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

Hypermedia and the semantic web: a research agenda

Until recently, the Semantic Web was little more than a name for the next generation Web infrastructure as envisioned by its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee. Now, with the introduction of XML and RDF, and new developments such as RDF Schema and DAML+OIL, the Semantic Web is rapidly taking shape. In this paper, we first give an overview of the state-of-the-art in Semantic Web technology, the key relationships with traditional hypermedia research, and a comprehensive reference list to various sets of literature (Hypertext, Web and Semantic Web). The core of the paper presents a research agenda b

Synchronization of PIM in iPhone and evolution implementing a task application based on CouchDB

This thesis has put in evidence several faílures in the existing synchronization systems between the iPhone and Evolution. Most of these problems come from the use of a closed operating mobile system, the iPhone OS, with no many chances to open source solutions. Moreover, the desktop application to syn-chronize belongs to the Linux system, while almost every commercial solution has been thought to work on Windows. So the synchronization of PIM data between these devices has meant a big challenge. First, any device includes an UID and time stamp fields. That makes almost impossible a synchronization system without unnecessary replications and lose of data. Together with this, any of the tested servers are able to manage a "newer wins" policy and merging is not well implemented in the majority of them. Several of the involved protocols only work when a connection is available, as GroupDAV, LDAP, WebDAV with Toodledo or the Evolution plugin for Google. That does not fulfill the basis requirements of a synchronization system, which essence is to let users work omine making the data consistent when coming back online. In order to fix all these lacks, a new synchronization system based on CouchDB is proposed. Taking the task application developed in this thesis as a basis, the same could be made with contacts, calendars and memos (see figure 6.1). In this moment, the UbuntuOne project is oriented in this way. It supports contacts already and tasks will be added as soon as the implementation is completed. Moreover, our own server can be used with this project, not being necessary to store our data in Ubuntu servers. Another improvement for this system would be the development of an iPhone application able to store data locally in order to let us work when a connection is not available. The synchronization with the CouchDB would be made when coming back online, achieving a complete synchronization system. ________________________________________________________________El objetivo de este proyecto fin de carrera es el de conseguir la sincronización de la información personal del usuario entre uno de los teléfonos móviles más vendidos actualmente, el iPhone de Apple, y una de las aplicaciones de escritorio más utilizadas en Linux, Evolution. Habrá que solventar bastantes problemas en el camino debido a que la API (Interfaz de programación de la aplicación, de las siglas en inglés: Application Programming Interface), y los servicios en general ofrecidos por Apple, siguen una política bastante cerrada y restrictiva. Dentro de las soluciones existentes, encontraremos que la sincronización no es posible para las tareas de forma bidireccional, por lo que desarrollaremos nuestro propio gestor de tareas capaz de ser sincronizado entre el iPhone y Evolution. Para ello utilizaremos una nueva base de datos, CouchDB, que será explicada con mayor detalle en las siguientes secciones.Ingeniería de Telecomunicació

Connected Information Management

Society is currently inundated with more information than ever, making efficient management a necessity. Alas, most of current information management suffers from several levels of disconnectedness: Applications partition data into segregated islands, small notes don’t fit into traditional application categories, navigating the data is different for each kind of data; data is either available at a certain computer or only online, but rarely both. Connected information management (CoIM) is an approach to information management that avoids these ways of disconnectedness. The core idea of CoIM is to keep all information in a central repository, with generic means for organization such as tagging. The heterogeneity of data is taken into account by offering specialized editors. The central repository eliminates the islands of application-specific data and is formally grounded by a CoIM model. The foundation for structured data is an RDF repository. The RDF editing meta-model (REMM) enables form-based editing of this data, similar to database applications such as MS access. Further kinds of data are supported by extending RDF, as follows. Wiki text is stored as RDF and can both contain structured text and be combined with structured data. Files are also supported by the CoIM model and are kept externally. Notes can be quickly captured and annotated with meta-data. Generic means for organization and navigation apply to all kinds of data. Ubiquitous availability of data is ensured via two CoIM implementations, the web application HYENA/Web and the desktop application HYENA/Eclipse. All data can be synchronized between these applications. The applications were used to validate the CoIM ideas

ImageJ2: ImageJ for the next generation of scientific image data

ImageJ is an image analysis program extensively used in the biological sciences and beyond. Due to its ease of use, recordable macro language, and extensible plug-in architecture, ImageJ enjoys contributions from non-programmers, amateur programmers, and professional developers alike. Enabling such a diversity of contributors has resulted in a large community that spans the biological and physical sciences. However, a rapidly growing user base, diverging plugin suites, and technical limitations have revealed a clear need for a concerted software engineering effort to support emerging imaging paradigms, to ensure the software's ability to handle the requirements of modern science. Due to these new and emerging challenges in scientific imaging, ImageJ is at a critical development crossroads. We present ImageJ2, a total redesign of ImageJ offering a host of new functionality. It separates concerns, fully decoupling the data model from the user interface. It emphasizes integration with external applications to maximize interoperability. Its robust new plugin framework allows everything from image formats, to scripting languages, to visualization to be extended by the community. The redesigned data model supports arbitrarily large, N-dimensional datasets, which are increasingly common in modern image acquisition. Despite the scope of these changes, backwards compatibility is maintained such that this new functionality can be seamlessly integrated with the classic ImageJ interface, allowing users and developers to migrate to these new methods at their own pace. ImageJ2 provides a framework engineered for flexibility, intended to support these requirements as well as accommodate future needs

A tool supported methodology to passively test asynchronous systems with multiple users

Spanish MINECO/FEDER (grant number TIN2015-65845-C3-1-R); Region of Madrid (grant number S2013/ICE-3006)

Project management tool

A system for managing a project that includes multiple tasks and a plurality of workers. Input information includes characterizations based upon a human model, a team model and a product model. Periodic reports, such as a monthly report, a task plan report, a budget report and a risk management report, are generated and made available for display or further analysis. An extensible database allows searching for information based upon context and upon content