216 research outputs found
A Mobile Money Solution for Illiterate Users
Get PDFExisting mobile money platforms have text based interfaces and target literate people. Illiterate people, without the assistance of literate individuals, cannot use such platforms. Applying user-centered requirements gathered in an Ethiopian context, this paper presents the design and development of a mobile money solution that targets illiterate people. Particular emphasis is given to how illiterate users deal with cash money in their everyday life and how such practices can be mapped into financial technology design. Given the ubiquity of mobile telephony in Africa, our solution is based on the widely available, relatively inexpensive and open source Android mobile web platform. The proposed system enables illiterate individuals to count money bills, while providing the facility to accept and make payments. In so doing, we provide an example of how a pervasive technology such as smartphones can empower a hitherto often neglected user category of illiterate users
Mobile application platform heterogeneity: Android vs Windows phone vs iOS vs Firefox OS
Get PDFModern smartphones have a rich spectrum of increasingly sophisticated features, opening opportunities for software-led innovation. Of the large number of platforms to develop new software on, in this paper we look closely at three platforms identified as market leaders for the smartphone market by Gartner Group in 2013 and one platform, Firefox OS, representing a new paradigm for operating systems based on web technologies. We compare the platforms in several different categories, such as software architecture, application development, platform capabilities and constraints, and, finally, developer support. Using the implementation of a mobile version of the tic-tac-toe game on all the four platforms, we seek to investigate strengths, weaknesses and challenges of mobile application development on these platforms. Big differences are highlighted when inspecting community environments, hardware abilities and platform maturity. These inevitably impact upon developer choices when deciding on mobile platform development strategies
Temporal and Spatial Variation of Fine Sediment Infiltration in a Gravel-Bed River
Get PDFPulses of fine sediment in gravel-bedded rivers can cause extensive fine sediment infiltration (FSI), potentially altering river morphodynamics and aquatic ecosystems. FSI occurs when sand and silt are deposited into void spaces between larger grains at the riverbed. Flume and theoretical modeling provide a background for a conceptual model of FSI in natural systems. In this model, FSI will occur to a limited depth as a function of the relative grain size of bed sediment to infiltrating sediment. At a larger scale, fine sediment supply, feed rate and local flow dynamics also dictate the extent of FSI. In 2008, the Milltown Dam near Missoula, MT was removed as part of a Superfund remediation action and released contaminated sediment downstream. I used bulk sampling, freeze cores, infiltration bags and a suspended sediment water bottle to collect samples for metal analysis and comparison with USGS data. The analysis of these metal concentrations indicates that the sediment associated with the dam removal, identified by the highest metal concentrations, is not found in the bed of the field site 14 km downstream. Pore space through the reach was either full when the dam removal sediment pulse fluxed through the field site or the substrate has been reworked. Fine sediment fractions from bulk samples are lowest in riffles, have intermediate values in main channel and complex flow areas and the highest fractions in backwater areas. At depth and across depositional settings, fine sediment has multi-year residence times. My work suggests that because the timing and spatial variability of substrate reworking strongly influence fine sediment content in river beds, understanding of such factors is essential to remediation efforts concerned with fine sediment infiltration
Meeting quality standards for mobile application development in businesses: A framework for cross-platform testing
Get PDFHow do you test the same application developed for multiple mobile platforms in an effective way? Companies offering apps have to develop the same features across several platforms in order to reach the majority of potential users. However, verifying that these apps work, as intended across a set of heterogeneous devices and operating systems is not trivial. Manual testing can be performed, but this is time consuming, repetitive and error-prone. Automated tools exist through frameworks, such as Frank and Robotium, however they lack the possibility to run repeated tests across multiple heterogeneous devices. This article presents an extensible architecture and conceptual prototype that showcase and combines parallel cross-platform test execution with performance measurements. In so doing, this work contributes to a quality-assurance process by automating parts of a regression test for mobile cross-platform applications
CO2 Gasification of Biomass Chars: A Kinetic Study
Get PDFThe CO2 gasification of pine and birch charcoals was studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) at CO2 partial pressures of 51 and 101 kPa. Linear and stepwise heating programs were employed to increase the information content of the experimental data sets. Low sample masses were used because of the high enthalpy change. Seven experiments with different experimental conditions were evaluated simultaneously for each sample. The method of least-squares was employed. Three reactions appeared in the temperature domain evaluated (600-1000 degrees C). The first and second reactions were due to the devolatilization and did not show a significant dependence upon the CO2 concentration. They were approximated by first-order kinetics. The third reaction corresponded to the gasification. Its modeling was based on an empirical approximation of the change of the reaction surface during the gasification and by a formal reaction order with respect to the CO2 concentration. Very close results were obtained for the two charcoals. The dependence upon the conversion could be well-approximated by power law kinetics. In the next step of the evaluation, the experiments of the two samples (14 experiments combined) were evaluated together, assuming common activation energy values and a common reaction order with respect to the CO2 concentration. This process led to nearly the same fit as the separate evaluation of the two samples. The activation energy of the gasification step was 262 kJ/mol. The reaction order of CO2 was 0.40
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