<p>Ubiquitous computing (Ubicomp) increases in proliferation. Multiple and ever growing in numbers, computational devices are now at the users' disposal throughout the physical environment, while simultaneously being effectively invisible. Consequently, a significant challenge is service discovery. Services may for instance be physical, such as printing a document, or virtual, such as communicating information. The existing solutions, such as Bluetooth and UPnP, address part of the issue, specifically low-level physical interconnectivity. Still absent are solutions for high-level challenges, such as connecting users with appropriate services. In order to provide appropriate service offerings, service discovery in Ubicomp must take the users' context, tasks, goals, intentions, and available resources into consideration. It is possible to divide the high-level service-discovery issue into two parts; inadequate service models, and insufficient common-sense models of human activities.</p><p>This thesis contributes to service discovery in Ubicomp, by arguing that in order to meet these high-level challenges, a new layer is required. Furthermore, the thesis presents a prototype implementation of this new service-discovery architecture and model. The architecture consists of hardware, ontology-layer, and common-sense-layer. This work addresses the ontology and common-sense layers. Subsequently, implementation is divided into two parts; Oden and Magubi. Oden addresses the issue of inadequate service models through a combination of service-ontologies in concert with logical reasoning engines, and Magubi addresses the issue of insufficient common-sense models of human activities, by using common sense models in combination with rule engines. The synthesis of these two stages enables the system to reason about services, devices, and user expectations, as well as to make suitable connections to satisfy the users' overall goal.</p><p>Designing common-sense models and service ontologies for a Ubicomp environment is a non-trivial task. Despite this, we believe that if correctly done, it might be possible to reuse at least part of the knowledge in different situations. With the ability to reason about services and human activities it is possible to decide if, how, and where to present the services to the users. The solution is intended to off-load users in diverse Ubicomp environments as well as provide a more relevant service discovery.</p> / Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic-2007:14.

<p>This thesis is based on thirteen qualitative interviews with civil servants and politicians. The purpose of the study is to research these informants’ attitudes towards integration and their reflections about immigrants’ lower chances in an ethnically segregated housing and labour market. The theoretical frame of references is based on social constructionism and focuses on including and excluding power structures. The empirical material provides both structural and cultural explanations to immigrants’ problems as regards inclusion in Swedish society. The informants talk about integration as a mutual process and emphasise everybody’s responsibility. Despite this interpretation, comprehensions based on imagined differences between immigrants and natives appear, as well as immigrants’ losses in language, educational background and unequal gender structures. These common sense understandings may conceal unequal structures and discriminating practices in Swedish society.</p>

Objects move, collide, flow, bend, heat up, cool down, stretch, compress and boil. These and other things that cause changes in objects over time are intuitively characterized as processes. To understand common sense physical reasoning and make programs that interact with the physical world as well as people do we must understand qualitative reasoning about processes, when they will occur, their effects, and when they will stop. Qualitative Process theory defines a simple notion of physical process that appears useful as a language in which to write dynamical theories. Reasoning about processes also motivates a new qualitative representation for quantity in terms of inequalities, called quantity space. This report describes the basic concepts of Qualitative Process theory, several different kinds of reasoning that can be performed with them, and discusses its impact on other issues in common sense reasoning about the physical world, such as causal reasoning and measurement interpretation. Several extended examples illustrate the utility of the theory, including figuring out that a boiler can blow up, that an oscillator with friction will eventually stop, and how to say that you can pull with a string but not push with it. This report also describes GIZMO, an implemented computer program which uses Qualitative Process theory to make predictions and interpret simple measurements. The represnetations and algorithms used in GIZMO are described in detail, and illustrated using several examples.

Throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, theories of race contributed to the justification and authorization of global European imperialism and the colonization of indigenous people. In Canada, racial theories influenced perceptions of each citizen as either superior or inferior. Although European and American theorists constructed hundreds of ideas about race, there are several key ideas that continue to linger in the minds of Canadians. This thesis examines the socio-ideological context of racial theories and provides an historical account of the construction of race. The historical account highlights four prominent ideas: white superiority, non-white inferiority (marked by low intelligence levels), the belief in inherent racial characteristics, and racial purity and contamination. In Saskatchewan, these ideas continue to surface in discourse about Aboriginal people and relations between the non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal population. Although constructed ideas about race are scientifically unsound and grounded in the belief in white superiority, these ideas are often normalized as common sense and not easily recognized as constructed. Discourse and practices that appear to be emancipatory for Aboriginal people but rely on constructed ideas about race need to be re-examined. This thesis provides several examples of where these ideas surface in Saskatchewan discourse and recommends anti-racist education as an alternative.

