Twenty years ago, a team of Silicon Valley researchers, led by computing scientist Mark Weiser, envisioned a world in which computing would become an integral part of our everyday experience. Today, this vision is being realized. As technologies are combined, integrated and connected to networks, we are moving to a society characterized by “ubiquitous computing” — a paradigm used to describe pervasive technological embeddedness; from things, to people, to places. Enabling technologies, such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) and advanced wireless devices are being introduced and woven into the fabric of our daily lives. With these convergences emerges the unique ability to locate and track people and things anywhere, anytime—including real-time. There are compelling advantages to such an enhanced surveillance capability serving important public interests. Yet, bringing computing technologies beyond the desktop and into the everyday physical world more directly and more pervasively compromise the spaces and places of our lives, challenging our fundamental ideas about spatial boundaries and the privacy expectations that accompany them. This dissertation examines these issues with the aim of reconceptualizing spatial privacy so that it is capable of sustained, effective legal protection in a world of ubiquitous computing. Chapter One provides a detailed study of the technological landscape, highlighting three key characteristics of ubiquitous computing: (i) physicality, (ii) invisibility and (iii) context-awareness. Having examined what is considered the “next wave” of computing technology. Chapter Two explores the quantitative and qualitative changes in surveillance activity facilitated by ubiquitous computing. It identifies and discusses the emerging privacy implications raised by ubiquitous surveillance technologies, asserting the increasing importance of reconceiving spatial privacy as computing technology becomes physically embedded in the real world. Chapter Three examines the conceptual and legal privacy landscape, surveying leading privacy theories in order to articulate the array of underlying values and interests. This survey includes not only privacy scholarship but also privacy jurisprudence, principally as it has been developed under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Central to this dissertation, this analysis demonstrates the extent to which current privacy law is not adequate to protect the spatial dimension of privacy. Addressing this deficit, Chapter Three calls for a reconceptualization of the traditional category of territorial privacy so that it is capable of sustaining effective legal protection. This conceptual reformation of spatial privacy begins in Chapter Four, which provides a multi-disciplinary investigation of the meaning of place. It adopts an experiential conception developed within the field of Humanistic Geography, better reflecting the spatiality and interactive nature of our everyday lives. Based on this foundation, a new conceptual construct of ‘peopled places’ is proposed in order to overcome the extent to which the law is currently constrained by its reliance on traditional geography and property concepts. Chapter Five develops the peopled places construct around four defining features: (i) embodiment; (ii) contextual dimensions; (iii) mobile interactions; and (iv) boundary management. Having built an alternative conceptual apparatus, Chapter Five provides legal examples that illustrate how the peopled places construct will better accommodate privacy interests in an environment of pervasive computing. By promulgating an approach that demands spaces to be understood not as empty vessels but as peopled places, this dissertation affirms, clarifies and elaborates the Supreme Court of Canada’s long standing intention to remedy the trespass theory of privacy by linking section 8 of the Charter to the protection of “people not places”.

