Application Development Framework Research Articles

Native Code Generation as a Service

With the widespread use of mobile applications in daily life, it has become crucial for enterprise software companies to quickly develop these applications for multiple platforms. Cross-platform mobile application development is one of the most adopted solutions for rapid development. Since most of these solutions do not generate native code for the underlying platform, the artefacts generally do not satisfy the requirements defined at the beginning of the project. This study designed and implemented a native code generation framework called Nativator built as a cloud service. The framework, which is capable of producing native code for iOS and Android platforms using web-based user interfaces, was implemented based on an open source compiler platform called “Roslyn”. Four case studies were performed to analyze the execution performance of the applications built with the proposed framework. The experimental results demonstrated that the execution performance of the applications built with Nativator is comparable with the applications generated via the state-of-the-art mobile application development framework called Xamarin. Because this framework was implemented as a cloud service, it has several advantages over traditional approaches such as access from anywhere, no installation and flexible and more resources from cloud infrastructure.

A comparison of back-end frameworks for web application development

Web applications have a complex structure, and for more efficient and faster writing of original program code, frameworks are often used. There are numerous different frameworks on the market that are used to build different parts of software architecture. Only back-end frameworks for web applications development are analyzed. Previous research on evaluation criteria for back-end frameworks, and various sources which by various reasons, represent the list of popularity of back-end frameworks are shown. The framework selection procedure is described, and the reasons of framework selection (Laravel, Rails, Django and Spring) for the analysis are given. The examination (verification) and evaluation of the degree of satisfaction of the selected basic and additional comparison criteria in selected frameworks are carried out. The analysis shows insignificant differences in the overall ratings of analyzed frameworks according to the basic comparison criteria. According to the additional comparison criteria, the analysis shows significant differences in the overall ratings of analyzed frameworks. It is shown that the Django framework, because it is suitable for development of larger applications, suitable for beginner developers, and achieves the highest overall rating of additional comparison criteria, is the best choice of analyzed back-end frameworks for web application development.

Investigation of methodical framework for cross-platform mobile application development: significance of Codename One

Mobile application development landscape is changing very rapidly with developers moving from traditional approach to 'write once, run anywhere'. In any case, most mobile applications have comparable performance such as tight project schedules, budget, and the need to bolster both Android and iOS. For most developers, particularly those that are migrating from web to mobile applications, cross-platform mobile application tools are often preferred as new development tools that promise some native-like functionalities and performance. However, they often ask questions like which cross-platform development tool to choose?, and which framework is easier, better and supports our requirements? This paper presents answers to these questions by evaluating some popular cross-platform mobile applications development tools. Towards the end, this paper recommends Codename One for cross-platform mobile applications developers because of its unique strengths and significance.

Investigation of methodical framework for cross-platform mobile application development: significance of Codename One

Investigation of methodical framework for cross-platform mobile application development: significance of Codename One

NetMob: A Mobile Application Development Framework with Enhanced Large Objects Access for Mobile Cloud Storage Service

Mobile enterprise applications are primarily devel-oped for existing backend enterprise systems and some usage scenarios require storing of large files on the mobile devices.These files range from large PDFs to media files in various formats (MPEG videos).These files needs to be used offline , sometimes updated and shared among users. Present work studied different Mobile Backend as a service (M)BaaS platforms to understand techniques use to handle large file and found that many are either missing the feature or does not handle performance issues for large files. In this paper, we are proposing, NetMob, a mobile synchronization platform that allows resource-limited mobile devices to access large objects from the cloud. This framework is mainly focused on large file handling and has support for both table and objects data models that can be tuned for three consistency semantics, resembling strong, causal and eventual consistency. Experimental results conducted using representative workloads showed that NetMob can handle large files access with the size ranging from 100MB upto 1GB and is able to reduce sync time with object chunking in our experiment settings.

Radiation dose detection using a high-power portable optically stimulated luminescence real-time reading system

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) reading systems are becoming smaller and capable of real-time detection. To improve real-time and multipurpose radiation dosimetry readings, we built a real-time continuous-wave (RCW) OSL reading system. This system is both small and lightweight, and it employs powerful laser excitation (478 mW/cm2) at the dosimetry probe location. We investigate the possibility of using the RCW mode to read the radiation luminescence (RL) or OSL by using a single-crystal Al2O3:C dosimeter in a low-dose-rate 137Cs γ field. Our results indicate that the RL/OSL follows a stable and uniform distribution. The minimum detected doses associated with the RL, OSL, and RL + OSL signals are 2.1 × 10−2, 3.17 × 10−1, and 5.7 × 10−2 μGy, respectively. This device provides a framework for the future development of applications for practical radiation dose measurements.

