A Educação Ubíqua, tema de pesquisa desta tese, tem como objetivo relacionar os aprendizes com o ambiente em seu entorno, formando uma rede virtual e real de pessoas, objetos e situações, auxiliando para uma aprendizagem contínua, contextualizada e significativa. A consciência do contexto do aprendiz constitui-se do elemento fundamental neste tipo de educação. A partir das pesquisas realizadas, concluiu-se que, atualmente, os ambientes virtuais de suporte à Educação Ubíqua possuem um contexto de atuação específico ou localizado, além de um ambiente computacional próprio. Desta forma, o problema de pesquisa desta tese consiste em identificar os elementos básicos necessários para auxiliar uma aprendizagem independente de lugar, de tempo, do contexto em que ela ocorre e do ambiente computacional de suporte. A partir desses aspectos, esta tese aborda a hipótese de que o desenvolvimento de um ambiente educacional ubíquo deve ser apoiado por mecanismos computacionais pró-ativos, providos por um ambiente de suporte à ubiqüidade, que possibilite perceber o contexto do aprendiz e o uso de diversas tecnologias de acesso. Cabe ao ambiente educacional adaptar os recursos disponíveis, levando em consideração a dinamicidade com que eles se alteram, de forma contínua e transparente, criando um ambiente propício para a aprendizagem. Desta forma, este trabalho propõe um modelo de Educação Ubíqua orientado à consciência do contexto do aprendiz denominado GlobalEdu. Neste, o aprendiz tem a possibilidade de aprender de forma contínua e integrada com o seu contexto. O GlobalEdu provê uma organização em camadas. A camada de Aplicação é representada por um Agente Pedagógico, cujo objetivo é auxiliar a interação do aprendiz no ambiente. A camada de Sistema consitui-se de um conjunto de módulos Educacionais e de Suporte, necessários para auxiliar no processo educacional do aprendiz no ambiente, manipulando o contexto do aprendiz, seu perfil e seus conteúdos, além de elementos que auxiliem a execução do agente e dos recursos que ele manipula. As principais contribuições dessa tese consistem em aprofundar os aspectos referentes à consciência do contexto do aprendiz, bem como a proposta e desenvolvimento do modelo e sua integração com ambientes de suporte à Computação Ubíqua. Além disso, a partir de uma ontologia para representação de contexto, o modelo permite o mapeamento de contextos diversos. A partir da avaliação do sistema, identificou-se a importância do ambiente educacional preocupar-se com os processos educacionais, enquanto o ambiente computacional suporta os elementos necessários para prover à consciência do contexto e os demais aspectos relacionados à ubiqüidade. / This research is about Ubiquitous Learning. The idea of ubiquitous learning is to create a network of devices, people and situation that allows learning experiences to play out. The learner’s context-aware is a fundamental element of this type of education. Thus, the ubiquitous learning environment supports omnipresense processes, learner autonomy and integration with learner’s surrounding environment. The current related works are oriented for specific contexts. We are investigating what subset of functionality is required for to provide learning can occur anywhere, anytime, with continued computing support and no-specific computational environment. Our hypothesis is that it is possible to develop ubiquitous learning environment using ubiquitous computing support, because this type of computing can provide the context aware characteristics and support several access technologies. With this, the learning environment provides continuous learning resources, creating a propitious environment for the learning. This work proposes a ubiquitous learning model addressed to learner’s context-aware called GlobalEdu. This model supports learning on ubiquitous computing environments. It is composed by Pedagogical Agent, Educational Services and Support Services. The Pedagogical Agent is an agent that runs in the device that the learner is using, assisting the educational process in the ubiquitous environment. It contains an interface to the Educational Services and provides a ubiquitous vision through ubiquitous environment. The Educational Services and Support Services provide the support to agent execution in the ubiquitous environment, through identification and adaptation of resources in agreement with the learner’s profile and learner’s context. The main contributions of this work are concentrated in the surrounding context of the learner. An ontology for context representation was proposed. Moreover, it was proposed a ubiquitous learning model and its integration with a ubiquitous environment. We concluded that the integration of learning environment and ubiquitous environment is important. The ubiquitous environment supports context information and others ubiquitous aspects while the learning environment is dedicated to the educational process.

