Un système mobile est un ensemble de composants qui peuvent interagir entre eux, tout en modifiant dynamiquement le système lui-même. Ces interactions contrôlent ainsi la création et la destruction des liaisons entre les composants, mais aussi la création dynamique de nouveaux composants au sein du système. La taille d'un tel système varie au cours du temps, elle n'est pas bornée en général. Un système mobile peut représenter des réseaux de télécommunication, des systèmes reconfigurables, des applications client-serveur sur la toile, des protocoles cryptographiques, ou des systèmes biologiques. Plusieurs modèles sont disponibles selon le domaine d'application et la granularité du niveau d'observation. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons un cadre de travail unifiant pour découvrir et prouver statiquement (avant leur exécution) et automatiquement les propriétés des systèmes mobiles. Nous proposons un méta-langage dans lequel nous encodons les modèles les plus couramment utilisés dans la littérature (le p-calcul, le calcul des ambients, le join-calcul, le spi-calcul, les BIO-ambients, etc). Pour chaque modèle encodé, le méta-langage calcule une sémantique enrichie dans laquelle à la fois les composants et les objets qu'ils manipulent (adresses mémoires, noms de canaux, clefs secrètes ou partagées, etc) sont identifiés par l'historique de leur création. Ainsi, nous n'utilisons pas de relation de congruence (ni de renommage), ce qui rend l'analyse plus facile. Le cadre général de l'Interprétation Abstraite nous permet ensuite de dériver des sémantiques abstraites, qui sont décidables, correctes, et approchées. Dans cette thèse, nous donnons trois analyses génériques que nous instancions selon le compromis désiré entre le temps de calcul et la précision de l'analyse. La première analyse se concentre sur les propriétés dynamiques du système. Elle infère des relations entre les historiques des objets qui sont manipulés par les composants du système. Cette analyse distingue les instances récursives d'un même objet, et ce, même lorsque le nombre de ces instances n'est pas borné. à titre d'exemple, cette analyse prouve dans le cas d'une application client-serveur à nombre illimité de clients, que les données de chaque client ne sont pas communiquées aux autres clients. La deuxième analyse se concentre sur des propriétés de concurrence. Cette analyse compte le nombre de composants du système. Elle permet de détecter que certains composants ne peuvent pas interagir, car ils ne coexistent jamais. Elle peut aussi garantir à un système qu'il n'épuisera pas les ressources physiques disponibles. Une troisième analyse mêle concurrence et dynamicité.

Pervasive computing is an intuitive evolution of computing paradigms driven by the wide adoption of mobile devices and wireless networks. It introduces a novel way to support users in their everyday life based on open and dynamic environments populated with unobtrusive services able to perform user tasks on the fly. Nevertheless, supporting user tasks from a functional point of view is not enough to gain the user's satisfaction. Users instead require that their tasks meet a certain Quality of Service (QoS) level. QoS is indeed an inherent and primary requisite of users going along with their required tasks. In the context of pervasive environments, fulfilling user tasks while delivering satisfactory QoS brings about several challenges that are mainly due to the openness, dynamics, and limited underlying resources of these environments. These challenges are mainly about (i) the lack of common QoS understanding among users and service providers, (ii) determining and integra- ting, on the fly, the services available in the environment and able to fulfill the functional and QoS requirements of users, and (iii) adapting the provided services at run-time to cope with QoS fluctuations and ensure meeting user requirements. To cope with the aforementioned issues, we opt for a middleware-based solution. Middle- ware represents indeed the appropriate software system to deal with common concerns of user applications such as QoS. In particular, we opt for a specific kind of middleware, viz., Ser- vice Oriented Middleware (SOM). SOM can leverage middleware technologies and the Service Oriented Computing (SOC) paradigm to enable pervasive environments as dynamic service en- vironments. Particularly, SOM can provide middleware services that allow for supporting QoS of user applications offered by pervasive environments. This thesis presents a QoS-aware service-oriented middleware for pervasive environments. The main contributions of this middleware are : (1) a semantic end-to-end QoS model that enables shared understanding of QoS in pervasive environments, (2) an efficient QoS-aware service composition approach allowing to build service compositions able to fulfill the user functional and QoS requirements, and (3) a QoS-driven adaptation approach to cope with QoS fluctuations during the execution of service compositions. The proposed contributions are implemented within a middleware platform called QASOM and their efficiency is validated based on experimental results.