A lightweight rapid application development framework for biomedical image analysis

Biomedical imaging analysis typically comprises a variety of complex tasks requiring sophisticated algorithms and visualising high dimensional data. The successful integration and deployment of the enabling software to clinical (research) partners, for rigorous evaluation and testing, is a crucial step to facilitate adoption of research innovations within medical settings. In this paper, we introduce the Simple Medical Imaging Library Interface (SMILI), an object oriented open-source framework with a compact suite of objects geared for rapid biomedical imaging (cross-platform) application development and deployment. SMILI supports the development of both command-line (shell and Python scripting) and graphical applications utilising the same set of processing algorithms. It provides a substantial subset of features when compared to more complex packages, yet it is small enough to ship with clinical applications with limited overhead and has a license suitable for commercial use. After describing where SMILI fits within the existing biomedical imaging software ecosystem, by comparing it to other state-of-the-art offerings, we demonstrate its capabilities in creating a clinical application for manual measurement of cam-type lesions of the femoral head-neck region for the investigation of femoro-acetabular impingement (FAI) from three dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance (MR) images of the hip. This application for the investigation of FAI proved to be convenient for radiological analyses and resulted in high intra (ICC=0.97) and inter-observer (ICC=0.95) reliabilities for measurement of α-angles of the femoral head-neck region. We believe that SMILI is particularly well suited for prototyping biomedical imaging applications requiring user interaction and/or visualisation of 3D mesh, scalar, vector or tensor data.

XD-AR

Augmented Reality (AR) developers face a proliferation of new platforms, devices, and frameworks. This often leads to applications being limited to a single platform and makes it hard to support collaborative AR scenarios involving multiple different devices. This paper presents XD-AR, a cross-device AR application development framework designed to unify input and output across hand-held, head-worn, and projective AR displays. XD-AR's design was informed by challenging scenarios for AR applications, a technical review of existing AR platforms, and a survey of 30 AR designers, developers, and users. Based on the results, we developed a taxonomy of AR system components and identified key challenges and opportunities in making them work together. We discuss how our taxonomy can guide the design of future AR platforms and applications and how cross-device interaction challenges could be addressed. We illustrate this when using XD-AR to implement two challenging AR applications from the literature in a device-agnostic way.

Synchro-Measurement Application Development Framework: An IEEE Standard C37.118.2-2011 Supported MATLAB Library

Electrical power system monitoring, protection, operation, and control schemes are undergoing significant changes toward the next generation fully automated, resilient, and self-healing grids. At present, there still exists a lack of available user-friendly tools for the synchronized measurement technology supported application design. This paper presents a synchro-measurement application development framework (SADF) to promote a simplified design and thorough validation of synchro-measurement (IEEE Standard C37.118.2-2011) supported user-defined applications under realistic conditions. The proposed SADF supports online receiving of a phasor measurement unit (PMU) or phasor data concentrator (PDC) provided data stream and enables simultaneous use of processed machine-readable synchro-measurements in advanced user-defined applications. This paper fills the scientific gap between the IEEE Standard C37.118.2-2011 specifications and its implementation by proposing a novel robust communication technique and efficient synchro-measurement data parsing methodology. As a proof of concept, the proposed SADF is implemented as a novel open-source MATLAB library. Combining this library with MATLAB’s signal processing and visualization functions allows mastering the design and validation of complex wide-area monitoring, protection, and control applications, as well as PMU/PDC performance and compliance verification. Finally, this paper verifies the proposed library against the standard specifications, assesses its interoperability and performance via a cyber-physical simulation platform, and presents online voltage magnitude monitoring as an example application.

A Real-time Schoolchild Shuttle Vehicle Tracking System Base on Android Mobile-apps

Indonesians parent widely use private school shuttle services for their schoolchild due to their lack of time and effectiveness, unfortunately mostly of those shuttle vehicles (car or motor cycle) services currently cannot be tracked. From a security point of view, the parent’s need a system that can identified the location of the vehicle in real-time. With rapid technological development today, parents' skepticism can be overcome by tracking the shuttle vehicles through a mobile applications that connected to Global Positioning System (GPS). This research presents the design of a prototype, called “AS-OJEK”, an android-based mobile apps and web technology for schoolchild shuttle applications that used several technology such as Web-services, JSON, PHP, MySQL and bootstrap framework as application builders. The application could be installed on any android smartphone version, it will be able to send the location and displaying the vehicle shuttle location on the smartphone screen and display historical location of the tracked vehicle. Rapid Application Development (RAD) framework was used as a software development method, with its 4 phases; phase 1: requirements planning and specifications, phase 2: user design, phase 3: construction, phase 4: cutover. The application was already appropriate with user’s needs, proven by performing functional testing and User Acceptance Test (UAT). Based on the results of the UAT, this application has been running well and succeed sending vehicle location to the server, and can tracked through mobile-apps or web applications.

