On defining and modeling context-awareness

摘要

Purpose - This paper aims to present a methodology for defining and modeling context-awareness and describing efficiently the interactions between systems, applications and their context. Also, the relation of modern context-aware systems with distributed computation is investigated. Design/methodology/approach - On this purpose, definitions of context and context-awareness are developed based on the theory of computation and especially on a computational model for interactive computation which extends the classical Turing Machine model. The computational model proposed here encloses interaction and networking capabilities for computational machines. Findings - The definition of context presented here develops a mathematical framework for working with context. Also, the modeling approach of distributed computing enables us to build robust, scalable and detailed models for systems and application with context-aware capabilities. Also, it enables us to map the procedures that support context-aware operations providing detailed descriptions about the interactions of applications with their context and other external sources. Practical implications - A case study of a cloud-based context-aware application is examined using the modeling methodology described in the paper so as to demonstrate the practical usage of the theoretical framework that is presented. Originality/value - The originality on the framework presented here relies on the connection of context-awareness with the theory of computation and distributed computing.