Service discovery is a driving force in realizing pervasive computing. It provides a way for users and services to locate and interact with other services in a pervasive computing environment. Unfortunately, current service discovery solutions do not capture the effects of the human or physical world and do not deal well with diverse device populations; both of which are characteristics of pervasive computing environments. This research concentrates on the examination and fulfillment of the goals of two of the four components of service discovery, service description and dissemination. It begins with a review of and commentary on current service discovery solutions. Following this review, is the formulation of the problem statement, including a full explanation of the problems mentioned above. The problem formulation is followed by an explanation of the process followed to design and build solutions to these problems. These solutions include the Pervasive Service Description Language (PSDL), the Pervasive Service Query Language (PSQL), and the Multi-Assurance Delivery Protocol (MADEP). Prototype implementations of the components are used to validate feasibility and evaluate performance. Experimental results are presented and analyzed. This work concludes with a discussion of overall conclusions, directions for future work, and a list of contributions. / Ph. D.

Constructing common ground and the associated convergent conceptual change is critical to cooperative work and learning. Convergent conceptual change is achieved as participants in a conversation update common ground through presentations, repairs, and acceptances of utterances. People employ available techniques that utilize the least collaborative effort for current purposes. Although sharing physical co-presence of interlocutors' facial expressions doesn't make grounding more efficient even in more open-ended and less task-focused dialogues, visual co-presence of the addressee's workspace is essential to work-related tasks, such as information transmission and collaborative problem-solving. However, handheld-mediated collaborative activity makes sharing the workspace challenging, especially when we consider that handhelds possess small screens and permit activities of a distributed nature. In a handheld-mediated classroom, a teacher must be able to check students' work for various reasons (e.g., grading, checking whether they are following directions correctly or paying attention) and at various phases of the activity. Gazing into the small screen of a handheld over someone's shoulder is a tricky task at best. The teacher may misread the information on the screen and thus provide incorrect feedback. Another challenge involves the difficulty inherent in latecomers joining the collaborative activity when each student is involved with his or her individual and small screen. This exclusion from joining on-going activity can reduce the chance of student's vicarious and serendipitous learning. Although such events may occur naturally in the learning environment, they become important concerns when one attempts to focus collaborative activities with handheld devices. I therefore created a new handheld network service called "Look," which is designed to facilitate the acquisition of common ground and allow a latecomer to do meaningful monitoring of ongoing conversation about the workspace. I tested empirically the value of this shared physical/virtual context in the task of creating common ground by examining task performance and conversation quality. / Ph. D.

Artists, designers and writers have long employed ambiguity as a tool in compelling their audience to deduce a personal meaning to their work. As computing becomes less of a strictly workspace, task-oriented phenomenon and more of a ubiquitous, life-space one, it is increasingly important to consider the intelligence of the user in the design of everyday computer-based things. Support of multiple user interpretation through ambiguity is an element whose appropriate inclusion in system design can compel the user to deduce a personal interpretation of the system's meaning and utility. The work in this paper explores the process by which users may come to deduce a meaning to an ambiguous work, both as individuals and collaboratively. Incorporating elements of ambiguity, we created SenSpace, an immersive physical environment that embeds the Greek myth of Narcissus within itself. The subsequent user study provided insight on the process by which naïve visitors may come to deduce their meanings of a work, both individually and collaboratively. Our results showed that there exists a trade-off between a user's level of interaction and depth of the interpretation of the multimedia environment. We also show how ambiguity can be used as a design method, by incorporating observed user expectations into the system. This paper uses experimental evidence to advocate the design of systems that support not only the system goal the designer has in mind, but also the multiple perspectives and meanings that the user often brings to the system. / Master of Science