Twenty years ago, a team of Silicon Valley researchers, led by computing scientist Mark Weiser, envisioned a world in which computing would become an integral part of our everyday experience. Today, this vision is being realized. As technologies are combined, integrated and connected to networks, we are moving to a society characterized by “ubiquitous computing” — a paradigm used to describe pervasive technological embeddedness; from things, to people, to places. Enabling technologies, such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) and advanced wireless devices are being introduced and woven into the fabric of our daily lives. With these convergences emerges the unique ability to locate and track people and things anywhere, anytime—including real-time. There are compelling advantages to such an enhanced surveillance capability serving important public interests. Yet, bringing computing technologies beyond the desktop and into the everyday physical world more directly and more pervasively compromise the spaces and places of our lives, challenging our fundamental ideas about spatial boundaries and the privacy expectations that accompany them. This dissertation examines these issues with the aim of reconceptualizing spatial privacy so that it is capable of sustained, effective legal protection in a world of ubiquitous computing. Chapter One provides a detailed study of the technological landscape, highlighting three key characteristics of ubiquitous computing: (i) physicality, (ii) invisibility and (iii) context-awareness. Having examined what is considered the “next wave” of computing technology. Chapter Two explores the quantitative and qualitative changes in surveillance activity facilitated by ubiquitous computing. It identifies and discusses the emerging privacy implications raised by ubiquitous surveillance technologies, asserting the increasing importance of reconceiving spatial privacy as computing technology becomes physically embedded in the real world. Chapter Three examines the conceptual and legal privacy landscape, surveying leading privacy theories in order to articulate the array of underlying values and interests. This survey includes not only privacy scholarship but also privacy jurisprudence, principally as it has been developed under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Central to this dissertation, this analysis demonstrates the extent to which current privacy law is not adequate to protect the spatial dimension of privacy. Addressing this deficit, Chapter Three calls for a reconceptualization of the traditional category of territorial privacy so that it is capable of sustaining effective legal protection. This conceptual reformation of spatial privacy begins in Chapter Four, which provides a multi-disciplinary investigation of the meaning of place. It adopts an experiential conception developed within the field of Humanistic Geography, better reflecting the spatiality and interactive nature of our everyday lives. Based on this foundation, a new conceptual construct of ‘peopled places’ is proposed in order to overcome the extent to which the law is currently constrained by its reliance on traditional geography and property concepts. Chapter Five develops the peopled places construct around four defining features: (i) embodiment; (ii) contextual dimensions; (iii) mobile interactions; and (iv) boundary management. Having built an alternative conceptual apparatus, Chapter Five provides legal examples that illustrate how the peopled places construct will better accommodate privacy interests in an environment of pervasive computing. By promulgating an approach that demands spaces to be understood not as empty vessels but as peopled places, this dissertation affirms, clarifies and elaborates the Supreme Court of Canada’s long standing intention to remedy the trespass theory of privacy by linking section 8 of the Charter to the protection of “people not places”.

Our society is changing. The role which information and communication technologies (ICT) play in our society is growing rapidly and meanwhile the world’s population is ageing. ICT has enabled social network sites (SNS), which are often targeted towards younger people and is therefore less suitable for seniors who find themselves displaced again and again. Through a design research oriented study, we explored the theories of non-traditional computing to find alternative ways of using technology to better meet the needs of seniors. We have found bridging technologies to be a promising domain that could help address the life-changing consequences of population ageing. We have identified four design principles to support the design of bridging technologies, geared towards enabling seniors to interact with social network sites. These principles constitute our final contribution.

Submitted by Cristiane Chim (cristiane.chim@ucpel.edu.br) on 2017-05-04T17:53:07Z No. of bitstreams: 1 CLEITON DA GAMA GARCIA.pdf: 6436597 bytes, checksum: ffbca69d38e039429fb917762baaaf8a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-04T17:53:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CLEITON DA GAMA GARCIA.pdf: 6436597 bytes, checksum: ffbca69d38e039429fb917762baaaf8a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-07 / The Ubiquitous Computing, also called UbiComp, has as premise to incorporate computational devices in all places, and active at all times, helping the human in a natural way, and as transparent as possible, minimizing the requirement of intervention of its user, and adjusting its behavior according to the current state of the context of interest of the user. The idea is that, more and more, the physical and digital worlds become one, where services will be offered to users through devices distributed by the environment. Contributing to the materialization of this integration, we have the growing availability of wired or wireless computer networks through which devices can communicate by sharing