Situ: A Situation-Theoretic Approach to Context-Aware Service Evolution

Evolvability is essential for computer systems to adapt to the dynamic and changing requirements in response to instant or delayed feedback from a service environment that nowadays is becoming more and more context aware; however, current context-aware service-centric models largely lack the capability to continuously explore human intentions that often drive system evolution. To support service requirements analysis of real-world applications for services computing, this paper presents a situation-theoretic approach to human-intention-driven service evolution in context-aware service environments. In this study, we give situation a definition that is rich in semantics and useful for modeling and reasoning human intentions, whereas the definition of intention is based on the observations of situations. A novel computational framework is described that allows us to model and infer human intentions by detecting the desires of an individual as well as capturing the corresponding context values through observations. An inference process based on hidden Markov model makes instant definition of individualized services at runtime possible, and significantly, shortens service evolution cycle. We illustrate the possible applications of this framework through a smart home example aimed at supporting independent living of elderly people.