Providing ambient media services in the pervasive environments is a challenging issue. This is due to the fact that users have different satisfaction level in using different media services in varying contexts. We address this issue by proposing a gain-based media service selection mechanism. Gain refers to the extent a media service is satisfying to a user in a particular context. In our proposed mechanism, the gain is dynamically computed by adopting a user-centered approach that includes user's context, profile, interaction history, and the reputation of a service. The dynamically computed gain is used in conjunction with the cost of using a service (e.g. media subscription and energy consumption cost) to derive our service selection mechanism. We adopt a combination of greedy and dynamic programming based solution to obtain a set of services that would maximize the user's overall gain in the ambient environment by minimizing the cost constraint. Experimental results demonstrate the potential of this approach.

Gain-based selection of ambient media services in pervasive environments

“Ambient Intelligence (AmI)” is a rapidly growing multi-disciplinary field allowing many areas of research to converge towards having a real beneficial influence in our society. The basic idea behind AmI is that by enriching an environment with technology (sensors, processors, actuators, information terminals, and other devices interconnected through a network), a system can be built such that based on the real-time information gathered and the historical data accumulated, decisions can be taken to benefit the users of that environment. AmI can be succinctly defined as “A digital environment that proactively, but sensibly, assists people in their daily lives” [2]. AmI is aligned with the concept of the disappearing computer: “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it”, wrote Mark Weiser, one of the founders of the ubiquitous computing field [14,15]. Technology available today is rich. Several artifacts and items in a house can be enriched with sensors to gather information about their use and in some cases even to act independently without human intervention. Some examples of such devices are electro-domestic appliances (e.g., cooker and fridge), household items (e.g., taps, bed and sofa) and temperature handling devices (e.g., air conditioning and radiators). Expected benefits of this technology can be: (a) increasing safety (e.g., by monitoring lifestyle patterns or the latest activities and providing assistance when a possibly harmful situation is developing), (b) comfort (e.g., by adjusting temperature automatically), and (c) economy (e.g., controlling the use of lights). This abundance of technology has given place to the new notion of “Smart Environments (SmE)”, which refers to environments that sense, perceive, interpret, project, react to, and anticipate the events of interest and offer services to users accordingly. Areas of application extend from homes to offices, shopping malls, factories, roadways, and to novel applications in multimedia and gaming. Although Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments are strongly related, we can distinguish them by going back to the old “mind/brain” metaphor used in Artificial Intelligence. While AmI is more concerned with the specific techniques to make an environment behave intelligently, SmE is more related to the intelligent interconnection of resources and their collective behavior. In other terms, while SmE aims to deal with the design of systems reactive and responsive to events, AmI also incorporates mechanisms for learning user preferences and behavior models over time. AmI and SmE share many common objectives and it is often difficult to separate them from each other. This is evident in the composition of topics in related conferences taking place around the world as these events attract interesting research in both areas. Such interconnection is reflected in the creation of JAISE, a journal addressing both areas. One of the most popular instantiations of these areas is the concept of smart homes. Recent applications include the use of smart homes to provide a safe environment where people with special needs can have a better quality of life. For example, in the case of people at early stages of senile dementia (the most frequent case among the elderly suffering from Alzheimer’s disease) the system can be tailored to minimize risks and ensure appropriate care at critical times by monitoring activities, diagnosing situations of interest and advising the carer. There are numerous ongoing academic research projects with well established smart homes research labs in this area, see for example Domus [13], MavHome [5], and Gator Tech Smart Home [8] in the US. The iDorm project [7] in the UK is another example, while many countries in the western half of Europe have smart home related programs (too many to list them all here). There are also many smart home Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments 1 (2009) 1–4 DOI 10.3233/AIS-2009-0011 IOS Press

http://quicksilver.be.washington.edu/courses/arch498cre/2.Readings/2.Theory/JAISE.1.1.Editorial.pdf

Editorial: Inaugural issue

The domain of sensors is still a wild jungle in which nothing is quite standardized. To fix this, we need a device standard to characterize physical and electrical features and constraints, describe necessary data processing and message parsing procedures, and, more importantly, enable automatic device integration into the world of computers we already have. This paper highlights five standards, some of which are labeled "device," "sensor," or "transducer," but all of them are equally capable of describing devices. If sensors are considered as simple or primitive devices, it follows that all five standards are also capable of describing sensors. No distinction between sensors and devices are done here.

