Information Supply Mechanisms inUbiquitous Computing, Crisis Management and Workflow Modelling

摘要

The successful application of ubiquitous computing in crisis management requires a thorough understanding of the mechanisms that extract information from sensors and communicate it via PDA's to crisis workers. Whereas query and subscribe protocols are well studied mechanisms for information exchange between different computers, it is not straightforward how to apply them for communication between a computer and a human crisis worker, with limited cognitive resources. To examine the imposed cognitive load, we focus on the relation of the information supply mechanism with the workflow, or task model, of the crisis worker. We formalize workflows and interaction mechanisms in colored Petri nets, specify various ways to relate them and discuss their pros and cons.