An MDD-based method for building context-aware applications with high reusability

Adding context-awareness capabilities to modern mobile and pervasive computing applications is becoming a mainstream activity in the software engineering community. In this respect, many context models and middleware architectures have been proposed with the aim to provide the developers with tools and abstractions that make it easier to produce context-aware applications. However, current solutions suffer from relatively low reusability and lack ease-of-use. In this paper, we propose a two-layer approach based on model-driven development: at the higher layer we introduce the design of reusable context plug-ins which can be used to monitor low-level context data and to infer higher-level information about the users, their computing infrastructure and their interaction. At the lower layer, the plug-ins themselves are synthesized using more elementary, reusable components. We argue that this development approach provides significant advantages to the developers, as it enables them to design, implement, re-use and maintain the code-base of context-aware apps more efficiently. To evaluate this approach, we demonstrate it in the context of a two-part case-study and assess it both qualitatively and quantitatively

Context awareness: Challenges and opportunities in modern smartphone use

Commonly, improvement to smart-phone technology focuses at advancing the connectivity of human users. This results to better and richer information access but, undeniably, it also increases the accessibility of the users themselves, something that could arguably have negative side-effects. This position paper discusses the potential of context awareness in modern smart-phones by presenting the challenges and opportunities in modern smartphone use. In particular, we examine the implications of the advanced network capabilities—and accompanying services—of modern smart-phones and list what we argue to be their main drawbacks. We then present our position which summarizes what we expect the role of context-awareness to be in modern smart-phone applications

Design and Evaluation of a Gamification-based Information System for Improving Student Attendance

Declining student attendance is a recurring concern in most educational environments, including tertiary education. Depending on the assumed cause of low attendance, different approaches have been proposed as a means of intervention for mitigating the problem. On the other hand, gamification is a relatively new approach that aims to increase engagement of participants in non-game contexts by utilizing techniques developed for and used in computer games. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that aims at intervening by applying gamification techniques for the purpose of increasing the extrinsic motivation for attendance in tertiary-level education settings. The approach is based on a cloud-based platform which features web and mobile clients. The main stakeholders are the lecturers, who can configure the environment, and the students who are the targeted participants. Unlike similar works, this approach aims at improving the student attendance at a wider scale, e.g. at the programme level rather than focusing on individual modules or classes. Additionally, it provides fine customization allowing the lecturers to opt in with custom settings. Finally, the paper describes some early results and paves the road for an extensive evaluation

An Open Platform for Studying and Testing Context-Aware Indoor Positioning Algorithms

This paper presents an open platform for studying and analyzing indoor positioning algorithms. While other such platforms exist, our proposal features novelties related to the collection and use of additional context data. The platform is realized in the form of a mobile client, currently implemented on Android. It enables manual collection of radio-maps—i.e. fingerprints of Wi-Fi signals—while also allowing for amending the fingerprints with various context data which could help improve the accuracy of positioning algorithms. While this is a research-in-progress platform, an initial experiment was carried out and its results were used to justify its applicability and relevance

Athlos: A Framework for Developing Scalable MMOG Backends on Commodity Clouds

The development of resource-intensive, distributed, real-time applications like Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) backends entails a variety of challenges, some of which have been extensively studied. Despite some advancements, the development and deployment of MMOG backends on commodity clouds and high-level computing layers continues to face several obstacles, including a non-standardized development methodology, lack of provisions for scalability, and the need for abstractions and tools to support the development process. In this paper, we describe a set of models, methods, and tools for developing scalable MMOG backends and hosting them on commodity cloud platforms. We present Athlos, a framework that allows game developers to leverage our methodology to rapidly prototype MMOG backends that can run on any type of cloud environment. We evaluate this framework by conducting simulations based on several case-study MMOGs to benchmark its performance and scalability, and compare the development effort needed, and quality of the code produced with other approaches. We find that MMOGs developed using this framework: (a) can support a very high number of simultaneous players under a given latency threshold, (b) elastically scale both in terms of runtime and state, and (c) significantly reduce the amount of effort required to develop them. Coupled with the advantages of high-level computing layers such as Platform, Backend, and Function-as-a-Service, we argue that our framework accelerates the development of high-performance, scalable MMOGs, that leverage the resources of commodity cloud platforms

