233,584 research outputs found

    Efficient data representation for XML in peer-based systems

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    Purpose - New directions in the provision of end-user computing experiences mean that the best way to share data between small mobile computing devices needs to be determined. Partitioning large structures so that they can be shared efficiently provides a basis for data-intensive applications on such platforms. The partitioned structure can be compressed using dictionary-based approaches and then directly queried without firstly decompressing the whole structure. Design/methodology/approach - The paper describes an architecture for partitioning XML into structural and dictionary elements and the subsequent manipulation of the dictionary elements to make the best use of available space. Findings - The results indicate that considerable savings are available by removing duplicate dictionaries. The paper also identifies the most effective strategy for defining dictionary scope. Research limitations/implications - This evaluation is based on a range of benchmark XML structures and the approach to minimising dictionary size shows benefit in the majority of these. Where structures are small and regular, the benefits of efficient dictionary representation are lost. The authors' future research now focuses on heuristics for further partitioning of structural elements. Practical implications - Mobile applications that need access to large data collections will benefit from the findings of this research. Traditional client/server architectures are not suited to dealing with high volume demands from a multitude of small mobile devices. Peer data sharing provides a more scalable solution and the experiments that the paper describes demonstrate the most effective way of sharing data in this context. Social implications - Many services are available via smartphone devices but users are wary of exploiting the full potential because of the need to conserve battery power. The approach mitigates this challenge and consequently expands the potential for users to benefit from mobile information systems. This will have impact in areas such as advertising, entertainment and education but will depend on the acceptability of file sharing being extended from the desktop to the mobile environment. Originality/value - The original work characterises the most effective way of sharing large data sets between small mobile devices. This will save battery power on devices such as smartphones, thus providing benefits to users of such devices

    Smartphone Augmented Reality Applications for Tourism

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    Invisible, attentive and adaptive technologies that provide tourists with relevant services and information anytime and anywhere may no longer be a vision from the future. The new display paradigm, stemming from the synergy of new mobile devices, context-awareness and AR, has the potential to enhance tourists’ experiences and make them exceptional. However, effective and usable design is still in its infancy. In this publication we present an overview of current smartphone AR applications outlining tourism-related domain-specific design challenges. This study is part of an ongoing research project aiming at developing a better understanding of the design space for smartphone context-aware AR applications for tourists

    Mobile phone games: understanding the user experience

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    Mobile gaming is viewed by the mobile communication industry as one of the ‘killer applications’ for future mobile services. Fuelled by the success of games such as Nokia’s Snake and the continuing popularity of online and console gaming, the drive is to develop ever more sophisticated and engaging gaming experiences for mobile users. However the current mobile gaming experience in terms of graphics, interaction mode and content more closely resembles that presented by personal computer games of 20 years ago than anything evoked by today’s console based offerings. Despite such limitations the appeal of mobile games continues to grow. Market research conducted by Nokia estimates that 85% of people with the game ‘Space Impact’ on their phones have tried it out and 45% play it everyday (Robens, 2001). Mobile gaming research has predominantly focused on the “mobility of gaming” (Kuivakari 2001). Such research seeks to exploit the entertainment potential of ubiquitous technologies and augmented reality, making both the proximity of others and the mobile environment itself part of the gaming experience. (See for example Bjork et al (2001), Brunnberg (2002). The research reported here aims to provide insight into what motivates people to play existing mobile phone games, despite their limitations, and seeks to identify elements of the current mobile gaming experience that should be preserved within future games. The continuing convergence of computer, consumer and communications technologies within mobile devices is raising many unknowns about how users will perceive these devices and therefore how best to design appropriate form structures and user interfaces (Sacher and Loudon 2002). This research examines the existing convergence of game playing and telephony within the mobile phone and provides early indications of how people may approach future converged devices

    Mobile phone games: understanding the user experience

    Get PDF
    Mobile gaming is viewed by the mobile communication industry as one of the ‘killer applications’ for future mobile services. Fuelled by the success of games such as Nokia’s Snake and the continuing popularity of online and console gaming, the drive is to develop ever more sophisticated and engaging gaming experiences for mobile users. However the current mobile gaming experience in terms of graphics, interaction mode and content more closely resembles that presented by personal computer games of 20 years ago than anything evoked by today’s console based offerings. Despite such limitations the appeal of mobile games continues to grow. Market research conducted by Nokia estimates that 85% of people with the game ‘Space Impact’ on their phones have tried it out and 45% play it everyday (Robens, 2001). Mobile gaming research has predominantly focused on the “mobility of gaming” (Kuivakari 2001). Such research seeks to exploit the entertainment potential of ubiquitous technologies and augmented reality, making both the proximity of others and the mobile environment itself part of the gaming experience. (See for example Bjork et al (2001), Brunnberg (2002). The research reported here aims to provide insight into what motivates people to play existing mobile phone games, despite their limitations, and seeks to identify elements of the current mobile gaming experience that should be preserved within future games. The continuing convergence of computer, consumer and communications technologies within mobile devices is raising many unknowns about how users will perceive these devices and therefore how best to design appropriate form structures and user interfaces (Sacher and Loudon 2002). This research examines the existing convergence of game playing and telephony within the mobile phone and provides early indications of how people may approach future converged devices

