基于上下文感知的普适服务框架

为了更好地适应用户的个性化需求和普适计算环境的特征,提出一种基于上下文感知的普适服务框架。该框架包括服务呈现层、服务管理层、服务提供层和上下文感知层。通过基于社区的服务管理方式来屏蔽普适计算环境中服务的异构性、分布性,动态地感知与当前计算环境和用户活动相关的上下文信息,采用基于上下文的服务推荐机制为用户提供个性化的服务,从而更好地适应人的意图和环境 因素。     

任务计算中基于语义Web的上下文感知服务选择

针对普适环境中任务计算的特点,分析了任务计算的层次结构和复杂任务的分解策略,设计了一种任务计算中服务发现的体系结构。此体系结构依赖于服务和内容的语义表示,而这种语义表示是基于本体的、共享的。它不仅可以增强精确度和调用率,而且能够实现知识共享、基于能力的搜索、自主推理以及语义匹配等功能。据此,提出了一种基于语义Web的上下文感知动态服务选择机制,这种机制可以根据待匹配的服务的动态上下文属性来对其进行过滤和排序,从而进一步优化了发现的过程、节约了用户的时间和精力。此外,该选择机制可用于发现有用的静态或动态上下文信息,从而为用户提供最合适、最相关的服务。     

基于普适计算的服务发现系统设计

在普适计算环境下,服务是动态变化的,而服务发现技术能够在动态变化的普适计算环境中动态查找、定位所需要的服务,是解决普适计算环境异构性、实现不同应用集成的有效途径.介绍了服务的语义描述语言OWL-S,用于对服务进行描述,然后设计并实现了一个普适计算下的服务发现系统.同时,详细介绍了服务请求时进行服务匹配使用的匹配算法.通过增加语义信息,达到服务发布者和请求者可以实现语义层次的匹配,提高了服务的查准率和查全率.     

一种基于上下文协商的动态服务组合方法

普适计算的计算环境和交互信息动态变化,为了提供适时适地的服务,服务组合除了满足用户的需求之外,还要适应环境的变化.以面向普适计算的分布式文档管理系统为例,提出一种基于上下文协商的动态服务组合方法,适应普适计算环境下资源动态变化的特点,同时满足用户对服务的需求.首先定义上下文和带有上下文信息的服务模型;然后给出服务和设备以及服务和用户之间的上下文协商约束条件,根据约束条件提出基本算法实现服务动态组合,并对基本算法进行优化;最后通过原型系统和实验验证算法的性能和有效性,并通过实验数据分析上下文对于服务组合的影响.实验数据说明:提出的方法能够应用在普适计算环境中上下文敏感的服务组合问题上,提高服务组合的动态适应性和网络资源利用率.     

普适计算服务组合技术综述*

普适计算环境因其所具有的动态性、资源约束性和上下文感知性使其服务的组合面临特有的问题和挑战。服务匹配和选择、服务协调和管理、错误检测和修复是解决普适计算服务组合的三个关键技术。比较了普适计算服务匹配和选择的方法,重点分析了服务协调和管理的手段,给出了错误检测和修复的方法,最后提出解决普适计算服务组合的建议。     

基于模板和上下文的语义Web服务动态组合

为了适应环境和上下文信息的动态变化并提供适时适地的服务,Web服务组合要能满足处于动态变化环境中的个性化用户需求。文中提出了一个基于模板和上下文的语义Web服务组合框架,该框架使用抽象服务流程进行Web服务组合建模,利用本体来进行上下文信息建模并支持基于JESS的上下文信息推理,在原有基于语义的Web服务匹配的基础上,实时地感知上下文信息来进行Web服务动态绑定。该方法提高了服务组合的成功率和动态适应性,并且满足了用户的个性化需求。     

基于移动代理的上下文感知系统研究

上下文表是用上下文信息描述实体状态,原子上下文感知反应则说明了系统根据当前上下文和历史上下文做出合适的响应.基于以上两个概念设计了上下文感知移动代理、系统代理和上下文感知移动代理服务环境,目的是解决普适计算系统需要自动适应用户行为及环境变化的问题.首先使用历史上下文与当前上下文提取上下文表达式,根据该表达式在上下文反应容器中匹配对应的操作,然后由系统代理执行该操作,为用户提供任务相关的服务或者信息.其次根据原子上下文感知提出若干实例,并由上下文感知演算验证,同时指出上下文感知演算的不足.最后,用染色Petri网对一个实例场景仿真,证明了系统的可行性.     

