Web-based monitoring of an automated fertigation system: An IoT application

Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging system that incorporates many technologies from different areas. In this paper, we present the implementation of IoT in an agriculture industry, particularly in monitoring an automated fertigation system. The monitoring system comprises a web-based system, an automatic fertigation system and a communication network. The main focus of this paper is on the web-based system where the data from the SQLite database is used in the web-GUI to display parameters such as the status of water level, the flow condition of valves and pipes as well as the overall operation of automated fertigation system. The paper also described on how farmers can access the website, set fertigation schedule and determine fertilizer’s formulation. Different from others, this system is equipped with emergency mode to stop the fertigation system which can be controlled directly from the website. Our method uses a microprocessor to handle the databases, web-GUI and control communications between the fertigation system and the web-based system. This system will ease farmers in managing their automated fertigation system virtually using their mobile device

A taxonomy of interactions in socio-technical systems: A functional perspective

Although the modelling of interactions has long been at the core of socio-technical systems theory, and is a key for understanding resilience, there is a lack of a holistic taxonomy of interactions. This study introduces a taxonomy of interactions to be used in association with the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM). The taxonomy has nine criteria: nature of agents, output nature, levelling, waiting time, distance, degree of coupling, visibility, safety and/or security hazards, and parallel replications. For each criterion, two descriptors are proposed: what the interaction looks like; and - when applicable - the variability level of the interaction. The use of the taxonomy is presented for three systems with clearly distinct complexity characteristics: cash withdrawal from an ATM, teaching a university course, and manufacturing operations. These case studies indicate the usefulness of the taxonomy for the identification of leverage points in work system design. They also show the value of modelling the variability of the interactions in FRAM models, in addition to the traditional modelling of the variability of the outputs of functions. Implications of the taxonomy for resilience engineering are discussed

Pinsight: A Novel Way of Creating and Sharing Digital Content through 'Things' in the Wild

Existing platforms for sharing locative digital content rely on the use of mobile phones for accessing the content. This can be a major deterrent to wider public access and also hinders immediacy and 'in the moment' discoverability. Building on previous work in situated public installations, we developed Pinsight, a novel platform for enabling end-users, such as local communities, to create and share digital content in-situ with public audiences through physical interactive devices. Pinsight is based on a set of design principles that focus on supporting both the expressiveness of content creators and the appeal to public audiences. This paper describes the design of the platform and how it supports sharing knowledge in ways different to conventional media. Through preliminary evaluations and two in-the-wild studies, we explore how such a situated technology can be used by different user groups (content designers, history communities, local residents) for sharing content with public audiences (visitors, pedestrians, residents) in different contexts

Using tablet devices to control complex home appliances

Internet of things has made connected devices and appliances widely available and tablet devices are common household items. This study focuses on technical user interface design challenges and requirements for user interface design of controlling complex home appliances with tablet devices. There is a literature review about available controlling technologies and usability heuristics related to tablet and mobile devices. An Android test application was created and tested with four test users to find out how well those heuristics work and are covered. That application was tested against the regular user interface of a dishwasher and task completion times and errors were noted down. Test users were asked to answer a questionnaire regarding the heuristics and how well the implementation performed. Tablet devices should be evaluated using regular usability heuristics, but besides them they require mobile specific heuristics, such as easy of input, screen readability and glancability, physical interaction and ergonomics and privacy and social convention taken into account. The results showed that a tablet user interface was able to outperform its regular counterpart in task completion times and in number of errors. The implementation also covered those heuristics in a more comprehensive way. But among test persons the most benefit was with users who were familiar with tablets and not with dishwashers. A test user who wasn t familiar with tablets but was with dishwashers performed tasks faster and with fewer errors with regular user interface. In conclusion a tablet user interface enabled users who were familiar with tablets to perform tasks faster and with less errors. Those users were also more satisfied with a tablet user interface than a regular one. On the other hand a test user with little experience of tablets and familiarity with dishwashers was able to perform tasks faster an with less errors with the regular user interface. A tablet user interface was able to offer extra benefits and efficiency to users, but regular user interface should be also available to satisfy users who are not familiar with mobile devices

Culture-centred integration of ICT in Southeast Asia secondary schools

V. Sithira studied cultural integration with educational tools for Southeast Asian secondary schools. She found that culture-based learning has more to do with the design of ICT. She investigated the cultural presence in Southeast Asia and proposed new cultural activity metaphors and cultural theme metaphors in ICT to improve learning experience. She proposed new Cultural Motivational Elements of ICT guidelines for ICT developers that can significantly improve education with technology in Southeast Asia

Ami-deu : un cadre sémantique pour des applications adaptables dans des environnements intelligents

