Easing software development for pervasive computing environments

textIn recent years pervasive computing has enjoyed an amazing growth in both research and commercial fields. Not only have the number of available techniques and tools expanded, but the number of actual deployments has been underwhelming. With this growth however, we are also experiencing a divergence of software interfaces, languages, and techniques. This leads to an understandably confusing landscape which needlessly burdens the development of applications. It is our sincere hope that through the use of specialized interfaces, languages, and tools, we can make pervasive computing environments more approachable and efficient to software developers and thereby increase the utility and value of pervasive computing applications. In this dissertation, we present a new method for creating and managing the long-term conversations between peers in pervasive computing environments. The Application Sessions Model formally describes these conversations and specifies techniques for managing them over their lifetimes. In addition to these descriptions, this dissertation presents a prototype implementation of the model and results from its use for realistic scenarios. To address the Application Sessions Model's unique needs for resource discovery in pervasive computing environments, we also present the Evolving Tuples Model. This model is also formally defined in this dissertation and practical examples are used to clarify its features. A prototype for both sensor hardware and software simulation of this model is described along with results characterizing the behavior of the model. The models, prototypes, and evaluations of both models presented here form the basis of a new and interesting line of research into support structures for pervasive computing application development.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Technology inspired design for pervasive healthcare

Pervasive healthcare technologies are increasingly using novel sensory devices that are able to measure phenomena that could not be measured before. To develop novel healthcare applications that use these largely untested technologies, it is important to have a design process that allows proper exploration of the capabilities of the novel technologies. We focus on the technology-inspired design process that was used in the development of a system to support posture and provide guidance by nudging people, and how this has lead us to explore pervasive healthcare applications

Count three for wear able computers

This paper is a postprint of a paper submitted to and accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the IEE Eurowearable 2003 Conference, and is subject to Institution of Engineering and Technology Copyright. The copy of record is available at the IET Digital Library. A revised version of this paper was also published in Electronics Systems and Software, also subject to Institution of Engineering and Technology Copyright. The copy of record is also available at the IET Digital Library.A description of 'ubiquitous computer' is presented. Ubiquitous computers imply portable computers embedded into everyday objects, which would replace personal computers. Ubiquitous computers can be mapped into a three-tier scheme, differentiated by processor performance and flexibility of function. The power consumption of mobile devices is one of the most important design considerations. The size of a wearable system is often a design limitation

Appliance design for pervasive computing

The First International Conference on Appliance Design offered the opportunity for computer scientists, electronic engineers, designers, architects, and business strategists to discuss and to blend all the perspectives of design—physical, functional, interaction, graphical, and information—of pervasive computing systems and infrastructures

Leveraging the Grid to Provide a Global Platform for Ubiquitous Computing Research

The requirement for distributed systems support for Ubicomp has led to the development of numerous platforms, each addressing a subset of the overall requirements of ubiquitous systems. In contrast, many other scientific disciplines have embraced the vision of a global distributed computing platform, i.e. the Grid. We believe that the Grid has the potential to evolve into an ideal platform for building ubiquitous computing applications. In this paper we explore in detail the areas of synergy between Grid computing and ubiquitous computing and highlight a series of research challenges in this space

Adaptive probability scheme for behaviour monitoring of the elderly using a specialised ambient device

A Hidden Markov Model (HMM) modified to work in combination with a Fuzzy System is utilised to determine the current behavioural state of the user from information obtained with specialised hardware. Due to the high dimensionality and not-linearly-separable nature of the Fuzzy System and the sensor data obtained with the hardware which informs the state decision, a new method is devised to update the HMM and replace the initial Fuzzy System such that subsequent state decisions are based on the most recent information. The resultant system first reduces the dimensionality of the original information by using a manifold representation in the high dimension which is unfolded in the lower dimension. The data is then linearly separable in the lower dimension where a simple linear classifier, such as the perceptron used here, is applied to determine the probability of the observations belonging to a state. Experiments using the new system verify its applicability in a real scenario

An intelligent information forwarder for healthcare big data systems with distributed wearable sensors

© 2016 IEEE. An increasing number of the elderly population wish to live an independent lifestyle, rather than rely on intrusive care programmes. A big data solution is presented using wearable sensors capable of carrying out continuous monitoring of the elderly, alerting the relevant caregivers when necessary and forwarding pertinent information to a big data system for analysis. A challenge for such a solution is the development of context-awareness through the multidimensional, dynamic and nonlinear sensor readings that have a weak correlation with observable human behaviours and health conditions. To address this challenge, a wearable sensor system with an intelligent data forwarder is discussed in this paper. The forwarder adopts a Hidden Markov Model for human behaviour recognition. Locality sensitive hashing is proposed as an efficient mechanism to learn sensor patterns. A prototype solution is implemented to monitor health conditions of dispersed users. It is shown that the intelligent forwarders can provide the remote sensors with context-awareness. They transmit only important information to the big data server for analytics when certain behaviours happen and avoid overwhelming communication and data storage. The system functions unobtrusively, whilst giving the users peace of mind in the knowledge that their safety is being monitored and analysed

Canine-centered interface design: supporting the work of diabetes alert dogs

Many people with Diabetes live with the continuous threat of hypoglycaemic attacks and the danger of going into coma. Diabetic Alert Dogs are trained to detect the onset of an attack before the human handler they are paired with deteriorates, giving them time to take action. We investigated requirements for designing an alert system allowing dogs to remotely call for help when their human falls unconscious before being able to react to an alert. Through a multispecies ethnographic approach we focus on teasing out the requirements for a physical canine user interface, involving both dogs, their handlers and trainers in the design. We discuss tensions between the requirements for the canine and the human users, argue the need for increased sensitivity towards the needs of individual dogs that goes beyond breed specific physical characteristics and reflect on how we can move from designing for dogs to designing with dogs