支持上下文感知的构件适配模型研究

为了对普适环境下的构件化应用提供支持,扩展传统的构件适配技术,在上下文感知中间件的基础上,提出支持上下文感知的构件适配模型CACAM和构件适配算法CACA,实现对环境、用户上下文的动态感知和重配置。实验结果表明,该模型能够有效地实现普适计算环境下基于上下文感知的构件适配。     

普适计算中一种上下文集成方法

普适计算作为一种全新的计算模式,目的是根据用户需要提供随时随地的服务.普适计算环境中存在大量异构的数据源,不利于上下文信息的处理和访问.文中提出了一种基于XML的上下文集成方法,在保证上下文精度和新鲜度的条件下,尽量减少上下文信息存储量,并向上提供统一的上下文表达形式,有效屏蔽了上下文信息的异构.实验测试表明,采用的文件内存保留和分片转存方法,进一步加快上下文的集成,从而有效地支持普适服务.     

一种普适计算环境下基于语义的服务匹配算法

在普适计算环境中通过语义本体来表示环境中的概念进行服务发现可以提高服务发现的鲁棒性。给出了一种基于语义的服务匹配算法,根据不同的服务请求可以通过服务类型匹配、服务输入输出参数匹配和QoS参数匹配,实现了分层次、逐步过滤不匹配的服务。同时通过服务相似度的计算为服务请求者提供最满足需求的服务。实验结果证明该算法具有较高的匹配率和较好的匹配速度,完全适用于普适计算环境。     

Enhancing Availability of Grid Computational Services to Ubiquitous Computing Applications

The Grid is an integrated infrastructure that can play the dual roles of a coordinated resource consumer as well as a donator in distributed computing environments. The enormous growth in the use of mobile and embedded devices in ubiquitous computing environment and their interaction with human beings produces a huge amount of data that need to be processed efficiently anytime anywhere. However, such devices often have limited resources in terms of CPU, storage, battery power, and communication bandwidth. Thus, there is a need to transfer ubiquitous computing application services to more powerful computational resources. In this paper, we investigate the use of the Grid as a candidate for provisioning computational services to applications in ubiquitous computing environments. In particular, we present a competitive model that describes the possible interaction between the competing resources in the Grid Infrastructure as service providers and ubiquitous applications as subscribers. The competition takes place in terms of quality of service (QoS) and cost offered by different Grid Service Providers (GSPs). We also investigate the job allocation of different GSPs by exploiting the noncooperativeness among the strategies. We present the equilibrium behavior of our model facing global competition under stochastic demand and estimate guaranteed QoS assurance level by efficiently satisfying the requirement of ubiquitous application. We have also performed extensive experiments over Distributed Parallel Computing Cluster (DPCC) and studied overall job execution performance of different GSPs under a wide range of QoS parameters using different strategies. Our model and performance evaluation results can serve as a valuable reference for designing appropriate strategies in a practical grid environment.     

QoS-Aware Admission Control and Dynamic Resource Provisioning Framework in Ubiquitous Multimedia Computing Environments

A ubiquitous service deployment is emerging in the multimedia, networking, and wireless mobile computing area. Therefore, there has been an increasing demand for ubiquitous computing environments to support a certain degree of quality of service (QoS) to meet various service requirements from different computing and networking applications, and to better utilize the computing resources. However, supporting QoS in the ubiquitous computing environments has also raised great concerns regarding the applicability of any QoS solution. Management of such ubiquitous multimedia applications requires new mechanisms, i.e., Soft-QoS framework, to be developed for admission control, negotiation, allocation, and scheduling. In this paper, we present a novel negotiated admission control algorithm that exploits the degradability property of applications to improve the performance of the system. The algorithm is based on setting aside a portion of the resources as reserves and managing it intelligently, so that the total utility of the system can be maximized. The mixed greedy and predictive strategy leads to an efficient protocol that also improves the system performance. We use the constructs of application benefit functions and resource demand functions in the integrated admission control and negotiation protocol. We applied our Soft-QoS framework to the admission controlling and resource scheduling for ubiquitous multimedia devices such as Continuous Media (CM) or Video-On-Demand (VOD) servers, where multimedia applications can generally tolerate certain variations on QoS parameters by providing multiple classes with consistently proportional rather than absolute QoS. Extensive simulation experiments are presented in the paper to evaluate the performance of the novel mechanisms and compare it against some other methods used in the past.This work was in part funded by DARPA through the SPAWARSYSCEN under Contract Number N66001-97-C-8525 and SK Telecom, Korea, under Contract Number (KU-R0405721).     

