Towards dynamic context discovery and composition

Context-awareness has been identified as a key characteristic for pervasive computing systems. As a variety of context-aware environments begin to flourish, pervasive applications shall have to interact different environments well. In this paper we propose extensions to the Strathclyde Context Infrastructure that gives context-aware applications the potential to adapt to unfamiliar environments transparently. We present a vision of a context discovery technique based on automated semantic reasoning about context information and services. The technique will offer higher levels of scalability and of interoperability with new context environments that cannot be achieved with current methods

Situation determination with distributed context histories

Determining the situation within an environment is a key goal of smart environment research. A significant challenge in situation determination is reasoning about openended groups of people and devices that a smart environment may contain. Contemporary solutions are often tailored to the specific environment. In this position paper, we present a novel general situation determination framework, that by viewing people and tools as playing roles in a situation, can easily adapt recognition to incorporate the dynamic structure of a situation over time

Situation determination with reusable situation specifications

Automatically determining the situation of an ad-hoc group of people and devices within a smart environment is a significant challenge in pervasive computing systems. Current approaches often rely on an environment expert to correlate the situations that occur with the available sensor data, while other machine learning based approaches require long training periods before the system can be used. In both cases, the situations are tailored to the specific environment, and are therefore not transferable to other environments. Furthermore, situations are recognised at a low-level of granularity, which limits the scope of situation-aware applications. This paper presents a novel approach to situation determination that attempts to overcome these issues by providing a reusable library of general situation specications that can be easily extended to create new speficic situations, and immediately deployed without the need of an environment expert. A proposed architecture of an accompanying situation determination middleware is provided, as well as an analysis of a prototype implementation

Towards ad-hoc situation determination

Toolkits such as PlaceLab [1] have been successful in making location information freely available for use in experimental ubiquitous computing applications. As users' expectations of ubiquitous computing applications grow, we envisage a need for tools that can deliver a much richer set of contextual information. The high-level situation of the current environment is a key contextual element, and this position paper focuses on a method to provide this information for an ad-hoc group of people and devices. The contributions of this paper are i) a demonstration of how information retrieval (IR) techniques can be applied to situation determination in context-aware systems, ii) a proposal of a novel approach to situation determination that combines these adapted IR techniques with a process of cooperative interaction, and iii) a report of preliminary results. The approach offers a high level of utility and accuracy, with a greater level of automation than other contemporary approaches

A self-managing infrastructure for ad-hoc situation determination

Automatically determining the situation of an ad-hoc group of people and devices within a smart environment is a significant challenge in pervasive computing systems. Current approaches often rely on an environment expert to correlate the situations that occur with the available sensor data, while other machine learning based approaches require long training periods before the system can be used. This paper presents a novel approach to situation determination that attempts to overcome these issues by providing a reusable library of general situation specifications that can be easily extended to create new specific situations, and immediately deployed without the need of an environment expert. The architecture of an accompanying situation determination infrastructure is provided, which autonomously optimises and repairs itself in reaction to changes or failures in the environment

Sensitivity-analysis method for inverse simulation application

An important criticism of traditional methods of inverse simulation that are based on the Newton–Raphson algorithm is that they suffer from numerical problems. In this paper these problems are discussed and a new method based on sensitivity-analysis theory is developed and evaluated. The Jacobian matrix may be calculated by solving a sensitivity equation and this has advantages over the approximation methods that are usually applied when the derivatives of output variables with respect to inputs cannot be found analytically. The methodology also overcomes problems of input-output redundancy that arise in the traditional approaches to inverse simulation. The sensitivity- analysis approach makes full use of information within the time interval over which key quantities are compared, such as the difference between calculated values and the given ideal maneuver after each integration step. Applications to nonlinear HS125 aircraft and Lynx helicopter models show that, for this sensitivity-analysis method, more stable and accurate results are obtained than from use of the traditional Newton–Raphson approach

Incentives for breastfeeding and for smoking cessation in pregnancy: An exploration of types and meanings

