Every Cloud Has a Push Data Lining: Incorporating Cloud Services in a Context-Aware Application

We investigated context-awareness by utilising multiple sources of context in a mobile device setting. In our experiment we developed a system consisting of a mobile client, running on the Android platform, integrated with a cloud-based service. These components were integrated using pushmessaging technology.One of the key featureswas the automatic adaptation of smartphones in accordance with implicit user needs. The novelty of our approach consists in the use of multiple sources of context input to the system, which included the use of calendar data and web based user configuration tool, as well as that of an external, cloud-based, configuration file storing user interface preferences which, pushed at log-on time irrespective of access device, frees the user from having to manually configure its interface.The systemwas evaluated via two rounds of user evaluations (n = 50 users), the feedback of which was generally positive and demonstrated the viability of using cloud-based services to provide an enhanced context-aware user experience

Mobile application platform heterogeneity: Android vs Windows phone vs iOS vs Firefox OS

Modern 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

Context-aware and automatic configuration of mobile devices in cloud-enabled ubiquitous computing

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00779-013-0698-3. Copyright @ Springer-Verlag London 2013.Context-sensitive (or aware) applications have, in recent years, moved from the realm of possibilities to that of ubiquity. One exciting research area that is still very much in the realm of possibilities is that of cloud computing, and in this paper, we present our work, which explores the overlap of these two research areas. Accordingly, this paper explores the notion of cross-source integration of cloud-based, context-aware information in ubiquitous computing through a developed prototypical solution. Moreover, the described solution incorporates remote and automatic configuration of Android smartphones and advances the research area of context-aware information by harvesting information from several sources to build a rich foundation on which algorithms for context-aware computation can be based. Evaluation results show the viability of integrating and tailoring contextual information to provide users with timely, relevant and adapted application behaviour and content

Multi-dimensional criteria for testing web services transactions

Web services (WS) transactions are important in order to reliably compose distributed and autonomous services into composite web services and to ensure that their execution is consistent and correct. But such transactions are generally complex and they require longer processing time, and manipulate critical data. Thus various techniques have been developed in order to perform quality assessment of WS transactions in terms of response time efficiency, failure recovery and throughput. This paper focuses on the testing aspect of WS transactions - another key quality issue that has not been examined in the literature. Accordingly it proposes multi-dimensional criteria for testing the WS transactions. The proposed criteria have the potential to capture the behaviour of WS transactions and to analyse and classify the possible (failure) situations that effect the execution of such transactions. These criteria are used to generate various test cases and to provide (WS transactions) ! tester with flexibility of adjusting the method in terms of test efforts and effectiveness. The proposed criteria have been designed, implemented and evaluated through a case study and a number of experiments have been performed. The evaluation shows that these criteria have the capability to effectively generate test cases for testing WS transactions as well as enable tester to decide on the trade-off between test efforts and the quality

Atomicity in the Internet of Transactional Things (Io2T)

© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Like other software components, IoT things are likely to collaborate with each other in order to attain a desirable business goal. This sort of collaboration in a cyber-physical surrounding dictates a special transactional model that warrants further study and investigation. In this paper, we argue that the atomicity model (i.e., all or none execution) that is witnessed in other fields cannot be fully exercised in the context of IoT. To that end, a more relaxing model (semi-atomicity) is introduced and is more amenable to the various duties associated with things in terms of sensing, actuating, and communicating. These duties are carried out under different transactional properties. to which things bind. A case study along with a set of experiments demonstrate the benefits of semi-atomicity in the context of IoT

Priority scheduling service for E-commerce web servers

Service scheduling is one of the crucial issues in E-commerce environment. E-commerce web servers often get overloaded as they have to deal with a large number of customers’ requests—for example, browse, search, and pay, in order to make purchases or to get product information from E-commerce web sites. In this paper, we propose a new approach in order to effectively handle high traffic load and to improve web server’s performance. Our solution is to exploit networking techniques and to classify customers’ requests into different classes such that some requests are prioritised over others. We contend that such classification is financially beneficial to E-commerce services as in these services some requests are more valuable than others. For instance, the processing of “browse” request should get less priority than “payment” request as the latter is considered to be more valuable to the service provider. Our approach analyses the arrival process of distinct requests and employs a priority scheduling service at the network nodes that gives preferential treatment to high priority requests. The proposed approach is tested through various experiments which show significant decrease in the response time of high priority requests. This also reduces the probability of dropping high priority requests by a web server and thus enabling service providers to generate more revenue

Transaction processing in consistency-aware user’s applications deployed on NoSQL databases

NoSQL databases are capable of storing and processing big data which is characterized by various properties such as volume, variety and velocity. Such databases are used in a variety of user applications that need large volume of data which is highly available and efficiently accessible. But they do not enforce or require strong data consistency nor do they support transactions. This paper investigates into the transaction processing in consistency-aware applications hosted on MongoDB and Riak which are two representatives of Document and Key-Value NoSQL databases, respectively. It develops new transaction schemes in order to provide NoSQL databases with transactional facilities as well as to analyze the effects of transactions on data consistency and efficiency in user’s applications. The proposed schemes are evaluated using the YCSB + T benchmark which is based on Yahoo! Cloud Services Benchmark (YCSB). Experimental results show that using the proposed schemes, strong consistency can be achieved in MongoDB and Riak without severely affecting their efficiency. We also conduct experiments in order to analyse the level of consistencyof MongoDB and Riak transactional systems

Preparedness of Australian and British nurses and midwives about domestic violence and abuse

BACKGROUND: Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) is a major health problem that affects individuals across the world. Nurses, midwives and healthcare providers need to be confident and competent in identifying and responding to DVA. AIMS: To measure current levels of knowledge, opinions and preparedness towards DVA and how it is managed by registered nurses and midwives residing in Australia and the UK. METHODS: A cross-sectional study design was used. Data were collected using the Physician Readiness to Manage Intimate Partner Violence Survey (PREMIS) measuring the perceived preparation and knowledge, actual knowledge, opinions and practice issues. Australian data were collected in 2018 and UK data were collected in 2017-2018. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data and differences in knowledge and attitudes of British and Australian nurses. FINDINGS: Nurses and midwives (n = 368; 130 from Australia; 238 from the UK) responded to the survey. Minimal previous DVA training was reported by the participants. Participants had minimal knowledge about DVA, though had a positive attitude towards engaging with women experiencing DVA. DISCUSSION: Most participants felt unprepared to ask relevant questions about DVA and had inadequate knowledge about available resources. Australian participants scored better than British participants; however, the mean difference in all aspects remained statistically insignificant. CONCLUSION: Australian and British nurses and midwives have a positive attitude towards women experiencing DVA; however, the knowledge and skills to support women experiencing DVA are limited. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING POLICY: Nursing institutions should develop strategic policies regarding mandatory preparation and training of nurses for domestic violence assessment and management