The United States, as well as other nations, is experiencing an increase in the older adult population. As a result of older adults living longer, mobile devices can be a major component in improving older adults' quality of life. However, older adults may encounter difficulties when using the mobile devices. This research examined the requirements in addressing the needs of older adults when using a mobile device. Specifically, the research focused on gathering the task and feature requirements for a mobile device tutorial for older adults. The approach was accomplished by the development of a mobile device questionnaire, which was first administered to a pilot group of older adults, to determine the questionnaire's comprehensiveness, then to an adequate sample size of older adults at four senior activity centers, located in Prince George's County, Maryland. Based on the responses to the specific research questions from the total population, two focus groups, consisting of a total of ten individuals, were selected. The focus groups, identified as focus group A and B, were created, based on how likely or unlikely the respondent would use a mobile device tutorial. Following the collection of the questionnaires from the total population and the two focus groups, the results of the data were analyzed. The quantitative findings for the total population for the task requirements found that e-mail had the highest mean (4.40%), followed by health, shopping, restaurant, and financial. The findings for the feature requirements found that photos had the highest mean (4.21%), followed by camera, contacts, reminders, and FaceTime. The researcher developed findings based on the qualitative analysis from the total sample population. The major qualitative findings consisted of the benefits, to include access, availability, accuracy and usefulness. The drawbacks consisted of ease of use, user concerns, and the inability to ask questions. In the analysis of the quantitative findings for the task requirements, focus group A was slightly different from the total population, with shopping having the highest mean (6.80%), followed by health, restaurants, e-mail and financial. The findings for the task requirements for focus group B, were similar to the total population, with e-mail and health having the highest means (1.60%), followed by restaurants and financial (equal), and shopping. The findings for the feature requirements for focus group A, were similar to the total population, with photos and reminders (6.80%), followed by camera, and FaceTime and contacts. The findings for the feature requirements for focus group B, were also similar to the total population and focus group A, with photos having the highest mean (1.80%), followed by reminders, and contacts, camera, and FaceTime (equal). In the analysis of the qualitative analysis for focus group A some of the benefits included availability and encouragement. For focus group B, some of the benefits included working at one's own pace, and understandability of the device. The qualitative analysis for the total population findings for the benefits of a mobile device tutorial included access to a tutorial, availability, skill set for a tutorial, and usefulness. The main responses pertaining to why the respondent would use a mobile device include the device's availability, ease to use, use at one's leisure, and using the device at one's own pace. In examining the qualitative findings for the two focus groups, the major areas for the benefits for focus group A, are similar to the total population. These areas include availability, encouragement, and listening to the tutorial several times. The major areas for focus group B, are similar to the total population and focus group A, to include listening to the tutorial several times. In exploring deeper into the focus groups' responses, the participants addressed specific questions regarding the task and feature requirements. For the specific task or feature requirements for which a respondent would likely use a mobile device tutorial for assistance, focus group A's responses were the features of FaceTime and the tasks of e-mail, photos, and contacts. Focus group B responses were the task requirement of health care and financial and feature requirements of camera and photos. The mixed method analysis supports the premise that older adults would desire instructions on the identified task and feature requirements for a mobile device tutorial. The recommendations of the research consisted of additional examination of collecting data across multiple senior activity centers, the Baby Boomer generation, and older adult computer classes. Designing a mock-up tutorial, using another mobile device, and the use of current Siri feature, are other possible research investigations. Lastly, the implications of the study, filled the gap regarding senior adults and mobile devices, by contributing to the research pertaining to mobile device tutorials that would accommodate older adults.

Is There an App for That? The Usage of Mobile Technology for the Purposes of Teaching Health Education in Grade 4 and 5. Wahid Khan. Master of Arts. Curriculum, Teaching and Learning. University of Toronto. Year of Convocation: 2014. The use of mobile devices in elementary schools has steadily increased in the last few years. These mobile devices harness many tools that can help teachers teach classroom material and help students become better students academically. The research question was “How can mobile devices be used to teach health education?” Research was conducted in a grade 4 and 5 classroom to see which mobile apps worked best among teachers and students in conveying health education. Anecdotal notes and daily journaling over a two-month period documented how the students enjoyed playing games and also how engaged they were when they subsequently used the devices for non-gaming purposes. It is still unknown how well these apps conveyed messages of health. How the mobile apps are being used in the classroom and the content inside the mobile apps largely dictates the messages they can convey to the students.

