ACM / IFIP / USENIX
6th International Middleware Conference
November 28th -- December 2nd, Grenoble, France

3rd International Workshop on Middleware for Pervasive and Ad-Hoc Computing (MPAC05) Proceedings


Workshop Chairs Foreword

Building on the success of the 2003 and 2004 workshops, this year the workshop sought to build on the results presented in a special issue of the Journal for Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, and to develop a roadmap for research on the essential middleware abstractions and infrastructures for ad- hoc and pervasive computing in general, and sensor-based services in particular.

Over the past decade, large-scale ad-hoc and pervasive computing environments have grabbed the attention of the research community as evidenced by the large number of research and development projects in the area. However, despite considerable progress, the promise of pervasive computing still remains elusive. The diversity in currently available devices, networking infrastructure and information content has complicated research e®orts, forcing many projects to focus only on point-examples of this technology.
This workshop is premised on our belief that underpinning middleware mechanisms are central in weaving together the multitude of sensing, computing, communication and information technologies. In this respect, middleware for pervasive computing and ad-hoc networking provides two core research areas. In particular, pervasive computing middleware will allow you to take advantage of the resources in your environment to tailor your services and applications for seamless access and unrestricted mobility. Ad-hoc networking middleware will permit the formation of ad-hoc communities for new applications. However, such pervasive and ad-hoc environments pose some serious challenges to existing middleware technologies and approaches.
A synthesis of the discussion that took place in the MPAC'03 and MPAC'04 workshops has led to the identi¯cation of the following areas where pervasive and ad-hoc environments challenge existing middleware:

  1. Middleware support for programming adaptation and the associated decision-making process. Pervasive and ad-hoc computing environments are characterised by the need of applications to be informed about changes in their operating context in order to adapt their operation. This need is in conflict with the emphasis in current middleware on layer encapsulation and transparency. As a result, new middleware approaches are needed that support adaptation programming and the adaptation decision making process.
  1. Security, privacy and trust in pervasive environments and ad-hoc communities. Pervasive and ad-hoc computing environments are characterised by promiscuous mobile entities actively seeking opportunities for collaboration. The promiscuity and the mobility of these entities is at odds with the emphasis on existing middleware approaches to security and privacy that aim to provide absolute protection against dangers and to enforce administrative boundaries. Consequently, new middleware approaches to security and privacy are needed that allow entities to reason about the risks and benefits of collaboration and facilitate their mobility.
  1. Benchmarks and frameworks for the comparative evaluation of middleware approaches for pervasive and ad-hoc computing. As the number of proposed models, abstractions and infrastructure components increases it is essential that appropriate frameworks are developed for the comparative evaluation of alternative proposals both from the point of view of application developers and the operators of the infrastructure. Such evaluations require the development of benchmarks for pervasive and ad-hoc computing systems.
  1. Middleware abstraction and infrastructures for sensor based services. Sensor-Based Services are a core element of pervasive and ad-hoc computing environments. They seek to capture, manage, analyse, access and react to sensor data such as RFID information, GPS location, power consumption, temperature, license plate snapshot, etc. Architects and developersof such services require middleware support in tackling the complexity of sensor infrastructures consisting of distributed nodes with various capabilities (sensors, gateways, servers, etc.) on various protocols.
This year the workshop received an unexpectedly high number of quality submissions. Eighteen papers out of the thirty six originally submitted were chosen for these proceedings. In order to accommodate the selected papers and the discussion on the core middleware challenges, both being integral parts in our attempt to articulate a research roadmap, the workshop has been organised as a two-day event. From an analysis of the selected papers, middleware-based adaption and recon¯guration, and the middleware challenges of
sensor-based systems come across as the central themes for this year's workshop.
More specifically, a variety of middleware-based adaptation techniques are examined, ranging from policy-based (Augustin et al.) to plan- (M.-T. Tran et al.) and workflow-based (Narendra et al.) ones; in a variety of settings from generic pervasive computing systems (Rocha and Endler), to multi-modal dialogue applications (M.-T. Tran), mobile grids (Augustin et al.), sensor networks (Huaifeng and Xingshe) and service-oriented architectures (Narendra et al.). Moreover, the adaptation and reconfiguration problems examined are either generic (Huaifeng and Xingshe, Narendra et al, Rocha and Endler, and Augustin et al.), or specific ones, i.e. in group management (Vieira and Rosa), query processing (Grine et al.), and underlying networking (Bellavista et al.). Furthermore, the related issues of resource discovery (Loureiro et al. and Penz) and context management (David and Ledoux, Rocha and Endler) also receive particular attention. On the other hand, a number of papers addressing particular problems in the domain of sensor-based systems. These problems range from context-adaptation (Huaifeng and Xingshe) and collaborative event detection (Janakiram et al.), to software engineering support (Marin and Desertot), node authentication (Boumerdassi et al.) and group management (Vieira and Rosa).
In addition to the above central themes, it is interesting to note that software engineering techniques are explicitly used to address dynamism and heterogeneity in middleware platforms. Interesting examples of this include: 
Furthermore, service-oriented architectures in general and web services standards are often utilised to battle heterogeneity problems (Narendra et al., Jammes et al., Marin and Desertot and Augustin et al.). Finally, Zieba et al. examine quality constrained routing in publish/subscribe systems.
We would like to thank the authors for presenting their work in this forum, and the workshop participants for their insights and contributions in de¯ning a research roadmap for pervasive and ad hoc computing middleware. Special thanks
go to all members of the programme committee for providing constructive reviews and helping shape the workshop program. Finally, we are particularly indebted to Humberto Cervantes, Ian Ferguson, Denis Genon-Catalot and Richard Glassey for the additional reviews they provided in very short notice.

