Context-driven progressive enhancement of mobile web applications: a multicriteria decision-making approach

Personal computing has become all about mobile and embedded devices. As a result, the adoption rate of smartphones is rapidly increasing and this trend has set a need for mobile applications to be available at anytime, anywhere and on any device. Despite the obvious advantages of such immersive mobile applications, software developers are increasingly facing the challenges related to device fragmentation. Current application development solutions are insufficiently prepared for handling the enormous variety of software platforms and hardware characteristics covering the mobile eco-system. As a result, maintaining a viable balance between development costs and market coverage has turned out to be a challenging issue when developing mobile applications. This article proposes a context-aware software platform for the development and delivery of self-adaptive mobile applications over the Web. An adaptive application composition approach is introduced, capable of autonomously bypassing context-related fragmentation issues. This goal is achieved by incorporating and validating the concept of fine-grained progressive application enhancements based on a multicriteria decision-making strategy

Accessible user interface support for multi-device ubiquitous applications: architectural modifiability considerations

The market for personal computing devices is rapidly expanding from PC, to mobile, home entertainment systems, and even the automotive industry. When developing software targeting such ubiquitous devices, the balance between development costs and market coverage has turned out to be a challenging issue. With the rise of Web technology and the Internet of things, ubiquitous applications have become a reality. Nonetheless, the diversity of presentation and interaction modalities still drastically limit the number of targetable devices and the accessibility toward end users. This paper presents webinos, a multi-device application middleware platform founded on the Future Internet infrastructure. Hereto, the platform's architectural modifiability considerations are described and evaluated as a generic enabler for supporting applications, which are executed in ubiquitous computing environments

Ten Years of Rich Internet Applications: A Systematic Mapping Study, and Beyond

BACKGROUND: The term Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) is generally associated with Web appli- cations that provide the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications. Ten years after the introduction of the term, an ample amount of research has been carried out to study various aspects of RIAs. It has thus become essential to summarize this research and provide an adequate overview. OBJECTIVE: The objective of our study is to assemble, classify and analyze all RIA research performed in the scienti c community, thus providing a consolidated overview thereof, and to identify well-established topics, trends and open research issues. Additionally, we provide a qualitative discussion of the most inter- esting ndings. This work therefore serves as a reference work for beginning and established RIA researchers alike, as well as for industrial actors that need an introduction in the eld, or seek pointers to (a speci c subset of) the state-of-the-art. METHOD: A systematic mapping study is performed in order to identify all RIA-related publications, de ne a classi cation scheme, and categorize, analyze, and discuss the identi ed research according to it. RESULTS: Our source identi cation phase resulted in 133 relevant, peer-reviewed publications, published between 2002 and 2011 in a wide variety of venues. They were subsequently classi ed according to four facets: development activity, research topic, contribution type and research type. Pie, stacked bar and bubble charts were used to visualize and analyze the results. A deeper analysis is provided for the most interesting and/or remarkable results. CONCLUSION: Analysis of the results shows that, although the RIA term was coined in 2002, the rst RIA-related research appeared in 2004. From 2007 there was a signi cant increase in research activity, peaking in 2009 and decreasing to pre-2009 levels afterwards. All development phases are covered in the identi ed research, with emphasis on \design" (33%) and \implementation" (29%). The majority of research proposes a \method" (44%), followed by \model" (22%), \methodology" (18%) and \tools" (16%); no publications in the category \metrics" were found. The preponderant research topic is \models, methods and methodologies" (23%) and to a lesser extent, \usability & accessibility" and \user interface" (11% each). On the other hand, the topic \localization, internationalization & multi-linguality" received no attention at all, and topics such as \deep web" (under 1%), \business processing", \usage analysis", \data management", \quality & metrics", (all under 2%), \semantics" and \performance" (slightly above 2%) received very few attention. Finally, there is a large majority of \solution proposals" (66%), few \evaluation research" (14%) and even fewer \validation" (6%), although the latter are increasing in recent years

