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Smartphones are indispensable in people's daily activities, and smartphone apps tend to be increasingly concurrent due to the wide use of multi-core devices and technologies. Due to this tendency, developers are increasingly unable to tackle the complexity of concurrent apps and to avoid subtle concurrency bugs. To better address this issue, we propose a novel approach to detecting concurrency bugs in Android apps based on the fact that one can generate simultaneous input events and their schedules for an app, which would easily trigger concurrency bugs in an app. We conduct systematic state space exploration to find potentially conflicting resource accesses in an Android app. The app is then automatically pressure-tested by guided event and schedule generation. We implemented our prototype tool named AATT+ and evaluated it with two sets of real-world Android apps. Benchmarking using 15 Android apps with previously known concurrency bugs, AATT+ and existing concurrency-unaware techniques detected 10 and 1 bugs, respectively. Evaluated with another set of 17 popular Android apps, AATT+ detected 11 concurrency bugs and 7 of them were previously unknown, achieving an over 80% higher detection rate than existing concurrency-unaware techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, LEGO may be regarded as the best toys that ever existed. It not only appeals to people of all ages, but also encourages creativity and innovation. The popularity of LEGO entails the introduction of a range of computer applications that simulate this toy. However, assembling by mouse and keyboard is not more interesting than playing a real LEGO toy. Recently, with the development of interactive virtual reality technology, many novel acquisition devices like Leap Motion and Kinect have been introduced which allow the user to control the device without touching the keyboard, the mouse, or the screen. In this paper, we present a VR application that simulates a real LEGO toy, and players can interact with this application via Leap Motion device. In other words, the player can use both hands to control the in-game objects including LEGO bricks, game camera, and even GUI. Also, we propose a set of gestures which enable the user to perform and memorize easily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software piracy is an important concern for application developers. Such concerns are especially relevant in mobile application development, where piracy rates can be greater than 90%. The most common approach used by mobile developers to prevent piracy is code obfuscation. However, the decision to apply such transformations is currently made without regard to the impacts of obfuscations on another area of increasing concern for mobile application developers, energy usage. Because both software piracy and battery life are important concerns, mobile application developers must strike a balance between protecting their applications and preserving the battery lives of their users' devices. To help them make such choices, we conducted an empirical study of the effects of 18 code obfuscations on the amount of energy consumed by executing a total of 21 usage scenarios spread across 11 Android applications on four different mobile phone platforms. The results of the study indicate that, while obfuscations can have a statistically significant impact on energy usage and are more likely to increase energy usage than to decrease energy usage, the magnitudes of such impacts are unlikely to be meaningful to mobile application users. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a recommendation mechanism for taxi-sharing. The first aim of our model is to respectively recommend taxis and passengers for picking up passengers quickly and finding taxis easily. The second purpose is providing taxi-sharing service for passengers who want to save the payment. In our method, we analyze the historical global positioning system trajectories generated by 10,357 taxis during 110 days and present the service region with time-dependent R-Tree. We formulate the problem of choosing the paths among the taxis in the same region by using non-cooperative game theory, and find out the solution of this game which is known as Nash equilibrium. The simulation of SUMO, MOVE, and TraCI are adopted to fit our model to verify the proposed recommendation mechanism. The results show that our method can find taxis and passengers efficiently. In addition, applying our method can reduce the payment of passengers and increase the taxi revenue by taxi-sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a new approach to interactive spatial sonification of multidimensional data as a tool for spatial sound synthesis, for composing temporal--spatial musical materials, and as an auditory display for scientists to analyze multidimensional data sets in time and space. The approach applies parameter-mapping sonification and is currently implemented in an application called Cheddar, which was programmed in Max/MSP. Cheddar sonifies data in real time, where the user can modify a wide variety of temporal, spatial, and sonic parameters during the listening process, and thus more easily uncover patterns and processes in the data than when applying non-real-time, noninteractive techniques. The design draws on existing literature concerning perception and acoustics, and it applies the author's practical experience in acousmatic composition, spectromorphology, and sound semantics, while addressing accuracy, flexibility, and ease of use. Although previous sonification applications have addressed some degree of real-time control and spatialization, this approach integrates space and sound in an interactive framework. Spatial information is sonified in high-order 3-D ambisonics, where the user can interactively move the virtual listening position to reveal details easily missed from fixed or noninteractive spatial views. Sounds used as input to the sonification take advantage of the rich spectra and extramusical attributes of acoustic sources, which, although previously theorized, are investigated here in a practical context thoroughly tested alongside acoustic and