High-level programming paradigm for context-aware computing

本研究的目的是研究上下文感知计算的高级编程范式。该范式将包括开发编程语言的理论和实践基础，这些编程语言能够支持编程上下文感知软件应用程序，以及作为构建上下文感知软件系统基础的软件模型、抽象和基础结构。这里所说的“高级”是指范式将处于具有形式理论支持的高级抽象。基于范式设计的编程语言和软件模型、抽象和基础设施将具有正式的抽象语义，这些语义将独立于具体的上下文感知应用系统和低级特定操作环境和平台。上下文感知计算意味着软件应用程序的计算能够感知、改变并依赖于底层的运行时上下文和上下文的变化。这里，上下文通常可以定义为影响或决定应用程序计算的外部变化环境。此类外部环境或上下文的示例包括时间、位置、情况和用户概要。上下文感知编程意味着编写计算机程序，指定上下文感知软件应用程序的计算或行为如何依赖于底层上下文或在底层上下文中变化。当前上下文感知编程的（低级）解决方案主要集中在以附加软件结构、api和包的形式扩展具有上下文感知支持的传统编程语言和系统。本研究将采用从抽象到具体的方法来研究范式。我们将研究一个用于上下文感知计算的抽象计算模型。我们将研究基于抽象上下文感知计算模型编写上下文感知应用程序的高级上下文感知编程语言。我们还将研究抽象上下文感知计算模型在各种具体的上下文感知软件和硬件平台/环境上的实现。

The objective of this proposed research is to investigate a high-level programming paradigm for context-awarecomputing. This paradigm will consist of theoretical and practical foundations for developing programminglanguages that enable and support programming context-aware software applications, and software models,abstractions and infrastructure as the foundations to build context-aware software systems. Here by "high-level" we mean that the paradigm will be at a high level of abstraction with support of formal theories. The programming languages and software models, abstractions and infrastructure designed based on theparadigm will have formal abstract semantics that will be independent of concrete context-aware applicationsystems and low-level specific operational environments and platforms.Context-aware computing means that computations of a software application that is aware of, varies in, anddepends on the underlying, runtime contexts and context changes. Here contexts can be generally defined asexternal varying environments that affect or determine the computations of the application. Examples of suchexternal environments or contexts include time, location, situation, and user profile. Context-awareprogramming means writing computer programs that specify how computations or behaviors of context-awaresoftware applications depend on or vary in underlying contexts. The current (low-level) solutions tocontext-aware programming are mainly focused on extending conventional programming languages andsystems with context-aware supports in forms of additional software constructs, APIs, and packages.This proposed research will take an abstract-to-concrete approach to investigating the paradigm. We willinvestigate an abstract computing model for context-aware computing. We will investigate high-levelcontext-aware programming languages for writing context-aware application programs based on the abstract context-aware computing model. We will also investigate implementation of the abstract context-awarecomputing model on various concrete context-aware software and hardware platforms/environments.