Sotirios Terzis
The Pervasive and Global Computing Group, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Sotirios.Terzis@cis.strath.ac.uk

Didier Donsez
LSR, Institut IMAG, Universite Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, FR
Didier.Donsez@imag.fr


Program Committee

Accepted Papers

Quality-Constrained Routing in Publish/Subscribe Systems.
Bogumil Zieba, Marten van Sinderen, Maarten Wegdam

An Aspect-Oriented Ambient Intelligence Middleware Platform
Lidia Fuentes, Daniel Jiménez

WildCAT: a Generic Framework for Context-Aware Applications
Pierre-Charles David, Thomas Ledoux

Managing the Follow-me Semantics to Build LargeScale Pervasive Applications
 Iara Augustin, Adenauer Yamin, Cláudio F. Resin Geyer

Functional and Architectural Adaptation in Pervasive Computing Environments
N.C. Narendra, Umesh Bellur, S.K. Nandy, K. Kalapriya

A ContextAware Middleware for Multimodal Dialogue Applications with Context Tracing
ManhThang Tran, Beat Hirsbrunner, Michele Courant

Evolutionary and Efficient Context Management in Heterogeneous Environments
Ricardo Couto A. da Rocha, Markus Endler

A Middleware Supporting Protocol-based Coordination in Dynamic Networks
Kurt Schelfthout, Danny Weyns, Tom Holvoet

Integrating Context Aware with Sensornet
Qin Huaifeng, Zhou Xingshe

A Reconfigurable Group Management Middleware Service for Wireless Sensor Networks
Mardoqueu Souza Vieira, Nelson Souto Rosa

Component Oriented Middleware for Distributed Collaboration Event Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks
D. Janakiram, A V U Phani Kumar, Adi Mallikarjuna Reddy V

Sensor Bean : A Component Platform for Sensor-based Services
Cristina Marin, Mikael Desertot

A New TwoMessage Authentication Protocol for RFID Sensor Networks
Selma Boumerdassi, Papa Kane Diop, Éric Renault, Anne Wei

Adaptive Query Processing in Mobile Environment
Hocine Grine, Thierry Delot, Sylvain Lecomte

Integrated Support for Handoff Management and Context Awareness in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks
Paolo Bellavista, Marcello Cinque, Domenico Cotroneo, Luca Foschini

Service-Oriented Device Communications Using the Devices Profile for Web Services
François Jammes, Antoine Mensch, Harm Smit

Improving Flexibility on Host Discovery for Pervasive Computing Middlewares
Emerson Loureiro, Loreno Oliveira, Hyggo Almeida

SLP-based Service Management for Dynamic Adhoc Networks
Stefan Penz


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Edited by Ackbar Joolia & Sébastien Jean, November 2005