Native Applications Research Articles

Mobile cross-platform app development tools

This article discusses the existing popular tools for mobile cross-platform application development. It is contrasted with the so – called native application development-when applications are created using the tools provided by the development companies of the respective platforms. Google provides a tool like Android Studio for its Android mobile operating system. The main programming languages used to create applications for this platform are Java and Kotlin. Apple, in turn, offers developers such an integrated development environment as XCode, in which development is carried out using the Swift programming language. The authors reviewed some of the most popular tools for cross-platform development, such as React Native, Xamarin and Flutter. React Native is a product developed by the company Facebook. It inherits the main technological aspects from another framework from Facebook-React. Programming here is conducted in the JavaScript language. React Native is suitable for web developers who have worked with React before and now want to try their hand at developing mobile applications. Xamarin is a framework supported by Microsoft. It provides tools for creating cross-platform applications for the iOS and Android mobile operating systems. This framework is bundled with Microsoft Visual Studio as a downloadable component. What is typical for a Microsoft product, here the C# programming language is used for development. This is a significant advantage of the Xamarin framework: during the creation of a mobile application, developers can use all the important and convenient features of this programming language. Flutter is a tool developed by Google to create apps for Android and iOS using a single code base. Unlike other popular solutions, Flutter is not a framework: it is a set of software development tools that contains everything you need to create cross-platform applications. It includes a visualization engine, ready-made widgets, and tools for working with the command line. The main programming language here is Dart. In the course of studying these tools, the authors made the following conclusions: tools for cross-platform development are an excellent solution if you need to create an application that does not require high performance: displaying information received from the server, simple local information processors, such as applications for social networks, online stores, organizer applications. These tools are not suitable for creating applications that require computing resources.

Autonomics at the Edge: Resource Orchestration for Edge Native Applications

With the increasing availability of edge computing resources, there is a need to develop edge orchestration and resource management techniques to support application resilience and performance. Similar to the use of containers and microservices for cloud environments, it is important to understand the key attributes that characterize edge native applications. As edge devices increase in their autonomy and intelligence, orchestration techniques are needed to respond to changes in device properties, availability, security credentials, migration, and network connectivity protocols. Implementing autonomics techniques for edge computing can increase the resilience of the interaction between devices and applications reducing execution time and cost. The use of autonomics at the network edge can address the complexity requirement of industrial workflows to overcome execution latency, data privacy, and reliability constraints.

Monoclonal Anti-AMP Antibodies Are Sensitive and Valuable Tools for Detecting Patterns of AMPylation.

SummaryAMPylation is a post-translational modification that modifies amino acid side chains with adenosine monophosphate (AMP). Recently, a role of AMPylation as a universal regulatory mechanism in infection and cellular homeostasis has emerged, driving the demand for universal tools to study this modification. Here, we describe three monoclonal anti-AMP antibodies (mAbs) from mouse that are capable of protein backbone-independent recognition of AMPylation, in denatured (western blot) as well as native (ELISA, IP) applications, thereby outperforming previously reported tools. These antibodies are highly sensitive and specific for AMP modifications, highlighting their potential as tools for new target identification, as well as for validation of known targets. Interestingly, applying the anti-AMP mAbs to various cancer cell lines reveals a previously undescribed broad and diverse AMPylation pattern. In conclusion, these anti-AMP mABs will further advance the current understanding of AMPylation and the spectrum of modified targets.

Exploring the role of progressive web applications in modern web development

This paper explores such a Web development technology as Progressive Web Applications. It is explained what this technology is and the purpose of it. The paper also compares progressive web applications to other Web technologies that are closely related to them, such as responsive websites and native applications. It highlights the most important differences and similarities between them. Furthermore, the paper discusses the advantages as well as the possible limitations of this technology. Finally, it provides some thoughts on whether or not this technology is the best solution for the online presence of a business.

Light-Induced Fluorescence-Based Device and Hybrid Mobile App for Oral Hygiene Management at Home: Development and Usability Study.

