XSED - XML-based description of status-event components and systems

Most user interfaces and ubiquitous systems are built around event-based paradigms. Previous work has argued that interfaces, especially those heavily depending on context or continuous data from sensors, should also give attention to status phenomena - that is continuously available signals and state. Focusing on both status and event phenomena has advantages in terms of adequacy of description and efficiency of execution. This paper describes a collection of XML-based specification notations (called XSED) for describing, implementing and optimising systems that take account of this dual status-event nature of the real world. These notations cover individual components, system configuration, and separated temporal annotations. Our work also presents a implementation to generate Status-Event Components that can run in a stand-alone test environment. They can also be wrapped into a Java Bean to interoperate with other software infrastructure, particularly the ECT platform.