Context-aware Mobile Applications Research Articles

An adaptive context-aware mobile learning framework based on the usability perspective

Three different types of context-aware mobile learning applications were revealed in our literature review – location-dependent, location-independent and situated learning. Our theoretical framework – mobile context-aware adaptive learning schedule was constructed. This uses a proactive approach – the learner's schedule (i.e. an electronic organiser) to retrieve the location and time available contexts. Other contexts are also considered – learning styles, knowledge level, concentration level and frequency of interruption. Thereafter, appropriate learning materials are recommended to students based on this information. We utilised a diary: diary-questionnaire research methodology for our usability feasibility in which 32 university students had participated in.

A Context-Aware Mobile Organizer for University Students

Problem statement: With the expansion of mobile devices, the usage of context-aware mobile applications is becoming very popular. Approach: One of mobile applications that are useful for university students is the university mobile organizer. University Mobile Organizer is a software that acts like an assistant for students in their universities' activities. Results: However, this application was not used widely by the students. In this research, we explored students' problems and requirements in their university activities and then proposed a context-aware university mobile organizer that will be useful for them. Conclusion/Recommendations: Based on these requirements, a proper framework for implementing a university mobile organizer is developed. Lastly, the software is implemented based on the framework that has been developed.

Pervaho: A specialized middleware for mobile context-aware applications

The concept of context-awareness offers a great potential for the future of mobile applications. In order to be developed in an optimal way, mobile context-aware applications need appropriate middleware services. This paper introduces Pervaho, an integrated middleware aimed specifically at supporting the development and testing of mobile context-aware applications. To illustrate the use of Pervaho, we walk through the development of a concrete mobile application and show how it can be built on top of Pervaho's location-based publish/subscribe service. We also illustrate how a specialized mobility testing tool significantly simplifies the process of testing proximity-based semantics. We then present the implementation of Pervaho, which is based on a set of communication protocols geared at mesh networks. Finally, we provide a performance analysis of our implementation.

Methodology and system design for implementing context-adaptive service-oriented web-based learning

This article is devoted to the formulation of a context-adaptive electronic learning (e-learning) implementation methodology. The authors address three research gaps: (a) the lack of a rigorous framework to define the 'context' for context-aware mobile learning applications (b) the need to include pedagogy context dimension and (c) the dynamic adaptation of distributed learning content to changing context does not cater for ubiquity among devices. This study: (a) proposes a context reference model to synergise various interpretations of context, instantiated for a computing course (b) designs the pedagogy to fulfil different learning styles and (c) proposes a model-driven, service-oriented web services architecture.

Development of context-aware mobile services: an approach to simplification

Experts predict context-tailored contents to be the future profit earner of mobile communication. On the other hand, mobile applications and services suitable for tailoring and delivering those contents have low market penetration so far. A lack of standardisation concerning the handling of context-information and high technical complexity involved in the development of mobile applications are reasons for this situation. This article presents 'Hydra', a framework to simplify and shorten the development of context-aware mobile applications and thus render the development of these applications more economically viable.

Modeling context in mobile distributed systems with the UML

Context-awareness plays an important role in mobile distributed systems since it enables the adaptation of mobile devices to the users. However, one of the major challenges is the preservation of the users’ privacy. Many different approaches of modeling the context of the user exist, but the incorporation of privacy restrictions into context models, which makes the protection of privacy apparent, is missing. This paper presents the Context Modeling Profile (CMP), a lightweight UML (Unified Modeling Language) extension, as a visual language for context models in mobile distributed systems. The resulting models embody metainformation of the context, i.e. source and validity of context information, and reflect privacy restrictions. The profile provides several well-formedness rules for context models and supports the development of context-aware mobile applications through an adequate visual modeling language. A case study is used to illustrate the approach.

A framework for mobile context-aware applications

This paper presents a framework for the rapid development of context-aware applications for mobile devices. We introduce the concept of a context fingerprint which is a characterisation of the context that a mobile terminal can determine from the sensors available to it. These sensors not only include the obvious RF transmitters such as Wi-Fi, GSM and Bluetooth, but also any device state information that is accessible through the operating system's APIs, such as device profile or battery level. The proposed framework allows a number of context fingerprints to be defined, together with events and actions that are fired on transition between contexts. Context-aware applications can be created simply by defining the key elements in a mark-up script that is loaded into an implementation of this framework.

Activity theory for designing mobile learning

Mobile computing offers potential opportunities for students' learning. It is important to have an operational understanding of the context in developing a user interface that is both useful and flexible. The author believes that the complexity of the relationships involved can be analysed using activity theory. Activity theory, as a social and cultural psychological theory, can be used to design a mobile learning environment. This paper presents the use of activity theory as a framework for describing the components of an activity system for the design of a context-aware mobile learning application.

