From Pervasive Computing to EventWeb*

Ramesh Jain
Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
University of California, Irvine, CA 92697

Abstract: Progress in computing and communication has resulted in natural evolution of environments that combine sensors and computers resulting in pervasive computing, ambient intelligence, and telepresence among other exciting notions and technologies. As information and communication technology evolved, sensors have become ubiquitous making spatio-temporal and live data streams increasingly common. Sensors are naturally and closely tied to applications in which real world events must be detected and utilized in computing environments. This fusion of real world with the cyberspace common in computing systems is generating interesting challenges. Our current tools were designed for dealing with entities, objects, and keywords. To address the needs of information management in dynamic multimodal sensory environments, we need new concepts and techniques. Events may be used as fundamental organizational concept in pervasive computing systems. There are strong and deep conceptual, engineering, and human centered design reasons that make events a primary source of organization structure for dynamic multimodal systems. In this presentation we explore growth of EventWeb as a natural next step in the evolution of the Web with rich multimodal sensory information. We will discuss the research challenges and exciting opportunities for pervasive computing systems.

Biographical Sketch: Ramesh Jain is an entrepreneur, researcher, and educator. Currently he is the Donald Bren Professor in Information & Computer Sciences at University of California , Irvine . Before this he was a Rhesa Farmer Distinguished Chair and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. Ramesh is a pioneer in multimedia information systems, image databases, machine vision, and intelligent systems. While professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the University of California, San Diego, he founded and directed artificial intelligence and visual information systems labs. Ramesh was also the founding Editor-in-Chief of IEEE MultiMedia magazine and serves on the editorial boards of several magazines in multimedia, information retrieval and image and vision processing. He has co-authored more than 300 research papers in well-respected journals and conference proceedings. He has co-authored and co-edited several books, including Machine Vision, a textbook used at several universities. He is a Fellow of ACM, IEEE, AAAI, IAPR, and SPIE. He is the Chairman of ACM SIG Multimedia. His current research interests are in experiential computing and its applications. He recently co-founded Seraja. Earlier Ramesh founded three companies, managed them in initial stages, and then turned them over to professional management. Most recently, he was the co-founder, CEO, and CTO of PRAJA Inc. located in San Diego. PRAJA was acquired by Tibco. Prior to PRAJA, he was the founding CEO and Chairman of Virage, a San Mateo-based company developing systems for media management solutions and visual information management. Virage was a NADAQ listed company before being acquired by Autonomy. He was also the Founder and Chairman of ImageWare Inc, which provided solutions for surface modeling, rapid prototyping, and inspection. ImageWare was acquired by SDRC.

Very Large-Scale Pervasiveness Does Not Scale Down

Dr. Henry Tirri
Research Fellow and Head of System Research Centers
Nokia Research

Abstract: Recent developments in pervasive computing are continuing the trend that originated in mainframe computing and which led to the era of mobile computing. This trend shows several aspects consistent in the evolution of computing including the increasing miniaturization of the computing units and an increasing emphasis of the role of communication between them – "networking." This development will result in deep intertwining of the physical and digital worlds and provides "grounding" for the Internet. This fusion of the physical and digital worlds will extend also to nanoscale for sensing, computing and communicating. Future pervasive systems perform computations at all levels from metamaterials to backbone networks relying heavily on "wireless grids" that connect different computing units loosely with each other. Interestingly many of the useful macroscale behaviors are due to the properties of very-large scale systems where determinism is replaced by stochastic interactions and the power of the system derives from the vast amount of content or resources available. These large-scale pervasive systems are the basis for services in the global scale similar to the global access to information provided by the Internet. The development of such systems will revolutionize, for example traffic, environmental control, logistics, media production, health-care and wellness, and social relationships. For very large pervasive systems, the usefulness is inherently dependent on the scale of such a system – many of the properties do not emerge in "sub-scale" environments. In this talk we are specifically interested in the engineering challenges of building, maintaining and programming such large scale-systems as well as some of the user scenarios that they make possible.

Biographical Sketch: Dr. Henry Tirri is a Research Fellow and Head of System Research Centers (SRC), Nokia Research Center, Nokia's corporate research unit. Interacting closely with all Nokia business groups, Nokia Research Center is responsible for the strategic and long-term research in Nokia. Henry is responsible for the research at the Systems Research Centers, which strive for disruptive systems research with open innovation collaboration globally. SRCs thrive to enable new business opportunities for Nokia by extending the traditional Nokia realm of research, with strong relations to and a strong presence in world leading innovation ecosystems.

