Something that has recently gained popularity in the leading car manufacturing companies is the integration of an auto-reverse assistance system to improve the customer experience. The undeniable spread of smartphones and their significant role in human life in recent years, gave rise to the idea of designing an application to be used for reverse driving. As a result, the car company Volvo proposed an idea for this project: to implement an Android based application to facilitate reverse navigation in their trucks. From a technical point of view, the most crucial obstacle that should be addressed is implementing a secure and reliable communication link between the smartphone and the truck's control centre. Hence, the primary goal of this thesis work is to provide a secure channel to transmit data and computing reliability of the com-munication link. Another objective of this project is to define a solution for auto-converting path plan function, currently developed in Matlab, to run on Android devices. In addition, this solution should enable the developer to modify the path plan function in Matlab without having to consider Android programming. The differential method has been proposed for transferring secure data transfer using Bluetooth technol-ogy. This solution not only increases the security of the communication link but also improves transmission time. Another objective has been reached by developing a middleware function using C programming language and Android Native Development Kite (NDK) between An-droid and Matlab. The result of these solutions provides a reliable communication link and runs the developed path plan function in Android phone.

This master’s thesis focuses on implementation of ABC (Anonymous attribute-based credential) pilot system on the Android platform. The support for attribute authentication on the Android platform is very weak in terms of the number of implementations and needs a special attention. The theoretical part of the thesis describes the cryptographic support on the Android platform, the use of the Android Native Development Kit (NDK) and the Host-Card Emulation (HCE) service. The theoretical part of the thesis also includes a description of attribute authentication schemes, including a pilot RKVAC system. The practical part describes the implementation of the RKVAC system on the Android platform along with the implementation of a custom cryptographic kernel based on the native MCL cryptographic library. The practical part of this thesis describes implementation proces of RKVAC system on Android plaform, that uses native cryptographic library MCL. The final part shows the results of time, memory and computation difficulty of developed applications.

The Android ecosystem contains three major platforms for execution suitable for different purposes. Android applications are normally written in the Java programming language, but computationally intensive parts of Android applications can be sped up by choosing to use a native language or by utilising the parallel architecture found in graphics processing units (GPUs). The experiments conducted in this thesis measure the performance benefits by switching from Java to C++ or RenderScript, Google’s GPU acceleration framework. The experiments consist of often-done tasks in image processing. For some of these tasks, optimized libraries and implementations already exist. The performance of the implementations provided by third parties are compared to our own. Our results show that for advanced image processing on large images, the benefits are large enough to warrant C++ or RenderScript usage instead of Java in modern smartphones. However, if the image processing is conducted on very small images (e.g. thumbnails) or the image processing task contains few calculations, moving to a native language or RenderScript is not worth the added development time and static complexity. RenderScript is the best choice if the GPU vendors provide an optimized implementation of the processing task. If there is no such implementation provided, both C++ and RenderScript are viable choices. If full precision is required in the floating point arithmetic, a C++ implementation is the recommended. If it is possible to achieve the desired effect without compliance with IEEE Floating Point Arithmetic standard, RenderScript provides better run time performance. / Android-ekosystemet innehåller tre exekveringsplattformer passande för olika syften. Android-applikationer är vanligtvis skrivna i programmeringsspråket Java, men beräkningsintensiva delar av en Android-applikation kan snabbas upp genom att använda en statiskt kompilerat språk eller genom att utnyttja den parallella arkitekturen som hittas i grafikprocessorer. Experimenten utförda i det här projektet ämnar mäta prestandasförbättringar som kan uppnås genom att byta från Java till C++ eller RenderScript, Googles grafikaccelerationsramverk. Experimenten består av ofta använda algoritmer inom bildhantering. För några av dessa finns det optimerade bibliotek och övriga färdiga implementationer. Prestandan av tredjepartsbiblioteken jämförs med våra implementationer. Våra resultat visar att för avancerad bildhantering är prestandaförbättringarna tillräckligt bra för att använda C++ eller RenderScript istället för Java på moderna smartphones. I de fall bildhanteringen görs på väldigt små bilder eller innehåller få beräkningar (exempelvis miniatyrbilder) är bytet från Java till RenderScript eller C++ inte värt den extra utvecklingstiden samt den statiska kodkomplexiteten. RenderScript är det bästa valet då grafikprocessortillverkarna tillhandahåller implementationer av algoritmen som ska köras. Om det inte finns någon sådan implementation är både C++ och RenderScript tillämpbara val. Om noggrann precision krävs rekommenderas en C++-implementation. Däremot om full precision inte behövs vid flyttalsberäkningar rekommenderas istället RenderScript.

