Multiple Mobile Applications Research Articles

Dynamic Multiworkflow Offloading and Scheduling Under Soft Deadlines in the Cloud-Edge Environment

Computing offloading and scheduling are emerging, accompanied by smart city services, Internet of Things, and other rich cloud services. Cloud-assisted mobile edge computing provides malleable resources but introduces considerable overhead. Due to the geographical distributions and distances of the edge, cloud, and mobile terminal, promoting cost efficiency and reducing the makespan of applications are urgent targets. For multiple mobile applications, the soft deadline constraint for each application is common in the edge-cloud environment. When multiple users initiate application requests, scheduling on the target offloaded platform commences. Some workflows, especially newly arrived workflows, might suffer from “starving to death,” which has the risk of being missed. This article describes a dynamic, multiworkflow offloading, and scheduling, adaptive heterogeneous earliest-finish-time-based algorithm, which can lightly run on a distributed network. We explore an innovative model composed of a multiobjective makespan and cost for a soft deadline constraint optimization problem. Abundant data are adopted to test the offloading and scheduling effect on a variety of platform parameters, and comparative experiments demonstrate the validity and efficiency of the adaptive system.

0379 A Scoping Review of Validation Studies for Commercially Available CBT-i Smartphone Applications

Abstract Introduction Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) remains the first line treatment for insomnia. CBT-I in comparison with sedative-hypnotics has similar efficacy, but with treatment durability and almost no adverse effects. Despite CBT-I being recognized as the best insomnia treatment, access remains limited. Digital CBT-I hopes to address the problem of scale, so as to deliver therapy to the masses. There are now multiple mobile applications available both on smartphone app stores, which claim to deliver evidence based CBT-i. These applications largely come at a cost and patients have to pay to access their services. The goal of this study is to review CBT-i smartphone applications to see if they are indeed validated. Methods We performed a search on the two most popular smartphone application platforms: Google Play and Apple Store. We used search terms: sleep, insomnia and CBT-I. We then searched for validation studies for those smartphone applications on Google Scholar. We included studies conducted in the past 10 years. Our second search consisted of reviewing PubMed and Google Scholar for validation studies for CBT-I applications. Our search terms consisted of CBT-I and smartphone, CBT-I and application and CBT-I and digital. Results Of the 9 validation studies that we initially found, 6 met our inclusion criteria. 3 were excluded as they did not solely use CBT-I in their applications. All 6 applications reported significant improvement in important sleep quality metrics such as sleep onset latency and total sleep time. 4 studies also reported on a subjective improvement in quality of sleep. 2 studies looked at populations with comorbidities including cannabis use disorder and epilepsy. Both studied again found improvement in sleep quality in those specific populations. There were concerning patterns of bias found amongst the reviewed studies. 3/6 investigators had direct relationships with companies which designed and marketed the applications. Conclusion dCBT-I offers an opportunity to increase accessibility to therapy. There are only a limited number of studies which have examined the effectiveness of the applications on the market. There remains serious concerns about the risk of bias and the quality of validation studies which claim to confirm the effectiveness of these applications. Support (if any)

Efficient Dependent Task Offloading for Multiple Applications in MEC-Cloud System

With the proliferation of versatile mobile applications, offloading compute-intensive tasks to the MEC/Cloud becomes a dramatic technique due to the limited resources and high user experience requirements at mobile devices. However, most existing works design their task offloading schemes without considering the dependence of tasks and the orchestration of the MEC and Cloud, and thus may limit the system performance. In this paper, we propose a dependent task offloading framework for multiple mobile applications, named COFE, where mobile devices can offload their compute-intensive tasks with dependent constraints to the MEC-Cloud system. It can assign the offloaded tasks to the MEC and Cloud adaptively to improve the user experience. Based on COFE, we formulate the task offloading problem as an average makespan minimization problem, which is proved to be NP-hard. Then, we propose a heuristic ranking-based algorithm to assign the offloaded tasks according to their bottom levels. Theoretical analysis proves the stability of the system under the proposed algorithm and extensive simulations validate that the proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the average makespan and deadline violation probabilities of offloaded applications.

A smart decision algorithm for handover

There has been a continuous demand, of smart phone users, for high bandwidth and the least usage cost of the network. The smart phone users require high bandwidth for use of multiple mobile applications. Vertical Handover (VHO) becomes a necessity for hassle free running of these mobile applications while smart phone users are travelling. In this research paper, we present an intelligent decision algorithm for vertical handover which decide the best network among the available candidate networks. The decision is based on the calculation of the score value of the networks. The parameters considered are the cost of the usage, bandwidth and battery consumption. We have considered two networks scenario i.e.3G & Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN).