Computing is moving away from the desktop, permeating into many everyday objects and the environments in which we live. Many researchers in ubiquitous computing are excited about the potential to profoundly change the way we live by revolutionizing how we interact with information. Despite the excitement, few successful applications are making the transition from the laboratories to the mass market. While this could easily be attributed to the immaturity of the research area, it is also a manifestation of a larger problem—the lack of coherent methods, processes or tools that assist designers in thinking about issues pertinent to ubiquitous computing, as they explore potential ideas and develop some of these into working prototypes. To this end, this research presents an overview of the important characteristics of ubiquitous computing systems identified by many of the leading researchers in the field. Contrasting with conventional systems, we discuss the resulting issues and challenges, and their implications on the future directions of this emerging research area. In a case study, we use scenario-based design to walkthrough the design of a community computing application. At various stages of the design process, the need to focus on more issues relevant to ubiquitous computing design became apparent, resulting in the augmentation of scenario-based design. The augmented scenario-based design process is proposed as a tool for helping designers conceptualize user activities within given usage circumstances and at various stages of the design process. New questions help to identify the most common pitfalls, enabling designers to produce systems that are more socially acceptable and provide a higher likelihood for adoption by everyday users beyond the laboratory. In initial testing, the augmented process was shown to produce better designs. The ultimate ambition of ubiquitous computing technology is to be able to serve users anywhere, at anytime. However, taking into account the dynamic nature of user needs and usage situations, is a novel and non trivial undertaking. In essence, it is a fundamental change that requires designers to rethink many of the conventional answers and processes that help guide the creation of interactive systems. We provide a promising approach. / Master of Science

This thesis introduces a novel approach in which multiple heterogeneous devices collaborate to provide useful applications in an ad-hoc network. This thesis proposes a smart home as a particular ubiquitous computing scenario considering all the requirements given by the literature for succeed in this kind of systems. To that end, we envision a horizontally integrated smart home built up from independent components that provide services. These components are described with enough syntactic, semantic and pragmatic knowledge to accomplish spontaneous collaboration. The objective of these collaboration is domestic use, that is, the provision of valuable services for home residents capable of supporting users in their daily activities. Moreover, for the system to be attractive for potential customers, it should offer high levels of trust and reliability, all of them not at an excessive price. To achieve this goal, this thesis proposes to study the synergies available when an ontological description of home device functionality is paired with a formal method. We propose an ad-hoc home network in which components are home devices modelled as processes represented as semantic services by means of the Web Service Ontology (OWL-S). In addition, such services are specified, verified and implemented by means of the Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP), a process algebra for describing concurrent systems. The utilisation of an ontology brings the desired levels of knowledge for a system to compose services in a ad-hoc environment. Services are composed by a goal based system in order to satisfy user needs. Such system is capable of understaning, both service representations and user context information. Furthermore, the inclusion of a formal method contributes with additional semantics to check that such compositions will be correctly implemented and executed, achieving the levels of reliability and costs reduction (costs derived form the design, development and implementation of the system) needed for a smart home to succeed.

Submitted by Mariana Dornelles Vargas (marianadv) on 2015-03-25T13:57:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 4iPay.pdf: 3380679 bytes, checksum: 49edaff25098492ab3c46fcf4aad082b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-25T13:57:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 4iPay.pdf: 3380679 bytes, checksum: 49edaff25098492ab3c46fcf4aad082b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar um modelo de arquitetura e usabilidade para um sistema de pagamento móvel (Mobile Payment System), considerando as premissas de independência de dispositivo, de localização, de operadora de telefonia móvel e de administradora financeira para suprir as necessidades de efetivar pagamentos e recebimentos de qualquer natureza em ambientes de comércio ubíquo (Ubiquitous Commerce). O trabalho inicialmente descreve a motivação, os objetivos e os conceitos fundamentais sobre os quais se baseia a proposta