Ubiquitous Technology Research Articles

Exploring proximity-based recommendation criteria as a tool for information exchange and interactions between locals and tourists

Sharing economy and contemporary tourism are two emerging concepts that urge to be investigated together with new ubiquitous and immersive technologies, in the tourism and hospitality sector. In this rich scenario, we designed and implemented ShareCities, a platform to foster remote direct information exchange and meaningful interactions among tourists and locals. Exploiting ShareCities we here present an extended analysis on the opportunity to use people-to-people recommendation criteria based on proximity. We hence defined three criteria which drove our analysis: i) profile similarity, ii) geographical proximity, and iii) random exploration. Through an online questionnaire, we collect answers from 126 young-adult students, obtaining a general positive interest in the three criteria but also concerns in terms of privacy, trust, and feeling of disorientation.

Identifying Hypocalcemia in Dairy Cattle By Combining 3D Printing and Paper Diagnostics

Electrochemistry is a powerful technique for advancing point-of-care (POC) diagnostics due largely to its ease of use and compatibility with electronic readers that can be controlled by ubiquitous technology such as smartphones or tablets. Specifically, potentiometry, (i.e., the use of ion-selective electrodes) is well-suited for incorporation into POC devices for the following reasons: (i) it possesses high selectivity (through the incorporation of ionophores), (ii) it is multiplexable, and (iii) provides a fast response time. This talk will focus on the development of a paper-based diagnostic device for the identification of hypocalcemia in dairy cattle at the point-of-care. Hypocalcemia is a metabolic disorder resulting from a lower-than-normal concentration of calcium in the bloodstream and can lead to deleterious outcomes such as early herd removal or death. Diagnosis and treatment of hypocalcemia lead to increased expenses on dairy operations, where low-cost and rapid testing solutions are currently not commercially available. Our approach utilizes the highly reproducible and mass-production capabilities of 3D printing to fabricate sensors that can be incorporated into paper substrates, resulting in low-cost and reliable diagnostics devices.

Future Imaginings in Art and Artificial Intelligence

ABSTRACT In considering future imaginings of art and Artificial Intelligence (AI), we point out two key premises to our approach: the human-machine relation without opposition between the two terms; and the implications of artificial intelligence within practice-led art practices. According to Gilbert Simondon, there is a biological and technological evolution that does not separate nature and technics or culture and technics, since what is defined by human nature is already part of a technological system. Yuk Hui criticizes the idea of technological singularity supported by strong artificial intelligence which converges on itself. However, there is also the possibility of multiple bifurcations emerging from technodiverse practices and aesthetics. On algorithmic art, Lev Manovich points out that AI is increasingly culturally influencing our imagination, choices, and behaviours and that it has built its own imagery and cognitive patterns in society. Joanna Zylinska connects the dots between AI, creativity and innovation, which by bringing AI to research into practice-led art practices, opens the problematization of AI to the possibilities of reprogramming the human sensory-cognitive apparatus. In this paper, we extend these approaches to examine whether these computer systems that enable the processing of big data can or cannot program our imagination, desires, likes, sensations, perceptions and attitudes. Finally, in order to think the worlds built through these emerging AI technologies, we ask what kind of society we want to live in, and what roles we will allow ubiquitous computational technologies, such as AI, to play in our daily lives.

المواطنة الرقمية وتقدير الذات والرضا عن الحياة: تقييم للفروق الجغرافية والديموغرافية بالمملكة العربية السعودية

Living in the new era of globalization has been enhanced by ubiquitous information and communication technologies. These advancements in communication technology introduce many consequences in a person’s life and impact the psychology of potential users and may lead to many psychological concerns. This study examines the impact of digital citizenship and considered the effects of digital life on self-esteem and the potential mediating role of life satisfaction. The cross-sectional research design uses a purposive non-probability sampling technique with a population of 2597 Saudis with formal education. Data were collected via multiple research questionnaires: to assess individuals ‘concept of digital citizenship, the Digital Citizenship Questionnaire developed by Nordin et al. (2016); to measure self-esteem, Webster et al. (2020) state self-esteem scale; and to measure life satisfaction, the Satisfaction with Life Scale developed by Diener et al. (1985). It has been observed significant associations fall the dimensions of digital citizenship with self-esteem and life satisfaction, while life satisfaction played a significant mediation role between digital citizenship and self-esteem. Findings of the results address useful insights about the digital citizenship construct and its relationship with psychological attributes of self-esteem and life satisfaction. The results will significantly contribute to the field of digital marketing, and digital network-based organizations and enhances the knowledge about digital citizenship along with the responsibilities and ethical use of digital technology in the respective firms.