Os softwares de Geometria Interativa (GI) foram desenvolvidos com o objetivo de possibilitar aos estudantes explorarem a geometria por meio do computador, permitindo a construção e manipulação de objetos geométricos, como retas, pontos e circunferências. Por meio da interface destes softwares, os estudantes são capazes de compreender e manipular os objetos geométricos, podendo influenciar na aprendizagem da geometria. Para Laborde (2007), os desenvolvedores de softwares de GI deveriam se preocupar com os aspectos pedagógicos e com o design da interface, pois, as interfaces indevidamente projetadas podem causar frustrações aos alunos, fazendo com que sintam dificuldade em utilizar o software e terminando por não direcionar o aprendizado da geometria. Apesar desta importância, há poucos estudos que investigam metodologias que relacionam os conceitos pedagógicos e os recursos computacionais. Além disto, há uma carência de pesquisas sobre diferentes tipos de interações disponíveis para a criação de interfaces para softwares de GI. A fim de preencher esta lacuna, este trabalho de mestrado tem como objetivo investigar metodologias para o desenvolvimento de gestos para interfaces gestuais em softwares de GI. É proposto um novo tipo de interação para estes softwares, com o objetivo de apoiar a aprendizagem da geometria por meio das interfaces gestuais. / The Interactive Geometry software (IG) were developed with the goal of enabling students to explore geometry through the computer, allowing the construction and manipulation of geometric objects, such as, lines, dots and circles. Through these interfaces software, students are able to understand and manipulate geometric objects, and may influence their learning of geometry. To Laborde (2007) , IG developers should worry about the pedagogic aspects and the design of the interface, because the improperly designed interfaces can make students to become frustrated, making them feel difficult to use the software and not focusing in the learning of geometry itself. Despite this importance, there are few studies investigating the pedagogical methodologies that relate concepts and computational resources. Furthermore, there is a lack of research about different types of interactions available for creating interfaces for IG software. In order to fill this gap, this master thesis aims to investigate methodologies for the development of gestures for gestural interfaces in GI software. It is proposed a new type of interaction for these software, aiming to support the learning of geometry.

A detecção de objetos é uma área de extrema importância para sistemas de visão computacional. Em especial, dado o aumento constante da utilização de dispositivos móveis, torna-se cada vez mais importante o desenvolvimento de métodos e aplicações capazes de serem utilizadas em tais aparelhos. Neste sentido, neste trabalho propõe-se o estudo e implementação de um aplicativo para dispositivos móveis capaz de detectar, em tempo real, objetos existentes em ambientes internos com uma aplicação para auxiliar um usuário a se localizar dentro do local. O aplicativo depende somente das capacidades do próprio aparelho e, portanto, procura ser mais flexível e sem restrições. A detecção de objetos é realizada por casamento de grafos-chave entre imagens de objetos pré-escolhidas e a imagem sendo capturada pela câmera do dispositivo. Os grafos-chave são uma generalização do método de detecção de pontos-chave tradicional e, por levarem em consideração um conjunto de pontos e suas propriedades estruturais, são capazes de descrever e detectar os objetos de forma robusta e eficiente. Para realizar a localização, optou-se por detectar placas existentes no próprio local. Após cada detecção, aplica-se um simples, mas bastante eficaz, sistema de localização baseado na comparação da placa detectada com uma base de dados de imagens de todo o ambiente. A base foi construída utilizando diversas câmeras colocadas sobre uma estrutura móvel, capturando sistematicamente imagens do ambiente em intervalos regulares. A implementação é descrita em detalhes e são apresentados resultados obtidos por testes reais no ambiente escolhido utilizando um celular Nokia N900. Tais resultados são avaliados em termos da precisão da detecção e da estimativa de localização, bem como do tempo decorrido para a realização de todo o processo. / Object detection is an area of extreme importance for computer vision systems. Specially because of the increasing use of mobile devices, it becomes more and more important to develop methods and applications that can be used in such devices. In this sense, we propose the study and implementation of an application for mobile devices that is able to detect, in real time, existing indoor objects with an application to help a user in localization in the environment. The application depends solely on the device capabilities and hence, it is flexible and unconstrained. Object detection is accomplished by keygraph matching between images of previously chosen signs and the image currently being captured by the camera device. Keygraphs are a generalization of the traditional keypoints method and, by taking into consideration a set of points and its structural properties, are capable of describing the objects robustly and efficiently. In order to perform localization, we chose to detect signs existing in the environment. After each detection, we apply a simple, but very effective, localization method based on a comparison between the detected sign and a dataset of images of the whole environment. The dataset was built using several cameras atop a mobile structure, systematically capturing images of the environment at regular intervals. The implementation is described in details and we show results obtained from real tests in the chosen environment using a Nokia N900 cell phone. Such results are evaluated in terms of detection and localization estimation precision, as well as the elapsed time to perform the whole process.