do modelo. A seguir são elencados os principais trabalhos relacionados e uma análise comparativa detalhada é realizada, derivando as características mais importantes a serem consideradas no modelo proposto. Em seguida, é proposto um modelo de pagamento móvel, denominado 4iPay, onde são detalhados os objetivos, arquitetura, recursos e a proposta técnico-científica de comércio eletrônico em ambientes ubíquos. Na proposição do modelo foi considerada a convergência dos trabalhos relacionados analisados no que tange à ubiquidade, unicidade, universalidade e unissonância. Assim, o modelo 4iPay pretende reunir as melhores características, inovando e melhorando em alguns aspectos relevantes ao comércio ubíquo de fato. O modelo proposto visa propor uma solução diferenciada em termos de arquitetura, modelo de negócio, usabilidade, baixo consumo de banda e alto desempenho nas transações de pagamento e recebimento, em relação às propostas atuais, levando em consideração, nas transações comerciais eletrônicas móveis, questões como independência de dispositivo, localização física, segurança e confiabilidade, além de outras características expostas ao longo do trabalho, como otimização no uso de protocolos de comunicação e flexibilidade na utilização de conexões locais ou remotas. Também são descritos cenários efetivos de uso de onde e como o modelo 4iPay pode ser aplicado. Para tanto é apresentado o protótipo desenvolvido para avaliar o modelo. Por fim, são apresentados os resultados obtidos na avaliação dos cenários, nas avaliações de desempenho da aplicação e na pesquisa de campo de aceitação do modelo proposto. / This work aims at presenting a usability and architectural model for a mobile payment system. In our model, we assume independence of devices, of location, of mobile operator, and of administrator, to allow all kinds of payment in ubiquitous environments (Ubiquitous Commerce). In this work, we begin describing motivation, goals, and fundamental concepts, in which the proposed model is based. Next, we present related works and a detailed comparative analysis of those projects, deriving the most important features. Later, we propose a model of mobile payment, called 4iPay, based on those features. We detail the 4iPay model, architecture, features, and the technical-scientific proposal of an electronic commerce system in ubiquitous environments. We consider, in the proposed model, the convergence of various related works in terms of ubiquity, unity, universality, and unison. Thus, 4iPay aims at bringing together the best features, innovating and improving in some aspects. In the model, we propose a distinguished solution in terms of architecture, business model, usability, low bandwidth consumption and high performance in payment and receipt transactions. We also consider issues such as device independence, physical location, security and reliability, and other features related to mobile electronic commerce transactions, such as optimizing communications protocols usage and flexibility in local or remote connections. We also present the effective use in scenarios of where and how 4iPay can be applied. For this purpose we present the prototype developed to evaluate the model. Finally, we present the scenarios assessment results, the application performance evaluation and the proposed model acceptance survey.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2017-05-29T13:06:46Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Lucas Closs_.pdf: 1614709 bytes, checksum: f513dd4879d78d758e585d56586b19bc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-29T13:06:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Lucas Closs_.pdf: 1614709 bytes, checksum: f513dd4879d78d758e585d56586b19bc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-20 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Os constantes avanços na computação móvel e ubíqua possibilitam novos desenvolvimentos e novos recursos em diversas áreas, dentre estas, destaca-se a área da saúde. A partir destas novas possibilidades, surge então o conceito de Cuidados Ubíquos, onde são aplicados estes novos recursos com o intuito de prover melhores condições para médicos e equipes médicas no tratamento de pacientes. Utilizando então como referência o conceito de cuidados ubíquos, o presente trabalho apresenta uma nova abordagem para o monitoramento de pacientes através do uso da ciência de situação, apoiada pelo uso da Lógica Difusa, das Redes Neurais Artificiais e das Séries Temporais de Dados, dispondo com também com os dados dos pacientes coletados através dos dispositivos móveis e dos vestíveis. O modelo SAC – Situation-Aware Care objetiva então a aplicação das três fases da ciência de situação – percepção, compreensão e projeção – utilizando os dados coletados como entradas para as inferências. Visando prover uma solução que auxilie médicos e equipes médicas em diagnósticos – e em prognósticos – mais assertivos, através do monitoramento e da disponibilização de registros e de informações mais apuradas quanto ao estado de saúde dos pacientes. Para a avaliação do modelo, foram então desenvolvidos protótipos referentes aos Serviços SAC e a aplicação SAC4Mobile. O modelo SAC teve a sua