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1 – 10 of over 2000Fuyuki Ishikawa, Yasuyuki Tahara, Nobukazu Yoshioka and Shinichi Honiden
A general framework for mobile Web services ‐ which are Web services with the ability to migrate from one host to another ‐ is proposed. In this framework, a mobile Web service is…
Abstract
A general framework for mobile Web services ‐ which are Web services with the ability to migrate from one host to another ‐ is proposed. In this framework, a mobile Web service is composed of a combination of a BPEL process description, service components to be carried, and migration behavior descriptions using simple but expressive rules. The semantics of the descriptions are defined using Mobile Ambients, namely, a formal model of concurrent mobile processes. With this framework, it is thus possible to add or change migration behaviors without having to modify the BPEL process.
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David Wright, Serge Gutwirth and Michael Friedewald
To identify safeguards against threats and vulnerabilities posed by the emerging world of ambient intelligence.
Abstract
Purpose
To identify safeguards against threats and vulnerabilities posed by the emerging world of ambient intelligence.
Design/methodology/approach
Dark scenarios were constructed to highlight the threats and vulnerabilities; safeguards are identified to address those threats and vulnerabilities and recommendations for specific stakeholders are made for implementing those safeguards.
Findings
A multiplicity of threats and vulnerabilities can be expected in the emerging world of ambient intelligence, and a multiplicity of safeguards are similarly necessary to address those.
Research limitations/implications
Additional technological research is necessary in order to develop some of the safeguards envisaged as necessary.
Practical implications
The existing legal and regulatory regime suffers from various lacunae and must be amended to address AmI challenges. Many stakeholders have important roles to play.
Originality/value
The paper identifies necessary safeguards to protect privacy, identity, trust, security and e‐inclusion. It identifies specific recommendations for the European Commission, Member States, industry, civil society organizations, academia and individuals.
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Xuhui Li, Zhiyong Peng and Jiannong Cao
Mobile agent, as a new mobile computing technology, has been applied to various parallel and distributed computing problem solutions. Several mobile agent systems have been built…
Abstract
Mobile agent, as a new mobile computing technology, has been applied to various parallel and distributed computing problem solutions. Several mobile agent systems have been built to drive the agents following a platform dependant scheme, and some formal approaches have been proposed to describe mobile agents’ behaviors or properties for respective purposes. However, there remains a lack of a standard approach to describing a mobile agent algorithm and its semantics from the viewpoint of a practical program, which makes it difficult to specify an algorithm unambiguously and verify its correctness formally. This paper proposes a practical approach to overcome that difficulty by defining a script language and associated mechanisms to specify and verify mobile agent algorithms. The language, called SMAL, can describe mobile agent’s behaviors clearly due to its explicitly defined semantics. Based on the semantics, a transformation function for converting the specified algorithm to its equivalent specification in Mobile UNITY, a well‐known mobile computation formal approach for correctness verification, is presented. Formal verification of the algorithms can be accomplished based on the UNITY‐logic rules.
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Veikko Ikonen, Eija Kaasinen, Päivi Heikkilä and Marketta Niemelä
This paper aims to present an overview of the various ethical, societal and critical issues that micro- and nanotechnology-based small, energy self-sufficient sensor systems raise…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present an overview of the various ethical, societal and critical issues that micro- and nanotechnology-based small, energy self-sufficient sensor systems raise in different selected application fields. An ethical approach on the development of these technologies was taken in a very large international, multitechnological European project. The authors approach and methodology are presented in the paper and, based on this review, the authors propose general principles for this kind of work.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors’ approach is based on a great amount of experience working together in multi-disciplinary teams. Ethical issues have usually been handled in the authors’ work to some degree. In this project, the authors had the opportunity to emphasise the human view in technological development, utilise the authors’ experience from previous work and customise the authors’ approach to this particular case. In short, the authors created a wide set of application scenarios with technical and application field experts in the authors’ research project. The scenarios were evaluated with external application field experts, potential consumer users and ethics experts.
Findings
Based on the authors’ experiences in this project and in previous work, the authors suggest a preliminary model for construction activity within technology development projects. The authors call this model the Human-Driven Design approach, and Ethics by Design as a more focussed sub-set of this approach. As all enabling technologies have both positive and negative usage possibilities, and so-called ethical assessment tends to focus on negative consequences, there are doubts from some stakeholders about including ethical perspectives in a technology development project.