O aumento no número de dispositivos móveis, como smartphones, tablets e laptops, e o avanço em seu potencial computacional permitiu considerá-los como recursos computacionais. O uso de recursos computacionais com maior proximidade vem crescendo ano após ano, sendo chamado de Fog computing, em que os elementos na borda da Internet são explorados, uma vez que os serviços computacionais convencionais podem estar indisponíveis ou sobrecarregados. Dessa forma, este projeto de Mestrado tem como foco possibilitar o uso de dispositivos móveis no provimento de serviços computacionais entre si de forma colaborativa através da heurística Maximum Regret adaptada, que busca alocar tarefas computacionais em dispositivos locais de forma a minimizar o consumo de energia e evitar dispositivos não confiáveis. Também há uma meta-heurística em um nível global, que interconecta os diferentes aglomerados de dispositivos móveis na borda da Internet, e possui informações globais de Quality of Service (QoS). Foram realizados experimentos que mostraram que evitar dispositivos móveis como recursos com um baixo grau de confiabilidade possibilitou diminuir o impacto no consumo de energia, além de ser possível diminuir os tempos de resposta e de comunicação ao ajustar a política de seleção de aglomerados externos. / The increasing number of mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, as well as advances in their computing power have enabled us to consider them as resources, exploring the proximity. The use of near computing resources is growing year by year, being called as Fog computing, where the elements on the edge of the Internet are exploited, once the computer services providers could be unavailable or overloaded. Thus, this Masters project focuses on using mobile devices to provide computing services among them through a heuristic called Adapted Maximum Regret, which tries to minimize energy consumption and avoid untrustable devices. There is also top-level metaheuristic which interconnects different clusters of devices on the edge of the Internet with global information to guarantee Quality of Services (QoS). We conducted a set of experiments that showed us to avoid devices with a high degree of failures to save more energy when allocating tasks among them, as well as decreasing the applications response time and communication through adjusts in the selection algorithm of external agglomerates.

Os softwares de Geometria Interativa (GI) foram desenvolvidos com o objetivo de possibilitar aos estudantes explorarem a geometria por meio do computador, permitindo a construção e manipulação de objetos geométricos, como retas, pontos e circunferências. Por meio da interface destes softwares, os estudantes são capazes de compreender e manipular os objetos geométricos, podendo influenciar na aprendizagem da geometria. Para Laborde (2007), os desenvolvedores de softwares de GI deveriam se preocupar com os aspectos pedagógicos e com o design da interface, pois, as interfaces indevidamente projetadas podem causar frustrações aos alunos, fazendo com que sintam dificuldade em utilizar o software e terminando por não direcionar o aprendizado da geometria. Apesar desta importância, há poucos estudos que investigam metodologias que relacionam os conceitos pedagógicos e os recursos computacionais. Além disto, há uma carência de pesquisas sobre diferentes tipos de interações disponíveis para a criação de interfaces para softwares de GI. A fim de preencher esta lacuna, este trabalho de mestrado tem como objetivo investigar metodologias para o desenvolvimento de gestos para interfaces gestuais em softwares de GI. É proposto um novo tipo de interação para estes softwares, com o objetivo de apoiar a aprendizagem da geometria por meio das interfaces gestuais. / The Interactive Geometry software (IG) were developed with the goal of enabling students to explore geometry through the computer, allowing the construction and manipulation of geometric objects, such as, lines, dots and circles. Through these interfaces software, students are able to understand and manipulate geometric objects, and may influence their learning of geometry. To Laborde (2007) , IG developers should worry about the pedagogic aspects and the design of the interface, because the improperly designed interfaces can make students to become frustrated, making them feel difficult to use the software and not focusing in the learning of geometry itself. Despite this importance, there are few studies investigating the pedagogical methodologies that relate concepts and computational resources. Furthermore, there is a lack of research about different types of interactions available for creating interfaces for IG software. In order to fill this gap, this master thesis aims to investigate methodologies for the development of gestures for gestural interfaces in GI software. It is proposed a new type of interaction for these software, aiming to support the learning of geometry.

