Multi-platform Mobile Application Research Articles

App-Mohedo®: A mobile app for the management of chronic pelvic pain. A design and development study

BackgroundChronic Pelvic Pain (CPP) has been described as a public health priority worldwide, and it is among the most prevalent and costly healthcare problems. Graded motor imagery (GMI) is a therapeutic tool that has been successfully used to improve pain in several chronic conditions. GMI therapy is divided into three stages: laterality training (LRJT, Left Right Judgement Task), imagined movements, and mirror therapy. No tool that allows working with LRJT in pelvic floor has been developed to date. ObjectiveThis research aims to describe the process followed for the development of a highly usable, multi-language and multi-platform mobile application using GMI with LRJT to improve the treatment of patients with CPP. In addition, this will require achieving two other goals: firstly, to generate 550 pelvic floor images and, subsequently, to carry out an empirical study to objectively classify them into different difficulty levels of. This will allow the app to properly organize and plan the different therapy sessions to be followed by each patient. MethodologyFor the design, evaluation and development of the app, an open methodology of user-centered design (MPIu + a) was applied. Furthermore, to classify and establish the pelvic floor images of the app in different difficulty levels, an observational, cross-sectional study was conducted with 132 volunteers through non-probabilistic sampling. ResultsOn one hand, applying MPIu+a, a total of 5 phases were required to generate an easy-to-use mobile application. On the other hand, the 550 pelvic floor images were classified into 3 difficulty levels (based on the percentage of correct answers and response time used by the participants in the classification process of each image): Level 1 (191 images with Accuracy = 100 % and RT = [0–2.5] seconds); Level 2 (208 images with Accuracy = 75–100 % and RT = [2.5–5] seconds); and Level 3 (151 images with Accuracy = 50–75 % and RT > 5 s). ConclusionApp-Mohedo® is the first multi-platform, multi-language and easy-to-use mobile application that, through GMI with LRJT, and with an adequate bank of images classified into three levels of difficulty, can be used as a complementary therapeutic tool in the treatment of patients with CPP. This work can also serve as an example, model or guide when applying a user-centered methodology, as MPIu + a, to the development of other apps, especially in the field of health.

Development of a Mobile Application of the Student's Study Schedule

The purpose of the work is to develop a mobile application that can provide the ability to create and edit a training schedule. The subject of development is a proprietary multiplatform mobile application using the Flutter framework. During the development, the MVC architectural pattern was used, data storage was implemented using the SQLite DBMS. The methodology of the work is based on the Scrum method, which allows you to break the workflow into sprints, each of which allowed you to conclude that it is advisable to implement the decision. Functional analysis, as the main method, allowed us to identify the basic requirements for convenient use of the program: view schedules by calendar dates, auto-fill fields, the ability to create, edit and delete educational information. A hybrid solution was chosen for implementation. Our own multiplatform mobile application was developed using the Flutter framework. During the development, the MVC architectural template was used. Data storage was implemented using SQLite DBMS. When designing the database, the following objects were defined: subject, teacher, audience, lesson type, time, date, lesson date. The developed application is ready for publication in the AppStore and Google Play. The result of its use will be improved communication with trainees, acceleration of the processes of creating and changing schedules, as well as reducing the time to download the necessary data.

Mortar fire direction with multiplatform mobile application

Mortar is one of the weapons that is still used for warfare. In determining the direction of mortar firing there are still using conventional method with plotting board. Then it takes a portable calculator that is quick and accurate in determining the angle of elevation and angle of azimuth. So it is proposed that this mortar fire direction is a mobile application with multiplatform development method that can run on Windows, Android, and iOS operating systems. The result of this research is a prototype mobile application that provides a report of elevation angles and azimuth angles rather than mortar quickly and accurately to the intended goal.

Aplicativo móvel multiplataforma de suporte para o sistema AgroFert

Currently, liming and fertilizing recommendations for crops in the main regions of Brazil is made using the knowledge generated by researchers and summarized in liming and fertilizing manuals. This requires professionals to refer to these manuals for recommendations, which are often made manually. In this context, the AgroFert system was created to be an automated liming and fertilizing recommendation tool, assisting professionals and small producers in monitoring crop-related information. The system acts on the recommendation of correctives and fertilizers for the states of Rio Grande do Sul / Santa Catariana and Paraná for the main grain crops and to evaluate the evolution of the chemical characteristics of the soil. This work presents a multiplatform mobile application, which integrated with AgroFert system, allows users to make recommendations in the field, without the need for constant connection with the application server to make recommendations.

