Abstract: According to a common understanding, Ambient Intelligence (AmI) aims to make digital devices so embedded and natural that we use them without even thinking about them. This emergence has been naturally paved by the research and technological advances in wireless sensor networks, embedded systems, mobile computing, distributed computing and communication. There is a number of recent applications, mostly intended for upgrading the intelligence of interior – intelligent homes, health care in hospitals or houses for elderly, intelligent classrooms, offices. However, it is also possible to think about large-scale ambient intelligence implementations, going outside the homes, outside internal spaces, into the environment, beyond the geographically restricted scenarios.
The notion large-scale ambient intelligence was used already in such a sense, where the users are able to acquire whatever, whenever and wherever. This would realistically allow to be truly mobile and allow the resources to be truly distributed (and thus ambient), rather than carrying out intelligent gadgets along with users. That is, in addition to incorporating intelligence in sensor nodes within a sensor network, the idea of large-scale ambient intelligence proposes to take this vision to the next level where these geographically distributed intelligent sensor networks become intelligent sensor resources that are accessible to the users anytime-anywhere.
In our talk we wish to bring an overview of recent activities and research in the area of large-scale ambient intelligence, including also some ideas about possible applications, namely in various environmentally sensitive cases. As an example we shall mention possible applications for such areas as water management, forests management, or disaster prevention. A number of recent approaches and a couple of recent interesting results in this challenging area will be presented as well.


Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Prof. Dr. Peter Mikulecky is a professor of Managerial Informatics at the Faculty of Informatics and Management at the University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, since 1993. He have been the head of the Department of Information Technologies since 1994, recently he acts also as Director for Research and Director of Postgraduate Studies at the same faculty. In the period of 1990 to 1993 he was the head of Department of Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, where he worked in various positions since 1973. Recently he is also a member of the Accreditation Commission of the Government of Slovak Republic (since 2004) responsible for accreditations of Slovak higher educational institutions. Research of Professor Mikulecky covers ambient intelligence, artificial intelligence, knowledge-based systems and technologies, knowledge management, as well as human – computer interaction. He has published more than 150 papers in various journals and conference proceedings in these areas, as well as a number of books and book chapters. He was one of the founders of a regular series of events called Ambient Intelligence Forum; he is also a member of programme committees for a number of international conferences. Professor Mikulecky is also a member of a number of scientific societies and scientific boards.