Framework for ubiquitous and voice enabled web applicattions development.

RESUMEN La cantidad de dispositivos con capacidad de conexión a Internet crece rápidamente. En la actualidad se dispone de teléfonos móviles basados en tecnología WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) o I-Mode, Agendas Digitales Personales, Kioskos Internet, teléfonos convencionales basados en acceso a la Web por medio de la voz, dispositivos basados en televisión interactiva, electrodomésticos, entre otros. Desarrollar una versión de una aplicación web para cada uno de los dispositivos con conectividad a la Web resulta inviable. Por otra parte, desarrollar aplicaciones web que puedan ser visualizados en forma apropiada y aprovechando al máximo las capacidades del dispositivo se constituye en una tarea compleja. En esta tesis se propone un framework, entendido como un marco de trabajo genérico, que sirva como guía para el desarrollo de portales web pervasivos que puedan ser accedidos desde múltiples dispositivos, evitando el desarrollo de un portal por cada uno y teniendo en cuenta las grandes variaciones pueden existir en sus capacidades. Adicionalmente se ha planteado un modelo de agrupamiento de dispositivos, que permita definir una serie de grupos, así como las características asociadas a los mismos, en forma tal que puedan generarse posteriormente los formatos asociados a estos grupos de dispositivos y no a elementos individuales y se ha propuesto y validado una arquitectura de referencia para el desarrollo de aplicaciones pervasivas, que no genere dependencia de tecnologías de servidor, y que permita incorporar la solución de agrupamiento planteada previamente. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________The purpose of the Ubiquitous or Pervasive Computing - an emergent paradigm of personalized computation- is to obtain device interoperability under different conditions. The devices were designed for different purposes by different companies or from different technological generations. The ever increasing market of web enabled devices has brought up diverse challenges related to the difficulty of visualizing content in a unified form to diverse clients, while at the same time taking into account the great differences in the capacities of these devices. It is not feasible to develop a separate application for each of these devices, simply because the number of different devices is too high and still growing. In the analysis of existing proposals dealing with the modelling of ubiquitous web applications, the link that exists between the logical and conceptual modelling and the physical modelling of the applications is not clear enough, and the way in which the context aspects related to web access from these devices cannot be specified. On the other hand, the available commercial products are supplier-specific. Every future platform change would a costly and painstaking process In this thesis we present a proposal of a framework for the development of web applications that can be accessed from different types of devices, such as PCs, PDAs, mobile phones based on diverse technologies (like WAP and I-Mode) and conventional telephones that access the web through voice gateways and voice portals. The proposed framework serves as a guide for the development of this type of applications and it can be deployed to different server configurations and software development technologies. In order to obtain this objective, a description of diverse theoretical elements related to dynamic generation of information that can be acceded by devices has been made, as well as a description of involved technologies whose hardware, software and connectivity characteristics vary remarkably. The theoretical study was carried out in parallel with tests based on the different technologies used. A multilingual-ubiquitous traffic information portal was used to test the theory in an operational environment

Decision Support Systems

Decision support systems (DSS) have evolved over the past four decades from theoretical concepts into real world computerized applications. DSS architecture contains three key components: knowledge base, computerized model, and user interface. DSS simulate cognitive decision-making functions of humans based on artificial intelligence methodologies (including expert systems, data mining, machine learning, connectionism, logistical reasoning, etc.) in order to perform decision support functions. The applications of DSS cover many domains, ranging from aviation monitoring, transportation safety, clinical diagnosis, weather forecast, business management to internet search strategy. By combining knowledge bases with inference rules, DSS are able to provide suggestions to end users to improve decisions and outcomes. This book is written as a textbook so that it can be used in formal courses examining decision support systems. It may be used by both undergraduate and graduate students from diverse computer-related fields. It will also be of value to established professionals as a text for self-study or for reference