A Educação Ubíqua, tema de pesquisa desta tese, tem como objetivo relacionar os aprendizes com o ambiente em seu entorno, formando uma rede virtual e real de pessoas, objetos e situações, auxiliando para uma aprendizagem contínua, contextualizada e significativa. A consciência do contexto do aprendiz constitui-se do elemento fundamental neste tipo de educação. A partir das pesquisas realizadas, concluiu-se que, atualmente, os ambientes virtuais de suporte à Educação Ubíqua possuem um contexto de atuação específico ou localizado, além de um ambiente computacional próprio. Desta forma, o problema de pesquisa desta tese consiste em identificar os elementos básicos necessários para auxiliar uma aprendizagem independente de lugar, de tempo, do contexto em que ela ocorre e do ambiente computacional de suporte. A partir desses aspectos, esta tese aborda a hipótese de que o desenvolvimento de um ambiente educacional ubíquo deve ser apoiado por mecanismos computacionais pró-ativos, providos por um ambiente de suporte à ubiqüidade, que possibilite perceber o contexto do aprendiz e o uso de diversas tecnologias de acesso. Cabe ao ambiente educacional adaptar os recursos disponíveis, levando em consideração a dinamicidade com que eles se alteram, de forma contínua e transparente, criando um ambiente propício para a aprendizagem. Desta forma, este trabalho propõe um modelo de Educação Ubíqua orientado à consciência do contexto do aprendiz denominado GlobalEdu. Neste, o aprendiz tem a possibilidade de aprender de forma contínua e integrada com o seu contexto. O GlobalEdu provê uma organização em camadas. A camada de Aplicação é representada por um Agente Pedagógico, cujo objetivo é auxiliar a interação do aprendiz no ambiente. A camada de Sistema consitui-se de um conjunto de módulos Educacionais e de Suporte, necessários para auxiliar no processo educacional do aprendiz no ambiente, manipulando o contexto do aprendiz, seu perfil e seus conteúdos, além de elementos que auxiliem a execução do agente e dos recursos que ele manipula. As principais contribuições dessa tese consistem em aprofundar os aspectos referentes à consciência do contexto do aprendiz, bem como a proposta e desenvolvimento do modelo e sua integração com ambientes de suporte à Computação Ubíqua. Além disso, a partir de uma ontologia para representação de contexto, o modelo permite o mapeamento de contextos diversos. A partir da avaliação do sistema, identificou-se a importância do ambiente educacional preocupar-se com os processos educacionais, enquanto o ambiente computacional suporta os elementos necessários para prover à consciência do contexto e os demais aspectos relacionados à ubiqüidade. / This research is about Ubiquitous Learning. The idea of ubiquitous learning is to create a network of devices, people and situation that allows learning experiences to play out. The learner’s context-aware is a fundamental element of this type of education. Thus, the ubiquitous learning environment supports omnipresense processes, learner autonomy and integration with learner’s surrounding environment. The current related works are oriented for specific contexts. We are investigating what subset of functionality is required for to provide learning can occur anywhere, anytime, with continued computing support and no-specific computational environment. Our hypothesis is that it is possible to develop ubiquitous learning environment using ubiquitous computing support, because this type of computing can provide the context aware characteristics and support several access technologies. With this, the learning environment provides continuous learning resources, creating a propitious environment for the learning. This work proposes a ubiquitous learning model addressed to learner’s context-aware called GlobalEdu. This model supports learning on ubiquitous computing environments. It is composed by Pedagogical Agent, Educational Services and Support Services. The Pedagogical Agent is an agent that runs in the device that the learner is using, assisting the educational process in the ubiquitous environment. It contains an interface to the Educational Services and provides a ubiquitous vision through ubiquitous environment. The Educational Services and Support Services provide the support to agent execution in the ubiquitous environment, through identification and adaptation of resources in agreement with the learner’s profile and learner’s context. The main contributions of this work are concentrated in the surrounding context of the learner. An ontology for context representation was proposed. Moreover, it was proposed a ubiquitous learning model and its integration with a ubiquitous environment. We concluded that the integration of learning environment and ubiquitous environment is important. The ubiquitous environment supports context information and others ubiquitous aspects while the learning environment is dedicated to the educational process.

