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--- people [2009/11/19 15:56] – updating elisag
+++ people [2010/07/28 10:59] – ephilips
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 ~~NOTOC~~
-===== People =====
-The people behind the AmbientTalk project are: 1 professor, 1 post-doc researcher and 6 PhD students from the [[http://prog.vub.ac.be|Programming Technology Laboratory]] of the [[http://www.vub.ac.be|Vrije Universiteit Brussel]].
+===== People =====
-{{ ambientpeople.jpg?400 }}
+These are the people behind the AmbientTalk project of the [[http://soft.vub.ac.be|Software Languages Lab]].
-//Part of the ambient group in June 2007. From left to right: Jorge Vallejos, Jessie Dedecker, Elisa Gonzalez Boix, Stijn Timbermont, Wolfgang De Meuter, Tom Van Cutsem.//
 == Prof. Dr. Wolfgang De Meuter ==
-[[ http://prog.vub.ac.be/doku.php?id=wolfwiki |Homepage ]]
+[[ http://soft.vub.ac.be/soft/wolfwiki/start |Homepage ]]
 In the past, I have been active in the design and formalisation of prototype-based object-oriented programming languages. After a small detour in AOP (where I introduced monads in AOP and identified the need for cflow with jumping aspects), I'm currently working with the ambient group on the design and implementation of ambient-oriented programming languages. My current mission is to come up with language constructs that make writing software for loosely coupled (mobile) distributed systems as much fun as writing sequential programs in languages like Scheme, Smalltalk or Haskell. This is done by inventing new programming language abstractions and by hiding the technical burden as much as possible in the interpreter of those languages.
 Keywords are repls, interpreters, dynamic typing, higher-order, first-class, reflection, object, actor and above all: simplicity!
-As usual, the professor is not the one doing the real work. Please read on for more details on our research. It has received international recognition by the fact that Wolfgang has won the [[[ http://www.aito.org/Dahl-Nygaard/2008.html | Dahl-Nygaard Award]] in 2008.
+As usual, the professor is not the one doing the real work. Please read on for more details on our research. It has received international recognition by the fact that Wolfgang has won the [[ http://www.aito.org/Dahl-Nygaard/2008.html | Dahl-Nygaard Award]] in 2008.
 =====
@@ Line 20: / Line 17: @@
 [[http://soft.vub.ac.be/~egonzale|Homepage]]
-My area of interest is memory management for distributed systems. More specifically, my research is focused on how to reconcile distributed garbage collection (DGC) with the characteristics of mobile ad hoc networks. For further information about my work please visit the [[research:dgc|semi-automatic garbage collection]] section.
+My research focuses on investigating programming language support to deal with the effects engendered by partial failures in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). In MANETs many partial failures are the result of temporary network partitions due to the intermittent connectivity of mobile devices. Some of these failures will be permanent and require application-level failure handling. However, it is impossible to distinguish a permanent from a transient failure. Leasing provides a solution to this problem based on the temporal restriction of resources.
+This research identifies a number of criteria for a leasing model specially designed for MANETs and proposes the //leased object references// model which exhibits such criteria. Leased object references combine leasing with asynchronous communication into one coherent language abstraction that deals with both transient and permanent disconnections. We explore a language approach where dedicated language support is provided such that low-level leasing management concerns (e.g. lease renewal) can be abstracted away, and enables both lease holders (clients) and lease grantors (services) to deal with permanent failures.
+For further information about my work please visit my [[http://soft.vub.ac.be/~egonzale/wiki/doku.php?id=research|research page]].
 =====
-== Andoni Lombide ==
+== Andoni Lombide Carreton ==
 [[http://soft.vub.ac.be/~alombide|Homepage]]
@@ Line 31: / Line 32: @@
 I am currently looking into programming abstractions that allow to specify which events to capture by distributed application components in a mobile ad hoc network. Furthermore, I am trying to come up with mechanisms that allow reacting to these events without relying on event handlers or other callback mechanisms. Finally, low level events should be processed (e.g. by combining them) such that they are on the semantic level of the application.
+=====
+== Kevin Pinte ==
+Our everyday environment will soon be pervaded with RFID tags, tiny chips that can be integrated into any physical object. The tags can store and distribute information about the object or its environment. RFID technology is a key technology in developing pervasive context-aware applications.
+I am investigating new programming abstractions to develop //mobile RFID-enabled applications//. These are applications running on mobile devices such as smartphones or PDAs that spontaneously interact with the [objects in the] user's environment using by communicating with tagged objects. Mobile RFID-enabled applications both disperse application-specific data to and process contextual data from tagged physical objects. The programmer must dispose of adequate tools to deal with RFID hardware characteristics.
+Currently programming such applications is problematic. Communicating with RFID tags is prone to many failures as the connections with tags are extremely volatile and RFID tags have a small range of operation. State-of-the-art RFID applications heavily rely on infrastructure and merely employ RFID tags as digital barcodes, not exploiting the writable memory on the tags. As a consequence mobile RFID-enabled applications have to be developed in an ad hoc way, building upon low-level hardware abstractions leaving the developer to deal with RFID hardware characteristics manually.
+You can find more information about my work [[:research:rfid|here]].
+=====
+== Dries Harnie ==
+Thanks to the work of the other people on this page, programming applications for mobile devices is now as easy as, say, writing a blog. However, research so far has focused on one-to-one communication and how the properties of MANETs disrupt it.
+In the Real World(tm) we do group communication without giving it a second thought, changing conversation topics as people leave and rejoin the group. Likewise, we effortlessly do service composition: comparing prices for stuff we want to buy or finding interesting activities for a trip. Doing these things with current technology requires a lot of "bookkeeping code" because it can only track the connectivity of one link at a time.
+My research intends to provide abstractions that bind a number of services residing on different mobile devices into coherent entities. Programmers can then use these abstractions to communicate with groups of services as easily as with single services.
 =====
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 My ongoing research investigates which abstractions can be used to handle the events produced by an implementation of the fact space model. An interesting path that I am currently exploring is the use of [[research:recap|reactive context-aware programming]].
+=====
+== Eline Philips ==
+Nomadic networks fill the gap between fixed networks and mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) as they consist of a group of mobile devices that can move around dynamically while trying to maintain a connection with a fixed infrastructure. My research focusses on the coordination of nomadic services by making use of workflows as they provide an additional layer of abstraction such that interactions among application components can be specified on a higher level and be reused because of their loose coupling with the fine-grained application logic. Unfortunately, current workflow systems do not meet all the requirements for the kinds of applications that we envision in nomadic networks, like connection
+volatility.
+AmbientTalk is a programming language which treats disconnections at the very heart of its computational model. Moreover, the language supports dynamic service discovery which is opportune for nomadic networks. Although this language is suited for writing applications for MANETs, the orchestration of these applications is still programmed in an ad hoc manner. Complex nomadic applications that consist of asynchronously executing distributed services become hard to develop, understand and reuse. I am currently working on the addition of an abstraction layer on top of AmbientTalk which implements
+workflow patterns. I am investigating which new patterns for nomadic networks can be added to this abstraction layer. Concretely, I want support for intensional descriptions of services, group communication, compensating actions and more advanced synchronisation.
 =====