Storage devices are rapidly changing, and we need to adapt the OS storage software stack to keep up with the changes. Such a re-evaluation of the storage software stack is especially required for mobile platforms because they are relying on inexpensive flash storage devices having very different performance characteristics from the familiar hard disk.In this thesis work, we first show the importance of storage in mobile platforms; contrary to conventional wisdom, we find evidence that storage is a significant contributor to application performance on mobile devices. Then, we explore the solution space for flash storage; user-level library for selective logging, host-side write buffering layer, and OS buffer replacement scheme for flash storage have been studied. Finally, we build an integrated solution for smartphone storage, named Fjord. In the Fjord study, we re-design logging and RAM buffering solutions for smartphones, and also propose fine-grained reliability control mechanisms. We prove that non-volatile logging can improve storage performance remarkably. Understanding the characteristics of cloud-backed applications and controlling the reliability constraint for chosen cloud-backed applications can achieve additional significant performance gain.We implement and evaluate our solution on a real Android smartphone, and demonstrate significant performance gains for everyday apps on such platforms.

Playing chess on a smart phone has gained popularity in the last few years, offering the convenience of correspondence play, automatic recording of a game, etc. Although a good number of players love playing chess on a tablet/smart phone, it doesn't come close to the experience of playing over the traditional board. The feel and pleasure are more real when playing face down with the opponent sitting across each other rather than playing in mobile devices. This is especially true during chess tournaments. It would be ideal to enhance the experience of playing chess on board with the features of chess playing on smart phones. Based on the design of a roll able smart chess board, an android app has been implemented to interact with the board. It reads signals from the smart chess board and maps the movements of the chess pieces to the phone. The recorded play would be used as input for game analysis. The design and implementation of a server for playing and reviewing a game online have also been studied in this thesis.

In a large number of electronic devices, users interact with the system by navigating through various menus. Auditory menus can complement or even replace visual menus, so research on auditory menus has recently increased with mobile devices as well as desktop computers. Despite the potential importance of auditory displays on touch screen devices, little research has been attempted to enhance the effectiveness of auditory menus for those devices. In the present study, I investigated how advanced auditory cues enhance auditory menu navigation on a touch screen smartphone, especially for new input gestures such as tapping, wheeling, and flicking methods for navigating a one-dimensional menu. Moreover, I examined if advanced auditory cues improve user experience, not only for visuals-off situations, but also for visuals-on contexts. To this end, I used a novel auditory menu enhancement called a "spindex" (i.e., speech index), in which brief audio cues inform the users of where they are in a long menu. In this study, each item in a menu was preceded by a sound based on the item's initial letter. One hundred and twenty two undergraduates navigated through an alphabetized list of 150 song titles. The study was a split-plot design with manipulated auditory cue type (text-to-speech (TTS) alone vs. TTS plus spindex), visual mode (on vs. off), and input gesture style (tapping, wheeling, and flicking). Target search time and subjective workload for the TTS + spindex were lower than those of the TTS alone in all input gesture types regardless of visual type. Also, on subjective ratings scales, participants rated the TTS + spindex condition higher than the plain TTS on being 'effective' and 'functionally helpful'. The interaction between input methods and output modes (i.e., auditory cue types) and its effects on navigation behaviors was also analyzed based on the two-stage navigation strategy model used in auditory menus. Results were discussed in analogy with visual search theory and in terms of practical applications of spindex cues.

Smartphones form an emerging mobile computing platform that has hybrid characteristics borrowed from PC and feature phone environments. While maintaining great mobility and portability as feature phones, smartphones offers advanced computation capabilities and network connectivity. Although the smartphone platform can support PC-grade applications, the platform exhibits fundamentally different characteristics from the PC platform. Two important problems arise in the smartphone platform: how to mobilize applications and how to deliver them effectively. Traditional application mobilization involves significant cost in development and typically provides limited functionality of the PC version. Since the mobile applications rely on the embedded wireless interfaces of smartphones for network access, the application performance is impacted by the inferior characteristics of the wireless networks. Our first contribution is super-aggregation, a rapid application delivery protocol that in tandem uses the multiple interfaces intelligently to achieve a performance that is ``better than the sum of throughputs' achievable through each of the interfaces individually. The second contribution is MORPH, a remote computing protocol for heterogeneous devices that transforms the application views on the PC platform into smartphone-friendly views. MORPH virtualizes application views independent of the UI framework used into an abstract representation called virtual view. It allows transformation services to be easily programmed to realize a smartphone friendly view by manipulating the virtual view. The third contribution is the system design of super-aggregation and MORPH that achieve rapid application delivery and mobilization. Both solutions require only software modifications that can be easily deployed to smartphones.