A Educação Ubíqua, tema de pesquisa desta tese, tem como objetivo relacionar os aprendizes com o ambiente em seu entorno, formando uma rede virtual e real de pessoas, objetos e situações, auxiliando para uma aprendizagem contínua, contextualizada e significativa. A consciência do contexto do aprendiz constitui-se do elemento fundamental neste tipo de educação. A partir das pesquisas realizadas, concluiu-se que, atualmente, os ambientes virtuais de suporte à Educação Ubíqua possuem um contexto de atuação específico ou localizado, além de um ambiente computacional próprio. Desta forma, o problema de pesquisa desta tese consiste em identificar os elementos básicos necessários para auxiliar uma aprendizagem independente de lugar, de tempo, do contexto em que ela ocorre e do ambiente computacional de suporte. A partir desses aspectos, esta tese aborda a hipótese de que o desenvolvimento de um ambiente educacional ubíquo deve ser apoiado por mecanismos computacionais pró-ativos, providos por um ambiente de suporte à ubiqüidade, que possibilite perceber o contexto do aprendiz e o uso de diversas tecnologias de acesso. Cabe ao ambiente educacional adaptar os recursos disponíveis, levando em consideração a dinamicidade com que eles se alteram, de forma contínua e transparente, criando um ambiente propício para a aprendizagem. Desta forma, este trabalho propõe um modelo de Educação Ubíqua orientado à consciência do contexto do aprendiz denominado GlobalEdu. Neste, o aprendiz tem a possibilidade de aprender de forma contínua e integrada com o seu contexto. O GlobalEdu provê uma organização em camadas. A camada de Aplicação é representada por um Agente Pedagógico, cujo objetivo é auxiliar a interação do aprendiz no ambiente. A camada de Sistema consitui-se de um conjunto de módulos Educacionais e de Suporte, necessários para auxiliar no processo educacional do aprendiz no ambiente, manipulando o contexto do aprendiz, seu perfil e seus conteúdos, além de elementos que auxiliem a execução do agente e dos recursos que ele manipula. As principais contribuições dessa tese consistem em aprofundar os aspectos referentes à consciência do contexto do aprendiz, bem como a proposta e desenvolvimento do modelo e sua integração com ambientes de suporte à Computação Ubíqua. Além disso, a partir de uma ontologia para representação de contexto, o modelo permite o mapeamento de contextos diversos. A partir da avaliação do sistema, identificou-se a importância do ambiente educacional preocupar-se com os processos educacionais, enquanto o ambiente computacional suporta os elementos necessários para prover à consciência do contexto e os demais aspectos relacionados à ubiqüidade. / This research is about Ubiquitous Learning. The idea of ubiquitous learning is to create a network of devices, people and situation that allows learning experiences to play out. The learner’s context-aware is a fundamental element of this type of education. Thus, the ubiquitous learning environment supports omnipresense processes, learner autonomy and integration with learner’s surrounding environment. The current related works are oriented for specific contexts. We are investigating what subset of functionality is required for to provide learning can occur anywhere, anytime, with continued computing support and no-specific computational environment. Our hypothesis is that it is possible to develop ubiquitous learning environment using ubiquitous computing support, because this type of computing can provide the context aware characteristics and support several access technologies. With this, the learning environment provides continuous learning resources, creating a propitious environment for the learning. This work proposes a ubiquitous learning model addressed to learner’s context-aware called GlobalEdu. This model supports learning on ubiquitous computing environments. It is composed by Pedagogical Agent, Educational Services and Support Services. The Pedagogical Agent is an agent that runs in the device that the learner is using, assisting the educational process in the ubiquitous environment. It contains an interface to the Educational Services and provides a ubiquitous vision through ubiquitous environment. The Educational Services and Support Services provide the support to agent execution in the ubiquitous environment, through identification and adaptation of resources in agreement with the learner’s profile and learner’s context. The main contributions of this work are concentrated in the surrounding context of the learner. An ontology for context representation was proposed. Moreover, it was proposed a ubiquitous learning model and its integration with a ubiquitous environment. We concluded that the integration of learning environment and ubiquitous environment is important. The ubiquitous environment supports context information and others ubiquitous aspects while the learning environment is dedicated to the educational process.