Proactive Personalized Mobile Multi-Blogging Service on Smart-M3

Journal of Computing and Information Technology - CIT 20, 2012, 3, 175–182doi:10.2498/cit.1002094

175

Proactive Personalized MobileMulti-blogging Service on Smart-M3

Dmitry G. Korzun1,2, Ivan V. Galov1 and Sergey I. Balandin3

1Department of Computer Science, Petrozavodsk State University – PetrSU, Republic of Karelia, Russia2Helsinki Institute for Information Technology – HIIT, Aalto University, Finland3FRUCT Oy, Helsinki, Finland

This paper discusses the project targeted at developmentof proactive, personalized and composite services for theblogosphere. By applying the smart spaces paradigmwe have developed an approach for composition of blogspaces. We contribute formal technique for constructionof proactive and personalized service for bloggers aswell as for its integration with external applications.The proposed technique is implemented in SmartScriboapplication on top of the Smart-M3 platform. The devel-oped prototype solution has confirmed that the approachresults in services with the next quality level.

Keywords: smart spaces, Smart-M3, blogging, personal-ized, proactive, composite

1. Introduction

The giant data collections have been accumu-lated by Internet services and the growth contin-ues. The data and the multitude of services canbe used by a person independently of her/his lo-cation. This requires reconsidering approachesof service provision. A good reference case toevaluate new solutions is blogging, which cer-tainly faces the size problem [3, 9].

A promising paradigm is smart spaces [4, 1]. Itallows a multi-device system to use shared viewof dynamic resources and context-aware ser-vices. Smart-M3 is an open source informationsharing platform for prototyping smart space ap-plications [8]. Smart-M3 application consists ofdistributed agents (Knowledge Processor, KP)sharing the smart information space.

Instead of information, the Smart-M3 platformoperates with knowledge, as the provided stor-age allows representing habitual data, relations

between them and even such information as ser-vices and computations. Each smart space isassigned with an RDF triple store accessiblevia a Semantic Information Broker (SIB). TheRDF representation of knowledge allows easyexchange and linkage, making cross-domain in-teroperability straightforward.

Based on [11], we can argue that the smart spa-ces applications with personalized, compositeand proactive properties will be able to provideefficient and a user-friendly solution for blog-ging. The personalized property allows a userto access a service according to her/his personalinterest and current needs. A good discussionon this can be found in [4]. The compositeproperty allows temporal situational composi-tion of semantically related knowledge or ser-vices, forming the knowledge relevant at thegiven moment. For more details, please refer to[5]. The proactive property allows a user to beprovided with a service she/he is interested inat the given moment of time, see more in [12].

In this paper, we consider the design problemfor Smart-M3 applications with personalized,composite and proactive properties. We pro-pose space-based approach to built proactiveand personalized services for blogging. Wecontribute formal technique based on dynamicsmart spaces compositionwhen application par-ticipants meet only with a fraction of huge datapool needed at a moment. Space sharing activ-ity is synchronized within the application, yet itcan be integrated to other smart space services.

SmartScribo is a Smart-M3 application for se-mantic mobilemulti-blogging [13]. Mutli-blog-ging states that any user can interact in par-allel with multiple blogs at many blog ser-

176 Proactive Personalized Mobile Multi-blogging Service on Smart-M3

vices. Users access the blogosphere using theirpersonal mobile devices as clients. Personaland context information is semantically relatedwith blog data and activity in personal bloggerspaces.

The application smart space is fed from manyheterogeneous sources and shared by many par-ticipants,which also dynamically join and leave.As a result, personal blogger spaces are com-posed into various subspaces. This process isproactive and each composition can initiate apersonalized service.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows.Section 2 overviews the space-basedmulti-agentarchitecture of SmartScribo application. Sec-tion 3 introduces our technique of personalspaces presentwithin the entire application smartspace. Section 4 describes our space composi-tion method that preserves the application onlywith a certain fraction of data from the blo-gosphere. Section 5 provides our notificationmodel for agent synchronization, which sup-ports proactive personalized services. Section 6addresses the concern of application integra-tion when the knowledge is kept in indepen-dent smart spaces. Section 7 summarizes ouroutcomes.