The design principles of edutainment system for autistic children with communication difficulties

The number of children with autism is increasing worldwide. Children with autism face three major problems; socializing, communicating, and behaviour. Approximately 50% of all individuals with autism have difficulties in developing functional language owing to communication deterioration. Mobile devices with installed educational games help these individuals feel more comfortable and relaxed doing such activities. Although numerous mobile applications are available for individuals with autism, they are difficult to use; particularly in terms of user-interface design. This study analysed the existing apps in order to determine the design principles applicable to the Edutainment App being studied. Five applications were involved in this analysis. As outlined in the objectives of this study, identifying these design principles is important in designing the app. The analysis identified fifteen suggestions for the design principles. These suggestions addressed, simple interfaces; image size; number of pictures; home page icon; colour; having images identical to real life objects; the use of caregivers; navigation; password-protection; audio appropriate to the images; the app language used; evaluating parameters to measure the child’s growth; option for photo loading; PECS-based communication; and sentence pronunciation function. These recommendations are offered by this study towards designing and developing a prototype app for autistic children. This study introduces an edutainment-system design principle formulated to help develop the communication skills of children with autism-spectrum disorders. This study also describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of the ICanTalk app-a mobile edutainment app that can be used to improve users’ understanding and communication skills and help them to connect with society and the surrounding environment particularly for autistic children with communication difficulties. This app allows caregivers to create personalized content using pictures and audio on their mobile devices (tablets). The evaluation of the app by teachers suggests that it is useful and easy-to-use. In conclusion, based on the evaluation results, it is found that the ICanTalk app is effective in helping autistic children with communication difficultie

Responding to Agency Avoidance of OIRA

Concerns have recently been raised that US federal agencies may sometimes avoid regulatory review by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). In this article, we assess the seriousness of such potential avoidance, and we recommend a framework for evaluating potential responses. After summarizing the system of presidential regulatory oversight through OIRA review, we analyze the incentives for agencies to cooperate with or avoid OIRA. We identify a wider array of agency avoidance tactics than has past scholarship, and a wider array of corresponding response options available to OIRA, the President, Congress, and the courts. We argue that, because the relationship between agencies and OIRA involves ongoing repeat player interactions, some of these avoidance tactics are less likely to occur (or to succeed) than has previously been alleged, and others are more likely; the difference depends significantly on how easy it is for OIRA to detect avoidance, and for OIRA, the courts, and others to respond. Further, we note that in this repeat player relationship, responses to agency avoidance tactics may induce further strategic moves and countermoves. Thus we further argue that the optimal response may not always be to try to eliminate the avoidance behavior; some avoidance may be worth tolerating where the benefits of trying to reduce agency avoidance would not justify the costs of response options and countermoves. We therefore conclude that responses to agency avoidance should be evaluated in a way similar to what OIRA asks of agencies evaluating proposed regulations: by weighing the pros and cons of alternative response options (including no action)

Responding to Agency Avoidance of OIRA

Concerns have recently been raised that US federal agencies may sometimes avoid regulatory review by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). In this article, we assess the seriousness of such potential avoidance, and we recommend a framework for evaluating potential responses. After summarizing the system of presidential regulatory oversight through OIRA review, we analyze the incentives for agencies to cooperate with or avoid OIRA. We identify a wider array of agency avoidance tactics than has past scholarship, and a wider array of corresponding response options available to OIRA, the President, Congress, and the courts. We argue that, because the relationship between agencies and OIRA involves ongoing repeat player interactions, some of these avoidance tactics are less likely to occur (or to succeed) than has previously been alleged, and others are more likely; the difference depends significantly on how easy it is for OIRA to detect avoidance, and for OIRA, the courts, and others to respond. Further, we note that in this repeat player relationship, responses to agency avoidance tactics may induce further strategic moves and countermoves. Thus we further argue that the optimal response may not always be to try to eliminate the avoidance behavior; some avoidance may be worth tolerating where the benefits of trying to reduce agency avoidance would not justify the costs of response options and countermoves. We therefore conclude that responses to agency avoidance should be evaluated in a way similar to what OIRA asks of agencies evaluating proposed regulations: by weighing the pros and cons of alternative response options (including no action)