Interactions in the style of the ubiquitous computing paradigm are possible today, but only in handcrafted environments within one administrative and technological realm. This thesis describes an architecture (called Continuum), a design that realises the architecture, and a proof-of-concept implementation that brings ubiquitous computing to chaotic environments. Essentially, Continuum enables an ecology at the edge of the network, between users, competing service providers from overlapping administrative domains, competing internet service providers, content providers, and software developers that want to add value to the user experience. Continuum makes the ubiquitous computing functionality orthogonal to other application logic. Existing web applications are augmented for ubiquitous computing with functionality that is dynamically compiled and injected by a middleware proxy into the web pages requested by a web browser at the user?s mobile device. This enables adaptability to environment variability, manageability without user involvement, and expansibility without changes to the mobile. The middleware manipulates self-contained software units with precise functionality (called <i>frames</i>), which help the user interact with contextual services in conjunction with the data to which they are attached. The middleware and frame design explicitly incorporates the possibility of discrepancies between the assumptions of ubiquitous-computing software developers and field realities: multiple administrative domains, unavailable service, unavailable software, and missing contextual information. A framework for discovery and authorisation addresses the chaos inherent to the paradigm through the notion of <i>role assertions</i> acquired dynamically by the user. Each assertion represents service access credentials and contains bootstrapping points for service discovery on behalf of the holding user. A proof-of-concept prototype validates the design, and implements several frames that demonstrate general functionality, including driving discovery queries over multiple service discovery protocols and making equivalences between service types, across discovery protocols.

Interactions in the style of the ubiquitous computing paradigm are possible today, but only in handcrafted environments within one administrative and technological realm. This thesis describes an architecture (called Continuum), a design that realises the architecture, and a proof-of-concept implementation that brings ubiquitous computing to chaotic environments. Essentially, Continuum enables an ecology at the edge of the network, between users, competing service providers from overlapping administrative domains, competing internet service providers, content providers, and software developers that want to add value to the user experience. Continuum makes the ubiquitous computing functionality orthogonal to other application logic. Existing web applications are augmented for ubiquitous computing with functionality that is dynamically compiled and injected by a middleware proxy into the web pages requested by a web browser at the user?s mobile device. This enables adaptability to environment variability, manageability without user involvement, and expansibility without changes to the mobile. The middleware manipulates self-contained software units with precise functionality (called <i>frames</i>), which help the user interact with contextual services in conjunction with the data to which they are attached. The middleware and frame design explicitly incorporates the possibility of discrepancies between the assumptions of ubiquitous-computing software developers and field realities: multiple administrative domains, unavailable service, unavailable software, and missing contextual information. A framework for discovery and authorisation addresses the chaos inherent to the paradigm through the notion of <i>role assertions</i> acquired dynamically by the user. Each assertion represents service access credentials and contains bootstrapping points for service discovery on behalf of the holding user. A proof-of-concept prototype validates the design, and implements several frames that demonstrate general functionality, including driving discovery queries over multiple service discovery protocols and making equivalences between service types, across discovery protocols.

This dissertation considers the interactions of users who have been diagnosed with Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness in adults 65 years and older. The investigation focused on the quantification of behaviors and strategies used by this growing subset of computer users. Participants diagnosed with AMD and age-matched controls without any ocular disease completed a series of visual search, icon selection and manipulation tasks with desktop or handheld PCs. Participants searched, selected and manipulated familiar playing card icons under varied icon set sizes, inter-icon spacing, icon sizes and auditory feedback. A comprehensive account of the interaction was made using a collection of efficiency, accuracy and information processing metrics. While all participants demonstrated a high rate for successful task completion, analyses revealed participants' overall task efficacy to be coupled with features of the interface and also strongly linked with measures of ocular health and personal factors. The outcomes of this study contribute to a growing body of work which informs a framework of performance thresholds for critical graphical user interface interactions based on visual profile, interface features and supplemental non-visual cues, including the following: The impact of auditory feedback on task interaction and information processing for visually impaired versus visually healthy older adults; The observed of use of the mouse pointer or stylus as means to direct attention during visual search and the implications of manual dexterity on visual search; The presence of speed accuracy trade-offs in handheld PC interaction performance for individuals based on their contrast sensitivity and near visual acuity; The shifting impact of increased icon spacing on visual search and movement times, versus its role in the accuracy of icon release; The utility for non-clinically acquired summaries of visual health to effectively predict performance decrements in handheld or desktop interaction; Emergent differences between handheld and desktop interaction and the most influential visual factors informing performance on each; and Empirical evidence that older adults, even with visual impairments can interact with small handheld displays, in spite of the size images.

