Workshop on Ubiquitous Computing and e-Research

A joint workshop between the UK-UbiNet Ubiquitous Computing Network
and the e-Science Programme
National eScience Centre, Edinburgh, UK 18-19 May 2005

The digital world of the Grid meets the physical world through a
variety of sensors, instruments and interfaces. Projects in the
e-Science programme have increasingly become aware of the need to
focus on this digital-physical interface of the grid, and the
ubiquitous computing community is looking towards the Grid for aspects
of processing, data handling, integration and access. Meanwhile there
is also interest in applying middleware techniques across these
distributed computing domains. The objective of this workshop is to
bring together researchers and practitioners across these fields and
identify research agendas which bring together ubiquitous computing
and e-Science / e-Research / Grid.

Target audience

This 4th UK UbiNet workshop is jointly organised by the e-Science and
UK UbiNet communities, and follows on from a Birds-of-Feather session
at the UK e-Science All Hands Meeting in September 2004. It is aimed
at all members of the ubiquitous/pervasive computing or e-Science
research, development and user communities who have an interest in the
application of ubiquitous computing to e-Science applications, grid
computing to ubiquitous applications (e.g. sensor networks), grid
computation and virtualisation over networks of devices, or any other
area which draws on both ubiquitous computing and e-Research - see the
list of example topics below. As well as bringing people together and
sharing results, requirements and issues, the workshop will provide a
basis to discuss mechanisms for taking this research community
forward, especially in the light of the strategic attention given to
some of these areas in forthcoming funding programmes.

Agenda

The objective of the workshop is to facilitate discussions between
attendees. The workshop sessions will consist of invited talks plus
two or three 10 minute presentations of relevant position papers,
followed by a 20-30 minute discussion.

Position Papers
  
We invite position papers of up to 5 pages in length. These should
present work and ideas which touch on both ubiquitous computing and
e-Science/e-Research/Grid. Topics include but are certainly not
limited to:

  * e-Science applications which use devices for data acquisition,
    interaction or notification
  * Sensor networks and the grid, including pollution monitoring etc
  * Grid instruments and appliances
  * Medical devices and the grid
  * Grid in the home
  * The Mobile Grid
  * Ambient intelligence and the Grid
  * Ubicomp HCI for devices on the Grid
  * Computation on networks of devices
  * Self-organisation (self-configuration, self-management,
    self-healing) in Grid and pervasive distributed systems
  * Using grid to integrate pervasive applications
  * Middleware issues for ubiquitous devices
  * Virtualisation over networks of devices
  * Metadata, context, and information systems issues in Grid and
    pervasive
  * Description, discovery and composition of services and/or
    devices
  * Service negotiation in Grid and pervasive distributed systems
  * Semantic grid and pervasive computing
  * Agent based computing and multiagent systems for grid and
    pervasive

Position papers should be in Word, PDF or HTML format and will be
made available on the Web. For planning purposes we request an
abstract one week in advance of the position paper deadline:
    
  * Abstracts due Friday April 15, 2005
  * Position papers due Friday April 22, 2005
    
Abstracts and papers should be submitted electronically to Nicky
Harding, email nch@ecs.soton.ac.uk.

Invited talks

  * Environmental e-Science, Tom Rodden, University of Nottingham
  * Smart Laboratories to Smart Papers, Jeremy Frey, CombeChem and
    User Task Force
  * UbiGrid, Oliver Storz/Adrian Friday, University of Lancaster
  * Appliance Aggregation, Dimitris Lioupis, University of Patras
  * The myTea project, monica m.c. schraefel, University of Southampton
  * The SENSE project, Danae Stanton Fraser, University of Bath
  * FireGrid Dave Berry, University of Edinburgh
  * Self-organisation in Environmental Sensor Networks, Ian Marshall,
    University of Kent (title TBC)
  * Resource Management Strategies for Sensor Network Ensembles, Omer
    Rana, University of Cardiff
    
Registration

The Workshop will be held at the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) in
Edinburgh, starting in the morning of Wednesday 18 May and finishing
in the afternoon of Thursday 19 May. If you would like to attend the
workshop please visit the NeSC Web Site for this event:
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/530/

Organising and Programme Committee

  * David De Roure, University of Southampton (Chair)
  * Tom Rodden, University of Nottingham
  * Morris Sloman, Imperial College
  * Oliver Storz, University of Lancaster
  * Ian Marshall, University of Kent
  * Peter Dickman, University of Glasgow
  * Omer Rana, University of Cardiff
    
Enquiries

Please contact Nicky Harding (email nch@ecs.soton.ac.uk) or David 
De Roure (email dder@ecs.soton.ac.uk).