This preliminary investigation utilized both a top-down theory (Banduras Self-Efficacy Theory: SET, 1997) and a bottom-up theory (Leventhals Common Sense Model: CSM, 1980) to examine the cognitions and exercise behavior of novice cardiac rehabilitation (CR) participants engaged in 3 months of standard CR treatment. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate if the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ,) as a reflection of the CSM, could classify CR novices relative to the strength of their illness perceptions. A further objective was to detect differences at baseline between the illness perception groups when evaluating SET variables and health-related outcomes that have been identified as important correlates of CR adherence. Additionally, the study proposed to determine differences between illness perception groups on adherence to recommended exercise therapy in CR. Lastly, differences between the groups on the assessed variables over the 3 month-rehabilitation period was examined. Forty-nine CR initiates were recruited. Participants were measured at 4 different time points over the 3-month initiation phase of CR. The IPQ, SF-36 (assessing health-related quality of life; HRQL,) and other social cognitive measures, including self-regulatory efficacy and positive and negative outcome expectations, were used to examine individuals. Participants completed measures at initiation of CR, after 2 weeks in CR, 6 weeks in CR and at the end of the 3-month initiate phase of CR. At onset of the program, cluster analysis successfully classified participants to weaker and stronger symptom-identity groups (i.e., illness perception groups). These groups were shown to be significantly different on the illness perceptions of identity, consequences and emotion. Upon initiation of CR, the classified groups were also significantly different on likelihood and value of negative outcome expectations, as well as physical and mental HRQL. At baseline, the group with stronger identity, consequences and emotion had higher negative outcome expectations and lower HRQL. In regards to adherence at the end of 3-months of CR, significant differences were found between the groups such that the group with stronger identity, consequences and emotion were less adherent to CR. This study was an initial exploration of the effectiveness of using the CSM along with SET. The findings offer insight into complementary use of top-down and bottom-up theoretical constructs to study psychological beliefs and adherence to exercise therapy in this rehabilitation setting.

Throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, theories of race contributed to the justification and authorization of global European imperialism and the colonization of indigenous people. In Canada, racial theories influenced perceptions of each citizen as either superior or inferior. Although European and American theorists constructed hundreds of ideas about race, there are several key ideas that continue to linger in the minds of Canadians. This thesis examines the socio-ideological context of racial theories and provides an historical account of the construction of race. The historical account highlights four prominent ideas: white superiority, non-white inferiority (marked by low intelligence levels), the belief in inherent racial characteristics, and racial purity and contamination. In Saskatchewan, these ideas continue to surface in discourse about Aboriginal people and relations between the non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal population. Although constructed ideas about race are scientifically unsound and grounded in the belief in white superiority, these ideas are often normalized as common sense and not easily recognized as constructed. Discourse and practices that appear to be emancipatory for Aboriginal people but rely on constructed ideas about race need to be re-examined. This thesis provides several examples of where these ideas surface in Saskatchewan discourse and recommends anti-racist education as an alternative.

This preliminary investigation utilized both a top-down theory (Banduras Self-Efficacy Theory: SET, 1997) and a bottom-up theory (Leventhals Common Sense Model: CSM, 1980) to examine the cognitions and exercise behavior of novice cardiac rehabilitation (CR) participants engaged in 3 months of standard CR treatment. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate if the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ,) as a reflection of the CSM, could classify CR novices relative to the strength of their illness perceptions. A further objective was to detect differences at baseline between the illness perception groups when evaluating SET variables and health-related outcomes that have been identified as important correlates of CR adherence. Additionally, the study proposed to determine differences between illness perception groups on adherence to recommended exercise therapy in CR. Lastly, differences between the groups on the assessed variables over the 3 month-rehabilitation period was examined. Forty-nine CR initiates were recruited. Participants were measured at 4 different time points over the 3-month initiation phase of CR. The IPQ, SF-36 (assessing health-related quality of life; HRQL,) and other social cognitive measures, including self-regulatory efficacy and positive and negative outcome expectations, were used to examine individuals. Participants completed measures at initiation of CR, after 2 weeks in CR, 6 weeks in CR and at the end of the 3-month initiate phase of CR. At onset of the program, cluster analysis successfully classified participants to weaker and stronger symptom-identity groups (i.e., illness perception groups). These groups were shown to be significantly different on the illness perceptions of identity, consequences and emotion. Upon initiation of CR, the classified groups were also significantly different on likelihood and value of negative outcome expectations, as well as physical and mental HRQL. At baseline, the group with stronger identity, consequences and emotion had higher negative outcome expectations and lower HRQL. In regards to adherence at the end of 3-months of CR, significant differences were found between the groups such that the group with stronger identity, consequences and emotion were less adherent to CR. This study was an initial exploration of the effectiveness of using the CSM along with SET. The findings offer insight into complementary use of top-down and bottom-up theoretical constructs to study psychological beliefs and adherence to exercise therapy in this rehabilitation setting.

