Josef Altmann

Context-awareness on mobile devices - the hydrogen approach

Information about the users environment offers new opportunities and exposes new challenges in terms of time-aware, location-aware, device-aware and personalized applications. Such applications constantly need to monitor the environment - called context - to allow the application to react accordingly to this context. Context-awareness is especially interesting in mobile scenarios where the context of the application is highly dynamic and allows the application to deal with the constraints of mobile devices in terms of presentation and interaction abilities and communication restrictions. Current context-aware applications often realize sensing of context information in an ad hoc manner. The application programmer needs to deal with the supply of the context information including the sensing of the environment, its interpretation and its disposal for further processing in addition to the primary purpose of the application. The close interweavement of device specific context handling with the application obstructs its reuse with other hardware configurations. Recently, architectures providing support for context-aware applications have been developed. Up to now such architectures are not trimmed to the special requirements of mobile devices regarding particularly the limitations of network connections, limited computing power and the characteristics of mobile users. This paper proposes an architecture and a software framework - the hydrogen context framework -which support context-awareness for considering these constraints. It is extensible to consider all kind of context information and comprises a layered architecture. To prove the feasibility the framework has been implemented to run on mobile devices. A context-aware postbox is realized to demonstrate the capabilities of the framework.

Cooperative software development: concepts, model and tools

The development of large software systems demands intensive cooperation among multiple project team members with different responsibilities. The development process is often distributed across time and space and takes place within and between specialized workgroups. This necessitates finding appropriate answers to questions related to division of labor, to communication, and to coordination and cooperation in the planning, development and maintenance of software systems. Development environments that explicitly support group work are an important prerequisite for the production of high quality software systems. Most of the software development environments in use today support primarily technical aspects and have shortcomings in the area of organizational support. The paper describes a model for cooperative work processes in software projects and a corresponding development environment that provides balanced support for both organizational and technical aspects of software development. The work toward the conception of the model and the implementation of the development environment have been completed, and the evaluation of the proposed approach has begun. Experience to date with using the developed environment confirms the assumption that the cooperative, cluster oriented development improves both productivity and quality. The presented approach excels primarily in its easily understandable model, the intuitive usability of the tools and the comprehensible presentation of process- and product-related information.

An environment for cooperative software development realization and implications

The development of large software systems is teamwork that requires tool support for coordinating cooperative activities, maintaining project control and sharing information. Existing collaborative environments that aim to support cooperative software development often try to predefine and automate the development process. This leads to problems since software development is a highly dynamic process where creativity, uncertainty, informal communication and incremental modification play important roles. The authors present an environment for distributed cooperative software development that supports informal communication as well as planning, defining, manipulating and supervising cooperative development activities. The environment accommodates the highly dynamic development process primarily by providing guidelines for various activities and work processes that can be changed according to a clearly defined cooperation model.

Mobile database agents for building data warehouses

Agent technology has a number of characteristics that make it well suited for automating information processing tasks and information retrieval. The authors propose a pragmatic approach for applying mobile agent technology within distributed database management systems (DBMSs). The developed agent environment is based on the Oracle DBMS. It differs from other agent platforms (e.g. Aglets, Voyager) in its support of error recovery, transactions, efficient data processing, and security mechanisms. Building mobile database agents upon these services, the run-time environment is faster, more secure and much easier to handle.

The fun.tast.tisch. project: a novel approach to neuro-rehabilitation using an interactive multiuser multitouch tabletop

Acquired brain injury, mostly caused by stroke, is one main cause for adult disability, often involving cognitive impairment. Neuro-rehabilitation aims at treating these impairments by maximizing the effect of brain plasticity and functional reorganization. Specific exercises help patients to regain skills that have temporarily been lost. Yet, conventional training can involve disadvantages, e.g., the setup of an individual training environment causes a lot of effort, the computation of statistics is time-consuming and must be done by therapists manually, and it is usually not possible to discreetly adapt the level of difficulty of an exercise. Further, software solutions for desktop PCs often do not lead to the desirable results because they are too distinct from the conventional therapy setting. The fun.tast.tisch.~project introduces a tabletop-based training system for the application in neuro-rehabilitation. This system should not only come close to the conventional setting but also overcome problems involved in existing solutions. The paper introduces the project, describes its first module Tangram, and summarizes the results of a small-scale study conducted to evaluate the module with the help of therapists and patients at an early stage of development.

Agent solutions for e-business transactions

Software agents have become very popular in the last few years. They have been used successfully to perform quite a diverse range of applications. In this paper we present a model for agents as mediators in e-commerce, which highlights how far technology can be used to automate e-business transactions.

