C-Arc: A Novel Architecture for Next Generation Context- Aware Systems

Computing is becoming increasingly mobile and ubiquitous. This implies that applications and services must be aware and adapt to highly dynamic environments. However, building contextaware mobile services is currently a complex and time consuming task. The emergence of truly ubiquitous computing, enabled by the availability of mobile and heterogeneous devices and an increasing number of commercial off-the-shelf sensing technologies, is hampered by the lack of standard architectural support for the development of context-aware systems. In this paper, the common architecture principles of context-aware systems are presented and the crucial contextaware architecture issues to support the next generation context-aware systems which will enable seamless service provisioning in heterogeneous, dynamically varying computing and communication environments are identified and discussed. Furthermore, a novel architecture, CArc,is proposed to aid in the development of the next generation context-aware systems. A prototype implemented of C-Arc is also presented to demonstrate the architecture. C-Arc provides support for most of the tasks involved in dealing with context, namely acquiring context from various sources, interpreting context and disseminating context.Keywords: Context-aware architecture, context-aware systems, context-aware mobile services,mobile and ubiquitous computing

Ontology-based Activity Recognition Framework and Services

This paper introduces an ontology-based integrated framework for activity modeling, activity recognition and activity model evolution. Central to the framework is ontological activity modeling and semantic-based activity recognition, which is supported by an iterative process that incrementally improves the completeness and accuracy of activity models. In addition, the paper presents a service-oriented architecture for the realization of the proposed framework which can provide activity context-aware services in a scalable distributed manner. The paper further describes and discusses the implementation and testing experience of the framework and services in the context of smart home based assistive living

Guideline-based decision support in medicine : modeling guidelines for the development and application of clinical decision support systems

Guideline-based Decision Support in Medicine Modeling Guidelines for the Development and Application of Clinical Decision Support Systems The number and use of decision support systems that incorporate guidelines with the goal of improving care is rapidly increasing. Although developing systems that are both effective in supporting clinicians and accepted by them has proven to be a difficult task, of the systems that were evaluated by a controlled trial, the majority showed impact. The work, described in this thesis, aims at developing a methodology and framework that facilitates all stages in the guideline development process, ranging from the definition of models that represent guidelines to the implementation of run-time systems that provide decision support, based on the guidelines that were developed during the previous stages. The framework consists of 1) a guideline representation formalism that uses the concepts of primitives, Problem-Solving Methods (PSMs) and ontologies to represent guidelines of various complexity and granularity and different application domains, 2) a guideline authoring environment that enables guideline authors to define guidelines, based on the newly developed guideline representation formalism, and 3) a guideline execution environment that translates defined guidelines into a more efficient symbol-level representation, which can be read in and processed by an execution-time engine. The described methodology and framework were used to develop and validate a number of guidelines and decision support systems in various clinical domains such as Intensive Care, Family Practice, Psychiatry and the areas of Diabetes and Hypertension control

Towards a taxonomy of reusable CRM requirements for the Not for Profit sector

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Traditional (or commercial) CRM is a well-defined domain but there is currently no generally accepted definition of what constitutes CRM in the not for profit (NfP) sector. Not for profit organisations are organisations which exist for a social purpose, are independent of the State, and which re-invest all of their financial surpluses in the services they offer or in the organisation itself. This research aims to answer the question “What exactly is CRM as applied to the NfP sector, what are its boundaries and what functions should an NfP CRM information system perform?” Grounded Theory Method (GTM) within a Design Science framework was used to collect, analyse, categorise, generalise and structure data from a number of NfP organisations and NfP information systems suppliers. An NfP CRM model was constructed from this data in the form of three multi-level taxonomies. The main taxonomy relates to generic and reusable information system requirements both functional and non-functional. Within this taxonomy the high-level categorisations of commercial CRM, namely “Marketing, “Sales” and “Service”, are greatly extended to reflect the special needs of the NfP sector and in particular a much broader definition of “customer”. The two minor taxonomies relate to issues of CRM strategy and CRM systems architecture which need to be considered alongside the system requirements. In addition to and resulting from the taxonomies, an over-arching definition of NfP CRM was developed. NfP organisations now have a framework that will enable them to know what to expect of CRM systems and from which they can select requirements to build their own specification of information system needs. Using the requirements taxonomy for this task will make the process of requirements analysis and specification easier, quicker, cheaper and more complete than using traditional methods. The framework will also allow NfP system suppliers to know what NfP organisations expect of their systems and will assist them with the specification of new system features. The minor taxonomies will provide NfP organisations with a series of strategic issues and systems architecture options that should be considered when implementing a CRM system. This research also demonstrates how GTM can be utilised: as the development phase of Design Research, as a general method of domain analysis, and as a tool to develop a taxonomy of reusable information system requirements

A Scalable Home Care System Infrastructure Supporting Domiciliary Care

Technology-mediated home care is attractive for older people living at home and also for their carers. It provides the information necessary to give confidence and assurance to everyone interested in the wellbeing of the older person. From a care delivery perspective, however, widespread deployment of home care technologies presents system developers with a set of challenges. These challenges arise from the issues associated with scaling from individual installations to providing a community-wide service, particularly when each installation is to be fitted to the particular but changing needs of the residents, their in-home carers and the larger healthcare community. This paper presents a home care software architecture and services that seek to address these challenges. The approach aims to generate the information needed in a timely and appropriate form to inform older residents and their carers about changing life style that may indicate a loss of well-being. It unites sensor-based services, home care policy management, resource discovery, multimodal interaction and dynamic configuration services. In this way, the approach offers the integration of a variety of home care services with adaptation to the context of use