The potential to supplement the potable water supply with highly treated municipal wastewater, or sewage, is of increasing interest to water managers and planners in many parts of the world. Seen as an option of last resort as recently as the late 1990s, today engineers commonly consider potable water reuse projects to be as safe as, if not safer than, conventionally sourced drinking water supplies. Nevertheless, only a few cities across the world intentionally augment drinking water supplies with highly treated wastewater. The objective of my dissertation is to examine the governance of potable recycled water planning to better understand how potable recycling projects emerge as a water management strategy. Political aspects of planned potable reuse are often recognized, and even lamented by water planners and industry experts. However, there is a paucity of research that empirically analyzes the political aspects that influence public decisions on potable water projects. This study asks: how are potable water projects made, shaped, and frustrated? To examine the governance arrangements of this emerging water management strategy this research project considers three critical issues: (1) public values and social pressure, (2) the political, legal, and institutional contexts, and (3) the role of subjectivity in defining facts, themes, and solutions. As part of this study I use Q Methodology to explore shared attitudes regarding the principles that should govern the future of planned potable reuse. The overall analyses support the notion that there is more than one way to understand and approach potable water recycling, and that socially-held viewpoints are informed by social-spatial practices. The results reveal two distinct "common sense" shared ways of thinking that pivot on ideas about the appropriate technology and reflect contested visions of ideal society. My dissertation is the first to apply Q Methodology to water recycling in the United States, and I use it to examine the subjective preferences of people who participate in water recycling operations or planning. Results indicate that there are at least two commonly held viewpoints concerning the future of planned potable water recycling, which I have labeled "neosanitarian" and "ecosanitarian." Drawing upon tenets established in the Progressive Era, neosanitarians strongly believe that potable water recycling is a safe, feasible, and appropriate way to expand urban water supplies. Drawing upon tenets established in ecology, ecosanitarians are not opposed to potable water recycling, however they are also interested in radical alternatives to the sanitary status quo. Both neosanitarians and ecosanitarians want to see a more sustainable approach to water planning, yet they disagree on what a more sustainable approach actually looks like in practice. For example, neosanitarians favor microfiltration and advanced wastewater treatment, while ecosanitarians prefer composting toilets and preventative actions. Both neosanitarians and ecosanitarians accept potable reuse as a workable solution, yet there are deep divisions between the two regarding the appropriate scale of technology, the proper level of public participation, and the root cause of water scarcity. While there is wide-spread agreement on certain ends (e.g., sustainability, potable reuse), there is serious disagreement about the appropriate the means to getting there (e.g., appropriate technology, level of public participation). The results illustrate how different "ways of seeing the world" contribute to the technological choices that define appropriate behavior, which, in turn, produces different kinds of communities and environments, and conditions the range of political possibilities.

