Location information is used to provide a diverse range of services to users such as emergency, navigation, billing, security, information and advertising services. This information is derived from a broad range of indoor and outdoor technologies. The location information thus derived is of different granularity, different co-ordination system and is controlled by numerous service providers. In addition to this, broad selections of devices are used for providing these services. Having a diverse range of applications requiring location information at different levels of granularity, the need to export location information across multiple devices and the existence of different location determination technologies necessitates the need for heterogeneous location network. These networks derive location information from multiple sources and provides various location-based services to users irrespective of the medium, device or technology used. Security, user privacy and management of location information are some of the important issues that need to be addressed. The main contribution of this thesis is the design of a secure and privacy assured heterogeneous location architecture. A formal methodology was chosen to design the heterogeneous location architecture. The design of the architecture resulted in a novel key distribution protocol and a model for information flow that can be easily encapsulated into applications or architectures having similar requirements. The research also resulted in the enhancement of a proposed location framework for securing critical infrastructures using context-aware self-defending objects. The proposed enhanced framework helps to negate the security vulnerabilities introduced through the use of general-purpose computer systems in critical infrastructures.

Context-aware computing has been a rapidly growing research area, however its uses have been predominantly targeted at pervasive applications for smart spaces such as smart homes and workplaces. This research has investigated the use of location and other context data in access control policy, with the purpose of augmenting existing IP and application-layer security to provide fine-grained access control and effective enforcement of security policy. The use of location and other context data for security purposes requires that the technologies and methods used for acquiring the context data are trusted. This thesis begins with the description of a framework for the analysis of location systems for use in security services and critical infrastructure. This analysis classifies cooperative locations systems by their modes of operation and the common primitives they are composed of. Common location systems are analyzed for inherent security flaws and limitations based on the vulnerability assessment of location system primitives and the taxonomy of known attacks. An efficient scheme for supporting trusted differential GPS corrections is proposed, such that DGPS vulnerabilities that have been identified are mitigated. The proposal augments the existing broadcast messaging protocol with a number of new messages facilitating origin authentication and integrity of broadcast corrections for marine vessels. A proposal for a trusted location system based on GSM is presented, in which a model for tamper resistant location determination using GSM signaling is designed. A protocol for association of a user to a cell phone is proposed and demonstrated in a framework for both Web and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) applications. After introducing the security issues of existing location systems and a trusted location system proposal, the focus of the thesis changes to the use of location data in authorization and access control processes. This is considered at both the IP-layer and the application-layer. For IP-layer security, a proposal for location proximity-based network packet filtering in IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs is presented. This proposal details an architecture that extends the Linux netfilter system to support proximity-based packet filtering, using methods of transparent location determination through the application of a pathloss model to raw signal measurements. Our investigation of application-layer security resulted in the establishment of a set of requirements for the use of contextual information in application level authorization. Existing network authentication protocols and access control mechanisms are analyzed for their ability to fulfill these requirements and their suitability in facilitating context-aware authorization. The result is the design and development of a new context-aware authorization architecture, using the proposed modifications to Role-based Access Control (RBAC). One of the distinguishing characteristics of the proposed architecture is its ability to handle authorization with context-transparency, and provide support for real-time granting and revocation of permissions. During the investigation of the context-aware authorization architecture, other security contexts in addition to host location were found to be useful in application level authorization. These included network topology between the host and application server, the security of the host and the host execution environment. Details of the prototype implementation, performance results, and context acquisition services are presented.

Computing is increasingly pervading the activities of our everyday lives: at work, at home, and out on the town. When designing these pervasive systems there is a need to better understand and incorporate the context of use and yet there are limited empirical investigations into what constitutes this context. The user’s physical and social situation is an important part of their context when operating in an urban environment and thus needs to be understood and included in the interaction design of context-aware pervasive computing. This thesis has combined ideas from human computer interaction (HCI) and architecture to investigate indexicality in interface design as an instrument for incorporating physical and social context of the built environment into context-aware pervasive computing. Indexicality in interface design is a new approach to designing HCI for pervasive computing that relies on knowledge of current context to implicitly communicate between system and user. It reduces the amount of information that needs to be explicitly displayed in the interface while maintaining the usefulness and understandability of the communication.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Abler, Randal T.; Committee Member: Copeland, John A.; Committee Member: Haas, Kevin; Committee Member: Moore II, Elliot; Committee Member: Owen III, Henry L.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Abowd, Gregory; Committee Member: Edwards, Keith; Committee Member: Grinter, Rebecca; Committee Member: LaMarca, Anthony; Committee Member: Starner, Thad.

No description available.