Mobile virtual reality for musical genre learning in primary education

Mobile virtual reality (VR) is increasingly becoming popular and accessible to everyone that holds a smartphone. In particular, digital didactics can take advantage of natural interaction and immersion in virtual environments, starting from primary education. This paper investigates the problem of enhancing music learning in primary education through the use of mobile VR. To this end, technical and methodological frameworks were developed, and were tested with two classes in the last year of a primary school (10 years old children). The classes were involved in an evaluation study on music genre identification and learning with a multi-platform mobile application called VR4EDU. Students were immersed in music performances of different genres (e.g., classical, country, jazz, and swing), navigating inside several musical rooms. The evaluation of the didactic protocol shows a statistically significant improvement in learning genre characterization (i.e., typical instruments and their spatial arrangements on stage) compared to traditional lessons with printed materials and passive listening. These results show that the use of mobile VR technologies in synergy with traditional teaching methodologies can improve the music learning experience in primary education, in terms of active listening, attention, and time. The inclusion of pupils with certified special needs strengthened our results.

TBM-App: a clinical decision support system for tuberculous meningitis

Abstract Tuberculosis (TB) was responsible for approximately 1.6 million deaths in 2017 and it is the deadliest among the infectious diseases, killing more than Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) related diseases. One of the most lethal forms of this disease is the central nervous system TB. The clinical and microbiological diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is still a challenge and to standardize the diagnosis and offer more reliable information to the decision-making process in the clinical practice, predictive scores were created and adapted for the Brazilian context. The score implementation will require staff training but has the potential to reduce time to the TBM diagnosis and therefore start correct treatment early. Although, there is a need to increase the access to the score and to facilitate its use among physicians to save time and resources. This study shows the design and development of a multiplatform mobile application to calculate the predictive score for tuberculous meningitis, in order to support clinical decisions. The preliminary results have shown an effective and versatile App, available to a variety of devices and which can still be available in places with limited or no internet access.

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF MOBILE APPLICATION FOR THE PREVENTION OF MUSCULOSKELETAL RISKS IN NURSING WORK

ABSTRACT Objective: to develop a multi-platform mobile application for the prevention of musculoskeletal risk factors related to nursing work in a hospital unit and to evaluate the usability criteria with nurses and computer professionals. Method: technological production study for the development of a mobile application, following the phases of software engineering: analysis of requirements, design and specification, construction, internal tests, maintenance and external evaluation. The product was evaluated for usability by nurses from public hospital units in the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The System Usability Scale instrument was used for the evaluation of the nurses and the instrument of heuristics of compliance of digital interfaces was used with the informational technology professionals. The application development period lasted from November 2017 to March 2018 and the usability assessment from March to May 2018. Results: the evaluation data showed that the application shows agreement and compliance with the principles of usability in the criteria of effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction, however, the evaluators suggest that the application's functionalities should be simplified. Conclusion: the application was designed as a care strategy for the nursing professional, considering the musculoskeletal risks which they are exposed to in their professional activities. The development and evaluation methods were satisfactory and the proposed objectives were achieved.

Mo1291 TELECYTHOPATOLOGY FOR RAPID ON-SITE EVALUATION (ROSE) OF ENDOSCOPIC ULTRASOUND-GUIDED FINE-NEEDLE (EUS-FNA) ASPIRATION SPECIMENS OF SOLID PANCREATIC MASS

Telepathology has been defined as a form of communication between medical professionals that includes the transmission of pathology images and associated clinical information for various clinical applications, including diagnosis. ROSE for EUS-FNA of the pancreas provides immediate information regarding cellular adequacy, avoiding repeated procedures and improving diagnosis. However, cytopathologist is not available for ROSE in all endoscopy units. A multi-platform mobile phone application, such as WhatsApp Messenger, could be useful as a tool for TCP, since it could enable remote real-time information exchange, avoiding unnecessary procedures. To evaluate the feasibility and the impact of TCP using WhatsApp Messenger as an auxiliary tool for ROSE in EUS-FNA of solid pancreatic lesions. We prospectively evaluated 20 patients (65% male, median age 57.5 yrs [range 36 to 86]) with pancreatic solid lesions, according to previous CT scans, referred to EUS-FNA. Patients with entirely cystic lesions were excluded. All endoscopic procedures were performed with the patient under conscious sedation with linear therapeutic echoendoscopes (Fujifilm Corporation, EG-53OUT2, Saitama, Japan) and 22G-needles (Expect, Boston Scientific Corporation). After each pass, aspirated material was spread over a glass slide and stained by the endoscopist. The glass slide was then reviewed on a microscope equipped with a mobile phone (Android Platform) in order to capture images. The most representative fields were photographed and sent by WhatsApp Messenger to the cytopathologist. The images were analyzed regarding cellular adequacy of the material and preliminary diagnosis whenever possible. The number of needle passes was determined according to initial evaluation of the cytopathologist. This initial evaluation was compared to the final pathology report (FPR) regarding cellular adequacy and diagnosis. Gold standard for diagnosis of malignancy was surgical report or 12-month follow-up. The endoscopist had training in basic cytology for slide preparing. In the initial evaluation using TCP ROSE, adequate cellularity of the glass slide was detected in 13/20 (65%), vs. 16/20 in FPR (P = 0.37). An initial diagnosis of malignancy was possible in 11/20 (55%) vs, 16/20 (80%) after FPR (P = 0.07). The final diagnosis was malignant in 16/20 (80%). Sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing malignant lesions after FPR were both 100%. The present study demonstrates the feasibility of a low-cost, Internet-based, telecytopathology system using WhatsApp Messenger to provide a rapid on-site evaluation of EUS-FNA slides in patients with solid pancreatic lesions.