This mixed methods study contains two studies that are linked together sequentially to explore the work/nonwork boundary management of home-based teleworkers through the overarching research question: Do personality traits and ICT use influence how teleworkers manage their work-nonwork boundary? Mobile ICT s such as smartphones are becoming increasingly more important for work and they can have a boundary blurring effect on the work-nonwork boundary as they may be used at anytime and anywhere. However, the issue of how personality traits influence ICT use and work-nonwork boundary management has been neglected, particularly in a teleworking context. As people manage their work-nonwork boundaries differently and some people work better at home than others, it is not known to what extent personality traits play a role in boundary management and ICT use. Study One explores the relationships between the big five personality traits of conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism, the facet level traits of dutifulness, gregariousness, and impulsiveness and work/nonwork boundary interruptions. It also explores the relationships between these traits and frequency of technology use for work purposes and the relationship of ICT s (smartphones, tablets and laptops) to work/nonwork boundary interruptions. Data was collected via an online survey, with recruitment from social media sites and Local Authorities totalling 391 usable responses. Conscientiousness was found to be negatively related to work-nonwork and nonwork-work interruptions, dutifulness negatively related to nonwork-work interruptions, neuroticism positively related to work-nonwork interruptions and impulsiveness positively related to nonwork-work interruptions. Personality traits were found to have small correlations to boundary interruptions which was a new finding, although it was expected that the correlations might have been larger than they were found to be. Extraversion was positively related to frequency of laptop use and extraversion and gregariousness were positively related to frequency of smartphone use, neuroticism was negatively related to frequency of smartphone use which were new findings in a work context. Frequency of ICT use was positively related to work-nonwork interruptions, with smartphones showing the highest correlation, followed by tablet and then laptop displaying a stepped effect. This finding of a stepped effect was new and suggests that the portability of smartphones makes them much easier to connect to work out of hours, than laptops and tablets. The second study included interviews from 20 participants who had completed the survey, four from each of five boundary management groups (Strong Segmentors, Strong Integrators, Moderate Managers, Work Boundary Protectors and Family Boundary Protectors). The groups were derived from scores from the survey data, in order to investigate in more depth, other factors that influenced boundary management interruptions that were not picked up in Study One and specifically the idiosyncrasies of ICT use between groups. The qualitative data was analysed via Template Analysis and the final themes in the template were Boundary Management, Crafting Work, Individual Differences, Telework and Interruptions. The theme of Boundary Management was dealt with in this study. Some key findings were that Study Two built upon Study One by finding that proactivity was a key theme and that this trait may be particularly active while individuals are teleworking due to the context. ICT s were used in a way that reflected the wide ranging boundary management preferences of the individuals using them.

The capacity to engage in web services transactions on smartphones is growing as these devices become increasingly powerful and sophisticated. This capacity for mobile web services is being realised through mobile applications that consume web services hosted on larger computing devices. This thesis investigates the effect that end-to-end web services security has on the interoperability between mobile web services requesters and traditional web services providers. SOAP web services are the preferred web services approach for this investigation. Although WS-Security is recognised as demanding on mobile hardware and network resources, the selection of appropriate WS-Security mechanisms lessens this burden. An attempt to implement such mechanisms on smartphones is carried out via an experiment. Smartphones are selected as the mobile device type used in the experiment. The experiment is conducted on the Java Micro Edition (Java ME) and the .NET Compact Framework (.NET CF) smartphone platforms. The experiment shows that the implementation of interoperable, end-to-end, mobile web services security on both platforms is reliant on third-party libraries. This reliance on third-party libraries results in poor developer support and exposes developers to the complexity of cryptography. The experiment also shows that there are no standard message size optimisation libraries available for both platforms. The implementation carried out on the .NET CF is also shown to rely on the underlying operating system. It is concluded that standard WS-Security APIs must be provided on smartphone platforms to avoid the problems of poor developer support and the additional complexity of cryptography. It is recommended that these APIs include a message optimisation technique. It is further recommended that WS-Security APIs be completely operating system independent when they are implemented in managed code. This thesis contributes by: providing a snapshot of mobile web services security; identifying the smartphone platform state of readiness for end-to-end secure web services; and providing a set of recommendations that may improve this state of readiness. These contributions are of increasing importance as mobile web services evolve from a simple point-to-point environment to the more complex enterprise environment.