their contextual states. With this significant growth in connectivity levels, the Internet of Things (IoT) has now been consolidated. In spite of the growing technological development, it was verified the existence of few solutions at the national level that contribute to the freedom of mobility of PCDVs. Considering also that the number of PCDVs in Brazil reaches the significant number of 18.60 % of the population (IBGE, 2010), the central motivation for the creation of the HELIX Project arises, as an approach to promote the accessibility of visually impaired people. Considering this same motivation, the Rectory of the Catholic University of Pelotas, sought the Master’s Degree course in Electronic Engineering and Computing, requesting the development of an alternative focused on serving the members of its community with visual impairment. This promoted that the present dissertation constituted the first academic work of Project HELIX. This dissertation was developed with the general objective of contributing to the Accessibility of PCDVs through a hardware and software architecture that employs the principles of Contextaware Computing, Mobile Computing and the Internet of Things. The design effort of the HELIX Project will consider the software architecture of the EXEHDA middleware as well as its operational principles. The results achieved were promising, and point to the continuity of study and research efforts / A Computação Ubíqua, também chamada de UbiComp, tem como premissa incorporar dispositivos computacionais em todos os lugares, e ativos em todos os momentos, auxiliando o ser humano de forma natural, e o mais transparente possível, minimizando a exigência de intervenção de seu usuário e ajustando o seu comportamento de acordo com o estado atual do contexto de interesse do usuário. A ideia é que, cada vez mais, o mundo físico e o digital se tornem um só, onde serviços serão oferecidos para os usuários através de dispositivos distribuídos pelo ambiente. Contribuindo para a materialização desta integração, tem-se a crescente disponibilização de redes de computadores com ou sem fio através das quais dispositivos podem se comunicar compartilhando seus estados contextuais. Com este significativo crescimento dos níveis de conectividade, vem se consolidando atualmente a Internet das Coisas (IoT). Apesar do crescente desenvolvimento tecnológico, constatou-se a existência de poucas soluções no âmbito nacional que contribuam com a liberdade de mobilidade das Pessoas Com Deficiência Visual (PCDVs). Considerando também que, o número de PCDVs no Brasil atinge a significativa cifra de 18,60 % da população (IBGE, 2010), surge a motivação central para a criação do Projeto HELIX, enquanto uma abordagem para promover à acessibilidade de portadores de deficiência visual. Sensível a esta mesma motivação a Reitoria da Universidade Católica de Pelotas, procurou o Mestrado de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Eletrônica e Computação solicitando o desenvolvimento de uma alternativa focada em atender os membros de sua comunidade com deficiência visual. Isto promoveu que a presente dissertação constituísse o primeiro trabalho acadêmico do Projeto HELIX. Esta dissertação foi desenvolvida com objetivo geral de contribuir para com a acessibilidade de PCDVs através de uma arquitetura de hardware e software que emprega os princípios da Computação Ciente de Contexto, da Computação Móvel e da Internet das Coisas. O esforço de concepção do Projeto HELIX considera a arquitetura de software do middleware EXEHDA, bem como seus princípios operacionais. Os resultados atingidos se mostraram promissores, e apontam para continuidade dos esforços de estudo e pesquisa.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) for chronic care are increasingly being researched in Human-Computer Interaction. One of the current health management areas where ICTs have been employed is in supporting communications between patients and physicians. This is particularly relevant for patients suffering from chronic diseases since there is evidence that better communication leads to better health outcomes. Researchers are investigating different chronic diseases to design and test technology interventions to promote better chronic disease care. However, few have investigated pediatric asthma as a case study for designing communication technologies. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated in 2008 that 300 million people suffer from asthma, and that asthma is the most common chronic illness among children. Asthma interferes with breathing by preventing airflow into the lungs. It is difficult to determine the actual cause of asthma and to predict who will have asthma. These unique challenges provide opportunities to investigate pediatric asthma management. To address these challenges, I have conducted a series of studies with pediatric asthma patients, families, and healthcare providers to better understand their needs, challenges and strategies regarding the use of technologies. I have conducted interviews, a focus group, and a technology probe study to create and refine initial technology designs for children with asthma and their caregivers. Based on the Health Belief Model (HBM), patient-provider communications, and my findings in the prior studies, I designed a mobile and web service to increase asthma knowledge and symptom/management awareness in the child for better health outcomes, and to affect the perceived quality of interaction with healthcare providers. I show the results of my two field deployment studies with total 65 patients to learn how the system affected their practices and health outcomes. My contributions come from an increased understanding in three areas: physician-patient communication via a mobile and web services; ubiquitous communication technology designs to improve current pediatric asthma practices; and controlled evaluation of a ubiquitous communication technology, SMS, in the field.