    YouTube as a repository : the creative practice of students as producers of Open Educational Resources

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    In this paper we present an alternative view of Open Educational Resources (OERs). Rather than focusing on open media resources produced by expert practitioners for use by peers and learners, we examine the practice of learners as active agents, producing open media resources using the devices in their pockets: their mobile phones. In this study, students are the producers and operate simultaneously as legitimate members of the YouTube community and producers of educational content for future cohorts. Taking an Action Research approach we investigated how student’s engagement with open media resources related to their creativity. Using Kleiman’s framework of fives conceptual themes which emerged from academics experiences of creativity (constraint, process, product, transformation, fulfillment), we found that these themes revealed the opportunities designed into the assessed task and provided a useful lens with which to view students’ authentic creative experiences. Students’ experience of creativity mapped on to Kleiman’s framework, and was affected by assessment. Dimensions of openness changed across platforms, although the impact of authenticity and publication on creativity was evident, and the production of open media resources that have a dual function as OERs has clear benefits in terms of knowledge sharing and community participation.The transformational impacts for students were evident in the short term but would merit a longitudinal study. A series of conclusions are drawn to inform future practice and research

    Mobile Self-monitoring ECG Devices to Diagnose Arrhythmia (AR) that coincide with Palpitations: A Scoping Review

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    The use and deployment of mobile devices across society is phenomenal with an increasing number of individuals using mobile devices to track their everyday health. However, there is a paucity of academic material examining this recent trend. Specifically, little is known about the use and deployment of mobile heart monitoring devices for measuring palpitations and arrhythmia. In this scoping literature review, we identify the contemporary evidence that reports the use of mobile heart monitoring to assess palpitations and arrhythmia across populations. The review was conducted between February and March 2018. Five electronic databases were searched: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), CINHAL, Google Scholar, PubMed, and Scopus. A total of 981 records were identified and following the inclusion and exclusion criteria, nine papers were formed the final stage of the review. The results identified a total of six primary themes: purpose, environment, population, wearable devices, assessment, and study design. A further 24 secondary themes were identified across the primary themes. These included detection, cost effectiveness, recruitment, type of setting, type of assessment, and commercial or purpose-built mobile device. This scoping review highlights that further work is required to understand the impact of mobile heart monitoring devices on how arrhythmias and palpitations are assessed and measured across all populations and ages of society. A positive trend revealed by this review demonstrates how mobile heart monitoring devices can support primary care providers to deliver high-levels of care, at a low cost to the service provider. This has several benefits: alleviation of patient anxiety, lowering the risk of morbidity and mortality, while progressively influencing national and international care pathway guidelines. Limitations of this work include the paucity of knowledge and insight from primary care providers and lack of qualitative material. We argue that future studies consider qualitative and mixed-methods approaches to complement quantitative methodologies and to ensure all actors’ experiences are recorded

    Mobile technologies in schools: The student voice

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    Intermediate and high school students spend a large amount of time using mobile devices (Lauricella, Cingel, Blackwell, Wartella, & Conway, 2014), and such devices are increasingly being integrated into our school system. We conducted a series of student-led focus groups, with this early adolescent cohort, in order to better understand their experiences of the recent technological shift. Four main ideas emerged from a thematic analysis of three focus group discussions: restrictions, student-led technology use, bypassing the restrictions, and connectivity as a need. Direct quotes from students and our analysis of these themes suggest that young people should be included, to a much greater extent, in discussions about the evolution of teaching practices in today’s digital age. Clear benefits and risks linked to greater use of mobile technologies were evident in our discussions, the implications of which are discussed along with limitations of the current study and proposed future research

    Towards Secure, Power-Efficient and Location-Aware Mobile Computing

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    In the post-PC era, mobile devices will replace desktops and become the main personal computer for many people. People rely on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets for everything in their daily lives. A common requirement for mobile computing is wireless communication. It allows mobile devices to fetch remote resources easily. Unfortunately, the increasing demand of the mobility brings many new wireless management challenges such as security, energy-saving and location-awareness. These challenges have already impeded the advancement of mobile systems. In this dissertation we attempt to discover the guidelines of how to mitigate these problems through three general communication patterns in 802.11 wireless networks. We propose a cross-section of a few interesting and important enhancements to manage wireless connectivity. These enhancements provide useful primitives for the design of next-generation mobile systems in the future.;Specifically, we improve the association mechanism for wireless clients to defend against rogue wireless Access Points (APs) in Wireless LANs (WLANs) and vehicular networks. Real-world prototype systems confirm that our scheme can achieve high accuracy to detect even sophisticated rogue APs under various network conditions. We also develop a power-efficient system to reduce the energy consumption for mobile devices working as software-defined APs. Experimental results show that our system allows the Wi-Fi interface to sleep for up to 88% of the total time in several different applications and reduce the system energy by up to 33%. We achieve this while retaining comparable user experiences. Finally, we design a fine-grained scalable group localization algorithm to enable location-aware wireless communication. Our prototype implemented on commercial smartphones proves that our algorithm can quickly locate a group of mobile devices with centimeter-level accuracy
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