The diploma thesis deals with the issue of time-space mobility of university students in the town Ceske Budejovice. The research was conducted on the basis of data collection through three methods, combining various approaches to time-space mobility. The first method used was questionnaire research representing traditional way of collecting information. The modern methods category was represented by GPS loggers and smartphone devices operating through the motion capture applications. The aim was a qualitative comparison of these methods in practice and further evaluation of their potential benefits for time-space research. Furthermore, the main focus is on the overall analysis of time-space mobility of university students in urban environment of Ceske Budejovice, with emphasis on the concept of bundles. Individual results are supported by images and maps created in geographic information systems. The final chapter summarizes the acquired findings and the resulting measurements of time-space mobility of university students in Ceske Budejovice.

FAÇANHA, Agebson Rocha. Uma proposta para acessibilidade visual e táctil em dispositivos touchscreen. 2012. 109 f. : Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Ceará, Centro de Ciências, Departamento de Computação, Fortaleza-CE, 2012. / Submitted by guaracy araujo (guaraa3355@gmail.com) on 2016-05-18T18:45:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao de Agebson Rocha Facanha.pdf: 2927212 bytes, checksum: c5bd4ddd54061bf8f97ac0b835fcb6b4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by guaracy araujo (guaraa3355@gmail.com) on 2016-05-18T18:46:06Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao de Agebson Rocha Facanha.pdf: 2927212 bytes, checksum: c5bd4ddd54061bf8f97ac0b835fcb6b4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-18T18:46:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao de Agebson Rocha Facanha.pdf: 2927212 bytes, checksum: c5bd4ddd54061bf8f97ac0b835fcb6b4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / The use of touchscreen interfaces on smart phones and tablets bring tremendous benefits of connectivity and usability for their users. However, access to information via these devices represents a new challenge of interaction for users with visual impairments, after all, they have a glassy surface, with many visual elements, without reference to embossed tactile exploration. In this context, the study presents the main assistive technology to facilitate interaction of the visually impaired with touchscreen mobile devices and describes the fundamental aspects in an affordable touchscreen interface. From accessibility requirements found in the research, a group of three applications was designed and implemented (LêBraille - Text Editor; LêBrailleTWT - Twitter Client and LêBrailleSMS - Setting send / receive SMS) with accessible interface via audible and tactile feedback, the Android platform. The proposals were evaluated by a group of visually impaired users. Although there were rates to be improved with respect to time for performing operations on input data, was possible to obtain improvements in the use of the touchscreen technology. / O uso de interfaces touchscreen em smartphones e tablets traz enormes benefícios de conectividade e usabilidade para seus usuários. Contudo, o acesso à informação através desses dispositivos representa um novo desafio de interação para os usuários com deficiência visual, afinal possuem uma superfície vítrea, com diversos elementos visuais, sem uma referência em relevo para exploração táctil. Nesse contexto, este trabalho de mestrado apresenta um estudo das principais tecnologias para facilitar a interação do deficiente visual com dispositivos móveis touchscreen e elucida aspectos considerados fundamentais em uma interface touchscreen acessível. Seguindo os requisitos de acessibilidade propostos, foi concebida e implementada uma suíte com três aplicativos (LêBraille - Editor de texto; LêBrailleTWT – Cliente Twitter e LêBrailleSMS – Software de envio/recebimento de mensagens SMS) com interface acessível através de feedbacks sonoros e tácteis, na plataforma Android. As propostas foram avaliadas por um grupo de usuários deficientes visuais. E apesar de percentuais a serem melhorados em relação ao tempo para execução de operações na entrada de dados, já foi possível obter avanços na utilização da tecnologia pelos mesmos.