Pervasive digitization of human environment has dramatically changed our everyday lives. New technologies which have become an integral part of our daily routine have deeply affected our perception of the surrounding world and have opened qualitatively new opportunities. In an urban environment, the influence of such changes is especially tangible and acute. For example, ubiquitous computing (also commonly referred to as UbiComp) is a pure vision no more and has transformed the digital world dramatically. Pervasive use of smartphones, integration of processing power into various artefacts as well as the overall miniaturization of computing devices can already be witnessed on a daily basis even by laypersons. In particular, transport being an integral part of any urban ecosystem have been affected by these changes. Consequently, public transport systems have undergone transformation as well and are currently dynamically evolving. In many cities around the world, the concept of the so-called electronic ticketing (e-ticketing) is being extensively used for issuing travel permissions which may eventually result in conventional paper-based tickets being completely phased out already in the nearest future. Opal Card in Sydney, Oyster Card in London, Touch & Travel in Germany and many more are all the examples of how well the e-ticketing has been accepted both by customers and public transport companies. Despite numerous benefits provided by such e-ticketing systems for public transport, serious privacy concern arise. The main reason lies in the fact that using these systems may imply the dramatic multiplication of digital traces left by individuals, also beyond the transport scope. Unfortunately, there has been little effort so far to explicitly tackle this issue. There is still not enough motivation and public pressure imposed on industry to invest into privacy. In academia, the majority of solutions targeted at this problem quite often limit the real-world pertinence of the resultant privacy-preserving concepts due to the fact that inherent advantages of e-ticketing systems for public transport cannot be fully leveraged. This thesis is aimed at solving the aforementioned problem by providing a privacy-preserving framework which can be used for developing e-ticketing systems for public transport with privacy protection integrated from the outset. At the same time, the advantages of e-ticketing such as fine-grained billing, flexible pricing schemes, and transparent use (which are often the main drivers for public to roll out such systems) can be retained.

Submitted by Cristiane Chim (cristiane.chim@ucpel.edu.br) on 2018-04-11T13:39:26Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Mauricio Azevedo.pdf: 2285891 bytes, checksum: e622be8d22d47662c4346e296a191d93 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-11T13:39:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mauricio Azevedo.pdf: 2285891 bytes, checksum: e622be8d22d47662c4346e296a191d93 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES# / #2075167498588264571# / #600 / We have witnessed the day-to-day evolution of the Internet of things, where the number of connected objects has had a steady growth. These objects interoperate exploring different communication features and provide information to a wide range of services and applications. This advance in the area of Internet of Things causes the computer resources become increasingly integrated into the routines of everyday life of its users, facilitating the collection and treatment of information of different natures in such areas as agriculture, health, among others. This growth, among other things, introduces the need of resources be identified, so that the user can have the information that is available in the computing environment of your interest. In this sense, the research for resource management in ubiquitous environments, such as those provided by the IoT, are incorporating study fronts seeking alternatives for resource identification occurs as transparent as possible, enabling the discovery and selection of resources available in the modern computing infrastructures. The G3PD (Group of research on Parallel and distributed Processing) has been articulating his studies related to IoT considering a middleware for providing solutions in this area, named EXEHDA (Execution Environment for Highly Distributed Applications). This dissertation aims to the central proposal of an architecture for Resource Discovery, directed to the scenario of the Internet of things, to be integrated into the middleware EXEHDA. The main features of the proposed architecture have been validated through prototyping and simulation, where their results turned out to be promising using technologies and Internet standards of Things already used by G3PD, corroborating research challenges in the area of resource discovery in the context of the Internet of Things. Keywords: Internet of Things, Ubicomp, Resource Discovery. / Temos presenciado dia-a-dia a evolução da Internet das Coisas, onde o número de objetos conectados vem tendo um crescimento constante. Estes objetos interoperam explorando diferentes recursos de comunicação e disponibilizam informações para uma ampla gama de serviços e aplicações. Este avanço na área da Internet das Coisas faz com que os recursos computacionais se tornem cada vez mais integrados às rotinas do dia-a-dia de seus usuários, facilitando a obtenção e o tratamento de informações de diferentes naturezas em áreas como agricultura, saúde, dentre outras. Este crescimento, dentre outros aspectos, introduz a necessidade dos recursos serem identificados, para que o usuário possa ter as informações que estão disponíveis no ambiente computacional de seu interesse. Neste sentido, as pesquisas para gerenciamento de recursos em ambientes computacionais, como os providos pela IoT, estão incorporando frentes de estudo buscando alternativas para que ocorra a identificação dos recursos da forma mais transparente possível, permitindo a descoberta e seleção de recursos disponibilizados nas infraestruturas computacionais modernas. O G3PD (Grupo de Pesquisa em Processamento Paralelo e Distribuído) vem articulando seus estudos relacionadas à IoT considerando um middleware para provimento de soluções nesta área, denominado EXEHDA (Execution Environment for Highly Distributed Applications). A presente dissertação tem por objetivo central a proposta de uma arquitetura para Descoberta de Recursos, direcionada ao cenário da Internet das Coisas, a ser integrada ao middleware EXEHDA. As principais funcionalidades da arquitetura proposta foram validadas por meio de prototipação e simulação, onde seus resultados se mostraram promissores fazendo uso de tecnologias e padrões voltados para a Internet das Coisas já utilizadas pelo G3PD, corroborando com os desafios de pesquisa na área de descoberta de recursos na perspectiva da Internet das Coisas.

