ITR: Collaborative Research: Context-Aware Computing with Applications to Public Health Management

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Mobile computing and wireless networks have dramatically changed both the distributed systems communication paradigm and the ways that people access and manipulate information. Consequently, there is now widespread recognition of a strong need for context-aware computing in numerous application domains, particularly applications that assist in the management of emergency situations. Such applications will dynamically adjust to individual user profiles, user locations, the local environment, and the task being performed. This project focuses on context-aware computing with applications to public health management. Core research issues in data management that are relevant to context-aware computing will be investigated. Also, the architecture of a system that supports context-aware applications with dynamically evolving data will be developed. Data integration tools and ontologies will be studied and then applied to actual source data and user profiles. This activity will be augmented with techniques for building spatio-temporal context from location traces. Methodologies will be developed to ensure the scalability of the system, including the use of request aggregation and of data cubes for caching user profiles and retrieved data. Security issues will be addressed by investigating an authentication model for spatio-temporal context based on a distributed trust framework. The architecture will also incorporate a component for the arbitration of services that can manage on-demand resource allocation in a competitive environment.The successful completion of this project will significantly improve the quality, responsiveness, and delivery accuracy of services using context-aware computing. The focus on health care services, both in routine and in crisis situations (e.g., terrorist attacks, natural disasters) has the potential to contribute to an improved technology infrastructure for the public health sector nationwide.