Leveraging the Grid to Provide a Global Platform for Ubiquitous Computing Research

The requirement for distributed systems support for Ubicomp has led to the development of numerous platforms, each addressing a subset of the overall requirements of ubiquitous systems. In contrast, many other scientific disciplines have embraced the vision of a global distributed computing platform, i.e. the Grid. We believe that the Grid has the potential to evolve into an ideal platform for building ubiquitous computing applications. In this paper we explore in detail the areas of synergy between Grid computing and ubiquitous computing and highlight a series of research challenges in this space

Towards an intelligent and supportive environment for people with physical or cognitive restrictions

AmbienNet environment has been developed with the aim of demonstrating the feasibility of accessible intelligent environments designed to support people with disabilities and older persons living independently. Its main purpose is to examine in depth the advantages and disadvantages of pervasive supporting systems based on the paradigm of Ambient Intelligence for people with sensory, physical or cognitive limitations. Hence diverse supporting technologies and applications have been designed in order to test their accessibility, ease of use and validity. This paper presents the architecture of AmbienNet intelligent environment and an intelligent application to support indoors navigation for smart wheelchairs designed for validation purposes.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2006-15617-C[01,02,03

Adding generic contextual capabilities to wearable computers

Context-awareness has an increasingly important role to play in the development of wearable computing systems. In order to better define this role we have identified four generic contextual capabilities: sensing, adaptation, resource discovery, and augmentation. A prototype application has been constructed to explore how some of these capabilities could be deployed in a wearable system designed to aid an ecologist's observations of giraffe in a Kenyan game reserve. However, despite the benefits of context-awareness demonstrated in this prototype, widespread innovation of these capabilities is currently stifled by the difficulty in obtaining the contextual data. To remedy this situation the Contextual Information Service (CIS) is introduced. Installed on the user's wearable computer, the CIS provides a common point of access for clients to obtain, manipulate and model contextual information independently of the underlying plethora of data formats and sensor interface mechanisms

Forum Session at the First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC03)

The First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC) was held in Trento, December 15-18, 2003. The focus of the conference ---Service Oriented Computing (SOC)--- is the new emerging paradigm for distributed computing and e-business processing that has evolved from object-oriented and component computing to enable building agile networks of collaborating business applications distributed within and across organizational boundaries. Of the 181 papers submitted to the ICSOC conference, 10 were selected for the forum session which took place on December the 16th, 2003. The papers were chosen based on their technical quality, originality, relevance to SOC and for their nature of being best suited for a poster presentation or a demonstration. This technical report contains the 10 papers presented during the forum session at the ICSOC conference. In particular, the last two papers in the report ere submitted as industrial papers

A Taxonomy of Self-configuring Service Discovery Systems

We analyze the fundamental concepts and issues in service discovery. This analysis places service discovery in the context of distributed systems by describing service discovery as a third generation naming system. We also describe the essential architectures and the functionalities in service discovery. We then proceed to show how service discovery fits into a system, by characterizing operational aspects. Subsequently, we describe how existing state of the art performs service discovery, in relation to the operational aspects and functionalities, and identify areas for improvement

Intention Prediction Mechanism In An Intentional Pervasive Information System

International audienceNowadays, the development of pervasive technologies has allowed the improvement of services availability. These services, offered by information systems (IS), are becoming more pervasive, i.e., accessed anytime, anywhere. However, those pervasive information systems (PIS) remain too complex for the user, who just wants a service satisfying his needs. This complexity requires considerable efforts from the user in order to select the most appropriate service. Thus, an important challenge in PIS is to reduce user's understanding effort. In this chapter, we propose to enhance PIS transparency and productivity through a user-centred vision based on an intentional approach. We propose an intention prediction approach. This approach allows anticipating user's future requirements, offering the most suitable service in a transparent and discrete way. This intention prediction approach is guided by the user's context. It is based on the analysis of the user's previous situations in order to learn user's behaviour in a dynamic environment

Ubiquitous Social Networks: Opportunities and Challenges for Privacy-Aware User Modelling

Privacy has been recognized as an important topic in the Internet for a long time, and technological developments in the area of privacy tools are ongoing. However, their focus was mainly on the individual. With the proliferation of social network sites, it has become more evident that the problem of privacy is not bounded by the perimeters of individuals but also by the privacy needs of their social networks. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about privacy in social network sites, a topic which we consider to be severely under-researched. We propose a framework for analyzing privacy requirements and for analyzing privacy-related data. We outline a combination of requirements analysis, conflict-resolution techniques, and a P3P extension that can contribute to privacy within such sites.World Wide Web, privacy, social network analysis, requirements analysis, privacy negotiation, ubiquity, P3P

Innovation in Mobile Learning: A European Perspective

In the evolving landscape of mobile learning, European researchers have conducted significant mobile learning projects, representing a distinct perspective on mobile learning research and development. Our paper aims to explore how these projects have arisen, showing the driving forces of European innovation in mobile learning. We propose context as a central construct in mobile learning and examine theories of learning for the mobile world, based on physical, technological, conceptual, social and temporal mobility. We also examine the impacts of mobile learning research on educational practices and the implications for policy. Throughout, we identify lessons learnt from European experiences to date