This thesis presents Illusion SDK: a general, extensible framework for augmented reality (AR) applications. Illusion provides loosely coupled or decoupled abstractions of sensors, trackers, and compositors. Implementations are optimized for particular use cases. Illusion’s architecture depends on only an event system and a 3D scene graph, so it is highly portable. Wrapping of third-party trackers is supported. Illusion’s current implementation targets Flash 11.4 and integrates with the Alternativa3D 8 graphics engine. To our knowledge, Illusion’s support for wrapping third-party trackers is unique among toolkits targeting the GPU-accelerated Web. Illusion performs well on MacBook Pro 13" mid-2010, where an intensive camera application can exceed 45 FPS. Generally, Illusion should perform well on hardware that uses shared video memory. Optimizations are needed for hardware that uses dedicated video memory. These optimizations are problematic in Flash 11.4 but should not generally be problematic in ports to other platforms.

To facilitate everyday activities, context-aware applications use sensors to detect what is happening and use increasingly complex mechanisms (e.g., by using big rule-sets or machine learning) to infer the user's context and intent. For example, a mobile application can recognize that the user is in a conversation and suppress any incoming calls. When the application works well, this implicit sensing and complex inference remain invisible. However, when it behaves inappropriately or unexpectedly, users may not understand its behavior. This can lead users to mistrust, misuse, or even abandon it. To counter this lack of understanding and loss of trust, context-aware applications should be intelligible, capable of explaining their behavior. We investigate providing intelligibility in context-aware applications and evaluate its usefulness to improve user understanding and trust in context-aware applications. Specifically, this thesis supports intelligibility in context-aware applications through the provision of explanations that answer different question types, such as: Why did it do X? Why did it not do Y? What if I did W, What will it do? How can I get the application to do Y? This thesis takes a three-pronged approach to investigating intelligibility by (i) eliciting the user requirements for intelligibility, to identify what explanation types end-users are interested in asking context-aware applications, (ii) supporting the development of intelligible context-aware applications with a software toolkit and the design of these applications with design and usability recommendations, and (iii) evaluating the impact of intelligibility on user understanding and trust under various situations and application reliability, and measuring how users use an interactive intelligible prototype. We show that users are willing to use well-designed intelligibility features, and this can improve user understanding and trust in the adaptive behavior of context-aware applications.

Trends in technologies have mostly focused on the work environment, entertainment and communication technologies. Some developments have been made for the home such as microwave ovens, washing machines, HDTV, etc but most tasks are still manually executed. Washing machines are used in laundry but there hasn’t been a significant saving in time compared to manual laundering. The effects of misuse of the machine can be very destructive to clothes. This calls for proper sorting of clothes and adjustment of washing settings as appropriate. However, sorting has become a time consuming activity that requires a lot of attention on the part of the individual. Due to fatigue, individuals may in turn not pay much attention to washing instructions. In this thesis, we put together technologies into a system that would aid the user in planning and executing a laundry through identification of dirty clothes and sorting them in groups that can go into separate washes.