Engineering Smart Software Services for Intelligent Pervasive Systems

Pervasive computing systems, envisioned as systems that blend with the physical environment to enhance the quality of life of its users, are rapidly becoming a not so distant reality. However, many challenges must be addressed before realizing the goal of having such computing systems as part of our everyday life. One such challenge is related to the problem of how to develop in a systematic way the software that lies behind pervasive systems, operating them and allowing them to intelligently adapt both to users' changing needs and to variations in the environment. In spite of the important strides done in recent years concerning the engineering of software that places the actual, immediate needs and preferences of users in the center of attention, to the best of our knowledge no work has been devoted to the study of the engineering process for building software for pervasive systems. In this dissertation we focus on the engineering process to build smart software services for pervasive systems. Specifically, we first introduce as our first major contribution a model for the systematic construction of software for pervasive systems, which has been derived using analytical, evidence-based, and empirical methodologies. Then, on the basis of the proposed model, we investigate two essential mechanisms that provide support for the engineering of value-added software services for smart environments, namely the learning of users' daily routines and the continuous identification of users. For the case of learning users' daily routines, we propose what is our second main contribution: a novel approach that discovers periodic-frequent routines in event data from sensors and smart devices deployed at home. For the continuous identification of users we propose what is our third major contribution: a novel approach based on behavioral biometrics which is able to recognize identities without requiring any specific gesture, action, or activity from the users. The two approaches proposed have been extensively evaluated through studies in the lab, based on synthetic data, and in the wild, showing that they can be effectively applied to different scenarios and environments. In sum, the engineering model proposed in this dissertation is expected to serve as a basis to further the research and development efforts in key aspects that are necessary to build value-added smart software services that bring pervasive systems closer to the way they have been envisioned. Furthermore, the approaches proposed for learning users' daily routines and recognizing users' identities in smart environments are aimed at contributing to the investigation and development of the data analytics technology necessary for the smart adaptation and evolution of the software in pervasive systems to users' needs

New Fundamental Technologies in Data Mining

The progress of data mining technology and large public popularity establish a need for a comprehensive text on the subject. The series of books entitled by "Data Mining" address the need by presenting in-depth description of novel mining algorithms and many useful applications. In addition to understanding each section deeply, the two books present useful hints and strategies to solving problems in the following chapters. The contributing authors have highlighted many future research directions that will foster multi-disciplinary collaborations and hence will lead to significant development in the field of data mining

Combining SOA and BPM Technologies for Cross-System Process Automation

This paper summarizes the results of an industry case study that introduced a cross-system business process automation solution based on a combination of SOA and BPM standard technologies (i.e., BPMN, BPEL, WSDL). Besides discussing major weaknesses of the existing, custom-built, solution and comparing them against experiences with the developed prototype, the paper presents a course of action for transforming the current solution into the proposed solution. This includes a general approach, consisting of four distinct steps, as well as specific action items that are to be performed for every step. The discussion also covers language and tool support and challenges arising from the transformation

Dynamic Rule-Based Reasoning in Smart Environments

Slimme huizen en andere soorten slimme omgevingen kunnen worden gedefinieerd door verschillende belangrijke karakteristieken. De belangrijkste hiervan is ongetwijfeld de mogelijkheid om omgevingsbewust te zijn, om de fysieke omgeving te ervaren en om de context van de huidige situatie te begrijpen. Slimme omgevingen zouden in staat moeten zijn om met deze informatie te kunnen redeneren en waardevolle kennis te kunnen afleiden. Daarnaast zullen ze de mogelijkheid moeten hebben om intelligent te reageren in reactie op veranderende situaties, volgens bepaalde doelstellingen. Slimme omgevingen zijn vaak ubiquitous, wat betekent dat hun capaciteiten voor waarnemen en handelen berusten op apparaten die zijn ingebed in de fysieke wereld. De meeste van de huidige commerciele slimme omgevingsproducten presenteren slechts gedeeltelijke oplossingen, zoals automatische verlichting of energiebewustzijn. Verschillende factoren vertragen de commercialisering van volledig slimme huizen, waaronder de noodzaak om de oplossing op iedere nieuwe locatie opnieuw zeer nauwkeurig af te stellen, de inspanningen rondom de integratie en co'ordinatie van verschillende componenten, handelingen om een consistent model over verschillende subsystemen van verschillende bronnen samen te stellen, enzovoorts. Samenvattend, de grote hoeveelheid aan inspanningen die benodigd zijn om de oplossing van een locatie naar een andere te verplaatsen hindert de mogelijkheden voor het stroomlijnen van de uitrol. Wat zijn de overeenkomsten in het ontwerp en het ontwikkelproces van een slimme omgeving? Wat is een effectieve aanpak om een redeneringsmotor voor slimme omgevingen te ontwerpen die aan alle belangrijke vereisten voldoet? Hoe kan het effect van sensorfouten voor wat betreft de besluitvorming worden geminimaliseerd? Hoe kan een slim systeem het bestaan van verschillende energieleveranciers gebruiken om de energiekosten in de tijd te minimaliseren? In dit proefschrift bespreken we en geven we antwoord op een aantal belangrijke onderzoeksvraagstukken voor huidige pervasieve systemen, slimme omgevingen in het bijzonder

The Proceedings of the 23rd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (DGO2022) Intelligent Technologies, Governments and Citizens June 15-17, 2022

