Abstract This dissertation aimed at developing a multi-modal sensing u-healthcare system (MSUS), which reflects the unique properties of a healthcare application in a wireless sensor network. Together with health parameters, such as ECG, SpO2 and blood pressure, the system also transfers context-aware data, including activity, position and tracking data, in a wireless sensor network environment at home or in a hospital. Since packet loss may have fatal consequences for patients, health-related data are more critical than most other types of monitoring data. Thus, compared to environmental, agricultural or industrial monitoring, healthcare monitoring in a wireless environment imposes different requirements and priorities. These include heavy data traffic with wavelike parameters in wireless sensor network and fatal data loss due to the traffic. To ensure reliable data transfer in a wireless sensor network, this research placed special emphasis on the optimization of sampling rate, packet length and transmission rate, and on the traffic reduction method. To improve the reliability and accuracy of diagnosis, the u-healthcare system also collects context-aware information on the user’s activity and location and provides real-time tracking. Waveform health parameters, such as ECG, are normally sampled in the 100 to 400 Hz range according to the monitoring purpose. This type of waveform data may incur a heavy burden in wireless communication. To reduce wireless traffic between the sensor nodes and the gateway node, the system utilizes on-site ECG analysis implemented on the sensor nodes as well as query architecture. A 3D VRML viewer was also developed for the realistic monitoring of the user’s moving path and location. Two communication methods, an 802.15.4-based wireless sensor network and a CDMA cellular network are used by sensors placed on the users’ bodies to gather medical data, which is then transmitted to a server PC at home or in the hospital, depending on whether the sensor is within or outside the range of the wireless sensor network.

Despite substantial effort made by the usable security community at facilitating the use of recommended security systems and behaviors, much security advice is ignored and many security systems are underutilized. I argue that this disconnect can partially be explained by the fact that security behaviors have myriad unaccounted for social consequences. For example, by using two-factor authentication, one might be perceived as “paranoid”. By encrypting an e-mail correspondence, one might be perceived as having something to hide. Yet, to date, little theoretical work in usable security has applied theory from social psychology to understand how these social consequences affect people’s security behaviors. Likewise, little systems work in usable security has taken social factors into consideration. To bridge these gaps in literature and practice, I begin to build a theory of social cybersecurity and apply those theoretical insights to create systems that encourage better cybersecurity behaviors. First, through a series of interviews, surveys and a large-scale analysis of how security tools diffuse through the social networks of 1.5 million Facebook users, I empirically model how social influences affect the adoption of security behaviors and systems. In so doing, I provide some of the first direct evidence that security behaviors are strongly driven by social influence, and that the design of a security system strongly influences its potential for social spread. Specifically, security systems that are more observable, inclusive, and stewarded are positively affected by social influence, while those that are not are negatively affected by social influence. Based on these empirical results, I put forth two prescriptions: (i) creating socially grounded interface “nudges” that encourage better cybersecurity behaviors, and (ii) designing new, more socially intelligent end-user facing security systems. As an example of a social “nudge”, I designed a notification that informs Facebook users that their friends use optional security systems to protect their own accounts. In an experimental evaluation with 50,000 Facebook users, I found that this social notification was significantly more effective than a non-social control notification at attracting clicks to improve account security and in motivating the adoption of promoted, optional security tools. As an example of a socially intelligent cybersecurity system, I designed Thumprint: an inclusive authentication system that authenticates and identifies individual group members of a small, local group through a single, shared secret knock. Through my evaluations, I found that Thumprint is resilient to casual but motivated adversaries and that it can reliably differentiate multiple group members who share the same secret knock. Taken together, these systems point towards a future of socially intelligent cybersecurity that encourages better security behaviors. I conclude with a set of descriptive and prescriptive takeaways, as well as a set of open problems for future work. Concretely, this thesis provides the following contributions: (i) an initial theory of social cybersecurity, developed from both observational and experimental work, that explains how social influences affect security behaviors; (ii) a set of design recommendations for creating socially intelligent security systems that encourage better cybersecurity behaviors; (iii) the design, implementation and comprehensive evaluation of two such systems that leverage these design recommendations; and (iv) a reflection on how the insights uncovered in this work can be utilized alongside broader design considerations in HCI, security and design to create an infrastructure of useful, usable and socially intelligent cybersecurity systems.