Performance of piezoelectric actuators in gas microvalves: An engineering case study

Microvalves used to control gas flow in water heaters are traditionally based on low cost ubiquitous solenoid technology. The demand for a better flux control and for reducing the dependence on the solenoid Cu and rare earth magnetic materials, underlines the need for alternative solutions. In this work we report an engineering case study with experimental validation where a substituting solution to a commercial heater solenoid microvalve is provided by a low-cost high stroke piezoelectric bender for gas flow control. We established the relations between applied voltages, bender displacements, gas pressure drops through the microvalve and associated flow rates and demonstrate that the operation conditions of the piezoelectric microvalve resemble those of the solenoid one. By manipulating the electrical potential difference applied to the bender it is possible to control the pressure drop associated with the microvalve. The piezoelectric microvalve behaves in a continuous mode, not as a on-off device, what is a significant advantage over the solenoid one. We have proven that it is possible to directly incorporate a piezoelectric bender in a commercial solenoid- driven microvalve without significant changes in the valve design. The resultant piezoelectric driven valve is faster, partial, high voltage but low current, and silent.

Towards a Low-Cost Teacher Orchestration Using Ubiquitous Computing Devices for Detecting Student’s Engagement

The ubiquitous devices and technologies to support teachers and students in a learning environment include the Internet of things (IoT), learning analytics (LA), augmented or virtual reality (AR/VR), ubiquitous learning environment (ULE), and wearables. However, most of these solutions are obtrusive, with substantial infrastructure costs and pseudo-real-time results. Real-time detection of students’ activeness, participation, and activity monitoring is important, especially during a pandemic. This research study provides a low-cost teacher orchestration solution with real-time results using off-the-shelf devices. The proposed solution determines a teacher’s activeness using multimodal data (MMD) from both teacher and student’s devices. The MMD extracts different features from data, decodes them, and displays them to the instructor in real time. It allows the instructor to update their teaching methodology in real time to get more students on board and provide a more engaging learning experience. Our experimental results show that real-time feedback about the classroom’s current status helped improve learning outcomes by about 45%. Also, we investigated a 50% increase in classroom engaging experience.

Blockchain Adoption to Secure the Food Industry: Opportunities and Challenges

With the growth in food products’ usage, ensuring their quality and safety has become progressively difficult. Specifically, food traceability turns out to be a very critical task for retailers, sellers, consumers, surveillance authorities, and other stakeholders in the food supply chain system. There are requirements for food authenticity verification (correct declaration of cultivation, origin, and variety), quality checks (e.g., justification for higher prices), and preventing food products from fraudsters in the food industry. The ubiquitous and promising technology of blockchain ensures the traceability of food trade networks with high potential and handles the aforementioned issues. Blockchain makes the food industry more transparent at all levels by storing data immutably and enabling quick tracking across the stages of the food supply chain. Hence, commodities, stakeholders, and semi-finished food items can be recognized significantly faster. Motivated by these facts, in this paper, we present an in-depth survey of state-of-the-art approaches to the food industry’s security, food traceability, and food supply chain management. Further, we propose a blockchain-based secure and decentralized food industry architecture to alleviate security and privacy aspects and present a comprehensive solution taxonomy for a blockchain-based food industry. Then, a comparative analysis of existing approaches with respect to various parameters, i.e., scalability, latency, and food quality, is presented, which facilitates the end-user in selecting approaches based on the merits over other approaches. Finally, we provide insights into the open issues and research challenges with concluding remarks.

Smartphysicslab: a creative Physics Laboratory using Arduino and smartphones

We address aspects of innovation in the practice of experimental physics that are made possible thanks to the availability of ubiquitous and/or cheap digital technologies having the potential to improve the experience and learning outcomes throughout the physics curriculum. The ongoing pandemic poses specific challenges on the traditional approach to laboratory teaching in large labs. The innovation described here, developed independently by us over many years, aims to help maintain or even improve the development of experimental skills also in this new context. We present an analysis of the current situation and describe our proposal with a call for action, centering on the development of an open and bottom-up “Smart Physics Lab” community for the sharing of resources and good practice.