Submitted by ANA ELISA SILVA (anaelisaba@gmail.com) on 2014-01-29T23:18:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO DE MESTRADO - ANA ELISA.pdf: 2753011 bytes, checksum: 85d82489296f9fc28237816a93dede6f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Auxiliadora da Silva Lopes (silopes@ufba.br) on 2014-02-11T14:48:10Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO DE MESTRADO - ANA ELISA.pdf: 2753011 bytes, checksum: 85d82489296f9fc28237816a93dede6f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-02-11T14:48:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO DE MESTRADO - ANA ELISA.pdf: 2753011 bytes, checksum: 85d82489296f9fc28237816a93dede6f (MD5) / As tecnologias móveis, em especial os smartphones, são responsáveis pela atual dinâmica da internet, na qual os processos de comunicação tornam-se mais ágeis e as produções e o compartilhamento de informações e conhecimentos mais amplos e coletivos. Tais possibilidades resultam da mobilidade e da conexão constantes, que transformam as práticas sociais e educacionais e alteram a maneira de as pessoas se relacionarem, ensinarem e aprenderem, viabilizando formas de pensar e agir no mundo. O problema da pesquisa é como os professores que atuam no Núcleo de Tecnologia Educacional 17 (NTE 17) vivenciam a atual dinâmica do ciberespaço, em que há constante comunicação, troca de mensagens, acesso à internet, registro de fotos, produção de vídeos, compartilhamento de produções. A dissertação tem como objetivo analisar as possibilidades de comunicação, interação e compartilhamento de informações e conhecimentos produzidos, por meio do smartphone, por um grupo de professores da rede municipal de Salvador. O método utilizado foi o da pesquisa qualitativa, de cunho descritivo e analítico. Dentre outros aspectos, a pesquisa verificou que os professores, em diferentes níveis, possuem práticas inovadoras de comunicação, produção e compartilhamento de informações e conteúdos, pelo smartphone, mesmo quando ainda não utilizam essas práticas diariamente, em decorrência de questões culturais e econômicas. / ABSTRACT The mobile technologies, particularly smartphones, are responsible for the current dynamics of internet, where communication processes are more agile, and both information and knowledge production and sharing have become broader and collective. Such possibilities are a result of the mobility and constant connection, which have changed social and educational practices as well as the ways that people relate to each other, teach and learn, thus making viable new forms of thinking and acting upon the world. The research problem, therefore, consists in understanding how teachers who work at NTE 17 experience the current dynamics of cyberspace, where there is constant communication, text messaging, internet access, photographic records, video production, and share of production. In this context, this dissertation aims at analyzing the possibilities of communication, interaction and sharing of information and knowledge produced through the use of smartphones by a group of teachers from Salvador City Public School Network that work at the Educational Technology Center 17. The method employed is the qualitative research, with a descriptive and analytical approach. Among other aspects, the research has evidenced that the teachers, at different levels, use innovative practices for information and content communication, production and sharing via smartphone, even if they do not adopt those practices on a daily basis due to cultural and economic factors.

