Andry Rakotonirainy

Modeling Context Information in Pervasive Computing Systems

As computing becomes more pervasive, the nature of applications must change accordingly. In particular, applications must become more flexible in order to respond to highly dynamic computing environments, and more autonomous, to reflect the growing ratio of applications to users and the corresponding decline in the attention a user can devote to each. That is, applications must become more context-aware. To facilitate the programming of such applications, infrastructure is required to gather, manage, and disseminate context information to applications. This paper is concerned with the development of appropriate context modeling concepts for pervasive computing, which can form the basis for such a context management infrastructure. This model overcomes problems associated with previous context models, including their lack of formality and generality, and also tackles issues such as wide variations in information quality, the existence of complex relationships amongst context information and temporal aspects of context.

Experiences in Using CC/PP in Context-Aware Systems

Future pervasive systems will be based on ubiquitous, often mobile, interconnected devices supporting mobile users in their computing tasks. These systems need to be context-aware in order to cope with highly dynamic environments. In this paper, we present a context model and a context management system able to support a pervasive system infrastructure. This context model is based on the CC/PP standard proposed to support content negotiation between Web browsers and servers. We have defined a set of CC/PP components and attributes that allow to express a variety of context information types and relationships between context descriptions. The paper discusses pros and cons of using CC/PP as a basis for a context model and a context management system.

Pervasive Technology and Public Transport: Opportunities Beyond Telematics

This review of IT-based services offered in public transportation focuses on the passengers perspective. The authors suggest new directions for future services, stressing the need to develop frameworks for assessing service quality and customer satisfaction.

The social car: new interactive vehicular applications derived from social media and urban informatics

Digital information that is place- and time-specific, is increasingly becoming available on all aspects of the urban landscape. People (cf. the Social Web), places (cf. the Geo Web), and physical objects (cf. ubiquitous computing, the Internet of Things) are increasingly infused with sensors, actuators, and tagged with a wealth of digital information. Urban informatics research explores these emerging digital layers of the city at the intersection of people, place and technology. However, little is known about the challenges and new opportunities that these digital layers may offer to road users driving through todays mega cities. We argue that this aspect is worth exploring in particular with regards to Auto-UIs overarching goal of making cars both safer and more enjoyable. This paper presents the findings of a pilot study, which included 14 urban informatics research experts participating in a guided ideation (idea creation) workshop within a simulated environment. They were immersed into different driving scenarios to imagine novel urban informatics type of applications specific to the driving context.

Middleware for Reactive Components: An Integrated Use of Context, Roles, and Event Based Coordination

The proliferation of mobile devices and new software creates a need for computing environments that are able to react to environmental (context) changes. To date insufficient attention has been paid to the issues of defining an integrated component-based environment which is able to describe complex computational context and handle different types of adaptation for a variety of new and existing pervasive enterprise applications. In this paper a run-time environment for pervasive enterprise systems is proposed. The associated architecture uses a component based modelling paradigm, and is held together by an event-based mechanism which provides significant flexibility in dynamic system configuration and adaptation. The approach used to describe and manage context information captures descriptions of complex user, device and application context including enterprise roles and role policies. In addition, the coordination language used to coordinate components of the architecture that manage context, adaptation and policy provides the flexibility needed in pervasive computing applications supporting dynamic reconfiguration and a variety of communication paradigms

An Open Architecture for Pervasive Systems

Recent advances in mobile devices create a need for computing architectures and applications which are able to react to environmental changes in order to adapt to the changing context of computation. To date insufficient attention has been paid to the issues of defining an open component-based architecture which is able to describe complex computational context and handle different types of adaptation for a variety of new and existing pervasive enterprise applications. In this paper an architecture for pervasive enterprise systems is proposed. The architecture uses a component based modelling paradigm and an event-based mechanism which provides significant flexibility in dynamic system configuration and adaptation. The architecture includes context management which captures descriptions of complex user, device and application context including enterprise roles and role policies, and allows easy extension by new types of context. The architecture provides an open approach to adaptation which allows easy extension with adaptation mechanisms. In addition, the coordination language used to coordinate system events provides the flexibility needed in pervasive computing applications to support dynamic reconfiguration and a variety of communication paradigms.

Context-Aware ubiquitous data mining based agent model for intersection safety

In USA, 2002, approximately 3.2 million intersection-related crashes occurred, corresponding to 50 percent of all reported crashes. In Japan, more than 58 percent of all traffic crashes occur at intersections. With the advances in Intelligent Transportation Systems, such as off-the-shelf and in-vehicle sensor technology, wireless communication and ubiquitous computing research, safety of intersection environments can be improved. This research aims to investigate an integration of intelligent software agents and ubiquitous data stream mining, for a novel context-aware framework that is able to: (1) monitor an intersection to learn for patterns of collisions and factors leading to a collision; (2) learn to recognize potential hazards in intersections from information communicated by road infrastructures, approaching and passing vehicles, and external entities; (3) warn particular threatened vehicles that are approaching the intersection by communicating directly to the in-vehicle system.

In-vehicle ambient intelligent transport systems (I-VAITS): towards an integrated research

The ever increasing use of ICT (information communication technology) in cars to improve the mobility, comfort and safety has sparkled the interests of the ambient intelligent research community. It is widely accepted that the use of advanced in-vehicle technology could contribute to a drivers distraction. Information overload or inappropriateness of the methods and time to convey information to the driver are among the potential drawbacks of the use of in-vehicle technology. This paper identifies the future research directions on driving assistance interactions design. It focuses on factors that preserve or enhance the drivers ability to drive and presents an in-vehicle ambient intelligent transport (I-VAITS) architecture.

Resource Discovery for Pervasive Environments

Pervasive computing will mean a marked change in the way people use and interact with computers. Access to information and services will no longer be restricted to desktop or laptop computers. Mobile services will co-operate seamlessly and in a transparent way to provide the required information without any user intervention. Resource discovery will play an integral role in the future of pervasive systems but there are many significant problems yet to be overcome. This paper investigates and analyses the deficiencies of the current resource discovery protocols; identifies the key problems and presents a solution. We present a distributed and adaptable architecture that addresses the identified deficiencies. It uses technologies such as XML and J2ME CLDC. A significantly different approach to that of previous attempts has been taken in order to present a flexible and adaptable resource discovery system, which will be required to underpin the future pervasive computing environment. A prototype, using a Palm Pilot Vx on which the system operates, has been implemented and tested.

Trends and future of mobile computing

Networking homes, offices, cars and hand-held computers is the current trend of distributed mobile computing. The ever growing demand of the enterprise for integrating new technologies and new services requires a generic infrastructure. An infrastructure that allows its components to be accessed, packaged, self described, dynamically configurable, moved over wired or wireless network, deployed either in a workstation or a mobile device from anywhere at anytime. An infrastructure that can be used with new alternatives to current human-machine interfaces applicable in diverse environment.