Evaluation of mobile and communication technologies for language learning

Results from a study by the Ministry of Higher Education in Malaysia indicate that the English language performance of Malaysian university students and graduates is a cause of concern. The National Higher Education Strategic Plan was launched by the Malaysian government in 2007 as a response to the challenges of the education sector that needs to be more internationalised and industry driven. In the strategic plan, the English language is identified as a crucial element in the effort to achieve a developed country status by the year 2020. Therefore, academicians and researchers are actively finding ways to improve students English skills in reading, listening, writing and speaking. Mobile Learning (or m-learning) is a new approach to enhance the learning experience utilising mobile technologies. For example, in order to learn new words the brain requires repeated reminders. The use of mobile devices can help to reinforce the learning process. The use of mobile devices to deliver learning in chunks or nugget sizes, on the move, at any time and anywhere, have shown to engage the learners very effectively in some research projects. Communication technologies such as blogs and Wikis also hold promises for enhancing learning. For instance, writing for a wider audience encourages students' ownership and responsibility. Moreover, comments and feedback from peers can motivate and encourage students. This, in turn, will lead to more active participation. Recognising the potential of these technologies for language learning, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of using mobile phones and communication technologies for English language learning with Malaysian students. Two experiments were carried out in this study. The initial pilot experiment was carried out with a small group of students to determine the feasibility of using mobile and communication technologies for language learning for Malaysian students in higher education. The main experiment was conducted after addressing the lessons learned from the initial experiment. An experimental group and a control group from a public higher education institution in Malaysia took part in the study. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered and analysed. The quantitative results show that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group in the post written test. The experimental group is in favour of receiving lesson reminders and quizzes that were sent to their mobile phones. However, they did not like receiving messages about web resources. They also did not like reading learning material on a wiki and updating wiki entries. Three themes are derived from the interviews and questionnaires: 1) access, 2) communication, and 3) usability. Access to learning focuses on the ease of use to access learning materials. Students agreed that mobile phones and wikis allowed them to access learning material easily. However, the use of wiki did not engage the students. In terms of communication, lecturers and students can use mobile phone and wiki platforms for communication. However, students were not keen to communicate with the lecturer. As for usability, the students have no problems using a mobile phone but the problem is with the small screen size and it is difficult to type long replies. The students did not want to invest time in learning how to use a wiki as they see it as being irrelevant because they did not want to publish and share their ideas with others. In conclusion, the use of a mobile phone and wiki for language learning is feasible, but further investigation is required regarding student engagement. The lessons learned from this study can help practitioners, in particular those in Malaysia, to adapt their language learning processes when integrating mobile and communication technologies