RESEARCH ON VISUALIZATION OF GROUND LASER RADAR DATA BASED ON OSG

Abstract. Three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning is a new advanced technology integrating light, machine, electricity, and computer technologies. It can conduct 3D scanning to the whole shape and form of space objects with high precision. With this technology, you can directly collect the point cloud data of a ground object and create the structure of it for rendering. People use excellent 3D rendering engine to optimize and display the 3D model in order to meet the higher requirements of real time realism rendering and the complexity of the scene. OpenSceneGraph (OSG) is an open source 3D graphics engine. Compared with the current mainstream 3D rendering engine, OSG is practical, economical, and easy to expand. Therefore, OSG is widely used in the fields of virtual simulation, virtual reality, science and engineering visualization. In this paper, a dynamic and interactive ground LiDAR data visualization platform is constructed based on the OSG and the cross-platform C++ application development framework Qt. In view of the point cloud data of .txt format and the triangulation network data file of .obj format, the functions of 3D laser point cloud and triangulation network data display are realized. It is proved by experiments that the platform is of strong practical value as it is easy to operate and provides good interaction.

A New Framework for Accessible Tourism Mobile Application Development

Recent years have seen an increasing realization of the importance and potential of accessible tourism. To support it, the ICT industries have provided many different applications, especially for mobile computing frameworks. An analysis of these applications allows us to identify some issues that are not yet fully addressed. These include the absence of collaborative features; the lack of involvement of all stakeholders; the inexistence of synergies; the lack of widely accessible geographic databases and the limited scope of focus within the disability range. To tackle some of these issues, the authors propose a common framework for development of tourism accessible related applications. This framework stores and manages tourism information and makes this information available to be used by mobile applications developers through specific web services. This approach can represent an important contribution to accessible tourism, by decreasing the cost and facilitating the development of new applications supporting new products and services.

ProCMotive

In recent years, numerous vehicular technologies, e.g., cruise control and steering assistant, have been proposed and deployed to improve the driving experience, passenger safety, and vehicle performance. Despite the existence of several novel vehicular applications in the literature, there still exists a significant gap between resources needed for a variety of vehicular (in particular, data-dominant, latency-sensitive, and computationally-heavy) applications and the capabilities of already-in-market vehicles. To address this gap, different smartphone-/Cloud-based approaches have been proposed that utilize the external computational/storage resources to enable new applications. However, their acceptance and application domain are still very limited due to programmability, wireless connectivity, and performance limitations, along with several security/privacy concerns. In this paper, we present a novel reference architecture that can potentially enable rapid development of various vehicular applications while addressing shortcomings of smartphone-/Cloud-based approaches. The architecture is formed around a core component, called SmartCore, a privacy/security-friendly programmable dongle that brings general-purpose computational and storage resources to the vehicle and hosts in-vehicle applications. Based on the proposed architecture, we develop an application development framework for vehicles, that we call ProCMotive. ProCMotive enables developers to build customized vehicular applications along the Cloud-to-edge continuum, i.e., different functions of an application can be distributed across SmartCore, the user's personal devices, and the Cloud. In order to highlight potential benefits that the framework provides, we design and develop two different vehicular applications based on ProCMotive, namely, Amber Response and Insurance Monitor. We evaluate these applications using real-world data and compare them with state-of-the-art technologies.

Developing IoT applications: challenges and frameworks

Internet of things (IoT) is creating new opportunities for developing innovative applications by leveraging on existing and new technologies. In recent years, a variety of consumer and industrial IoT applications have been developed and deployed. Despite much progress, developing IoT applications is still a complex, time-consuming and challenging activity. This is because IoT systems involve a wide range of hardware and software components, depending on a variety of communication and distributed system technologies. Many IoT application frameworks of varying approaches have been developed to manage the complexities of developing IoT applications. However, there remains a paucity of surveys on these IoT application development frameworks. This study presents a comprehensive review and a comparative analysis of existing IoT application development frameworks and toolkits, illustrating their strengths and weaknesses. This study will assist in finding the most appropriate IoT application development paradigm for the desired IoT application. Finally, future research directions are highlighted to improve existing and future frameworks and toolkits for IoT applications.

Cloudkit

CloudKit is Apple's cloud backend service and application development framework that provides strongly-consistent storage for structured data and makes it easy to synchronize data across user devices or share it among multiple users. Launched more than 3 years ago, CloudKit forms the foundation for more than 50 Apple apps, including many of our most important and popular applications such as Photos, iCloud Drive, Notes, Keynote, and News, as well as many third-party apps. To deliver this at large scale, CloudKit explicitly leverages multi-tenancy at the application level as well as at the user level to guide efficient data placement and distribution. By using CloudKit application developers are free to focus on delivering the application front-end and logic while relying on CloudKit for scale, consistency, durability and security. CloudKit manages petabytes of data and handles hundreds of millions of users around the world on a daily basis.