Aplicações cientes de contexto precisam de mecanismos para recuperar informações sobre o seu contexto de execução. Com base no contexto atual, tais aplicações são capazes de se autoadaptar para fornecer informações e serviços adequados aos seus usuários. A abordagem comum para infraestruturas de apoio às aplicações sensíveis ao contexto fornece serviços para a descoberta de recursos através da utilização de pares <chave-valor> e motores que executam apenas correspondência sintática. Esta abordagem não considera as possíveis relações semânticas entre as palavras-chave usadas. Portanto, a sua expressividade semântica limitada, leva a um serviço de descoberta que provê baixa taxa de recuperação e baixa acurácia. Este trabalho apresenta a utilização de uma outra abordagem para o serviço de contexto e descoberta, que utiliza ontologias para representar os recursos do contexto de execução e capturar a semântica da consulta do usuário, melhorando assim o processo de descoberta para a autoadaptação de sistemas sensíveis ao contexto. A abordagem proposta oferece também pontos de extensão para as aplicações clientes através da utilização de outras ontologias. Esta abordagem foi integrada à infraestrutura CDRF, de forma a adicionar semântica aos serviços desenvolvidos neste projeto. Exemplos de aplicações são também propostos para demonstrar a utilização dos novos serviços. / Context-aware applications demand ways of retrieving context information from the environment. Based on the current context, such applications are able to self-adapt to provide the correct information and services to its users. The usual approach for supporting infrastructures for context-aware applications provides facilities for resource discovery using <key-value> pairs and discovery engines that perform syntactic matching. This approach does not consider the possible semantic relations between the keywords used. So its limited semantic expressiveness often leads to poor discovery results. This paper presents the use of a different approach for service discovery that uses ontologies to represent resources and capture the semantics of the users query, improving the discovery process for self-adaptation of context-aware systems. The proposed approach also offers extension hooks to the client applications through the use of other ontologies. This approach is integrated into the CDRF framework and adds semantics to the services developed in that project. Example applications are also proposed to demonstrate the use of the new services.

Um dos principais desafios de pesquisa na UbiComp consiste em fornecer mecanismos para a ciência de contexto que promovam o desenvolvimento de aplicações que reajam de acordo com a dinâmica do ambiente de interesse do usuário. Para manter o conhecimento a respeito desse ambiente, a área da UbiComp pressupõe a utilização de informações produzidas e disponibilizadas em diferentes localizações, o tempo todo. Nesse sentido, os recentes avanços na área da Internet das Coisas (IoT) têm proporcionado uma crescente disponibilidade de sensores conectados em rede, os quais são potenciais produtores de informações contextuais do ambiente para aplicações ubíquas. Com essa motivação, nessa tese é apresentado o COIOT, um middleware para Internet das Coisas concebido com o objetivo de gerenciar a coleta e o processamento das informações contextuais do ambiente físico, bem como a atuação remota sobre o mesmo. O COIOT foi idealizado considerando os trabalhos previamente desenvolvidos pelo grupo de pesquisa GPPD (Grupo de Processamento Paralelo e Distribuído) da UFRGS, particularmente o middleware EXEHDA (Execution Environment for Highly Distributed Applications). Na concepção do COIOT foi adotada uma abordagem distribuída de processamento de contexto que contempla tanto as premissas da IoT quanto as demandas das aplicações da UbiComp. A arquitetura proposta também contempla o gerenciamento de eventos distribuídos através de regras e triggers para tratar as mudanças de estados dos contextos de interesse. Além disso, a arquitetura proposta gerencia outros aspectos importantes nos cenários da IoT, como o tratamento da interoperabilidade, da heterogeneidade, apoio ao controle da escalabilidade e descoberta de recursos. As principais contribuições desta tese são: (i) a concepção de uma arquitetura para IoT capaz de realizar de forma distribuída tanto a coleta e processamento das informações contextuais, como a atuação remota no meio a fim de atender as aplicações da UbiComp e, (ii) a proposição de um modelo de processamento de eventos distribuídos adequado aos cenários da IoT. Para avaliar a arquitetura do COIOT foram realizados dois estudos de caso na área da agricultura. O primeiro estudo de caso foi desenvolvido em ambiente de produção a partir de demandas de pesquisadores da área da agricultura, particularmente da análise de sementes. Já o segundo estudo de caso teve como cenário de testes ambientes da viticultura de precisão. / One of the main research challenges in UbiComp is to provide mechanisms for context-aware to promote the development of applications that react according to the dynamics of user interest environment. To keep the knowledge of this environment, the area of UbiComp presupposes the use of information produced and made available in different locations, all the time. In this sense, the recent advances in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) have provided an increasing availability of sensors and actuators networked. These sensors are potential producers of contextual information. With this motivation, this thesis is presented the CoIoT, a middleware for Internet of Things (IoT) designed in order to manage the collect and processing of contextual information of the physical environment as well as remote actuation on it. The CoIoT was designed considering the work previously developed by the research group GPPD (Parallel Processing Group and distributed) of UFRGS, particularly middleware EXEHDA (Execution Environment for Highly Distributed Applications). In designing the CoIoT it was adopted a distributed approach of context processing that includes both the principles of IoT as the demands of the applications of UbiComp. The proposed architecture also includes rules based and triggers mechanisms to deal with events that characterize the changes of states of the contexts of interest. In addition, the proposed architecture manages other important aspects of IoT scenarios such as the treatment of interoperability, heterogeneity, support the control of scalability and resource discovery. Until now, the central contributions of this thesis include: (i) the design of an architecture for IoT able to perform distributed way both the collect and processing of contextual information, such as remote actuation in the environment in order to meet UbiComp applications and, (ii) the proposition of a distributed event processing model appropriate to the IoT scenarios. In order to evaluate the CoIoT architecture, two case studies were carried out in the area of agriculture. The first case study was developed in a production environment based on the demands of agricultural researchers, particularly seed analysis. On the other hand, the second case study was based on precision testing of viticulture environments.

