N EWSLETTER I SSUENR. 2, J ANUARY 2013

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E

DITORIAL

Welcome to the second issue of the GAMBAS newsletter, with which we would like to inform you about recent advances of the GAMBAS (Generic Adaptive Middleware for Behavior-driven Autonomous Services) European research project.

It has been a while since the last issue of the GAMBAS newsletter in which we presented the overall project and there have been considerable advances throughout all work packages of the project. Thus, in this issue we focus on describing them. As the present time, we are close to the completion of the first reporting period and consequently we are analyzing the effectiveness of our dissemination efforts. As one of the results we present some statistics on the website.

As our partner profile in this edition of the newsletter, we present the National University of Ireland, Galway which is responsible for ensuring that GAMBAS achieves is goals with respect to scalable and interoperable data processing. In our events section, we report back from this year’s ITS World Congress and we look ahead to the upcoming International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PERCOM).

We hope you enjoy reading this issue and we invite you to provide suggestions for improving your GAMBAS experience via email to [email protected].

P

ROJECT

S

TATUS

The overall objective of the GAMBAS project is the development of an innovative and adaptive middleware to enable the privacy-preserving and automated utilization of behavior-driven services that adapt autonomously to the context of users.

O

BJECTIVES

To achieve this overall objective the GAMBAS project has the following scientific and technical sub goals:

1. Development of a generic middleware that encompasses:

 Models and infrastructures to support the interoperable representation and scalable processing of context.

 Frameworks and methods to support the generic yet resource-efficient multi-modal recognition of context.

 Protocols and tools to derive, generalize, and enforce user-specific privacy-policies.

 Techniques and concepts to optimize the interaction with behavior-driven services.

2. Validation of the middleware and its components using lab tests and a prototype application in the public transportation domain.

P

LAN

The work of GAMBAS is divided into 6 primary work packages (WP1-WP6) as well as 2 support work packages for dissemination and exploitation (WP7) and management (WP8).

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Furthermore, WP1 performs an iterative integration in two phases to create the targeted middleware system.

The research activities are carried out in four work packages which tackle the main research topics of the project, namely:

Adaptive Data Acquisition (WP2) which develops a generic yet resource-efficient data acquisition framework for mobile devices that is able to dynamically adapt its sensing capabilities to the specific demand on context information of different services and applications.

Automated Privacy Preservation (WP3) developing protocols and mechanisms for the privacy-preserving sharing of context information in an unobtrusive and intuitive manner by means of automated policy generation, generalization and enforcement.

Interoperable Data Representation (WP4) and Processing enabling data interoperability in adaptive large scale distributed networks through the creation of representation models and standards for data representation and the development of infrastructures and methods for distributed data processing among Internet-connected objects.

Intent-Aware User Interface (WP5) developing and evaluating intent-aware user interfaces for mobile systems that provides personalized

recommendations on the basis of the user’s

context, plans and intents.

Last but not least an application prototyping work package (WP6) serves not only as basis for the evaluation of the overall results of the project, but also shows and demonstrates the validity of the GAMBAS middleware and its potential for other applications.

P

HASES

Conceptually, the GAMBAS project is divided into the following three main phases:

The first phase runs until the end of the first year. It includes the gathering, sorting and prioritization of requirements to be used throughout the project as well as the use cases that will be implemented by the application prototype. Furthermore, it includes the high-level architecture and the first versions of the specifications developed in the remaining core research work packages.

The second phase runs until the end of the second year and it includes the first implementation as well as the second version of the specifications of the core research and development work packages as well as the first integrated version of the middleware. At that time, the first version of the application prototype will also have been developed and it will have been used to create a stable version of the evaluation plan that will be executed in the next and final phase.

The third phase concludes at the end of the project and contains the whole functionality of the GAMBAS middleware, including a second version of the prototype application and the associated execution of the evaluation plan.

R

ESULTS

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GAMBAS is on track

and has shipped all

documents in high

quality and on time.

The publicly available

deliverables can be

downloaded from

the project web site.

with high quality. In the following, we briefly describe them. Full versions are made available through the project website.

D1.1 Requirements Specification - This document describes the requirements on the overall middleware developed by GAMBAS as well as on its individual components.

D1.2 Use Case Specification - This document describes three different application scenarios and provides formalizations of use cases for the two most relevant scenarios.

D1.3.1 Architecture Specification 1 - This document describes the high-level architectural design of the GAMBAS middleware from a static and dynamic perspective.

D2.1.1 Data Acquisition Specification 1 - This document describes the data acquisition framework of the GAMBAS middleware and details the data acquisition components that will be implemented on top of the framework.

D3.1.1 Privacy Preservation Specification 1 - This document describes the privacy preservation framework of the GAMBAS middleware and details how the different mechanisms will be applied to protect the privacy of users.

