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Thesis(M.S.)--Auburn University, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographic references (p.73-80).

Thermoelectric (TE) module integration into a notebook computer is experimentally investigated in this thesis for its energy harvesting opportunities. A detailed Finite Element (FE) model was constructed first for thermal simulations. The model outputs were then correlated with the thermal validation results of the selected system. In parallel, a commercial TE micro-module was experimentally characterized to quantify maximum power generation opportunity from the combined system and component data set. Next, suitable &ldquo / warm spots&rdquo / were identified within the mobile computer to extract TE power with minimum or no notable impact to system performance, as measured by thermal changes in the system, in order to avoid unacceptable performance degradation. The prediction was validated by integrating a TE micro-module to the mobile system under test. Measured TE power generation power density in the carefully selected vicinity of the heat pipe was around 1.26 mW/cm3 with high CPU load. The generated power scales down with lower CPU activity and scales up in proportion to the utilized opportunistic space within the system. The technical feasibility of TE energy harvesting in mobile computers was hence experimentally shown for the first time in this thesis.

The overall theme of this thesis is the study of incorporating gamification design approaches in the creation of mobile educational software. The research presented in this thesis focuses on the design and testing of software created to teach introductory computer science and literacy concepts to postsecondary and adult learners. A study testing the relative effectiveness and subjective user enjoyment of different interfaces for a mobile game is also included in this thesis, as the results of the study led to the primary research objectives investigated in further studies. Our primary research objective was to investigate whether using gamification design approaches to mobile educational software could result in student engagement and learning. Our central hypothesis is that gamification design approaches can be used to create engaging and educationally effective mobile educational software. Our secondary research objective is to determine how mobile educational software can be made more or less engaging and educationally effective through gamification design approaches, by trying different approaches, testing the resulting applications, and reporting the findings. Three studies were conducted based on these objectives, one study to teach various computer science concepts to students in a first year computer science course with iPad applications, and two studies which used iPad applications to teach punctuation and homonyms, and improve reading comprehension. The studies document the design of the applications, and provide analysis and conclusions based on the results of testing. Through the results of these studies we affirm our hypothesis. We make design suggestions for software creators, such as providing corrective feedback to the user. We discuss common themes that emerged across the studies, including how to best use educational software. Finally, as avenues for future work, we suggest investigating the impromptu social effects of using tablet software in a classroom, and the development of a usability testing platform. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The overall theme of this thesis is the study of how gamification can be used to make mobile educational software engaging and effective as a learning tool. The research presented in this thesis focuses on the design and testing of software intended to teach introductory computer science and literacy concepts. The hypothesis guiding this work is that mobile educational software can be made engaging and educationally effective by incorporating game design elements. Through four studies we affirm our hypothesis, and document the relative success of various gamification techniques in different contexts. We make design suggestions for software creators, such as providing corrective feedback to the user. We discuss common themes that emerged across the studies, including how to best use educational software. Finally, as avenues for future work, we suggest investigating the impromptu social effects of using tablet software in a classroom, and the development of a usability testing platform.