2. SmartScribo Smart Spaces Application

The blogosphere is made up of all blogs onall blog services and of all interconnections be-tween blogs, forming a social network in whicheveryone can publish messages. A blog-serviceis a website with the content partitioned ontoblogs. A blog consists of several discussionsof a given author. Each discussion starts with

a post and then follows tree-like structure withcomments, comments to comments and so on.

SmartScribo connectsmobile bloggerswith theirblogs hosted at multiple blog-services [13]. Weuse term “user” for a bloggerwho uses SmartScri-bo. A user can perform the same blogging func-tions as a non-SmartScribo user and additionallybenefits from semantic features, e.g., parallelaccess to multiple blog services and proactiveblog recommendations based on user’s contextand activity of other bloggers. For more detailson semantic blogging, refer to [9].The generic smart space model was introducedin [11]. A space is S = (n, I, ρ), where n is itsname, I is an information set of tuples (content)and ρ is a set of rules to deduce new knowledgefrom I. In Smart-M3, I is represented using theRDF model, i.e., I is a set RDF triples. Weconsider a particular case when ρ is ontologyO represented with the OWL model. Then Ibecomes structured with classes and propertiesfrom O, deduction in S uses the ontology graphof individuals. We also skip n from the nota-tion and refer to the space by S. The simplifieddefinition of a smart space is

S = (I, O),

where I is a set of RDF-triples and O is an OWLontology.

SmartScribo represents the blogosphere in theapplication smart space, where user and blogdata are kept dynamically and semantically re-lated. The SmartScribo blogosphere space actsas a mediator infrastructure reflecting a part ofthe blogosphere that is actually used by the cur-rent set of users. Further, we denote the blogo-sphere smart space S = (I, O), where I is theRDF triple store at SIB and O is the blogosphereontology of SmartScribo (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Basic OWL classes and their properties in the blogosphere ontology O.

Proactive Personalized Mobile Multi-blogging Service on Smart-M3 177

The SmartScribo architecture is shown in Fig-ure 2. The Smart-M3 application design princi-ple states that the application space is shared byloosely coupled KPs, each of which implementsa particular specialization. They communicateby modifying and querying the knowledge inthe space.

Figure 2. Architecture of SmartScribo.

There are three types of SmartScribo KPs: blogclients, blog processors and blog mediators.Users interact with multiple blogs at many blogservices. Each user has her/his own smart spacein S.

Clients run on user devices, operate with blogslocally, share personal data and context of theusers and access the blogosphere smart spacefor operations at blog services.

Blog processors track blogger personal spacesrelaying themwith particular blog-services. Ba-sically, a blog processor transfers new or up-dated blog messages to their blog service and

retrieve from the service those blog messagesthat are of user’s current interest.

Mediators extend blogging with smart semanticfeatures. One of the many possible examplesis blog recommendation when a blog mediatortracks activity of the user and initiates search ofsemantically close blogs in the blogosphere.

3. Personalization with Blogger Spaces

Denote Su = (Iu, O) the personal smart spaceof a user u. The high-level structure is shownin Figure 3. The space Su keeps (i) blog data(from blog services), (ii) common personal in-formation (from user profile) and (iii) currentcontext state (from user’s devices). Hence

Iu = [Pu ∪ Cu ∪ Du]O

where Pu is personal data, Cu is context, Duis blog data. Information consistency and therelation between the subsets is ensured by thecommon ontology O.

A user u shares (partially) her/his personal pro-file inPu. Ifu has several devices, then an aggre-gated profile is shared. It describes permanentor long-term data, i.e., name, age, e-mail, etc.They are not blog-specific and can be used inother domains. We use FOAF standard specifi-cation [7] for the representation; it supports anopportunity for integrating into other applica-tions.

Figure 3. Structure of a blogger personal smart space in SmartScribo.


Context (Cu) represents current and mutablecharacteristics of a user, e.g., current position(mobile device, GPS), weather, music track,person’s mood, the message she/he is readingnow. For more discussions on possible contextdata and their use patterns, please read [2].Blog data (Du) include blog accounts and blogdiscussions. Each account has its own prop-erties (login, password, picture, etc). Any ac-count is associated with a set of discussions. Ablog discussion is a tree of messages (root is apost, other nodes are comments). A messagehas such properties as title, text, tags, date.

