Ontology Based Context-Aware Adaptation Approach

Pervasive information systems aim to make information available anywhere and at anytime. These systems should be used in different contexts depending on the environment of the user, her/his profile and her/his device. Consequently, one of the main problems of such information systems is the adaptation to context. In this chapter, the authors propose a comprehensive and open strategy that guarantees the adaptation of applications to context on three facets: (i) the services offered to the user, (ii) the multimedia contents returned by these services, and (iii) their presentation to the user. Service adaptation consists of modules that intercept the application’s service calls and modify their behavior using a list of functional adaptation operators. Data adaptation consists in transforming or replacing the non-usable multimedia service outputs in the considered context situation. Presentation adaptation consists in automatically generating the complete code of the user interface that guarantees the interaction with the adapted data and services. The authors’ adaptation strategy has achieved two goals: (i) incrementally integrate context awareness in the application and (ii) guarantee the adaptation starting from a simple description of the services offered to the user. They have validated this strategy by developing a platform that guarantees applications adaptation to context. They used Java, OSGi and Web service technologies to implement this platform. They have also successfully tested our adaptation approach on a home healthcare application concerning dialyzed persons.