Connectivity Of Mobile Devices Research Articles

Distributed Network, Wireless and Cloud Computing Enabled 3-D Ultrasound; a New Medical Technology Paradigm

Medical technologies are indispensable to modern medicine. However, they have become exceedingly expensive and complex and are not available to the economically disadvantaged majority of the world population in underdeveloped as well as developed parts of the world. For example, according to the World Health Organization about two thirds of the world population does not have access to medical imaging. In this paper we introduce a new medical technology paradigm centered on wireless technology and cloud computing that was designed to overcome the problems of increasing health technology costs. We demonstrate the value of the concept with an example; the design of a wireless, distributed network and central (cloud) computing enabled three-dimensional (3-D) ultrasound system. Specifically, we demonstrate the feasibility of producing a 3-D high end ultrasound scan at a central computing facility using the raw data acquired at the remote patient site with an inexpensive low end ultrasound transducer designed for 2-D, through a mobile device and wireless connection link between them. Producing high-end 3D ultrasound images with simple low-end transducers reduces the cost of imaging by orders of magnitude. It also removes the requirement of having a highly trained imaging expert at the patient site, since the need for hand-eye coordination and the ability to reconstruct a 3-D mental image from 2-D scans, which is a necessity for high quality ultrasound imaging, is eliminated. This could enable relatively untrained medical workers in developing nations to administer imaging and a more accurate diagnosis, effectively saving the lives of people.

Informal learning with PDAs and smartphones

Abstract There has been increasing interest in informal learning in recent years alongside interest in how such learning can be supported by technology. However, relatively little is known about the extent to which adults make use of their own mobile devices to support informal learning. In this study, a survey was used to investigate whether, and to what extent, experienced users of mobile devices use their mobile devices to support intentional informal learning. If so, do they make use of mobile device connectivity to support opportunistic informal learning and does such connectivity support or encourage collaborative informal learning? Experienced mobile device users were recruited from web forums and business, and asked whether they used their devices to support informal learning. A pattern of learning uses emerged, some of which deployed the mobile device capabilities relatively unchanged, others triggered adaptations to typical learning activities to provide a better fit to the needs of the learner. These informal learning activities provided the basis for the design of a flexible mobile learning framework that can be extended to support developments in mobile technology, and increasing use of Web 2.0 technologies by informal learners.

Special Issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing: Papers from the Fourth International Conference on Mobile Business

The papers in this Special Issue particularly focus on the area of Business-to-Consumer Mobile Business. This issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing contains papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Mobile Business (ICMB05) which was held in Sydney, Australia, 11–13 July 2005 and related papers. Eight of the contributions are extended versions of papers from ICMB05 and a further two papers are invited and peer-reviewed issue related papers. How the emerging Business-to-Consumer Mobile Business field will evolve is of great interest to the research community and to industry alike. However, a large number of disparate factors will affect which services will emerge and be widely adopted. Such factors include emerging mobile device capabilities and usability, perceived and actual security and privacy support, the economics of service provision and usage, future trends in content development, emerging network and provider capabilities and the role and place of mobile marketing amongst many others. The first two papers in the issue look at systems for close-range mobile interaction and advertising. The paper by Rashid, Coulton and Edwards presents a system for Location Based Advertising based on Bluetooth technology. The second paper by Moors, Mei and Salim describes a system for selectively controlling the functionality of mobile devices e.g., disabling mobile phone ringing in certain environments, via short-range communications capabilities. The next two papers examine different mobile interface issues. The paper by Chehimi, Coulton and Edwards considers current device constraints and probable future developments in the area of 3D mobile games (games with 3D graphics interfaces for use on mobile devices). The paper by Michelis, Resatsch, Nicolai and Schildhauer considers non-screen based interaction with mobile devices, particularly audible interfaces. The following two papers consider technical issues for mobile device connectivity. The paper by AliVehmas and Luukkainen considers enabling Push-toTalk capability over cellular networks. The next paper by Lin, Dillon and Wong considers a dynamic buffer size approach to enable more dependable location-aware information retrieval in a pervasive environment. The remaining four papers analyze adoption of mobile services from several perspectives. Mallat, Rossi, Tuunainen and OOrni consider study results from mobile ticketing adoption. The next paper by Koivumaki, Ristola and Kesti analyzes the effect of such factors as the familiarity of the mobile device, the duration of service use and user’s technology skills on mobile service usage experience and likelihood of continuous use. The paper by Wong and Hsu proposes a confidencebased framework for analyzing Business-to-Consumer, Mobile Commerce adoption. Finally, the paper by Heikkinen and Still analyzes the development of new mobile services from the perspective of business networks. R. Steele (&) Faculty of Information Technology, University of Technology, PO Box 123, Broadway, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia e-mail: rsteele@it.uts.edu.au

