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The purpose of this paper is to establish an application platform that addresses expensive development cost and effort of indoor location-aware application (InL-Apps) problems caused by tightly coupling between InL-App and indoor positioning systems (IPSs).

To achieve this purpose, in this paper, the authors proposes a Web-based integration framework called Web-based Integration Framework for Indoor Location (WIF4InL). With a common data model, WIF4InL integrates indoor location data obtained from heterogeneous IPS. It then provides application-neutral application programming interface (API) for various InL-Apps.

The authors integrate two different IPS (RedPin and BluePin) using WIF4InL and conduct a comparative study which is based on sufficiency of essential capabilities of location-dependent queries among three systems: RedPin, BluePin and WIF4InL. WIF4InL supports more capabilities for the location-dependent queries. Through the data and operation integration, WIF4InL even enriches the existing proprietary IPS.

As WIF4InL allows the loose coupling between IPS and InL-Apps, it significantly improves reusability of indoor location information and operation.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a facade for seamlessly using locating services and enabling easy development of an application with indoor and outdoor location information without being aware of the difference of individual services. To achieve this purpose, in this paper, a unified locating service, called KULOCS (Kobe-University Unified LOCating Service), which horizontally integrates the heterogeneous locating services, is proposed.

By focusing on technology-independent elements [when], [where] and [who] in location queries, KULOCS integrates data and operations of the existing locating services. In the data integration, a method where the time representation, the locations and the namespace are consolidated by the Unix time, the location labels and the alias table, respectively, is proposed. Based on the possible combinations of the three elements, an application-neutral application programming interface (API) for the operation integration is derived.

Using KULOCS, various practical services are enabled. In addition, the experimental evaluation shows the practical feasibility by comparing cases with or without KULOCS. The result shows that KULOCS reduces the effort of application development, especially when the number of locating services becomes large.

KULOCS works as a seamless facade with the underlying locating services, the users and applications consume location information easily and efficiently, without knowing concrete services actually locating target objects.

With the rapid development of the indoor spaces positioning technologies such as the radio-frequency identification (RFID), Bluetooth and WI-FI, the locations of indoor spatial objects (static or moving) constitute an important foundation for a variety of applications. However, there are many challenges and limitations associated with the structuring and querying of spatial objects in indoor spaces. The purpose of this study is to address the current trends, limitations and future challenges associated with the structuring and querying of spatial objects in indoor spaces. Also it addresses the related features of indoor spaces such as indoor structures, positioning technologies and others.

In this paper, the author focuses on understanding the aspects and challenges of spatial database managements in indoor spaces. The author explains the differences between indoor spaces and outdoor spaces. Also examines the issues pertaining to indoor spaces positioning and the impact of different shapes and structures within these spaces. In addition, the author considers the varieties of spatial queries that relate specifically to indoor spaces.

Most of the research on data management in indoor spaces does not consider the issues and the challenges associated with indoor positioning such as the overlapping of Wi-Fi. The future trend of the indoor spaces includes included different shapes of indoors beside the current 2D indoor spaces on which the majority of the data structures and query processing for spatial objects have focused on. The diversities of the indoor environments features such as directed floors, multi-floors cases should be considered and studied. Furthermore, indoor environments include many special queries besides the common ones queries that used in outdoor spaces such as KNN, range and temporal queries. These special queries need to be considered in data management and querying of indoor environments.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper successfully addresses the current trends, limitations and future challenges associated with the structuring and querying of spatial objects in indoor spaces.

Pervasive computing environments such as a pervasive campus domain, shopping, etc. will become commonplaces in the near future. The key to enhance these system environments with services relies on the ability to effectively model and represent contextual information, as well as spontaneity in downloading and executing the service interface on a mobile device. The system needs to provide an infrastructure that handles the interaction between a client device that requests a service and a server which responds to the client's request via Web service calls. The system should relieve end‐users from low‐level tasks of matching services with locations or other context information. The mobile users do not need to know or have any knowledge of where the service resides, how to call a service, what the service API detail is and how to execute a service once downloaded. All these low‐level tasks can be handled implicitly by a system. The aim of this paper is to investigate the notion of context‐aware regulated services, and how they should be designed, and implemented.

The paper presents a detailed design, and prototype implementation of the system, called mobile hanging services (MHS), that provides the ability to execute mobile code (service application) on demand and control entities' behaviours in accessing services in pervasive computing environments. Extensive evaluation of this prototype is also provided.

The framework presented in this paper enables a novel contextual services infrastructure that allows services to be described at a high level of abstraction and to be regulated by contextual policies. This contextual policy governs the visibility and execution of contextual services in the environment. In addition, a range of contextual services is developed to illustrate different types of services used in the framework.

The main contribution of this paper is a high‐level model of a system for context‐aware regulated services, which consists of environments (domains and spaces), contextual software components, entities and computing devices.

