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In recent times, attention to the indoor plants in the houses has increased, which can be used to produce food or just for decoration and for health purposes. However, moving plants from their original place in nature to a closed place leads to negative effects due to changing environmental parameters around them. For instance, fluctuations in temperature, light, and soil moisture might affect indoor plant growth process. This work investigates the possibility of using the smart mobile and web applications to monitor remotely the most of changing environmental parameters around plants. These parameters can give the user the real-time information on air temperature and humidity, soil temperature and moisture, as well as amount of light. The Top-down method has been used to design a monitoring system to help the user keep informed of indoor climate changes. This system contains Raspberry and some sensors that are used in sensing various environmental conditions. It also includes the software component which defines services and actions to be taken on the data collected by sensing objects. The system is tested and evaluated in the indoor environment to prove the required concepts. The results indicated that web and mobile interfaces transfer data in real-time manner and send environmental information to the user. The data collected is visualized by different charts and figures to give a better understanding of the surrounding conditions in which the plant grows. It is concluded that the proposed system provides a user-friendly monitoring application to monitor the most indoor environmental parameters.

According to professionals breastfeeding is the preferred method of providing nutrition for newborns worldwide. Breastfeeding rates among low-income mothers are very low due to the lack of support and early introduction of formula. The present study examined the effects of providing these mothers with reinforcement to encourage breastfeeding. The mothers tracked their feedings using a simple breastfeeding mobile application in order to receive reinforcement. The mothers were also offered breastfeeding support if they were having any difficulties. Keywords: breastfeeding, reinforcement, mobile application, support / Special Education

Two topics currently lead the debates in the museum sector: audience development and the use of digital media. This study addresses these debates by investigating how gamified mobile applications can support engagement with museums’ topics. It examines the online audience and their motivations for the use of media. It uses “MuseumStars” - which can be characterized as a museums quiz app for remote use - as a case study. Based on the uses and gratifications theory the study uses a mixed-methods approach. An online survey and two focus groups were conducted. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and qualitative content analysis. The findings show that the main user motivation is to learn new things and to prepare or substitute a museum visit. In contrast to other research on mobile gaming, the connection to the physical space played a crucial role in using the application, while competition was less prominent. The findings also demonstrate that to better accommodate the audience's needs content is key. Hence, it can be concluded that digital media per se will not enhance engagement without the right presentation of the content: It must be translated to the media in an appropriate way to support the uses and gratifications of the audience and thus enhance engagement with museums’ topics.

Background: In a healthy diet, one's water consumption is crucial in order to maintain our bodieswater level consisting of approximately two thirds of water. Previous studies show that youngadults seem to not reach the recommended total water consumption daily, leaving them at therisk of dehydration which in turn increases the risk of chronic diseases. Drinking more water, andeating breakfast regularly could decrease this risk and have a healthy impact on young adults.Gamification is a broad concept that utilizes game elements in contexts where otherwise few orno game elements are used. It is known to increase knowledge and awareness in a wide varietyof contexts through storytelling and games, however it is not fully clear on its potential onimpacting behavior change and habit formation, such as drinking more water or eating breakfaston a regular basis.  Purpose: The main purpose of this thesis is to explain how gamification can be utilized in orderto improve young adults dietary habits. Methodology: This research is conducted through a quantitative approach, with a broad researchquestion and two more focused, measurable hypotheses. Findings: This thesis found through the collected data that no difference was seen during thestudied period, and therefore was unable to support the hypotheses made being: “H1:Gamification will increase direct daily water consumption”, “H2: Gamification will increase howoften young adults eat breakfast in the morning”. Despite this, it found aspects from gamificationthat were useful and likable by the participants, as well as aspects that weren't as appreciated andless effective. Laying a good foundation for future research on what is likely to succeed or fail ina similar context.  Conclusion: Gamification in this context did not have any significant impact on young adultsdietary habits. Having to self record on a daily basis seems to have minimized this potential andwas somewhat tedious. Future research should find alternative ways for this, letting the user setpersonal goals, have more personalisation in the app, and most importantly not having to recordtheir dietary habits every day. The most likable gamification elements of the app was found to bethe leaderboard and levels/xp.

This research comprises three interconnected studies, all anchored in the usability evaluation of mobile education applications, with guidance from the well-established Jakob Nielsen factors to heuristic evaluation. The first study delves into the analysis of mobile application reviews using a deep learning model and machine learning to unearth usability issues. In the second study, we examine the usability of two prominent educational applications, Canvas and Blackboard, integrated within Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University (PSAU) and at the University of North Texas (UNT) from a student-oriented perspective. Through the synthesis of findings and insights from antecedent studies, we seek to augment the current body of knowledge and offer realistic recommendations for the enhancement of mobile education application usability. Our findings have the potential to improve the efficacy of platforms, offering developers a roadmap to refine application features and optimize the learning experience for both educators and learners.

