954 research outputs found
Adaptive online deployment for resource constrained mobile smart clients
Nowadays mobile devices are more and more used as a platform for applications. Contrary to prior generation handheld devices configured with a predefined set of applications, today leading edge devices provide a platform for flexible and customized application deployment. However, these applications have to deal with the limitations (e.g. CPU speed, memory) of these mobile devices and thus cannot handle complex tasks. In order to cope with the handheld limitations and the ever changing device context (e.g. network connections, remaining battery time, etc.) we present a middleware solution that dynamically offloads parts of the software to the most appropriate server. Without a priori knowledge of the application, the optimal deployment is calculated, that lowers the cpu usage at the mobile client, whilst keeping the used bandwidth minimal. The information needed to calculate this optimum is gathered on the fly from runtime information. Experimental results show that the proposed solution enables effective execution of complex applications in a constrained environment. Moreover, we demonstrate that the overhead from the middleware components is below 2%
The OCarePlatform : a context-aware system to support independent living
Background: Currently, healthcare services, such as institutional care facilities, are burdened with an increasing number of elderly people and individuals with chronic illnesses and a decreasing number of competent caregivers. Objectives: To relieve the burden on healthcare services, independent living at home could be facilitated, by offering individuals and their (in)formal caregivers support in their daily care and needs. With the rise of pervasive healthcare, new information technology solutions can assist elderly people ("residents") and their caregivers to allow residents to live independently for as long as possible. Methods: To this end, the OCarePlatform system was designed. This semantic, data-driven and cloud based back-end system facilitates independent living by offering information and knowledge-based services to the resident and his/her (in)formal caregivers. Data and context information are gathered to realize context-aware and personalized services and to support residents in meeting their daily needs. This body of data, originating from heterogeneous data and information sources, is sent to personalized services, where is fused, thus creating an overview of the resident's current situation. Results: The architecture of the OCarePlatform is proposed, which is based on a service-oriented approach, together with its different components and their interactions. The implementation details are presented, together with a running example. A scalability and performance study of the OCarePlatform was performed. The results indicate that the OCarePlatform is able to support a realistic working environment and respond to a trigger in less than 5 seconds. The system is highly dependent on the allocated memory. Conclusion: The data-driven character of the OCarePlatform facilitates easy plug-in of new functionality, enabling the design of personalized, context-aware services. The OCarePlatform leads to better support for elderly people and individuals with chronic illnesses, who live independently. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved
Middleware platform for distributed applications incorporating robots, sensors and the cloud
Cyber-physical systems in the factory of the future
will consist of cloud-hosted software governing an agile
production process executed by autonomous mobile robots
and controlled by analyzing the data from a vast number of
sensors. CPSs thus operate on a distributed production floor
infrastructure and the set-up continuously changes with each
new manufacturing task. In this paper, we present our OSGibased
middleware that abstracts the deployment of servicebased
CPS software components on the underlying distributed
platform comprising robots, actuators, sensors and the cloud.
Moreover, our middleware provides specific support to develop
components based on artificial neural networks, a technique that
recently became very popular for sensor data analytics and robot
actuation. We demonstrate a system where a robot takes actions
based on the input from sensors in its vicinity
NLSC: Unrestricted Natural Language-based Service Composition through Sentence Embeddings
Current approaches for service composition (assemblies of atomic services)
require developers to use: (a) domain-specific semantics to formalize services
that restrict the vocabulary for their descriptions, and (b) translation
mechanisms for service retrieval to convert unstructured user requests to
strongly-typed semantic representations. In our work, we argue that effort to
developing service descriptions, request translations, and matching mechanisms
could be reduced using unrestricted natural language; allowing both: (1)
end-users to intuitively express their needs using natural language, and (2)
service developers to develop services without relying on syntactic/semantic
description languages. Although there are some natural language-based service
composition approaches, they restrict service retrieval to syntactic/semantic
matching. With recent developments in Machine learning and Natural Language
Processing, we motivate the use of Sentence Embeddings by leveraging richer
semantic representations of sentences for service description, matching and
retrieval. Experimental results show that service composition development
effort may be reduced by more than 44\% while keeping a high precision/recall
when matching high-level user requests with low-level service method
invocations.Comment: This paper will appear on SCC'19 (IEEE International Conference on
Services Computing) on July 1
Sharing Human-Generated Observations by Integrating HMI and the Semantic Sensor Web
Current âInternet of Thingsâ concepts point to a future where connected objects gather meaningful information about their environment and share it with other objects and people. In particular, objects embedding Human Machine Interaction (HMI), such as mobile devices and, increasingly, connected vehicles, home appliances, urban interactive infrastructures, etc., may not only be conceived as sources of sensor information, but, through interaction with their users, they can also produce highly valuable context-aware human-generated observations. We believe that the great promise offered by combining and sharing all of the different sources of information available can be realized through the integration of HMI and Semantic Sensor Web technologies. This paper presents a technological framework that harmonizes two of the most influential HMI and Sensor Web initiatives: the W3Câs Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces (MMI) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) with its semantic extension, respectively. Although the proposed framework is general enough to be applied in a variety of connected objects integrating HMI, a particular development is presented for a connected car scenario where driversâ observations about the traffic or their environment are shared across the Semantic Sensor Web. For implementation and evaluation purposes an on-board OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) architecture was built, integrating several available HMI, Sensor Web and Semantic Web technologies. A technical performance test and a conceptual validation of the scenario with potential users are reported, with results suggesting the approach is soun
Rewiring strategies for changing environments
A typical pervasive application executes in a changing environment: people, computing resources, software services and network connections come and go continuously. A robust pervasive application needs adapt to this changing context as long as there is an appropriate rewiring strategy that guarantees correct behavior. We combine the MERODE modeling methodology with the ReWiRe framework for creating interactive pervasive applications that can cope with changing environments. The core of our approach is a consistent environment model, which is essential to create (re)configurable context-aware pervasive applications. We aggregate different ontologies that provide the required semantics to describe almost any target environment. We present a case study that shows a interactive pervasive application for media access that incorporates parental control on media content and can migrate between devices. The application builds upon models of the run-time environment represented as system states for dedicated rewiring strategies
Context-aware management of multi-device services in the home
MPhilMore and more functionally complex digital consumer devices are becoming
embedded or scattered throughout the home, networked in a piecemeal fashion and
supporting more ubiquitous device services. For example, activities such as watching
a home video may require video to be streamed throughout the home and for multiple
devices to be orchestrated and coordinated, involving multiple user interactions via
multiple remote controls.
The main aim of this project is to research and develop a service-oriented multidevice
framework to support user activities in the home, easing the operation and
management of multi-device services though reducing explicit user interaction. To do
this, user contexts i.e., when and where a user activity takes place, and device
orchestration using pre-defined rules, are being utilised.
A service-oriented device framework has been designed in four phases. First, a simple
framework is designed to utilise OSGi and UPnP functionality in order to orchestrate
simple device operation involving device discovery and device interoperability.
Second, the framework is enhanced by adding a dynamic user interface portal to
access virtual orchestrated services generated through combining multiple devices.
Third the framework supports context-based device interaction and context-based task
initiation. Context-aware functionality combines information received from several
sources such as from sensors that can sense the physical and user environment, from
user-device interaction and from user contexts derived from calendars. Finally, the
framework supports a smart home SOA lifecycle using pre-defined rules, a rule
engine and workflows
- âŠ