Kooperative Softwareentwicklung: Konzepte, Modell und Werkzeuge

Die Entwicklung komplexer Softwaresysteme bedingt eine intensive Zusammenarbeit mehrerer Projektmitarbeiter mit unterschiedlichen Aufgaben. Der Entwicklungsprozes ist haufig ein zeitlich und raumlich verteilter Arbeitsprozes, der innerhalb und zwischen spezialisierten Arbeitsgruppen stattfindet. Deshalb gilt es, auf Fragen zur Arbeitsteilung, zur Kommunikation, zur Koordination und zur Kooperation bei der Planung, Entwicklung und Wartung komplexer Softwaresysteme entsprechende Antworten zu finden. Entwicklungsumgebungen, die die Gruppenarbeit explizit unterstutzen, sind eine wesentliche Voraussetzung, um qualitativ hochwertige Softwaresysteme zu erstellen. Die meisten der heute eingesetzten Softwareentwicklungsumgebungen unterstutzen primar technische Aspekte und weisen im Bereich der Organisationsunterstutzung Lucken auf. Dieser Aufsatz beschreibt ein Modell fur kooperative Arbeitsprozesse in Softwareprojekten und eine darauf abgestimmte Entwicklungsumgebung, die sowohl die organisatorischen als auch die technischen Aspekte der Softwareentwicklung in ausgewogener Weise unterstutzt. Damit soll ein Beitrag zur Produktivitatsund Qualitatssteigerung bei verteilter Softwareentwicklung geleistet werden. Mit dem vorgestellten Modell fur kooperative Softwareentwicklung und der darauf aufbauenden Entwicklungsumgebung Cooperation Assistant wird einerseits ein Beitrag zur Beseitigung von Leistungsdefiziten in Softwareentwicklungsumgebungen geleistet und andererseits eine Experimentierumgebung zur Verfugung gestellt, die es gestattet, auf empirischer Basis die These zu untermauern oder zu widerlegen, das der kooperative, clusterorientierte Entwicklungsansatz im Hinblick auf die Ausschopfung von Produktivitatsund Qualitatssteigerungspotentialen dem rigiden phasenorientierten Entwicklungsansatz deutlich uberlegen ist, insbesondere bei raumlich und zeitlich verteilter Projektorganisation. Die Arbeiten zur Konzeption des Modells und die Implementierung der Entwicklungsumgebung sind abgeschlossen. Mit der Evaluierung des vorgeschlagenen Ansatzes wurde begonnen. Die bisher vorliegenden Erfahrungen mit dem Einsatz des Cooperation Assistant bestatigen die Annahme, das der kooperative, cluster-orientierte Entwicklungsansatz sowohl produktivitatsals auch qualitatssteigernd wirkt. Der vorgestellte Ansatz zeichnet sich vor allem durch die leichte Verstandlichkeit des Modells, die intuitive Bedienbarkeit der Werkzeuge und die ubersichtliche Darstellung von prozesund produktbezogenen Informationen aus. Kooperative Softwareentwicklung 645

A Survey on Volunteer Management Systems

Voluntary work is indispensable in nearly every area of todays society, e.g., service activities in health care or emergencies. Not least because of this omnipresence of volunteering, already a plethora of volunteer management systems (VMS) has emerged, trying to support diverse volunteering processes and to deal with the broad spectrum and peculiarities of voluntary work. Thus, an in-depth understanding of functional commonalities and differences of VMS is urgently needed. The goal of this paper is therefore to provide an in-depth survey of existing VMS. For this, first, an initial attempt towards a reference model (RM) for VMS is presented, capturing their basic functional ingredients and interrelationships in terms of UML class diagrams. Second, the RM is operationalized by means of a set of evaluation criteria used to compare seven carefully selected VMS, thereby discussing their peculiarities and shortcomings. Third, lessons learned are provided together with research directions for future VMS.

Java in industrial automation-a virtual PLC

Remote access of a Programmable Logical Control (PLC) is the prerequisite for an effective maintenance. We present an architecture for the development of tools supporting the installation, configuration, maintenance, supervision, and diagnosis of remote PLCs via the Internet. The developed architecture, called Virtual PLC, consists of a set of extensible components describing a real PLC. The Virtual PLC uses Java/sup TM/ Technology to be platform independent. The Virtual PLC enables developers to rapidly implement tools for remote diagnosis, supervision and maintenance of a real PLC.

Contextual Design in Industrial Settings: Experiences and Recommendations.

The Contextual Design (CD) methodology offers a framework for planning and implementing a user-centered design process throughout all project phases. It is team-based and was designed especially for interdisciplinary teams. The application of CD is particularly profitable in projects confronted with implicit requirements and hidden factors of influence. In contrast to many other design and evaluation methods such as focus groups or usability tests, CD does not take users out of their everyday setting and more easily reveals important design issues and contextual influences like users’ motivation, values, emotions or real-time interruptions. Despite these advantages, CD is often not used due to high costs in terms of time and effort. This paper provides a report on experiences with CD in two research projects in the industry domain. It is intended to help other researchers to plan and implement a CD process in industrial settings and benefit from our lessons learned.