Intelligent ubiquitous technology as a precision agri-food framework: a proposed framework

Agri-Food is another term for the agriculture-based food sector, which is currently one of Indonesia’s main pillars of the national economy. One of the well-known plants for agricultural-based food processing called Agri-Food in Indonesia is Cocoa. Cocoa is one of the plantation commodities that has an essential role in economic activities in Indonesia. Given the critical role of cocoa as a source of the country’s economy, it must guarantee productivity and quality of cocoa and sustainability. To ensure cocoa productivity and quality sustainability, agricultural activities in today’s era can integrate intelligent ubiquitous technology as a framework for obtaining precise production results. What can measure precision production results from three aspects: increasing agricultural land productivity, reducing production costs, and minimizing the environmental impact. This paper discusses the proposed framework with intelligent ubiquitous technology to support precision agri-food that focuses on context-aware systems. The context-aware system in the proposed framework is expected to become a control center in collecting and processing data in real-time to help farmers make the best decisions regarding weather conditions and diseases caused by plants.

Viability characterization of a proof-of-concept Bluetooth mesh smart building application

Bluetooth low energy is an almost ubiquitous technology currently embedded in billions of power-constrained Internet of Things devices around the world. The Bluetooth mesh profile, released by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group in July 2017, allows Bluetooth low energy devices to form a mesh network, further enabling smart home and building applications where long-range connectivity is required. However, the current release of Bluetooth mesh profile still has power and deployment constraints that limit its applicability. To explore the viability of Bluetooth mesh profile in home/building automation applications, we built the Smart Doorbell: a proof-of-concept Bluetooth mesh profile–based visitor notification system for office spaces. The Smart Doorbell was implemented using a mesh network topology with nodes distributed across office building floors, serving as a real Internet of Things deployment and as a testbed for mesh network protocols. Similar Bluetooth mesh profile evaluations found in literature use mostly development kits and/or synthetic traffic in artificial settings; we contribute by using the Smart Doorbell, a system as close as possible to a minimum viable product, to evaluate power consumption and responsiveness as a proxy for product viability. This article presents the architecture of the Smart Doorbell, the viability evaluation results, and a direct comparison with FruityMesh, a competing Bluetooth low energy mesh network protocol. Overall, the fact that Bluetooth mesh profile devices can directly communicate with a user’s mobile phone (using Bluetooth low energy) considerably eases deployment and provisioning. However, the use of flooding to forward messages across the mesh network increases power consumption, precluding the use of battery-powered nodes on the network’s backbone and severely limiting the applicability of Bluetooth mesh profile in building automation.

An Exploratory Study of Mobile-Based Scenarios for Foreign Language Teaching in Early Childhood

In today’s world, the ability to communicate in a foreign language is more highly prized than ever by prospective employers, which results in more options and possibilities for students, both academically and professionally. As a result of this tendency and the need for new communication methods, language instructors are driven to include cutting-edge language teaching approaches, resources, and materials in their classroom instruction, such as using ICT, or information, communication and ubiquitous technologies. In this paper, we introduce learning scenarios based on two mobile learning apps that facilitate language learning through interesting, interactive settings in a more personalized way based on children’s age. The writers’ emphasis will be on demonstrating interactive activities devised in their classrooms and on providing examples of student work in two languages, English and Spanish. Through this paper, we examine a range of educational tools and determine that Mondly Kids and Language Drops-Kahoot are the best acceptable teaching materials. On the basis of this assumption, we created three distinct groups of students, and the outcomes from the assessment technique show that mobile language learning enhances children’s experiences and increases their willingness to learn a new language. Additionally, students can use mobile applications to improve their speaking abilities and critical thinking skills throughout a language learning session.

Workplace Trauma in a Digital Age: The Impact of Video Evidence of Violent Crime on Criminal Justice Professionals.

High-quality video and audio recordings of violent crimes, captured using now ubiquitous digital technologies, play an increasingly important role in the administration of justice. However, the effects of exposure to gruesome material presented in this form on criminal justice professionals who analyze, evaluate, and use this potentially traumatic content in the context of their work, are largely unknown. Using long interviews and constructivist grounded theory, this qualitative study sought to explore experiences of exposure to video evidence of violent crime among Canadian criminal justice professionals. Sixteen individuals including police, lawyers, judges, psychiatrists, law clerks, and court reporters volunteered to participate in qualitative long interviews asking about workplace exposures to violent videos. Themes identified address the ubiquity of video evidence of violent crime; proximity to violence through video; being blindsided through lack of preparedness for violent content; repeated exposures through multiple and protracted viewings; insufficient customary methods for self-protection; and the enduring impact of exposure to videoed violence. We determine that criminal justice professionals are increasingly and repeatedly presented with deeply disturbing imagery that was once imperceptible or unknowable and thus previously held at a greater distance. Elements of what is newly visible and audible in video evidence of violent crime create a new emotional proximity to violence that potentially increases the risks of secondary trauma and underscores the need for improved safety measures.

