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

Coordination of ECA Rules by Verification and Control

International audienceEvent-Condition-Action (ECA) rules are a widely used language for the high level specification of controllers in adaptive systems, such as Cyber-Physical Systems and smart environments, where devices equipped with sensors and actuators are controlled according to a set of rules. The evaluation and execution of every ECA rule is considered to be independent from the others, but interactions of rule actions can cause the system behaviors to be unpredictable or unsafe. Typical problems are in redundancy of rules, inconsistencies, circularity, or application-dependent safety issues. Hence, there is a need for coordination of ECA rule-based systems in order to ensure safety objectives. We propose a tool-supported method for verifying and controlling the correct interactions of rules, relying on formal models related to reactive systems, and Discrete Controller Synthesis (DCS) to generate correct rule controllers

Towards a lightweight mobile semantic-based approach for enhancing interaction with smart objects

This work describes a semantic extension for a user-smart object interaction model based on the ECA paradigm (Event-Condition-Action). In this approach, smart objects publish their sensing (event) and action capabilities in the cloud and mobile devices are prepared to retrieve them and act as mediators to configure personalized behaviours for the objects. In this paper, the information handled by this interaction system has been shaped according several semantic models that, together with the integration of an embedded ontological and rule-based reasoner, are exploited in order to (i) automatically detect incompatible ECA rules configurations and to (ii) support complex ECA rules definitions and execution. This semantic extension may significantly improve the management of smart spaces populated with numerous smart objects from mobile personal devices, as it facilitates the configuration of coherent ECA rules

Reactive Rules for Emergency Management

The goal of the following survey on Event-Condition-Action (ECA) Rules is to come to a common understanding and intuition on this topic within EMILI. Thus it does not give an academic overview on Event-Condition-Action Rules which would be valuable for computer scientists only. Instead the survey tries to introduce Event-Condition-Action Rules and their use for emergency management based on real-life examples from the use-cases identified in Deliverable 3.1. In this way we hope to address both, computer scientists and security experts, by showing how the Event-Condition-Action Rule technology can help to solve security issues in emergency management. The survey incorporates information from other work packages, particularly from Deliverable D3.1 and its Annexes, D4.1, D2.1 and D6.2 wherever possible

A rule-based framework for heterogeneous subsystems management in smart home environment

Recent advancements in computing and communication technologies have increased the growth of heterogeneous subsystems in smart home environment. However, many of these heterogeneous systems are standalone and do not adapt towards joint execution of tasks. Hence, it is rather difficult to perform interoperation especially to realize desired services preferred by home dwellers. In this paper, we propose a new rule-based framework for heterogeneous systems management as well as coordinating them by means of federated manner in smart home environment. The proposed framework is based on event-condition-action (ECA) rule mechanism with SOAP technology that provides interoperability among those systems. We have implemented the framework with several subsystems to demonstrate their effectiveness for interoperation using ECA rule mechanism. The performance of the framework was tested in LAN environment and proves to be reliable in smart home setting

A rule-based approach to model and verify flexible business processes

Efficient organisations need to ensure that their business processes are flexible so that these processes can easily accommodate changes in regulations and policies. Appropriate techniques to model and verify these processes are required. In this paper, we present a rule-based approach, which is built upon the event-condition-action model (ECA) and supported by a rule-based business process definition language (RbBPDL). In this approach, rules, which specify business processes, are represented using the event-condition-action-post- condition-event (ECAPE) model. This allows translating a process into a graph of rules that is used to check how flexible a business process is, and estimating this process\u27s cost of changes. This cost is based on a rule change cost model (R2CM) that will be presented in this paper. In addition, the ECAPE model allows the translation of a process into a coloured Petri net, called ECAPE net, in order to verify process functioning prior to any deployment. Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.