The 23rd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research theme is “Intelligent Technologies, Governments and Citizens”. Data and computational algorithms make systems smarter, but should result in smarter government and citizens. Intelligence and smartness affect all kinds of public values - such as fairness, inclusion, equity, transparency, privacy, security, trust, etc., and is not well-understood. These technologies provide immense opportunities and should be used in the light of public values. Society and technology co-evolve and we are looking for new ways to balance between them. Specifically, the conference aims to advance research and practice in this field. The keynotes, presentations, posters and workshops show that the conference theme is very well-chosen and more actual than ever. The challenges posed by new technology have underscored the need to grasp the potential. Digital government brings into focus the realization of public values to improve our society at all levels of government. The conference again shows the importance of the digital government society, which brings together scholars in this field. Dg.o 2022 is fully online and enables to connect to scholars and practitioners around the globe and facilitate global conversations and exchanges via the use of digital technologies. This conference is primarily a live conference for full engagement, keynotes, presentations of research papers, workshops, panels and posters and provides engaging exchange throughout the entire duration of the conference

Privacidade em comunicações de dados para ambientes contextualizados

Doutoramento em InformáticaInternet users consume online targeted advertising based on information collected about them and voluntarily share personal information in social networks. Sensor information and data from smart-phones is collected and used by applications, sometimes in unclear ways. As it happens today with smartphones, in the near future sensors will be shipped in all types of connected devices, enabling ubiquitous information gathering from the physical environment, enabling the vision of Ambient Intelligence. The value of gathered data, if not obvious, can be harnessed through data mining techniques and put to use by enabling personalized and tailored services as well as business intelligence practices, fueling the digital economy. However, the ever-expanding information gathering and use undermines the privacy conceptions of the past. Natural social practices of managing privacy in daily relations are overridden by socially-awkward communication tools, service providers struggle with security issues resulting in harmful data leaks, governments use mass surveillance techniques, the incentives of the digital economy threaten consumer privacy, and the advancement of consumergrade data-gathering technology enables new inter-personal abuses. A wide range of fields attempts to address technology-related privacy problems, however they vary immensely in terms of assumptions, scope and approach. Privacy of future use cases is typically handled vertically, instead of building upon previous work that can be re-contextualized, while current privacy problems are typically addressed per type in a more focused way. Because significant effort was required to make sense of the relations and structure of privacy-related work, this thesis attempts to transmit a structured view of it. It is multi-disciplinary - from cryptography to economics, including distributed systems and information theory - and addresses privacy issues of different natures. As existing work is framed and discussed, the contributions to the state-of-theart done in the scope of this thesis are presented. The contributions add to five distinct areas: 1) identity in distributed systems; 2) future context-aware services; 3) event-based context management; 4) low-latency information flow control; 5) high-dimensional dataset anonymity. Finally, having laid out such landscape of the privacy-preserving work, the current and future privacy challenges are discussed, considering not only technical but also socio-economic perspectives.Quem usa a Internet vê publicidade direccionada com base nos seus hábitos de navegação, e provavelmente partilha voluntariamente informação pessoal em redes sociais. A informação disponível nos novos telemóveis é amplamente acedida e utilizada por aplicações móveis, por vezes sem razões claras para isso. Tal como acontece hoje com os telemóveis, no futuro muitos tipos de dispositivos elecónicos incluirão sensores que permitirão captar dados do ambiente, possibilitando o surgimento de ambientes inteligentes. O valor dos dados captados, se não for óbvio, pode ser derivado através de técnicas de análise de dados e usado para fornecer serviços personalizados e definir estratégias de negócio, fomentando a economia digital. No entanto estas práticas de recolha de informação criam novas questões de privacidade. As práticas naturais de relações inter-pessoais são dificultadas por novos meios de comunicação que não as contemplam, os problemas de segurança de informação sucedem-se, os estados vigiam os seus cidadãos, a economia digital leva á monitorização dos consumidores, e as capacidades de captação e gravação dos novos dispositivos eletrónicos podem ser usadas abusivamente pelos próprios utilizadores contra outras pessoas. Um grande número de áreas científicas focam problemas de privacidade relacionados com tecnologia, no entanto fazem-no de maneiras diferentes e assumindo pontos de partida distintos. A privacidade de novos cenários é tipicamente tratada verticalmente, em vez de re-contextualizar trabalho existente, enquanto os problemas actuais são tratados de uma forma mais focada. Devido a este fraccionamento no trabalho existente, um exercício muito relevante foi a sua estruturação no âmbito desta tese. O trabalho identificado é multi-disciplinar - da criptografia à economia, incluindo sistemas distribuídos e teoria da informação - e trata de problemas de privacidade de naturezas diferentes. À medida que o trabalho existente é apresentado, as contribuições feitas por esta tese são discutidas. Estas enquadram-se em cinco áreas distintas: 1) identidade em sistemas distribuídos; 2) serviços contextualizados; 3) gestão orientada a eventos de informação de contexto; 4) controlo de fluxo de informação com latência baixa; 5) bases de dados de recomendação anónimas. Tendo descrito o trabalho existente em privacidade, os desafios actuais e futuros da privacidade são discutidos considerando também perspectivas socio-económicas

Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik (MKWI) 2016: Technische Universität Ilmenau, 09. - 11. März 2016; Band III

Übersicht der Teilkonferenzen Band III • Service Systems Engineering • Sicherheit, Compliance und Verfügbarkeit von Geschäftsprozessen • Smart Services: Kundeninduzierte Kombination komplexer Dienstleistungen • Strategisches IT-Management • Student Track • Telekommunikations- und Internetwirtschaft • Unternehmenssoftware – quo vadis? • Von der Digitalen Fabrik zu Industrie 4.0 – Methoden und Werkzeuge für die Planung und Steuerung von intelligenten Produktions- und Logistiksystemen • Wissensmanagemen