Living organisms employ different kinds of mechanisms, to regulate the functions of genes or their products, which may help in maintaining homeostasis inside the cell or may help in fighting hostile environment in the case of pathogenic organisms. These mechanisms act at the transcriptional, post-transcriptional, translational, and post-translational levels. In order to understand the physiology of an organism, it is essential to obtain an in-depth knowledge of such mechanisms, in which several proteins participate in interlinked pathways. In this regard, the present study focuses on two such proteins: (i). the newly identified Fic (Filamentation induced by cAMP) protein; and (ii). NDK (Nucleoside Diphosphate Kinase), which had been studied for decades. Fic protein and NDK share several common features: (i). both use nucleoside triphosphate (NTPs) or nucleoside diphosphate (NDPs) or their derivatives as one of their substrates; (ii). they have been found to be involved in diverse cellular pathways, involving different types of substrates that form the second substrate of these proteins; (iii). both are ubiquitously present in all the living organisms - from bacteria to humans to plants. However, there is very little information on these proteins from mycobacterial systems, which include some major human pathogens, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae, which are the causative agents of Tuberculosis and Leprosy, respectively. In view of these reasons, in the present study, the structural and/or functional features of the Fic and NDK proteins from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, were analysed, as it might be of medical significance for effectively combating the pathogen. The Chapter 1 of the thesis contains the Introduction to the research work and Chapter 2 is on the overall Materials and Methods. The remaining chapters pertain to the data obtained on the structural and/or functional features of the Fic and NDK proteins from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Chapter 3. Cloning, Expression and Purification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Fic The role of FIC (Filamentation induced by cAMP) domain containing proteins in the regulation of many vital pathways, mostly through the transfer of NMPs from NTPs to specific target proteins (NMPylylation), in microorganisms, higher eukaryotes, and plants is emerging. In order to understand the biological role of FIC domain containing proteins in mycobacteria, the gene for the FIC domain containing protein of the human pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, MtuFic, was cloned, overexpressed, purified to homogeneity, and biochemically characterised. Neither the His-tagged nor the GST-tagged MtuFic protein, overexpressed in Escherichia coli, nor expression of Mtufic in Mycobacterium smegmatis, yielded the protein in the soluble fraction. However, the maltose binding protein (MBP) tagged MtuFic (MBP-MtuFic) could be obtained partly in the soluble fraction. Denatured-refolded protein was used for the antibody generation in mice and rabbit. The cellular localisation and secretion of MtuFic were characterised using the antibody. Chapter 4. Biochemical Characterisation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Fic Sequence alignment with several FIC motif containing proteins, complemented with homology modeling on the FIC motif containing protein, VbhT of Bartonella schoenbuchensis as the template, showed conservation and interaction of residues constituting the FIC domain. MtuFic, possesses the critical His144 residue, in the characteristic FIC Motif, HPFREGNGRSTR (HPFxxGNGRxxR), spanning 144th to 155th residue. Site-specific mutagenesis of the His144, or Glu148, or Asn150 of the FIC motif, or of Arg87 residue that constitutes the FIC domain, or complete deletion of the FIC motif, abolished the NTP to NMP conversion activity. The activity of MtuFic was consistent with the biochemical activities hitherto reported for a variety of bacterial FIC domain containing proteins. Studies were also carried out on NMPylylation in the presence of eukaryotic proteins and eukaryotic and mycobacterial cell lysates. Although formation of NMPs from NTPs mediated by MBP-MtuFic could be detected, we could not identify any protein as the target substrate either in the human macrophage (THP1) cells or in the M. tuberculosis cells. VopSΔ30 (kind gift from Dr. Kim Orth), along with human G proteins as targets, were used as the positive controls. Various possibilities for the inability to detect a protein target substrate are discussed. Chapter 5. Transcriptional Analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis fic Gene (Mtufic) In parallel, in order to understand the transcriptional regulation of Mtufic, primer extension analysis was carried out. The Transcription Start Site (TSS; +1 site) of Mtufic were mapped under different growth/stress conditions, which tubercle bacilli encounter in human host. Mtufic got expressed mainly through two transcripts, T1 and T2, arising from two different transcription start sites (TSS). Putative promoter regions were cloned in a promoter probe vector, which expresses a GFP protein of very high intensity, in order to qualitatively detect the activity of the promoters. The half-life of the gfp mRNA was determined to be 4 min and therefore justifiably quantitated the Mtufic promoter activity by determining the gfp mRNA levels. The levels of Mtufic mRNA were two-fold higher under nutrient-depleted stationary phase of growth, as compared to the levels at mid-log phase. The activity of P1 and P2, as quantitated real-time using the short half-life gfpm2+ mRNA levels in Mycobacterium smegmatis transformants, showed that the activity of P2 was upregulated two-fold under nutrient-depleted stationary phase of growth, while that of P1 remained unaltered while of P1 and P2 were low under hypoxia. Co-transcription of Mtufic, with the immediate upstream gene, Rv3642c, of unknown function, was observed. Taken together, the data strongly indicated that the expression of Mtufic gets altered under nutrient-depleted and hypoxic conditions, which are the stress conditions experienced by tubercle bacilli in granuloma in tuberculosis patients. Chapter 6. Functional Characterisation of Mycobacterial FtsZ-NDK Interaction During the past few decades, our laboratory has been carrying out extensive molecular and functional studies on the cytokinetic protein, FtsZ, of different mycobacterial species, and of a variety of other mycobacterial proteins that are believed to be interacting with the cell division machinery. In this regard, in parallel to the work on MtuFic, we carried out work on the identification and characterisation of the proteins that interact with mycobacterial FtsZ. In this context, we found for the first time that the nucleoside diphosphate kinase (NDK), which can generate NTPs from ATP/GTP and NDPs, interacts with FtsZ and that the interaction was conserved across several mycobacterial species. Therefore, the FtsZ-NDK interaction was extensively characterised in vitro, using the recombinant, purified FtsZ and NDK proteins from different mycobacterial species. This novel finding on the interaction of NDK with FtsZ adds another role to NDK, namely in bacterial cell division.