D5.1 Intent-aware User Interface Model 1 - This document describes the methodology for designing intent-aware user interfaces.

Intent-awareness refers to a novel concept for improved user interaction.

In addition the following two deliverables are currently in their final stage and will become available shortly.

D4.1.1 RDF Formalisms and Sensor Ontologies 1 - This document describes the main data models and query formalisms used by the GAMBAS middleware to enable interoperable and scalable distributed data storage and processing.

D6.1.1 Evaluation Plan 1 - This document describes the methodology to evaluate the fulfillment of the project objectives and the performance of the different subsystems using the first application prototype.

All results listed above are made available using the project website. Members of the GAMBAS interest group are able to access the documents directly after their submission. Other people will be able to access the documents only after they have been formally reviewed. To access the documents visit

.  http://www.gambas-ict.eu/download

I

NTEREST

G

ROUP

I

NVITATION

If you are interested in the GAMBAS project objectives and results, we want to encourage you to join the GAMBAS Interest Group at

.

http://www.gambas-ict.eu/sig

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P

ARTNER

P

ROFILE

(NUIG)

The Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) is a leading research institute in Web Science, networked knowledge and semantic technologies. DERI has developed an

institute strategy around “Networked

Knowledge” topic with the goal of linking knowledge on the Web and information from the Internet of Things into one global information space. DERI performs research on the Semantic Web, Linked Data, sensor network platforms, semantic technologies, and social networks. In the areas of Semantic Web and Linked Data, NUIG-DERI develops advanced infrastructures, which facilitate collaborative social working environments, scalable search, storage and reasoning engines, distributed computing, and ontology development. In sensor networks, NUIG-DERI is a co-developer (together with EPFL, Switzerland) of the Global Sensor Networks (GSN) platform. GSN provides a flexible middleware layer that abstracts from underlying heterogeneous sensor network technologies. Research results are applied to solve integration problems in areas such as eLearning, eGovernment, eBusiness, and eHealth and DERI is involved in more than 10 standardization groups in W3C and OASIS. NUIG-DERI members actively participate in a number of sensor network and semantic community initiatives and standardization activities closely related to this project such as the Wireless Sensors Enterprise Led Network (Ireland), the W3C Semantic Sensor Network Incubator Working Group, the Social Web Incubator Group and the SPARQL Working Group in W3C, co-chaired by DERI. DERI’s Semantically Interlinked Online Communities (SIOC) – an ontology to describe online communities – is a member submission to the W3C and used in more than 50 applications

including Drupal and Yahoo! SearchMonkey. NUIG-DERI actively participates in and leads research funded by the EU FP6 program (DIP, SUPER, SemanticGov, NEPOMUK, TripCom, RIDE), the EU FP7 program (SPITFIRE, CONET, PECES, LATC, OKKAM, FAST, eCAALYX, Rural Inclusion, WAVE, EATRAIN2, etc.), Science Foundation Ireland (LION-2) and Enterprise Ireland (SAOR, LITE).

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ANFRED

H

AUSWIRTH

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Web research center at FU Berlin, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Center for Sensor Web Technologies (CLARITY) in Dublin, Ireland.

J

OSIANE

X

AVIER

P

ARREIRA

Dr. Josiane Xavier Parreira is a postdoctoral research fellow at DERI. She holds an M.S. (2003) and a Ph.D. (2009) in computer science from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics

(MPII) ‐ University of Saarland, Saarbrucken,

Germany. Her main research interests are on

semantic sensor networks, large‐scale

distributed systems, social networks, Internet

of things, link analysis and peer‐to‐peer

systems. She has published more than 20 articles in journals, refereed conferences and workshops. During her MSc and PhD, she was awarded a fellowship from the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS). As a postdoctoral researcher she was awarded a two years postdoctoral fellowship grant from the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering & Technology (IRCSET).

G

REGOR

S

CHIELE

Dr. Gregor Schiele is a Research Fellow at DERI. He holds an M.S. (2000) and a Ph.D. (2007) in computer science from the Universität Stuttgart, Germany. His research interests are in self-organizing adaptive distributed systems, peer-to-peer systems and networks, multiuser virtual 3D worlds, linked data technologies, adaptive and interoperable data management, distribution middleware, sensor networks, pervasive computing and Internet of Things. He has published over 50 papers, articles and book chapters in these domains, served in more than 50 international technical program committees and co-organized a multitude of events, e.g. as workshop chair for IEEE PerCom 2013 and

program chair of MMVE (Massively Multiuser Virtual Environments) 2011. 

W

EBSITE

S

TATISTICS

2012

Since February 2012, the GAMBAS website at provides

up-to-http://www.gambas-ict.eu

date information around the topics covered by the project. Today, we are happy to share some statistics around the impact of our efforts. The statistics have been gathered using Google Analytics which is tightly integrated with the Google Sites service that we use to host the site.