Research limitations/implications
The authors argue that the ethical perspective would be more influential if it were to provide a more positive and constructive contribution to the development of technology. The main findings related to the ethical challenges based on the actual work done in this project were the following: the main user concerns were in relation to access to information, digital division and the necessity of all the proposed measurements; the ethics experts highlighted the main ethical issues as privacy, autonomy, user control, freedom, medicalisation and human existence.
Practical implications
Various technology assessment models and ethical approaches for technological development have been developed and performed for a long time, and recently, a new approach called Responsible Research and Innovation has been introduced. The authors’ intention is to give a concrete example for further development as a part of the development of this approach.
Social implications
The authors’ study in this particular case covers various consumer application possibilities for small sensor systems. The application fields studied include health, well-being, safety, sustainability and empathic user interfaces. The authors believe that the ethical challenges identified are valuable to other researchers and practitioners who are studying and developing sensor-based solutions in similar fields.
Originality/value
The authors’ study covers various consumer application possibilities of small sensor systems. The studied application fields include health, well-being, safety, sustainability and empathic user interfaces. The findings are valuable to other researchers and practitioners who are studying and developing sensor-based solutions to similar fields.
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Kurnianingsih Kurnianingsih, Lukito Edi Nugroho, Widyawan Widyawan, Lutfan Lazuardi, Anton Satria Prabuwono and Teddy Mantoro
The decline of the motoric and cognitive functions of the elderly and the high risk of changes in their vital signs lead to some disabilities that inconvenience them. This paper…
Abstract
Purpose
The decline of the motoric and cognitive functions of the elderly and the high risk of changes in their vital signs lead to some disabilities that inconvenience them. This paper aims to assist the elderly in their daily lives through personalized and seamless technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors developed a personalized adaptive system for elderly care in a smart home using a fuzzy inference system (FIS), which consists of a predictive positioning system, reflexive alert system and adaptive conditioning system. Reflexive sensing is obtained from a body sensor and environmental sensor networks. Three methods comprising the FIS generation algorithm – fuzzy subtractive clustering (FSC), grid partitioning and fuzzy c-means clustering (FCM) – were compared to obtain the best prediction accuracy.
Findings
The results of the experiment showed that FSC produced the best F1-score (96 per cent positioning accuracy, 94 per cent reflexive alert accuracy, 96 per cent air conditioning accuracy and 95 per cent lighting conditioning accuracy), whereas others failed to predict some classes and had lower validation accuracy results. Therefore, it is concluded that FSC is the best FIS generation method for our proposed system.
Social implications
Personalized and seamless technologies for elderly implies life-share awareness, stakeholder awareness and community awareness.
Originality/value
This paper presents a model of personalized adaptive system based on their preferences and medical reference, which consists of a predictive positioning system, reflexive alert system and adaptive conditioning system.
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Peter Nyheim, Shi Xu, Lu Zhang and Anna S. Mattila
This paper aims to examine the effect of privacy concern, irritation and personalization on Millennials’ perceptions of personalized smartphone advertising avoidance in a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the effect of privacy concern, irritation and personalization on Millennials’ perceptions of personalized smartphone advertising avoidance in a restaurant context. The hospitality industry has witnessed a huge surge in mobile activity over the past few years. Mobility opens up a new communication channel and allows industry to connect with their guests in a more personalized way. However, not all customers welcome the personalized advertisements.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 159 Millennials enrolled in a large state university in the Eastern USA using an online self-administered survey. These Millennials were asked to use a restaurant’s smartphone application for 30 days and then complete a survey based on their perceptions of personalized advertising. Descriptive analysis, reliability, factor analysis and regression analysis were used to evaluate the relationships among the four constructs: privacy concern, irritation, personalization and advertising avoidance, with the first three variables as predictors and advertising avoidance as an outcome.
Findings
The results suggest that advertising irritation is positively related to advertising avoidance, perceived personalization is related with less advertising avoidance, while privacy concern is not related to advertising avoidance.
Originality/value
Although advertising avoidance has previously been studied for the past few decades, little research has explored the underlying mechanisms of the Millennials’ avoidance of personalized smartphone advertising in a restaurant context. The current research suggests information pertinent to strategies for marketing personalized smartphone advertisement for restaurant companies.
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Saeed Vayghan, Dennis Baloglu and Seyhmus Baloglu
The primary purpose of this study was to examine the underlying consumer values that drive hotel booking mobile app users to engage more with the app and use the app continuously…
Abstract
Purpose
The primary purpose of this study was to examine the underlying consumer values that drive hotel booking mobile app users to engage more with the app and use the app continuously for hotel booking purposes.