An interaction abstraction toolkit for public display applications

Tese de doutoramento em Tecnologias e Sistemas de InformaçãoPublic digital displays have become increasingly ubiquitous in our technological landscape. Considering their flexibility and communication potential, public displays can become an important communication channel and even reach the attention, usage, and relevance that smartphones have today. Interaction with public displays is recognised as a key element in making them more engaging and valuable, but most public display systems still do not support any interactive feature. A key reason behind this apparent paradox is the lack of efficient and clear abstractions for incorporating interactivity into public display applications. While interaction can be achieved for a specific display system with a particular interaction modality, the lack of proper interaction abstractions means that there is too much specific work that needs to be done outside the core application functionality to support even basic forms of interaction. In this work, we investigate and develop interaction abstractions for public displays. We start by analysing public displays from the point of view of the information that results from the various interactions and that can be used to drive several types of content adaptation behaviour on public displays. We call this information digital footprints, and the result is a framework that maps digital footprints to adaptation strategies and to interaction mechanisms. This framework can be used by display designers to help them choose the interaction mechanisms that a display should support in order to be able to collect a given set of footprints, creating more relevant displays that are able to automatically adapt to their environment. We then identify and characterise interaction tasks and controls that are appropriate for public display interaction. This analysis results in a design space that can form the foundation of interaction toolkits, giving system developers with a reference for the types of high-level tasks and controls that can be incorporated into a toolkit. Finally, we design, implement, and evaluate a software toolkit of interaction abstractions for public display applications – the PuReWidgets toolkit. Programmers can use this toolkit to easily incorporate interactive features into their web-based public display applications. PuReWidgets provides high-level abstractions that shield programmers from the low-level details of the interaction mechanisms. We evaluate this toolkit along various dimensions. First, we evaluate the system’s performance. We then evaluate the API’s flexibility and capabilities using our own experience in developing interactive applications with it. We also evaluate the API’s usability from the perspective of independent programmers. Finally, we provide an evaluation of the resulting system’s usability from the perspective of an end-user interacting with a real-world deployment of a public display. The evaluation results indicate that PuReWidgets is an efficient, usable, and flexible toolkit for web-based interactive public display applications. By making this toolkit publicly available, we hope to promote the development of more and newer kinds of interactive public display applications inside and, more importantly, outside the research community.Os ecrãs públicos digitais estão cada vez mais presentes na nossa paisagem tecnológica. Considerando a sua flexibilidade e capacidade de ligação em rede, os ecrãs públicos têm o potencial para se tornarem num importante canal de comunicação e talvez até atingir a atenção, utilização e relevância que os smartphones têm hoje em dia. A interactividade dos ecrãs públicos ´e reconhecida como um elemento chave para os tornar mais atractivos e valiosos, mas a maioria dos sistemas de ecrãs públicos actuais ainda não suporta nenhuma forma de interação. Uma razão por detrás deste aparente paradoxo é a falta de abstrações claras e eficientes para incorporar interactividade nas aplicações para ecrãs públicos. Apesar de a interação poder ser conseguida para sistemas específicos, com uma modalidade de interação específica, a falta de abstrações de interação apropriadas significa que ´e necessário demasiado trabalho específico fora das funcionalidades nucleares da aplicação para suportar ate as formas mais básicas de interação. Neste trabalho, investigamos e desenvolvemos abstrações de interação para ecrãs públicos. Começamos por analisar os ecrãs públicos do ponto de vista da informação que resulta das interações e de que forma pode ser utilizada em procedimentos de adaptação de conteúdo para ecrãs públicos. Chamamos a esta informação digital footprints, e o resultado é uma estrutura conceptual que mapeia as digital footprints em estratégias de adaptação e em mecanismos de interação. Esta estrutura pode ser utilizada por designers de ecrãs públicos para ajudar a escolher os mecanismos de interação que um determinado ecrã deve suportar de forma a poder recolher um determinado conjunto de digital footprints, criando assim ecrãs com conteúdos mais relevantes e que são capazes de se adaptar ao seu ambiente social. De seguida, identificamos e caracterizamos tarefas de interação e controlos apropriados para interação com ecrãs públicos. Esta análise resulta num espaço de desenho que pode servir de base para toolkits de interação, dando uma referência aos designers do sistema para os tipos de controlos que podem ser incorporados no toolkit. Finalmente, projectamos, implementamos e avaliamos um toolkit de abstrações de interação para aplicações para ecrãs públicos – o toolkit PuReWidgets. Os programadores podem utilizar este toolkit para incorporar facilmente funcionalidades interactivas nas suas aplicações, baseadas na web, para ecrãs públicos. O PuReWidgets fornece abstrações de alto nível que protegem os programadores dos detalhes de baixo nível associados aos mecanismos de interação. O toolkit é avaliado segundo várias dimensões. Primeiro, avaliamos o desempenho do sistema. De seguida, avaliamos a flexibilidade e capacidades da API, usando a nossa própria experiencia no desenvolvimento de aplicações interactivas. Avaliamos também a usabilidade da API da perspectiva de programadores independentes. Finalmente, avaliamos o toolkit da perspectiva dos utilizadores que interagem com um ecrã público num ambiente real. Os resultados da avaliação indicam que o PuReWidgets é um toolkit eficiente, flexível e usável para aplicações interactivas para ecrãs públicos. Ao tornar este toolkit disponível publicamente, esperamos promover o desenvolvimento de mais aplicações interactivas para ecrãs públicos dentro e, mais importante, fora da comunidade de investigação.This research was supported by the Funda¸c˜ao para a Ciˆencia e Tecnologia (FCT) PhD training grant SFRH/BD/47354/2008. This research has also received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 244011 (PD-Net)

A model for adaptive multimodal mobile notification

Information is useless unless it is used whilst still applicable. Having a system that notifies the user of important messages using the most appropriate medium and device will benefit users that rely on time critical information. There are several existing systems and models for mobile notification as well as for adaptive mobile notification using context awareness. Current models and systems are typically designed for a specific set of mobile devices, modes and services. Communication however, can take place in many different modes, across many different devices and may originate from many different sources. The aim of this research was to develop a model for adaptive mobile notification using context awareness. An extensive literature study was performed into existing models for adaptive mobile notification systems using context awareness. The literature study identified several potential models but no way to evaluate and compare the models. A set of requirements to evaluate these models was developed and the models were evaluated against these criteria. The model satisfying the most requirements was adapted so as to satisfy the remaining criteria. The proposed model is extensible in terms of the modes, devices and notification sources supported. The proposed model determines the importance of a message, the appropriate device and mode (or modes) of communication based on the user‘s context, and alerts the user of the message using these modes. A prototype was developed as a proof-of-concept of the proposed model and evaluated by conducting an extensive field study. The field study highlighted the fact that most users did not choose the most suitable mode for the context during their initial subscription to the service. The field study also showed that more research needs to be done on an appropriate filtering mechanism for notifications. Users found that the notifications became intrusive and less useful the longer they used them

PRESTK : situation-aware presentation of messages and infotainment content for drivers

