PUMAS is a framework based on agents and a Peer to Peer (P2P) approach, which allows nomadic users to access several information sources through different types of devices (eventually mobile). PUMAS provide the nomadic user with information adapted to her/his preferences and to the characteristics of the context of use (i.e. location, connection moment, inherent characteristics of the aceess de...

In the 1990s, there was considerable interest in mobile computation: systems in which running computations (or mobile agents) could be moved from one machine to another. Much of this work was in terms of high-level programming languages and mobile process calculi. An example is Nomadic Pict—a prototype high-level programming language in which to express and verify overlay networks, for reliable...

In recent years, the concept of nomadic computing has received considerable attention from the business community. As an early form of nomadic information environment (NIE), wireless local area network (WLAN) has gained tremendous popularity with organizations. Using mostly anecdotal evidences, WLAN equipment manufacturers and practitioners claimed that WLAN brought dramatic improvements in the...

We present a detailed examination of the dynamic access control challenges for a nomadic health grid with the aim of achieving optimal access rights for each of the involved principals. We derive general requirements for the expressiveness of access challenges and propose criteria for a more suitable access control mechanism in the context of nomadic health grid applications. The results are ba...

Current design guidelines for conventional tangible systems suggest that the representational significance of tangible tokens is an important consideration in the design of tangible interaction, especially in collaborative contexts. Such advice might be assumed to imply that nomadic systems that employ improvised tokens are liable to have highly impaired usability. In this paper we describe Kol...

Evidence-based medicine has been praised for its enormous contribution to information processing, and for other achievements. Most of the criticism has been directed at its conceptual structure. This criticism has been levelled by philosophers and doctors, such as Miles, Loughlin and Polychronis. My own approach is to develop a viewpoint on EBM from post-structuralism. I have drawn on the work ...

This paper describes an ongoing project that exploits the capability of mobile sharing systems for ad-hoc wireless networks (MANET) operating in a post-emergency scenario. The aim is to support an existing adaptive process management in which users handle multimedia files (e.g. disaster photos) in a nomadic way by exploiting the capability offered by mobile file sharing middleware to reduce the...

Considering the Nigerien Tuareg migrations to Europe two main features can be noticed: fi rst, a pattern of return migration and, second, the inclusion of European friends in the networks used in travelling to Europe. The fi rst feature agrees with certain nomadic ideas of travel like gaining new knowledge to adapt at home. Therefore, all the other traits of Tuareg experiences in travelling to ...

As computing becomes more nomadic, privacy becomes a greater concern. People use portable devices to annex displays in their environments so that they can share information with other people. However, private information such as usernames, e-mail addresses, and folder names are shown on foreign displays. In addition, foreign keyboards can be used to enter in passwords generating a significant p...

Vaccination services for people and livestock often fail to achieve sufficient coverages in Africa's remote rural settings because of financial, logistic, and service delivery constraints. In Chad from 2000 through 2005, we demonstrated the feasibility of combining vaccination programs for nomadic pastoralists and their livestock. Sharing of transport logistics and equipment between physicians ...