Blog data are related with the personal datasince the user may have accounts at severalblog-services. It aims at multi-blogging whenthe same personal space is used for all blogs theusers currently needs. SmartScribo becomesresponsible for their proper association amongmultiple blog services on behalf of the user.

Access to S is session-based with explicit joinand leave operations. The user u can choosewhere S is physically located (i.e., SIB selec-tion). Also, u can select personal data to sharein S, including the access function φu that limitsaccess of other users to the content φu(Iu) ⊆ Iu.

Based on knowledge available in S, other Smart-Scribo agentsmake personalized decisions. Blogprocessors understand which blogs u are inter-esting at the moment and apply to correspond-ing blog services. Blog mediators analyze thecurrent needs of u and provide correspondingrecommendations.

4. Spaces Composition for Collaborationof Bloggers

Theblogosphere defines friendship relations be-tween bloggers, e.g., a blogger at LiveJournalhas easier access to blogs of her/his friends.SmartScribo reflects such relations composingpersonal spaces into interactive structures.

Space compositions provide information shar-ing between the spaces and can be used, e.g.,for reading blogs of friends. We consider com-positions that can be constructed with basicspace operations [11] and applicable for seman-tic multi-blogging.

Basically, a blogger space keeps blog discus-sions owned by the user. Additionally, the space

can represent other blogs if she/he is interestedin reading them.

A straightforward solution is duplication. Con-sider an example in Figure 4. If Alice is inter-ested in discussion B1 from Bob’s blog, thenher blog processor reads B1 from the blog ser-vice and makes a copy B1” into Alice’s personalspace. If Alice makes comments to B1, then herblog processor publishes them on the blog ser-vice. Bob has his own copy B1’ in his smartspace if he is a SmartScribo user.

Figure 4. Bob’s blog duplication in Alice’s personalsmart space.

Let Alice’s personal space be

SA = (IA, O); IA = [PA ∪ CA ∪ DA]O .

First, Bob’s virtual personal space is constructed:

S(A)B = (IB, O); IB = [PB ∪ CB ∪ DB]O ,

where data retrieved from blog services arestored, without access to actual Bob’s space inS. Typically PB = ∅ and CB = ∅ as the blogservice does not provide access to personal in-formation and context. Secondly, Bob’s blogdata are added to SA with merge operation [11]:

merge(SA, S(A)B , O) = (IA ∪ DB, O) → SA,

where ontology O agrees on merging friend’sblog data with user’s blog data.

The duplication is appropriate when anotherblogger is not present in the same blogosphere


space. It is important that it makes SmartScriboindependent of the means by which other blog-gers access the blogosphere. Moreover, thesame blogger can act as SmartScribo or non-SmartScribo user.

If several users are presented in the same blogo-sphere space, then their spaces can be composedusing data sharing between them. Consider anexample in Figure 5. If Alice is interested in dis-cussion B1 from Bob’s blog, then Bob shares apart of his data which is consumed by Alice’sspace.

Figure 5. Ontological composition of Alice and Bob’sspaces.

This composition method uses project opera-tion [11]. Let SA and SB be personal spaces ofAlice and Bob. First, the virtual space

RB = project(SB, φB, O) = (φB(IB), O)

is formed, where φB is Bob’s access function.Secondly SA is updated using the merge opera-tion:

merge(SA, RB, O) = (IA ∪ IRB, O) → SA.

The composition uses social relations betweenpersonal spaces (e.g., friendship) and definesinterest-based relations between a blogger andblogs. It provides a base for semantic bloggingwhere methods of the Semantic Web and socialnetwork analysis are applicable, e.g., such asin [9, 3]. For instance, a temporal group forma-tion can be identified in the space to recommendpopular blogs within this group to others.

5. Blog Notifications for Synchronization

Activity of SmartScribo agents is synchronizedby sharing specific knowledge in the blogo-sphere smart space. The pub/sub system ab-straction is used [6], which is implemented inSmart-M3 as the subscription operation.

The basic synchronization is between a blogclient and a blog processor. If the client updatesblog data in the blogosphere space, then the pro-cessor reflects the change at the blog service. Ifa blog service has discussions interesting to theuser, then an appropriate blog processor sharesthem in the space. In the straightforward so-lution, KPs subscribe to blog data in the blo-gosphere space, leading to a large number ofsubscriptions and hence to high inefficiency.

