Interest aware peoplerank: towards effective social-based opportunistic advertising

Various emerging context aware social-based applications and services assume constant non-disruptive connectivity. Mobile advertisers in such environments want to reach potentially interested users in a given proximity and within a specified short duration, whether these users are connected to the network or not. While opportunistic forwarding algorithms can be leveraged for forwarding these advertisements, there is little incentive for those not interested in the ad to act as forwarders. Our goal in this paper is to leverage explicit interest, gathered from a user’s social profile, and integrate it with social-based opportunistic forwarding algorithms in order to enable soft real time opportunistic ad delivery in intermittently connected mobile networks. We propose IPeR, a fully distributed interest-aware forwarding algorithm that integrates with PeopleRank to reduce the overall cost and delay while reducing the number of contacted uninterested candidates. Our results, obtained via simulations and validated with real mobility traces coupled with user social data, are promising. In comparison to interest-oblivious socially-aware protocols such as PeopleRank, the IPeR approach reduces the cost to 70% to reach the same delivery ratio, and reduces the ratio of contacted uninterested forwarders by 23%. It also achieves an extra 70% recall and 107% accuracy with only 2% less precision

On the integration of interest and power awareness in social-aware opportunistic forwarding algorithms

Social-aware Opportunistic forwarding algorithms are much needed in environments which lack network infrastructure or in those that are susceptible to frequent disruptions. However, most of these algorithms are oblivious to both the user’s interest in the forwarded content and the limited power resources of the available mobile nodes. This paper proposes PI-SOFA, a framework for integrating the awareness of both interest and power capability of a candidate node within the forwarding decision process. Furthermore, the framework adapts its forwarding decisions to the expected contact duration between message carriers and candidate nodes. The proposed framework is applied to three state-of-the-art social-aware opportunistic forwarding algorithms that target mobile opportunistic message delivery. A simulation-based performance evaluation demonstrates the improved effectiveness, efficiency, reduction of power consumption, and fair utilization of the proposed versions in comparison to those of the original algorithms. The results show more than 500% extra f-measure, mainly by disregarding uninterested nodes while focusing on the potentially interested ones. Moreover, power awareness preserves up to 8% power with 41% less cost to attain higher utilization fairness by focusing on power-capable interested nodes. Finally, this paper analyzes the proposed algorithms’ performance across various environments. These findings can benefit message delivery in opportunistic mobile networks

Social pervasive systems: The integration of social networks and pervasive systems

Sensor technology embedded in smart mobile devices branded such devices as candidates for building innovative context-aware pervasive applications. On a parallel front, the notable evolution in the shape and form of social networking and their seamless accessibility from mobile devices founded a goldmine of contextual information. Utilizing an ecosystem that combines both mobile smart devices and a big data like environment in the form of social networks allows for the creation of an elitist set of services and applications that merge the two domains. In this paper, and following the footsteps of similar research efforts that attempted to combine both domains, we describe what we label as Social Pervasive Systems that cross-pollinate a mutually influential mobile and social world with opportunities for new breeds of applications. We present herein the evolution of the merger between both worlds for a better understanding. Above and beyond what related work achieved, we present a set of new services and potential applications that emerge from this new blend, and also describe some of the expected challenges such systems will face

Social pervasive systems: the harmonization between social networking and pervasive systems

The recent advancement in mobile device sensor technology, coupled with the wealth of structured accessible data of social networks, form a very data-wealthy ecosystem. Such an ecosystem is rich in bi-directional context that can flow between the mobile and social worlds enabling the creation of an elitist breed of pervasive services and applications. We label the breed resulting from the merger as Social Pervasive Systems (SPS)

PIPeR: Impact of power-awareness on social-based opportunistic advertising

Interest and social-awareness can be valuable determinants in decisions related to content delivery in mobile environments. Under certain conditions, we can deliver content with less cost and better delivery ratios, while only involving users that are interested in the type of content being delivered. However, the depletion of valuable power resources poses a deterrent to node participation in such interest-aware forwarding systems. No significant research contribution has been identified to collectively maximize the benefits of social, interest, and power awareness. In this work, we propose a new algorithm called PIPeR which integrates power awareness with an interest and socially aware forwarding algorithm called IPeR. Through simulations, we present and evaluate four modes of PIPeR. The results show that PIPeR is more fair and preserves at least 22% of the power IPeR consumes with less delay, while relying significantly on interested forwarders and with comparable cost to maintain similar delivery ratios

