Showing papers on "Context awareness published in 2010"

A Survey on Wearable Sensor-Based Systems for Health Monitoring and Prognosis

Abstract: The design and development of wearable biosensor systems for health monitoring has garnered lots of attention in the scientific community and the industry during the last years. Mainly motivated by increasing healthcare costs and propelled by recent technological advances in miniature biosensing devices, smart textiles, microelectronics, and wireless communications, the continuous advance of wearable sensor-based systems will potentially transform the future of healthcare by enabling proactive personal health management and ubiquitous monitoring of a patient's health condition. These systems can comprise various types of small physiological sensors, transmission modules and processing capabilities, and can thus facilitate low-cost wearable unobtrusive solutions for continuous all-day and any-place health, mental and activity status monitoring. This paper attempts to comprehensively review the current research and development on wearable biosensor systems for health monitoring. A variety of system implementations are compared in an approach to identify the technological shortcomings of the current state-of-the-art in wearable biosensor solutions. An emphasis is given to multiparameter physiological sensing system designs, providing reliable vital signs measurements and incorporating real-time decision support for early detection of symptoms or context awareness. In order to evaluate the maturity level of the top current achievements in wearable health-monitoring systems, a set of significant features, that best describe the functionality and the characteristics of the systems, has been selected to derive a thorough study. The aim of this survey is not to criticize, but to serve as a reference for researchers and developers in this scientific area and to provide direction for future research improvements.

The Add-On Impact of Mobile Applications in Learning Strategies: A Review Study

Abstract: Mobile devices are more powerful and portable nowadays with plenty of useful tools for assisting people handle daily life. With the advance of mobile technology, the issue of mobile learning has been widely investigated in e-learning research. Many researches consider it is important to integrate pedagogical and technical strengths of mobile technology into learning environments. This review study focuses on the investigation of add-on impact of mobile applications in learning strategies. We surveyed recent researches including context awareness, pedagogical strategy-enhanced learning scenarios, as well as collaborative and socially networked mobile learning. Through this review study, essential characteristics of mobile learning were identified and discussed. With the essential characteristics, we emphasized on the add-on impact of mobile learning and elaborated mobile learning model in learning strategies.

MobiCloud: Building Secure Cloud Framework for Mobile Computing and Communication

Abstract: Cloud services can greatly enhance the computing capability of mobile devices. Mobile users can rely on the cloud to perform computationally intensive operations such as searching, data mining, and multimedia processing. In this paper, we propose a new mobile cloud framework called MobiCloud. In addition to providing traditional computation services, MobiCloud also enhances the operation of the ad hoc network itself by treating mobile devices as service nodes. The MobiCloud framework will enhance communication by addressing trust management, secure routing, and risk management issues in the network. A new class of applications can be developed using the enhanced processing power and connectivity provided by MobiCloud. Open research issues for MobiCloud are also discussed to outline future research directions.

Ubiquitous ID: Standards for Ubiquitous Computing and the Internet of Things

Abstract: In ubiquitous computing environments, many tiny computers cooperate, adapting their behaviors according to real-world contexts to provide flexible information services. These information services can't be realized without technology standardization in a broad area. In this article, we discuss the principle of ubiquitous computing technology standardization and introduce uID standards currently in development.

An Architecture Based on Internet of Things to Support Mobility and Security in Medical Environments

Abstract: Recently the problem of providing effective and appropriate healthcare to elderly and disable people is an important field in relative to the aging of population problems. The objective of information and communication technologies (ICT) is to focus on the new technologies the medical environments, so that it can provide management to accelerate and improve the clinical process. Our contribution is to introduce an approach based on Internet of things (IoT) in medical environments to achieve a global connectivity with the patient, sensors and everything around it. The main goal of this globality feature is to provide a context awareness to make the patient's life easier and the clinical process more effective. To achieve this approach, firstly has been developed an architecture which has been designed to offer great potential and flexibility of communications, monitoring and control. This architecture includes several advanced communication technologies; among them are 6LoWPAN and RFID/NFC, which are the basis ofthe IoT. Moreover the research deal with the problems related to the mobility and security that happens when IoT is applied in medical environments. The mobility issue requires developing a protocol over 6LoWPAN network to be carried out in sensor networks with high specification related with low power consumption and capacity. While in the RFID/NFC technologies need to support secure communications, our proposal is to introduce a set of security techniques and cryptographic SIM card to authenticate, encrypt and sign the communications with medical devices. The preliminary results showed a reduction of time in the handover process with the protocol for mobility defined, by omitting the stages of addressing and simplifying the MIPv6 protocol. In addition to increase the security in the communications carried out by NFC devices enhanced with the inclusion of cryptographic SIM card.

