Toward a Context-Aware and Automatic Evaluation of Elderly Dependency in Smart Homes and Cities

International audienceIn this work, we propose a framework for automatic dependency evaluation that can notify the changes of the elderly dependency, hence providing persons with required services in time. In order to validate our approach, we target the French dependent population. Especially, we focus our proposal on the AGGIR dependency model used in the French medical field. Our objective is to provide a flexible architecture and an extensible model linked to opened data that can refer to a wide variety of services (hardware sensors and software; simple or composed services)

A Dynamical Reliability Prediction Algorithm for Composite Service

Dynamic selection and dynamic binding and rebinding at runtime are new characters of composite services. The traditional static reliability prediction models are unsuitable to dynamic composite services. A new reliability predicting algorithm for composite services is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a composite service is decomposed into composition unites (executing path, composite module and atomic service) according to their constituents. Consequently, a hierarchical graph of all composite units is constructed. Lastly, a new dynamic reliability prediction algorithm is presented. Comparing with the traditional reliability model, the new dynamic reliability approach is more flexible, which does not recompute reliability for all composite units and only computes the reliability of the effected composite units. In addition, an example to show how to measure the reliability based on our algorithm is designed. The experimental results show our proposed methods can give an accurate estimation of reliability. Furthermore, a more flexible sensitivity analysis is performed to determine which service component has the most significant impact on the improvement of composite service reliability

A Reference Architecture for Service Lifecycle Management – Construction and Application to Designing and Analyzing IT Support

Service-orientation and the underlying concept of service-oriented architectures are a means to successfully address the need for flexibility and interoperability of software applications, which in turn leads to improved IT support of business processes. With a growing level of diffusion, sophistication and maturity, the number of services and interdependencies is gradually rising. This increasingly requires companies to implement a systematic management of services along their entire lifecycle. Service lifecycle management (SLM), i.e., the management of services from the initiating idea to their disposal, is becoming a crucial success factor. Not surprisingly, the academic and practice communities increasingly postulate comprehensive IT support for SLM to counteract the inherent complexity. The topic is still in its infancy, with no comprehensive models available that help evaluating and designing IT support in SLM. This thesis presents a reference architecture for SLM and applies it to the evaluation and designing of SLM IT support in companies. The artifact, which largely resulted from consortium research efforts, draws from an extensive analysis of existing SLM applications, case studies, focus group discussions, bilateral interviews and existing literature. Formal procedure models and a configuration terminology allow adapting and applying the reference architecture to a company’s individual setting. Corresponding usage examples prove its applicability and demonstrate the arising benefits within various SLM IT support design and evaluation tasks. A statistical analysis of the knowledge embodied within the reference data leads to novel, highly significant findings. For example, contemporary standard applications do not yet emphasize the lifecycle concept but rather tend to focus on small parts of the lifecycle, especially on service operation. This forces user companies either into a best-of-breed or a custom-development strategy if they are to implement integrated IT support for their SLM activities. SLM software vendors and internal software development units need to undergo a paradigm shift in order to better reflect the numerous interdependencies and increasing intertwining within services’ lifecycles. The SLM architecture is a first step towards achieving this goal.:Content Overview List of Figures....................................................................................... xi List of Tables ...................................................................................... xiv List of Abbreviations.......................................................................xviii 1 Introduction .................................................................................... 1 2 Foundations ................................................................................... 13 3 Architecture Structure and Strategy Layer .............................. 57 4 Process Layer ................................................................................ 75 5 Information Systems Layer ....................................................... 103 6 Architecture Application and Extension ................................. 137 7 Results, Evaluation and Outlook .............................................. 195 Appendix ..........................................................................................203 References .......................................................................................... 463 Curriculum Vitae.............................................................................. 498 Bibliographic Data............................................................................ 49