Financial or tangible incentives are a strategy for improving health behaviours. The mechanisms of action of incentives are complex and debated. Using a multidisciplinary integrated mixed methods study, with service-user collaboration throughout, we developed a typology of incentives and their meanings for initiating and sustaining smoking cessation in pregnancy and breastfeeding. The ultimate aim was to inform incentive intervention design by providing insights into incentive acceptability and mechanisms of action. Systematic evidence syntheses of incentive intervention studies for smoking cessation in pregnancy or breastfeeding identified incentive characteristics, which were developed into initial categories. Little published qualitative data on user perspectives and acceptability was available. Qualitative interviews and focus groups conducted in three UK regions with a diverse socio-demographic sample of 88 women and significant others from the target population, 53 service providers, 24 experts/decision makers, and conference attendees identified new potential incentives and providers, with and without experience of incentives. Identified incentives (published and emergent) were classified into eight categories: cash and shopping vouchers, maternal wellbeing, baby and pregnancy-related, behaviour-related, health-related, general utility, awards and certificates, and experiences. A typology was refined iteratively through concurrent data collection and thematic analysis to explore participants' understandings of ‘incentives’ and to compare and contrast meanings across types. Our typology can be understood in three dimensions: the degree of restriction, the extent to which each is hedonic and/or utilitarian, and whether each has solely monetary value versus monetary with added social value. The layers of autonomy, meanings and the social value of incentive types influence their acceptability and interact with structural, social, and personal factors. Dimensions of incentive meaning that go beyond the simple incentive description should inform incentive programme design and are likely to influence outcomes

Doctrine of man in the Qur'an

Chapter 1. The Creation of Man • Chapter 2. Man and Divine Providence in the Natural Order • Chapter 3. The Media of Man's Response: (a) To the World (b) To God • The Spirit (rüh) of Man • The Heart (qalb, sadr, fü'äd) of Man • The Self (nafs) iñ Man • Chapter 4. Man's Moral Problem: Sin as Error. Its Nature. i) Daläl ii) Khatî' ah iii) Dhanb iv) Ithm v) Fujür vi) Fahshá vii) Sa`ä viii) Jaram ix) M`sî'yah x) `adäwah Chapter 5. Man's Moral Problem: Sin as Error. Its Manifestation. a) Man as Mushrik b) Man as Mukadhdhib c) Man as Käfir • Chapter 6. God's Demands upon Man a) Imän b) Isläm c) Tawbah d) Ittikäl e) Taqwä f) Khawf • Chapter 7. Man's Response to God's Demands: ad-Dî'n. i) Shahädah ii) Sawm iii) Hajj iv) Za'tät v) Salät vi) Sunnah • Chapter 8. Man and the Last Things i) Death ii) The Intermediate State iii) Resurrection iv) Judgment v) The Fate of the Dällün vi) The Fate of the Muhtadü

Atmospheric response to SST anomalies. Part 1: Background-state dependence, teleconnections and local effects in winter

This is the final version. Available from American Meteorological Society via the DOI in this recordThe atmospheric response to SST anomalies is notoriously difficult to simulate and may be sensitive to model details and biases, particularly in midlatitudes. Studies have suggested that the response is particularly sensitive to a model’s background wind field and its variability. The dependence on such factors has meant that it is difficult to know what responses, if any, are robust, and whether the system itself is sensitive or whether models themselves are failing. Our goal in this work is to better understand the geographical and seasonal dependence of the atmospheric response to SST anomalies, with particular attention to the role of the background state. We examine the response of an idealized atmospheric model to SST anomalies using two slightly different configurations of continents and topography. These configurations give rise to different background wind fields and variability within the same season, and therefore give a measure of how robust a response is to small changes in the background-state. We find that many of the midlatitude SST anomalies considered do not produce responses that are common across our model configurations, confirming that this problem is very sensitive to the background state. Local responses in the tropics, however, are much more robust. Some of the basic-state dependence seen in midlatitudes appears to be related to the structure of both the model’s modes of internal variability and the stationary-wave field. In addition, midlatitude responses involving a significant amount of vertical temperature advection produce larger-scale responses, consistent with recent studies of atmospheric responses near strong western-boundary currents.SIT is supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (grant number NE/M006123/1), and GKV acknowledges support from the Royal Society (Wolfson Foundation), the Leverhulme Trust and the Newton Fund

Tablet computers in assessing performance in a high stakes exam : opinion matters

The authors would like to thank Dr Craig brown, University of Aberdeen for assistance with data analysis.Peer reviewedPublisher PD