Mobile support in CSCW applications and groupware development frameworks

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is an established subset of the field of Human Computer Interaction that deals with the how people use computing technology to enhance group interaction and collaboration. Mobile CSCW has emerged as a result of the progression from personal desktop computing to the mobile device platforms that are ubiquitous today. CSCW aims to not only connect people and facilitate communication through using computers; it aims to provide conceptual models coupled with technology to manage, mediate, and assist collaborative processes. Mobile CSCW research looks to fulfil these aims through the adoption of mobile technology and consideration for the mobile user. Facilitating collaboration using mobile devices brings new challenges. Some of these challenges are inherent to the nature of the device hardware, while others focus on the understanding of how to engineer software to maximize effectiveness for the end-users. This paper reviews seminal and state-of-the-art cooperative software applications and development frameworks, and their support for mobile devices

From Sensor to Observation Web with Environmental Enablers in the Future Internet

This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term ?envirofied? Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management)

A Methodology for Engineering Collaborative and ad-hoc Mobile Applications using SyD Middleware

Today’s web applications are more collaborative and utilize standard and ubiquitous Internet protocols. We have earlier developed System on Mobile Devices (SyD) middleware to rapidly develop and deploy collaborative applications over heterogeneous and possibly mobile devices hosting web objects. In this paper, we present the software engineering methodology for developing SyD-enabled web applications and illustrate it through a case study on two representative applications: (i) a calendar of meeting application, which is a collaborative application and (ii) a travel application which is an ad-hoc collaborative application. SyD-enabled web objects allow us to create a collaborative application rapidly with limited coding effort. In this case study, the modular software architecture allowed us to hide the inherent heterogeneity among devices, data stores, and networks by presenting a uniform and persistent object view of mobile objects interacting through XML/SOAP requests and responses. The performance results we obtained show that the application scales well as we increase the group size and adapts well within the constraints of mobile devices

Development of a Framework for Collaborative Healthcare Services Delivery

Patients require treatment and care that work, good relationship with practitioner, provision of information, and remaining in control of treatment. Patients need to be empowered to live healthy lifestyles through promotion and the delivery of health information. Seventy-five percentages of Nigeria’s estimated 166million population at 2.87% annual growth rate in 2012 live in rural and underserved areas lacking equitable access to both ICT services and healthcare due to poverty and inadequate health care facilities. A shortage of almost 4.3 million doctors, midwives, nurses, pharmacists, and support workers worldwide is most severe in the poorest countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where they are most needed to direct and guide everyone who becomes ill on the correct use of medications. This is compounded by high illiteracy level, poverty and inadequate Health Care Facilities and personnel. Self-medication offers a way out as people begin to sense the positive benefits of multiplying their options in healthcare. Because of the constraints of distance, costs, and availability of providers (doctors and nurses) in specific areas of medical specialties, the model of treating patients in the general hospital is losing its lustre in favour of dedicated clinics dispersed in the community and remote care in the home. The deterioration of the patient-provider relationship, the overutilization of technology, and the inability of the medical system to adequately treat chronic disease have contributed to rising interest in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Communication is critical to ensuring delivery of the best possible patient-oriented healthcare among all providers towards achieving equitable access to healthcare. Exchanging information and building communication channels are critical ingredients of biomedical education and research. Today, the patient and the physician should not be alone anywhere in the world as long as here is some form of acceptable technology present. Seamless transmission of medical information through the internet enables teleconsultation of doctors from one corner of the world possible. This paper presents a collaborative framework connecting providers directly to patients for healthcare services delivery in response to the dire need for a framework which would facilitate the development of a national fibre optic backbone infrastructure that ensures high bandwidth availability, universal access, encouragement for private operators to roll out the infrastructure and use of existing government structure as platforms for extending ICT to rural and urban communities. The presented framework facilitates healthcare institutions collaborate and share their resources to provide comprehensive, high-quality and accessible healthcare at an affordable cost. Keywords: Collaboration; Communication; Complementary and Alternative Medicine; Healthcare delivery; Teleconsultatio

Agile Security for Information Warfare: A Call for Research

The context of information security is changing dramatically. Networking technologies have driven the global expansion of electronic commerce. Electronic commerce is increasingly engaging sophisticated advances like digital agents and web services. As a result of such advances, the information systems architectures that must be secured are becoming dynamic: shifting landscapes of changing vulnerabilities. At the same time, the threats in these landscapes are also becoming more sophisticated and dynamic. Information warfare is raising the stakes in information security by leveling intensive and highly novel threats against civilian systems. Information security researchers need to develop organizational approaches and methodologies that respond to this new context. The conflation of information warfare and short cycle development theories promises new information security practices. These approaches and methodologies would effectively lead to agile information security development. Agile information security development anticipates threats and rapidly deploys necessary safeguards in the context of shifting systems landscapes amid pervasive systems threats

Gathering big data for teamwork evaluation with microworlds

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Context Aware Mobile Knowledge Management System in Healthcare

Clinical practitioners need to have the right information, at the right time, at the right place; which is possible by mobile healthcare. It is not only important for them to have the right information, but they have to manage this right information with proper knowledge, which requires the skills for efficient knowledge management in a mobile healthcare setting. Utilization of mobile devices in healthcare to share knowledge may not only improve the decision taking time, but also reduces the medical errors and costs involved. Need for this information sharing may often be required across various hospital staff that play variety of roles (as practitioners, nurses, administrative staff etc.) and works in multiple schedules (work shifts: night, day etc.), resulting in need for proper ‘context aware’ knowledge. This research paper is an attempt to develop a context aware model which can help the healthcare organizations in efficiently practicing the knowledge management in a context based mobile healthcare setting