On the Role of Perception and Apperception in Ubiquitous and Pervasive Environments

Building on top of classic work on the perception of natural systems this paper addresses the role played by such quality in environments where change is the rule rather than the exception. As in natural systems, perception in software systems takes two major forms: sensory perception and awareness (also known as apperception). For each of these forms we introduce semi-formal models that allow us to discuss and characterize perception and apperception failures in software systems evolving in environments subjected to rapid and sudden changes—such as those typical of ubiquitous and pervasive computing. Our models also provide us with two partial orders to compare such software systems with one another as well as with reference environments. When those environments evolve or change, or when the software themselves evolve after their environments, the above partial orders may be used to compute new environmental fits and different strategic fits and gain insight on the degree of resilience achieved through the current adaptation steps. c © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.