An Ontology For Mobile Situation Aware Systems

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel design artefact, namely a generic situation management ontology based on situation theory. This ontology contributes to the foundation knowledge base of mobile service delivery systems for future research and systems design. It demonstrates the applicability, and feasibility of using situation theory in the design of reactive information systems. The support within the ontology for context based filtering for situation detection also contributes to the efficiency of implementation and operation of situation driven reactive information systems.Highly mobile people (HMPs) require flexible, reactive service delivery due to their regularly changing location and activities and the lack of a wired network connection. A mobile service delivery system should be able to detect relevant events that occur such as change of location, availability of new last-minute specials, sales opportunities and safety issues and then reactively take action in response to these events. This paper describes a generic situation management ontology that was developed in OWL using the ontology development tool, Protégé. The ontology is combined with domain specific classes in the travel domain to create a travel situation management ontology that can be used as the basis for a ubiquitous mobile travel service application. Using a typical independent traveler scenario, the travel situation management ontology is instantiated to demonstrate its effectiveness.

An Examination of Context in the Age of Ubiquitous Mobile Computing

“…O'Brien () noted that mobile devices and apps can recognize and react to spatio‐temporal parameters within the context as the context changes and as the tasks change. Looking to human‐factors research—and specifically to research on situational awareness—O'Brien () proposed a generic mobile situation‐management ontology.…”

“…O'Brien () noted that mobile devices and apps can recognize and react to spatio‐temporal parameters within the context as the context changes and as the tasks change. Looking to human‐factors research—and specifically to research on situational awareness—O'Brien () proposed a generic mobile situation‐management ontology. Situation objects are “entities in a situation—both physical and abstract—that can have characteristics (i.e., attributes) and can participate in relationships with the performer and with context elements.” He also broadened the scope of context elements to include policies, directives, and other information that is not physically present but that should be available to the performer in deciding his or her next actions.…”

Assisting Tourists on the Move- An Evaluation of Mobile Tourist Guides

“…It has to be noted that this dimension resembles the work of [16] that refines the ICDT (Information, Communication, Distribution, Transaction) model [1] for segmenting the virtual marketspace. In order to better reflect interpersonal communication between community members, we renamed the category "communication" to "community".…”