Effective Vector Data Transmission and Visualization Using HTML5

In this paper we evaluate the potential of the next major revision of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), that is HTML5, to provide an effective platform for the transmission and visualization of vector based geographical data. Relative to the current version of HTML, HTML 4.01, HTML5 offers an improved platform to perform these tasks through greater interoperability with existing technologies and the introduction of many new API’s. Visualization of vector data can be achieved using the new methods of inline-SVG and the Canvas API. An analysis of the pros and cons of each method is presented. HTML5 introduces a novel WebSocket API which defines a full-duplex communication channel between client and server. This provides improved data communication both in terms of bandwidth utilization and network latency relative to existing push technologies. To demonstrate the effectiveness of HTML5 for vector data delivery a novel selective progressive transmission methodology is implemented using the WebSocket and Canvas API’s

Design and Implementation of a Yoruba Language Mobile Tutor

Yoruba is a popular indigenous language in Nigeria alongside Hausa and Igbo. English language is however the main medium of communication especially in schools and institutions of learning. Over the years there has been unhealthy rivalry and competition between English language and the indigenous Nigerian languages with the latter struggling for survival. The rivalry is further worsen by the wide adoption of mobile technology which is mostly bundled with resources written in English language. Young Nigerians who have not been exposed to Yoruba language as their native language often find it difficult to speak, read, learn and write Yoruba language. There is the fear of trading Nigerian indigenous languages for English Language as the main means of communication due to modernization. The focus for this work is to present the design and implementation of an interactive mobile application with basic tutorials in the learning of Yoruba language on handheld devices. The system has features that assist users to do basic translation of English to Yoruba and fundamental tutorials that will enable people to learn, write, read and speak Yoruba language fluently. The application was designed and modelled with Unified Modelling Language and developed using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. The application runs seamlessly on handheld devices which has a deep level of penetration and adoption in Nigeria

Integrating Volunteered Geographic Information into Pervasive Health Computing Applications

In this paper we describe the potential for using Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) in pervasive health computing. We use the OpenStreetMap project as a case-study of a successful VGI project and investigate how it can be expanded and used as a source of spatial information for pervasive computing technologies particularly in the area of access to information on healthcare services

Pando: Personal Volunteer Computing in Browsers

The large penetration and continued growth in ownership of personal electronic devices represents a freely available and largely untapped source of computing power. To leverage those, we present Pando, a new volunteer computing tool based on a declarative concurrent programming model and implemented using JavaScript, WebRTC, and WebSockets. This tool enables a dynamically varying number of failure-prone personal devices contributed by volunteers to parallelize the application of a function on a stream of values, by using the devices' browsers. We show that Pando can provide throughput improvements compared to a single personal device, on a variety of compute-bound applications including animation rendering and image processing. We also show the flexibility of our approach by deploying Pando on personal devices connected over a local network, on Grid5000, a French-wide computing grid in a virtual private network, and seven PlanetLab nodes distributed in a wide area network over Europe.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 2 table

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF YORUBA LANGUAGE MOBILE TUTOR

Abstract Yoruba is a popular indigenous language in Nigeria alongside Hausa and Igbo. English language is however the main medium of communication especially in schools and institutions of learning. Over the years there has been unhealthy rivalry and competition between English language and the indigenous Nigerian languages with the latter struggling for survival. The rivalry is further worsen by the wide adoption of mobile technology which is mostly bundled with resources written in English language. Young Nigerians who have not been exposed to Yoruba language as their native language often find it difficult to speak, read, learn and write Yoruba language. There is the fear of trading Nigerian indigenous languages for English Language as the main means of communication due to modernization. The focus for this work is to present the design and implementation of an interactive mobile application with basic tutorials in the learning of Yoruba language on handheld devices. The system has features that assist users to do basic translation of English to Yoruba and fundamental tutorials that will enable people to learn, write, read and speak Yoruba language fluently. The application was designed and modelled with Unified Modelling Language and developed using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. The application runs seamlessly on handheld devices which has a deep level of penetration and adoption in Nigeria

Eyewear Computing \u2013 Augmenting the Human with Head-Mounted Wearable Assistants

The seminar was composed of workshops and tutorials on head-mounted eye tracking, egocentric vision, optics, and head-mounted displays. The seminar welcomed 30 academic and industry researchers from Europe, the US, and Asia with a diverse background, including wearable and ubiquitous computing, computer vision, developmental psychology, optics, and human-computer interaction. In contrast to several previous Dagstuhl seminars, we used an ignite talk format to reduce the time of talks to one half-day and to leave the rest of the week for hands-on sessions, group work, general discussions, and socialising. The key results of this seminar are 1) the identification of key research challenges and summaries of breakout groups on multimodal eyewear computing, egocentric vision, security and privacy issues, skill augmentation and task guidance, eyewear computing for gaming, as well as prototyping of VR applications, 2) a list of datasets and research tools for eyewear computing, 3) three small-scale datasets recorded during the seminar, 4) an article in ACM Interactions entitled \u201cEyewear Computers for Human-Computer Interaction\u201d, as well as 5) two follow-up workshops on \u201cEgocentric Perception, Interaction, and Computing\u201d at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) as well as \u201cEyewear Computing\u201d at the ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp)