Reverse Engineering and Testing of Rich Internet Applications

The World Wide Web experiences a continuous and constant evolution, where new initiatives, standards, approaches and technologies are continuously proposed for developing more effective and higher quality Web applications. To satisfy the growing request of the market for Web applications, new technologies, frameworks, tools and environments that allow to develop Web and mobile applications with the least effort and in very short time have been introduced in the last years. These new technologies have made possible the dawn of a new generation of Web applications, named Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), that offer greater usability and interactivity than traditional ones. This evolution has been accompanied by some drawbacks that are mostly due to the lack of applying well-known software engineering practices and approaches. As a consequence, new research questions and challenges have emerged in the field of web and mobile applications maintenance and testing. The research activity described in this thesis has addressed some of these topics with the specific aim of proposing new and effective solutions to the problems of modelling, reverse engineering, comprehending, re-documenting and testing existing RIAs. Due to the growing relevance of mobile applications in the renewed Web scenarios, the problem of testing mobile applications developed for the Android operating system has been addressed too, in an attempt of exploring and proposing new techniques of testing automation for these type of applications

Architectures for embedded multimodal sensor data fusion systems in the robotics : and airport traffic suveillance ; domain

Smaller autonomous robots and embedded sensor data fusion systems often suffer from limited computational and hardware resources. Many ‘Real Time’ algorithms for multi modal sensor data fusion cannot be executed on such systems, at least not in real time and sometimes not at all, because of the computational and energy resources needed, resulting from the architecture of the computational hardware used in these systems. Alternative hardware architectures for generic tracking algorithms could provide a solution to overcome some of these limitations. For tracking and self localization sequential Bayesian filters, in particular particle filters, have been shown to be able to handle a range of tracking problems that could not be solved with other algorithms. But particle filters have some serious disadvantages when executed on serial computational architectures used in most systems. The potential increase in performance for particle filters is huge as many of the computational steps can be done concurrently. A generic hardware solution for particle filters can relieve the central processing unit from the computational load associated with the tracking task. The general topic of this research are hardware-software architectures for multi modal sensor data fusion in embedded systems in particular tracking, with the goal to develop a high performance computational architecture for embedded applications in robotics and airport traffic surveillance domain. The primary concern of the research is therefore: The integration of domain specific concept support into hardware architectures for low level multi modal sensor data fusion, in particular embedded systems for tracking with Bayesian filters; and a distributed hardware-software tracking systems for airport traffic surveillance and control systems. Runway Incursions are occurrences at an aerodrome involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle, or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take-off of aircraft. The growing traffic volume kept runway incursions on the NTSB’s ‘Most Wanted’ list for safety improvements for over a decade. Recent incidents show that problem is still existent. Technological responses that have been deployed in significant numbers are ASDE-X and A-SMGCS. Although these technical responses are a significant improvement and reduce the frequency of runway incursions, some runway incursion scenarios are not optimally covered by these systems, detection of runway incursion events is not as fast as desired, and they are too expensive for all but the biggest airports. Local, short range sensors could be a solution to provide the necessary affordable surveillance accuracy for runway incursion prevention. In this context the following objectives shall be reached. 