The research described in this thesis is grounded in the fields of independent adult learning, user experience for mobile applications and game design. It considers the case for mobile game-based learning in the context of informal microlearning and investigates the potential of mobile games to assist the independent skills development of adults. Initial research found that adults expressed positive attitudes towards the idea of learning with a mobile game, while even those who did not use mobile games recreationally appeared positive to using them if they perceived them as an effective way to develop their skills. Guidelines were then developed to inform the design of effective mobile learning games based on theories of adult learning, game-based engagement, mobile usability and mobile game design. These guided the development of a mobile game prototype aimed at assisting adults, speakers of English as a second language, to build their academic vocabulary. To evaluate the effectiveness of the prototype, a mixed methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative data collection instruments was utilised. Player engagement and system usability were measured rather than direct measures of learning outcomes. Overall the results were encouraging since evaluation participants were found to be engaged by the activity and able to easily pick up the game and play. Additionally, qualitative data on participants’ experiences and perceptions were collected, which supported initial research findings on the positive attitudes of adults towards using mobile games for learning. Though caution is recommended when generalising the evaluation results, the potential of mobile games for the independent learning of adults was supported. Overall this research offers a rationale for the use of mobile game-based learning, an insight into the nature of adult learners’ needs and their mobile devices usage patterns, a critical discussion on the type of learning that would be appropriate for the context, a set of guidelines for the design of mobile learning games, and finally a discussion of evaluation methods along with a collection of empirical data on the post-experiential attitudes of adults with regards to mobile games for learning.

Mobile clients such as PDAs, laptops, wrist watches, smart phones are rapidly emerging in the consumer market and an increasing number of graphics applications are being developed for them. However, current hardware technology limits the processing power on these mobile devices and wireless network bandwidth can be scarce and unreliable. A modern photorealistic graphics application is resource-hungry, consumes large amounts of cpu cycles, memory and network bandwidth if distributed. Besides running them on mobile devices may also diminish their battery power in the process. Bulk of graphics computations involve floating point operations and the lack of hardware support for such on PDAs imposes further restrictions. Remote execution, wherein part or the entire rendering process is offloaded to a powerful surrogate server is an attractive solution. We propose pipeline-splitting, a paradigm whereby 15 sub-stages of the graphics pipeline are isolated and instrumented with networking code such that it can run on either a graphics client or a surrogate server. To validate our concepts, we instrument Mesa3D, a popular implementation of the OpenGL graphics to support pipeline-splitting, creating Remote Mesa (RMesa). We further extend the Remote Execution model to provide an analytical model for predicting the rendering time and memory consumption involved in Remote Execution. Mobile devices have limited battery power. Therefore, it is important to understand if during Remote Execution, communication is more power consuming than computation. In order to study the same, we develop PowerSpy, a Real Time Power Profiler for I/O devices and applications. Finally, we add Remote Execution to an existing Distributed Graphics Framework targeted for mobile devices, namely, MADGRAF. In addition to Remote Execution, MADGRAF has another policy known as the Transcoder Based Approach in which the original 3D graphics image is modified to suite the mobile devices' rendering capacity. Though this speeds up the rendering process, it affects photorealism. We propose an intelligent runtime decision making engine, Intelligraph, which evaluates the runtime performance of the mobile client and decides between Remote Execution and the Transcoder Based Approach.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T16:57:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rosa Aluotto de Oliveira.pdf: 1419681 bytes, checksum: 4b3c7310f4db675af1587ce22f9a1c48 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-04-01 / Technology has invaded our lives in an intense and ubiquitous way. Mobile devices - smartphones and tablets - are reaching the classrooms, either in an informal way, brought by the students, or in an institutional way, supported by school principals. However, the fact is that although experts assert that mobile devices have a meaningful powerful tools to transform learning, parents and teachers are not fully convinced of it. Thus, when it comes to integrate new technologies in the teaching process, there seems to be a huge barrier to be overcome. In the belief that there is a lack of research in this area, we have decided to do a bibliographical work in order to verify the position in which they stand and reflect on some questions present