Digital Health Interventions to Improve Cardiometabolic Risk Profile among Adults with Obesity and Chronic Diseases: A Systematic Review

Background: The prevalence of chronic diseases is rapidly increasing globally. Ubiquitous digital technologies give an opportunity for digital health intervention to improve cardiometabolic risk (CMR) profile that may consequently decrease the risk of chronic diseases. However, evidence on digital health associated with chronic disease interventions remains controversial.Purpose: This systematic review aimed to determine the association of digital health intervention with improving CMR profile of adults with obesity and chronic diseases.Methods: A comprehensive search of Medline, CINAHL, Embase, and PubMed was performed using the following criteria: publication between 2016-2021, using digital health tools as interventions, adults with obesity or chronic diseases, cardiometabolic profile as outcomes, and randomized controlled trial (RCT) as the design. The search yielded 548 articles of which 13 studies met the inclusion criteria. The Joanna Briggs checklist for RCT was used to assess the quality of the studies. Data analysis was conducted according to the guidance for synthesis without meta-analysis.Results: There were 8 (61.5%) out of 13 studies assessed the relationship between digital health interventions and weight, of which 7 studies (88%) found positive findings. The association between digital health intervention and blood pressure were assessed in 7 (53.8%) out 13 studies, of which only two studies had positive findings related with systolic blood pressure. The intervention modalities included m-Health (apps) in 2 studies, text-messaging in 4 studies, and combinations of modalities in 8 studies. The interventions used different strategies, including education, self-management, and social support. More than a half of the studies (54%) were about weight-loss interventions and 10 (76.9%) studies used education for intervention components.Conclusions: Digital health intervention may be associated with decreased weight and BMI; however, only a few studies assessed other CMR profile, and the findings were inconsistent. Additional studies are needed to assess digital health interventions targeting other CMR profile, including blood pressure, glucose, and cholesterol level.

‘Without technology we’d be very stuck’: Ageing migrants’ differential (im)mobile practices during a lockdown

Ubiquitous mobile communication technologies have played an integral role in the way people navigated forced physical immobilities produced through restrictive measures during a pandemic. This paper critically investigates how 15 ageing people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds in Victoria, Australia used a range of digital communication technologies and online platforms to cope during the 2020 lockdown. The study deploys the mobilities lens (Urry, 2007) in analysing a data set based on conducting remote and in-depth interviewing. It foregrounds how everyday and multi-scalar digital behaviours afford cultural and social connectedness, reflecting diverse forms of care practices. However, forced immobile practices emerged as shaped by disproportionate network capital. In sum, this study puts forward a nuanced perspective in understanding the scales and textures of (im)mobile practices of ageing migrants during a lockdown in Australia.

Exploring informants’ perspectives on the role of crowdsourced active travel data

ABSTRACT In the era of ubiquitous technology, crowdsourced data is an emerging frontier for active travel (AT) studies. In this work, we utilize accrued knowledge from interviews and previous literature regarding crowdsourced data strengths, challenges, usefulness and reliability for future informants who seek to embrace crowdsourced data. We review four main types of crowdsourced data: social fitness networks, in-house developed apps, bike sharing systems and participatory mapping. The strengths of crowdsourced data include providing fine data coverage, precision, details, immediacy and empowering users to participate in decision-making. Potential challenges that might arise from adopting this data are related to technical, privacy, proprietorship, financial and data fragmentation factors. In terms of usefulness, crowdsourced data lend themselves to before and after analysis, assessing current infrastructure, and investment prioritization. Reliability issues that may undermine the credibility of crowdsourced data are also discussed, as well as remedies for these concerns.

Stepping Into the Next Decade of Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing: UbiComp and ISWC 2021

The 2021 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2021) took place from September 21–26 virtually, around the world; co-located with the International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC). This article discusses some of the interesting research published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technologies, as well as those accepted at ISWC this year—presented virtually with Live Q&A over Whova, Zoom, and Gather.Town. Furthermore, it covers some of the interesting plenary events, such as the Keynotes by Cynthia Breazeal (MIT Media Labs) and John LePore (Perception), as well as the panel discussion on the 30th anniversary of Mark Weiser’s paper on the Vision of a Computer for the 21st Century. Finally, some of the interesting highlights from the ISWC gadget-show and design-exhibition, alongside multiple virtual workshops as part of the adjunct program have been presented.

