System Support for Ubiquitous Computing Workshop

At the 8^th Annual Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp 2006)

In Orange County California, September 17-21, 2006

[Call for Papers PDF | Text] [Main Page]

UbiSys 2006 is an opportunity for researchers and practitioners developing systems for ubiquitous computing environments to meet and exchange ideas.  It will provide opportunities to present recent findings, and to discuss ongoing research in the field fostering greater collaboration and cooperation.  The main goal of this workshop is to address issues related to ubiquitous application deployment.  One objective is to identify and discuss issues that differentiate ubicomp systems from traditional systems, and are common to both, such as the use of service oriented architectures and emerging standards.  Another is to continue to make progress toward deriving a common set of abstractions.  This will enable application developers to more easily utilize system resources in an environment.  Finally, since the evaluation of ubiquitous systems is not well understood, we also hope to advance the techniques and benchmarks used to effectively evaluate ubiquitous computing systems.

This year, UbiSys focuses on the challenges related to the wider deployment of ubicomp systems.  Common deployment issues include the use of standards, service oriented architectures, autonomy and security, and resolving protocol and interface mismatches.  While many common issues are handled by traditional middleware systems, they must be applied differently in ubicomp environments due to the dynamism, flexibility and ease of use needed by systems that interact with users in their daily lives.

One of the key issues for discussion is the possibility of a common set of abstractions for application developers by ubiquitous computing systems and middleware.   Through prototype efforts, ubicomp researchers have independently identified similar structures and abstractions, indicating that convergence to an interoperable model for ubicomp environments may be possible.   With common abstractions, applications may be more easily ported between environments, and through the use of standards, even interact directly with any environment without change.  Achieving a high level of interoperability may lead to wider deployment of ubicomp systems and the actualization of Weiser's vision.

Another related challenge in achieving wider deployment is in supporting both environment-centric and user-centric applications.  An environment-centric application is used only in a given place, while user-centric applications can be used in any location with or without infrastructure support.  Meeting support systems that make use of large screen displays and other fixed resources in a meeting room are only suitable in those rooms.  Similarly, a museum tour application is only available for use in a museum.  User-centric systems are location independent, marshalling resources that can be reached nearby in an opportunistic manner.  Such applications may include collaboration, messaging, music and file exchange, lighting control, or navigation for example.  These applications can be carried by the user, hosted by mobile devices, or supported by infrastructure as a user moves.  Environment-centric systems often lend themselves to a centralized architecture, while user-centric systems to a peer-to-peer or decentralized architecture.  It is evident that both types of applications are necessary, and that systems must support both.  This requirement leads to a variety of research questions concerning programming abstractions and associated models, interoperability, and architectures.

When prototype systems are deployed, ubicomp systems need to be evaluated in a consistent and systematic manner.  However, currently ubicomp system evaluation is not well-understood.  While systems researchers employ quantitative comparisons, and the HCI community evaluates with user-studies, for example, it is not clear that these methodologies are ideally suited to ubicomp systems.  As a community, we need to propose techniques and benchmarks for evaluation that are best suited to our kind of research.

The workshop focuses on presenting state of the art and emerging research, as well as experience reports, in the following topics:

	Common abstractions, models toward interoperability and portability, supported by systems and tools for porting or adapting applications between ubiquitous environments.
	Use of new and emerging middleware and software engineering approaches such as service oriented, decentralized, and peer to peer architectures in ubicomp systems.
	Wide scale inter-domain ubicomp deployment and experiences of deployed ubicomp systems infrastructure.
	Techniques and benchmarks for the effective evaluation of ubicomp systems

This workshop will consist of a mix of paper presentations and a panel discussion. Submissions can take two forms: a 4 to 6 page 'full paper' submission for possible inclusion as presentations in one of three paper sessions OR a 1-2 page position paper (page limit is guideline only).  A selection of the best position papers will be chosen for oral presentation at a panel session. All papers should be in the Springer Verlag LNCS format. These papers must cover one of the topics listed above.

We recommend that paper submissions follow the following guidelines where appropriate:

	Define the paper criteria (experience paper, case study, evaluation methodology, ongoing work).
	Illustrate the novelty of the proposed infrastructure.
	Show what new services, applications, optimizations and insights are supported by the proposed architecture (an elegant way to re-implement existing applications and services is not enough).
	Validate/evaluate the proposed infrastructure and describe the metrics used.

Both types of submissions will be reviewed blindly and selected based on their originality, merit, and relevance to the workshop.   Submissions, in PDF format, must be submitted using EDAS no later than June 16, 2006 June 23, 2006.  All accepted papers must be presented during the workshop. Note that authors of submissions not accepted because of time constraints may be invited to present a poster during the lunch session.  Please email ubisys@magic.ubc.ca if you have any questions.

The proceedings of the workshop will be published electronically at the workshop’s web page.  Also, we are exploring the possibility of publishing the accepted papers in special magazine or journal, and will submit the summary of the workshop discussions to a major ubiquitous computing publication.

EDAS Ubisys 2006 workshop link: http://edas.info/4897  
EDAS main login and registration: http://edas.info/

All paper submissions will be handled electronically by the EDAS system. Note that submission is a two-stage process - authors need to register their paper first and then submit the final manuscript. Submissions must be in Adobe PDF format and conform to the guidelines specified here. Authors without EDAS user names will be required to register with the system using the same link as above.

	Jalal Al-Muhtadi, King Saudi U.
	Christian Becker, U. Stuttgart
	Michael Blackstock, UBC
	Roy Campbell, UIUC
	Charles “Buck” Krasic, UBC
	Rodger Lea, UBC
	Alan Messer, Samsung
	Nitya Narasimhan, Motorola
	Paddy Nixon, UCD
	Umar Saif, LUMS, Pakistan
	Sotirios Terzis, Strathclyde

Last updated August 29, 2006