We are rapidly entering a world with an immense amount of services and devices available to humans and machines. This is a promising future, however there are at least two major challenges for using these services and devices: (1) they have to be found and (2) after being found, they have to be selected amongst. A significant difficulty lies in not only finding most available services, but presenting the most useful ones. In most cases, there may be too many found services and devices to select from. Service discovery needs to become more aimed towards humans and less towards machines. The service discovery challenge is especially prevalent in ubiquitous computing. In particular, service and device flux, human overloading, and service relevance are crucial. This thesis addresses the quality of use of services and devices, by introducing a sophisticated discovery model through the use of new layers in service discovery. This model allows use of services and devices when current automated service discovery and selection would be impractical by providing service suggestions based on user activities, domain knowledge, and world knowledge. To explore what happens when such a system is in place, a wizard of oz study was conducted in a command and control setting. To address service discovery in ubiquitous computing new layers and a test platform were developed together with a method for developing and evaluating service discovery systems. The first layer, which we call the Enhanced Traditional Layer (ETL), was studied by developing the ODEN system and including the ETL within it. ODEN extends the traditional, technical service discovery layer by introducing ontology-based semantics and reasoning engines. The second layer, the Relevant Service Discovery Layer, was explored by incorporating it into the MAGUBI system. MAGUBI addresses the human aspects in the challenge of relevant service discovery by employing common-sense models of user activities, domain knowledge, and world knowledge in combination with rule engines.  The RESPONSORIA system provides a web-based evaluation platform with a desktop look and feel. This system explores service discovery in a service-oriented architecture setting. RESPONSORIA addresses a command and control scenario for rescue services where multiple actors and organizations work together at a municipal level. RESPONSORIA was the basis for the wizard of oz evaluation employing rescue services professionals. The result highlighted the importance of service naming and presentation to the user. Furthermore, there is disagreement among users regarding the optimal service recommendation, but the results indicated that good recommendations are valuable and the system can be seen as a partner. / Vi rör oss snabbt in i en värld med en enorm mängd tjänster och enheter som finns tillgängliga för människor och maskiner. Detta är en lovande framtid, men det finns åtminstone två stora utmaningar för att använda dessa tjänster och enheter: (1) de måste hittas och (2) rätt tjänst/enhet måste väljas. En betydande svårighet ligger i att, inte bara finna de mest lättillgängliga tjänsterna och enheterna, men också att presentera de mest användbara sådana. I de flesta fall kan det vara för många tjänster och enheter som hittas för att kunna välja mellan. Upptäckten av tjänster och enheter behöver bli mer anpassad till människor och mindre till maskiner. Denna utmaning är särskilt framträdande i desktopmetaforens efterföljare Ubiquitous Computing. (Det vill säga en form av interaktion med datorer som blivit integrerad i aktiviteter och objekt i omgivningen.) Framförallt tjänster och enheters uppdykande och försvinnande, mänsklig överbelastning och tjänstens relevans är avgörande utmaningar. Denna avhandling behandlar kvaliteten på användningen av tjänster och enheter, genom att införa en sofistikerad upptäcktsmodell med hjälp av nya lager i tjänsteupptäcktsprocessen. Denna modell tillåter användning av tjänster och enheter när nuvarande upptäcktsprocess och urval av dessa skulle vara opraktiskt, genom att ge förslag baserat på användarnas aktiviteter, domänkunskap och omvärldskunskap. För att utforska vad som händer när ett sådant system är på plats, gjordes ett så kallat Wizard of Oz experiment i ledningscentralen på en brandstation. (Ett Wizard Of Oz experiment är ett experiment där användaren tror att de interagerar med en dator, men i själva verket är det en människa som agerar dator.) För att hantera tjänste- och enhetsupptäckt i Ubiquitous Computing utvecklades nya lager och en testplattform tillsammans med en metod för att utveckla och utvärdera system för tjänste- och enhetsupptäckt. Det första lagret, som vi kallar Förbättrat Traditionellt Lager (FTL), studerades genom att utveckla ODEN och inkludera FTL i den. ODEN utökar det traditionella, datororienterade tjänste- och enhetsupptäcktslagret genom att införa en ontologibaserad semantik och en logisk regelmotor. Det andra skiktet, som vi kallar Relevant Tjänst Lager, undersöktes genom att införliva det i systemet MAGUBI. MAGUBI tar sig an de mänskliga aspekterna i den utmaning som vi benämner relevant tjänste- och enhetsupptäckt, genom att använda modeller av användarnas aktiviteter, domänkunskap och kunskap om världen i kombination med regelmotorer. RESPONSORIA är en webbaserad plattform med desktoputseende och desktopkänsla, och är ett system för utvärdering av ovanstående utmaning tillsammans med de tidigare systemen. Detta system utforskar tjänste- och enhetsupptäckt i ett tjänsteorienterat scenario. RESPONSORIA tar ett ledningsscenario för räddningstjänst där flera aktörer och organisationer arbetar tillsammans på en kommunal nivå. RESPONSORIA låg till grund för ett Wizard of Oz experiment där experimentdeltagarna var professionella räddningsledare. Resultatet underströk vikten av namngivning av tjänster och enheter samt hur dessa presenteras för användaren. Dessutom finns det oenighet bland användare om vad som är den optimala service-/enhets-rekommendationen, men resultaten visar att goda rekommendationer är värdefulla och systemet kan ses som en partner.

Thesis (M.A. in Church History)--Cincinnati Christian University, 2007. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-108).