Henry joined Nokia in 2004 as Research Fellow at Software and Applications Laboratory. He holds Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Helsinki, Finland. He is also a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki and an Adjunct Professor of Computational Engineering at the Helsinki University of Technology. His interests lie in various subfields of artificial intelligence, information theory, search technologies and wireless sensor networks.

Henry has extensive experience in running both research activities in the fields of intelligent systems and networking. Before joining Nokia, he was the Head of Graduate School at University of Helsinki, Head of Intelligent Systems Laboratory and was leading a large world-class research group in probabilistic modeling. He has held various positions of Research Scientist at MCC, MTS at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Visiting Associate Professor at Purdue University, Visiting Scientist at NASA AMES, Visiting Professor at Stanford University and UC Berkeley, and Vice President of Scientific Operations and Co-Founder of Ekahau. Henry is the author and co-author of more than 170 academic papers in various fields of computer science, social sciences and statistics. He has five patents.

Dynamic Data Driven Applications Systems: Novel Drivers for the Future InterNets

Frederica Darema
National Science Foundation

Abstract: This talk will discuss the Dynamic Data Driven Applications Systems (DDDAS) concept, and the ensuing environments, as drivers for the next generation InterNets. DDDAS entails the ability to incorporate dynamically additional data into an executing application (these data can be archival or collected on-line), and in reverse the ability of the applications will be able to dynamically steer the measurement process. Such capabilities offer the promise of augmenting the analysis and prediction capabilities of application simulations and the effectiveness of measurement systems, with a potential major impact in many science and engineering application areas. The dynamic environments of concern here which encompass dynamic integration of real-time data acquisition with compute and data intensive -systems. Enabling DDDAS requires advances in the application modeling methods and interfaces, in algorithms tolerant to perturbations of dynamic data injection and steering, in systems software, and in infrastructure support. Research and development of such technologies requires synergistic multidisciplinary collaboration in the applications, algorithms,
software systems, and measurements systems areas, and involving researchers in basic sciences, engineering, and computer sciences. The talk will address technology advances enabled and driven DDDAS environments, as well as challenges and opportunities. In particular this presentation will address the demands of DDDAS environments on the networking services and infrastructure needed, thus driving the requirements and capabilities of the future InterNets.

Biographical Sketch: Frederica Darema, Ph.D., Fellow IEEE, Senior Executive Service Member. Dr. Darema is the Senior Science and Technology Advisor in CNS and CISE, and Director of the Computer Systems Research (CSR) Program. Dr. Darema's interests and technical contributions span the development of parallel applications, parallel algorithms, programming models, environments, and performance methods and tools for the design of applications and of software for parallel and distributed systems. Dr. Darema received her BS degree from the School of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Athens - Greece, and MS and Ph. D. degrees in Theoretical Nuclear Physics from the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of California at Davis Respectively, where she attended as a Fulbright Scholar and a Distinguished Scholar. After Physics Research Associate positions at the University of Pittsburgh and Brookhaven National Lab, she received an APS Industrial Fellowship and became a Technical Staff Member in the Nuclear Sciences Department at Schlumberger-Doll Research. Subsequently, in 1982, she joined the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center as a Research Staff Member in the Computer Sciences Department and later-on she established and became the manager of a research group at IBM Research on parallel applications. While at IBM she also served in the IBM Corporate Strategy Group examining and helping to set corporate-wide strategies. Dr. Darema was elected IEEE Fellow for proposing in 1984 the SPMD (Single-Program-Multiple-Data) computational model that has become the popular model for programming today's parallel and distributed computers. Dr. Darema has been at NSF since 1994, where she has developed initiatives for new systems software technologies (the Next Generation Software Program), and research at the interface of neurobiology and computing (the Biological Information Technology and Systems Program). She has led the DDDAS (Dynamic Data Driven Applications Systems) efforts including the synonymous cross-Directorate and cross-agency competition, and has also been involved in other cross-Directorate efforts such as the Information Technology Research, the Nanotechnolgy Science and Engineering, the Scalable Enterprise Systems, and the Sensors Programs. During 1996-1998 she completed a two-year assignment at DARPA where she initiated a new thrust for research on methods and technology for performance engineered systems.