This dissertation studies the problem of increasing battery life-time and reducing CPU heat dissipation without degrading system performance in commodity-OS-based general-purpose (GP) mobile computers using the dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) function of modern CPUs. The dissertation especially focuses on the impact of task scheduling on the effectiveness of DVS in achieving this goal. The task scheduling mechanism used in most contemporary general-purpose operating systems (GPOS) prioritizes tasks based only on their CPU occupancies irrespective of their deadlines. In currently available autonomous DVS schemes for GP mobile systems, the impact of this GPOS task scheduling is ignored and a DVS scheme merely predicts and enforces the lowest CPU speed that can meet tasks' deadlines without meddling with task scheduling. This research, however, shows that it is impossible to take full advantage of DVS in balancing energy/power and performance in the current DVS paradigm due to the mismatch between the urgency (i.e., having a nearer deadline) and priority of tasks under the GPOS task scheduling. This research also shows that, consequently, a new DVS paradigm is necessary, where a "DVS-friendly" task scheduling assigns higher priorities to more urgent tasks. The dissertation begins by showing how the mismatch between the urgency and priority of tasks limits the effectiveness of DVS and why conventional real-time (RT) task scheduling, which is intrinsically DVS-friendly cannot be used in GP systems. Then, the dissertation describes the requirements for "DVS-friendly GP" task scheduling as follows. Unlike the existing GPOS task scheduling, it should prioritize tasks by their deadline. But, at the same time, it must be able to do so without a priori knowledge of the deadlines and be able to handle the various tasks running in today's GP systems, unlike conventional RT task scheduling. The various tasks include sporadic tasks such as user-interactive tasks and tasks having dependencies on each other such as a family of threads and user-interface server/clients tasks. Therefore, the first major result of this research is to propose a new DVS paradigm for commodity-OS-based GP mobile systems in which DVS is performed under a DVS-friendly GP task scheduling that meets these requirements. The dissertation then proposes GPSched, a DVS-friendly GP task scheduling mechanism for commodity-Linux-based GP mobile systems, as the second major result. GPSched autonomously prioritizes tasks by their deadlines using the type of services that each task is involved with as the indicator of the deadline. At the same time, GPSched properly handles a family of threads and user-interface server/clients tasks by distinguishing and scheduling them as a group, and user-interactive tasks by incorporating a feature of current GPOS task scheduling — raising the priority of a task that is idle most of the time — which is desirable to quickly respond to user input events in its prioritization mechanism. The final major result is GPScheDVS, the integration of GPSched and a task-based DVS scheme customized for GPSched called GPSDVS. GPScheDVS provides two alternative modes: (1) the system-energy-centric (SE) mode aiming at a longer battery life-time by reducing system energy consumption and (2) the CPU-power-centric (CP) mode focusing on limiting CPU heat dissipation by reducing CPU power consumption. Experiments conducted under a set of real-life usage scenarios on a laptop show that the best, worst, and average reductions of system energy consumption by the SE mode GPScheDVS were 24%, -1%, and 17%, respectively, over the no-DVS case and 11%, -1%, and 5%, respectively, over the state-of-the-art task-based DVS scheme in the current DVS paradigm. The experiments also show that the best, worst, and average reductions of CPU energy consumption by the SE mode GPScheDVS were 69%, 0%, and 43% over the no-DVS case and 26%, -1%, and 13% over the state-of-the-art task-based DVS scheme in the current DVS paradigm. Considering that no power management was performed on non-CPU components for the experiments, these results imply that the system energy savings achievable by GPScheDVS will be increased if the non-CPU components' power is properly managed. On the other hand, the best, worst, and average reductions of average CPU power by the CP mode GPScheDVS were 69%, 49%, and 60% over the no-DVS case and 63%, 0%, and 30% over the existing task-based DVS scheme. Furthermore, oscilloscope measurements show that the best, worst, and average reduction of peak system power by the CP mode GPScheDVS were 29%, 10%, and 23% over the no-DVS case and 28%, 6%, and 22% over the existing task-based DVS scheme signifying that GPScheDVS is effective also in restraining the peak CPU power. On the top of these advantages in energy and power, the experimental results show that GPScheDVS even improves system performance in either mode due to its deadline-based task scheduling property. For example, the deadline meet ratio on continuous videos by GPScheDVS was at least 91.2%, whereas the ratios by the no-DVS case and the existing task-based DVS scheme were down to 71.3% and 71.0%, respectively. / Ph. D.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-08T16:35:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 113542.pdf: 1756309 bytes, checksum: d404c431898c07d2e13d0d5449a9dcc1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-05-14 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / In the current informational context, it is more and more common that the Information and Communication Digital Technologies (ICDT) be present in all sectors of society and, especially, at school. Thus, the present study aims to analyze the emerging teaching practices from the insertion of mobile computers, in the Project One Computer per Student, , in three schools of the region of Big Florianópolis. In order to do so, we tried to understand, from a brief historical and etymological study of the concepts that permeate the teaching profession, its knowledge and practices in order to understand how these are constituted and if there are changes in the teaching practices when developed in environments permeated by the ICDT. We used qualitative methods to develop empirical studies in the selected schools; thus, we opted for the non-participant observation and for semi-structured interviews as instruments of collected data. As results we obtained a total of 50 watched classes and around three hours or recorded interviews, which were transcribed and pre-analyzed in order to unravel the categories to be posteriorly analyzed in the perspective of Content Analysis, proposed by Lawrence Bardin. The present study points that the developed teaching techniques in environments permeated by the ICDT, and more precisely by the mobile computers of the UCA Project, are still far from being considered as mediators, once they still repeat established models by the profession along its history. It still points the need of development and deepening of a curriculum which allies the possibilities of ICDT with school contents, the Web Curriculum, as Almeida and Valente propose (2012). We also understand that this study does not exhaust the possibilities of analysis of teaching practices in educational environments permeated by the ICDT. This happens for we understand that such practices are human representations restricted a given space-time and linked to the current theoretical currents in the moment of their development. / Diante do contexto informacional vigente é cada vez mais comum que as Tecnologias Digitais de Informação e Comunicação (TDIC) estejam presentes em todos os setores da sociedade e, em especial, na escola. Dessa forma, o presente estudo tem por finalidade analisar as práticas docentes emergentes a partir da inserção de computadores móveis, do Projeto Um Computador por Aluno, em três escolas da região da Grande Florianópolis. Para isso, procuramos entender a partir de um breve estudo histórico e etimológico de conceitos que permeiam a profissão docente, seus saberes e práticas a fim de entender como estas se constituem e se há mudanças nas práticas docentes quando desenvolvidas em ambientes permeados pelas TDIC. Empregamos métodos qualitativos a fim de desenvolver estudos empíricos nas escolas selecionadas, dessa forma, optamos pela observação não-participante e pela entrevista semi-estruturada como instrumentos de recolha de dados. Como resultados obtivemos um total de 50 aulas assistidas e cerca de três horas de entrevistas gravadas, que foram transcritas e pré-analisadas a fim de deslindar as categorias a serem posteriormente analisadas à luz da Análise de Conteúdo, proposta por Lawrence Bardin. O presente estudo aponta que as práticas docentes desenvolvidas em ambientes permeados pelas TDIC, e mais precisamente pelos computadores móveis do Projeto UCA, ainda encontram-se longe de serem consideradas como mediatizadoras, visto que ainda repetem modelos estabelecidos pela profissão ao longo de sua história. Aponta ainda a necessidade do desenvolvimento e do aprofundamento de um currículo que alie as possibilidades das TDIC aos conteúdos escolares, o Web Currículo, como propõem Almeida e Valente (2012). Entendemos ainda que este estudo não esgota as possibilidades de análise das práticas docentes em ambientes educacionais permeados pelas TDIC. Isso se dá por entendermos que tais práticas são representações humanas restritas a determinado espaço-tempo e atreladas a correntes teóricas vigentes no momento de seu desenvolvimento.