SAROS: A social-aware opportunistic forwarding simulator

Many applications are being developed to leverage the popularity of mobile opportunistic networks. However, building adaptive testbeds can be costly and challenging. This challenge motivates the need for effective opportunistic network simulators to provide a variety of opportunistic environment setups, and evaluate proposed applications and protocols with a comprehensive set of metrics. This paper presents SAROS, a simulator of opportunistic networking environments with a variety of interest distributions, power consumption distributions, imported real traces, and social network integration. The simulator provides a wide variety of evaluation metrics that are not offered by comparable simulators. Finally, SAROS also implements several opportunistic forwarding algorithms ranging from social-oblivious algorithms to interest and power-aware social-based algorithms

The Impacts of Lughati for Smart Education Initiative on Students’ Acquisition of Arabic Language Skills at the Kindergarten Stage

Innovative programs are introduced to educational institutions to enhance teaching and student learning. One of these innovative programs is the Lughati for Smart Education Initiative meant to strengthen students’ learning at the Kindergarten level in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The aim of this study is to determine the impact of the Lughati Smart Education initiative on the acquisition of Arabic language skills among kindergarteners and what are the strengths and areas that need improvement in the Lughati program from the point of view of the teachers who implemented the Smart Education program. A quantitative research approach was used to conduct the study, with a sample size of (100) children. Fifty of the students who underwent the Lughati Smart Education program were selected through purposeful sampling and they are considered as an experimental group and the other (50) who did not are considered as the control group. Also included in the study is a sample of one hundred teachers from the Emirate of Sharjah who have been involved in delivering Lughati Smart Education Program. The results of the study show that there are statistically significant differences in the variables related to reading skills, analysis, structure, concepts, and the achievement test in favour of the students who attended the Lughati program. However, there was no significant difference between the control and experimental groups in writing skills. As for teachers’ feedback on the Smart Education Program (Lughati Initiative), it was found that most teachers indicated that the program helped develop the student’s language proficiency, language skills through educational songs, reading skills, spelling, and handwriting. Based on the data, the study makes a number of recommendations, the most significant of which is to implement the initiative across all states and public schools in the country. In addition, it recommended that the program should be linked to the curricula devised by the Ministry of Education. School teachers should also attend training courses in smart education, and the program should be regularly updated

RESPONSE OF TAGETES PATULA PLANTS TO FOLIAR APPLICATION OF POTASSIUM SILICATE AND SEAWEED EXTRACT UNDER VARIOUS IRRIGATION INTERVALS

This study was carried out during the two successive seasons of 2018 and 2019 at Somosta, Beni-Suef Governorate, Egypt, to evaluate the effect of irrigation intervals, foliar application of potassium silicate and seaweed extract on vegetative and flowering growth parameters and essential oil percentage of Tagetes patula plants. Plant height (cm), number of branches, stem diameter (mm),leaf area (cm2), plantfresh and dry weights (g), flowering date, number of inflorescences/plant, inflorescence diameter (cm), inflorescence fresh and dry weights/plant (g) and vase life/days were significantly decreased with rising intervals of irrigation. Irrigation regime of four days interval gave the earliest flowering. The results cleared that, foliar applications of seaweeds extract at 3 ml/l and 5 ml/l, potassium silicate at 3 ml/l and 5 ml/l significantly affected all studied parameters compared with control. The magnitude of increase is more pronounced by applying combination between potassium silicate and seaweed extract treatments at the high concentration. The most pronounced effect for the interaction was that found between potassium silicate at 5 ml/l plus seaweeds extract at 5 ml/l when plants irrigated every one or two days where the highest vegetative and flowering growth parameters and essential oil percentage were recorded in both seasons. So, it is advisable, to reduce the effect of drought stress, treating tagetes plants with high concentration of potassium silicate and/or seaweed extract each at 5 ml/