Information services that are accessed by mobile computers need to compensate the limited potential for direct interaction by some mechanism which analyzes the intentions of the user. Location-aware information services, for instance, take the decision about what is relevant to the user on ground of information about the user’s spatial location. We show that if the regions of the geographic space in which the user moves are structured hierarchically by partonomies a context problem arises. To resolve the problem, not only the user’s location but also his motion must be taken into account. We propose a location model that supports inferring intentional behavior in spatial partonomies from motion patterns and describe the architecture of the corresponding modeling framework.

Due to technical and design-based constraints, mobile used devices need special capabilities of proactive information presentation. In the simplest case, these can be the intelligent arrangement of menu items based on their relevance for a specific situation. Typically, the decision about what is relevant to the user is taken on ground of information about the user’s spatial location. We show that if the regions of the geographic space in which the user moves are structured hierarchically by partonomies a disambiguation problem arises. To resolve the problem, not only the user’s location but also his motion must be taken into account. Abstrakt – Aufgrund ihrer sowohl konstruktiv als auch technisch begründeten Eigenschaften erfordern mobile Rechner besondere Fähigkeiten zur proaktiven Informationspräsentation. Im einfachsten Fall kann dies die intelligente Anordnung von Menüpunkten entsprechend ihrer Relevanz bezüglich einer gegebenen Situation bedeuten. Die Entscheidung darüber wird in den meisten Fällen in Abhängigkeit von der aktuellen Position des Nutzers getroffen. Wir zeigen, dass bei hierarchisch strukturierten geographischen Regionen ein Disambiguierungsproblem auftritt, für das eine Lösung erreicht werden kann, wenn nicht nur die aktuelle Position des Nutzers, sondern auch dessen Bewegungsmuster in Betracht gezogen wird.

„Wearable Computing“ ist nicht nur ein Schlagwort, sondern eine sich aktiv entwickelnde Technologie. Dieser interdisziplinäre Workshop widmet sich der Beantwortung folgender in diesem Kontext relevanter Fragen:

Due to technical and design-based constraints, mobile devices need special capabilities of proactive information presentation. In the simplest case, these can be the intelligent arrangement of menu items based on their relevance for a specific situation. Typically, the decision about what is relevant to the user is taken on ground of information about the user’s spatial location. We show that if the regions of the geographic space in which the user moves are structured hierarchically by partonomies a disambiguation problem arises. To resolve the problem, not only the user’s location but also his motion must be taken into account. We propose a location model that supports inferring intentional behavior in spatial partonomies from motion patterns. 1 Intentional behavior in geographic space Location-aware services pioneered by researchers at the Xerox Parc Laboratory under the vision of ubiquitous computing (see e.g. Schilit & al., 1993) exploit the idea that the intentions of a human agent can be inferred from information about his current location. This is a valid assumption in certain cases. However, intentional behavior often correlates with complex motion patterns rather than with location. A further challenge for location modeling comes into play when the user’s mental representation of space is considered. From psychological research it is known that region-based representations of geographic space tend to be organized hierarchically by part-of relations (Hirtle, 1995). Thus, intentional spatial behavior seems intrinsically bound to what AI research has called spatial partonomies (e.g. Davis, 1990). For ubiquitous computing, this raises the problem of finding a suitable location model for identifying the intentions of a user who is moving in an environment structured by partonomies. This paper reports on a particular instance of this problem which we encountered in the TourServ project1. Within the scope of this project, a service platform is build that provides regional information and navigation support to tourists. A pilot system is under development for the Italian ski resort of Scopello near Milan. The tourists use mobile devices, such as PDA or smart phones, to get optimal support during their 1 Funded by the European Union IST-1999-20414 skiing, mountaineering, or hiking activities. The tourist’s actual position is gained by GPS and this information is used to guide proactive information presentation and navigation support. In the simplest case, this amounts to finding an arrangement of menu items based on their relevance for a given situation. Positioning technologies like GPS are able to provide sufficiently exact information for navigation purposes but they do not resolve the problem of identifying which spatial context is relevant for the user. A position on a digital map typically corresponds not to a single region but to a hierarchy of regions. The tourist located at the ski lift in the resort of Scopello is also located in the commune of Scopello, in the valley of Varese, and in Italy. Depending on the tourist’s intentions, any of these regions can become the focus of relevance for services such as formation presentation or navigation. 2 The problem of ambiguous location We would like to illustrate the problem of ambiguous location, and to present our solutions for that problem, using a simplified application scenario. In this scenario, a tourist explores an art museum. He is assisted by a mobile device connected to the museum’s tourist information system. The basic problem lies in the fact that the tourist’s location is part of multiple, hierarchically stacked “spatio-thematic regions”. A typical museum consists of a number of buildings or wings, each of which is subdivided into several exhibition rooms (Fig. 1). Each room holds a number of exhibits. The museum itself is located in a specific district of a city, and the city is part of a country.