avaliação em relação ao seu desempenho dos serviços e também através de caso de uso estendido, aferindo sobre a usabilidade. Avaliações por desempenho apresentaram bons indicadores de tempos de respostas e de recursos computacionais, onde que tempo médio mais elevado para o retorno de todas as requisições, 100 requisições simultâneas, foi de 5,5 segundos e o consumo de recursos computacionais não ultrapassou 18%. Assim como a avaliação sobre usabilidade teve resultados positivos, enaltecendo a relevância da proposta do modelo SAC. / The constant advances in mobile and ubiquitous computing enable new developments and new features in different areas, among thesethe health area stands out. From these new possibilities comes the concept of Ubiquitous Care, where these new resources are applied in order to provide better conditions for doctors and medical staff in the treatment of patients. Using the concept of ubiquitous care as a reference, the present work presents a new approach for monitoring patients through the use of Situation Awareness, supported by the use of Fuzzy Logic, Artificial Neural Networks and Time Series, also with patient data collected through mobile devices and wearable devices. The SAC - Situation-Aware Care model aims to apply the three phases of situation awareness - perception, comprehension and projection - using the data collected as inputs to the inferences. Aiming to provide a solution that assists physicians and medical teams in diagnostics - and prognoses - more assertive, through the monitoring and availability of records and more accurate information regarding the patient's health status.For the evaluation of the model, prototypes were developed for the SAC Services and the SAC4Mobile application. The SAC model had its evaluation in relation to its service performance and also through an extended use case, assessing the usability. Performance evaluations presented good indicators of response times and computational resources, where the highest time for the return of all the requests, 100 simultaneous requests, was 5.5 seconds and the consumption of computational resources did not exceed 18%. As well as the assessment of usability had positive results highlighting the relevance of the SAC model proposal.

Submitted by William Justo Figueiro (williamjf) on 2015-07-10T21:37:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 36b.pdf: 8321284 bytes, checksum: 5ec8d2ae2a04b68405d9caf30d342a3a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-10T21:37:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 36b.pdf: 8321284 bytes, checksum: 5ec8d2ae2a04b68405d9caf30d342a3a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-19 / Nenhuma / O uso de dispositivos móveis como meio de pagamento vem crescendo ao longo dos últimos anos. Embora algumas implantações de carteiras digitais tenham sido bem sucedidas, ainda não existe um padrão a ser utilizado pelo mercado. Este trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar uma solução para pagamento móvel através da utilização de uma carteira digital. Esta solução deve ser heterogênea, sendo disponibilizada para o maior número possível de dispositivos móveis, como telefones celulares e tablets, e deve permitir o pagamento entre dois usuários sem a necessidade de conexão à internet. O trabalho também leva em consideração as informações de contexto do usuário, e busca oferecer uma solução diferenciada ao usuário final, através da interface da aplicação com um servidor de pedidos, a ser instalado no estabelecimento comercial. A segurança também é um item importante, e o modelo deve prever a utilização de um elemento seguro, garantindo a segurança das informações gravadas no dispositivo. Foi desenvolvido um protótipo da arquitetura proposta, denominado Unipag. O protótipo foi desenvolvido através da avaliação de quatro diferentes soluções de carteira digital, sendo duas soluções acadêmicas e duas soluções comerciais. O protótipo foi desenvolvido inicialmente para o sistema Android, e foram realizadas duas avaliações. A avaliação por cenários demonstrou a utilização com sucesso da aplicação em cenários de pagamento cotidianos. A avaliação de usabilidade demonstrou que o aplicativo é de fácil utilização, e 96% dos usuários utilizariam a aplicação se disponível. Os resultados encorajam o estudo e demonstram a viabilidade da solução. / The use of mobile devices as a payment device has been growing over the last few years. Although some deployments of digital wallets have been successful, there is still no standard to be used by market. This work aims to present a solution for mobile payment through the use of a digital wallet. This solution must be heterogeneous, being made available to the largest possible number of mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablets, and should allow payment between two users without internet connection. The solution also considers the context information of the user, and seeks to offer a different solution to the end user through the application interface with a server application to be installed on the premises. Safety is also an important item, and the model should provide for the use of a secure element, ensuring the security of information stored on the device. We developed a prototype of the proposed architecture, called Unipag. The prototype was developed by evaluating four different solutions digital wallet, two academic solutions and two commercial solutions. The prototype was initially developed for the Android system, and were assessed twice. The evaluation scenarios demonstrated the successful use of the application for daily payment scenarios. The usability evaluation demonstrated that the application is easy to use, and 96% of users would use the application if available. The results encourage the study and demonstrate the feasibility of the solution.