data-oriented CPSS and detail the various solutions for building human–machine intelligence

Automating content generation for large-scale virtual learning environments using semantic web services

The integration of semantic web services with three-dimensional virtual worlds offers many potential avenues for the creation of dynamic, content-rich environments which can be used to entertain, educate, and inform. One such avenue is the fusion of the large volumes of data from Wiki-based sources with virtual representations of historic locations, using semantics to filter and present data to users in effective and personalisable ways. This paper explores the potential for such integration, addressing challenges ranging from accurately transposing virtual world locales to semantically-linked real world data, to integrating diverse ranges of semantic information sources in a usercentric and seamless fashion. A demonstrated proof-of-concept, using the Rome Reborn model, a detailed 3D representation of Ancient Rome within the Aurelian Walls, shows several advantages that can be gained through the use of existing Wiki and semantic web services to rapidly and automatically annotate content, as well as demonstrating the increasing need for Wiki content to be represented in a semantically-rich form. Such an approach has applications in a range of different contexts, including education, training, and cultural heritage

Seven HCI Grand Challenges

This article aims to investigate the Grand Challenges which arise in the current and emerging landscape of rapid technological evolution towards more intelligent interactive technologies, coupled with increased and widened societal needs, as well as individual and collective expectations that HCI, as a discipline, is called upon to address. A perspective oriented to humane and social values is adopted, formulating the challenges in terms of the impact of emerging intelligent interactive technologies on human life both at the individual and societal levels. Seven Grand Challenges are identified and presented in this article: Human-Technology Symbiosis; Human-Environment Interactions; Ethics, Privacy and Security; Well-being, Health and Eudaimonia; Accessibility and Universal Access; Learning and Creativity; and Social Organization and Democracy. Although not exhaustive, they summarize the views and research priorities of an international interdisciplinary group of experts, reflecting different scientific perspectives, methodological approaches and application domains. Each identified Grand Challenge is analyzed in terms of: concept and problem definition; main research issues involved and state of the art; and associated emerging requirements

Strengthening Trust in the Future ICT Infrastructure

Moving towards a hyperconnected society in the forthcoming “zettabyte” era requires a trusted ICT infrastructure for sharing information and creating knowledge. To advance the efforts to build converged ICT services and reliable information infrastructures, ITU-T has recently started a work item on future trusted ICT infrastructures. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a social-cyber-physical infrastructure from the social Internet of Things paradigm and present different meanings from various perspectives for a clear understanding of trust. Then, the paper identifies key challenges for a trustworthy ICT infrastructure. Finally, we propose a generic architectural framework for trust provisioning and presents strategies to stimulate activities for future standardization on trust with related standardization bodies

Nature-Inspired Coordination Models: Current Status and Future Trends

Coordination models and languages are meant to provide abstractions and mechanisms to harness the space of interaction as one of the foremost sources of complexity in computational systems. Nature-inspired computing aims at understanding the mechanisms and patterns of complex natural systems in order to bring their most desirable features to computational systems. Thus, the promise of nature-inspired coordination models is to prove themselves fundamental in the design of complex computational systems|such as intelligent, knowledge-intensive, pervasive, adaptive, and self-organising ones. In this paper, we survey the most relevant nature-inspired coordination models in the literature, focussing in particular on tuple-based models, and foresee the most interesting research trends in the field

OpenCog Hyperon: A Framework for AGI at the Human Level and Beyond

An introduction to the OpenCog Hyperon framework for Artificiai General Intelligence is presented. Hyperon is a new, mostly from-the-ground-up rewrite/redesign of the OpenCog AGI framework, based on similar conceptual and cognitive principles to the previous OpenCog version, but incorporating a variety of new ideas at the mathematical, software architecture and AI-algorithm level. This review lightly summarizes: 1) some of the history behind OpenCog and Hyperon, 2) the core structures and processes underlying Hyperon as a software system, 3) the integration of this software system with the SingularityNET ecosystem's decentralized infrastructure, 4) the cognitive model(s) being experimentally pursued within Hyperon on the hopeful path to advanced AGI, 5) the prospects seen for advanced aspects like reflective self-modification and self-improvement of the codebase, 6) the tentative development roadmap and various challenges expected to be faced, 7) the thinking of the Hyperon team regarding how to guide this sort of work in a beneficial direction ... and gives links and references for readers who wish to delve further into any of these aspects