in these papers. After the research of this kind of state of the art, we highlight, at the end, what the main observations and conclusions are, and also the possible research gaps as suggestions for future papers. Aiming at bringing further discussions, we have selected 39 papers among national and international articles, dissertations and theses to carry out the analysis, indicating towards the end the main questions which were raised. From this analysis we conclude that the researches on the use of tablet in the classroom have not made much progress yet and we have few concrete results, mainly regarding the improvement of students´ academic performance. If the tablet will be a tool to help change education, it is still a question to be answered; what we can infer is that this tool has the capability to support collaborative work, learning in and outside classroom and to increase student´s autonomy in the search of information and knowledge construction / A tecnologia invadiu nossas vidas de forma intensa e ubíqua. Os equipamentos móveis - smartphones e tablets - estão chegando às salas de aula, seja de maneira informal, trazidos pelos alunos, seja de forma institucional, com o aval dos diretores das escolas. No entanto, o fato é que, apesar de especialistas afirmarem que os equipamentos móveis têm potencial significativo para transformar a aprendizagem, pais e professores não estão convencidos disso. Assim, quando se trata de incorporar as novas tecnologias no processo de ensino, parece haver uma imensa barreira a ser ultrapassada. Acreditando que ainda faltam pesquisas nessa área, decidimos por fazer um trabalho bibliográfico para verificar o estado em que se encontram e refletir sobre algumas questões apresentadas nos trabalhos. Após a pesquisa do tipo estado da arte dessa temática, destacamos, ao final, quais as principais observações e conclusões, além de possíveis lacunas de pesquisa como sugestões para trabalhos futuros. Sem a pretensão de esgotarmos o assunto, selecionamos 39 trabalhos entre artigos nacionais e internacionais, dissertações e teses para realizarmos a análise, apontando ao final as principais questões tratadas. Desse análise concluímos que as pesquisas sobre o uso do tablet em sala de aula ainda não avançaram muito e temos poucos resultados concretos, principalmente no que diz respeito à melhora do desempenho acadêmico dos alunos. Se o tablet será ou não uma ferramenta que ajudará a mudar a Educação ainda é uma questão sem resposta, o que podemos inferir é que essa ferramenta tem potencial para apoiar trabalhos colaborativos, possibilitar uma aprendizagem dentro e fora da sala de aula e aumentar a autonomia do aluno na busca de informações e na construção de seu conhecimento

Neste trabalho e apresentado um software baseado em técnicas de processamento digital de imagens para medida de astigmatismo corneano para dispositivos portáteis. O sistema físico, um dispositivo adaptado para lâmpadas de fenda, projeta 36 pontos luminosos dispostos em um formato preciso de circulo na região central da córnea. O deslocamento, o tamanho e a deformação da imagem refletida destes pontos luminosos pela córnea são analisados proporcionando a ceratometria. O software apresentado neste projeto foi desenvolvido para poder ser instalado nos principais dispositivos moveis que disponibilizem a plataforma Java ME, ou seja, pode ser implementado em computadores portáteis sem depender da plataforma utilizada. Este projeto permitiu a viabilidade de portabilidade para o ceratômetro, ou seja, imagens originais do ceratômetro em Lâmpada de Fenda, desenvolvido pelo Laboratório de Instrumentação Oftálmica, foram inseridas em dispositivos móveis e processadas. As imagens em formato BMP, de tamanho típico de 640x480 pixels são processadas e os 36 pontos luminosos são detectados em media em 1150 ms. Então, e traçada a elipse que melhor se ajusta a estes pontos e os raios de maior e menor dimensão são calculados em pixels. Todo o processo e realizado em media em 1199 ms. A contribuição deste trabalho e mostrar a viabilidade de transformar o ceratômetro de lâmpada de fenda em um aparelho portátil. / This work is about software development based on digital image processing techniques for corneal astigmatism measurements for portable devices. The physical system comprises a device adapted for slit lamps and projects 36 light spots displayed in a precise circle at the lachrymal film of the examined cornea. Keratometry is provided by the analisys of displacement, size and deformation of the reflected image of the light spots. The software presented in this project was developed to be installed mainly for mobile devices that provide the Java ME platform, ie, it can be implemented in portable computers. Furthermore, it allows portability for keratometers and is a previous work for a portable corneal topographer It also shows viability of portability for the keratometer, ie, the original keratometer images in Slit Lamp, developed by the Laboratory of Ophthalmic Instrumentation, were embedded in mobile devices and have been processed. The BMP type images, - typical size of 640x480 pixels - are processed and the 36 points of light are detected in an average of 1150 ms. The best fitting ellipse in the reflected image of these points provides the major and minor elpise radii in pixels. The entire process is performed in 1199 ms as an avarage. The contribution of this work is to show the viaibility of transforming the keratometer for Slit Lamps in a handheld device.