A Platform Approach to Protein Encapsulates with Controllable Surface Chemistry.

The encapsulation of proteins into core-shell structures is a widely utilised strategy for controlling protein stability, delivery and release. Despite the recognised utility of these microstructures, however, core-shell fabrication routes are often too costly or poorly scalable to allow for industrial translation. Furthermore, many scalable routes rely upon emulsion-techniques implicating denaturing or environmentally harmful organic solvents. Herein, we investigate core-shell protein encapsulation through single-feed, aqueous spray drying: a cheap, industrially ubiquitous particle-formation technology in the absence of organic solvents. We show that an excipient’s preference for the surface of the spray dried particle is well-predicted by its hydrodynamic diameter (D) under relevant feed buffer conditions (pH and ionic strength) and that the predictive power of D is improved when measured at the spray dryer outlet temperature compared to room temperature ( = 0.64 vs. 0.59). Lastly, we leverage these findings to propose an adaptable design framework for fabricating core-shell protein encapsulates by single-feed aqueous spray drying.

Over 65% Sunlight Absorption in a 1 μm Si Slab with Hyperuniform Texture.

Thin, flexible, and invisible solar cells will be a ubiquitous technology in the near future. Ultrathin crystalline silicon (c-Si) cells capitalize on the success of bulk silicon cells while being lightweight and mechanically flexible, but suffer from poor absorption and efficiency. Here we present a new family of surface texturing, based on correlated disordered hyperuniform patterns, capable of efficiently coupling the incident spectrum into the silicon slab optical modes. We experimentally demonstrate 66.5% solar light absorption in free-standing 1 μm c-Si layers by hyperuniform nanostructuring for the spectral range of 400 to 1050 nm. The absorption equivalent photocurrent derived from our measurements is 26.3 mA/cm2, which is far above the highest found in literature for Si of similar thickness. Considering state-of-the-art Si PV technologies, we estimate that the enhanced light trapping can result in a cell efficiency above 15%. The light absorption can potentially be increased up to 33.8 mA/cm2 by incorporating a back-reflector and improved antireflection, for which we estimate a photovoltaic efficiency above 21% for 1 μm thick Si cells.

CMOS Capacitive Dry DNA Storage Monitoring: Design, Implementation and Experimental Results

This paper presents the design, and implementation of a new CMOS capacitive sensor and proposes the applicability of the sensor in monitoring the dried DNA mass for the emerging DNA memory technologies. The concept of DNA-based data storage has shown to be a promising solution with an ultra-high data density storage capability of gigabytes per nanogram mass of DNA. There are several drawbacks in achieving a ubiquitous technology and existing research has mostly addressed the translation of digital data to synthesized nucleotides, the physical storage of DNA, and reading out the data via sequencing, as well as computational processes. In this paper, we tackle the challenge of monitoring the physical storage of dried DNA material by developing a CMOS capacitive sensor that detects the dried DNA mass and inherits the highly integrable nature of CMOS chips with other parts to develop a DNA storage system. The successful detection of down to 45 ng <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$/ \boldsymbol {\mu }\text{L}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mass of dried DNA has been successfully shown with the experimental results that consist of five runs for five different concentrations. Based on the results, the detection range of sub-pico Mol has been achieved which is compatible with the concentrations of DNA used in DNA memory technologies.

Emerging Logic Devices beyond CMOS.

Si-based complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistors for logic computing have represented the most essential foundation of digital electronic technologies for decades toward the modern information era. The continuous scaling down of the transistor feature size has promoted significant improvements in the computing performance while gradually tending to its limit. Ubiquitous intelligent technologies have quickly penetrated daily life, yielding a tremendous increase in highly data-centric computing applications. Hence, emerging logic devices extending and even transcending the existing CMOS technology are urgently needed to meet the rapidly growing demand for information processing capability, involving revolutionary innovations from material science and architecture design to device applications. This thus gives us the opportunity to realize logic devices for state-of-the-art computing that are fundamentally far beyond the current devices. In this Perspective, we discuss the recent innovative design strategies of emerging logic devices along with the opportunities and challenges, providing a promising avenue toward high-performance and diversiform logic computing in the post-Moore era.