The efficient management of storage units requires a reliable and streamlined move-out process. Manual validation methods are resource intensive. Therefore, the task is to introduce an automated approach that capitalises on modern smartphone capabilities to improve the move-out validation process. Hence, the purpose of this thesis project. The proposed solution is a Proof of Concept (POC) application that utilises the Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensor and camera of a modern iPhone. This is performed through RoomPlan, a framework developed for real-time, indoor room scanning. It generates a 3D model of the room with its key characteristics. Moreover, to increase the number detectable object categories, the solution is integrated with the image classifier Tiny YOLOv3. The solution is evaluated through a quantitative evaluation in a storage unit. It shows that the application can validate whether the storage unit is empty or not in all the completed scans. However, an improvement of the object detecition is needed for the solution to work in a commercial case. Therefore, further work includes investigation of the possibilities to expand the object categories within the image classifier or creating a similar detection pipeline as RoomPlan adjusted for this specific case. The usage of LiDAR sensors indicated to be a stable object detector and a successful tool for the assignment. In contrast, the image classifier had lower detection accuracy in the storage unit.

Mobile applications may employ the GPS as user input to create location-based games. The existing landscape of location-based applications predominantly falls into two categories: those offering high-paced action with free movement and those providing movement between established locations at a leisurely pace. However, the combination of fast player movement between game-selected locations can potentially lead to significant accidents if the locations are poorly chosen. A naively designed system may encourage players to traverse rivers, cross highways,or trespass into private areas. This report introduces a design aimed at establishing a safe real-world environment in mobile applications by mapping the surroundings and guiding the player safely. A map generationsystem is proposed, along with a conceptual framework for utilization the generated map.

This work introduces three new coverage criteria based on combinatorial-based event and element sequences that occur in the mobile environment. The novel combinatorial-based criteria are used to reduce, prioritize, and generate test suites for mobile applications. The combinatorial-based criteria include unique coverage of events and elements with different respects to ordering. For instance, consider the coverage of a pair of events, e1 and e2. The least strict criterion, Combinatorial Coverage (CCov), counts the combination of these two events in a test case without respect to the order in which the events occur. That is, the combination (e1, e2) is the same as (e2, e1). The second criterion, Sequence-Based Combinatorial Coverage (SCov), considers the order of occurrence within a test case. Sequences (e1, ..., e2) and (e2,..., e1) are different sequences. The third and strictest criterion is Consecutive-Sequence Combinatorial Coverage (CSCov), which counts adjacent sequences of consecutive pairs. The sequence (e1, e2) is only counted if e1 immediately occurs before e2. The first contribution uses the novel combinatorial-based criteria for the purpose of test suite reduction. Empirical studies reveal that the criteria, when used with event sequences and sequences of size t=2, reduce the test suites by 22.8%-61.3% while the reduced test suites provide 98.8% to 100% fault finding effectiveness. Empirical studies in Android also reveal that the event sequence criteria of size t=2 reduce the test suites by 24.67%-66% while losing at most 0.39% code coverage. When the criteria are used with element sequences and sequences of size t=2, the test suites are reduced by 40\% to 72.67%, losing less than 0.87% code coverage. The second contribution of this work applies the combinatorial-based criteria for test suite prioritization of mobile application test suites. The results of an empirical study show that the prioritization criteria that use element and event sequences cover the test suite's elements, events, and code faster than random orderings. On average the prioritized orderings cover all elements within 21.81% of the test suite, all events within 45.99% of the test suite, and all code within 51.21% of the test suite. Random orderings achieve full code coverage with 84.8% of the test suite on average. The third contribution uses the combinatorial-based criteria for test suite generation. This work modifies the random walk tool used from prior experiments to give weight (preference) to coverage of the combinatorial-based event and element criteria. The use of Element SCov and CSCov criteria result in test suites that increase code coverage for three of the four subject applications. Specifically, the code coverage increases by 0.29%-5.89% with SCov and 1.36%-6.79% with CSCov in comparison to the original random walk algorithm. The SCov criterion increases total sequence coverage by 5%-88% and the CSCov criterion increases sequence coverage by 13%-68%. One criteria, Element CCov, failed to increase code coverage for two of the four applications. The contributions of this dissertation show that the novel combinatorial-based criteria using sequences of events and elements offer improvements to different testing strategies for mobile applications, including test suite reduction, prioritization, and generation.