Cette thèse vise à étendre l’utilisation de l'Internet des objets (IdO) en facilitant le développement d’applications par des personnes non experts en développement logiciel. La thèse propose une nouvelle approche pour augmenter la sémantique des applications d’IdO et l’implication des experts du domaine dans le développement d’applications sensibles au contexte. Notre approche permet de gérer le contexte changeant de l’environnement et de générer des applications qui s’exécutent dans plusieurs environnements intelligents pour fournir des actions requises dans divers contextes. Notre approche est mise en œuvre dans un cadriciel (AmI-DEU) qui inclut les composants pour le développement d’applications IdO. AmI-DEU intègre les services d’environnement, favorise l’interaction de l’utilisateur et fournit les moyens de représenter le domaine d’application, le profil de l’utilisateur et les intentions de l’utilisateur. Le cadriciel permet la définition d’applications IoT avec une intention d’activité autodécrite qui contient les connaissances requises pour réaliser l’activité. Ensuite, le cadriciel génère Intention as a Context (IaaC), qui comprend une intention d’activité autodécrite avec des connaissances colligées à évaluer pour une meilleure adaptation dans des environnements intelligents. La sémantique de l’AmI-DEU est basée sur celle du ContextAA (Context-Aware Agents) – une plateforme pour fournir une connaissance du contexte dans plusieurs environnements. Le cadriciel effectue une compilation des connaissances par des règles et l'appariement sémantique pour produire des applications IdO autonomes capables de s’exécuter en ContextAA. AmI- DEU inclut également un outil de développement visuel pour le développement et le déploiement rapide d'applications sur ContextAA. L'interface graphique d’AmI-DEU adopte la métaphore du flux avec des aides visuelles pour simplifier le développement d'applications en permettant des définitions de règles étape par étape. Dans le cadre de l’expérimentation, AmI-DEU comprend un banc d’essai pour le développement d’applications IdO. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent une optimisation sémantique potentielle des ressources pour les applications IoT dynamiques dans les maisons intelligentes et les villes intelligentes. Notre approche favorise l'adoption de la technologie pour améliorer le bienêtre et la qualité de vie des personnes. Cette thèse se termine par des orientations de recherche que le cadriciel AmI-DEU dévoile pour réaliser des environnements intelligents omniprésents fournissant des adaptations appropriées pour soutenir les intentions des personnes.Abstract: This thesis aims at expanding the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) by facilitating the development of applications by people who are not experts in software development. The thesis proposes a new approach to augment IoT applications’ semantics and domain expert involvement in context-aware application development. Our approach enables us to manage the changing environment context and generate applications that run in multiple smart environments to provide required actions in diverse settings. Our approach is implemented in a framework (AmI-DEU) that includes the components for IoT application development. AmI- DEU integrates environment services, promotes end-user interaction, and provides the means to represent the application domain, end-user profile, and end-user intentions. The framework enables the definition of IoT applications with a self-described activity intention that contains the required knowledge to achieve the activity. Then, the framework generates Intention as a Context (IaaC), which includes a self-described activity intention with compiled knowledge to be assessed for augmented adaptations in smart environments. AmI-DEU framework semantics adopts ContextAA (Context-Aware Agents) – a platform to provide context-awareness in multiple environments. The framework performs a knowledge compilation by rules and semantic matching to produce autonomic IoT applications to run in ContextAA. AmI-DEU also includes a visual tool for quick application development and deployment to ContextAA. The AmI-DEU GUI adopts the flow metaphor with visual aids to simplify developing applications by allowing step-by-step rule definitions. As part of the experimentation, AmI-DEU includes a testbed for IoT application development. Experimental results show a potential semantic optimization for dynamic IoT applications in smart homes and smart cities. Our approach promotes technology adoption to improve people’s well-being and quality of life. This thesis concludes with research directions that the AmI-DEU framework uncovers to achieve pervasive smart environments providing suitable adaptations to support people’s intentions

A human centric approach to the Internet of things

This research focuses on human interaction with the IoT, not only from the perspective of the user, but also considering the requirements that smart objects should meet to support human activities. It analyses how the IoT was originally conceived from a technology and data driven approach, and why there is a need to provide an IoT framework that considers humans’ tasks and goals. As such, the nature of the actions and interactions found in a human-based IoT are discussed in the context of social-like collaborations, where actors are in pursue of a common goal. This thesis reframes Human-IoT interaction as a social, collaborative system, described in terms of its capacity to support the activities of the involved social actors in pursuit of a common goal. A structure is proposed to describe the nature of these interactions, and a methodology to model user behaviour based on the tasks and goals supporting a theme is proposed. The methodology is used to analyse the requirements of a domestic IoT system, leading to the implementation of a demonstrator system, and a study to validate the method. This research posits that user experience should inform IoT system design to prevent misunderstanding of its purpose