Algorithms and Architectures: A Case Study in When, Where and How to Connect Vehicles

Connected vehicle technologies and applications must coevolve. Existing applications are often suboptimally implemented, stemming from a dearth of design approaches considering resource use, sensor selection, and communication method. Such design tools are necessary to optimize connected vehicle implementations, as applications may have varied impact on individual vehicle and fleet performance, efficiency, and comfort depending on their technical and algorithmic implementation. This paper first introduces several key considerations in connected vehicle design, then explores the implications of varying input richness, connectivity methods, and data availability on an example application predicting automotive idle times. We illustrate common design tradeoffs by evaluating the predictor's accuracy for different implementations, providing developers a look at a design approach that will serve as a useful example framework for future application development. We close with a simplified cost/benefit analysis for our demonstration application to illustrate how feasible, cost-effective application implementations might be identified.

LMDGW: a novel matrix based dynamic graph watermark

Android platform induces an open application development framework to attract more developers and promote larger market occupations. However, the open architecture also makes it easier to reverse engineering, which results in the property loss for both developers and companies, and increases the risks of mobile malicious code. Therefore, copyright protection for android application is of significant importance. A class of copyright protection methods are based on Android watermark. Different from static watermark, the process of embedding and extracting of dynamic graph watermark (DGW) is based on the function path and operation process of the app, which has better concealment. In this paper, we proposed a late-model dynamic watermark based on matrix, called “LMDGW”. This method is proposed to overcome the shortcoming of unintuitive and vulnerable property of traditional numberal DGW. We encode a matrix with low rank into a watermark graph, and embed the graph construction statements into smali code. With the containing of sensitive block characteristics, LMDGW is able to perceive and locate the changes in the specific block. Besides, LWDGW has great performance in tamper-proof attacks. Experiment results and analysis justified that LMDGW has great data rate and robust, and is available in sensitive code locating. LMDGW is proved to be an intelligent watermarking scheme, and is enlightening for intelligent security.

Atlas : A library for numerical weather prediction and climate modelling

The algorithms underlying numerical weather prediction (NWP) and climate models that have been developed in the past few decades face an increasing challenge caused by the paradigm shift imposed by hardware vendors towards more energy-efficient devices. In order to provide a sustainable path to exascale High Performance Computing (HPC), applications become increasingly restricted by energy consumption. As a result, the emerging diverse and complex hardware solutions have a large impact on the programming models traditionally used in NWP software, triggering a rethink of design choices for future massively parallel software frameworks. In this paper, we present Atlas, a new software library that is currently being developed at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), with the scope of handling data structures required for NWP applications in a flexible and massively parallel way. Atlas provides a versatile framework for the future development of efficient NWP and climate applications on emerging HPC architectures. The applications range from full Earth system models, to specific tools required for post-processing weather forecast products. The Atlas library thus constitutes a step towards affordable exascale high-performance simulations by providing the necessary abstractions that facilitate the application in heterogeneous HPC environments by promoting the co-design of NWP algorithms with the underlying hardware.

Mobile medical app development with a focus on traceability

AbstractToday, the growth of medical devices and mobile medical applications is increasing enormously, thanks to the efficiency and enhancement of new technology. When it comes to mobile medical apps, developers need to understand what is required when a mobile application fulfils the definition of a medical device. Such applications have to be developed in compliance with medical device regulations. This can be a challenge for mobile medical application developers, as medical device software is normally developed in a manner that will also ensure the production of regulatory documentation that is essential to market such devices. In this paper, we identify the need for a mobile medical application development framework, the key criteria for such a framework, and describe how the results were collected through performing a Medical Device Software Development workshop. Furthermore, we describe how MDevSPICE together with an agile software development approach can be tailored to support a mobile medical applications development framework. We detail one of the key criteria for mobile medical application development framework—traceability.

Mobile Learning Usage and Preferences of Vocational Secondary School Students: The cases of Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to determine the current status of mobile device usage and mobile learning adoption in vocational education and training (VET) secondary schools in three European Union countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany). The research focused on exploring students’ mobile device usage habits, their attitudes toward education in the context of mobile application support, and preferences regarding mobile learning features. The research confirmed a high level of mobile device usage among secondary school students on a daily basis; smartphones and laptops were the most commonly used devices. The vast majority of participants perceived themselves to be advanced mobile device users, but reported a deficit of ICT-assisted mobile learning experience. However, the majority of respondents with prior ICT-assisted education experience described it as a positive or very positive experience. In addition, study participants tended to agree that mobile learning will play a significant role in education in the future. The paper also explored the reported differences among the students in the three countries and suggested several implications for understanding students’ views of mobile learning. The findings provide insights into possibilities of m-learning implementation while creating a framework for m-learning application development in the VET secondary school environment.