BackgroundDental diseases can be prevented through the management of dental plaques. Dental plaque can be identified using the light-induced fluorescence (LIF) technique that emits light at 405 nm. The LIF technique is more convenient than the commercial technique using a disclosing agent, but the result may vary for each individual as it still requires visual identification.ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to introduce and validate a deep learning–based oral hygiene monitoring system that makes it easy to identify dental plaques at home.MethodsWe developed a LIF-based system consisting of a device that can visually identify dental plaques and a mobile app that displays the location and area of dental plaques on oral images. The mobile app is programmed to automatically determine the location and distribution of dental plaques using a deep learning–based algorithm and present the results to the user as time series data. The mobile app is also built with convergence of naive and web applications so that the algorithm is executed on a cloud server to efficiently distribute computing resources.ResultsThe location and distribution of users’ dental plaques could be identified via the hand-held LIF device or mobile app. The color correction filter in the device was developed using a color mixing technique. The mobile app was built as a hybrid app combining the functionalities of a native application and a web application. Through the scrollable WebView on the mobile app, changes in the time series of dental plaque could be confirmed. The algorithm for dental plaque detection was implemented to run on Amazon Web Services for object detection by single shot multibox detector and instance segmentation by Mask region-based convolutional neural network.ConclusionsThis paper shows that the system can be used as a home oral care product for timely identification and management of dental plaques. In the future, it is expected that these products will significantly reduce the social costs associated with dental diseases.

Path Sensitive Fuzzing for Native Applications

Coverage-guided fuzzing is a widely used and effective solution to find software vulnerabilities. Tracking code coverage and utilizing it to guide fuzzing are crucial to coverage-guided fuzzers. However, tracking full and accurate path coverage is infeasible in practice due to the high instrumentation overhead. Popular fuzzers (e.g., AFL) often use <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">coarse</i> coverage information, e.g., edge hit counts stored in a compact bitmap, to achieve highly efficient greybox testing. Such inaccuracy and incompleteness in coverage introduce serious limitations to fuzzers. First, it causes <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">path collisions</i> , which prevent fuzzers from discovering potential paths that lead to new crashes. More importantly, it prevents fuzzers from making wise decisions on fuzzing strategies. In this article, we propose a coverage sensitive fuzzing solution CollAFL. It mitigates path collisions by providing more accurate coverage information, while still preserving low instrumentation overhead. It also utilizes the coverage information to apply three new fuzzing strategies, promoting the speed of discovering new paths and vulnerabilities. We implemented two variants of this solution, namely CollAFL (based on AFL) and CollAFL-bin (based on AFL-dyninst), to test applications with and without source code respectively, and evaluated them on 24 popular applications. The results showed that path collisions are common, i.e., up to 75 percent of edges could collide with others in some applications. But our solutions CollAFL and CollAFL-bin could reduce the edge collision ratio to nearly zero. Moreover, armed with the three fuzzing strategies, they outperform their counterparts (i.e., AFL and AFL-dyninst) in terms of both code coverage and vulnerability discovery. On average, CollAFL covered 20 percent more program paths, and found 320 percent more unique crashes and 260 percent more bugs than AFL in 200 hours. Moreover, CollAFL-bin covered 15 percent more paths, and found 200 percent more unique crashes and 150 percent more vulnerabilities than AFL-dyninst, showing that the proposed solution also works for binary application fuzzing. In total, CollAFL found 157 new security bugs with 95 new CVEs assigned.

Facilitating reproducible research through direct connection of data analysis with manuscript preparation: StatTag for connecting statistical software to Microsoft Word

ObjectivesTo enhance reproducible research by creating a broadly accessible, free, open-source software tool for connecting Microsoft Word to statistical programs (R/R Markdown, Python, SAS, Stata) so that results may be automatically updated in a manuscript.Materials and MethodsWe developed StatTag for Windows as a Microsoft Word plug-in using C# and for macOS as a native application using Objective-C. Source code is available under the MIT license at https://github.com/stattag.ResultsStatTag links analysis file(s) (R/R Markdown, SAS, Stata, or Python) and a Word document, invokes the statistical program(s) to obtain results, and embeds selected output in the document. StatTag can accommodate multiple statistical programs with a single document and features an interface to view, edit, and rerun statistical code directly from Word.Discussion and ConclusionStatTag may facilitate reproducibility within increasingly multidisciplinary research teams, improve research transparency through review and publication, and complement data-sharing initiatives.