Design/methodology/approach
By conducting confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) on the data collected through the Qualtrics online survey platform from 506 respondents in the United States, the proposed measurements and structural models were tested.
Findings
The findings for both Generation Xers and Millennials revealed that hedonic and social values influenced mobile app engagement, which strongly influenced mobile app loyalty. Thus, to enhance customer engagement and indirectly influence mobile app loyalty, the app value delivery should appeal to social and hedonic values. Although the utilitarian values for using apps had a potential direct impact on mobile app loyalty, the mediation analysis showed that mobile app engagement, when connecting consumption values to mobile app loyalty, served as a full mediator for Generation Xers and a partial mediator for Millennials.
Practical implications
This study provides insights into how hotels and online travel agent (OTA) marketing managers may consider augmenting user engagement with hotel booking mobile apps. This study suggests that hoteliers and OTAs should further develop their user experience efforts to enhance the utilitarian features of their mobile app to increase revenue from repeat purchases. Additionally, this study provides implications for enhancing the hedonic and social features of hotel booking mobile apps to appeal to Millennials and Gen Xers.
Originality/value
This study developed and assessed an integrated model to investigate the relationships between consumption values, engagement and loyalty in hotel booking mobile apps. Furthermore, it examined generational cohorts' role in the relationships between these constructs.
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G. De Mey, L. Rottiers, M. Driscart, E. Boone and L. Van Schoor
In this paper the temperature distribution in hybrid circuits will be studied in two different ways. First of all the results of numerical simulations obtained with the programs…
Abstract
In this paper the temperature distribution in hybrid circuits will be studied in two different ways. First of all the results of numerical simulations obtained with the programs PROMETHEE and HYBRITHERM will be shown. Secondly, experimental temperature plots obtained with infra‐red thermography will be compared with the theoretical results. The influence of the substrate material (epoxy, glass, Al2O3, AlN and BeO) on the temperature distribution will be demonstrated. Various ways of cooling will also be considered. It will be shown that using high quality substrates such as AlN or BeO is not always useful from a thermal point of view.
Jun Mo Kwon, Jung‐in (Stephanie) Bae and Shane C. Blum
The purpose of this study is to examine customer intentions to download mobile applications in the hospitality industry. Even though major hospitality companies offer the mobile…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine customer intentions to download mobile applications in the hospitality industry. Even though major hospitality companies offer the mobile applications, many customers have not utilized them. The results showed what encouraged customers to download mobile applications in the hospitality industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The Technology Acceptance Model was applied for this research to explain customer intentions. College students were the target population of this study because they understand and adopt the technology well. Therefore, mobile applications will become a popular way to purchase goods and services when university students will have purchasing power.
Findings
Even though major hospitality companies offer mobile applications, more than a half of respondents responded that they had not used mobile applications from the hospitality firms. The results showed that promotion information was not an only reason to download mobile applications; however, the results also showed that consumers who enjoy using smartphones and who are confident in themselves are more likely to download the mobile applications.
Research limitations/implications
The data were collected in a university; therefore, generalizability is one of the limitations of this research. Multiple regressions only verify the relationship between dependant and independent variables. University students may not have a chance to plan their trips so they may not need the mobile applications.
Originality/value
This study employed the TAM to examine the reasons why customers download mobile applications offered by companies in the hospitality industry. Literature discussing mobile applications in the hospitality industry is very scarce. This research will assist managements in utilizing their mobile applications.
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Andrea Omicini and Franco Zambonelli
The increasing need to access and elaborate dynamic and heterogeneous information sources distributed over the Internet calls for new models and paradigms for application design…
Abstract
The increasing need to access and elaborate dynamic and heterogeneous information sources distributed over the Internet calls for new models and paradigms for application design and development. The mobile agent paradigm promotes the design of applications where agents roam through Internet sites to locally access and elaborate information and resources, possibly co‐operating with each other. Focuses on mobile agent co‐ordination, and presents the TuCSoN co‐ordination model for Internet applications based on mobile information agents. TuCSoN exploits a notion of local tuple‐based interaction space, called a tuple centre. A tuple centre is a tuple space enhanced with the capability of programming its behaviour in response to communication events. This enables properties to be embedded into the interaction space, and a mobile agent to be designed independently of the peculiarities of the information sources. Several issues critical to Internet applications can then be charged on tuple centres transparently to agents. The effectiveness of the TuCSoN model is first shown by means of an application example in the area of Internet information retrieval, then discussed in the context of workflow management and electronic commerce.
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