Between January 1st 2012 and December 31st 2012, www.gambas-ict.eu had 683 unique visitors from 59 countries all around the world. The top 15 countries are Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, United States, China, France, Greece, Japan, Indonesia, Portugal, India, Philippines and South Korea. In total, there were 1426 visits with 3942 page views.

Content-wise the visitors of www.gambas-ict.eu are accessing all pages of the website with the top five targets being the news section, the consortium and project description, the dissemination section as well as the download section. This clearly highlights the interest of our visitors in getting the latest information on GAMBAS via the web site.

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computing.open.ac.uk, as well as links by related initiatives such as internet-of-things.research.eu.

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ROJECT

F

ACTS

Acronym:

GAMBAS

Title:

Generic Adaptive Middleware

for Behavior-driven Autonomous Services

Coordinator:

Pedro José Marrón

Institution:

Universität Duisburg-Essen

Email:

[email protected]

Consortium:

Universität Duisburg-Essen

(Germany)

ETRA Investigación y Desarollo (Spain)

National University of Ireland, Galway (Ireland)

The Open University (United Kingdom)

SpeechConcept GmbH & Co. KG (Germany)

Empresa Municipal de Transportes de Madrid, S. A.

(Spain)

Duration:

36 months

Kickoff:

February 2012

Budget:

3.105.024 €

Funding:

2.194.000 €

Scheme:

EU FP7 STREP

E

VENTS AND

P

UBLICATIONS

In the following, we would like to highlight a number of past and upcoming events and we would like to give you an overview over related publications created by members of the GAMBAS consortium.

GAMBAS

P

ROJECT

M

EETINGS

The GAMBAS project started officially on the 1st of February 2012 and is about to complete its first year. During the last months two more project meetings were held.

The third GAMBAS project meeting, hosted by NUIG, was held on July 24th and 25th 2012 in Galway, Ireland. The discussion during the meeting focused on the different subsystems of the middleware and their integration during the first iteration of the implementation.

The fourth GAMBAS project meeting, hosted by SC, was held on November 13th and 14th in Heidelberg, Germany. The meeting topics covered mainly the user interface model, the existing services of EMT as well as the plans for the first application prototype.

ITS

W

ORLD

C

ONGRESS

From 22 to 26 October 2012, the global ITS community came together at the 18th edition of the ITS World Congress to discuss the latest trends and policies in Intelligent Transport Systems.

On Tuesday, October 23rd 2012, the GAMBAS project was presented at the 18th ITS Congress in Vienna by Mrs. Alma Solar, from ETRA I+D, with the talk: “Autonomous journey information services for trip planners.

E-WISETRIP and GAMBAS projects”.

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mobility and inter-modality journey planning engines are addressed within these two different project initiatives. More specifically, both planning and booking multimodal journeys adapted to all user needs, integrating costs and environmental impacts were discussed, thus allowing the management of unexpected urban and interurban mobility scenarios in future ITS management. How the results will be deployed and validated, focusing on the autonomous and customizable information trip services was also explained, as both projects share a common deployment application scenario: the Madrid public bus transport network. Both initiatives, not only share a common objective to offer the traveler a better user experience, but also share a common field for trials, which will enable a cross-comparison of results.

I

NTELLIGENT

E

NVIRONMENTS

2012

The International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE'12) took place in Guanajuato, Mexico between June 26th and June 28th, 2012.

During the conference members of the GAMBAS consortium presented a paper titled

“An Approach for Secure Role Assignment".

The GAMBAS consortium is thrilled to announce that the paper received the best paper award.

The paper and the presentation are accessible for all GAMBAS Interest Group members through our dissemination page at

.

http://www.gambas-ict.eu/dissemination

P

ERCOM

2013

The GAMBAS consortium invites you to join

this year’s International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communication (PerCom). PerCom 2013 provides “a high profile, leading edge forum for researchers,

engineers, and practitioners to present state-of-the-art research in the respective fields of pervasive computing and communications. “ During the conference members of the GAMBAS consortium will be presenting a

paper titled “PIKE: Enabling Secure Interaction with PIggybacked Key-Exchange” as well as a

demonstration titled “PIggy-backed Key Exchange using Online Services (PIKE)”.

N EWSLETTER I SSUENR. 2, J ANUARY 2013

Contents

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DITORIAL

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ROJECT

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TATUS

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I

NTEREST

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ROUP

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NVITATION

P

ARTNER

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ROFILE

(NUIG)

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H

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EBSITE

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TATISTICS

2012

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ROJECT

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ACTS

Acronym:

Title:

Coordinator:

Institution:

Email:

Consortium:

Duration:

Kickoff:

Budget:

Funding:

Scheme:

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VENTS AND

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UBLICATIONS

GAMBAS

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ITS

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2012

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2013