A Formal Treatment of Context-Awareness
Gruia-Catalin
Roman, Christine Julien, and Jamie Payton, Washington
University, USA
Context-aware computing refers to a computing paradigm in which the
behavior of individual components is determined by the circumstances in
which they find themselves to an extent that greatly exceeds the
typical system/environment interaction pattern common to most modern
computing. The environment has an exceedingly powerful impact on a
particular application component either because the latter needs to
adapt in response to changing external conditions or because it relies
on resources whose availability is subject to continuous change. In
this paper we seek to develop a systematic understanding of the
quintessential nature of context-aware computing by constructing a
formal model and notation for expressing context-aware computations. We
start with the basic premise that, in its most extreme form, context
should be made manifest in a manner that is highly local in appearance
and decoupled in fact. Furthermore, we assume that the notion of
context is relative to the needs of each individual component and
context-awareness is to be maintained in a totally transparent manner
with minimal programming effort. We construct the model from first
principles, seek to root our decisions in these formative assumptions,
and make every effort to preserve minimality of concepts and elegance
of notation.