Because of the fast development of mobile computing in recent years, this study attempt to research the acceptance of mobile computing for employees on business. Different from the past studies based on people-determined and system-determined to verify technology acceptance, we base on interaction theory viewpoint and diamond model to create four technology compatibilities. We treat these four compatibilities as external variables of technology acceptance model (TAM), and hypothesize each of the compatibility influencing perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. According to the analysis result of this study, we focus on these hypotheses to discuss. Final, we also discuss the implications for theory and practice and point out the importance of technology compatibility to mobile computing acceptance.

Thesis (M.Sc.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2000. / Bibliography: leaves 97-106.

This paper investigates governance mechanisms in international technology alliances (ITAs), firm-level innovation capabilities, and performance outcomes in the mobile computing market. This high-tech market is characterized by numerous cross-border strategic technology collaborations between hardware (HW) and software (SW) firms. Anchoring this work in the relational view, transaction cost economics, and the resource-based view, I develop a model and empirically test and validate relationships related to behavioral ITA governance mechanisms, innovation capabilities, and business performance. In the international cross-industry context, the findings explain to what extent complementary technology resources, through a relational governance mechanism, contribute to the innovation capabilities and superior business performance of high-tech firms, providing a competitive advantage. The data which is analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) path modeling, indicates technological commitment is a factor in expediting technology resource exchange in ITAs between HW and SW firms. The findings also show that the multi-dimensional business performance of firms is only influenced by market development capability, and not new product development capability in product innovation. The results are consistent, regardless of controlling for firm size, industry type, partner-specific experience, and alliance duration in the model. Thus, this research offers insights into how heterogeneous HW and SW high-tech firms in the emerging high-velocity market benefit from a relational governance mechanism in ITAs, thereby establishing competitive advantage through firm-level innovation capabilities. It also explains the relationships between firm-level product innovation mechanisms and business performance. Furthermore, this research provides evidence of the methodological usefulness of PLS path modeling in explaining new phenomena in international business, strategic management, and innovation fields.

Many pervasive computing applications demand expressive situational awareness, which entails an entity in the pervasive computing environment learning detailed information about its immediate and surrounding context. Much work over the past decade focused on how to acquire and represent context information. However, this work is largely egocentric, focusing on individual entities in the pervasive computing environment sensing their own context. Distributed acquisition of surrounding context information is much more challenging, largely because of the expense of communication among these resource-constrained devices. This thesis presents Grapevine, a framework for efficiently sharing context information in a localized region of a pervasive computing network, using that information to dynamically form groups defined by their shared situations, and assessing the aggregate context of that group. Grapevine’s implementation details are presented and its performance benchmarked in both simulation and live pervasive computing network deployments. / text

The vision of pervasive computing is one of a personalized space populated with vast amounts of data that can be exploited by humans. Such Personalized Networked Spaces (PNetS) and the requisite support for general-purpose expressive spatiotemporal search of the “here” and “now” have eluded realization, due primarily to the complexities of indexing, storing, and retrieving relevant information within a vast collection of highly ephemeral data. This thesis presents the Gander search engine, founded on a novel conceptual model of search in PNetS and targeted for environments characterized by large volumes of highly transient data. We overview this model and provide a realization of it via the architecture and implementation of the Gander search engine. Gander connects formal notions of sampling a search space to expressive, spatiotemporal-aware protocols that perform distributed query processing in situ. This thesis evaluates Gander through a user study that examines the perceived usability and utility of our mobile application, and benchmarks the performance of Gander in large PNetS through network simulation. / text