PINSPOT: An oPen platform for INtelligent context-baSed Indoor POsiTioning

This work proposes PINSPOT; an open-access platform for collecting and sharing of context, algorithms and results in the cutting-edge area of indoor positioning. It is envisioned that this framework will become reference point for knowledge exchange which will bring the research community even closer and potentially enhance collaboration towards more effective and efficient creation of indoor positioning-related knowledge and innovation. Specifically, this platform facilitates the collection of sensor data useful for indoor positioning experimentation, the development of novel, self-learning, indoor positioning algorithms, as well as the enhancement and testing of existing ones and the dissemination and sharing of the proposed algorithms along with their configuration, the data used, and with their results

aMazeChallenge: An interactive multiplayer game for learning to code

The accelerating growth of technology in the last decades has led to an ever-increasing demand for computing professionals. At the same time, the number of computing graduates around the world grows at a slower pace, resulting to a bottleneck in the supply for industry vacancies. One of the many reasons for this is a common notion that programming is a tedious and daunting task that is relatively unrewarding. Despite that, extracurricular events such as Hour of Code and CodeWeek have been successful in attracting more young people to computing, and educational programming games hosted during these events have become very popular. In this paper, we report our experience with developing a multiplayer educational game called aMazeChallenge which aims to teach programming to students in a gameful environment. In our game, players must program an avatar to escape a virtual maze arena using simple instructions in a block-based programming language. aMazeChallenge utilizes public cloud infrastructure to enable code execution at the backend while players can participate using an Android client. Through aMazeChallenge, our objective is to engage students in a fun, competitive environment where they can learn the basic concepts of programming. Our preliminary results show that students enjoyed playing aMazeChallenge and that the game increased their awareness of programming concepts as well as of the significance of computing

A Systematic Mapping Study of MMOG Backend Architectures

The advent of utility computing has revolutionized almost every sector of traditional software development. Especially commercial cloud computing services, pioneered by the likes of Amazon, Google and Microsoft, have provided an unprecedented opportunity for the fast and sustainable development of complex distributed systems. Nevertheless, existing models and tools aim primarily for systems where resource usage—by humans and bots alike—is logically and physically quite disperse resulting in a low likelihood of conflicting resource access. However, a number of resource-intensive applications, such as Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) and large-scale simulations introduce a requirement for a very large common state with many actors accessing it simultaneously and thus a high likelihood of conflicting resource access. This paper presents a systematic mapping study of the state-of-the-art in software technology aiming explicitly to support the development of MMOGs, a class of large-scale, resource-intensive software systems.By examining the main focus of a diverse set of related publications, we identify a list of criteria that are important for MMOG development. Then, we categorize the selected studies based on the inferred criteria in order to compare their approach, unveil the challenges faced in each of them and reveal research trends that might be present. Finally we attempt to identify research directions which appear promising for enabling the use of standardized technology for this class of systems

Innovating Responsibly in ICT for Ageing: Drivers, Obstacles and Implementation

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) is a nascent concept, promoted actively by the European Union and other policy makers around the world. Hitherto, this concept has been associated primarily with publicly funded activities but given the considerable proportion of research and innovation that is undertaken in the private sector, RRI will be rendered irrelevant unless it is adopted by industry. This paper introduces a private sector perspective of RRI, specifically that of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, working in the field of healthy ageing. Drawing upon empirical data from 30 in-depth interviews with key industry representatives from across Europe, it explores: (a) the level of awareness of RRI; (b) the drivers and obstacles influencing its implementation; and (c) the factors deemed vital for facilitation of RRI in industry. The findings paint a varied picture, including significant concerns about adoption of RRI in an industry environment where the economic implications of all activities must be considered carefully. However, some companies have found their own ways to balance financial and altruistic goals, suggesting that there is both a willingness and a place for an RRI-type governance framework within the private sector

Testing self-adaptive applications with simulation of context events

Modern trends in mobile computing have raised the expectations of users in terms of such features such as context-awareness and self-adaptiveness. With such capabilities, applications can autonomously sense their context and automate a number of tasks, effectively reducing the attention required by the end users. This paper presents a custom simulation engine, designed to support the testing of applications developed using the MUSIC platform. The simulation tool consists of a platform-independent server module, deployed along with the application, and a client module which is responsible for interpreting and executing the simulation script. The use of the tool is demonstrated in the scope of the SatMotion application, which is designed to assist satellite antenna installers with specialized functionality