[pt] Tecnologia Assistiva (TA) visa compensar limitações funcionais motoras, sensoriais ou cognitivas de seus usuários. Uma das razões pela qual TA é difícil de projetar e transformar em um produto é a variabilidade dos tipos e graus de deficiência e das características individuais dos seus os usuários (físicas, psicológicas, culturais e ambientais). Esta variabilidade pode ser tratada por meio de configurações. Este trabalho tem como ponto de partida a premissa de que a capacidade para o usuário final de adaptar a TA pode ter o potencial para melhorar a experiência de uso e a qualidade dos produtos. No entanto, antes de empreender tal esforço, devemos responder a perguntas como: o que é configuração no domínio da TA? O que significa a TA para os seus usuários (e para as pessoas ao redor deles)? O que pode, deve ou não deve ser configurado e como? Neste trabalho, foi realizado um estudo de caso que mistura etnografia e pesquisa-ação com um único participante tetraplégico que veio ao nosso laboratório em busca de tecnologia para ajudá-lo em sua vida cotidiana. Primeiro, nós o entrevistamos e observamos suas necessidades e atividades diárias e, em seguida, desenvolvemos uma plataforma protótipo de TA que controla alguns dispositivos, operada simultaneamente por gesto e interação de voz em sua casa inteligente. Ao longo de dois ciclos de pesquisa-ação, investigamos questões de interação e tecnológicas em relação à configuração e ao uso do nosso protótipo. Com base em nossos resultados, propomos um conjunto de dimensões e um framework colaborativo para a configuração de TA. Nossa principal contribuição é propor uma estrutura conceitual para organizar o espaço do problema de configuração de TA que pode apoiar a criação de tecnologias semelhantes. / [en] Assistive Technology (AT) aims at compensating for motor, sensory or cognitive functional limitations of its users. One of the reasons AT is hard to design and turn into a product is the variability of kinds and degrees of disabilities and individual characteristics among users (physical, psychological, cultural and environmental). This variability can be addressed by means of configurations. This work takes as a starting point the premise that the ability for the end-user to adapt AT may have the potential to improve user s experience and the quality of the products. However, before engaging in such endeavor we must answer questions like: what is configuration in the AT domain? What does AT mean to users (and stakeholders)? What could, should or should not be configured and how? In this work, we conducted a case study mixing ethnography and actionresearch with a single tetraplegic participant who came to our lab seeking for technology that could help him in his daily life. First, we interviewed him and observed his daily needs and activities and then we developed an AT platform prototype that controls some devices to be operated simultaneously by gesture and voice interaction in his smart home. Throughout two action-research cycles, we investigated interaction and technological issues regarding our prototype configuration and use. Based on our findings, we propose a set of dimensions and a collaborative framework for AT configuration. Our main contribution is to propose a conceptual structure for organizing the AT configuration problem space to support the design of similar technologies.

This dissertation thesis is focused on the issue of further extension of computers into the human life and its stronger influencing of human being, in the foreign literature defined as ubiquitous computing, everyware or pervasive computing. The basic goals of the thesis are follows: - Compare different views on this issues and make their assessment - Analyze possible effect, especially for banking and insurance area - Propose some specific innovation in named areas The results of this thesis should: - Serve as a basis for further studies in the ubiquitous computing area - Be usable as a basis for further scientific research - Bring some practical application, with which can we met in practice in future years Whole work place emphasis on the innovation process, with which is topic very closely linked and which is constantly emphasizing both in technical as in commercial spheres. The goals of the thesis are fulfilled in the individual chapters in the following way: - Definition of the goals and introduction of the topic -- Chapter 1 - Analysis of current status of knowledge -- Chapter 2 - Brief characteristic of main UC concepts -- Chapter 3 - Practical experience and innovation from UC -- Chapter 4 - Final evaluation -- Chapter 5 The scientific benefits of this work have been awarded by presentation of main parts of the thesis on international conferences and publication in the scientific magazines.