We developed amore efficient mechanism usingan ontological notification model. A notifica-tion initiates KPs to execute actions with blogdata (request notification) and to share the re-sult (response notification). For instance, a blogprocessor tracks notifications from its clients toread/write blog messages from/to the blog ser-vice, see Figure 6.

Figure 6. Basic synchronization between a blog client and its blog processor.


A notification is represented as an RDF tripleor a set of them. The latter case is for a no-tification with several parameters and they arerepresented as a chain of triples. Those KPs thatare interested in actions from some other KPspublish notifications. Depending on its role andneeds each KP subscribes to the notifications.Whenever a notification is changed, the KP per-forms the action. If the action returns a result,then it is shared in the space.

Notifications form a separate space (N, O) inS, which is ontologically linked with personalspaces {Su} of all users u. A request notifi-cation triple has the object that is a URI of anontological individual from Du (e.g., accountor post). A response notification triple has theobject that is a string with the latest result theoperation has returned.

Blog notifications are divided into the followinggroups: accounts, posts and comments. An ac-count notification requests a blog processor toperform session-based operations using accountlogin and password, e.g., the KP logins the ser-vice on behalf of the blog client. The accountnotification triple is “ServiceType-Operation-AccountInfo”, where the subject is a blog ser-vice (LiveJournal, Twitter, WordPress, etc.), thepredicate is a required operation (login, refresh,etc.) and the object refers to an ontology indi-vidual with account information. Post and com-ment notifications are similar (send, receive, up-date and delete operations).

Different KPs can use the same notification. Forexample, a client publishes a new blog messagein the blogosphere space. The event is recog-nized by several blog processors, each redirectsthe message to its own blog service. In addi-tion, a blog mediator tracks this activity, e.g.,for accounting blog popularity.

The notifications in the examples above are re-active: an explicit action by a user leads toappropriate actions by blog processors and me-diators. Our notification model supports theproactive property, e.g., when a blog client pub-lishes notifications invisibly for the user basedon the current user context. For example, a blogmediator is notified whenever the user is start-ing to read a post with a new topic; the mediatoractivates searching thematically similar blogsand the recommendations are delivered to theuser.

6. Integration with OtherSmart Spaces Applications

In the context of this paper, integration meansthat one application can benefit from knowledgefrom another application. A reference case wehave already implemented is blogging in smartconference [10], where SmartScribo is used tosupport discussions between conference partic-ipants, including online chatting for talks pre-sented at the moment.

Smart conference system maintains the visualcontent available for participants: a current pre-sentation slide from the conference projectorand up-to-date session program from the con-ference whiteboard. The presenter changes theslides directly from her/his mobile device. SCSsupports automatic time management functionsand some other useful online control functions.

The integration scenario extends the smart con-ference functionality as follows. There is aconference blog at some blog service where apost is created for each talk. A post starts adiscussion (questions, opinions, answers fromthe participants including the authors). Conse-quently, SmartScribo can access this blog. Thekey problem is coordination between the confer-ence space, blog service and blogosphere space.

In general, each smart space application usesits own smart space with its own ontologicalknowledge representation, though several ap-plications can construct their spaces at the samephysical location (i.e., using the same SIB). Inthis case, knowledge integration from differentsmart spaces can employ a spaces mediator thatsynchronizes data of different sources.

Let a SmartScribo user u also participate insmart conference. The latter has smart spaceSSC = (ISC, OSC), which can be physically lo-cated at different SIB. To synchronize data be-tween spaces, the mediator tracks for changesof certain subsets: J ⊆ I and JSC ⊆ ISC. Forany change in J or JSC the mediator updatesdata in the other space. For tracking changesthe mediator uses the notification model.

In terms of SmartScribo, the integration can beimplemented using a mediator KP, which typ-ically acts as a blog processor. The KP can


access the smart spaces of all applications in-volved into integration. For instance, for SmartConference, it is a conference blog processorthat reads conference program from the con-ference space, creates and maintains the con-ference blog at the service and make the blogaccessible to SmartScribo clients by sharing itin the blogosphere space.

