Open infrastructure for data sharing and interoperability between context-aware applications

最近移动的和普适计算技术（诸如全球定位系统（GPS）、射频识别系统（RFID）和闭路电视（CCTV））的激增使得能够探索监控和适应用户的上下文感知服务，并且在用户执行日常活动时向他们提供有用的服务。现有的上下文感知计算的研究主要集中在三个主要领域：新的应用程序的建设;建设新的技术和工具，用于感知和推断上下文和更高层次的活动;和软件基础设施的建设，以促进这类应用程序的开发。尽管进行了广泛的调查，但在这一领域的研究已经产生了1）数量不多的独立应用程序，这些应用程序不能相互操作，2）一套用于感知和推断上下文和高级活动的技术和工具，这些技术和工具难以互换使用或进行比较评估。这些研究中的每一个都使用了本土的上下文信息表示，因为目前还没有标准。我们认为，这些问题的出现主要是因为缺乏一个一致的信息体系结构，在各种上下文感知的应用程序和工具。为了实现互操作性和可重用性，需要在不同的应用程序和工具之间以有意义的方式感知和共享上下文数据。此外，可以通过创建用于比较各种工具的通用测试数据集来促进对传感器、活动推断技术和应用的评估。拟议的研究涉及设计，开发和评估一个灵活的和开放的基础设施，用于存储和访问上下文信息。

The recent proliferation of mobile and ubiquitous computing technologies (such as global positioning systems (GPS), radio frequency identification systems (RFID), and closed circuit television (CCTV)) has enabled the exploration of context-aware services which monitor and adapt to users, and provide them with useful services while they perform daily activities. The majority of existing research in context-aware computing has focused on three main areas: the construction of novel applications; the construction of new techniques and tools for sensing and inferring context and higher level activities; and the construction of software infrastructures to facilitate the development of this class of applications. Despite extensive investigations, research in this space has produced 1) a modest number of stand-alone applications which cannot interoperate with one another and 2) a set of techniques and tools for sensing and inferring context and high-level activities that are difficult to use interchangeably or evaluate comparatively. Investigators in each of these efforts have used homegrown representations of context information because no standards currently exist. We argue that these issues arise primarily because of the lack of a consistent information architecture used across the various context-aware applications and tools. To achieve interoperability and interchangeability requires that context data be sensed and shared in a meaningful way between different applications and tools. Furthermore, evaluation of the sensors, activity inferring techniques, and applications could be facilitated through the creation of common test data sets for comparing various tools. The proposed research involves the design, development, and evaluation of a flexible and open infrastructure for storing and accessing context information.