8,321 research outputs found

    User-Centric Adaptive Access Control and Resource Configuration for Ubiquitous Computing Environments

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    Provision of adaptive access control is key to allowing users harness the full potential of ubiquitous computing environments. In this paper, we introduce the M-Zones Access Control (MAC) process, which provides user-centric attribute-based access control, together with automatic reconfiguration of resources in response to the changes in the set of users physically present in the environment. User control is realised via user-specified policies, which are analysed in tandem with system policies and policies of other users, whenever events occur that require policy decisions and associated configuration operations. In such a system users' policies may habitually conflict with system policies, or indeed other users' policies; thus, policy conflict detection and resolution is a critical issue. To address this we describe a conflict detection/resolution method based on a policy precedence scheme. To illustrate the operation of the MAC process and its conflict detection/resolution method, we discuss its realisation in a test bed emulating an office-based ubiquitous computing environment

    A Role-Based Approach for Orchestrating Emergent Configurations in the Internet of Things

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    The Internet of Things (IoT) is envisioned as a global network of connected things enabling ubiquitous machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. With estimations of billions of sensors and devices to be connected in the coming years, the IoT has been advocated as having a great potential to impact the way we live, but also how we work. However, the connectivity aspect in itself only accounts for the underlying M2M infrastructure. In order to properly support engineering IoT systems and applications, it is key to orchestrate heterogeneous 'things' in a seamless, adaptive and dynamic manner, such that the system can exhibit a goal-directed behaviour and take appropriate actions. Yet, this form of interaction between things needs to take a user-centric approach and by no means elude the users' requirements. To this end, contextualisation is an important feature of the system, allowing it to infer user activities and prompt the user with relevant information and interactions even in the absence of intentional commands. In this work we propose a role-based model for emergent configurations of connected systems as a means to model, manage, and reason about IoT systems including the user's interaction with them. We put a special focus on integrating the user perspective in order to guide the emergent configurations such that systems goals are aligned with the users' intentions. We discuss related scientific and technical challenges and provide several uses cases outlining the concept of emergent configurations.Comment: In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on the Internet of Agents @AAMAS201

    Quality assessment technique for ubiquitous software and middleware

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    The new paradigm of computing or information systems is ubiquitous computing systems. The technology-oriented issues of ubiquitous computing systems have made researchers pay much attention to the feasibility study of the technologies rather than building quality assurance indices or guidelines. In this context, measuring quality is the key to developing high-quality ubiquitous computing products. For this reason, various quality models have been defined, adopted and enhanced over the years, for example, the need for one recognised standard quality model (ISO/IEC 9126) is the result of a consensus for a software quality model on three levels: characteristics, sub-characteristics, and metrics. However, it is very much unlikely that this scheme will be directly applicable to ubiquitous computing environments which are considerably different to conventional software, trailing a big concern which is being given to reformulate existing methods, and especially to elaborate new assessment techniques for ubiquitous computing environments. This paper selects appropriate quality characteristics for the ubiquitous computing environment, which can be used as the quality target for both ubiquitous computing product evaluation processes ad development processes. Further, each of the quality characteristics has been expanded with evaluation questions and metrics, in some cases with measures. In addition, this quality model has been applied to the industrial setting of the ubiquitous computing environment. These have revealed that while the approach was sound, there are some parts to be more developed in the future

    Robotic ubiquitous cognitive ecology for smart homes

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    Robotic ecologies are networks of heterogeneous robotic devices pervasively embedded in everyday environments, where they cooperate to perform complex tasks. While their potential makes them increasingly popular, one fundamental problem is how to make them both autonomous and adaptive, so as to reduce the amount of preparation, pre-programming and human supervision that they require in real world applications. The project RUBICON develops learning solutions which yield cheaper, adaptive and efficient coordination of robotic ecologies. The approach we pursue builds upon a unique combination of methods from cognitive robotics, machine learning, planning and agent- based control, and wireless sensor networks. This paper illustrates the innovations advanced by RUBICON in each of these fronts before describing how the resulting techniques have been integrated and applied to a smart home scenario. The resulting system is able to provide useful services and pro-actively assist the users in their activities. RUBICON learns through an incremental and progressive approach driven by the feed- back received from its own activities and from the user, while also self-organizing the manner in which it uses available sensors, actuators and other functional components in the process. This paper summarises some of the lessons learned by adopting such an approach and outlines promising directions for future work

    Management and Service-aware Networking Architectures (MANA) for Future Internet Position Paper: System Functions, Capabilities and Requirements

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    Future Internet (FI) research and development threads have recently been gaining momentum all over the world and as such the international race to create a new generation Internet is in full swing: GENI, Asia Future Internet, Future Internet Forum Korea, European Union Future Internet Assembly (FIA). This is a position paper identifying the research orientation with a time horizon of 10 years, together with the key challenges for the capabilities in the Management and Service-aware Networking Architectures (MANA) part of the Future Internet (FI) allowing for parallel and federated Internet(s)

    Improving perceptual multimedia quality with an adaptable communication protocol

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    Copyrights @ 2005 University Computing Centre ZagrebInnovations and developments in networking technology have been driven by technical considerations with little analysis of the benefit to the user. In this paper we argue that network parameters that define the network Quality of Service (QoS) must be driven by user-centric parameters such as user expectations and requirements for multimedia transmitted over a network. To this end a mechanism for mapping user-oriented parameters to network QoS parameters is outlined. The paper surveys existing methods for mapping user requirements to the network. An adaptable communication system is implemented to validate the mapping. The architecture adapts to varying network conditions caused by congestion so as to maintain user expectations and requirements. The paper also surveys research in the area of adaptable communications architectures and protocols. Our results show that such a user-biased approach to networking does bring tangible benefits to the user
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