A survey of software adaptation in mobile and ubiquitous computing

Abstract: Driven by the vast proliferation of mobile devices and ubiquitous computing, dynamic software adaptation is becoming one of the most common terms in Software Engineering and Computer Science in general. After the evolution in autonomic and ubiquitous computing, we will soon expect devices to understand our changing needs and react to them as transparently as possible. Software adaptation is not a new term though; it has been extensively researched in several domains and in numerous forms. This has resulted in several interpretations of adaptation. This survey aims to provide a disambiguation of the term, as it is understood in ubiquitous computing, and a critical evaluation of existing software adaptation approaches. In particular, we focus on existing solutions that enable dynamic software modifications that happen on resource constrained devices, deployed in mobile and ubiquitous computing environments.

Service Composition Issues in Pervasive Computing

Abstract: Combining existing services to create new pervasive computing services involves special design considerations, including context awareness, contingency management, device heterogeneity, and user empowerment. Service composition is a natural concept around which to structure pervasive systems and individuate parts of them that are suitable for contingency management, application, storage, and so on. The notion of service composition also provides a natural frame for addressing systemic issues such as performance, usability, and security. In this case, such characteristics aren't determined by a particular service but rather by the software architecture-how services are combined.

Supporting patient monitoring using activity recognition with a smartphone

Abstract: In our work we envision the use of context awareness to complement and improve telemedicine services. One concrete example is the recognition of physical activity (PA) for therapies and treatments. The usage of context can provide newer services by assisting medical professionals and patients to obtain implicit information. We introduce the Context Aware Remote Monitoring Assistant (CARMA), an application implemented on the MATRIX telemedicine middleware platform. It enables activity recognition for patients using non-obtrusive devices. In this paper, a movement recognition approach is investigated using a smartphone with a built-in accelerometer. Experiments were carried out to compare the influences of classification algorithms, features and combinations for feature extraction conditions on the recognition accuracy. The obtained results indicated that the approach is viable and shows much potential.

Context-Aware Adaptive Applications: Fault Patterns and Their Automated Identification

Abstract: Applications running on mobile devices are intensely context-aware and adaptive. Streams of context values continuously drive these applications, making them very powerful but, at the same time, susceptible to undesired configurations. Such configurations are not easily exposed by existing validation techniques, thereby leading to new analysis and testing challenges. In this paper, we address some of these challenges by defining and applying a new model of adaptive behavior called an Adaptation Finite-State Machine (A-FSM) to enable the detection of faults caused by both erroneous adaptation logic and asynchronous updating of context information, with the latter leading to inconsistencies between the external physical context and its internal representation within an application. We identify a number of adaptation fault patterns, each describing a class of faulty behaviors. Finally, we describe three classes of algorithms to detect such faults automatically via analysis of the A-FSM. We evaluate our approach and the trade-offs between the classes of algorithms on a set of synthetically generated Context-Aware Adaptive Applications (CAAAs) and on a simple but realistic application in which a cell phone's configuration profile changes automatically as a result of changes to the user's location, speed, and surrounding environment. Our evaluation describes the faults our algorithms are able to detect and compares the algorithms in terms of their performance and storage requirements.

Location-Based Services

Abstract: Today, location information is in the hands of the masses. The success of location in pervasive computing has exposed new challenges and opportunities for researchers including making location sensing more robust, accurate, deployable, secure, and developer-friendly. This special issue showcases papers that describe recent research that addresses these challenges.

