High-level programming paradigm for context-aware computing

这项研究的目的是调查一个高层次的编程范式上下文感知计算。这种模式将包括开发编程语言的理论和实践基础，使和支持编程上下文感知的软件应用程序，软件模型，抽象和基础设施的基础上，建立上下文感知的软件系统。这里的“高层次”是指范例将在形式理论的支持下处于高层次的抽象。基于该范式设计的编程语言和软件模型、抽象和基础设施将具有形式化的抽象语义，这些语义将独立于具体的上下文感知应用系统和底层特定的操作环境和平台。上下文感知计算意味着软件应用程序的计算能够感知、变化并依赖于底层的运行时上下文和上下文变化。在这里，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。这样的外部环境或上下文的示例包括时间、位置、情形和用户简档。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。当前的上下文感知编程（底层）解决方案主要集中在通过附加的软件结构、API和软件包的形式扩展传统的编程语言和系统，本文将采用从抽象到具体的方法来研究这种范式。我们将研究一个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的高级上下文感知编程语言，用于编写上下文感知应用程序。我们还将研究在各种具体的上下文感知软件和硬件平台/环境上实现抽象的上下文感知计算模型。

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.