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T13:59:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 22 / Nenhuma / A computação ubíqua traz várias potencialidades para os processos de ensino e aprendizagem. Do ponto de vista educacional, o desfio é a criação de um ambiente de aprendizagem móvel que proporcione recursos apropriados para o aprendiz. No cenário da aprendizagem ubíqua, a criação de um Perfil de Aprendiz, que una suas localizações, interesses e informações referentes a seu estudo torna-se importante. A dissertação apresenta o PeLeP-Pervasive Learning Profile, queconsiste em um modelo de aprendiz voltado para sistemas de suporte à aprendizagem ubíqua. O objetivo do PeLeP-Pervasive é possibilitar que aplicações educacionais possam explorar o ensino e a aprendizagem ubíquos, baseando-se em um perfil organizado em categorias que contém informações da vida cotidiana do aprendiz. O perfil do aprendiz no PeLeP é refinado e enriquecido através de inferências. estas, são baseadas na mobilidade do aprendiz por contexto, pelas tarefas que ele executa nos mesmos dentro de um ambiente de computação ubíqua. / The ubiquitous computing brings several potentialities for the processes of teaching and learning. Of the educational point of view, the callenge it is the creation of an environment of mobile learning that provides resources adapted for the learner. In the scenario of the learning ubiquitous, the creation of a Learner Profile, that unites yours locations, interests and referring information its study he/she becomes important. This dissertation presents PeLeP – Pervasive Learning Profile, which consists in a learner profile model oriented to ubiquitous learning systems. PeLeP aims to let applications explore ubiquitous education and learning through user profiles organized by categories containing information about that learner’s daily life. Learner profiles in PeLeP are defined and enriched through inferences. These inferences are based on several factors, such as learner’s mobility between contexts, and the tasks he executes in each of them while inside a ubiquitous computing environment

Context: This protocol is as a supplementary document to our review paper that investigates security-related challenges and solutions that have occurred during the past decade (from January 2003 to December 2014). Objectives: The objective of this systematic review is to identify security-related challenges, security goals, and defenses in ubiquitous computing by answering to three main research questions. First, demographic data and trends will be given by analyzing where, when and by whom the research has been carried out. Second, we will identify security goals that occur in ubiquitous computing, along with attacks, vulnerabilities and threats that have motivated the research. Finally, we will examine the differences in addressing security in ubiquitous computing with those in traditional distributed systems. Method: In order to provide an overview of security-related challenges, goals and solutions proposed in the literature, we will use a systematic literature review (SLR). This protocol describes the steps which are to be taken in order to identify papers relevant to the objective of our review. The first phase of the method includes planning, in which we define the scope of our review by identifying the main research questions, search procedure, as well as inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data extracted from the relevant papers are to be used in the second phase of the method, data synthesis, to answer our research questions. The review will end by reporting on the results. Results and conclusions: The expected results of the review should provide an overview of attacks, vulnerabilities and threats that occur in ubiquitous computing and that have motivated the research in the last decade. Moreover, the review will indicate which security goals are gaining on their significance in the era of ubiquitous computing and provide a categorization of the security-related countermeasures, mechanisms and techniques found in the literature. (authors' abstract)

The evident progression of ubiquitous technologies has put forward the introduction of new features which software systems can sustain. Several of the ubiquitous technologies available today are regarded as fundamental elements of many software applications in various domains. The utilisation of ubiquitous technologies has an apparent impact on business processes that can grant organisations a competitive advantage and improve their productivity. The change in the business processes in such organisations typically leads to a change in the underlying software systems. In addressing the need for change in the underlying software systems, this research is focused on establishing a general framework and methodology to facilitate the reengineering of software systems in order to allow the incorporation of new features which are introduced by the employment of ubiquitous technologies. Although this thesis aims to be general and not limited to a specific programming language or software development approach, the focus is on Object-Oriented software. The reengineering framework follows a systematic step-based approach, with greater focus on the reverse engineering aspect. The four stages of the framework are: program understanding, additional-requirement engineering, integration, and finally the testing and operation stage. In its first stage, the proposed reengineering framework regards the source code as the starting point to understand the system using a static-analysis based method. The second stage is concerned with the elicitation of the user functional requirements resulting from the introduction of ubiquitous technologies. In the third stage, the goal is to integrate the system’s components and hardware handlers using a developed integration algorithm and available integration techniques. In the fourth and final stage, which is discussed in a general manner only in this thesis, the reengineered system is tested and put in the operation phase. The proposed approach is demonstrated using a case study in Java to show that the proposed approach is feasible and promising in its domain. Conclusions are drawn based on analysis and further research directions are discussed at the end of the study.

