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The paper focuses on the management of uncertainty that is intrinsic to pervasive computing systems.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>The paper presents the principles that characterize the context\u2010aware architecture: the acceptability\u2010driven design, where privacy and acceptability are favored; the awareness of the gap between the reality of human activity and the capabilities of the capture process; the step\u2010by\u2010step abstraction of contextual information; the management of uncertainty imprecision and ignorance at individual\u2010 and cross\u2010layer levels. The paper presents the principles and describes the system architecture, focusing on the management of uncertainty.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>The authors built a layered architecture that manages and propagates uncertainty, imprecision and ignorance, allowing the recognition of ambiguous contexts and the provision of adapted functionalities. The paper illustrates this architecture and an application leveraging it.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Research limitations\/implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>Future work will investigate the exploitation of feedback mechanisms and the recognition of context dynamics. These improvements will allow resolving inconsistencies and ambiguities in context information and improving the provision of functionalities in situations characterized by temporal developments.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Practical implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>The research aims at realizing the long\u2010term vision of smart homes that provide adapted functionalities to inhabitants: saving energy and improving comfort and quality of domestic life.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>The paper introduces some principles that can be considered when designing a context\u2010aware system and presents an architecture that follows those principles. Researchers in the smart home and pervasive computing domains may consider this paper when designing their context\u2010aware architectures.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/17427371211262635","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2012,8,22]],"date-time":"2012-08-22T17:36:53Z","timestamp":1345657013000},"page":"225-249","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Experiences in managing uncertainty and ignorance in a lightly instrumented smart home"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"8","author":[{"given":"Michele","family":"Dominici","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Bastien","family":"Pietropaoli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric","family":"Weis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022030919560260400_b1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Aldrich, F. 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