Flexi-WVSNP-DASH: A Wireless Video Sensor Network Platform for the Internet of Things

abstract: Video capture, storage, and distribution in wireless video sensor networks (WVSNs) critically depends on the resources of the nodes forming the sensor networks. In the era of big data, Internet of Things (IoT), and distributed demand and solutions, there is a need for multi-dimensional data to be part of the Sensor Network data that is easily accessible and consumable by humanity as well as machinery. Images and video are expected to become as ubiquitous as is the scalar data in traditional sensor networks. The inception of video-streaming over the Internet, heralded a relentless research for effective ways of distributing video in a scalable and cost effective way. There has been novel implementation attempts across several network layers. Due to the inherent complications of backward compatibility and need for standardization across network layers, there has been a refocused attention to address most of the video distribution over the application layer. As a result, a few video streaming solutions over the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) have been proposed. Most notable are Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) and the Motion Picture Experts Groups Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH). These frameworks, do not address the typical and future WVSN use cases. A highly flexible Wireless Video Sensor Network Platform and compatible DASH (WVSNP-DASH) are introduced. The platform's goal is to usher video as a data element that can be integrated into traditional and non-Internet networks. A low cost, scalable node is built from the ground up to be fully compatible with the Internet of Things Machine to Machine (M2M) concept, as well as the ability to be easily re-targeted to new applications in a short time. Flexi-WVSNP design includes a multi-radio node, a middle-ware for sensor operation and communication, a cross platform client facing data retriever/player framework, scalable security as well as a cohesive but decoupled hardware and software design.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

HbbTV-compliant Platform for Hybrid Media Delivery and Synchronization on Single- and Multi-Device Scenarios

[EN] The combination of broadcast and broadband (hybrid) technologies for delivering TV related media contents can bring fascinating opportunities. It is motivated by the large amount and diversity of media contents, together with the ubiquity and multiple connectivity capabilities of modern consumption devices. This paper presents an end-to-end platform for the preparation, delivery, and synchronized consumption of related hybrid (broadcast/broadband) media contents on a single device and/or on multiple close-by devices (i.e., a multi-device scenario). It is compatible with the latest version of the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) standard (version 2.0.1). Additionally, it provides adaptive and efficient solutions for key issues not specified in that standard, but that are necessary to successfully deploy hybrid and multidevice media services. Moreover, apart from MPEG-DASH and HTML5, which are the broadband technologies adopted by HbbTV, the platform also provides support for using HTTP Live Streaming and Real-time Transport Protocol and its companion RTP Control Protocol broadband technologies. The presented platform can provide support for many hybrid media services. In this paper, in order to evaluate it, the use case of multi-device and multi-view TV service has been selected. The results of both objective and subjective assessments have been very satisfactory, in terms of performance (stability, smooth playout, delays, and sync accuracy), usability of the platform, usefulness of its functionalities, and the awaken interest in these kinds of platforms.This work was supported in part by the "Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional" and in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through R&D&I Support Program under Grant TEC2013-45492-R.Boronat, F.; Marfil-Reguero, D.; Montagud, M.; Pastor Castillo, FJ. (2017). HbbTV-compliant Platform for Hybrid Media Delivery and Synchronization on Single- and Multi-Device Scenarios. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBC.2017.2781124S12

Java Zoo a Tool for Interactive Java Instruction

Games have been a form of entertainment for centuries and used to focus and motivated which is a great feature that can be utilize games as the basis for creating game-based educational applications. Games are part fun and part leisure, trying to educate using games is very interesting, but care must be taken in designing the game interfaces as they should be simple, attractive, usable, and at the same time portray the concept of learning. Many students have found Computer Science as a very challenging subject and some of the most challenging for some new CS1 students is their first programming language. We lose many students to other majors at the level of CS1 and can weed out potential great future computer scientists. In our computing department, Java is the first programming language and many students have problems with it because they do not understand the concepts of classes, objects, encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism. It has been found that games motivate students and focuses them for long period of time. With long periods of time being required to have basic functional understanding of programming language, games can play an important role for intrinsic motivation. We propose a Java game called “JavaZOO” to demonstrate the concepts of programming by mapping the animal kingdom to the object-oriented design principles