A robotic service framework supporting automated integration of ubiquitous sensors and devices

In recent years, due to the emergence of ubiquitous computing technology, a new class of networked robots called ubiquitous robots has been introduced. The Ubiquitous Robotic Companion (URC) is our conceptual vision of ubiquitous service robots that provides its user with the services the user needs, anytime and anywhere, in the ubiquitous computing environments. There are requirements to be met for the vision of URC. One of the essential requirements is that the robotic systems must support ubiquity of services. This means that a robot service must always be available even though there are changes in the service environment. More specifically, a robotic system needs to be interoperable with sensors and devices in its current service environments automatically, rather than statically pre-programmed for its environment. In this paper, the design and implementation of an infrastructure for URC called Ubiquitous Robotic Service Framework (URSF) is presented. URSF enables automated integration of networked robots in a ubiquitous computing environment by the use of Semantic Web Services Technologies.     

Potentials of IR-UWB technology for ubiquitous computing

Connectivity is very important to enable ubiquitous computing. Wireless communication plays a continual key role in future ubiquitous network where all devices need to be connected freely. Ultra-wideband (UWB) radio is a new method of short-range wireless technology which is suit for ubiquitous computing. In this paper, we provided the potentials of impulse radio UWB (IR-UWB) technology in ubiquitous computing environments. Our study investigated possible communication methods which can be used in ubiquitous network. Comparisons between different communication technologies demonstrated that UWB-based solutions can support identification, location, sensing, and connectivity. In addition, we proposed two typical schemes which show how IR-UWB is used in ubiquitous computing.     

Intelligent ubiquitous IT policy and its industrial services

The core bases of intelligent ubiquitous computing environments are ubiquitous network infrastructure and the related services. Telecommunication service industry includes such ubiquitous network infrastructure and most of related services, and it leads to simultaneous growth of network, terminal, software and contents etc., by placing at the top of value chain of IT industry. In this special issue, we have discussed current IT-related issues, policy trends and new industrial services which will lead to successful transfer toward intelligent ubiquitous society which is a new paradigm of future.     

面向普适环境的上下文感知中间件研究

针对普适环境下上下文感知计算需求,引入广义模型化理论,建立了一种面向通用环境资源的上下文信息数据模型;在此基础上,提出了上下文感知中间件体系框架,并详细阐述了其构件化的实施方案。该中间件平台的上下文获取层能够封装各类感知器捕获的资源信息,中间处理层负责信息的管理、推理和聚合,基于门面模式的上下文访问层提供同步和异步相结合的上下文信息统一访问入口。通过实验测试了平台的时间损耗,表明该中间件可提供通用的上下文感知服务且具有较好的系统性能。     

Conducting In Situ Evaluations for and With Ubiquitous Computing Technologies

Abstract

To evaluate ubiquitous computing technologies, which may be embedded in the environment, embedded in objects, worn, or carried by the user throughout everyday life, it is essential to use methods that accommodate the often unpredictable, real-world environments in which the technologies are used. This article discusses how we have adapted and applied traditional methods from psychology and human-computer interaction, such as Wizard of Oz and Experience Sampling, to be more amenable to the in situ evaluations of ubiquitous computing applications, particularly in the early stages of design. The way that ubiquitous computing technologies can facilitate the in situ collection of self-report data is also discussed. Although the focus is on ubiquitous computing applications and tools for their assessment, it is believed that the in situ evaluation tools that are proposed will be generally useful for field trials of other technology, applications, or formative studies that are concerned with collecting data in situ.     

A semantic service discovery approach for ubiquitous computing

Services in the ubiquitous computing are heterogeneous in nature. To be pervasive, these services should be defined in terms of their functionality and capabilities rather than the meaningless Universally Unique IDentifiers (UUIDs) or types of services. With that, clients can access the proper service based on semantic requests, rather then a pre-configured profile. In this paper, we study the requirements for semantic query to be feasible in service discovery processes. Current discovery protocols and the concept of semantics are brought together to construct a framework to realize the semantic service discovery for ubiquitous computing. Many issues are discussed in relation to service discovery topologies, ontology languages, and semantic query languages.     

Personalized Service Discovery in Ubiquitous Computing Environments

In ubiquitous computing environments, users want to discover the most appropriate service to support their tasks. Because the most appropriate service depends on user preferences and context, service discovery protocols should personalize results. A service discovery framework based on the virtual personal space (VPS)-that is, a virtual administrative domain of services managed for the user-aims to provide this personalization. In this framework, personal operating middleware embedded in a personal device manages a set of contextually close services in the user's VPS. An inference module supports this management. Laboratory evaluations show that the VPS framework helps users find high-quality, appropriate services.