Wan Mohd Nazmee Wan Zainon

Learning History Using Role-Playing Game (RPG) on Mobile Platform

Mobile learning is one of the most convenient approaches in e-learning as it is accessible from virtually anywhere. This paper describes our experience in designing and implementing a framework for a mobile learning application that can assist students in understanding history lesson using role-playing game (RPG) approach. The implementation is based on the narrative of a Malaysian legendary warrior, Merong Mahawangsa. This application was developed on an iOS platform and a crowd simulation technique was used in the application in order to make it more interactive and realistic. The Dijkstra shortest path algorithm was used to search the shortest path for the avatar to move around. Initial investigations suggest that applying the RPG concept has indeed provided a much better learning environment especially in helping students in learning their history lessons.

Holistic network selection for wireless mobile nodes in a 4G environment

Solving network selection problem (NSP) for next generation networks is very challenging. This is further compounded by the availability of myriad of choices for the user to choose from in terms of which network to connect to. Furthermore, in 4G environment, mobility scenarios are highly dynamic and current approaches tends to ignore this. Additionally, these solutions tend to focus on solving one aspect of the NSP. This paper proposes a holistic and dynamic network selection solution based on gray relational analysis (GRA) and Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). In order to correctly assess the context on which the network selection occurs, our method uses attributes collected from the three main stakeholders of a NSP mainly: user, mobile node and the candidate networks. Depending on the type attribute, the proposed method uses a combined method of mean value of past sessions as well as most recent value as means to collect the attribute value. This is so that past as well as current scenario is taken into consideration. Weights are assigned to these attributes indicating their relative importance. Previous approaches mostly uses quality of service requirements (QOS) of the executing application as a guide for indicating the weight. The proposed scheme not only uses QOS requirements but also combines user preference and mobile nodes mobility scenario into consideration in determining the weights. Finally, ranking of the candidate networks is done using GRA.

A new framework for phylogenetic tree visualization

This paper focuses on tree structured data visualization. The impetus for the work will be in the domain of phylogenetic classification, which is used by the biologists to describe possible evolutionary relationships between species or individuals based on their DNA or protein sequences. It examines current tree visualization and comparison techniques and proposes a new framework that display fully resolved binary trees in a way that facilitates their visual comparison. A prototype interactive tool named VCPT (Visual Comparison of Phylogenetic trees) is developed to explore the proposed framework and issues in regard to visual comparison and manipulation of phylogenetic trees. Preliminary evaluation suggests that the proposed framework and the prototype application are helpful for the users to easily understand and interpret their tree structured data

Matching and retrieval of state machine diagrams from software repositories using Cuckoo Search Algorithm

Software reuse has long being recognized as an important area amongst the software development companies in improving productivity and quality of their product. Reusing of early-stage software artifacts such as UML state machine diagrams increases the benefit reaped from reuse because it allows the reuse of related later-stage artifacts. Among the reuse task, matching and retrieval of similar artifacts from repository are considered the most important task. However, the space for searching the most similar artifacts from the repository can be large, and heuristics algorithm can efficiently be used to search large repositories. Existing work in the literature are based on graph matching using Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swamp Optimization (PSO). Different to the existing works, this paper presents the use of Finite State Machine and Cuckoo Search Algorithm (CSA) to match and retrieve state machine diagrams from repository. Experimental results show that our method is effective in retrieving the most similar state machine diagrams from repository for a given query.

Campus Mobile Navigation System Based on Shortest-Path Algorithm and Users Collaborations

The main purpose of this paper is to present a research and development of an intelligent system for mobile phones that can helps users finding the shortest path from a point-of-interest to another point-of-interest within Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) main campus. Research is done to acquire an optimal navigation solution which primary goals is to provide shortest-path calculation. A mobile application based on Android that allows user to find a location quickly with minimum effort and collaborate with other users to enhance the experience of route-planning has been developed. Preliminary evaluation suggests that the proposed methods and the mobile application are helpful for the users in finding their point of interest within shortest time possible.