In this paper, we describe a novel approach for ontology distribution in ubiquitous environments. We present the Context Aware Explorer (CAE) framework we have developed which allows building context aware applications. Our approach, while built upon Web Ontology Language OWL and RDF Schema, is aiming at modeling context ontology for supporting context reasoning and the design of a Smart Rule Engine that maintains a shared model of context for all computing entities in the smart space. The CAE main contribution is its ability to distribute ontology based on abstract parameters related to situation and to user profile. The ultimate goal is to decrease the response time of the reasoning engine with regards to reasoning accuracy. We also describe the implementation of CAE, and its associated ontology, in a prototype demonstrator of smart environment handling indoor and outdoor context aware services. The validation of the ontology distribution approach was applied to assistive environment dedicated to people having motor disabilities and tested within laboratory conditions. Preliminary performance results are presented to highlight the impact of distributed ontology concept.

The increasing number of context aware services, which depend on various multimodal sensing, processing and actuating techniques, technologies and formats ask for a physical framework that is able to handle their heterogeneity. Thereto, we propose a context model bridging the semantic gaps between context aware services. In addition we propose a simple system architecture of Distribution Servers and Transformation Servers that bridge semantic gaps among context aware services. Applying our framework we solve the heterogeneity problem existing for location services. Location is typically a form of context where heterogeneity is a problem.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a general purpose localization system, GRAIL. GRAIL provides real‐time, adaptable, indoor localization for wireless devices.

In order to localize as diverse a set of devices as possible, GRAIL utilizes a centralized, anchor‐based approach. GRAIL defines an abstract data model for various system components to support different physical modalities. The scalable architecture of GRAIL provides maximum flexibility to integrate various localization algorithms.

The authors show through real deployments that GRAIL functions over a variety of physical modalities, networks, and algorithms. Further, the authors found that a centralized solution has critical advantages over distributed implementations for handling privacy concerns.

A key contribution of this system is its universal approach: it can integrate different hardware and software capabilities within a single localization framework. The deployment of such a system in academic and research environments allows researchers to explore issues beyond algorithms and investigate effects in real deployments.

The event‐driven paradigm is appropriate for context aware, distributed applications, yet basic events may be too low level to be meaningful to users. The authors aim to argue that this bottom‐up approach is insufficient to handle very low‐level sensor data or to express all the queries users might wish to make.

The authors propose an alternative model for querying and subscribing transparently to distributed state in a real‐time, ubiquitous, sensor‐driven environment such as is found in Sentient Computing.

The framework consists of four components: a state‐based, temporal first‐order logic (TFOL) model that represents the concrete state of the world, as perceived by sensors; an expressive TFOL‐based language, the Abstract Event Specification Language (AESL) for creating abstract event definitions, subscriptions and queries; a higherorder service (Abstract Event Detection Service) that accepts a subscription containing an abstract event definition as an argument and in return publishes an interface to a further service, an abstract event detector; and a satisfiability service that applies classical, logical satisfiability in order to check the satisfiability of the AESL definitions against the world model, in a manner similar to a constraint‐satisfaction problem.

The paper develops a model‐based approach, appropriate for distributed, heterogeneous environments.

The motivation for this research is the emergence of mobile information systems where information is disseminated to mobile individuals via handheld devices. A key distinction between mobile and desktop computing is the significance of the relationship between the spatial location of an individual and the spatial location associated with information accessed by that individual. Given a set of spatially referenced documents retrieved from a mobile information system, this set can be presented using alternative interfaces of which two presently dominate: textual lists and graphical two‐dimensional maps. The purpose of this paper is to explore how mixed reality interfaces can be used for the presentation of information on mobile devices.

A review of relevant literature is followed by a proposed classification of four alternative interfaces. Each interface is the result of a rapid prototyping approach to software development. Some brief evaluation is described, based upon thinking aloud and cognitive walk‐through techniques with expert users.

The most suitable interface for mobile information systems is likely to be user‐ and task‐dependent; however, mixed reality interfaces offer promise in allowing mobile users to make associations between spatially referenced information and the physical world.

Evaluation of these interfaces is limited to a small number of expert evaluators, and does not include a full‐scale evaluation with a large number of end users.

The application of mixed reality interfaces to the task of displaying spatially referenced information for mobile individuals.

In the vision of pervasive computing, numerous heterogeneous devices, various information services, and users performing daily activities are physically co‐located in a environment. How can we coordinate the services and devices to assist a particular user in receiving a particular service so as to maximize the user’s satisfaction? To solve this human‐centered coordination issue, we propose an agent‐based service coordination framework for pervasive computing. It is called location‐aware middle agent framework. The middle agent takes account of the user location in cognitive way (based on location‐ontology), and determines best‐matched services for the user. Based on this coordination framework, we have developed a multi‐agent architecture for pervasive computing, called CONSORTS (Coordination System of Real‐world Transaction Services). In this paper, we first outline some requirements of the human‐centered service coordination in pervasive computing. Secondly, we describe location‐aware middle agent framework to fill the requirements. Lastly, we outline CONSORTS, an prototype of location‐aware middle agent framework, and two applications of CONSORTS, location‐aware information assistance services in a museum and wireless‐LAN based location systems on FIPA agent Networks.