The future smart home will be enhanced and driven by the recent advance of the Internet of Things (IoT), which advocates the integration of computational devices within an Internet architecture on a global scale [1, 2]. In the IoT paradigm, the smart home will be developed by interconnecting a plethora of smart objects both inside and outside the home environment [3-5]. The recent take-up of these connected devices within home environments is slowly and surely transforming traditional home living environments. Such connected and integrated home environments lead to the concept of the smart home, which has attracted significant research efforts to enhance the functionality of home environments with a wide range of novel services. The wide availability of services and devices within contemporary smart home environments make their management a challenging and rewarding task. The trend whereby the development of smart home services is decoupled from that of smart home devices increases the complexity of this task. As such, it is desirable that smart home services are developed and deployed independently, rather than pre-bundled with specific devices, although it must be recognised that this is not always practical. Moreover, systems need to facilitate the deployment process and cope with any changes in the target environment after deployment. Maintaining complex smart home systems throughout their lifecycle entails considerable resources and effort. These challenges have stimulated the need for dynamic auto-configurable services amongst such distributed systems. Although significant research has been directed towards achieving auto-configuration, none of the existing solutions is sufficient to achieve auto-configuration within smart home environments. All such solutions are considered incomplete, as they lack the ability to meet all smart home requirements efficiently. These requirements include the ability to adapt flexibly to new and dynamic home environments without direct user intervention. Fulfilling these requirements would enhance the performance of smart home systems and help to address cost-effectiveness, considering the financial implications of the manual configuration of smart home environments. Current configuration approaches fail to meet one or more of the requirements of smart homes. If one of these approaches meets the flexibility criterion, the configuration is either not executed online without affecting the system or requires direct user intervention. In other words, there is no adequate solution to allow smart home systems to adapt dynamically to changing circumstances, hence to enable the correct interconnections among its components without direct user intervention and the interruption of the whole system. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an efficient, adaptive, agile and flexible system that adapts dynamically to each new requirement of the smart home environment. This research aims to devise methods to automate the activities associated with customised service delivery for dynamic home environments by exploiting recent advances in the field of ubiquitous robotics and Semantic Web technologies. It introduces a novel approach called the Knowledge-based Auto-configuration Software Robot (Sobot) for Smart Home Environments, which utilises the Sobot to achieve auto-configuration of the system. The research work was conducted under the Distributed Integrated Care Services and Systems (iCARE) project, which was designed to accomplish and deliver integrated distributed ecosystems with a homecare focus. The auto-configuration Sobot which is the focus of this thesis is a key component of the iCARE project. It will become one of the key enabling technologies for generic smart home environments. It has a profound impact on designing and implementing a high quality system. Its main role is to generate a feasible configuration that meets the given requirements using the knowledgebase of the smart home environment as a core component. The knowledgebase plays a pivotal role in helping the Sobot to automatically select the most appropriate resources in a given context-aware system via semantic searching and matching. Ontology as a technique of knowledgebase representation generally helps to design and develop a specific domain. It is also a key technology for the Semantic Web, which enables a common understanding amongst software agents and people, clarifies the domain assumptions and facilitates the reuse and analysis of its knowledge. The main advantages of the Sobot over traditional applications is its awareness of the changing digital and physical environments and its ability to interpret these changes, extract the relevant contextual data and merge any new information or knowledge. The Sobot is capable of creating new or alternative feasible configurations to meet the system's goal by utilising inferred facts based on the smart home ontological model, so that the system can adapt to the changed environment. Furthermore, the Sobot has the capability to execute the generated reconfiguration plan without interrupting the running of the system. A proof-of-concept testbed has been designed and implemented. The case studies carried out have shown the potential of the proposed approach to achieve flexible and reliable auto-configuration of the smart home system, with promising directions for future research.

