Data and knowledge transaction in mobile environments

  • Jianwen Chen

Western Sydney University thesis: Doctoral thesis

Abstract

Advances in wireless networking technology have engendered a new paradigm of computing, called mobile computing; in which users carrying portable devices have access to a shared infrastructure independent of their physical location. Mobile computing has matured rapidly as a field of computer science. In environments of mobile computing, the mobility and disconnection of portable computing devices introduce many new challenging problems that have never been encountered in conventional computer networks. New research issues combine different areas of computer science: networking, operating systems, data and knowledge management, and databases. This thesis studies data and knowledge transaction in mobile environments. To study transaction processing at the fundamental and theoretical level in mobile environments, a range of classical notions and protocols of transaction processing are rechecked and redefined in this thesis, and form the foundation for studying transaction processing in mobile environments. A criterion for mobile serial history is given and two new concurrency theorems are proved in mobile environments. In addition to data transaction, this thesis explores knowledge transaction in mobile environments. To study knowledge transaction in mobile environments this thesis presents and formalizes a knowledge transaction language and model for use in mobile computing environments. The thesis further formalizes a framework/model for a mobile logic programming multi-agent system which can be used to study knowledge transaction in multi-agent systems in mobile environments and is a very early effort towards a formal study of knowledge base and intelligent agents in mobile environments. This work provides a foundation for the formal specification and development of real-world mobile software systems, in the same way as traditional software systems have developed.
Date of Award2004
Original languageEnglish

Keywords

  • mobile computing
  • wireless communication systems
  • transaction systems (computer systems)

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