A framework for the development and maintenance of adaptive, dynamic, context-aware information services

This paper presents an agent-based methodological approach to design distributed service-oriented systems which can adapt their behaviour according to changes in the environment and in the user needs, even taking the initiative to make suggestions and proactive choices. The highly dynamic, regulated, complex nature of the distributed, interconnected services is tackled through a methodological framework composed of three interconnected levels. The framework relies on coordination and organisational techniques, as well as on semantically annotated Web services to design, deploy and maintain a distributed system, using both a top-down and bottom-up approach. We present results based on a real use case: interactive community displays with tourist information and services, dynamically personalised according to user context and preferences.Preprin

The Semantic Grid: A future e-Science infrastructure

e-Science offers a promising vision of how computer and communication technology can support and enhance the scientific process. It does this by enabling scientists to generate, analyse, share and discuss their insights, experiments and results in an effective manner. The underlying computer infrastructure that provides these facilities is commonly referred to as the Grid. At this time, there are a number of grid applications being developed and there is a whole raft of computer technologies that provide fragments of the necessary functionality. However there is currently a major gap between these endeavours and the vision of e-Science in which there is a high degree of easy-to-use and seamless automation and in which there are flexible collaborations and computations on a global scale. To bridge this practice–aspiration divide, this paper presents a research agenda whose aim is to move from the current state of the art in e-Science infrastructure, to the future infrastructure that is needed to support the full richness of the e-Science vision. Here the future e-Science research infrastructure is termed the Semantic Grid (Semantic Grid to Grid is meant to connote a similar relationship to the one that exists between the Semantic Web and the Web). In particular, we present a conceptual architecture for the Semantic Grid. This architecture adopts a service-oriented perspective in which distinct stakeholders in the scientific process, represented as software agents, provide services to one another, under various service level agreements, in various forms of marketplace. We then focus predominantly on the issues concerned with the way that knowledge is acquired and used in such environments since we believe this is the key differentiator between current grid endeavours and those envisioned for the Semantic Grid

Special Matters: Filtering Privileged Materials in Federal Prosecutions

This Article reviews the U.S. Department of Justice\u27s toolbox for handling potentially privileged materials, with close attention to the evolution from filter teams to the Special Matters Unit in fraud prosecutions. Significant case opinions from the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits reveal the judiciary\u27s diverse views on filter teams. The recent case of United States v. Esformes in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, now on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, illustrates how a filter team can fall short and draw unflattering attention to the Department of Justice. In the wake of Esformes and other filter team criticisms, the Department introduced the Special Matters Unit to usher in a new, improved, and centralized team. Underlying all these privilege strategies is a view of criminal justice as quasi-adversarial. The special role for prosecutors to seek justice rather than convictions implies that a criminal prosecution is not purely competitive. This quasi-adversarial view is the invisible side to privilege, justifying and animating the Department of Justice\u27s privilege strategie

Combining Coordination and Organisation Mechanisms for the Development of a Dynamic Context-aware Information System Personalised by means of Logic-based Preference Methods

The general objective of this thesis is to enhance current ICDs by developing a personalised information system stable over dynamic and open environments, by adapting the behaviour to different situations, and handle user preferences in order to effectively provide the content (by means of a composition of several information services) the user is waiting for. Thus, the system combines two different usage contexts: the adaptive behaviour, in which the system adapts to unexpected events (e.g., the sudden failure of a service selected as information source), and the information customisation, in which the system proactively personalises a list of suggestions by considering user’s context and preferences

The political economy of loose regulation: Modernity meets tradition in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a fascinating social laboratory where one can observe the interplay between powerful forces of modernization and deeply-entrenched pre-industrial consumption patterns. For decades, the former had not encroached on the autonomy of grassroots-style forms of health care, but the enactment of the Chinese Medicine Ordinance in 1999 has brought the latter under the grip of the state, albeit in the weak sense of the term. This particular episode may offer insights into the dynamics of the two-way adjustment that takes place when the divergent paths of the mainstream and traditional sectors inevitably cross, prompting regulatory and developmental responses

Between Domestication and Europeanisation. A Gendered Perspective on Reproductive (Human) Rights Law

Europeanization; European Court of Justice; European law; gender policy; law; U.K.

Ubiquitous Computing

The aim of this book is to give a treatment of the actively developed domain of Ubiquitous computing. Originally proposed by Mark D. Weiser, the concept of Ubiquitous computing enables a real-time global sensing, context-aware informational retrieval, multi-modal interaction with the user and enhanced visualization capabilities. In effect, Ubiquitous computing environments give extremely new and futuristic abilities to look at and interact with our habitat at any time and from anywhere. In that domain, researchers are confronted with many foundational, technological and engineering issues which were not known before. Detailed cross-disciplinary coverage of these issues is really needed today for further progress and widening of application range. This book collects twelve original works of researchers from eleven countries, which are clustered into four sections: Foundations, Security and Privacy, Integration and Middleware, Practical Applications

Governance of Autonomous Agents on the Web: Challenges and Opportunities

International audienceThe study of autonomous agents has a long tradition in the Multiagent System and the Semantic Web communities, with applications ranging from automating business processes to personal assistants. More recently, the Web of Things (WoT), which is an extension of the Internet of Things (IoT) with metadata expressed in Web standards, and its community provide further motivation for pushing the autonomous agents research agenda forward. Although representing and reasoning about norms, policies and preferences is crucial to ensuring that autonomous agents act in a manner that satisfies stakeholder requirements, normative concepts, policies and preferences have yet to be considered as first-class abstractions in Web-based multiagent systems. Towards this end, this paper motivates the need for alignment and joint research across the Multiagent Systems, Semantic Web, and WoT communities, introduces a conceptual framework for governance of autonomous agents on the Web, and identifies several research challenges and opportunities