Abstract IA04: Data-driven recruitment: Implementation of digital marketing strategies for improved participant response rates and retention

Abstract Background: Decline in epidemiology cohort response rates has been documented over decades, with precipitous declines in recent years. Incentives and repeated contact attempts have been shown to increase retention to varying degrees, but the effects of the different types of incentives and methods of contact—details necessary for reliable replication—remain poorly understood. Numerous factors related to study implementation and participant characteristics likely affect response rates, but few cohort studies have published the detailed empirical data that would be necessary to assess their effect. The small number of cohort studies that have published analyses of their recruitment protocols raises the question of how many studies are systematically and rigorously examining their methods. A 2011 review suggested that cohort studies may be less likely to engage in these activities due to concerns of risk to participant loyalty and the cost of assessment. Epidemiology cohorts often involve many concurrent activities and overlapping projects, which may also contribute to the complexity of the task. Considering the long duration of cohort studies, some may perceive that study staff can accurately intuit best practices. However, these challenges are not unique to epidemiology cohorts. The private sector is also concerned with attracting and retaining customers, and as such, companies have developed tools that enable rapid, low-cost reporting on their methods. In the field of marketing, customer relationship management (CRM) systems facilitate both the desired outcome (a customer buying a product) and the collection of data to identify factors that influenced the outcome. Aspects of these targeted marketing approaches and their related software tools provide both a model and a means by which epidemiology cohorts can better understand the constellation of factors that affect attrition among their own populations. Methods: The California Teachers Study (CTS) is a large prospective cancer epidemiology cohort that began in 1995. Since 2013, the CTS has used a commercially available CRM platform, modified with a variety of native applications (apps) and integrations, to manage participant recruitment and data collection for multiple projects. To manage a large-scale biobanking project and multiple tissue collection projects, we began with the platform’s standard contact data management and activity tracking features. We added an app for geolocation fieldwork management and a custom mobile app for surveys and biospecimen chain-of-custody tracking. To manage two follow-up questionnaires, we used available integrations for survey development, email marketing automation, a cloud-based call center with automated activity logging, and a web form for participants to submit information securely from our study website. Central features of all projects have included native reports and dashboards, workflow automations that reduce data entry, and data security measures. Results: The CRM platform has scaled to meet the needs of multiple concurrent projects with highly varied study designs and staffing requirements. By conducting our recruitment activities within the CRM, each interaction with the system (an incoming call from a participant, a blood collection, an automated survey reminder) passively generates useful metadata. These metadata, in concert with structured and unstructured data from participants and staff, enable timely monitoring and retrospective analysis using native reporting tools within the system. The ability to view and analyze clean data from the outset of each project revealed key—and sometimes unexpected—factors that were influencing response. Analysis of data across projects has revealed that characteristics of participants, staff, protocol decisions, technology, and equipment all influence outcomes in distinct ways. Conclusion: Existing commercially available tools, such as a CRM system, can be readily configured to meet the specific research, process, and security requirements of population sciences research. In the CTS, using a CRM system helped reveal that different factors affected participation differently, even within the same project. This presentation will discuss these factors, the approaches studies can use to collect data about these factors, and lessons learned about ways to further improve response rates. Broader adoption of CRM tools could enable the type of data collection and analysis necessary to more precisely define the factors that affect participation and develop more targeted and successful recruitment methods. Citation Format: Jennifer Benbow. Data-driven recruitment: Implementation of digital marketing strategies for improved participant response rates and retention [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Modernizing Population Sciences in the Digital Age; 2019 Feb 19-22; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(9 Suppl):Abstract nr IA04.

Code Renewability for Native Software Protection

Software protection aims at safeguarding assets embedded in software by preventing and delaying reverse engineering and tampering attacks. This article presents an architecture and supporting tool flow to renew parts of native applications dynamically. Renewed and diversified code and data belonging to either the original application or to linked-in protections are delivered from a secure server to a client on demand. This results in frequent changes to the software components when they are under attack, thus making attacks harder. By supporting various forms of diversification and renewability, novel protection combinations become available and existing combinations become stronger. The prototype implementation is evaluated on several industrial use cases.

Libraries and Impact of Implementing Cloud Native Applications in replacement to Premise Applications

Libraries and Impact of Implementing Cloud Native Applications in replacement to Premise Applications

Modern Messaging Queues – RabbitMQ, NATS and NATS Streaming

Distributed messaging structures shape the core of massive microservice architecture , cloud native applications and data streaming as they are used to communicate between different application services. With actual-time crucial programs there is a developing need for well-constructed messaging platform this is fault tolerant, has low latency and scalable. This paper surveys various message broker that are in vogue today. These modern message brokers have their own adavantages and disadvantages that have come up lately. There is need for the comparative study to decide which broker is most suitable for a specific appalication. An in-depth study is required to decide which features of a messaging system meet the needs of the application. The paper outlines information about three messaging systems – RabbitMq, Nats and Nats-Streaming and explores the features they offer as well as their performance under varied testing workloads.

