Abstract
Research in pervasive computing and ambience intelligence aims to enable users to interact with the environment in a context-aware way. To achieve this, a complex set of features describing different aspects of the environment has to be captured and processed; in other words situation-awareness is needed. This article notes uniquely three points when modelling situations. Firstly, unlike most existing approaches, context information history should be considered when modelling the situations. We argue here that the current state cannot be understood in isolation from the previous states. Secondly, in order to track user’s behaviour there is a need to consider the context information available in the different domains the user visits. Thirdly, to identify situations it can be problematic to define situation patterns and looking for an exact match as most of the approaches does. We found that the combination of the flexibility of the user behaviour and automated capture of context events provide a very effective solution for contextual situation recognition. In this article we first provide a formalization of the situation recognition problem and then we focus on the potential use of process mining techniques for measuring situation alignment, i.e., comparing the real situations of users with the expected situations. To this end, we propose two ways to create and/or maintain the fit between them: linear temporal logic (LTL) analysis and conformance testing. We evaluate the effectiveness of the framework using a third party published smart home dataset. Our experiments prove the effectiveness of applying the proposed approach to recognizing situations in the flow of context information.
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12652-010-0038-7/MediaObjects/12652_2010_38_Fig1_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12652-010-0038-7/MediaObjects/12652_2010_38_Fig2_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12652-010-0038-7/MediaObjects/12652_2010_38_Fig3_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12652-010-0038-7/MediaObjects/12652_2010_38_Fig4_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12652-010-0038-7/MediaObjects/12652_2010_38_Fig5_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12652-010-0038-7/MediaObjects/12652_2010_38_Fig6_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12652-010-0038-7/MediaObjects/12652_2010_38_Fig7_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12652-010-0038-7/MediaObjects/12652_2010_38_Fig8_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12652-010-0038-7/MediaObjects/12652_2010_38_Fig9_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12652-010-0038-7/MediaObjects/12652_2010_38_Fig10_HTML.gif)
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.References
Allen JF (1983) Maintaining knowledge about temporal intervals. Commun ACM 26(11):832–843. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=182.358434
Dey AK (2001) Understanding and using context. Pers Ubiquitous Comput 5(1):4–7. http://www.springerlink.com/index/1D9GRXKJVQUHPWKW.pdf
Gunther CW, Vander Aalst WMP (2006) A generic import framework for process event logs. Lecture notes in computer science, vol 4103, pp 81–92
Harry C, Tim F, Anupam J (2004) An ontology for context-aware pervasive computing environments. Knowl Eng Rev 18(3):197–207. http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0269888904000025
Jaroucheh Z, Liu X, Smith S (2010a) Apto: a MDD-based generic framework for context-aware deeply adaptive service-based processes. In: ICWS, the IEEE 8th international conference on web services, IEEE Computer Society, FL, USA
Jaroucheh Z, Liu X, Smith S (2010b) CANDEL: product line based dynamic context management for pervasive applications. In: International conference on complex, intelligent and software intensive systems (ARES/CISIS 2010). IEEE Computer Society, Krakow, pp 209–216. doi:10.1109/CISIS.2010.21
Jehad Sarkar A, Lee Y-K, Lee S (2010) A smoothed Naive Bayes-based classifier for activity recognition. IETE Tech Rev 27(2):107–119
Klyne G et al (2004) W3C. Composite capabilities/preferences profile (CC/PP). http://www.w3.org/TR/CCPP-struct-vocab/
Loke SW (2004) Representing and reasoning with situations for context-aware pervasive computing: a logic programming perspective. Knowl Eng Rev 19(3):213–233
Reignier P et al (2007) Context-aware environments: from specification to implementation. Exp Syst 24(5):305–320
Rozinat A, Van Der Aalst WMP (2006) Conformance testing: measuring the fit and appropriateness of event logs and process models. In: BPM 2005 workshops (Workshop on Business Process Intelligence, pp 163–176
Springer T et al (2008) A comprehensive approach for situation-awareness based on sensing and reasoning about context. In: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on ubiquitous intelligence and computing, Springer, Oslo, Norway, pp 143–157
Strang T, Linnhoff-Popien C, Frank K (2003) CoOL: context ontology language to enable contextual interoperability. Lect Notes Comput Sci 2893:236–247
van Der Aalst WTW, Maruster L (2004) Workflow mining: discovering process models from event logs. IEEE Trans Knowl Data Eng 16(9):1128–1142. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/lpdocs/epic03/wrapper.htm?arnumber=1316839
Van Dongen BF, Van Der Aalst WMP (2004) Multi-phase process mining: building instance graphs. In: International conference on conceptual modeling (ER 2004). Lecture notes in computer science, vol 3288. Springer, New York, pp 362–376
Van Der Aalst WMP, De Beer HT, Van Dongen BF (2005) Process mining and verification of properties: an approach based on temporal logic. In: On the move to meaningful internet systems 2005: CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE: OTM Confederated International Conferences, CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE 2005, pp 130–147
Van Dongen BF et al (2005) The ProM framework: a new era in process mining tool support. In: Ciardo G, Darondeau P (eds) ICATPN 2005. LNCS, vol 3536, pp 444–454
van der Aalst WMP et al (2007a) ProM 4.0: comprehensive support for real process analysis. In: Kleijn J, Yakovlev A (eds) ICATPN 2007. LNCS, vol 4546, pp 484–494
Van Der Aalst W et al (2007b) Business process mining: an industrial application. Inform Syst 32(5):713–732. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0306437906000305
van Kasteren T et al (2008) Accurate activity recognition in a home setting. In: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on ubiquitous computing—UbiComp ‘08, ACM Press, New York. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1409635.1409637
Wang XH et al (2004) Ontology based context modeling and reasoning using OWL. In: Proceedings of the second IEEE annual conference on pervasive computing and communications workshops, IEEE Computer Society, pp 18–22. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=1276898
Weijters AJMM, Van Der Aalst WMP (2003) Rediscovering workflow models from event-based data using little thumb. Integr Comput-Aided Eng 10 (2):151–162
Yau SS, Liu J (2006) Hierarchical situation modeling and reasoning for pervasive computing. In: Proceedings of the fourth IEEE workshop on software technologies for future embedded and ubiquitous systems, and the second international workshop on collaborative computing, integration, and assurance (Seus-Wccia’06), IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, pp 5–10
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jaroucheh, Z., Liu, X. & Smith, S. Recognize contextual situation in pervasive environments using process mining techniques. J Ambient Intell Human Comput 2, 53–69 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-010-0038-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-010-0038-7