Smarter Phones for Healthier Lifestyles: An Adaptive Fitness Game

Abstract: Mobile phones can persuade users to adopt healthy behaviors such as regular exercise. Monsters & Gold, a context-aware, user-adaptive mobile fitness game, runs on mobile phones to motivate and train users in jogging outdoors. The game dynamically presents virtual monsters, gold, and other items-according to factors such as users' heart rate, age, and exercise phase-to encourage users to speed up or slow down. A first evaluation led to an improved game design; a subsequent evaluation confirmed beneficial effects on training and motivation.

A Conceptual Framework for Provisioning Context-aware Mobile Cloud Services

Abstract: We observe two of the recent trends in information technology. Cloud Computing (CC) is widely accepted as an effective reuse paradigm. Mobile Computing with Mobile Internet Device (MID) such as iPhones and Android devices becomes a convenient alternative to personal computers by integrating mobility, communication, software functionality, and entertainment. Due to the resource limitations of MIDs, cloud services become an ideal alternative to software installed on MIDs. A key feature of MIDs is the capability of sensing users’ contexts such as location, acceleration, longitude, latitude and movement. Hence, it is tempting to configure and provide cloud services for the specific context sensed, such as location-specific Map service. In this paper, we present a framework for enabling context-aware mobile services. The framework enables tasks of capturing context, determining what context-specific adaptation is needed, tailoring candidate services for the context, and running the adapted service. The net result of context-aware services is for consumers to receive better services which fit to the current context of the consumers.

ContextML: A light-weight context representation and context management schema

Abstract: Context representation is a fundamental process in developing context aware systems for the pervasive world. We present a light weight XML based context representation schema called ContextML in which context information is categorized into scopes and related to different types of entities (e.g. user, device). The schema is also applied for encoding management messages in order to allow for a flexible framework supporting gradual plug & play extendibility and mobility. ContextML is tailored to be used for REST-based communication between the framework components. Explanation of the schema is provided with the help of real world examples. Moreover, the European C-CAST testbed is introduced, embracing a variety of context providers and application domains.

Context aware vertical handover decision making in heterogeneous wireless networks

Abstract: Provisioning continuous services while moving through heterogeneous wireless networks is a main issue in the fourth generation wireless Networks. An efficient vertical handover decision making algorithm that takes into account services' requirements, considers users' preferences and guaranties seamless handover over heterogeneous technologies is required. In this paper, we propose an intelligent context-aware solution that considers both users and services requirements. It is based on advanced decision approaches like fuzzy logic and analytic hierarchy processes.

A Mobile-Cloud Collaborative Traffic Lights Detector for Blind Navigation

Abstract: Context-awareness is a critical aspect of safe navigation especially for the blind and visually impaired in unfamiliar environments. Existing mobile devices for context-aware navigation fall short in many cases due to their dependence on specific infrastructure requirements as well as having limited access to resources that could provide a wealth of contextual clues. In this paper, we propose a mobile-cloud collaborative approach for context-aware navigation by exploiting the computational power of resources made available by Cloud Computing providers as well as the wealth of location-specific resources available on the Internet. We propose an extensible system architecture that minimizes reliance on infrastructure, thus allowing for wide usability. We present a traffic light detector that we developed as an initial application component of the proposed system. We present preliminary results of experiments performed to test the appropriateness for the real-time nature of the application.

Context-Aware Emotion-Based Model for Group Decision Making

Abstract: This context-aware emotion-based model can help design intelligent agents for group decision making processes. Experiments show that agents with emotional awareness reach agreement more quickly than those without it.