psychoacoustic considerations. Furthermore, when using Cheddar, no specialized knowledge of programming, acoustics, or psychoacoustics is required. These approaches position Cheddar at the junction between science and art. With one application serving both disciplines, the patterns and processes of science are more fluently appropriated into music or sound art, and vice versa for scientific research, science public outreach, and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A compact dual-band antenna for smart wristbands was proposed. The proposed antenna consisted of a shorted hook-shaped radiating element and a rectangular ground plane. The antenna satisfied the −10 dB reflection coefficient bandwidth requirement in WLAN (2.45/5.8 GHz) bands both in free space and on the arm phantom. The gain of the proposed antenna was greater than 2 dBi at the center frequency of each operating band. To apply the proposed antenna to a practical smart wristband, a battery was considered in this letter. This antenna attained a multiband performance and size miniaturization compared with an existing antenna used for a commercially available smart wristband. In addition, the specific absorption rate (SAR) of the proposed antenna was analyzed. The experimental and simulated results of the proposed antenna were in good agreement. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:1462-1466, 2016 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased use of smart devices has led to rapid growth in the application (app) market. Many apps have taken advantage of push service to provide real-time notifications to smart device users. In this paper, it is described the operation mechanisms and quality measurement results for two represented push services, Apple Push Notification service and Google Cloud Messaging. The connection management scheme, push transmission delay, retransmission delay, and throughput are examined. In addition, it is discussed the loss behavior of back-to-back push messages due to the small buffer and the abnormal behavior of push service due to Network Address Translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking into consideration the fact that the system management is in a continuous development, the help, based on technological means, is lead to the organizational domain. The lack of a proportioned system, organizationally speaking, leads, in most cases, to the decrease of the students' performance. This is how we intervene in this process: we come up with new ideas to improve the current plethora of technological means. The gap between students and their professors could be removed with only a click or at the push of a button. The platform is intended to come in handy to the needs of the students, as well as the professors' needs, through building a bridge that assures the communication between those two parties in real time. Using the user's location, the application would facilitate his access to the rooms in which he has to study, providing input of the current location and the finish location. Such an application should be introduced in any organization whose activities are happening in an internal space. This would ensure that the human circuit is going smoothly without any stops, because it would reduce the response time. The time, taken as a reaction time, is the most important measuring unit in the area of technology, and therefore, if we can shorten it through this application, it would be innovative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the problem of efficiently executing streaming applications on commodity processors composed of several cores and an on-chip GPU. Streaming applications, such as those in vision and video analytic, consist of a pipeline of stages and are good candidates to take advantage of this type of platforms. We also consider that characteristics of the input may change while the application is running. Therefore, we propose a framework that adaptively finds the optimal mapping of the pipeline stages. The core of the framework is an analytical model coupled with information collected at runtime used to dynamically map each pipeline stage to the most efficient device, taking into consideration both performance and energy. Our experimental results show that for the evaluated applications running on two different architectures, our model always predicts the best configuration among the evaluated alternatives, and significantly reduces the amount of information that needs to be collected at runtime. This best configuration has, on the average, 20 percent higher throughput than the configuration recommended by a baseline state of the art approach, while the ratio throughput/energy is 43 percent higher. We have measured improvements in throughput and throughput/energy of up-to 81 and 204 percent, respectively, when the model is used to adapt to a video that changes from low to high definition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Availability and performance are key issues in SOA cloud applications. Those applications can be represented as a graph spanning multiple Cloud and onpremises environments, forming a very complex computing system that supports increasing numbers and types of users, business transactions, and usage scenarios. In order to rapidly find, predict, and proactively prevent root causes of issues, such as performance degradations and runtime errors, we developed a monitoring solution which is able to elicit the end-to-end behavior of those applications. We insert lightweight components into SOA frameworks and clients thereby keeping the monitoring impact minimal. Monitoring data collected from call chains is used to assist in issues related to performance, errors and alerts, as well as business and IT transactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is easy to decompile Android applications (or apps) owing to the structural characteristics of the app building process, but this ease makes them quite vulnerable to forgery or modification attacks. In particular, users may suffer direct financial loss if this vulnerability is exploited in security-critical private and business applications, such as online banking. One of the solutions