A Computação Ubíqua está revolucionando a interação do ser-humano com os dispositivos computacionais ao disponibilizar tecnologias pouco intrusivas ao cotidiano das pessoas. A Computação Ciente de Contexto, um dos temas de pesquisa em Computação Ubíqua, tem contribuído para a construção de aplicações capazes de customizar-se e adaptar-se às necessidades do usuário sem a intervenção explícita deste. Suportar o desenvolvimento de aplicações Cientes de Contexto é um dos desafios da Computação Ubíqua. Desenvolvido no mesmo grupo de pesquisa que este trabalho está inserido, o Serviço Web Context Kernel, gerencia informações de contexto e explora as especificações e tecnologias da Web como plataforma de intercâmbio para a informação contextual. O trabalho aqui reportado teve como objetivo investigar a utilização de Serviços Web por meio do emprego da infra-estrutura Context Kernel na integração de aplicações em cenários de trabalho colaborativo e de aprendizado eletrônico. Como resultado, foi elaborado um conjunto de lições aprendidas provenientes do estudo e do emprego das especificações para Serviços Web. Outros resultados foram: as especificações de informações de contexto de grupo e de metadados educacionais em dimensões de contexto e exemplos de utilização do Context Kernel para tornar aplicações cientes de contexto. / Ubiquitous computing has became a revolution in terms of the user-computer interaction by providing technologies that seamlessly integrate themselves to people?s everyday life. Context-aware computing, which is an important research theme in ubiquitous computing, has been contributing for the building of applications that are capable both to customize and adapt themselves aiming to support a user without disturb him. A great challenge in ubiquitous computing has been the support to build context-aware aplications. For that reason, the it has been developed the Context Kernel Web Service, which is a service infrastructure that makes use of Web-based specifications and technologies in order to promote the management and the interchange of context information. In this work the usage of Web Services was analyzed by using the Context Kernel to integrate applications in scenarios of cooperative work and e-learning. As a result, a list of lessons learned was ellaborated with respect to the use and the study of Web Services specifications for context-aware computing. Other results include a context information specifications for metadata about group and educational resources as well as examples of how to use the Context Kernel to leverage applications context-aware.

Ubiquitous computing aims to make computing widely available, easy to use, and completely transparent to the user. Umbilical Cord is intended to be the first step in researching ubiquitous computing at CSUSB. It implements a model scalable network with a client-server architecture that features consistent user interaction and global access to user data. It is based on the Linux operating system which can be leveraged for future research due to the open nature of its source code. It also features a scalable network swap.

In ubiquitous environments, users are exposed to public spaces and places where they are supposed to interact and provide also private information. In order to enhance user acceptance of such ubiquitous appliances they have to be designed to consider trust and trustworthiness already in the design phase. We focus on regarding trust in early phases and provide tools for designers by describing trust issues through patterns which are made available through design repositories. Such patterns help designers of ubiquitous applications to create designs quicker based on the availability of already proven solutions they can rely on.

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

Co-design är en systemutvecklingsmetod som går ut på att potentiella slutanvändare får vara med under designprocessen och designa produkter i samråd med övriga intressenter, exempelvis designers och utvecklare. En utmaning för dagens IT-utveckling är att den ökade digitaliseringen i vår vardag skapar nya kontexter av användningsområden där designarbeten måste anpassas för att kunna genomföras. Undersökningens syfte har varit att ta reda på hur man kan anpassa designtekniker och interaktiva verktyg för att kunna genomföra co-design på distans i hemmiljö. För att kunna svara på frågeställningen konstruerades en iterativ genomförandeprocess bestående av 3 digitala sessioner där 2 designers och 4 rekryterade co-designers träffades i grupp under 3 tillfällen. I genomförandet användes skisser, prototyper och scenarion som grund för att konstruera en mobil applikation för ett framtida smartkök. Undersökningen visade att distansutförande kan påverka tidsåtgången negativt för en del arbetsmoment och att det i vissa fall skulle vara fördelaktigt att i stället anordna fysiska träffar. Några av de svårigheter som identifierades var att digitala kommunikationsverktyg kan begränsa deltagarna och hindra dem från att yttra sina tankar och åsikter. Trots detta visar resultaten på att co-design på distans kan främja ömsesidigt lärande och att det är möjligt att anpassa både designtekniker och interaktiva verktyg för att fungera i olika miljöer. Distansutförande har fördelen att det möjliggör åtkomst till användningsmiljöer som vanligtvis skulle vara svåråtkomliga, däribland slutanvändarens egna hem.

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