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2017-04-19T16:23:48Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Vitor Secretti Bertoncello_.pdf: 8707879 bytes, checksum: 8c444504769b11f83390c5d057d72e7c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-19T16:23:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Vitor Secretti Bertoncello_.pdf: 8707879 bytes, checksum: 8c444504769b11f83390c5d057d72e7c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-21 / Nenhuma / O crescimento constante da expectativa de vida no Brasil trouxe à tona um desafio para a rede de atendimento de saúde. A maior longevidade da população resulta diretamente no aumento do registro de doenças crônicas, elevando a procura por atendimento médico. A superação desse desafio passa pela mudança no modelo de atendimento de saúde, cujo objetivo é inserir o paciente como membro ativo no cuidado ao próprio bem-estar. Esse novo modelo gerou demanda por novas soluções de tecnologia de informação e comunicação capazes de atender satisfatoriamente ao paciente, como soluções em computação móvel e ubíqua. Assim, o presente trabalho propõe o modelo chamado AllHealthcare, consistindo em uma solução de registro de saúde pessoal (PHR), em que o próprio paciente é capaz de construir um Perfil de Acompanhamento Dinâmico (PAD) para seus cuidados de saúde, de acordo com suas necessidades, e alterá-lo conforme novas demandas ou focos venham a ser considerados. Tal dinamismo na construção de um perfil personalizado é alcançado devido ao modelo proposto se basear em arquétipos do padrão OpenEHR, o que também atribui a característica de interoperabilidade semântica à presente proposta. Em revisão de pesquisas com foco em PHR, grande parte das soluções encontradas são concebidas e focadas para tratamento de determinada doença, ou seus modelos não atendem a um conjunto de requisitos operacionais importantes e atuais, como a mobilidade do cuidado de saúde e a interoperabilidade semântica das informações de saúde. Do modelo proposto, foi implementado um protótipo funcional, o qual passou por três etapas de avaliação. Nas três etapas de avaliação os resultados foram positivos e e os participantes apontaram um conjunto de possíveis melhorias, mesmo assim, aplicando-se o modelo de aceitação de tecnologia (TAM) a 22 usuários do protótipo, obteve uma aceitação média de 86,6%. / The constant growth of life expectancy in Brazil brought to the focus a challenge for the healthcare systems. The increased longevity of the population directly results in increased registration of chronic diseases, increasing the demand for healthcare. Overcoming this challenge is to change the health care model, whose goal is to insert the patient as an active member in the care of own welness. This new model has generated demand for new information and communication technologies solutions able to satisfactorily meet the patient, as solutions in mobile and ubiquitous computing. Thus, this paper proposes the model called AllHealthcare, consisting of a personal health record (PHR) solution that the patient is able to build a Dynamic Accompanying Profile (PAD) for their health care, according to their needs, and change it as new demands or focus may be considered. This dynamism in building a custom profile is achieved due to the proposed model is based on openEHR standard archetypes, which also provides the feature of semantic interoperability to this proposal. In a review research focusing on PHR, most of the solutions founded are designed and focused for treatment of a particular disease or their models do not fulfill a number of important and current operational requirements, such as healthcare mobility and semantic interoperability of health information. From the proposed model, a functional prototype was implemented, underwent through three stages of evaluation. In the three evaluation stages, the results were positive and the participants pointed out a set of possible improvements, even though applying the technology acceptance model (TAM) to 22 prototype users, obtained an average acceptance of 86.6%.

Based on the Umbilical Cord system, this project enriches the Ubiquitous Computing system with a Free Roaming system. This Free Roaming consists of a distributed authentication system, a data caching system and a communication system between them. It allows user to roam within this system and access his data everywhere. Together with the Umbilical Cord system, a Ubiquitous Computing system is functionally completed as a prototype, and is ready to be deployed into the Internet.