Context obfuscation for privacy via ontological descriptions

Context information is used by pervasive networking and context-aware programs to adapt intelligently to different environments and user tasks. As the context information is potentially sensitive, it is often necessary to provide privacy protection mechanisms for users. These mechanisms are intended to prevent breaches of user privacy through unauthorised context disclosure. To be effective, such mechanisms should not only support user specified context disclosure rules, but also the disclosure of context at different granularities. In this paper we describe a new obfuscation mechanism that can adjust the granularity of different types of context information to meet disclosure requirements stated by the owner of the context information. These requirements are specified using a preference model we developed previously and have since extended to provide granularity control. The obfuscation process is supported by our novel use of ontological descriptions that capture the granularity relationship between instances of an object type.

Personalising context-aware applications

The immaturity of the field of context-aware computing means that little is known about how to incorporate appropriate personalisation mechanisms into context-aware applications. One of the main challenges is how to elicit and represent complex, context-dependent requirements, and then use the resulting representations within context-aware applications to support decision-making processes. In this paper, we characterise several approaches to personalisation of context-aware applications and introduce our research on personalisation using a novel preference model.

Context-enhanced authentication for infrastructureless network environments

Infrastructureless networks are becoming more popular with the increased prevalence of wireless networking technology. A significant challenge faced by these infrastructureless networks is that of providing security. In this paper we examine the issue of authentication, a fundamental component of most security approaches, and show how it can be performed despite an absence of trusted infrastructure and limited or no existing trust relationship between network nodes. Our approach enables nodes to authenticate using a combination of contextual information, harvested from the environment, and traditional authentication factors (such as public key cryptography). Underlying our solution is a generic threshold signature scheme that enables distributed generation of digital certificates.

A participatory design agenda for ubiquitous computing and multimodal interaction: A case study of dental practice

This paper reflects upon our attempts to bring a participatory design approach to design research into interfaces that better support dental practice. The project brought together design researchers, general and specialist dental practitioners, the CEO of a dental software company and, to a limited extent, dental patients. We explored the potential for deployment of speech and gesture technologies in the challenging and authentic context of dental practices. The paper describes the various motivations behind the project, the negotiation of access and the development of the participant relationships as seen from the researchers' perspectives. Conducting participatory design sessions with busy professionals demands preparation, improvisation, and clarity of purpose. The paper describes how we identified what went well and when to shift tactics. The contribution of the paper is in its description of what we learned in bringing participatory design principles to a project that spanned technical research interests, commercial objectives and placing demands upon the time of skilled professionals. Copyright © 2010 ACM, Inc

Scalable location management for context-aware systems

Location information is commonly used in context-aware applications and pervasive systems. These applications and systems may require knowledge, of the location of users, devices and services. This paper presents a location management system able to gather, process and manage location information from a variety of physical and virtual location sensors. The system scales to the complexity of context-aware applications, to a variety of types and large number of location sensors and clients, and to geographical size of the system. The proposed location management system provides conflict resolution of location information and mechanisms to ensure privacy.

Using Q-methodology to study the metaphors of consumption for mobile phone users

Even before business has really come to grips with the intricacies of incorporating emarketing and e-commerce into their organisational strategies, they are now being encouraged to make significant investments in developing capabilities for mobile phone marketing. Fuelled once again by huge profit predictions reminiscent of the mid-1990s when speaking of e-commerce (Anckar and D’Incau 2002) marketers are tapping into this mobility. So, instead of having to drive consumers to web sites through the ‘sit and search’ context, marketers are now exploring ways to develop strategies to deliver relevant and timely information in a ‘roam and receive’ context directly to their potential customers anywhere, anytime, any place (Mort and Drennan 2002).

Work at hand: an exploration of gesture in the context of work and everyday life to inform the design of gestural input devices

This research explores gestures used in the context of activities in the workplace and in everyday life in order to understand requirements and devise concepts for the design of gestural information appliances. A collaborative method of video interaction analysis devised to suit design explorations, the Video Card Game, was used to capture and analyse how gesture is used in the context of six different domains: the dentist's office; PDA and mobile phone use; the experimental biologist's laboratory; a city ferry service; a video cassette player repair shop; and a factory flowmeter assembly station. Findings are presented in the form of gestural themes, derived from the tradition of qualitative analysis but bearing some similarity to Alexandrian patterns. Implications for the design of gestural devices are discussed.

Mobile phone and e-government in Turkey:practices and technological choices at the cross-road

Enhanced data services through mobile phones are expected to be soon fully transactional and embedded within future mobile consumption practices. While private services will surely continue to take the lead, others such as government and NGOs will become more prominent m-players. It is not yet sure which form of technological standards will take the lead including enhance SMS based operations or Internet based specifically developed mobile phone applications. With the introduction of interactive transactions via mobile phones, currently untapped segment of the populations (without computers) have the potential to be accessed. Our research, as a reflection of the current market situation in an emerging country context, in the case of mobile phones analyzes the current needs or emergence of dependencies regarding the use of m/e-government services from the perspective of municipality officers. We contend that more research is needed to understand current preparatory bottlenecks and front loading activities to be able to encourage future intention to use e-government services through mobile phone technologies. This study highlights and interprets the current emerging practices and praxis for consuming m-government services within government.

Understanding mobile phone usage while driving:mini-bus and taxi drivers' experiences in Istanbul

In emerging markets, the amount of mobile communication and the number of occasions mobile phones are used are increasing. More and more settings appropriate or not for mobile phone usage are being exposed. Although prohibited by many governments, there is evidence that use of new mobile devices while driving are somehow becoming current everyday practice, hence legitimatizing usage for many users. Dominant dangerous behavior in the absence of enforced legal framework is being deployed and has become routine for many m-users. This chapter adopts a qualitative case study approach (20 cases) to examine the public transport drivers' motives, logic and legitimacy processes. The question which these issues raise in the light of advancing m-technologies is: How do, in the context of emerging market, undesired emerging routines enactment get to be reflected upon and voluntarily disregarded to maximize the benefits of m-technologies while minimizing their drawbacks? Findings point out at multiple motives for usage including external social pressure through the ubiquitous 24/7 usage of mtechnology, lack of alternative communication protocol, real time need for action and from an internal perspectives boredoms, lack of danger awareness, blurring of the boundaries between personal and business life and lack of job fulfillment are uncovered as key factors. As secondary dynamic factors such as education, drivers work' histories, impunity, lack of strong consumer opposition appear central in shaping the development of the routines. © 2011, IGI Global.

Reconfigurable service-oriented architecture for autonomic computing

Almost a decade has passed since the objectives and benefits of autonomic computing were stated, yet even the latest system designs and deployments exhibit only limited and isolated elements of autonomic functionality. In previous work, we identified several of the key challenges behind this delay in the adoption of autonomic solutions, and proposed a generic framework for the development of autonomic computing systems that overcomes these challenges. In this article, we describe how existing technologies and standards can be used to realise our autonomic computing framework, and present its implementation as a service-oriented architecture. We show how this implementation employs a combination of automated code generation, model-based and object-oriented development techniques to ensure that the framework can be used to add autonomic capabilities to systems whose characteristics are unknown until runtime. We then use our framework to develop two autonomic solutions for the allocation of server capacity to services of different priorities and variable workloads, thus illustrating its application in the context of a typical data-centre resource management problem.