George Coulouris' brief summary of Gregory Abowd's UbiAppWS panel contribution

Researchers have several good motives for building applications. Researchers who are driven by inspiration don't need to apologise for building applications for their own sake. 

We can distinguish four types of ubicomp research with respect to the role that applications play:
a) Application agnostic: no application role
b) Application inspired: application requirements justify the work
c) Application-led: application is necessary to the evaluation of the work, but is not its focus
d) Application focussed: addresses the problems raised by a given application wherever they may lead

Work of type (d) is better published in conferences and journals concerned with the specific application domain.