Sifting Through the Jungle of Sensor Standards

What constitutes relevant information to an individual may vary widely under different contexts. However, previous work on pervasive information systems has mostly focused on context-aware delivery of application-specific information. Such systems are only able to operate within narrow application domains and cannot be generalized to handle other heterogeneous types of information. To fill this gap, we propose a context-aware system for information integration that can handle arbitrary information types and determine their relevance to the user's current context. In contrast to existing model-based approaches to context reasoning, we log user interaction and perform usage mining using OLAP to discover context-dependent preferences for different information types. This allows us to build a more generic and adaptive system that automatically selects the most relevant content and presents it to the user in a succinct manner that supports ease of consumption and comprehension.

Context-aware content filtering & presentation for pervasive & mobile information systems

The provisioning of ambient media in the user's environment requires that a system handles the different aspects related to the media selection process. For example, ambient media is delivered to the user depending on their context and hence, the system needs to dynamically determine the context and provide media that are relevant therein. To set the premise of ambient media, a system may also need to customize the physical environment, for example, by dimming the lighting level or by lowering the volume. Besides, users' need for media services changes over time and space that requires mechanisms to continually update their preferences based on their mobility in the environment. In this paper, we propose an ambient media service provisioning framework that incorporates the above requirements while keeping the user at the center of the media selection loop. To demonstrate the usefulness of this framework, we show experimental results by considering real-life scenario in a smart home environment.

A framework for human-centered provisioning of ambient media services

People have the desire to be always informed by the information to their importance everywhere and anytime. However, for some casual and relaxing occasions such as in home environment, information access and exhibition should be offered in a non-distracting and non-disruptive manner. To facilitate this goal and make use of embedded displays in smart home environments, this paper proposes a framework, i.e., context-aware informative display which offers a novel design for information representation catering for home and shared space users. The system architecture and techniques used are illustrated in details. Lastly, a prototype with several user cases is described to prove the workability of the framework.

Context-Aware Informative Display

Smart spaces pose significant technical challenges in heterogeneous device interaction/integration, user/environment perception, as well as system interoperability. As devices become more powerful and connected, the users are required to understand complex device functionalities in order to carry out simple tasks, and thus experience more and more frustration with the increase of device types and complexity. In this paper, we first examine some key issues and challenges in smart spaces, and then we propose a lightweight middleware which enables the spontaneous device interaction and can hide the complexity of heterogeneous device connection from the end users. Implementation details of the middleware prototypes are presented.

Handling heterogeneous device interaction in smart spaces

With mobile devices and wireless hotspots becoming more prevalent, customers can desire greater access to media and services that can be achieved from the marrying of these two technologies. However, often existing devices need to be augmented with hardware and software to achieve this connectivity, and the existing services are heterogeneous and incompatible with one another. By leveraging the captive portal mechanism and proposed context-aware technologies, we propose a lightweight framework that can aggregate these services in smart spaces, and allow mobile users to spontaneously discover them without any specialized installation. In this paper, we present the system requirements for spontaneous interaction, the service framework design and implementation details.

Context-Aware Framework for Spontaneous Interaction of Services in Multiple Heterogeneous Spaces

Wireless hotspots are permeating the globe bringing interesting services and spontaneous connectivity to mobile users In order to enable the elderly and disabled to be fully integrated into the society, it's of paramount importance to build a pervasive assistive environment where assistive services can be automatically discovered and easily accessed with the device-to-hand across the physical spaces In this paper, we propose a framework that can support impromptu service discovery and context-aware service provision with mobile devices in heterogeneous smart assistive environments Different from the existing approaches, the framework requires no specialized hardware or software installation in mobile client devices, and it can automatically discover and select appropriate services based on the user profile and situation context, and generate personalized user interfaces according to user preference and device capability To demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework, we prototyped a set of assistive services in public spaces like shopping malls, leveraging the OSGi-based platform accessible from any WLAN enabled mobile devices

Impromptu Service Discovery and Provision in Heterogeneous Assistive Environments

Many physical spaces such as homes, museums, airports and shopping malls are being augmented with computers, sensors, wireless hotspots to provide digital content and services. However, often specialized hardware and software are needed to access the services available in a particular space. This paper proposes a lightweight service framework which can aggregate services offered by heterogeneous devices and sources in a smart space and allow the users of currently available mobile clients, such as, smart phones, PDAs and Ultra-Mobile PCs, to spontaneously discover and access services in heterogeneous spaces. By leveraging a captive and service portal mechanism, the desirable services can be discovered and presented automatically to the mobile client of the user, while the mobile devices do not need to install any additional software or hardware. In this paper, we present the system requirements for spontaneous interaction, the service framework design and implementation details.

Manli Zhu

Papers

Context-Aware Informative Display

Handling heterogeneous device interaction in smart spaces

Context-Aware Framework for Spontaneous Interaction of Services in Multiple Heterogeneous Spaces

Impromptu Service Discovery and Provision in Heterogeneous Assistive Environments

Spontaneous interaction framework for thin-client access to services