2024 IEEE Conference on Cognitive and Computational Aspects
of Situation Management (CogSIMA)

Situation-Aware Wearable Computing Systems

Abstract: In the last fifteen years, there has been a widespread diffusion of wearable sensor-based devices for a plethora of applications in heterogeneous domains. Wearable technology provides fundamental capabilities such as smart sensing, monitoring, data recording, and multi-modal interaction, in a seamless, pervasive, and easy-to-use way. An emerging research trend is the definition of situation-aware wearable computing systems (WCS), i.e., wearable devices and systems able to perceive and understand what is happening in the environment to adapt their behavior and anticipate users' needs, a capability known as situation awareness. Although the increasing interest of the research community in situation-aware wearable devices in different application domains, there is a lack of studies, formal models, methodological approaches, and theoretical groundings on which these systems can be grounded. As a result, a very limited number of smart sensors (physical or virtual) capable of effectively and efficiently supporting Situation Awareness have been proposed so far. In this talk, we provide a survey and a classification of state-of-the-art situation-aware wearable systems, outlining current research trends, shortcomings, and challenges, with an emphasis on the models, approaches, and computational techniques of situation awareness and wearable computing on which they are based. The analysis has been conducted with respect to a reference architecture, namely SA-WCS, of a generic situation-aware wearable computing system that we have recently proposed, grounded on Endsley's model of Situation Awareness. Such reference architecture not only provides a systematic framework for the comparison and categorization of the literature works, but it also aims to promote the development of the next generation WCS.

Bio: Giancarlo Fortino (IEEE Fellow 2022) is Full Professor of Computer Engineering at the Dept of Informatics, Modeling, Electronics, and Systems of the University of Calabria (Unical), Italy. He received a PhD in Computer Engineering from Unical in 2000. He is also distinguished professor at Wuhan University of Technology and Huazhong Agricultural University (China), high-end expert at HUST and NIST (China), senior research fellow at the Italian ICAR-CNR Institute, CAS PIFI visiting scientist at SIAT - Shenzhen, and Distinguished Lecturer for IEEE Sensors Council. He was also visiting researcher at ICSI, Berkeley (USA), in 1997 and 1999 and visiting professor at Queensland University of technology in 2009. At Unical, he is the Rector's delegate to Int'l relations, the chair of the PhD School in ICT, the director of the Postgraduate Master course in INTER-IoT, and the director of the SPEME lab as well as co-chair of Joint labs on IoT established between Unical and WUT, SMU and HZAU Chinese universities, respectively. Fortino is currently the scientific responsible of the Digital Health group of the Italian CINI National Laboratory at Unical. He is Highly Cited Researcher 2020-2023 in Computer Science by Clarivate. He had 25+ highly cited papers in WoS, and h-index=81 with 23000+ citations in Google Scholar. His research interests include wearable computing systems, e-Health, Internet of Things, and agent-based computing. He is author of 650+ papers in int'l journals, conferences and books. He is (founding) series editor of IEEE Press Book Series on Human-Machine Systems and EiC of Springer Internet of Things series and AE of premier int'l journals such as IEEE TASE (senior editor), IEEE TAFFC-CS, IEEE THMS, IEEE T-AI, IEEE IoTJ, IEEE SJ, IEEE JBHI, IEEE SMCM, IEEE OJEMB, IEEE OJCS, Information Fusion, EAAI, etc. He chaired many int'l workshops and conferences (130+), was involved in a huge number of int'l conferences/workshops (700+) as IPC member, is/was guest-editor of many special issues (80+). He is cofounder and CEO of SenSysCal S.r.l., a Unical spinoff focused on innovative IoT systems, and recently cofounder and vice-CEO of the spin-off Bigtech S.r.l, focused on big data, AI and IoT technologies. Fortino is currently AVP of the Cybernetics area of the IEEE SMCS and former member of the IEEE SMCS BoG and former chair of the IEEE SMCS Italian Chapter.

HUMINT – Context, Meaning, and the Mythical "Meat Sensor"

Abstract: Jokingly, a human source is sometimes referred to as a “meat sensor” as opposed to a device made of metal, glass, or other substances. In contrast to the data collected by devices, intelligence collected from human sources is not just the recording of physical phenomena which can be processed through sophisticated algorithms to attach meaning to those phenomena – HUMINT may also be composed of opinion, perception, speculation, and hearsay. Even when a human is reporting on physical phenomena, the act of converting those observations into textual form in some human language requires preprocessing on the part of the reporting source. That preprocessing not only affects the “signal”, it also affects the way in which the information is further processed, whether via algorithm or by other humans. The preprocessing also varies from individual to individual, based upon a variety of factors such as language, experience, knowledge, etc. In this talk, we will look at some of the aspects of the various facets of HUMINT that need to be considered for fusion purposes and look at some possible strategies for dealing with them.