A Multi-platform Mobile Application to Collect Citizen Science Data for Bignoniaceae Phenological Research

The implementation of Citizen Science in biodiversity studies has led the general public to engage in environmental actions and to contribute to the conservation of natural resources (Chandler et al. 2017). Smartphones have become part of the daily lives of millions of people, allowing the general public to collect data and conduct automatic measurements at a very low cost. Indeed, a series of Citizen Science mobile applications have allowed citizens to rapidly record specimen observations and contribute for the development of large biodiversity databases around the World. Citizen Science applications have a multitude of purposes, as well as target a variety of taxa, biological questions and geographical regions. Brazil is a megadiverse country that includes many threatened species and Biomes. Conversation efforts are urgent and the engagement of the civil society is critical. Brazilian dry and wet forests are dominated by members of the plant family Bignoniaceae, all of which are characterized by beautiful trumpet-shaped flowers and a big-bang flowering strategy. Species of the Neotropical Bignoniaceae trees are popularly known in Brazil as “Ipê” and are broadly cultivated throughout the country due to the showy flowers and strong wood. Different species have different flower colors, making its identification relatively easy. The showy and colorful flowers are extremely admired by the local population and the media. Flowering of “Ipês” is triggered by dry climate, lower temperatures and increasing day-light, making this group an excellent model for phenological and climatic studies involving Citizen Science. Here, we developed a multi-platform mobile application focused on the plant family Bignoniaceae that allows users to contribute phenological data for species from this plant family. More specifically, through this application the user is able to provide data about specimen locations, phenology and date, all of which can be validated by a photograph. This platform is based on React Native, a hybrid app framework that helps the developers to reuse the code across multiple mobile platforms, a development much more efficient and with efforts focused on the user experience. This technology uses Javascript as programming language and Facebook React as a basis for development. The system is similar to other CS apps such as iNaturalist. Namely, the overall observations improve the quality of the ranking through positive feedback from the community, strengthening the network of interactions between users and encouraging active participation. On the other hand, the application allows users to access all previously stored observations, which, in turn, can suggest improvements to that particular observation. Furthermore, observations without a correct ID can be stored until others can suggest a correct identification, maximizing the value of individual observations and data gathered. An important aspect of this mobile application is the participation of a network of experts on this plant family, allowing a rapid and accurate verification of individual observations. This team of Bignoniaceae experts is also able to make full use of the data gathered by correlating climate and phenological patterns. Results from these analyses are provided to the citizens gathering the data which will, in turn, stimulate the collection of new data, especially in poorly sampled locations. This is a very dynamic mobile application, that aims to engage the civil society with true scientific research, stimulating the management of natural resources and conservation efforts. Through this mobile app, we hope to engage the general public into biodiversity studies by improving their knowledge on an iconic group of Brazilian plants, while contributing data for scientific studies. The system is expected to be released in May and will be available at ipesdobrasil.org.br.

Convoy Marshal: Group-Based Navigation Mobile Application

A convoy usually involves many vehicles travelling together in a procession towards the same destination with a marshal whom is usually appointed for a safer, enjoyable and efficient driving from the start until the end of the journey. The trip may involve several stopping points, passing through several traffic lights, junctions, township and other obstacles that may affect the convoy’s overall journey. To ensure efficient communication between drivers in the convoy, walkie-talkie has been a preferred communication tool. However, walkie-talkie only transmits voices hence the group are not able to visualize the route while travelling. This study proposes an analysis of multi-platform mobile application for navigation of vehicles travelling together in a convoy. During the analysis phase, requirements engineering diagrams consisting of goal model, scenario, and use case diagram are produced. Next, the application prototype that capitalizes on Global Positioning Service (GPS) is developed.

