Pervasive computing at tableside : a wireless web-based ordering system

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a wireless web-based ordering system called iMenu in the restaurant industry. Design/methodology/approach – By using wireless devices such as personal digital assistants and WebPads, this system realizes the paradigm of pervasive computing at tableside. Detailed system requirements, design, implementation and evaluation of iMenu are presented.

Findings – The evaluation of iMenu shows it explicitly increases productivity of restaurant staff. It also has other desirable features such as integration, interoperation and scalability. Compared to traditional restaurant ordering process, by using this system customers get faster and better services, restaurant staff cooperate more efficiently with less working mistakes, and enterprise owners thus receive more business profits.

Originality/value – While many researchers have explored using wireless web-based information systems in different industries, this paper presents a system that employs wireless multi-tiered web-based architecture to build pervasive computing systems. Instead of discussing theoretical issues on pervasive computing, we focus on practical issues of developing a real system, such as choosing of web-based architecture, design of input methods in small screens, and response time in wireless web-based systems.

Toward pervasive computing in restaurant

In this paper, an example of pervasive computing in restaurant, a wireless web-based ordering system is presented. By using mobile devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and WebPad, customers can get many benefits when making orders in restaurants. With this system, customers get faster and better services, restaurant staff cooperate more efficiently with less working mistakes, and enterprise owners thus receive more business profits. This system has multi-tiered web-based system architecture with good integration and scalability features, and is client device operating system fully independent. Details of design and implementation of this system are presented.

Exploiting ungrounded tactile haptic displays for mobile robotic teleoperation

Teleoperated mobile robotics offer potential use in a variety of different real-world applications including hazardous materials handling, urban search and rescue and explosive ordnance handling and disposal. Recent research discusses the use of Haptic technology in increasing task immersion and teleoperator performance. This work investigates the utility of low-cost, ungrounded tactile haptic interfaces in mobile robotic teleoperation. In order to achieve the desired implementation using only tactile sensation presents distinct challenges. Innovative haptic control methodologies providing the teleoperator with intuitive motion control and task-relevant haptic augmentation are presented within this paper.

Exploiting ungrounded tactile haptic displays for mobile robotic teleoperation

Teleoperated mobile robotics offer potential use in a variety of different real-world applications including hazardous materials handling, urban search and rescue and explosive ordnance handling and disposal. Recent research discusses the use of Haptic technology in increasing task immersion and teleoperator performance. This work investigates the utility of low-cost, ungrounded tactile haptic interfaces in mobile robotic teleoperation. In order to achieve the desired implementation using only tactile sensation presents distinct challenges. Innovative haptic control methodologies providing the teleoperator with intuitive motion control and task-relevant haptic augmentation are presented within this paper.

Editorial : towards merging grid and pervasive computing

This special issue is in response to the increasing convergence between grids and pervasive computing, while different approaches exist, challenges and opportunities are numerous in this context (Parashar and Pierson, to appear). The research papers selected for this special issue represent recent progresses in the field, including works on mobile ad-hoc grids, service and data discovery, context-aware application building and context accuracy, and communication. All of these papers not only provide novel ideas and state-of-the-art techniques in the field, but also stimulate future research in the Pervasive Grid environment.

Modification of the visual background increases the conspicuousness of golden-collared manakin displays

Effective visual communication requires signals that are easy to detect, transmit, receive, and discriminate. Animals can increase the probability that their visual signals would be detected by evolving signals that contrast with their visual background. Animals can further enhance this contrast by behaviorally modifying the existing visual background. Male golden-collared manakins (Manacus vitellinus) clear leaf litter from the ground to form courts, which are used as display arenas. Using reflectance measures of the signal (male plumage) and the visual background (cleared court and adjacent litter), the irradiance measures of ambient light during display, and published measures of photoreceptor sensitivity of a Passerine, we test the hypothesis that court-clearing augments the contrast between male plumage and the visual background. We find that the chromatic and brightness contrasts of golden patches used during courtship are greater against the cleared court than against adjacent litter. In addition, we find that cleared courts provide a less variable background for these color patches, resulting in displays that consistently contrast the visual background. These results suggest that behavioral modification of the visual background may act to increase the conspicuousness of colorful male plumage during display, providing an explanation for why golden-collared manakins, and possibly other species, build or clear display courts.

Advances in pervasive computing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of advances in pervasive computing.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a critical analysis of the literature.
Findings – Tools expected to support these advances are: resource location framework, data management (e.g. replica control) framework, communication paradigms, and smart interaction mechanisms. Also, infrastructures needed to support pervasive computing applications and an information appliance should be easy for anyone to use and the interaction with the device should be intuitive.
Originality/value – The paper shows how everyday devices with embedded processing and connectivity could interconnect as a pervasive network of intelligent devices that cooperatively and autonomously collect, process and transport information, in order to adapt to the associated context and activity

Pervasive limitations : innovating with ambient intelligence (AmI) technologies and restricted absorptive capacity in Australian SME manufacturers

The last 25 years have seen rapid increases in the number and sophistication of technological and process innovations in large manufacturers, producing dramatic improvements in productivity and efficiency. However, smaller manufacturers’ adoption of such innovations has been uneven. Ambient Intelligence (AmI) technologies are being positioned as the next performance and productivity enhancing purchase for manufacturers. This paper defines and gives examples of AmI technologies in current use, summarises AmI technologies of potential interest to small and medium enterprise (SME) manufacturers, and identifies potential impacts of restricted absorptive capacity in SMEs on the adoption of AmI technologies. Comparing two SME manufacturers, one from Germany and one from Australia illustrates a potential application of generic AmI technology based business solutions to a range of SME manufacturers.

Picturing the nation : The Celtic periphery as discursive other in the archaeological displays of the museum of Scotland

Using the archaeological displays at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, this paper examines the exhibition as a site of identity creation through the negotiations between categories of same and Other. Through an analysis of the poetics of display, the paper argues that the exhibition constructs a particular relationship between the Celtic Fringe and Scottish National identity that draws upon the historical discourses of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland as a place and a time 'apart'. This will be shown to have implications for the display of archaeological material in museums but also for contemporary understandings of Scottish National identity.

A framework for the design of privacy preserving pervasive healthcare

Privacy is an important aspect of pervasive and ubiquitous computing systems, and, in particular, pervasive healthcare. With reference to previous approaches on developing privacy sensitive pervasive healthcare applications, we detail a framework for the design of such systems that aims to minimise the impact of privacy on such systems. In reviewing previous approaches, we extract and combine common elements in order to unify the approaches and create a more formal methodology for designing privacy mechanisms in pervasive healthcare applications. In doing so we also consider the manner in which ubiquitous technologies impact on privacy and methods for reducing this impact. We demonstrate how the framework can be applied by using examples from the previous approaches. In addressing privacy issues, the framework aims to remove a large obstacle to deployment of pervasive healthcare systems, acceptance of the technology.

A probabilistic model with parsinomious representation for sensor fusion in recognizing activity in pervasive environment

To tackle the problem of increasing numbers of state transition parameters when the number of sensors increases, we present a probabilistic model together with several parsinomious representations for sensor fusion. These include context specific independence (CSI), mixtures of smaller multinomials and softmax function representations to compactly represent the state transitions of a large number of sensors. The model is evaluated on real-world data acquired through ubiquitous sensors in recognizing daily morning activities. The results show that the combination of CSI and mixtures of smaller multinomials achieves comparable performance with much fewer parameters.