Ubicon and its applications for ubiquitous social computing

The combination of ubiquitous and social computing is an emerging research area which integrates different but complementary methods, techniques, and tools. In this paper, we focus on the Ubicon platform, its applications, and a large spectrum of analysis results. Ubicon provides an extensible framework for building and hosting applications targeting both ubiquitous and social environments. We summarize the architecture and exemplify its implementation using four real-world applications built on top of Ubicon. In addition, we discuss several scientific experiments in the context of these applications in order to give a better picture of the potential of the framework, and discuss analysis results using several real-world data sets collected utilizing Ubicon.     

Acoustic modems for ubiquitous computing

Considers how sound offers features not available with other short-range, low bandwidth communication technologies, such as radio and infrared, enabling communication among small computing devices and humans in a ubiquitous computing environment.     

System software for ubiquitous computing

The authors identify two key characteristics of ubiquitous computing systems: physical integration and spontaneous interoperation. They examine how these properties affect the design of ubiquitous computing software and discuss future directions.     

Ubiquitous security for ubiquitous computing

The potential for rapid and diverse interconnectivity through devices utilising heterogeneous communications interfaces has enabled a truly ubiquitous computing environment. However, this has resulted in equally ubiquitous security risks due principally to the number and complexity of services being run over such networks. As technology advances towards the realisation of a ubiquitous computing environment, what impact does this have on the traditional information security triangle, of preserving the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information? And how does this influence, future information security requirements, particularly in light of always-on business processes which require real-time information sharing? This paper describes research conducted into answering these questions. Emphasis is placed on the need for risk management, and how this may be achieved through context-based access control mechanisms and pro-active threat assessment techniques.     

Design patterns for ubiquitous computing

Design patterns offer a solution to the difficult problem of reusing prior design knowledge. We propose that such patterns also offer an effective way to communicate solutions to ubiquitous computing design problems. Some of the ubicomp design patterns include context-sensitive I/O, physical-virtual associations, global data, proxies for devices, follow-me display, appropriate levels of attention, and anticipation. Design patterns range in scale from a city to a room and, together, form a pattern language that designers can adapt to a project's particular level of complexity or detail.     

Location systems for ubiquitous computing

This survey and taxonomy of location systems for mobile-computing applications describes a spectrum of current products and explores the latest in the field. To make sense of this domain, we have developed a taxonomy to help developers of location-aware applications better evaluate their options when choosing a location-sensing system. The taxonomy may also aid researchers in identifying opportunities for new location-sensing techniques     

Wearable and ubiquitous computing

Describes a course on wearable and ubiquitous computing. It has been taught twice at Virginia Tech. The article describes the course's scope, assignments and grading, and design projects.     

Access control management for ubiquitous computing

The purpose of ubiquitous computing is anywhere and anytime access to information within computing infrastructures that is blended into a background and no longer be reminded. This ubiquitous computing poses new security challenges while the information can be accessed at anywhere and anytime because it may be applied by criminal users. Additionally, the information may contain private information that cannot be shared by all user communities. Several approaches are developed to protect information for pervasive environments against malicious users. However, ad hoc mechanisms or protocols are typically added in the approaches by compromising disorganized policies or additional components to protect from unauthorized access.In this paper, we present a usage control model to protect services and devices in ubiquitous computing environments, which allows the access restrictions directly on services and object documents. The model not only supports complex constraints for pervasive computing, such as services, devices and data types but also provides a mechanism to build rich reuse relationships between models and objects. Finally, comparisons with related works are analysed.     

On location models for ubiquitous computing

Common queries regarding information processing in ubiquitous computing are based on the location of physical objects. No matter whether it is the next printer, next restaurant, or a friend is searched for, a notion of distances between objects is required. A search for all objects in a certain geographic area requires the possibility to define spatial ranges and spatial inclusion of locations. In this paper, we discuss general properties of symbolic and geometric coordinates. Based on that, we present an overview of existing location models allowing for position, range, and nearest neighbor queries. The location models are classified according to their suitability with respect to the query processing and the involved modeling effort along with other requirements. Besides an overview of existing location models and approaches, the classification of location models with respect to application requirements can assist developers in their design decisions.     

Activity-based computing: support for mobility and collaboration in ubiquitous computing

This paper presents the design philosophy of activity-based computing (ABC), which addresses mobility and cooperation in human work activities. Furthermore, it presents the ABC framework, which is a ubiquitous computing infrastructure supporting ABC. The idea of ABC and the aim of the ABC framework is to: (1) support human activity by managing its collection of work tasks on a computer, (2) support mobility by distributing activities across heterogeneous computing environments, (3) support asynchronous collaboration by allowing several people to participate in an activity, and (4) support synchronous, real-time collaboration by enabling desktop conferencing by sharing the activity across several clients. During a period of two years, the ABC framework has been co-designed and evaluated in close cooperation with a range of clinicians in a hospital.

Exploring the grid's potential for ubiquitous computing

In contrast to many scientific disciplines embracing the vision of a uniform global distributed infrastructure to support their activities, ubiquitous computing is currently characterized by an extremely diverse set of infrastructure platforms. Such heterogeneity makes conducting large-scale wide-area experiments extremely difficult - most researchers choose instead to construct their own ubiquitous computing environment within which they can run their experiments. This heterogeneity makes the basic vision of ubiquitous computing difficult to realize because interworking between components at different sites isn't possible. One suggestion is that grid technologies will make an ideal starting point for developing future infrastructure support for ubiquitous computing, facilitating the deployment of ubiquitous computing technologies.     

Automatic partitioning for prototyping ubiquitous computing applications

A major challenge facing ubiquitous computing R&D is the difficulty of writing software for complex, distributed applications. Automatic application partitioning can help development teams rapidly prototype distributed ubiquitous computing systems.     

Self-organizable panel for assembling DIY ubiquitous computing

This paper proposes the concept of DIY (do-it-yourself) ubiquitous computing, an architecture allowing non-experts to establish ubiquitous computing environments in the real world. This concept has been implemented in the “u-Texture”, which is a self-organizable panel that works as a building block. While the traditional scheme attaches devices such as computers, sensors, and network equipments externally to make everyday objects smart, the u-Texture has these devices built in beforehand to assemble smart objects. The u-Texture can change its own behavior autonomously through recognition of its location, its angle of inclination, and surrounding environment by assembling these factors physically. This paper describes the design, the implementation, and various applications of u-Textures to confirm that the concept can contribute to establishment of ubiquitous computing environments in the real world without expert users.     

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.     

普适计算环境下的嵌入式设备监控模型

针对普适计算环境下对嵌入式Internet技术的要求,设计了一个面向非网络设备的嵌入式监控模型,通过该模型可以将不具备网络接口的设备连入Internet,实现远程监控;首先对该模型的管理系统和被管系统进行了描述;接着对该模型的主要功能模块SNMP管理器、SNMP代理以及嵌入式Web服务器进行了具体的设计;最后将该模型应用到了对UPS设备的远程监控中,并在实际应用中测试了其网络性能与实时性能,证明该模型能够很好的满足普适计算环境下的嵌入式技术应用的需要。     

普适计算网络环境中的密钥预分配方案

普适计算使用大量无线传感器节点组成网络,如何保证通信安全是普适计算所面临的重大问题。提出一种普适计算环境中的三层二项式密钥预分配方案,它能够很好地完成两两簇头间密钥对的生成,同时满足对节点极小的能量损耗、极少的通信负载和存贮空间要求。该方案有效地解决了节点获取攻击问题,提高了网络恢复度;同时成功地解决了多项式密钥预分配方案中的“K-security”问题。