Bio: Kellyn Rein recently retired as a Research Associate from the Research Institute for Communication, Information Processing Ergonomics (FKIE) at Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Europe’s largest applied research organization.

She received her PhD from the University of Bonn in Linguistics, after a BA at Michigan State University, and two masters, one in Management and one in Computer Information Systems, both with joint conferral from Boston University (1984) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. Her area of research interest is in the analysis of uncertainty in natural language information, information fusion, and information quality.

She has been active in EU projects focused variously on crisis management, cross-border organized crime, smart cities, and CBRN terrorism. She has also been involved in numerous NATO Research Task Groups, including one on analysis and communication of uncertainty in intelligence, mission assurance, and cyber risk assessment for unmanned autonomous systems, and currently chairing a task group on multi-level, multi-source information fusion.

Modernizing NORAD-Data Driven Domain Awareness

Abstract: Current and emerging threats clearly showcase the changing character of conflict. State-on-state engagement, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is today’s reality, and our adversaries are seizing the initiative in all domains. In this environment, Canada is no longer a distant sanctuary; we do not have the luxury of operating the same way we have in the past. Meanwhile, we recognize that our capacity and capabilities are below where we want them to be. For the sake of our collective security and defence, we need a clear and achievable path forward. The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) must modernize and evolve in response to this rapidly changing security environment. This evolution includes the introduction of tools never employed before by the RCAF, and upgrading or replacing a considerable proportion of our capabilities. In fact, the RCAF of 2035 will look very different from the RCAF of today…and I would argue that the RCAF of 2028 will likewise be very different from the reality of the moment.

The economic prosperity of Canada and Canadians is dependent on the Canadian Armed Forces’, and therefore the Royal Canadian Air Force’s, ability to deter and defend against actors and countries with competing values from ours and those who wish to disrupt the privileges we enjoy as Canadians. This means ensuring that we have the people, capabilities and resources needed to discourage those actors from threatening Canada and our allies.  

With the growing number of conflicts emerging around the world, Canada must be ready to defend its interests both at home and abroad. This will be achieved by modernizing the RCAF to ensure that it remains an agile, integrated and inclusive air and space force for years to come.  Given the rapidly changing global security environment, the RCAF must take meaningful action to achieve an operational advantage over our adversaries. This includes efforts to prioritize on our modernization initiatives and accelerate them where possible.

Bio: Mr. Saunders enrolled in the Canadian Forces 23 March 1990. Over the span of his somewhat atypical and discontinuous career, Mr. Saunders enjoyed operational postings flying and instructing on his beloved Sea King Helicopters at 443 (MH) Sqn in Pat Bay, British Columbia; 423 (MH) Sqn, and 12 Wing Operations in Shearwater, Nova Scotia; culminating in Command of 406 (M) OTS. Throughout this period, he has served in HMCS Annapolis, HMCS Iroquois, HMCS Fredericton and HMCS Toronto and has deployed throughout the Middle East.   Staff postings to date include two stints in the Career Management shop, the last being a two-year sojourn as DMilC4; responsible for guiding, managing and, at times, cajoling some 300 high-maintenance LCols and overseeing the management of almost 10,000 other members of the RCAF.   He also spent three years on a self-imposed educational posting (yes, self-posted) to the Chief of Programme office learning the corporate side of the Department of National Defence and working upon, among other things, analysing financial risk to the Departmental Investment Plan and taking a lead in drafting the next iteration of this document for governmental consideration.  For the past six years, Mr. Saunders has ensconced himself in the Air Staff responsible for the management and development of a number of contracted training solutions for the RCAF.  In his current role, Mr. Saunders retains oversight of RCAF contracted training programs whilst standing up and leading the RCAF component of NORAD modernization. Mr. Saunders is a graduate of the Joint Command and Staff Program at the Canadian Forces College and the Senior Course at the NATO Defence College.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in science from Acadia University, a Certificate in Adult Education from Dalhousie University, a master’s degree in business administration from Heriot Watt University and a master’s degree in Defence Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada.