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In order to facilitate rapid development of context-aware applications, there is a need for architectural support in the entire context processing flow, and improved programming abstractions that ease the prototyping. In this paper, a toolkit called Semantic Space, is proposed to support rapid prototyping of context-aware applications via a set of programming abstractions on context processing. The functionality encapsulated in the toolkit handles the common, time-consuming and low-level details in context acquisition, aggregation, storage and inference. Architectural design and implementation issues of the Semantic Space toolkit are discussed in detail. Finally, a case study on building a mobile situation aware phone is described to illustrate the validity of our approach and usability of the toolkit.

Number of mobile devices such as Smartphones or Tablet PCs has been dramatically increased over the recent years. New mobile devices are equipped with integrated cameras and large displays that make the interaction with the device easier and more efficient. Although most of the previous works on interaction between humans and mobile devices are based on 2D touch-screen displays, camera-based interaction opens a new way to manipulate in 3D space behind the device in the camera's field of view. In this paper, our gestural interaction relies on particular patterns from local orientation of the image called rotational symmetries. This approach is based on finding the most suitable pattern from a large set of rotational symmetries of different orders that ensures a reliable detector for fingertips and user's gesture. Consequently, gesture detection and tracking can be used as an efficient tool for 3D manipulation in various virtual/augmented reality applications.

Since the emergence of mobile devices, the architecture of mobile applications has been transformed significantly. In mobile applications, the User Interface (UI) is one of the major elements, but its development is complex and time-consuming. Existing practices do not support various presentation issues of the UI at a higher abstraction level, in a retargetable fashion, with complete tool support. Therefore, it is critical to develop a simple and automated framework for the development of mobile UIs by exploiting model-driven engineering concepts. In this paper, a Unified Modeling language (UML) profile for Mobile User Interfaces (UMMUI) has been proposed, which employs some standard UML notations for representing the mobile UI requirements at a higher abstraction level. Subsequently, a complete open-source transformation engine has been developed to automatically transform the high-level source models (in UMMUI) into the target low-level React Native implementation. Finally, the applicability of the proposed framework is validated through two benchmark case studies, i.e., Patient Management System and Library Application. The results verify that the proposed framework allows the modeling of UIs with simplicity and generates the target code automatically with minimum transformation losses.

Software industry is turning toward endorsing application (app, in short) development due to the ubiquitous use and interest in this computing pattern. Increasing trend and popularity of mobile apps reveal several issues for the developers to address. Absence of a scientific developmental approach adds further issues to the apps development. There are millions of daily downloads, use and views on mobile apps, which give rise to an interesting phenomenon of apps acceptance by the user community. It is significant to note that users tend to reject or dislike apps that present challenges, owing to the issues in the apps, to them. Therefore, it is imperative to know the different issues that affect mobile ratings. In this paper, we have identified 14 issues by reviewing the relevant literature and collected the data from numerous mobile app stores to find the influence of the identified issues on mobile app ratings. Further, an interpretive structure modeling (ISM) approach is used to categorize the identified issues into four groups — dependent, driving, linkage and autonomous — for better understanding and further analysis. There are two objectives of this research paper: (1) to identify issues in apps which affect ratings and (2) to find out mutual relationship between dominating issues in mobile apps.

Today’s society is increasingly dependent on the use of mobile or smart devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets, hybrid devices, smart-TVs, smart-watches, among others), which have changed over these last 10 years the way people perform their daily tasks. In parallel, Internet of Things (IoT) systems have played a prominent position in this scenario, since they enable to exchange information among different types of devices and services (e.g. physical devices, vehicles, home appliances, sensors, among others). This scenario has boosted the demand for development of high-quality Mobile Applications (MobApps), which can be pre-installed on such devices during manufacturing platforms, or delivered as applications by the mobile stores or third parties. According to [1–3], mobile devices have some physical limitations (e.g. processing and storage) compared to personal computers. Thus, service-oriented MobApps have been a feasible alternative to overcome such limitations, improving the efficiency of the development life cycle of these applications with adoption of third-party components (e.g. software components, web services, and other mobile applications). In another perspective, it is also been noted a change in the user behavior of MobApps, which demand applications capable of operating in adverse conditions, maintaining their integrity of execution. Considering the relevance of such applications, this paper reports the extension of a framework to support the development of Self-adaptive Services-oriented MobApps (Self-MobApps), which enables modification of services at runtime [4] by means of a deployment dynamic approach. To show the feasibility of our framework, a case study for a smart restaurant was conducted in a mobile environment. The results of this study enable us to create a positive perspective on the contribution of our framework to the research communities involved.

Any physical space can be augmented with digital information, associated to various locations or artefacts contained in it. In this paper, an abstract architecture is presented, supporting interaction with mobile context aware applications in public digitally augmented spaces. We focus on how this architecture supports personalization of interaction and adaptation. The main goal of the architecture is to allow users to benefit of a uniform and personalized experience across different contexts and spaces. Among the concerns are: to support high interoperability and flexibility and to address issues of privacy and user control. The framework has been tested in typical augmented spaces: a library and a museum. The paper concludes with a set of examples of use of the defined framework that cover typical situations for intra-space and across spaces usage.

Users are increasingly relying on smartphones, hence concerns such as mobile app security, privacy, and correctness have become increasingly pressing. Software analysis has been successful in tackling many such concerns, albeit on other platforms, such as desktop and server. To fill this gap, he have developed infrastructural tools that permit a wide range of software analyses for the Android smartphone platform. Developing these tools has required surmounting many challenges unique to the smartphone platform: dealing with input non-determinism in sensor-oriented apps, non-standard control ow, low-overhead yet high-fidelity record-and-replay. Our tools can analyze substantial, widely-popular apps running directly on smartphones, and do not require access to the app’s source code. We will first present two tools (automated exploration, record-and-replay) that increase Android app reliability by allowing apps to be explored automatically, and bugs replayed or isolated. Next, we present several security applications of our infrastructure: a permission evolution study on the Android ecosystem; understanding and quantifying the risk posed by URL accesses in benign and malicious apps; app profiling to summarize app behavior; and Moving Target Defense for thwarting attacks.

From utilising the mobile applications to lessen the price and durations by abolition of displays of procedures and systems of governments, e-Government intends to deliver services to the private and public segments of the country’s communities through the use of mobile applications. Across the globe, every country, but particularly developing countries, is in search of the application and dispersal of e-Government services. This research study will specifically assess the effect of mobile applications have on e-Government services application in Jordan. The debate as to whether mobile applications trigger addiction within the public segment in Jordan will be closely investigated and analysed in this research study. A collaboration of data gathered from a random selection of the population of the Income and Sales Tax Department staff ($n=220$) exposes the fact that both the females and males from the random sample are likely to be using mobile applications for numerous hours each day. With this considered, the study also reveals that mobile applications have a substantial influence on the accomplishment of e-Government application within the public segment in Jordan.

Mobile applications (apps) have grown drastically since their birth in 2008. Acquiring more app users as quickly as possible after the app is released in the app stores is one of the key rules for app developers to survive in this emerging and competitive digital market. This paper uses cumulative weekly downloading data from the US Apple App Store during a two-year period of 2015 and 2016 to study the early expansion curves and diffusion patterns of mobile apps in the app market. Downloading payment methods (free or paid to download an app) and hedonic or utilitarian value-orientated app types (games and productivity apps) are considered when we study the diffusion pattern of mobile apps. The Bass model is used as the baseline model, and the logistic model and Gompertz model are used to conduct a robustness check. Nonlinear least squares (NLS) is the measurement to obtain parameters of diffusion models. The results show that the Bass model is the best-fitting model compared with the other two models, and the diffusion pattern of mobile apps is S-shaped at the market level. The first 35 weeks are essential for the app developers to attract app users’ downloads. More app data from different app stores and more diffusion models can be tested for mobile app diffusion and early expansion patterns in future research.

As our everyday financial interactions become increasingly digital, the abundance of mobile banking applications, methods of electronic payment, and online financial services available to everyday users offer new ways of interacting with money. These digital tools have the potential to transform our understanding of how financial operations occur, as well as how we make sense of our own personal financial information. There is still limited research to guide the design of personal financial management (PFM) tools and how to better support our digital financial interactions. While existing studies provide much-needed conceptual guidance and elaboration of contextual factors, there are still few studies that derive lessons from engaging in a user-centered design process that includes the evaluation of digital prototypes and explore the interactional challenges in designing tools for the mobile context. In this chapter we present an exploratory study in which we take a user-centered approach to developing and evaluating a digital prototype mobile application for PFM. We present our design decisions, discuss the usability implications of those decisions, and suggest ways in which future tools could be enhanced.

Undoubtedly, a distinguished increasing volume of mobile applications, nowadays, may have some impacts toward mobile IT-business. It is, therefore, of interest that the mobile applications among city people are examined as to obtain noticeable ideas worth for mobile IT-business development. Concerning investigation on mobile applications, sample data are primarily collected in Bangkok in-bound districts by interviewing with questionnaires, basing on stratification and proportional allocation. As for data-analysis, the descriptions of interesting variables in the four-main groups of mobile applications are, firstly, made. The first category consists of basic applications whereas the second one is composed of sending and receiving messages. The applications available for people's activities are categorized in the third one. The fourth represents communication-technology and device-transfer. As to make inferences for the true characteristics of interesting variables, estimations are performed and, subsequently followed by hypothesis-testings with appropriate parametric and nonparametric procedures. Relating the associations between variables concerning mobile-application types and mobile-user characteristics togetherwith their attitudes toward mobile technology, the association level and significance test are determined by Cramer's and Goodman-and-Kruskal-tau Statistics. Then, Regression is employed as to investigate the relationship between an interesting response variable with independent variables. However, in case of binary response-variable, Logistic Regression is applied.

Applications for mobile and wireless environments will need to support computing devices with a wide range of capabilities, varying network connectivity, and increasing mobility of users. We have designed a component-based framework for building adaptive distributed applications. Distributed applications are viewed as consisting of connected components that typically implement data streaming, processing, and filtering functions. Our framework provides mechanisms for run-time reconfiguration of applications to allow them to adapt to the changing operating environments. Components or whole applications can be moved to different hosts during execution, while maintaining seamless communication connectivity with other components. This paper presents techniques used to implement component mobility, ensure application consistency and reliable message delivery during component moves, as well as maintain persistent connectivity during transient network failures. We show potential benefits of maintaining seamless connectivity between mobile components.

For the past few years, there is a significant increase in the number of mobile health (mHealth) applications specifically for diabetes. These applications are mostly for self - management. However, most of these applications have the same features but it lack the part of educating patients and the involvement of medical professionals in the development process of an application. Diabetes Bridge aims to propose solutions to these problems.

Diabetes Bridge is a mobile health application intended to better facilitate care coordination for people with diabetes. This application was developed with the coordination of a healthcare professional. Some features of the application includes preparing for the consultation with listing down important questions, knowing what to do before going to laboratory tests, and educating patients with the common questions that diabetic people asked to their doctors.

The usability of Diabetes Bridge was evaluated by people with diabetes and a health practitioner using Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) as an evaluation tool to assess the mobile health application in four categories. A total of thirty (30) people participated in the testing. The participants perceived the application to be useful and that it was well - made for people with diabetes. The application’s simplicity and ease of use receive a good feedback from the testers. Improvements can be made in the visuals of the application to make it more appealing for all age groups and not only for the older people. It is very useful in preparation with the patient’s consultation, laboratory requests and results and educating the patient about his diseases. Diabetes Bridge is positively received by diabetic people as a good mobile health application.

This paper discusses the methodology and data collection technique used to gather data for the researcher's master thesis study on smartphone applications. The aims of the study were to describe current usage patterns of smartphone applications, to determine users' desired specifications for smartphone applications showcasing cultural heritage collections, and to carry out a user study of the Musée du Louvre iPhone application as a model for the development of a new cultural heritage application for smartphones. An online survey tool, QuestBack, was used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. For the quantitative data, analysis was performed using tools offered by QuestBack, while for the qualitative data, the researcher performed the coding and analysis.