Submitted by Ana Paula Borges Gonçalves (borgean12@hotmail.com) on 2012-10-10T20:08:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE 2011 final F - versao final 64 defesa SETEMBRO DE 2012.pdf: 2215043 bytes, checksum: 456742cbb1f18495ddf860d7c068c939 (MD5) / Rejected by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br), reason: Prezada aluna Ana Paula, Favor retirar o embargo e submeter novamente, pois as Teses e Defesas devem ficar disponíveis na Biblioteca para consulta. ÁUREA SRA on 2012-10-19T12:53:03Z (GMT) / Submitted by Ana Paula Borges Gonçalves (borgean12@hotmail.com) on 2012-10-24T14:45:56Z No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE 2011 final F - versao final 64 defesa SETEMBRO DE 2012.pdf: 2215043 bytes, checksum: 456742cbb1f18495ddf860d7c068c939 (MD5) TESE 2011 final F - versao final 64 defesa SETEMBRO DE 2012.pdf: 2215043 bytes, checksum: 456742cbb1f18495ddf860d7c068c939 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br) on 2012-10-24T16:32:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE 2011 final F - versao final 64 defesa SETEMBRO DE 2012.pdf: 2215043 bytes, checksum: 456742cbb1f18495ddf860d7c068c939 (MD5) TESE 2011 final F - versao final 64 defesa SETEMBRO DE 2012.pdf: 2215043 bytes, checksum: 456742cbb1f18495ddf860d7c068c939 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2012-10-25T17:09:04Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE 2011 final F - versao final 64 defesa SETEMBRO DE 2012.pdf: 2215043 bytes, checksum: 456742cbb1f18495ddf860d7c068c939 (MD5) TESE 2011 final F - versao final 64 defesa SETEMBRO DE 2012.pdf: 2215043 bytes, checksum: 456742cbb1f18495ddf860d7c068c939 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-10-25T17:09:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE 2011 final F - versao final 64 defesa SETEMBRO DE 2012.pdf: 2215043 bytes, checksum: 456742cbb1f18495ddf860d7c068c939 (MD5) TESE 2011 final F - versao final 64 defesa SETEMBRO DE 2012.pdf: 2215043 bytes, checksum: 456742cbb1f18495ddf860d7c068c939 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-06-27 / Argumentando-se que as Tecnologias da Informação Móveis e Sem Fio (TIMS) vêm ocupando um espaço, cada vez maior, na vida dos indivíduos, e que, em função desta proximidade, novas formas de interação aparecem, este trabalho procurou aprofundar a relação entre Smartphones e Gênero. Fundamentado em abordagens teóricas relativas à existência de paradoxos associados ao uso de artefatos tecnológicos e às copying strategies adotadas pelos usuários, este estudo procurou identificar a existência e a intensidade de paradoxos associados ao uso diário de smartphones por executivos brasileiros, de ambos os sexos. O trabalho também procurou avaliar a forma como os executivos lidam com as possíveis ambiguidades vivenciadas em seus dia-a-dia. O método de estudo de caso múltiplo, cujos executivos eram as unidades de análise, foi aplicado junto a executivos mulheres e homens, usuários constantes da tecnologia smartphone e ocupantes de cargos de médio e alto escalão em grandes empresas brasileiras. A partir de um método de coleta misto – questionários, diários de uso e entrevistas em profundidade –, o trabalho teve o objetivo de aprofundar e refinar os estudos sobre paradoxos tecnológicos, bem como iniciar análises quanto à relação do gênero e esses mesmos paradoxos. Após a consolidação e análise dos dados obtidos, verificou-se que apenas parte dos 14 paradoxos tecnológicos apresentados por Mick e Fournier (1998), Jarvenppa e Lang (2005) e Mazmanin et al. (2006) foram associados à interação entre executivos e smartphones. Dos 6 paradoxos identificados, 2 foram exclusivamente relacionados às mulheres, sugerindo que as executivas percebem e vivenciam os paradoxos com mais intensidade do que seus pares masculinos. Os dados também revelaram que diantes das ambiguidades, os executivos mulheres e homens procuram adotar estratégias de enfrentamento, tentando desenvolver um relacionamento positivo e de parceria com seus artefatos. Ao final, as conclusões e implicações deste estudo são detalhadamente apresentadas. / Considering that the Wireless and Mobile Information Technology have been occupying a crescent space in our lives, changing the way how we use it, this study sought to deepen the relationship between smartphones and gender. Based on theoretical approaches regarding the paradoxes associated with the use of technological artfacts and copying strategies adopted by users, this study intended to identify the existence and intensity of paradoxes associated with the daily use of smartphones by Brazilian executives of both genders. The study also aimed to assess how managers deal with the possible ambiguities experienced in their day-to-day. From a mixed collection method - questionnaires, daily use and in-depth interviews - the work was intended to deepen and refine the study of technology paradoxes and begin analysis on the relationship between gender and such paradoxes. After consolidation and data analysis, it was found that only some of the 14 technology paradoxes provided by Mick and Fournier (1998), Jarvenppa and Lang (2005) and Mazmanin et al. (2006) were associated with the interaction between managers and smartphones. Of the six paradoxes identified, two were exclusively related to women, suggesting that executives perceive and experience the paradoxes with more intensity than their male counterparts. The data also revealed that in touch with the ambiguities, both executives looking to adopt coping strategies, trying to develop a positive relationship and partnership with its artifacts. Finally, the conclusions and implications of this study are presented in detail.