WL++: a framework to build cross-platform mobile applications and RESTful back-ends

About one in two adults and one in four teens own a smart phone in North America and use it to access online information and services. This, ever increasing, demand for mobile applications has given rise to the need for tools and methods to systematically support the design and construction of these applications. Responding to this need, we have developed WL++, a code-generation environment for mobile-application development. Using this tool, developers can create application-specific diagrams of the application's logical model and annotate them with information about the user-interface widgets appropriate for interacting with the model elements. WL++ then produces a relational back-end for storing the model data, a set of RESTful APIs for accessing and updating the back-end, and a multi-platform mobile application that relies on the IBM Worklight framework to render, interact with and store the relevant data, through the chosen widgets and APIs. In addition, a general service monitors and records the usage of the APIs and the data exchange between the application and the back-end. In this paper, we describe the WL++ cross-mobile application generation framework and we illustrate its functionality with an example.

Software Engineering Challenges in Multi Platform Mobile Application Development

Mobile application development for smart phones has been increasing in last years as mobile phones have become an essential part of our contemporary life. As with any new phenomena, mobile application development has its own set of challenges, which attracted interested researchers in this new field. Nowadays, mobile applications become more complex, moving beyond inexpensive entertaining applications to more business critical uses, thus, it becomes essential to apply software engineering process to assure the development of secure, high-quality mobile applications. This paper highlights important issues in mobile application development using native development kits and cross-platform frameworks; it also discusses challenges in the software engineering activities for mobile applications development.

Road Safety Performance Assessment: A New Road Network Risk Index for Info Mobility

The development of communication systems for road traffic safety improvement has become one of the most important aims of information technology for road users. Detecting risk factors and informing drivers about them can contribute to make the transportation system more safe and comfortable. This assumption is the base of the Research Project “M2M – Mobile to Mobility” carried out at the University of Calabria, Italy. This research presents first applications of a methodology for developing a road safety performance index, Risk Index (RI), related to the risk deriving from infrastructure's features. In detail six different classes of events are identified: number of occurred accidents; density of intersections/accesses on the road section; road surface anomalies; problems related to both horizontal and vertical road signs and deficiencies of roadside and safety barriers. The research is focused on the possibility of giving real time information to road users about the risks associated to the specific travelled road segment, using a multiplatform mobile application and GPS system. The information is given to drivers considering driver's speeds (operating and average speeds) that are registered continuously by the application. In order to reach this aim, the road network is discretized with a squared grid: each node derived from the intersection of the grid with the infrastructure's network is considered as an informative node which contains the information related to an area, centered on the same node (RIj). This step represents just the initialization of the road network, which will be enriched with new points generated by users trips uploaded through an automatic server-side. According to this procedure, the road network will be more “information-rich” as many users will use the platform, according to a user-generated schema. When the single driver is approaching to the i-th node, he may be informed on the Risk Index associated to the relative area and he simultaneously provides its speed at server.

Using extended web technologies to develop Bluetooth multi-platform mobile applications for interact with smart things

Nowadays the classic web paradigms are being subjected to changes; every day millions of users around the world use their Smartphones to access web applications from anywhere. The World Wide Web it is one of the biggest repositories of information in the world, and that information is stored in internet servers and repositories, but today in the real world there are many other information sources such as electronic devices with communication capabilities: smart appliances and sensor networks. The Smartphones are equipped with communication hardware elements like the Bluetooth module, which allows the Smartphone to exchange information with nearby electronic devices. Every day more and more mobile applications are being developed for native platforms that use Bluetooth’s communication module to send and receive information from different sources. Native mobile applications use the specific platform’s APIs to manage the Bluetooth communication actions (send and receive information, search for devices, etc.), however, web applications do not have technical capabilities to manage the Smartphone’s Bluetooth communication module and thereof cannot use that kind of information. The main objective of this research work is to design a novel framework that allows classic web applications to use information from nearby electronic devices. The proposed framework must be easy to use and able to be integrated with common web technologies. Developers can use this framework to include new information sources and data exchange procedures in an easy way. The new type of information can be merged with the web to develop or improve algorithms and web applications.

MACBenAbim: A Multi-platform Mobile Application for searching keyterms in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics.

Computational biology and bioinformatics are gradually gaining grounds in Africa and other developing nations of the world. However, in these countries, some of the challenges of computational biology and bioinformatics education are inadequate infrastructures, and lack of readily-available complementary and motivational tools to support learning as well as research. This has lowered the morale of many promising undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers from aspiring to undertake future study in these fields. In this paper, we developed and described MACBenAbim (Multi-platform Mobile Application for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics), a flexible user-friendly tool to search for, define and describe the meanings of keyterms in computational biology and bioinformatics, thus expanding the frontiers of knowledge of the users. This tool also has the capability of achieving visualization of results on a mobile multi-platform context.AvailabilityMACBenAbim is available from the authors for non-commercial purposes.