In the future, computers will be virtually everywhere: carried by everyone and integrated into the environment. The increased computation and communication capabilities will enable intelligent environments that react to occupants through automated decision-making. Devices (sensors and actuators) are the key to making intelligent environments a reality. We believe that devices must be made more approachable for average users. Existing approaches to application development for intelligent environments require detailed knowledge about devices and their low-leveling programming interfaces, which greatly limits the number of potential users. Instead of limiting users, we must enable everyone to program the devices around them. Intelligent environments will not be commonplace until average people can set up and manage the hardware and software necessary for their personalized applications. In simplifying the programming of intelligent environments, we first made sensors and actuators accessible to average programmers then extended our work to end-users. We term the former contribution Sensor Enablement for Average Programmers (SEAP); the latter work is Sensor Enablement for End-Users (SEEU). In our experience, devices’ disparate, niche programming languages and communication protocols presented great difficulty in developing intelligent environments. To ease the development effort for average programmers, we abstracted and standardized complex sensor and actuator interactions, allowing users to instead think in terms of well-understood web applications. Users have said that SEAP is easy-to-use and exciting. But what about average people, end-users? We found that end-users are incredibly interested in intelligent environments. By engaging end-users we can create intelligent environments even faster and allow domain experts to tailor their environment. This dissertation’s second contribution, Sensor Enablement for End-Users (SEEU) provides a visual programming interface that allows users to create personalized automated behaviors given available devices and data. We performed several user studies to uncover people’s desires for intelligent environments and determine the best interface for managing an intelligent environment. SEEU combines an intuitive interface with the power and flexibility of SEAP. SEEU is a usable end-user programming framework that allows average people to create useful applications for their intelligent environments. With SEEU and SEAP, we simplified the development of intelligent environments, reducing barriers to adoption of emerging sensing and actuation technologies. We demonstrated the feasability with a series of user studies. / text

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2017-03-02T12:35:33Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação_JRMGR (2).pdf: 5709787 bytes, checksum: 202e0d4b953f954e36da5e22b1d9c53d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-02T12:35:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação_JRMGR (2).pdf: 5709787 bytes, checksum: 202e0d4b953f954e36da5e22b1d9c53d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-01-15 / Nowadays the computational thinking is one of the most important skills a person should develop to be more well prepared for the near future. By the middle of this century, this ability will probably have the same level of importance of fundamental skills like reading and writing, and people will need to learn programming and problem solving with computational thinking from an early age. Studies are trying to stimulate the introduction of this skill set to young children, and this has been done since 1967 when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created the first language aiming this kind of public called LOGO. Although the studies in the area of developing computational thinking on children started almost six decades ago, the importance of teaching programming in schools is not widely spread, in places like Brazil, this skill is starting to be introduced to children older than 10 yearsold. In contrast, the United States and some european countries are using a variable set of approaches to introduce these concepts to young children varying from 4 to 12 years old, usually by creating toys and games which these concepts can be developed within them. Unfortunately most of approaches are aimed for already literate children, very few of them do not require reading skills, limiting the minimum age of users to approximately 6 years old. This work has the intention to argue that toddlers are not only able to develop algorithms and initiate the development of computational thinking skills, but also this practice will be quite profitable for their future. A survey involving 9 children with between 4 and 6 years old is presented, where the selected children played a game developed specially for this work, and their performance was able to produce data that is going to be analyzed further to test the main hypothesis which is " Toddlers can develop algorithmic thinking by playing programming games ", additionally, while reviewing the literature, problems related to the effects of letting children use smart devices and internet without supervision were identified, in order to advocate the usage of this technology by young children, possible causes and risks of these problems are presented and ways to avoid them as well, the results of this work are encouraging, all toddlers involved were able to play the game developed. / Nos dias de hoje o pensamento computacional é uma das habilidades mais importantes que uma pessoa deve desenvolver para se preparar melhor pro futuro próximo. Em poucos anos essa habilidade será tão importante como ler e escrever, pessoas precisarão aprender a programar e resolver problemas com pensamento computacional desde cedo. Estudos que tentam estimular a introdução dessas habilidades para crianças são feitos desde 1967 quando o Institudo de Tecnologia de Massachusetts criou a primeira linguagem para esse público chamada LOGO. Embora os estudos na area de desenvolvimento do pensamento computacional em crianças tenha começado a mais de seis décadas atrás, a importância de ensinar programação em escolas não é amplamente difundida, em lugares como Brasil, essa habilidade está começando a ser introduzida a crianças com mais de 10 anos de idade. Por outro lado, nos Estados Unidos e em alguns países europeus diversas abordagens vem sendo usadas para introduzir esses conceitos para crianças de 4 a 12 anos de idade, normalmente são criados brinquedos e jogos que podem ajudar a desenvolver tais conceitos. Infelizmente a maioria dessas abordagens são focadas em crianças alfabetizadas, poucas não requerem a habilidade de leitura, limitando a idade mínima a 6 anos de idade. Esse trabalho argumenta que crianças muito novas não somente são capazes de desenvolver algoritimos e iniciar o desenvolvimento de habilidades do pensamento computacional, como essa prática será bastante proveitosa para o futuro deles. É apresentada uma pesquisa envolvendo 9 crianças com idade entre 4 e 6 anos, onde as crianças selecionadas jogam um jogo desenvolvido especialmente para este trabalho, e a performance deles foi capaz de produzir dados que foram analisados para testar a hipótese principal que é " Crianças muito novas podem desenvolver pensamento algoritimico jogando jogos de programação ", adicionalmente, enquanto a literatura foi revisada, problemas relacionados aos efeitos de permitir crianças a usar dispositivos móveis e internet sem a supervisão dos responsáveis foram identificados, para defender o uso desse tipo de tecnologia na educação de crianças as possíveis causas e meios de evitar esses problemas foram levantados, os resultados desse trabalho são encorajadores, todas as crianças envolvidas foram aptas a jogar o jogo desenvolvido com uma boa performance.