The amount of in-car information systems has dramatically increased over the last few years. These potentially mutually independent information systems presenting information to the driver increase the risk of driver distraction. In a first step, orchestrating these information systems using techniques from scheduling and presentation planning avoid conflicts when competing for scarce resources such as screen space. In a second step, the cognitive capacity of the driver as another scarce resource has to be considered. For the first step, an algorithm fulfilling the requirements of this situation is presented and evaluated. For the second step, I define the concept of System Situation Awareness (SSA) as an extension of Endsley’s Situation Awareness (SA) model. I claim that not only the driver needs to know what is happening in his environment, but also the system, e.g., the car. In order to achieve SSA, two paths of research have to be followed: (1) Assessment of cognitive load of the driver in an unobtrusive way. I propose to estimate this value using a model based on environmental data. (2) Developing model of cognitive complexity induced by messages presented by the system. Three experiments support the claims I make in my conceptual contribution to this field. A prototypical implementation of the situation-aware presentation management toolkit PRESTK is presented and shown in two demonstrators.In den letzten Jahren hat die Menge der informationsanzeigenden Systeme im Auto drastisch zugenommen. Da sie potenziell unabhängig voneinander ablaufen, erhöhen sie die Gefahr, die Aufmerksamkeit des Fahrers abzulenken. Konflikte entstehen, wenn zwei oder mehr Systeme zeitgleich auf limitierte Ressourcen wie z. B. den Bildschirmplatz zugreifen. Ein erster Schritt, diese Konflikte zu vermeiden, ist die Orchestrierung dieser Systeme mittels Techniken aus dem Bereich Scheduling und Präsentationsplanung. In einem zweiten Schritt sollte die kognitive Kapazität des Fahrers als ebenfalls limitierte Ressource berücksichtigt werden. Der Algorithmus, den ich zu Schritt 1 vorstelle und evaluiere, erfüllt alle diese Anforderungen. Zu Schritt 2 definiere ich das Konzept System Situation Awareness (SSA), basierend auf Endsley’s Konzept der Situation Awareness (SA). Dadurch wird erreicht, dass nicht nur der Fahrer sich seiner Umgebung bewusst ist, sondern auch das System (d.h. das Auto). Zu diesem Zweck m¨ussen zwei Bereiche untersucht werden: (1) Die kognitive Belastbarkeit des Fahrers unaufdringlich ermitteln. Dazu schlage ich ein Modell vor, das auf Umgebungsinformationen basiert. (2) Ein weiteres Modell soll die Komplexität der präsentierten Informationen bestimmen. Drei Experimente stützen die Behauptungen in meinem konzeptuellen Beitrag. Ein Prototyp des situationsbewussten Präsentationsmanagement-Toolkits PresTK wird vorgestellt und in zwei Demonstratoren gezeigt

Enterprise Social Networks: The Case of CERN

Social networks are commonly seen as a global trend that allows users to search and contact others with similar interests, write a post, reply, like or share content, create groups and organize events. This said, there is much more that can be done to exploit the full potential of social media. In order to improve the business, providing employees, customers and partners the best tools to cooperate and gain value from the whole community, many organizations are taking the matter in their own hands, using Enterprise Social Networks. Close analysis of case studies and comprehensive statistics shows why it is important to pursue this path. At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where the number of employees, students and volunteers that everyday work in partnership both on site and through the network reaches the thousands, a new kind of platform has been deployed, able to exploit the social knowledge of the personnel. The thesis will describe the case study of CERN to understand not only why it is essential to become a social organization but also how a social environment can be developed. The last chapters will focus on examining my work on the platform, considering a mobile responsive design, realized to make the environment adapt to any screen size, an integrated resource planning tool, which gives the scientists the mean to easily manage the everyday work on the particle accelerators, and the platform’s Application Programming Interface, which allows anyone with the right credentials to include content from the enterprise social network into a personal or departmental webpage, giving everyone an even easier way to participate

Axmedis 2005

The AXMEDIS conference aims to promote discussions and interactions among researchers, practitioners, developers and users of tools, technology transfer experts, and project managers, to bring together a variety of participants. The conference focuses on the challenges in the cross-media domain (which include production, protection, management, representation, formats, aggregation, workflow, distribution, business and transaction models), and the integration of content management systems and distribution chains, with particular emphasis on cost reduction and effective solutions for complex cross-domain problems

Challenges of Global eLearning

This publication contains selected full papers presented in the International Workshop "Ubiquitous ICT for sustainable education and cultural literacy", held in Hämeenlinna, Finland, 6-7 October 2008. The summary proceedings of the workshop have been published by the University of Tampere, German-Jordanian University and the Finnish National Commission for UNESCO in 2009 at: http://www.minedu.fi /OPM/Kansainvaeliset_asiat/kansainvaeliset_jaerjestoet/unesco/suomen_unesco-toimikunta/sutjulkaisuja?lang=f