Mobile ECG monitoring for atrial fibrillation management: A literature review

Atrial fibrillation is the most prevalent arrhythmia associated with the risk of developing stroke and heart failure. Catheter ablation and electrical cardioversion are standard interventional procedures to treat atrial fibrillation. Patients are recommended to undertake regular heart rhythm assessment after the procedure due to the high recurrence rate of atrial fibrillation. Multiple mobile applications with high sensitivity and accuracy rates in rhythm analysis have been developed to support on-demand rhythm monitoring. This literature review aims to provide an overview of emerging evidence about the impact of mobile ECG monitoring on AF management. Keywords and index terms used in the search strategy include "atrial fibrillation" AND "mhealth" OR "mobile health" OR "mobile app" OR "mobile application" OR smartphone OR mobile AND "electrocardiography", "electrocardiogram" OR "ECG" OR "monitoring". A search using all identified keywords and index terms was undertaken across the following databases: PubMed, CINAHL, and EMBASE. Incorporating the novel mobile ECG monitoring technology in the guideline-adherent integrated AF care model may reduce rehospitalisation, improve HRQoL, and better patient clinical outcomes. Mobile applications with ECG monitoring functions can provide user-friendly on-demand rhythm monitoring, facilitating the early detection of recurrent AF post-ablation.

Comparative Assessment of Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) Google APPs and CKD Prepare GFR India Google App

Aim: Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) estimation is an important parameter for assessment of kidney function and management of the patient with suspected kidney function. These mobile applications hence change the way better patient care is managed. In the research project, there is an attempt to perform comparative assessment of GFR Google APPs and CKD PREPARE GFR India Google APP. 
 Methods: Google app store was searched to identify all the applications which may help in estimation of GFR. All the application were compared except general medical calculators and non-English applications. All important parameters were identified with the guidance of delphi group and comparison chart was made.
 Results: The search of Google play store led to 35 mobile applications related to GFR estimation. The majority of the applications were by IT company developers and few were by associations or individuals. There are few companies who have developed multiple mobile applications with different formulas. Many of these aspects of the mobile applications which are considered had important parameters. Few of the applications have multiple page interfaces which may lead to multiple clicks before reaching to GFR estimation which may be at times may be difficult in case of large amounts of use. 
 Conclusion: All the GFR estimation applications are comparable. Single user interface applications have advantages over others where all the data can be entered and results are available in a single view. The disclaimer of using calculators under medical guidance of a qualified physicians is always required.

Nonvolatile Write Buffer-Based Journaling Bypass for Storage Write Reduction in Mobile Devices

In mobile systems, such as smartphones, most of storage writes are incurred by the SQLite database (DB) system. These writes consist of two parts: writes to original data (e.g., SQLite DB file) and journaling-induced writes. In this paper, we first report our observations on the characteristics of these writes: (1) journaling writes dominate storage write, (2) overwrites are frequent in mobile storage, and most importantly, and (3) those overwrites change only a small portion of data. Based on these observations, we propose to employ small capacitor-backed nonvolatile write buffer and use it to durably store small writes without journaling. This allows us to completely avoid journal writes for those small writes, which contributes to significant reduction in journaling-induced writes while still providing the same level of data consistency and durability. In our mechanism, it is critical to minimize the capacity of nonvolatile write buffer so that the backing capacitor does not violate stringent resource/size requirements of mobile systems. Therefore, we propose three optimizations that make the best use of small write buffer: (1) write buffer that manages only the difference between old and new data, (2) a dynamic method to determine which data to store in the write buffer, and (3) an incremental flush policy, which controls the number of write buffer entries to be flushed. The experimental results show 92.4% and 85.1% storage write reductions on average when running single and multiple mobile applications, respectively, with only 8 KB write buffer and a tiny capacitor.

Mobile local search with noisy locations

The deep penetration of mobile devices have led to the emergence of multiple mobile applications that seek to harness the positioning capabilities embedded in such devices. One of the most functional of these applications is local search. Local search is similar to a regular web search, yet is more powerful in a mobile setting since results are ranked both by prominence and locality. Undoubtedly popular, the current design of local search applications fails to cater equally to a privacy-aware user who desires finer controls in her location disclosure. Towards this end, we propose the design for a private local search (PriLS) application that enables a user to first learn the geographic variation in local search results and then use it to determine a noisy location that has little or no affect on the search results. Parametric studies and real-world evaluations show that PriLS can help identify geographic locations that would produce similar search results (compared to when the user’s location is used) with no noticeable delays in user experience. They also reveal that large areas typically exist where there is no change in the result of a local search query, and can be exploited to provide spatial privacy guarantees to a user.