A review of awareness in distributed collaborative software engineering

Abstract: Software development projects are inherently cooperative, requiring many developers to coordinate their efforts to produce complex systems. An integral part of this process is the development and maintenance of a shared understanding concerning the state of software project tasks, artefacts, and the activities and expertise of developers working on the project. In co-located settings, this vital awareness information that concerns developers, either directly or tangentially, is typically acquired using formal, regular meetings, informal personal interruptions and electronic communication. Developing and maintaining such an awareness are far more difficult in distributed teams where developers are separated by time and space. The goal of this review is to help bridge the gap between the theoretical benefits of distributed collaborative software development and the practical impediments to successful implementation, and more specifically, achieving similar levels of awareness in distributed settings to those available in co-located settings. The review starts with a detailed discussion of awareness and awareness types with particular relevance to collaboration. This is followed by a discussion of how awareness information is disseminated during collaborative processes. Awareness information needs and dissemination mechanisms in software development teams are then presented. The main contribution of the review, derived from a comparison of awareness needs in distributed collaborative software engineering and current support from tools and techniques, is that more support is required for the type of awareness known as context awareness. Context awareness crosscuts other (more basic) forms of awareness and arises because, over time, individual collaborators work on different sets of tasks and artefacts and form different perceptions of their colleagues; their colleagues' work, roles, and relationships; and, the workspace. This awareness is highly contextual and therefore cannot be generalized across individuals, entities or activities that are found in a collaboration space. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Managing dynamic context to optimize smart interactions and services

Abstract: With the rapid growth of socio-technical ecosystems, smart interactions and services are permeating every walk of life. As smart interactions must managed automatically and interactively in response to evolving user's matters of concern, the smart Internet requires creative approaches where services and interactions are implemented with awareness of, and dynamic adaptation to, users, computational environments, changing policies and unknown requirements. Consequently, modeling and managing dynamic context is critical for implementing smart services and smart interactions effectively. Thus, smart interactions need infrastructure to acquire, compose, and distribute context information to multiple execution endpoints. Moreover, context management must be controlled and governed to optimize system properties. This chapter surveys context modeling and management approaches intended for the optimization of smart interactions and services, discusses the main challenges and requirements of context-awareness in the smart Internet, and provides a feature-based framework useful for the evaluation and implementation of context modeling and management mechanisms.

Stack zooming for multi-focus interaction in time-series data visualization

Abstract: Information visualization shows tremendous potential for helping both expert and casual users alike make sense of temporal data, but current time series visualization tools provide poor support for comparing several foci in a temporal dataset while retaining context and distance awareness. We introduce a method for supporting this kind of multi-focus interaction that we call stack zooming. The approach is based on the user interactively building hierarchies of 1D strips stacked on top of each other, where each subsequent stack represents a higher zoom level, and sibling strips represent branches in the visual exploration. Correlation graphics show the relation between stacks and strips of different levels, providing context and distance awareness among the focus points. The zoom hierarchies can also be used as graphical histories and for communicating insights to stakeholders. We also discuss how visual spaces that support stack zooming can be extended with annotation and local statistics computations that fit the hierarchical stacking metaphor.

A Proactive Personalized Mobile News Recommendation System

Abstract: Recommendation Systems have become an important research area in mobile computing. Although various recommendation systems have been developed to help users to deal with information overload, few systems focus on proactive information recommendation. This paper presents a news recommender system that proactively pushes just-in-time personalized news articles to mobile users based on user’s contextual information as well as news content. User’s information needs are estimated based on Bayesian network technique. An Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) Model, which supports both Content-based filtering and Collaborative filtering, is developed to rate the relevance of news articles. The weight of contexts (criteria) is automatically adjusted via individual-based and/or group-based (group decision making) assignment. The experiments show that the system can push relevant news to mobile users.

VOLARE: context-aware adaptive cloud service discovery for mobile systems

Abstract: With the recent widespread use of smart mobile devices, as well as the increasing availability of fast and reliable wireless Internet connections for mobile devices, there is increased interest in mobile applications where the majority of the processing occurs on the server side. The flexibility, stability and scalability offered by cloud services make them an ideal architecture to use in client applications in a resource limited mobile environment. This is because mobile application usage patterns tend to be uneven, with various usage spikes according to time and location. However, the mobile setting presents a set of new challenges that cloud service discovery methods developed for non-mobile environments cannot address. The requirements a mobile client device will have from a cloud service may change due to changes in the context of the device, which may include hardware resources, environmental variables or user preferences. Binding to a service offering different quality of service levels from the ones required may lead to excess consumption of mobile resources such as battery life, as well as unnecessarily high provision costs. This paper introduces VOLARE, a middleware-based solution that monitors the resources and context of the device, and dynamically adapts cloud service requests accordingly, at discovery time or at runtime. This approach will allow for more resource-efficient and reliable cloud service discovery, as well as significant cost savings at runtime.

