Logic-centred architecture for ubiquitous health monitoring

One of the key points to maintain and boost research and development in the area of smart wearable systems (SWS) is the development of integrated architectures for intelligent services, as well as wearable systems and devices for health and wellness management. This paper presents such a generic architecture for\ud multiparametric, intelligent and ubiquitous wireless sensing platforms. It is a transparent, smartphone-based sensing framework\ud with customizable wireless interfaces and plug‘n’play capability to easily interconnect third party sensor devices. It caters to wireless\ud body, personal, and near-me area networks. A pivotal part of the platform is the integrated inference engine/runtime environment\ud that allows the mobile device to serve as a user-adaptable personal health assistant. The novelty of this system lays in a rapid visual\ud development and remote deployment model. The complementary visual InferenceEngineEditor that comes with the package enables\ud artificial intelligence specialists, alongside with medical experts, to build data processing models by assembling different components\ud and instantly deploying them (remotely) on patient mobile devices. In this paper, the new logic-centered software architecture for ubiquitous health monitoring applications is described, followed by a\ud discussion as to how it helps to shift focus from software and hardware development, to medical and health process-centered design of new SWS applications

Context Aware Computing for The Internet of Things: A Survey

As we are moving towards the Internet of Things (IoT), the number of sensors deployed around the world is growing at a rapid pace. Market research has shown a significant growth of sensor deployments over the past decade and has predicted a significant increment of the growth rate in the future. These sensors continuously generate enormous amounts of data. However, in order to add value to raw sensor data we need to understand it. Collection, modelling, reasoning, and distribution of context in relation to sensor data plays critical role in this challenge. Context-aware computing has proven to be successful in understanding sensor data. In this paper, we survey context awareness from an IoT perspective. We present the necessary background by introducing the IoT paradigm and context-aware fundamentals at the beginning. Then we provide an in-depth analysis of context life cycle. We evaluate a subset of projects (50) which represent the majority of research and commercial solutions proposed in the field of context-aware computing conducted over the last decade (2001-2011) based on our own taxonomy. Finally, based on our evaluation, we highlight the lessons to be learnt from the past and some possible directions for future research. The survey addresses a broad range of techniques, methods, models, functionalities, systems, applications, and middleware solutions related to context awareness and IoT. Our goal is not only to analyse, compare and consolidate past research work but also to appreciate their findings and discuss their applicability towards the IoT.Comment: IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials Journal, 201

ENRICHING WSN ENVIRONMENT WITH CONTEXT INFORMATION

Currently the Internet of Things environment suffer from a variety of uniqueproblems such as low throughput, inadequate support for mobility and notcompatible(and often close) application environments. However, characteristicof physical environment often provides opportunities to address these problems.This paper explores concepts of enriching the WNS environment withcontext-based information. By context we consider all data available in sensorsenvironment, not only data processed by them. Currently this data are not utilizedby sensors, but we think that they can improve overall functionality of thesensor network. We also discuss the practical challenges facing the integrationof such an approach into the sensor application stack

GOSSIPKIT: A Unified Component Framework for Gossip

International audienceAlthough the principles of gossip protocols are relatively easy to grasp, their variety can make their design and evaluation highly time consuming. This problem is compounded by the lack of a unified programming framework for gossip, which means developers cannot easily reuse, compose, or adapt existing solutions to fit their needs, and have limited opportunities to share knowledge and ideas. In this paper, we consider how component frameworks, which have been widely applied to implement middleware solutions, can facilitate the development of gossip-based systems in a way that is both generic and simple. We show how such an approach can maximise code reuse, simplify the implementation of gossip protocols, and facilitate dynamic evolution and re-deployment

Modeling Adaptive Middleware and Its Applications to Military Tactical Datalinks

Open systems solutions and techniques have become the de facto standard for achieving interoperability between disparate, large-scale, legacy software systems. A key technology among open systems solutions and techniques is middleware. Middleware, in general, is used to isolate applications from dependencies introduced by hardware, operating systems, and other low-level aspects of system architectures. While middleware approaches are or will be integrated into operational military systems, many open questions exist about the appropriate areas to applying middleware. Adaptive middleware is middleware that provides an application with a run-time adaptation strategy, based upon system-level interfaces and properties. Adaptive middleware is an example of an active applied research area. Adaptive middleware is being developed and applied to meet the ever-increasing challenges set forth by the next generation of mission-critical distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems. The driving force behind many next-generation DRE systems is the establishment of QoS requirements typically associated with workloads that vary dynamically. The Weapon System Open Architecture (WSOA), an adaptive middleware platform developed by Boeing, is modeled as a part of this research to determine the scalability of the architecture. The WSOA adaptive middleware was previously flight-tested with one tactical node, and the test results represent the performance baseline the architecture. The WSOA adaptive middleware is modeled with 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 tactical nodes. The results of the modeling and simulation is that the WSOA adaptive middleware can achieve the performance baseline achieved during the original flight-test, in the cases of 1, 2, and 4 tactical nodes. In addition, the results of the modeling and simulation also demonstrate that the WSOA adaptive middleware cannot achiev