Supporting context-aware mobile applications: an infrastructure approach

Mobile phones and PDAs are converging into mobile lifestyle devices that offer a wide range of applications to end users. Many of these applications will have the ability to adapt themselves to the user's situation, commonly referred to as context awareness. We argue that an infrastructure is needed to enable wide deployment of context-aware applications. A major benefit is interoperability between heterogeneous context sources and applications in a privacy-sensitive way. We identify three main technical challenges to realize such an infrastructure: reasoning to infer higher-level and better quality context information; efficient exchange and distributed processing of context information in dynamic and pervasive environments; and end-user-controlled handling of the privacy aspects. This article explains how we address these challenges with regard to the realization of an infrastructure that supports context-aware mobile applications. We use this infrastructure to support several mobile healthcare applications

EgoSpaces: facilitating rapid development of context-aware mobile applications

Today's mobile applications require constant adaptation to their changing environments, or contexts. Technological advances have increased the pervasiveness of mobile computing devices such as laptops, handhelds, and embedded sensors. The sheer amount of context information available for adaptation places a heightened burden on application developers as they must manage and utilize vast amounts of data from diverse sources. Facilitating programming in this data-rich environment requires a middleware that provides context information to applications in an abstract form. In this paper, we demonstrate the feasibility of such a middleware that allows programmers to focus on high-level interactions among programs and to employ declarative abstract context specifications in settings that exhibit transient interactions with opportunistically encountered components. We also discuss the novel context-aware abstractions the middleware provides and the programming knowledge necessary to write applications using it. Finally, we provide examples demonstrating the infrastructure's ability to support differing tasks from a wide variety of application domains

A new application model for mobile technologies

The information society demands higher and higher productivity from people, which they indeed can achieve by using services and access information in the state of mobility. Mobile applications represent new application models that enable information support in the state of mobility. First, we discuss mobile applications in the context of information society, define their scope and limitations. Then we introduce a classical mobile application model, context, context-awareness, and context-aware mobile application model. In order to show the potential of information support in the state of mobility, we then discuss types of mobile applications and emphasise the significance of workflow concept for mobile applications.

CARISMA: Context-Aware Reflective mIddleware System for Mobile Applications

Mobile devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants, have gained wide-spread popularity. These devices will increasingly be networked, thus enabling the construction of distributed applications that have to adapt to changes in context, such as variations in network bandwidth, battery power, connectivity, reachability of services and hosts, etc. In this paper, we describe CARISMA, a mobile computing middleware which exploits the principle of reflection to enhance the construction of adaptive and context-aware mobile applications. The middleware provides software engineers with primitives to describe how context changes should be handled using policies. These policies may conflict. We classify the different types of conflicts that may arise in mobile computing and argue that conflicts cannot be resolved statically at the time applications are designed, but, rather, need to be resolved at execution time. We demonstrate a method by which policy conflicts can be handled; this method uses a microeconomic approach that relies on a particular type of sealed-bid auction. We describe how this method is implemented in the CARISMA middleware architecture and sketch a distributed context-aware application for mobile devices to illustrate how the method works in practice. We show, by way of a systematic performance evaluation, that conflict resolution does not imply undue overheads, before comparing our research to related work and concluding the paper.

Managing context information in mobile devices

We present a uniform mobile terminal software framework that provides systematic methods for acquiring and processing useful context information from a user's surroundings and giving it to applications. The framework simplifies the development of context-aware mobile applications by managing raw context information gained from multiple sources and enabling higher-level context abstractions.

Network layer access control for context-aware IPv6 applications

As part of the Lancaster GUIDE II project, we have developed a novel wireless access point protocol designed to support the development of next generation mobile context-aware applications in our l...

A micro-economic approach to conflict resolution in mobile computing

Mobile devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants, have gained wide-spread popularity. These devices will increasingly be networked, thus enabling the construction of distributed mobile applications. These have to adapt to changes in context, such as variations in network bandwidth, exhaustion of battery power or reachability of services on other devices. We show how the construction of adaptive and context-aware mobile applications can be supported using a reflective middleware. The middleware provides software engineers with primitives to describe how context changes are handled using policies. These policies may conflict. In this paper, we classify the different types of conflicts that may arise in mobile computing. We argue that conflicts cannot be resolved statically at the time applications are designed, but, rather, need to be resolved at execution time. We demonstrate a method by which these policy conflicts can be treated. This method uses a micro-economic approach that relies on a particular type of sealed-bid auction.