Activity-Centric Computing Systems

• Activity-Centric Computing (ACC) addresses deep-rooted information management problems in traditional application centric computing by providing a unifying computational model for human goal-oriented ‘activity,’ cutting across system boundaries. • We provide a historical review of the motivation for and development of ACC systems, and highlight the need for broadening up this research topic to also include low-level system research and development. • ACC concepts and technology relate to many facets of computing; they are relevant for researchers working on new computing models and operating systems, as well as for application designers seeking to incorporate these technologies in domain-specific applications

Semantic model-driven framework for validating quality requirements of Internet of Things streaming data

The rise of Internet of Things has provided platforms mostly enhanced by real-time data-driven services for reactive services and Smart Cities innovations. However, IoT streaming data are known to be compromised by quality problems, thereby influencing the performance and accuracy of IoT-based reactive services or Smart applications. This research investigates the suitability of the semantic approach for the run-time validation of IoT streaming data for quality problems. To realise this aim, Semantic IoT Streaming Data Validation with its framework (SISDaV) is proposed. The novel approach involves technologies for semantic query and reasoning with semantic rules defined on an established relationship with external data sources with consideration for specific run-time events that can influence the quality of streams. The work specifically targets quality issues relating to inconsistency, plausibility, and incompleteness in IoT streaming data. In particular, the investigation covers various RDF stream processing and rule-based reasoning techniques and effects of RDF Serialised formats on the reasoning process. The contributions of the work include the hierarchy of IoT data stream quality problem, lightweight evolving Smart Space and Sensor Measurement Ontology, generic time-aware validation rules and, SISDaV framework- a unified semantic rule-based validation system for RDF-based IoT streaming data that combines the popular RDF stream processing the system with generic enhanced time-aware rules. The semantic validation process ensures the conformance of the raw streaming data value produced by the IoT node(s) with IoT streaming data quality requirements and the expected value. This is facilitated through a set of generic continuous validation rules, which has been realised by extending the popular Jena rule syntax with a time element. The comparative evaluation of SISDaV is based on its effectiveness and efficiency based on the expressivity of the different serialised RDF data formats. The results are interpreted with relevant statistical estimations and performance metrics. The results from the evaluation approve of the feasibility of the framework in terms of containing the semantic validation process within the interval between reads of sensor nodes as well as provision of additional requirements that can enhance IoT streaming data processing systems which are currently missing in most related state-of-art RDF stream processing systems. Furthermore, the approach can satisfy the main research objectives as identified by the study