A framework for abstraction and virtualization of sensors in mobile context-aware computing

110 p.[EN] The latest mobile devices available nowadays are leading to the development of a new generation of mobile applications that are able to react to context. Context- awareness requires data from the environment, usually collected by means of sensors embedded in mobile devices or connected to them through wireless networks. Developers of mobile applications are faced with several challenges when it comes to the creation of context-aware applications. Sensor and device heterogeneity stand out among these challenges. In order to assist designers, we propose a layered conceptual framework for sensor abstraction and virtualization, called Igerri. Its main objective is to facilitate the development of context-aware applications independently of the specific sensors available in the user environment. To avoid the need to directly manage physical sensors, a layered structure of virtual and abstract sensors is conceived. Two software components, based on the proposed framework, have been designed in order to test Igerris robustness. The first one processes the information from the successive sensor layers and generates high-level context information. The second is responsible for managing network aspects and real time settings. This implementation has been tested using a representative context-aware application in different scenarios. The results obtained show that the implementation, and therefore the conceptual framework, is suitable for dealing with context information and hiding sensor programming.[EU] Gaur egungo gailu mugikor puntakoenek inguruneari erantzuteko gai diren aplikazio mugikorren garapenean oinarritzen dira. Testuingurua nabaritzeko ingurunearen informazioa behar da, zeina gailu mugikorretan txertatutako sentsoreen edo haririk gabeko sareen bitartez biltzen den. Aplikazio mugikorren garatzaileek erronka askori aurre egin behar izaten diete testuingurua kontuan hartzen duten aplikazioak garatzerakoan. Erronka na- gusien artean, sentsoreen eta gailuen heterogeneotasuna izaten dira. Garatzaileei laguntzeko asmoz, Igerri izeneko sentsoreen abstrakzio eta birtualizaziorako marko kontzeptual bat proposatzen dugu. Bere helburu nagusia, testuinguruaren aplikazio hautemangarrien garapena erraztea da, erabiltzailearen ingurunean dauden sentsore espezifikoak edozein direla ere. Sentsore fisikoak zuzenean ma- nipulatu behar izatea saihesteko, sentsore birtual eta abstraktuen egitura bat asmatu da. Igerri-ren sendotasuna egiaztatzeko, proposatutako markoan oinarritutako bi software osagai diseinatu dira. Lehenak, sentsore geruzen informazio geruzak prozesatu eta maila altuko testuinguru informazioa ematen du. Bigarrenak, sare aukerak kudeatu eta sentsoreen konfigurazioa denbora errealean burutzen ditu. Inplementazio hau testuingurua hautemateko gai eta adierazgarria den aplikazio batekin egoera desberdinetan frogatu da. Lortutako emaitzek erakusten dute inplementazioa, eta ondorioz marko kontzeptuala ere, aproposa dela testuinguruaren informazioa erabiltzeko eta sentsoreen programazioa ezkutatzeko.[ES] Los dispositivos móviles disponibles en la actualidad facilitan el desarrollo de una nueva generación de aplicaciones móviles que son capaces de reaccionar al contexto. La computación sensible al contexto requiere datos del entorno que normalmente se obtienen por medio de sensores embebidos en dispositivos móviles o conectados a ellos a través de redes inalámbricas. Los desarrolladores de aplicaciones móviles se enfrentan a varios retos para crear aplicaciones sensibles al contexto. Entre estos retos destaca la necesidad de tratar la heterogeneidad de los sensores y de los dispositivos móviles. Con el fin de ayudar a los desarrolladores, esta tesis propone un marco conceptual para la abstracción multinivel y la virtualización de sensores, llamado Igerri. Su principal objetivo es facilitar el desarrollo de aplicaciones sensibles al contexto independientemente de los sensores específicos que se encuentren en el entorno. Para evitar la necesidad de manipular directamente los sensores físicos, se ha concebido una estructura multinivel de sensores virtuales y abstractos. Se han diseñado dos componentes software basados en el marco propuesto para comprobar la robustez de Igerri. El primero procesa la información de la estructura multinivel de sensores y genera información de contexto de alto nivel. El segundo es responsable de administrar, en tiempo real, las opciones de red y la configuración de los sensores. Esta implementación ha sido probada en diferentes escenarios usando una aplicación representativa y sensible al contexto. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que la implementación, y por tanto el marco conceptual que le da soporte, es adecuada para tratar la información de contexto y ocultar los problemas de programación de los sensores.Borja Gamecho held a PhD scholarship from the Research Staff Training Programme of the Basque Government from 2011 to 2014. This work also has been supported by the Department of Education, Universities and Research of the Basque Government under Grant IT395-10, by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government and by the European Regional Development Fund (project TIN2014-52665-C2-1)