An innovative software-defined WiNeMO architecture for advanced QoS-guaranteed mobile service transport

The spread of wireless networks and the growing proliferation of mobile devices require the development of new mobility control mechanisms to support the different demands of traffic in different network conditions. A major obstacle to developing this kind of technology refers to the complexity involved in handling all the information about the large number of Moving Objects (MOs), as well as the total signaling overhead required to manage these procedures in the network. Several initiatives proposed by the scientific community to address this issue reveal weakness, particularly by relying on the MO for the responsibility in triggering the mobility process. Moreover, they are often only guided by wireless medium statistics, such as the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) of the candidate Point of Attachment (PoA). Thus, this work seeks to develop, evaluate and validate a high-level communication infrastructure for Wireless Networking for Moving Objects (WiNeMO) systems by making use of the flexibility provided by the Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm, where network functions are easily and efficiently deployed by integrating OpenFlow and IEEE 802.21 standards. The Software-Defined WiNeMO (SDWiNeMO) holistic framework is largely aimed at enabling the network infrastructure to provision service transport while guaranteeing Quality of Service (QoS) for multiple mobile applications, as well as providing seamless mobility for MOs always seeking the best connectivity to maintain good Quality of Experience (QoE) over time. Moreover, SDWiNeMO deploys a new mobility-based load balancing technique to increase MO admissions for situations involving PoA resource saturation. The feasibility and effectiveness of our proposal is assessed by prototyping and evaluating the SDWiNeMO architecture in a baseline emulated testbed comprising realistic networking conditions. For purposes of benchmarking, the analysis was conducted in the control and data plane aspects, which demonstrate that the SDWiNeMO proposal significantly outperforms typical QoS-capable Internet Protocol (IP)-based SDN configurations by allowing the network to handle the multimedia traffic with optimal QoS-guaranteed transport and acceptable QoE over time.

Injection locking phase rotator for Outphasing transmitter

This paper presents a novel technique of implementing the amplitude information into out-phase mapping, which is a necessary block of the high-efficiency Outphasing transmitter architecture. The proposed technique is based on using injection locking ring oscillator and switching-based control circuit to implement phase rotator. The technique is compatible with digital implementation using DSP. Since, Outphasing transmitters use switching power amplifiers, this implementation is suitable for an all-digital and adjustable transmitter implementation. The modulator system is designed using UMC130nm CMOS technology; and is simulated at 1.8GHz operation frequency, as it is commonly used in multiple mobile applications requiring high power levels. Simulation shows an out-phasing error of 0.41°rms, across the whole input amplitude sweep of 45dB. The power consumption of the single phase rotator is 1.5mW from 1.2V supply.

Feasibility of Text Messaging to Improve Oral Anti-Cancer Adherence in older Cancer Patients

BACKGROUND More than 50 oral chemotherapy agents in pill form are on the market, with projections that in 3 years, 25% of cancer treatment will be in pill form. For oral agents to achieve a therapeutically effective level for cancer treatment, patients must strictly adhere to the regimen. However, adherence is often less than 80%, which may be inadequate for treating the cancer. There are more than 285 million wireless subscribers in the US with an estimated 67.5% of adults owning cell phones and 98% of those phones having text messaging capability. A recent review of 12 trials on interventions for disease prevention or management found that text messaging improved health behaviors. PURPOSE There are multiple mobile applications and smart phone products to prompt medication adherence, however, few have examined if these prompts improve medication adherence. Adherence is critical among cancer patients who are older and less likely to text message. The cancer medications can be costly, as much as $800 per pill, and only effective if taken as prescribed. Adherence is complicated by complexity of the dosing and the duration of the prescriptions. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to test the feasibility, usability, and satisfaction with text messages to improve symptoms from side effects of treatment and adherence to oral chemotherapy agents. METHODS A 10-week, 2-group, prospective trial will enroll 76 patients from cancer centers to examine a 3week text message intervention to promote oral agent adherence and management of symptoms from side effects of treatment. Descriptive statistics, generalized linear modeling, and generalized estimating equations will be used for analysis.