7. Conclusion

The paper presents our experience and an exam-ple of proactive and personalized Internet ser-vice, which applies the smart space paradigm.We have discussed: (1) the technique for build-ing personal spaces as a part of the applicationsmart space; (2) the method for efficient spacecomposition that allows the application to oper-ate only with a fraction of huge data; (3) the no-tification model that enables synchronized pro-vision of proactive and personalized services;and (4) the integration scheme that illustrateshow one application can benefit from the know-ledge produced by another application. The pre-sented solution has been released for testing anduse. The SmartScribo code is available for freedownload at http://sourceforge.net/pro-jects/smartscribo/.

8. Acknowledgments

This research is a part of grant KA179 of Kare-lia ENPI programme, which is co-funded by theEuropeanUnion, theRussian Federation and theRepublic of Finland.

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Received: June, 2012Accepted: August, 2012


Contact addresses:

Dmitry G. KorzunDepartment of Computer Science

Petrozavodsk State University – PetrSU33, Lenin Ave.

185910 PetrozavodskRepublic of Karelia, Russia

e-mail: [email protected]

or

Helsinki Institute for Information Technology - HIITAalto University

PO Box 1980000076 Aalto

Finland

Ivan V. GalovDepartment of Computer Science

Petrozavodsk State University – PetrSU33, Lenin Ave.

185910 PetrozavodskRepublic of Karelia, Russia


Sergey I. BalandinFRUCT Oy

HelsinkiFinland


DMITRY KORZUN received his B.Sc. (1997) and M.Sc. (1999) degreesin applied mathematics and computer science from the PetrozavodskState University (Russia). He received a Ph.D. degree in physics andmathematics from the St.-Petersburg State University (Russia) in 2002.He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science ofPetrozavodsk State University PetrSU, Russia (since 2003) and a part-time Research Scientist at the Helsinki Institute for Information Tech-nology HIIT, Aalto University, Finland (since 2005). Dmitry Korzunserves on TPC and editorial boards of a number of international con-ferences and journals. His research interests include analysis and eval-uation of distributed systems, discrete modeling, ubiquitous computingin smart spaces, Internet of Things, software engineering, algorithmdesign and complexity, linear Diophantine analysis and its applications,theory of formal languages and parsing. His educational activity startedin 1997 at the Faculty of Mathematics of PetrSU. Since that time he hastaught more than 20 study courses on hot topics in computer science, ap-plied mathematics, information and communication technology. He isan author and co-author of about 100 research and educational publica-tions. His recent book has been published by Springer (Structured Peer-to-Peer Systems: Fundamentals of Hierarchical Organization, Routing,Scaling, and Security. ISBN 978-1-4614-5482-3, October 2012).

IVAN GALOV received his B.Sc. degree in information systems and tech-nologies from the Petrozavodsk State University – PetrSU (Russia) in2011. Now he is an MSc student and programmer at the Departmentof Computer Science of Petrozavodsk State University. His researchinterests include smart spaces, Internet of Things, ontology modelingand software engineering. His educational activity started in 2007 atthe Faculty of Mathematics of PetrSU. He is an author and co-author ofmore than 10 research publications.

SERGEY BALANDIN is a President of Open Innovations AssociationFRUCT and Adjunct Professor in the Department of CommunicationsEngineering at the Tampere University of Technology, Finland. Hereceived the M.Sc. degree in computer science from St.-PetersburgElectro-Technical University “LETI” (Russia) and M.Sc. degree intelecommunications from Lappeenranta University of Technology (Fin-land). In 2003, Sergey graduated from PhD School of Nokia ResearchCenter and St-Petersburg Electro-Technical University “LETI” and gothis PhD degree in telecommunications and control theory. From 1999till 2011, Sergey Balandin worked for Nokia Research Center. His lastposition was Principal Scientist of Ubiquities Architectures team andhead of University Cooperation Program in Russian and CIS. SergeyBalandin has authored or co-authored over 70 papers in the field ofsmart spaces and advanced wired and wireless communications. He co-edited several proceedings books published in LNCS, Springer. SergeyBalandin serves on TPC and steering committes of a number of in-ternational conferences and workshops. His current research interestsinclude various aspects of smart spaces solutions, network and servicesperformance evaluation, and Internet of Things.

Proactive Personalized Mobile Multi-Blogging Service on Smart-M3

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