Impact of Implementing Cloud Native Applications in Replacement to on-Premise Applications

Impact of Implementing Cloud Native Applications in Replacement to on-Premise Applications - written by A R Sri Nandhini , Alaine Joseph , Ajay S published on 2020/07/07 download full article with reference data and citations

Infrastructure free indoor positioning system

Abstract Latest technological advancement uncovered new social and entrepreneurial opportunities in fields like civil engineering and facility management. While most outdoor location challenges have been addressed in the past few years, with declassified military technologies such as Motion Imagery Standards Board and North Atlantic Treaty Organization Digital Motion Imagery Standard being integrated into solutions that enhance real-time emulation of surveillance video streams over digital maps, there is plenty of room for innovation when indoor location is considered. The market associated to indoor positioning is expected to significantly grow in the following decade since people spend more and more time indoors and promising advantages of such technologies have been identified in healthcare, retail, logistics and leisure. Yet, conventional indoor positioning systems mostly rely on costly and difficult to maintain infrastructure. Discordantly, the hereby paper is introducing an infrastructure free indoor positioning web application designed for routing people inside facilities and building evacuation scenarios. The proposed architecture is independent on external hardware or beacons, relying on a generic sensors framework that exposes the underlying capabilities of a mobile phone for data collection and internet connection for assessing current location and providing guidance in respect with an already known topography. Therefore, this design might be easily extended to various facilities, individualizing through no initial costs for sensors deployment and light resource consumption for the user, since data is not processed on a native application. Such flexibility is considered to optimize the navigation inside large public places and reduce the time required to find products, people or shops, offering the users more time for what matters.

Pengembangan Aplikasi M-Learning Berbasis Android Sebagai Sarana Penunjang Pembelajaran Dalam Kelas

Software manajemen pembelajaran sudah banyak yang dikembangkan dan penggunaannya semakin meluas di era industry 4.0 ini, akan tetapi kebanyakan software tersebut dikembangkan ketika penggunaan smartphone belum meluas, sehingga desain antar mukanya dirancang untuk penggunaan pada komputer desktop. Walaupun e-learning yang ada memungkinkan pengguna untuk mengakses materi perkuliahan dari jarak jauh melalui apikasi web, akan tetapi mobilitas pengguna masih terbatas karena tergantung dengan posisi desktop tempat dia bekerja. Akses menggunakan smartphone juga terhambat karena performa yang kurang bagus dan desain aplikasi web yang masih berorientasi pada computer desktop. Hal di atas menyebabkan tidak optimalnya pemanfaatan sarana e-learning oleh mahasiswa. Untuk mengatasi hambatan di atas, pada penelitian ini dirancang antarmuka aplikasi e-learning dengan aplikasi native pada perangkat mobile. Aplikasi mobile e-learning ini terdiri dari backend yang berjalan pada server dan aplikasi frontend pada perangkat smartphone. Sebagai backend pada peladen, digunakan software manajemen pembelajaran online berbasis chamilo. Chamilo merupakan software kode terbuka untuk manajemen pembelajaran online berbasis php. Software mobile dikembangkan secara native untuk perangkat android dengan menggunakan bahasa pemrograman kotlin. Akses ke database menggunakan webservice berbasis SOAP dan RESTFUL API. Diharapkan dengan software ini siswa bisa mengulang menyimak materi dengan mudah dengan menu yang intuitive dan tanpa terhalang oleh menu-menu yang kompleks, sehingga tingkat penyerapan terhadap materi pembelajaran semakin tinggi.

Formal Analysis of Mobile Multi-Factor Authentication with Single Sign-On Login

Over the last few years, there has been an almost exponential increase in the number of mobile applications that deal with sensitive data, such as applications for e-commerce or health. When dealing with sensitive data, classical authentication solutions based on username-password pairs are not enough, and multi-factor authentication solutions that combine two or more authentication factors of different categories are required instead. Even if several solutions are currently used, their security analyses have been performed informally or semiformally at best, and without a reference model and a precise definition of the multi-factor authentication property. This makes a comparison among the different solutions both complex and potentially misleading. In this article, we first present the design of two reference models for native applications based on the requirements of two real-world use-case scenarios. Common features between them are the use of one-time password approaches and the support of a single sign-on experience. Then, we provide a formal specification of our threat model and the security goals, and discuss the automated security analysis that we performed. Our formal analysis validates the security goals of the two reference models we propose and provides an important building block for the formal analysis of different multi-factor authentication solutions.