to these problems is a code obfuscation technique. In this regard, DexGuard, which is based on ProGuard, which is integrated into the Android software development kit build system, has recently been introduced. Although DexGuard protects Android applications more effectively, an attacker is still able to analyze the hex code of a Dalvix Executable file. To resolve this weakness, we begin by analyzing the DexGuard tool from both a static and dynamic point of view. Our analysis reveals that DexGuard has some weaknesses. In this paper, we propose an obfuscation technique based on a client/server model with one-time secret key delivery using short message service or network protocol. The main concept is to store the core execute class file through obfuscation on the server, so when a program needs to execute core routines, it must request these routines from the server. In this way, we can protect Android apps from reverse engineering. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 100 individuals, this study examined the role of performance attributions (stability and locus of causality) and computer self-efficacy (CSE) for spreadsheets and databases in the training context. The results show that both self-efficacy and attributions (locus of causality and stability) for unsuccessful performance on one software package affected future efficacy estimations for both the same software package (spreadsheet) as well as for a related software package (database). These findings extend previous research by illustrating that through the generality of CSE estimations, users' performance on one software package are related to self-efficacy estimations on a different, distally similar, software application. This suggests that trainers and managers cannot overlook the importance of self-efficacy generality in the design of technology training initiatives. Early, unsuccessful experiences for those with limited technology experience can make it more challenging to adapt to, and learn to use, new technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

bioBakery is a meta'omic analysis environment and collection of individual software tools with the capacity to process raw shotgun sequencing data into actionable microbial community feature profiles, summary reports, and publication-ready figures. It includes a collection of preconfigured analysis modules also joined into workflows for reproducibility. Availability and implementation: bioBakery (http://huttenhower.sph.harvard.edu/biobakery) is publicly available for local installation as individual modules and as a virtual machine image. Each individual module has been developed to perform a particular task (e.g. quantitative taxonomic profiling or statistical analysis) and they are provided with source code, tutorials, demonstration data and validation results; the bioBakery virtual image includes the entire suite of modules and their dependencies pre-installed. Images are available for both Amazon EC2 and Google Compute Engine. All software is open source under the MIT license. bioBakery is actively maintained with a support group at biobakery-users@googlegroups.com and new tools being added upon their release. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper there are presented application modules which could be important and possible only for a particular business model, or which, in the meantime, can become important for entrepreneurs and young companies. The "can have" application modules can but do not have to be the IT part of a young or a start-up company from the very beginning. Each module must be evaluated, and it must be established if it is immediately necessary for the business or it can be implemented later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uploading and downloading content have recently become one of the major reasons for the growth of Internet traffic volume. With the increasing popularity of social networking tools and their video upload/download applications, as well as the connectivity enhancements in wireless networks, it has become a second nature for mobile users to access on-demand content on-the-go. Urban hot spots, usually implemented via wireless relays, answer the bandwidth need of those users. On the other hand, the same popular contents are usually acquired by a large number of users at different times, and fetching those from the initial content source each and every time makes inefficient use of network resources. In-network caching provides a solution to this problem by bringing contents closer to the users. Although in-network caching has been previously studied from latency and transport energy minimization perspectives, energy-efficient schemes to prolong user equipment lifetime have not been considered. To address this problem, we propose the cache-at-relay (CAR) scheme, which utilizes wireless relays for in-network caching of popular contents with content access and caching energy minimization objectives. CAR consists of three integer linear programming models, namely, select relay, place content, and place relay, which respectively solve content access energy minimization, joint minimization of content access and caching energy, and joint minimization of content access energy and relay deployment cost problems. We have shown that place relay significantly minimizes the content access energy consumption of user equipments, while place content provides a compromise between the content access and the caching energy budgets of the network. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author researches on the application of data mining algorithm based on decision tree. Compared with other classification methods, decision tree has the following advantages: relatively smaller calculation workload, the ease of getting apparent rules, the capability of showing important decision characteristics and higher correctness of classification, etc. However, the existing decision tree algorithm also exists a lot of shortage when being applied in practice, such as its lower computation efficiency and bigger scale of decision tree, etc. Attribute reduction algorithm ER based on the degree of dependency of attribute and post-pruning algorithm Prune based on rough set theory are proposed. Finally, the optimized decision tree algorithm is used in supplier measurement system, and its validity is verified when comparing with other algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a novel multi-granular application management platform between PaaS and IaaS layers that uses application virtualization techniques. A multi-core-aware parallel scheduling model is then investigated on the platform. Assisted by fine-grained application units, new functions can be created by combining the application units in different granularities based on business requirements. The multi-core-aware parallel scheduling model was developed to process application requests, and not only increases system flexibility and applicability but also improves fine-grained computing resource allocation, resource utilization of the fundamental infrastructure, and system throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An undergraduate analytical chemistry course has been adapted to a flipped course format. Course content was provided by video clips, text, graphics, audio, and simple animations organized as concept maps using the cloud-based presentation platform, Prezi. The advantages of using Prezi to present course content in a flipped course format are discussed. Results of an American Chemical Society analytical chemistry examination were encouraging. Results of pre- and postsurveys of student perception of their learning are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In rating systems like Epinions and Amazon's product review systems, users rate items on different topics to yield item scores. Traditionally, item scores are estimated by averaging all the ratings with equal weights. To improve the accuracy of estimated item scores, user reputation [a.k.a., user reputation (UR)] is incorporated. The existing algorithms on UR, however, have underplayed the role of topics in rating systems. In this paper, we first reveal that UR is topic-biased from our empirical investigation. However, existing algorithms cannot capture this characteristic in rating systems. To address this issue, we propose a topic-biased model (TBM) to estimate UR in terms of different topics as well as item scores. With TBM, we develop six topic-biased algorithms, which are subsequently evaluated with experiments using both real-world and synthetic data sets. Results of the experiments demonstrate that the topic-biased algorithms effectively estimate UR across different topics and produce more robust item scores than previous reputation-based algorithms, leading to potentially more robust rating systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Good icons are legible, and legible icons are scale-dependent. Experienced icon designers use a set of common strategies to create legible scale variations of icons, but executing those strategies with current tools can be challenging. In part, this is because many apparent objects, like hairlines formed by negative space, are not explicitly represented as objects in vector drawings. We present transient widgets as a mechanism for selecting and manipulating apparent objects that is independent of the underlying drawing representation. We implement transient widgets using a constraint-based editing framework; demonstrate their utility for performing the kinds of edits most common when producing scale variations of icons; and report qualitative feedback on the system from professional icon designers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a Bayes' classification computer application that would help biomass managers optimize their marketing decision making. Programmed in Mathematica, this decision tool would help managers understand the size of the high potential market at the US county level: number of households that would be receptive to a telemarketing / direct marketing campaign about pellet heating appliances, for example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we present methods and algorithms for constructing an efficient IDE in the sense that the processing costs of reanalyzing source code after change is minimal. Moreover, we show that these methods and algorithms can be designed in a way that they support iterative realization, hence, they fit better to the current trends of iterative software development life-cycle. We also show how these algorithms can be built into an existing system and we show measurements on performance benefits. The proposed methods were validated in the telecommunication area for compiling TTCN-3 code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A liberal amount of software applications are in market for generating a sketch out of an image, the vice-versa though is unacquainted. Whereas such an implementation will prove to be purposive to the crime investigation departments. Such a youthful approach for generating an image from a sketch is suggested in this paper by following a process of, breaking down the sketch into constituent or component of face, matching or comparing these features with the available database, selecting the best match followed by registering or pasting these image components on a blank face image, performing filtering algorithm in order to perform smoothening of image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Medical apps are widely available, increasingly used by patients and clinicians, and are being actively promoted for use in routine care. However, there is little systematic evidence exploring possible risks associated with apps intended for patient use. Because self-medication errors are a recognized source of avoidable harm, apps that affect medication use, such as dose calculators, deserve particular scrutiny. We explored the accuracy and clinical suitability of apps for calculating medication doses, focusing on insulin calculators for patients with diabetes as a representative use for a prevalent long-term condition. Methods: We performed a systematic assessment of all English-language rapid/short-acting insulin dose calculators available for iOS and Android. Results: Searches identified 46 calculators that performed simple mathematical operations using planned carbohydrate intake and measured blood glucose. While 59% (n = 27/46) of apps included a clinical disclaimer, only 30% (n = 14/46) documented the calculation formula. 91% (n = 42/46) lacked numeric input validation, 59% (n = 27/46) allowed calculation when one or more values were missing, 48% (n = 22/46) used ambiguous terminology, 9% (n = 4/46) did not use adequate numeric precision and 4% (n = 2/46) did not store parameters faithfully. 67% (n = 31/46) of apps carried a risk of inappropriate output dose recommendation that either violated basic clinical assumptions (48%, n = 22/46) or did not match a stated formula (14%, n = 3/21) or correctly update in response to changing user inputs (37%, n = 17/46). Only one app, for iOS, was issue-free according to our criteria. No significant differences were observed in issue prevalence by payment model or platform. Conclusions: The majority of insulin dose calculator apps provide no protection against, and may actively contribute to, incorrect or inappropriate dose recommendations that put current users at risk of both catastrophic overdose and more subtle harms resulting from suboptimal glucose control. Healthcare professionals should exercise substantial caution in recommending unregulated dose calculators to patients and address app safety as part of self-management education. The prevalence of errors attributable to incorrect interpretation of medical principles underlines the importance of clinical input during app design. Systemic issues affecting the safety and suitability of higher-risk apps may require coordinated surveillance and action at national and international levels involving regulators, health agencies and app stores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The verification of embedded software has become an important subject over the last years. However, neither standalone verification approaches, like simulation-based/formal verification, nor state-of-the-art semiformal verification approaches are able to verify large and complex embedded software with or without hardware dependencies. This work presents a scalable hybrid verification approach for the verification of embedded software using a semiformal algorithm optimized with static parameter assignment (SPA). These algorithms and methodologies like SPA and counterexample guided simulation are used to combine simulation-based and formal verification in a new way. SPA offers a method to interact between dynamic and static verification approaches based on an automated ranking determination of possible function parameters according to the impact on the model size. Furthermore, SPA inserts initialization code for specific function parameters into the source code under test and supports model building and optimization algorithms to reduce the state space. We have successfully applied this optimized hybrid verification methodology to embedded software applications: Motorola's Powerstone Benchmark suite and a complex automotive industrial embedded software. The results show that our approach scales better than standalone software model checkers to reach deep state spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assessed the access, use and preferences of information and communication technology (ICT) by physicians who practice at Cayetano Heredia National Hospital. The questionnaire explored the availability and skills of ICT, time, educational activities, search engines and technological applications most used as well as ICT preferences in education.211 physicians were surveyed; laptop use was 93%, tablet and smartphone use was 66% and 88%.68% have mobile Internet. Differences were evident in the frequency of use of ICT in 25-34 year old age group as well as a higher level of skills (p<0.05). 86% use PubMed, Facebook and WhatsApp as a means of exchanging images and data related to health, 50% participated in medical blogs, online courses or videoconferences. The use and access of ICT is common among doctors in this hospital and there is positive interest in its use in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Although the smartphone application market has been growing with amazing speed, the study of the market is still in its infancy. Perhaps the major reason for this fact is the difficulty of obtaining real data concerning how such applications are downloaded and removed by users along the time axis. Recently, Fuller, Inc., in Japan developed a software package called "Uncle Smartphone." The corporation operates a software development company; develops, manufactures, and sells mobile phone applications; and also provides Internet media services. "Uncle Smartphone" enables the company to acquire information about which smartphone applications are downloaded to and removed from the devices that are registered with the customer's agreement. Using this data set, Sumita Research Laboratory at the University of Tsukuba has been conducting a joint research project with Fuller, Inc., to explore the smartphone application market in Japan. As part of the accomplishments that this joint project has achieved so far, this paper develops an algorithm for estimating the probability distribution of the number of downloads of a smartphone application based on the Markov chain approach. This kind of information is quite useful for smartphone application developers, since, for example, it becomes possible to understand the life cycle of their applications. Numerical results are presented based on real data, demonstrating the validity of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing appropriate clock synchronization schemes and maintaining time consistency among many sensor nodes are crucial for novel distributed applications environments such as Internet of Thing (IoT). However, analyzing the various factors leading to clock inconsistency should be conducted first. The traditional analysis methods are primarily experiential and qualitative, and dynamic disturbances existing among the factors are not considered; moreover, the emerging IoT is rapidly evolving in terms of large-scale feature, service-oriented trend, complexity, and dynamics. Such developments present difficulties in the use of traditional methods in IoT for the analysis of factorial effects on system clocks. To remedy these problems, we propose a novel dynamic evolution model called clock finite state automata (CFSA) using formal methods, exhibiting the overall changing processes of global clock states. We also develop a clock consistency evolution algorithm using CFSA to quantitatively evaluate the influencing factors. The experimental evaluation shows that network delay (41.4% on average) is the greatest impact factor; the frequent entry and exit of the sensor nodes (29.9%) are the second greatest, and the oscillator jitter of computers (11.1%) is the least impact factor. Compared with traditional analysis methods, our method has good feasibility, effectiveness, and novelty. The analysis results can guide the designers of new clock synchronization algorithms for distributed sensor nodes in IoT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The main purpose of this study is the transformation of existing theoretical knowledge about management support systems (MSS) into an innovative software application that can solve management problems more effective. By using the application, managers should be able to control their hospitals as well as find strategies more easily and thereby improve the performance of their organisations. Methods: The study provides a short literature review of the existing theories and practical applications in the field of MSS as well as viable system models (VSM). Further, the study outlines an action research design considering the development of the MSS tool as well as the software application. Data of 2,000 hospitals with more than 300 different variables are collected to build up the required databases for the MSS-Tool. Therefore, different data sources have been used. On the one hand official statistics from the federal statistical office and on the other hand public available data such as public quality reports, patient satisfaction statistics, public available annual reports and data from the hospital report published by the health insurance AOK. Results and Conclusion The developed software will present a new way of transforming existing management knowledge to managers and their teams. The opportunity of generating a strategy based on the data of the best performing hospitals in the market and the possibility for managers to individualize these strategies to their own institution is innovative. The implemented communication tool will give managers the ability to collaborate with their teams in an efficient way. The software application will be online at the end of 2015. Further research will be needed to validate the software application. Therefore, researcher can use the already drawn research design (action taking part) and the collected data. The objective is to test whether the developed MSS Tool can indeed improve the performance of hospitals significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alias analysis, which determines whether two expressions in a program may reference to the same object, has many potential applications in program construction and verification. We have developed a theory for alias analysis, the “alias calculus”, implemented its application to an object-oriented language, and integrated the result into a modern IDE. The calculus has a higher level of precision than many existing alias analysis techniques. One of the principal applications is to allow automatic change analysis , which leads to inferring “modifies” clauses, providing a significant advance towards addressing the Frame Problem. Experiments were able to infer the “modifies” clauses of an existing formally specified library. Other applications, in particular to concurrent programming, also appear possible. The article presents the calculus, the application to frame inference including experimental results, and other projected applications. The ongoing work includes building more efficient model capturing aliasing properties and soundness proof for its essential elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Event-driven programming in large scale environments is becoming a common requirement of modern distributed applications. It introduces some beneficial effects such as real-time state updates and replications, which enable new kinds of applications and efficient architectural solutions. However, these benefits could be compromised if the adopted infrastructure were not designed to ensure efficient delivery of events and related data. This paper presents an architectural model, a middleware (WS-Link) and annotation-based mechanisms to ensure high performance in delivering events carrying large attachments. We transparently decouple event notification from related data to avoid useless data-transfers. This way, while event notifications are routed in a conventional manner through an event service, data are directly and transparently transferred from publishers to subscribers. The theoretical analysis shows that we can reduce the average event delivery time by half, compared to a conventional approach requiring the full mediation of the event service. The experimental analysis confirms that the proposed approach outperforms the conventional one (both for throughput and delivery time) even though the middleware overhead, introduced by the specific adopted model, slightly reduces the expected benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile applications (apps) are software developed for use on mobile devices and made available through app stores. App stores are highly competitive markets where developers need to cater to a large number of users spanning multiple countries. This work hypothesizes that there exist country differences in mobile app user behavior and conducts one of the largest surveys to date of app users across the world, in order to identify the precise nature of those differences. The survey investigated user adoption of the app store concept, app needs, and rationale for selecting or abandoning an app. We collected data from more than 15 countries, including USA, China, Japan, Germany, France, Brazil, United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, India, Canada, Spain, Australia, Mexico, and South Korea. Analysis of data provided by 4,824 participants showed significant differences in app user behaviors across countries, for example users from USA are more likely to download medical apps, users from the United Kingdom and Canada are more likely to be influenced by price, users from Japan and Australia are less likely to rate apps. Analysis of the results revealed new challenges to market-driven software engineering related to packaging requirements, feature space, quality expectations, app store dependency, price sensitivity, and ecosystem effect. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The proliferation of mobile technologies and apps raises questions for researchers in the field of educational technology. Many apps are marketed as having impact on learning or therapeutic outcome in populations with additional support needs. This paper briefly outlines three possible academic responses to the rise of therapeutic technologies for vulnerable populations. These are: reviewing existing scientific evidence to inform design; knowledge exchange with consumers and commercial partners; and rigorous evaluation of technologies in an academic context. The examples are drawn from autism research, but have implications for the evaluation of technologies generally, and for provision of guidance to various user communities. Better communication and closer working between developers, researchers and consumers is necessary to ensure relevant research outcomes and evidence-based practice in educational technology. The paper concludes with concrete recommendations for researchers in Education, Psychology, or Computer Science in carrying out work relevant to commercial enterprise and consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the importance that geography plays in our understanding of economics, history, and politics, it has been argued that the subject should be taught to students beginning at the early elementary level, usually focusing on the family unit and local communities. However, when the proper technology tools and strategies are used, students at the kindergarten level can learn more complex concepts of geography and other social studies ideas and Common Core Standards. This article is a narrative about how a kindergarten teacher's discovery of “website widgets” brought the world to her classroom while helping her students learn important social studies knowledge and skills. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent years, the use of iPads® and their applications (apps) in special education has increased with little empirical evidence to support their use by students with disabilities. Educators need a system to select appropriate apps for their students and to provide suggestions to parents who express interest in educational apps. This study sought to test the user friendliness of a prototype rubric designed for screening/evaluating iPad apps intended for educational use by students with disabilities. Eight school practitioners participated in a test to evaluate the usability of a prototype app rubric. A total of nine commercially available iPad apps designed for students with disabilities were evaluated. The usability test showed the rubric was a useful instrument in supporting app selection. Practitioner concerns and recommendations were taken into consideration for improving the functionality of the evaluation rubric for educational iPad apps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being able to combine static and dynamic typing within the same language has clear benefits in order to support the evolution of prototypes or scripts into mature robust programs. While being an emblematic dynamic object-oriented language, Smalltalk is lagging behind in this regard. We report on the design, implementation and application of Gradualtalk, a gradually-typed Smalltalk meant to enable incremental typing of existing programs. The main design goal of the type system is to support the features of the Smalltalk language, like metaclasses and blocks, live programming, and to accommodate the programming idioms used in practice. We studied a number of existing projects in order to determine the features to include in the type system. As a result, Gradualtalk is a practical approach to gradual types in Smalltalk, with a novel blend of type system features that accommodate most programming idioms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementing UIs is often a tedious task. To address this, UI Builders have been proposed to support the description of widgets, their location, and their logic. A missing aspect of UI Builders is however the ability to reuse and compose widget logic. In our experience, this leads to a significant amount of duplication in UI code. To address this issue, we built Spec: a UIBuilder for Pharo with a focus on reuse. With Spec, widget properties are defined declaratively and attached to specific classes known as composable classes. A composable class defines its own widget description as well as the model-widget bridge and widget interaction logic. This paper presents Spec, showing how it enables seamless reuse of widgets and how these can be customized. After presenting Spec and its implementation, we discuss how its use in Pharo 2.0 has cut in half the amount of lines of code of six of its tools, mostly through reuse. This shows that Spec meets its goals of allowing reuse and composition of widget logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a LabVIEW application performed to determine errors simulated with Continental Teves MK 60 stand. This stand is a simulator which can be studied in the laboratory the brake system with ABS / ESP in Audi and Volkswagen vehicles. The stand allows the simulation of errors that occur in braking systems of these vehicles and the braking system performs diagnostics individual situation. Reading memory errors made using a tester. Tester connection is made via a 16-pin connector to standard VAG. Automatic diagnostics and fault memory read VCDS VAG-COM, are recommended VAG 5051 or VAG 5052 tester. Lacking such a tester, I realized the Labview software enabling fault diagnosis introduced this stand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]