Understanding and Designing Situation-Aware Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing Systems

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 459 - 468 Pages

• Authors:
• Kai Häussermann
• Christoph Hubig
• Paul Levi
• Frank Leymann
• Oliver Siemoneit
• Matthias Wieland
• Oliver Zweigle

Abstract: Using spatial models as a shared common basis of information about the environment for different kinds of contextaware systems has been a heavily researched topic in the last years. Thereby the research focused on how to create, to update, and to merge spatial models so as to enable highly dynamic, consistent and coherent spatial models at large scale. In this paper however, we want to concentrate on how context-aware applications could use this information so as to adapt their behavior according to the situation they are in. The main idea is to provide the spatial model infrastructure with a situation recognition component based on generic situation templates. A situation template is – as part of a much larger situation template library – an abstract, machinereadable description of a certain basic situation type, which could be used by different applications to evaluate their situation. In this paper, different theoretical and practical issues – technical, ethical and philosophical ones – are discussed important for understanding and developing situation dependent systems based on situation templates. A basic system design is presented which allows for the reasoning with uncertain data using an improved version of a learning algorithm for the automatic adaption of situation templates. Finally, for supporting the development of adaptive applications, we present a new situation-aware adaptation concept based on workflows.

• Keywords:
• context-awareness
• ethics
• facilitation of system use through workflows
• situation recognition and learning based on situation templates and situation ontology's
• theory of situationaware systems

Context Generation with Image Based Sensors: An Interdisciplinary Enquiry on Technical and Social Issues and their Implications for System Design

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 81 - 87 Pages

• Authors:
• Julia Moehrmann
• Gunter Heidemann
• Oliver Siemoneit
• Christoph Hubig
• Uwe-Philipp Kaeppeler
• Paul Levi

Abstract: Image data holds a large amount of different context information. However, as of today, these resources remain largely untouched. It is thus the aim of this paper to present a basic technical framework which allows for a quick and easy exploitation of context information from image data especially by non-expert users. Furthermore, the proposed framework is discussed in detail concerning important social and ethical issues which demand special requirements in system design. Finally, a first sensor prototype is presented which meets the identified requirements. Additionally, necessary implications for the software and hardware design of the system are discussed, rendering a sensor system which could be regarded as a good, acceptable and justifiable technical and thereby enabling the extraction of context information from image data.

• Keywords:
• Context-aware computing
• ethical and social issues
• image recognition
• requirements in system design.