1) Show the feasibility of runway incursion prevention systems based on localized surveillance. 2) Develop a design for a local runway incursion alerting system. 3) Realize a prototype of the system design using the developed tracking hardware.Kleinere autonome Roboter und eingebettete Sensordatenfusionssysteme haben oft mit stark begrenzter Rechenkapazität und eingeschränkten Hardwareressourcen zu kämpfen. Viele Echtzeitalgorithmen für die Fusion von multimodalen Sensordaten können, bedingt durch den hohen Bedarf an Rechenkapazität und Energie, auf solchen Systemen überhaupt nicht ausgeführt werden, oder zu mindesten nicht in Echtzeit. Der hohe Bedarf an Energie und Rechenkapazität hat seine Ursache darin, dass die Architektur der ausführenden Hardware und der ausgeführte Algorithmus nicht aufeinander abgestimmt sind. Dies betrifft auch Algorithmen zu Spurverfolgung. Mit Hilfe von alternativen Hardwarearchitekturen für die generische Ausführung solcher Algorithmen könnten sich einige der typischerweise vorliegenden Einschränkungen überwinden lassen. Eine Reihe von Aufgaben, die sich mit anderen Spurverfolgungsalgorithmen nicht lösen lassen, lassen sich mit dem Teilchenfilter, einem Algorithmus aus der Familie der Bayesschen Filter lösen. Bei der Ausführung auf traditionellen Architekturen haben Teilchenfilter gegenüber anderen Algorithmen einen signifikanten Nachteil, allerdings ist hier ein großer Leistungszuwachs durch die nebenläufige Ausführung vieler Rechenschritte möglich. Eine generische Hardwarearchitektur für Teilchenfilter könnte deshalb die oben genannten Systeme stark entlasten. Das allgemeine Thema dieses Forschungsvorhabens sind Hardware-Software-Architekturen für die multimodale Sensordatenfusion auf eingebetteten Systemen - speziell für Aufgaben der Spurverfolgung, mit dem Ziel eine leistungsfähige Architektur für die Berechnung entsprechender Algorithmen auf eingebetteten Systemen zu entwickeln, die für Anwendungen in der Robotik und Verkehrsüberwachung auf Flughäfen geeignet ist. Das Augenmerk des Forschungsvorhabens liegt dabei auf der Integration von vom Einsatzgebiet abhängigen Konzepten in die Architektur von Systemen zur Spurverfolgung mit Bayeschen Filtern, sowie auf verteilten Hardware-Software Spurverfolgungssystemen zur Überwachung und Führung des Rollverkehrs auf Flughäfen. Eine „Runway Incursion“ (RI) ist ein Vorfall auf einem Flugplatz, bei dem ein Fahrzeug oder eine Person sich unerlaubt in einem Abschnitt der Start- bzw. Landebahn befindet, der einem Verkehrsteilnehmer zur Benutzung zugewiesen wurde. Der wachsende Flugverkehr hat dafür gesorgt, das RIs seit über einem Jahrzehnt auf der „Most Wanted“-Liste des NTSB für Verbesserungen der Sicherheit stehen. Jüngere Vorfälle zeigen, dass das Problem noch nicht behoben ist. Technologische Maßnahmen die in nennenswerter Zahl eingesetzt wurden sind das ASDE-X und das A-SMGCS. Obwohl diese Maßnahmen eine deutliche Verbesserung darstellen und die Zahl der RIs deutlich reduzieren, gibt es einige RISituationen die von diesen Systemen nicht optimal abgedeckt werden. Außerdem detektieren sie RIs ist nicht so schnell wie erwünscht und sind - außer für die größten Flughäfen - zu teuer. Lokale Sensoren mit kurzer Reichweite könnten eine Lösung sein um die für die zuverlässige Erkennung von RIs notwendige Präzision bei der Überwachung des Rollverkehrs zu erreichen. Vor diesem Hintergrund sollen die folgenden Ziele erreicht werden. 1) Die Machbarkeit eines Runway Incursion Vermeidungssystems, das auf lokalen Sensoren basiert, zeigen. 2) Einen umsetzbaren Entwurf für ein solches System entwickeln. 3) Einen Prototypen des Systems realisieren, das die oben gennannte Hardware zur Spurverfolgung einsetzt