A Computação Pervasiva tem sido tema de diversos trabalhos nos últimos anos. Essa emergente área de pesquisa propõe uma visão de futuro onde serviços computacionais são oferecidos para os usuários através de inúmeros dispositivos espalhados pelo ambiente. Os serviços são disponibilizados, tanto através da infraestrutura existente dos computadores ligados fisicamente à rede quanto através de dispositivos móveis. Esse espalhamento da computação deve acontecer de maneira natural e imperceptível ao usuário. Dados pessoais, programas e arquivos de dados poderão ser acessados de qualquer lugar em qualquer momento. O poder de processamento será um recurso do ambiente, acessado quando necessário, da mesma forma que é hoje a eletricidade. O usuário não precisará ter ciência de qual máquina realiza o processamento necessário às suas aplicações, contanto que o resultado esperado seja obtido. Acredita-se que essa realidade será atingida através da aliança entre áreas de pesquisa como a Computação em Grade, Computação Móvel e a Computação Consciente do Contexto. A Computação Consciente do Contexto busca enriquecer a comunicação entre os seres humanos e os dispositivos computacionais, tornando sua atuação mais eficaz. As aplicações conscientes do contexto conseguem perceber as modificações que ocorrem no ambiente e adaptar seu comportamento ao novo estado. Esse processo pode ser dividido em três etapas: monitoramento, reconhecimento de contexto e adaptação. Na etapa de monitoramento são coletadas, através de sensores, informações sobre o ambiente. Essas informações, entretanto, são geralmente, de baixo nível de abstração e, portanto, dificilmente usadas diretamente por aplicações. A etapa de reconhecimento de contexto relaciona os dados obtidos do ambiente e transforma-os para que possam ser úteis às aplicações no processo de escolha do comportamento mais adequado à cada circunstância, habilitando a etapa de adaptação a efetivar a transformação do comportamento da aplicação de acordo com a nova situação do ambiente. Este trabalho propõe um servidor de contexto chamado MultiS que tem como objetivo a resolução dos problemas relativos à etapa de reconhecimento de contexto: a produção de dado de contexto baseado em informações de diversos sensores e a capacidade de reagir a modificações no ambiente. Também é proposta uma linguagem para composição de dados do contexto chamada CD-XML utilizada pelas aplicações para descrever ao servidor de contexto os dados aos quais elas são sensíveis. / The Pervasive Computing has been studied on several papers in the last years. This emergent research area presents a vision of future where computational services will be available through uncountable devices scattered across the environment. This service network will be exposed to the users by both traditional wired computers and mobile devices. This distribution of the computing is going to happen smoothly and transparently to the users. Personal data, computer programs, and data files will be available anywhere, anytime. The processing power will be an environment resource and will be accessed whenever needed, in the same way which is the electricity nowadays. The users will no longer need to worry about where their program is being executed, as long as he gets the needed result. The ISAM group believes that this new reality will be achieved through the alliance of research areas such as Grid Computing, Mobile Computing and Context-Aware Computing. The Context-Aware Computing aims to enrich the communication between human being and computer devices. Context-aware applications are capable of recognize the changes on the environment and adapt its own behavior to the new context state. This process can be divided in tree steps: monitoring, context recognition and adaptation. On the monitoring layer, environment information is collected from sensors. Those sensors, however, usually return only low level information, which is hardly used by the applications on its original form. The context recognition layer processes the data acquired from the context and transforms into information aimed to be useful to the adaptation process. With that information the adaptation system can identify the correct behavior for the application on each different context situation. This dissertation propose a context server named MultiS, which target is to solve the problems related to context recognition layer: the production of new context data based on the information of several sensors and the capability of react to changes on the environment. It also presents a new programming language for composition of contextual information, named CD-XML. This language is used by the context-aware applications to communicate to the context server describing which information the application is sensible to.

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.