La industria de los dispositivos inteligentes ha crecido en los últimos años, por lo que una gran mayoría de personas cuentan con un Smart TV y al menos un teléfono inteligente en sus hogares. La transformación de la era digital busca mejorar la experiencia del usuario y facilitar el uso de diferentes dispositivos inteligentes. Sin embargo, su uso interactivo en conjunto no se ha explotado en su totalidad, debido a que no se cuenta con una herramienta que facilite esta labor. El presente documento validará la propuesta de crear una biblioteca de comunicación que permite conectar múltiples dispositivos Android con un Smart TV LG WebOS y de esta manera promover el desarrollo de aplicaciones para los Smart TV, evitando una implementación desde cero y agilizando el despliegue de nuevas aplicaciones que generen un gran valor para los usuarios. La validación del proyecto se realizará mediante la aplicación de una metodología de investigación que permitirá el inicio y desarrollo posterior del proyecto. / The smart device industry has grown in recent years, so a vast majority of people have a Smart TV and at least one smartphone in their homes. The transformation of the digital age seeks to improve the user experience and facilitate the use of different smart devices. However, its interactive use as a whole has not been fully exploited, because there is no tool to facilitate this work. This document will validate the proposal to create a communication library that allows multiple Android devices to be connected to an LG WebOS Smart TV and in this way promote the development of applications for Smart TVs, avoiding a deployment from scratch and speeding up the deployment of new applications. that generate great value for users. The validation of the project will be carried out by applying a research methodology that will allow the start and subsequent development of the project. / Trabajo de investigación

Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a network of global and interrelated computing devices that connects humans and machines. It connects anything that has access to the internet and creates an avenue for data and information exchange. Devices within the IoT environment are embedded with processors, sensors and communication hardware that helps these devices collate data, analyze data (when needed), and transfer data amongst themselves. Even with the existence of IoT in making things easier for users and with the introduction of newer variants of IoT, several security and privacy challenges are introduced. In the rapidly evolving landscape of the Internet of Things (IoT), ensuring secure data sharing has become a critical concern. Attribute-based encryption (ABE) has emerged as a promising cryptographic technique for addressing security challenges in IoT environments. Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) is a cryptographic method that provides public key encryption and access control based on attributes allocated. ABE can be used to encrypt data transmitted between IoT devices and the cloud. In situations where several devices have to interact with each other (e.g., smart home interacting with the user’s hospital IoT system), an intranet of things is formed, and these data is stored in the cloud. ABE can serve as a secure means of transmitting this data since these devices already possess unique attributes that can grant users access control. In this thesis, we aim to present a systematic review of the Attribute-Based Encryption techniques specifically designed for secure data sharing in IoT environments. The objective of this review is to analyze and synthesize existing research, identify trends, and highlight key findings in the field. Therefore, the document survey is chosen as the research strategy. PRISMA framework is followed in searching the eligible literature in 5 databases (Springer, ACM Digital library, Google Scholar, IEEE, Research Gate, Research Square, and Science Direct), with a final set of 30 articles retrieved from ACM Digital Library, IEEE, and Science Direct, all included for analysis. The results show insights on the several ABE approaches used in implementing a secure data sharing framework with access control (which involves enforcing policies that help data owners determine who can and cannot access their data), data privacy (which involves measures taken to ensure that confidentiality, integrity, and availability of any shared data), and data security (which involves practices that help protect any form of shared data from unauthorized access, tamper, or disclosure) in IoT devices.

Smart home is a topic that emerged in the 90s to improve the quality of human life. The evolutions of ambient intelligence, recent technology advancements, internet, and smart devices have had a large impact in smart home environment. In the traditional smart home environment, devices are connected physically in the environment and there are interoperability issues between the devices, because the environment is heterogeneous and the devices do not allow to communicate with the outside world such as the internet.In this master thesis we propose a conceptual design of a platform for better home entertainment experience. Smart phone, smart TV and a personal computer are the most important devices in this platform design. The platform provides a high degree of interaction and integration among devices within the environment. The proposed platform model helps software architects and engineers to have an early involvement in the design process. We proposed the platform to be implemented with the help of hybrid cloud computing model. Our suggested platform design is able to overcome the deficiencies of the previous models and approaches in this domain. We conducted direct interviews with seven computer science teachers at Malmö University for the evaluation of our platform design. The results show that the platform design can be physically implemented with the specified devices, the clouds are better than the traditional approaches and hybrid cloud model is more acceptable in terms of security and economy. We encourage software architects, developers and project supervisors to adopt this proposed platform model in physical smart home environment.

La prolifération des objets communicants fixes et mobiles soulève la question de leur intégration dans les environnements quotidiens, par exemple dans le cadre de la e-santé ou de la domotique. Les principaux défis soulevés relèvent de l’interconnexion et de la gestion de la masse de donnée produite par ces objets intelligents. Notre premier objectif est d’adopter une démarche des couches basses vers les couches hautes pour faciliter l’intégration de ces objets à des services intelligents. Afin de développer celle-ci, il est nécessaire de d’étudier le processus de conception des objets intelligents indépendamment de considérations matérielles et logicielles, au travers de la considération de leur propriétés cyber-physiques. Pour mener à bien la réalisation de services intelligents à partir d’objets connectés, les deux axes de recherche suivant seront développés : la définition d’une méthode de conception orientée service pour les objets connectés intégrant une dimension formelle ainsi de valider le comportement de ceux-ci, l’auto-adaptation intelligente dans un contexte évolutif permettant aux objets de raisonner sur eux même au travers d’un langage déclaratif pour spécifier les stratégies d’adaptation. La validation de ces contributions s’effectuera par le biais du développement et de l’expérimentation à grandeur nature d’un service de diagnostic médical continu basé sur la collecte de données médicales en masse par des réseaux non-intrusifs de capteurs biomédicaux portables sur le corps humain. / The rapid growth of fixed and mobile smart objects raises the issue of their integration in everyday environment, e.g. in e-health or home-automation contexts. The main challenges of these objects are the interoperability, the handling of the massive amount of data that they generate, and their limited resources. Our goal is to take a bottom-up approach in order to improve the integration of smart devices to smart services. To ensure the efficient development of our approach, we start with the study of the design process of such devices regardless of specific hardware or software through the consideration of their cyber-physical properties. We thus develop two research directions: the specification of a service-oriented design method for smart devices with formal considerations in order to validate their behavior, and the proposal of a self-adaptation framework in order to handle changing operating context through self-reasoning and the definition of a declarative self-adaptation objectives specification language. The testing of these contributions will be realized through the development of a large-scale experimental framework based on a remote diagnostics case-study relying on non-invasive wearable biomedical sensors.