A KNOWLEDGE BASED SYSTEM: AN EXPERT DIRECTORY FOR E&P BUSINESS

The purpose of this report is to present the initial proposal of the author's final year project entitled "A Knowledge Based System: Expert Directory for E&P Business". In these present days, knowledge has become a key resource. Many top organizations have changed their way of doing business in the past and develop the foundations of characteristics for success. The birth of knowledge management grew from recognition of the difficulty of dealing with the complexity in finding the right information and dealing with the complexity in achieving the demands of the sophisticated customer. Awareness came to organizations when they started to the realize the value of knowledge and information, followed by searching for the ways to create, store, integrate, share and make available the right knowledge to the right people at the right time. This is allwhat the system is all about, to make it easier for users to find what they need in one system; to cut short the time for finding the needed resource as well as to add efficiency in finishing any projects within organization. The first part, ofthis report will discuss on background study, problem statement, and the objectives and the scope ofthe project. To support the research, a literature review and theory will be included in the picture showing the path ofprior research and how existing studies in various areas are linked to this project. The methodology in completing this project will be based on incremental development and extreme programming. The conclusion summarizes the proposed idea and findings to inform readers on author's current phase on project development

Eliciting Expertise

Since the last edition of this book there have been rapid developments in the use and exploitation of formally elicited knowledge. Previously, (Shadbolt and Burton, 1995) the emphasis was on eliciting knowledge for the purpose of building expert or knowledge-based systems. These systems are computer programs intended to solve real-world problems, achieving the same level of accuracy as human experts. Knowledge engineering is the discipline that has evolved to support the whole process of specifying, developing and deploying knowledge-based systems (Schreiber et al., 2000) This chapter will discuss the problem of knowledge elicitation for knowledge intensive systems in general

Exploring Large Document Repositories with RDF Technology: The DOPE Project

This thesaurus-based search system uses automatic indexing, RDF-based querying, and concept-based visualization of results to support exploration of large online document repositories

A Reference Architecture for Data-Driven and Adaptive Internet-Delivered Psychological Treatment Systems: Software Architecture Development and Validation Study

Background: Internet-delivered psychological treatment (IDPT) systems are software applications that offer psychological treatments via the internet. Such IDPT systems have become one of the most commonly practiced and widely researched forms of psychotherapy. Evidence shows that psychological treatments delivered by IDPT systems can be an effective way of treating mental health morbidities. However, current IDPT systems have high dropout rates and low user adherence. The primary reason is that the current IDPT systems are not flexible, adaptable, and personalized as they follow a fixed tunnel-based treatment architecture. A fixed tunnel-based architecture follows predefined, sequential treatment content for every patient, irrespective of their context, preferences, and needs. Moreover, current IDPT systems have poor interoperability, making it difficult to reuse and share treatment materials. There is a lack of development and documentation standards, conceptual frameworks, and established (clinical) guidelines for such IDPT systems. As a result, several ad hoc forms of IDPT models exist. Consequently, developers and researchers have tended to reinvent new versions of IDPT systems, making them more complex and less interoperable. Objective: This study aimed to design, develop, and evaluate a reference architecture (RA) for adaptive systems that can facilitate the design and development of adaptive, interoperable, and reusable IDPT systems. Methods: This study was conducted in collaboration with a large interdisciplinary project entitled INTROMAT (Introducing Mental Health through Adaptive Technology), which brings together information and communications technology researchers, information and communications technology industries, health researchers, patients, clinicians, and patients’ next of kin to reach its vision. First, we investigated previous studies and state-of-the-art works based on the project’s problem domain and goals. On the basis of the findings from these investigations, we identified 2 primary gaps in current IDPT systems: lack of adaptiveness and limited interoperability. Second, we used model-driven engineering and Domain-Driven Design techniques to design, develop, and validate the RA for building adaptive, interoperable, and reusable IDPT systems to address these gaps. Third, based on the proposed RA, we implemented a prototype as the open-source software. Finally, we evaluated the RA and open-source implementation using empirical (case study) and nonempirical approaches (software architecture analysis method, expert evaluation, and software quality attributes). Results: This paper outlines an RA that supports flexible user modeling and the adaptive delivery of treatments. To evaluate the proposed RA, we developed an open-source software based on the proposed RA. The open-source framework aims to improve development productivity, facilitate interoperability, increase reusability, and expedite communication with domain experts. Conclusions: Our results showed that the proposed RA is flexible and capable of adapting interventions based on patients’ needs, preferences, and context. Furthermore, developers and researchers can extend the proposed RA to various health care interventions.publishedVersio

Forum Session at the First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC03)

The First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC) was held in Trento, December 15-18, 2003. The focus of the conference ---Service Oriented Computing (SOC)--- is the new emerging paradigm for distributed computing and e-business processing that has evolved from object-oriented and component computing to enable building agile networks of collaborating business applications distributed within and across organizational boundaries. Of the 181 papers submitted to the ICSOC conference, 10 were selected for the forum session which took place on December the 16th, 2003. The papers were chosen based on their technical quality, originality, relevance to SOC and for their nature of being best suited for a poster presentation or a demonstration. This technical report contains the 10 papers presented during the forum session at the ICSOC conference. In particular, the last two papers in the report ere submitted as industrial papers