Providing user context for mobile and social networking applications

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2010

Authors

Santos, AC (Author) Other; João M. P. Cardoso (Author) FEUP; Ferreira, DR (Author) Other; Diniz, PC (Author) Other; Chainho, P (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Pervasive and Mobile Computing

Vol. 6

Pages: 324-341

ISSN: 1574-1192

Publisher: Elsevier

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 33 Citations

Scopus - 56 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-003-6G6

DOI: 10.1016/j.pmcj.2010.01.001

Abstract (EN): The processing capabilities of mobile devices coupled with portable and wearable sensors provide the basis for new context-aware services and applications tailored to the user environment and daily activities. In this article, we describe the approach developed within the UPCASE project, which makes use of sensors available in the mobile device as well as sensors externally connected via Bluetooth to provide user contexts. We describe the system architecture from sensor data acquisition to feature extraction, context inference and the publication of context information in web-centered servers that support well-known social networking services. In the current prototype, context inference is based on decision trees to learn and to identify contexts dynamically at run-time, but the middleware allows the integration of different inference engines if necessary. Experimental results in a real-world setting suggest that the proposed solution is a promising approach to provide user context to local mobile applications as well as to network-level applications such as social networking services.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 18