Bridging the physical and virtual worlds by local connectivity-based physical selection

The prevalent visions of ambient intelligence emphasise natural interaction between user and functions and services embedded in the environment or available through mobile devices. In these scenarios the physical and virtual worlds seamlessly gear into each other, making crossing the border between these worlds natural or even invisible to the user. The bottleneck in reaching these scenarios appear in the natural mapping between the physical objects and their virtual counterparts. The emergence of local connectivity in mobile devices opens possibilities for implementing novel user interface paradigms to enhance this mapping. We present physical selection paradigm for implementing an intuitive human technology interaction for mobile devices. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the paradigm we implemented two experimental set-ups using commercially available smart phones with IrDA connectivity. The experiments involved selecting a website by physically pointing at its symbol and making a phone call by pointing at an icon representing the person to be called. In tentative user experiments the physical selection method was more time-efficient and it was perceived more positively by the users than a conventional method.

Mobile device connectivity as a bridge between home, office and automotive world

Multimedia and infotainment will continue to grow together in the future. This article by the new company Delphi Grundig deals with the near future with a focus on Mobile Device Connectivity — the connection of mobile devices like mobile phones, smart phones and PDAs to the car audio system.

Scheduling of real-time traffic in IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs

The desire to provide universal connectivity for mobile computers and communication devices is fueling a growing interest in wireless packet networks. To satisfy the needs of wireless data networking, study group 802.11 was formed under IEEE project 802 to recommend an international standard for Wireless Local Networks lWANsr. A key part of the standard are the Medium Access Control lMACr protocols. Given the growing popularity of realdtime services and multimedia based applications it is critical that the 802.11 MAC protocols be tailored to meet their requirements. The 802.11 layer protocol provides asynchronous, timedbounded, and contention free access control on a variety of physical layers. In this paper we examine the ability of the point coordination function to support time bounded services. We present our proposal to support realdtime services within the framework of the point coordination function and discuss the specifies of the connection establishment procedure. We conduct performance evaluation and present numerical results to help understand the issues involved.

Performance of asynchronous data transfer methods of IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol

The desire to provide universal connectivity for mobile computers and communication devices is fueling a growing interest in wireless packet networks. To satisfy the needs of wireless data networking, Study Group 802.11 was formed under IEEE project 802 to recommend an international standard for WLANs. A key part of the standard is the MAC protocol needed to support asynchronous and time-bounded delivery of data frames. It has been proposed that unslotted CSMA/CA be the basis for the IEEE 802.11 WLAN MAC protocols. We conduct a performance evaluation of the asynchronous data transfer protocols that are a part of the proposed IEEE 802.11 standard, taking into account the decentralized nature of communication between stations, the possibility of capture, and presence of hidden stations. We compute the system throughput and evaluate fairness properties of the proposed MAC protocols. Further, the impact of spatial characteristics on the performance of the system and that observed by individual stations is determined. A comprehensive comparison of the access methods provided by the 802.11 MAC protocol is done and observations are made as to when each should be employed.