Much research has examined the use of awareness tools for enhancing coordination. However, the proposed tools tend to either make people aware of one information source in great detail or a variety of sources with very little detail. We refer to this problem as the detail-variety trade-off. Another problem with awareness tools is that they are not interchangeable. Specifically, users of these tools have only limited ability to route awareness information to different types of awareness tools that might better suit their work styles. We believe these two problems are primarily software engineering problems to which we present a solution called CASS (Cross Application Subscription Services), for obtaining awareness information from diverse sources and routing it to a variety of awareness tools. Keywords: Event and Notification Server Architectures, Awareness, Push Technologies 1

As users, services, databases, and computers become increasingly mobile, so fades the era of the fixed network. Modern networks are becoming mobile networks which must accommodate a broad range services with differing mobility characteristics. Consequently, there is an impetus to understand mobility and its effect on communications systems. Of particular interest are the unique stresses imposed by mobile computing and especially mobile computer programs (agents). As an aid to greater understanding, we propose a theoretical framework for the study of mobility tracking based on user/service/host location probability distributions. We show how this methodology, using stochastic ordering and information theory, can enable quantitative comparison of various mobility management schemes as well as insight into the mobility tracking problem over a wide range of mobility characteristics. This general approach should aid both applications and future research. This work supported in part b...

The term agent comes from greek ‘agein’, which means to drive or to lead. Today the term agent denotes something that produces or is capable of producing an effect. It can be a chemically,

We created the characters Agneta & Frida with the intent to strengthen and encourage exploration of information spaces. In a follow-up study we tried to capture whether users found the characters believable, whether they raised affective responses in users, and whether they created a richer more narratively oriented experience of the space. In order to do so, we had to develop new criteria and methods of understanding users ’ conceptions and affective responses. We discuss the study in detail, as well as the general implications for how to perform user studies and design of character-enhanced systems. 1

Software agents are computer programs that act on behalf of users to perform routine, tedious, and timeconsuming tasks. To be useful to an individual user, an agent must be personalized to his or her goals, habits, and preferences. We have created an enduser programming system that makes it easy for users to state rules for their agents to follow. The main advance over previous approaches is that the system automatically determines conflicts between rules and guides users in resolving the conflicts. Thus, over time, user and system collaborate in developing a set of rules that embody the user's preferences for handling a wide variety of situations. KEYWORDS agents, end-user programming, intelligent systems INTRODUCTION Software agents are the focus of much interest in the popular press and are a hot research topic in humancomputer interaction [3,5,7,8,9,10,11,13], artificial intelligence [17], and distributed computing [16]. HCI research on agents can be distinguished by its user-c...

. We describe three contributions for distributed resource allocation in scientific applications. First, we present an abstract model in which different resources are represented as tokens of different colors; processes acquire resources by acquiring these tokens. Second, we present distributed scheduling algorithms that allow multiple resource managers to determine custom policies to control allocation of the tokens representing their particular resources. These algorithms allow multiple resource managers, each with its own resource management policy, to collaborate in providing resources for the whole system. Third, we present an implementation of a distributed resource scheduling algorithm framework using our abstract model. This implementation uses Infospheres, which are Internet communication packages written in Java, and shows the benefits of distributing the task of resource allocation to multiple resource managers. 1 Introduction A user often needs access to several distribu...

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In order for software agent technology to come to full fruition, it must be integrated in a realistic way with existing production technologies. In this paper we address one of the interesting problems of real-world agent integration: the interaction between agents and non-agents. The proposed solution is designed to provide non-agents (client software in particular) access to agent services, without restricting the capabilities of agents providing them.

CASSIUS is an awareness server which assists users in designing subscriptions for maintaining awareness of events within work, physical and social environments. This environment is designed to work with a wide range of awareness tools using desktop computers, mobile devices and ambient fixtures[4]. This work investigates the requirements for creating ad-hoc subscriptions -- a subscription that is created either by the user or a software agent, and which only exists for a brief period of time. Design guidelines are proposed that help address the problem inherent in having users invest effort in creating a subscription which may last for only the few minutes in which they are in a specific location or context.

........................................................................................................................................xi Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................xii 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................1 1.1 Motivation for the Research ..........................................................................................1 1.2 Overview of the Research Problems ..............................................................................2 1.3 Thesis Objectives and Considerations ...........................................................................6 1.4 Thesis Organisation ......................................................................................................12 1.5 Summary ......................................................................................