published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Context: This protocol is as a supplementary document to our review paper that investigates security-related challenges and solutions that have occurred during the past decade (from January 2003 to December 2013). Objectives: The objective of this systematic review is to identify security-related challenges, security goals and defenses in ubiquitous computing by answering to three main research questions. First, demographic data and trends will be given by analyzing where, when and by whom the research has been carried out. Second, we will identify security goals that occur in ubiquitous computing, along with attacks, vulnerabilities and threats that have motivated the research. Finally, we will examine the differences in addressing security in ubiquitous computing with those in traditional distributed systems. Method: In order to provide an overview of security-related challenges, goals and solutions proposed in the literature, we will use a systematic literature review (SLR). This protocol describes the steps which are to be taken in order to identify papers relevant to the objective of our review. The first phase of the method includes planning, in which we define the scope of our review by identifying the main research questions, search procedure, as well as inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data extracted from the relevant papers are to be used in the second phase of the method, data synthesis, to answer our research questions. The review will end by reporting on the results. Results and conclusions: The expected results of the review should provide an overview of attacks, vulnerabilities and threats that occur in ubiquitous computing and that have motivated the research in the last decade. Moreover, the review will indicate which security goals are gaining on their significance in the era of ubiquitous computing and provide a categorization of the security-related countermeasures, mechanisms and techniques found in the literature. (authors' abstract)

The rapid development of mobile technologies has facilitated users to generate and store files on mobile devices. However, it has become a challenging issue for users to search efficiently and effectively for files of interest in a mobile environment that involves a large number of mobile nodes. In this thesis, file management and retrieval alternatives have been investigated to propose a feasible framework that can be employed on resource-limited devices without altering their operating systems. The file annotation and retrieval framework (FARM) proposed in the thesis automatically annotates the files with their basic file attributes by extracting them from the underlying operating system of the device. The framework is implemented in the JME platform as a case study. This framework provides a variety of features for managing the metadata and file search features on the device itself and on other devices in a networked environment. FARM not only automates the file-search process but also provides accurate results as demonstrated by the experimental analysis. In order to facilitate a file search and take advantage of the Semantic Web Technologies, the SemFARM framework is proposed which utilizes the knowledge of a generic ontology. The generic ontology defines the most common keywords that can be used as the metadata of stored files. This provides semantic-based file search capabilities on low-end devices where the search keywords are enriched with additional knowledge extracted from the defined ontology. The existing frameworks annotate image files only, while SemFARM can be used to annotate all types of files. Semantic heterogeneity is a challenging issue and necessitates extensive research to accomplish the aim of a semantic web. For this reason, significant research efforts have been made in recent years by proposing an enormous number of ontology alignment systems to deal with ontology heterogeneities. In the process of aligning different ontologies, it is essential to encompass their semantic, structural or any system-specific measures in mapping decisions to produce more accurate alignments. The proposed solution, in this thesis, for ontology alignment presents a structural matcher, which computes the similarity between the super-classes, sub-classes and properties of two entities from different ontologies that require aligning. The proposed alignment system (OARS) uses Rough Sets to aggregate the results obtained from various matchers in order to deal with uncertainties during the mapping process of entities. The OARS uses a combinational approach by using a string-based and linguistic-based matcher, in addition to structural-matcher for computing the overall similarity between two entities. The performance of the OARS is evaluated in comparison with existing state of the art alignment systems in terms of precision and recall. The performance tests are performed by using benchmark ontologies and the results show significant improvements, specifically in terms of recall on all groups of test ontologies. There is no such existing framework, which can use alignments for file search on mobile devices. The ontology alignment paradigm is integrated in the SemFARM to further enhance the file search features of the framework as it utilises the knowledge of more than one ontology in order to perform a search query. The experimental evaluations show that it performs better in terms of precision and recall where more than one ontology is available when searching for a required file.