Preface to MDSE4AmI 2007

The implementation of AmI applications is a task of tremendous complexity requiring the seamless integration of heterogeneous systems in an open and flexible way while providing the means for adaptivity and context-awareness. Ubiquitous devices have to cooperate to realize smart environments, multimodal user interfaces have to adapt to the available modalities for interaction and context information has to be taken into account. Therefore, new engineering approaches are needed in order to facilitate efficient design, development and deployment of AmI applications