The overarching theme of the thesis was to investigate the association between smart device use and computer vision syndrome. The initial study designed and developed the Open Field Tear film Analyser (OFTA) enabling a continuous, real-time assessment of the tear film and blink characteristics during smart device use. The monocular OFTA prototype was validated and showed good intra- and inter-observer repeatability relative to the Oculus Keratograph 5M and Bausch and Lomb one position keratometer. Subsequently, tear osmolarity following engagement with reading and gaming tasks on smart device and paper platforms was investigated. Discrete measures of osmolarity pre- and post-engagement with the tasks were obtained with the TearLab osmometer; osmolarity values differed between platforms when participants were engaged in a gaming task but no such difference was observed with the reading task. In addition, the influence of repeated measurements on tear osmolarity was also explored. To simulate the habitual binocular viewing conditions normally associated with smart device use, the binocular OFTA was developed. The device was used to assess the tear film and blink characteristics whilst engaging with reading and gaming tasks on smart device and paper platforms. The results revealed differences in blink characteristics and non-invasive tear break up time between the different platforms and tasks assessed. In addition, the thesis also reports on an investigation examining the real-time accommodative response to various targets displayed on smart devices using an open-field autorefractor with a Badal lens system adaptation. The results showed that accommodative latency, accommodative lag, mean velocity of accommodation, speed of disaccommodation and mean velocity of disaccommodation varied across the different platforms. Through the use of validated subjective questionnaires and smartphone apps, the relationship between duration of smartphone use and symptoms of dry eye were examined. The findings of this study demonstrated that longer duration of smartphone and personal computer use were associated with higher risk of dry eyes as indicated by subjective questionnaire outcomes.

In today’s world, we live in a technologically advanced environment where information access is huge and limitless. The advantage to this is that, people are able to create more information, share and communicate with each other instantly on the go regardless of where they are in the world. However on the downside, with endless information, it becomes confusing and difficult to filter which information is right for a person’s need. This goes hand-in-hand for business companies, as it requires strategic processes and tools to identify the information from the market, store and evaluate it into meaningful insights and lastly communicate it efficiently so that the value of it is not lost along the way. Therefore this study focuses on how augmented reality (AR) as an emerging digital technology is able to dissect and communicate information and bring value to those who are implementing it. What is more interesting in this study is to see the usefulness and ease of using AR from commercial and non-commercial aspects in B2B field. This study was conducted through a qualitative research approach with semi-structured interviews with five companies providing and using AR applications. In conclusion, AR brings value by transferring data faster and communicating it effectively through visualization of integrating computer-generated information with the real world as one. From commercial aspect, companies could use this technology in their marketing communication to increase customer involvement and perception of the brand. In contrast, from non-commercial perspective, companies could use AR as an internal resource to increase efficiency in operation process.