Programmer Productivity Enhancement Through Controlled Natural Language Input

We have created CABERNET, a Controlled Nature Language (CNL) based approach to program creation. CABERNET allows programmers to use a simple outline-based syntax. This allows increased programmer efficiency and syntax flexibility. CNLs have successfully been used for writing requirements documents. We propose taking this approach well beyond this to fully functional programs. Through the use of heuristics and inference to analyze and determine the programmer’s intent we are able to create fully functional mobile applications. The goal is for programs to be aligned with the way that the humans think rather than the way computers process information. Through the use of templates a CABERNET application can be processed to run on multiple run time environments. Because processing of a CABERNET program file results in native application program performance is maintained.

Process Migration-Based Computational Offloading Framework for IoT-Supported Mobile Edge/Cloud Computing

Mobile devices have become an indispensable component of Internet of Things (IoT). However, these devices have resource constraints in processing capabilities, battery power, and storage space, thus hindering the execution of computation-intensive applications that often require broad bandwidth, stringent response time, long battery life, and heavy computing power. Mobile cloud computing and mobile edge computing (MEC) are emerging technologies that can meet the aforementioned requirements using offloading algorithms. In this paper, we analyze the effect of platform-dependent native applications on computational offloading in edge networks and propose a lightweight process migration-based computational offloading framework. The proposed framework does not require application binaries at edge servers and thus seamlessly migrates native applications. The proposed framework is evaluated using an experimental testbed. Numerical results reveal that the proposed framework saves almost 44% of the execution time and 84% of the energy consumption. Hence, the proposed framework shows profound potential for resource-intensive IoT application processing in MEC.

Pharmacological Importance of Sage and Oregano

Sage and Oregano, both are well-known culinary herbs with potential medicinal uses. Sage is mostly used to cease wounds bleeding, treating sores, swelling, cough and ulcers back in the first century and was called as the fertility drug since it reduces excessive bleeding during menstruation. On the other hand Oregano was found to be effective in treating stomach discomforts, bacterial/fungal infection, inflammatory bowel disease etc. Therefore due to their therapeutic and native applications, Sage and Oregano is of high economic worth.

ARoCuS Web application promotes standardized treatment and documentation of rotator cuff tears

PurposeTo program a Web application for simplified calculation of the Advanced Rotator Cuff tear Score (ARoCuS), which is a 5-part, 18-item treatment-oriented intraoperative scoring system for intraoperative evaluation of rotator cuff tears.MethodsARoCuS characteristics (torn tendon, tear size, tissue quality and tear pattern) were assessed intraoperatively on 40 consecutive patients with rotator cuff tears for calculation of defect category ΔV. Video recordings were used to re-calculate the ARoCuS after surgery and to assess inter-observer reliability.ResultsThe Web application “ARoCuS App” was built using Angular and transformed to a native iOS application. The intraoperative use of the app proved to be simple and intuitive. There were inter-/intra-observer differences neither in ARoCuS defect categories ΔV nor in ARoCuS characteristics (p > 0.05).ConclusionThe ARoCuS app is a supportive tool for integration of standardized treatment procedures and documentation of rotator cuff tears in clinical routine.

A Decentralized Service based E-commerce

The decentralization of many processes has the potential to help many service-based industries to scale up the operations in magnitude and efficiency horizontally, as well as to reduce exponential overhead costs of operation set-up in a new location though e-commerce. This is achieved through the backbone of connecting different operational units through the internet, more specifically through the cloud. The technologies like cloud computing, block chain, native applications for mobiles, and web applications as well, enable a decentralized yet synchronized environment, which is sustainable with a larger ceiling of overburden on the sector. The e-commerce will use web application, android as well as iOS applications, cloud computing as well as security through block chain techniques. It also makes it easier to adjust according to the customer feedback using collaborative filtering as well as adjusting for errors in remote operational units. For the purpose of understanding, we will take the example of a decentralized, cross city e-commerce laundry service in this paper.