Multi-layer Mangrove Species Identification

One of the challenges encountered by visitors while visiting and exploring a mangrove park is to identify the mangrove species and instantly retrieve its related information. This paper presents a mobile-based method for mangrove species identification called multi-layer mangrove species identification method (MSIA) and its application for Kilim Geo-forest Park, in Langkawi, Malaysia. This work involves formulating the identification method, the design and development of the mobile application, and its integration with the Mangrove Reference Data Centre. The application is designed with a user-friendly interface to support visitors with limited knowledge on the mangrove tree species. One of the main features of MSIA is the automatic identification of the mangrove tree species based on its leaf which enhances the performance of species identification. Firstly, the mangrove tree leaf is captured using the mobile phone camera. Next, the first layer in the identification method is carried out to identify the leaf shape. Once the species has been identified, additional parameters such as types of tree root, tree bark, flower or fruit will be entered in the second layer of the identification process. A specific mangrove species common name and its related information such as biological information and possible medicinal or commercial worth of the species will then be displayed. This paper presents the design and implementation of MSIA as well as the testing and the evaluation of the method and its application. It is believed that MSIA would make a visit to the mangrove park more meaningful and enjoying to the visitors.

Spell Checker for Somali Language Using Knuth-Morris-Pratt String Matching Algorithm

The Somali language is the mother tongue and official language of Somali people in Somalia, a national language in Djibouti. The Somali language is officially written with the Latin alphabet. Before 1990, the Somali language was the main instruction of the educational institutions in Somalia. However, after the collapse of the Somali central government, foreign languages such as Arabic and English have been taking over as the languages of instruction in Somali educational institutions such as schools and universities. It is feared that the language may die out in about 50 years. One reason for this is a lack of computer tools such as word processors with spell checkers which may promote the use of Somali language. The absence of a spell checker in Somali may lead to spelling mistakes in Somali written documents, including social media posts and friendly chats. The focus of this paper is to propose a spell checker for Somali Language using Knuth-Morris-Pratt String Matching Algorithm with Corpus. A spell checker for the Somali language will provide a word processing interface for writing documents that identifies a misspelled word, underlines it, and suggests the proper spelling of the typed word, if any.

Similarity Assessment of UML Sequence Diagrams Using Dynamic Programming

Unified Modeling Language is a modelling language used to visualize software system during requirement engineering phase. It was accepted as a standard modeling language for visualizing, specifying and documenting software systems by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as a standard specification. It contained different type of diagrams for specifying software system, among these diagrams is sequence diagrams which is used to specify the functional behavior of software system. The growing complexity of software systems is one of the motivation behind matching of UML diagrams in order to pave the way of reusing existing software to developed new software systems. Previous works on sequence diagrams matching are based on Graph representation in which there is node whenever there is message sending or received. However, the search space for these approach is very large due to the number of nodes in the graph which makes the matching computationally expensive. This paper employed the use of Dynamic Programming approach in order to improve the efficiency of matching between two or more sequence diagrams.

A framework for detecting ambiguity in software requirement specification

The accomplishment of any software system success depends on how well it meets the requirements of the stakeholders. These requirements are elicited from the customers. Software requirements are unambiguous if and only if it has one meaning. The elicited requirements are documented in software requirements specification document and these requirements are written in natural languages. Natural languages are basically ambiguous which makes the requirements documented in software requirements specification document unclear. This unclear requirement causes that software developers develop software which is different from the expected software based on the customer needs. The objective of this paper is to propose a framework that are able to detect ambiguity in software requirements specification document automatically using parts of speech tagging technique. To validate the outcome of the proposed work, open source software requirements specification documents will be used and generated result of the proposed work will be evaluated and validated by making comparison between the proposed prototype results and human generated results to decide how the proposed prototype can solved the ambiguity problem.

Visual Information Framework for Medical Family Tree Data (Genogram)

Family tree is one of the most common ways to trace the genealogy of a certain person. Family trees contain a lot of potential information to be explored especially for research purposes. However, many family trees fail to properly encode all necessary and useful information. Genogram therefore seems to be the most suitable visual representation of medical family tree data as it contains complex information that can be clearly presented in a diagram using genogram symbols and color-coded lines. Some limitations are problems in visualizing the wealth and complexity of the information represented once a family tree gets bigger. Hence, a new framework for exploring medical family tree data is proposed in this paper. By using genogram as a tool and a few selected visualization techniques as an enhancement in designing these new framework, which will allows users to maximize usage of data by exploring the data from several different viewpoints. This framework follows the design of advanced graphical user interface guide which is the Visual Information-Seeking Mantra “Overview first, Zoom and Filter, then Details-on Demand”, proposed by Shneiderman in 1996. Using this framework (visualization tool), it is also possible to predict health risk factors based on medical family tree data. This visualization tool can be utilized for personal use or by healthcare professionals.