Introduction to Mobile Information Retrieval

Abstract: The new frontier of mobile information retrieval will combine context awareness and content adaptation.

A Context-Awareness Framework for Intelligent Networked Embedded Systems

Abstract: This paper describes the Context Awareness Framework developed for the HYDRA Middleware Project. The HYDRA project aims to develop middleware to support intelligent networked embedded system based on a service-oriented architecture, deployable on both new and existing networks of distributed wireless and wired devices. A well developed Context Awareness Framework (CAF) is crucial for the success of such intelligent networked systems. Changing requirements and dynamic environments are drivers for context-aware applications. The automatic execution of system adaptations leads to a successful and effective information and communication system that provides information and functionality that is relevant and at the right level of complexity with respect to the current situation. This paper elaborates on the various issues involved in the design and development of a Context Awareness Framework for an intelligent networked embedded system.

The Context API in the OMA Next Generation Service Interface

Abstract: Application Platforms and related APIs are becoming the foundations for emerging eco-systems of online applications/services. End-users are more and more choosing devices and services based on the available offers in the respective eco-system. Attracting and retaining application developers and end-users to a networked platform is nowadays more and more depending on the features available to developers in the form of APIs and (e.g. cloud-based) execution environments rather than on the actual portfolio of services. The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Next Generation Service Interfaces (NGSI) is one cornerstone of evolving a network operator towards an application platform provider with open APIs. Within NGSI, the Context API enables access to a plethora of rich information about users, places, events, and things - all made available by or brokered through the network operator. This paper explains the OMA NGSI Context API and its rationale, describes the operations, and discusses typical use cases and benefits it can bring to operators and application developers.

Supporting the acquisition of Japanese polite expressions in context-aware ubiquitous learning

Abstract: It is very difficult for the overseas students to learn Japanese polite expression (JPE) during their course of learning the Japanese language. In this paper, in order to support the foreigners learning JPEs anywhere anytime, we propose a ubiquitous language-learning environment which works without any input of the context information. In the traditional Japanese class, learners only learn the rule of the JPE. This environment can be seen as an extension of the traditional education and it guides the learners to use the appropriate JPE according to the different situations in the real world, at the same time, trains students' ability and skill of using the JPE. We have implemented a prototype system for this environment, named JAPELAS, and JAPELAS2 is a one-to-many system which is upgraded based on JAPELAS and it supports learners interacting with many persons in the same situation. This paper presents the design implementation and evaluation of the JAPELAS2.

Smart home system based on context awareness

Abstract: The invention discloses a smart home system based on context awareness, comprising a sensor, an execution part, a user recognizer, a smart home control module, a context management module, a context extracting module and a context reasoning module. When a user uses the smart home control module to operate, the smart home control module triggers corresponding action to sense the basic information and the environment position information of the user to be sent to the context extracting module; the context extracting module generates the basic context information and advanced context information which are sent to the context reasoning module; according to the context information, the context reasoning module invokes a user preference record from the context management module and matches the user preference record with the basic context information for reasoning; the context management module stores the operation record of the user, and the operation record can be invoked by the context extracting module and the context reasoning module. The smart home system based on the context awareness of the invention has the advantages of high and active intellectualization and favourable configurability.

Multimodal Dialogue for Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments

Abstract: Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and Smart Environments (SmE) are based on three foundations: ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous communication and intelligent adaptive interfaces [41]. This type of systems consists of a series of interconnected computing and sensing devices which surround the user pervasively in his environment and are invisible to him, providing a service that is dynamically adapted to the interaction context, so that users can naturally interact with the system and thus perceive it as intelligent.

A framework for context-aware home-health monitoring

Abstract: This paper presents a proposal for a context-aware framework. The framework is organised according to a general purpose architecture, centred around an ontological context representation. The ontology provides the vocabulary upon which software agents interoperate and perform rule-based reasoning, in order to determine the system response to context changes. Context data are provided by both static and dynamic sources, the core of which is a novel low-cost device enabling the integration of sensor networks with RFID systems. This paper describes system components and their coordinated operations by providing a simple example of concrete application in a home-care scenario.