Software developers are faced with several challenges when creating applications for the new generation of mobile devices. Smartphones and tablets have limited processing power and memory resources, and a small battery is the only thing that keeps the hardware components running. End users have little patience for slow applications that drain the batteries of their devices. To satisfy the needs of their customers, developers must take these hardware limitations into account; they must make an effort to optimize the performance and energy efficiency of their applications. This thesis provides a general overview of performance and energy optimization in the mobile domain. A specific sub-area is explored in great detail: the use of native C code for performance and energy optimization of Android applications. An experiment was conducted to see how the performance of native code compares to that of Java. This is the first time that such measurements have been made on both emulators and physical devices. The devices were running recent versions of Android that have not been used for similar experiments before: 2.3.3, 3.2 and 4.0.3. It is also the first time that native code has been compared to Java in terms of energy consumption. The results show that the latest updates to the Android platform have brought Java closer to native code in terms of performance, but native code is still the best choice for certain types of operations. It is also evident that there is a close correlation between performance and energy efficiency. Finally, the results show that Android emulators are unreliable for performance measurements. This could be a reason to question the validity of previous research.

This work presents a design and implementation of graphic user interfaces for board games. The objects of the investigation were various types of board games and graphic effects for virtual board game scene. We have developed a user interface design for different games. In the following sections the OpenGL ES library and its application to the Android platform are characterized. We explored the possibility of implementation in the native code. We have developed a system for plug-ins that allows implementing game logic in scripting language and defining the virtual scene for board game in XML language.

This master's thesis deals with face detection on mobile phones with Android OS. The introduction describes some algorithms used for pattern detection from image, as well as various techniques of features extracting. After that Android platform development specifics, including basic description of development tools, are described. Architecture of SIMD is introduced in next part of this work. After acquiring basic knowleage analysis and implementation of final app are descrited. Performance tests are conducted whose results are summarized in the conclusion.

This thesis investigates the performance differences between Java code compiled by Android Runtime and C++ code compiled by Clang on Android. For testing the differences, the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm was chosen to demonstrate examples of when it is relevant to have high performance computing on a mobile device. Different aspects that could affect the execution time of a program were examined. One test measured the overhead related to the Java Native Interface (JNI).  The results showed that the overhead was insignificant for FFT sizes larger than 64.  Another test compared matching implementations of FFTs between Java and native code. The conclusion drawn from this test was that, of the converted algorithms, Columbia Iterative FFT performed the best in both Java and C++. A third test, evaluating the performance of vectorization, proved to be an efficient option for native optimization. Finally, tests examining the effect of using single-point precision (float) versus double-point precision (double) data types were covered. Choosing float could improve performance by using the cache in an efficient manner. / I denna studie undersöktes prestandaskillnader mellan Java-kod kompilerad av Android Runtime och C++-kod kompilerad av Clang på Android. En snabb Fourier Transform (FFT) användes under experimenten för att visa vilka användningsområden som kräver hög prestanda på en mobil enhet. Olika påverkande aspekter vid användningen av en FFT undersöktes. Ett test undersökte hur mycket påverkan Java Native Interface (JNI) hade på ett program i helhet. Resultaten från dessa tester visade att påverkan inte var signifikant för FFT-storlekar större än 64. Ett annat test undersökte prestandaskillnader mellan FFT-algoritmer översatta från Java till C++. Slutsatsen kring dessa tester var att av de översatta algoritmerna var Columbia Iterative FFT den som presterade bäst, både i Java och i C++. Vektorisering visade sig vara en effektiv optimeringsteknik för arkitekturspecifik kod skriven i C++. Slutligen utfördes tester som undersökte prestandaskillnader mellan flyttalsprecision för datatyperna float och double. float kunde förbättra prestandan genom att på ett effektivt sätt utnyttja processorns cache.

The work deals with verification of the metadata of audio recordings in an environment of mobile phones running Android. The text work is divided into three main parts. The first part is focused more on theoretical basis, where the main emphasis on the description of Android, application structure, description of the audio MP3 file and theoretical basis of Fourier transform in signal processing. The second part is devoted to solution design, analysis and implementation. The third part deals with testing.

The thesis deals with an image processing problem called image matting. The problem involves detection of a foreground and background in an image with minimal user interaction using trimaps. Foreground detection is used in image composition. The goal of the thesis is to apply already known algorithms, in this case A Global sampling matting, in an Android application. The most important result is an intuitive application that can be used for making creative viral photos. Agile methodology is applied throughout the whole application development cycle. From the very beginning, the application is publicly available as a minimum viable product on Google play. The work’s contribution is in optimization of the mentioned algorithm for use in mobile devices and parallelization on a GPU, together with a publicly available application.