A semantic framework for event-driven service composition

Title from PDF of title page, viewed on September 14, 2011VitaDissertation advisor: Yugyung LeeIncludes bibliographical references (p. 289-329)Thesis (Ph.D)--School of Computing and Engineering. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2011Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has become a popular paradigm for designing distributed systems where loosely coupled services (i.e. computational entities) can be integrated seamlessly to provide complex composite services. Key challenges are discovery of the required services using their formal descriptions and their coherent composition in a timely manner. Most service descriptions are written in XML-based languages that are syntactic, creating linguistic ambiguity during service matchmaking. Furthermore, existing models that implement SOA have mostly middleware-controlled synchronous request/replybased runtime binding of services that incur undesirable service latency. In addition, they impose expensive state monitoring overhead on the middleware. Some newer event-driven models introduce asynchronous publish/subscribe-based event notifications to consumer applications and services. However, they require an event-library that stores definitions of all possible system events, which is impractical in an open and dynamic system. The objective of this study is to efficiently address on-demand consumer requests with minimum service latency and maximum consumer utility. It focuses on semantic eventdriven service composition. For efficient semantic service discovery, the dissertation proposes a novel service learning algorithm called Semantic Taxonomic Clustering (STC). The algorithm utilizes semantic service descriptions to cluster services into functional categories for pruning search space during service discovery and composition. STC utilizes a dynamic bit-encoding algorithm called DL-Encoding that enables linear time bit operationbased semantic matchmaking as compared to expensive reasoner-based semantic matchmaking. The algorithm shows significant improvement in performance and accuracy over some of the important service category algorithms reported in the literature. A novel user-friendly and computationally efficient query model called Desire-based Query Model (DQM) is proposed for formally specifying service queries. STC and DQM serve as the building block for the dual framework that is the core contribution of this dissertation: (i) centralized ALNet (Activity Logic Network) platform and (ii) distributed agentbased SMARTSPACE platform. The former incorporates a middleware controlled service composition algorithm called ALNetComposer while the latter includes the SmartDeal purely distributed composition algorithm. The query response accuracy and performance were evaluated for both the algorithms under simulated event-driven SOA environments. The experimental results show that various environmental parameters, such as domain diversity and scope, size and complexity of the SOA system, and dynamicity of the SOA system, significantly affect accuracy and performance of the proposed model. This dissertation demonstrates that the functionality and scalability of the proposed framework are acceptable for relatively static and domain specific environments as well as large, diverse, and highly dynamic environments. In summary, this dissertation addresses the key design issues and problems in the area of asynchronous and pro-active event-driven service composition.Introduction -- Research background -- Semantic service matchmaking & query modeling -- Service organization by learning service category -- ALNet: event-driven platform for service composition -- SMARTSPACE: distributed multi-agent based event-handeling -- Conclusion & future wor

Development tools for context aware and secure pervasive computing in embedded systems middleware

PhD ThesisThe increasing number of devices that are invisibly embedded into our surrounding environment as well as the proliferation of wireless communication and sensing technologies are the basis for visions like ambient intelligence, ubiquitous and pervasive computing. The PErvasive Computing in Embedded Systems (PECES) project developed the technological basis to enable the global cooperation of embedded devices residing in different smart spaces in a context-dependent, secure and trustworthy manner. The PECES development tools aim to help the application developer to build applications using the PECES middleware and simulate the smart space dynamics such as device connections and context changes, etc. To ease the middleware development process, the development tools are implemented as Eclipse plugins and integrated into the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The development tools provide graphical user interface (GUI) to configure, model and test the PECES middleware based smart space applications. This thesis presents the design, implementation and devaluation of three groups of tools namely Configuration Tool (Peces Project, Peces Device Definition, Peces Ontology Instantiation, Peces Security Configuration, Peces Service Definition, Peces Role Specification Definition, Peces Hierarchical Role Specification Definition), Modelling Tool (Peces Event Editor, Peces Event Diagram) and Testing Tool which enalble application developer to build, model and test the PECES middleware based smart space application using the novel concepts such as role assignment, context ontologies and security

Multilingual audio information management system based on semantic knowledge in complex environments

This paper proposes a multilingual audio information management system based on semantic knowledge in complex environments. The complex environment is defined by the limited resources (financial, material, human, and audio resources); the poor quality of the audio signal taken from an internet radio channel; the multilingual context (Spanish, French, and Basque that is in under-resourced situation in some areas); and the regular appearance of cross-lingual elements between the three languages. In addition to this, the system is also constrained by the requirements of the local multilingual industrial sector. We present the first evolutionary system based on a scalable architecture that is able to fulfill these specifications with automatic adaptation based on automatic semantic speech recognition, folksonomies, automatic configuration selection, machine learning, neural computing methodologies, and collaborative networks. As a result, it can be said that the initial goals have been accomplished and the usability of the final application has been tested successfully, even with non-experienced users.This work is being funded by Grants: TEC201677791-C4 from Plan Nacional de I + D + i, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Competitiveness of Spain and from the DomusVi Foundation Kms para recorder, the Basque Government (ELKARTEK KK-2018/00114, GEJ IT1189-19, the Government of Gipuzkoa (DG18/14 DG17/16), UPV/EHU (GIU19/090), COST ACTION (CA18106, CA15225)