Distributed processing cluster design using commodity hardware and software has proven to be a technological breakthrough in the field of parallel and distributed computing. The research presented herein is the original investigation on distributed processing using hybrid processing clusters to improve the calculation efficiency of the compute-intensive applications. This has opened a new frontier in affordable supercomputing that can be utilised by businesses and industries at various levels. Distributed processing that uses commodity computer clusters has become extremely popular over recent years, particularly among university research groups and research organisations. The research work discussed herein addresses a bespoke-oriented design and implementation of highly specific and different types of distributed processing clusters with applied load balancing techniques that are well suited for particular business requirements. The research was performed in four phases, which are cohesively interconnected, to find a suitable solution using a new type of distributed processing approaches. The first phase is an implementation of a bespoke-type distributed processing cluster using an existing network of workstations as a calculation cluster based on a loosely coupled distributed process system design that has improved calculation efficiency of certain legacy applications. This approach has demonstrated how to design an innovative, cost-effective, and efficient way to utilise a workstation cluster for distributed processing. The second phase is to improve the calculation efficiency of the distributed processing system; a new type of load balancing system is designed to incorporate multiple processing devices. The load balancing system incorporates hardware, software and application related parameters to assigned calculation tasks to each processing devices accordingly. Three types of load balancing methods are tested, static, dynamic and hybrid, which each of them has their own advantages, and all three of them have further improved the calculation efficiency of the distributed processing system. The third phase is to facilitate the company to improve the batch processing application calculation time, and two separate dedicated calculation clusters are built using small form factor (SFF) computers and PCs as separate peer-to-peer (P2P) network based calculation clusters. Multiple batch processing applications were tested on theses clusters, and the results have shown consistent calculation time improvement across all the applications tested. In addition, dedicated clusters are built using SFF computers with reduced power consumption, small cluster size, and comparatively low cost to suit particular business needs. The fourth phase incorporates all the processing devices available in the company as a hybrid calculation cluster utilises various type of servers, workstations, and SFF computers to form a high-throughput distributed processing system that consolidates multiple calculations clusters. These clusters can be utilised as multiple mutually exclusive multiple clusters or combined as a single cluster depending on the applications used. The test results show considerable calculation time improvements by using consolidated calculation cluster in conjunction with rule-based load balancing techniques. The main design concept of the system is based on the original design that uses first principle methods and utilises existing LAN and separate P2P network infrastructures, hardware, and software. Tests and investigations conducted show promising results where the company's legacy applications can be modified and implemented with different types of distributed processing clusters to achieve calculation and processing efficiency for various applications within the company. The test results have confirmed the expected calculation time improvements in controlled environments and show that it is feasible to design and develop a bespoke-type dedicated distributed processing cluster using existing hardware, software, and low-cost SFF computers. Furthermore, a combination of bespoke distributed processing system with appropriate load balancing algorithms has shown considerable calculation time improvements for various legacy and bespoke applications. Hence, the bespoke design is better suited to provide a solution for the calculation of time improvements for critical problems currently faced by the sponsoring company.

Las mesas son tradicionalmente consideradas como un mueble indispensable en hogares, oficinas y centros de trabajo. En los ambientes laborales y académicos, las mesas permiten que los grupos de trabajo logren mejor interacción y comunicación. Los dispositivos Large Screen Surface son pantallas táctiles de grandes dimensiones que se pueden establecer de manera horizontal o vertical. Durante los últimos años se ha incrementado el interés en el desarrollo de aplicaciones sobre este tipo de dispositivos multitouch, pues sus pantallas ofrecen un gran campo visual en alta resolución, además su configuración física permite que varios usuarios puedan trabajar simultáneamente de manera presencial. Esta investigación propone el desarrollo e implementación de una aplicación web colaborativa que permite a varios usuarios crear contenidos como mapas conceptuales, moodboards, líneas de tiempo, etc. Los usuarios cuentan con una biblioteca grupal que contiene recursos visuales como videos, formas, imágenes e ingreso de textos. / Traditionally, humans use conventional tables at home, offices, and as design centers, these are elements found everywhere on which multiple tasks are performed. Such objects have the particularity to gather many individuals in order to carry out any collaborative tasks. Large Screen Surface is the digital evolution of tables, since they are large touch screens that can be set horizontally or vertically allowing multitouch interaction by many users. In recent years, interest in the development of applications for such devices has increased, since its screens offer a large visual field in high resolution; additionally, its physical configuration allows multiple users to work simultaneously in situ. This research proposes the development and implementation of a collaborative web application which allows multiple users to create content such as concept maps, moodboards, timelines, etc. Users have a collective library which contains visual resources such as videos, shapes, images and text input. / Tesis