Wen-Chen Hu

A system model for mobile commerce

The emergence of wireless and mobile networks has made possible the introduction of electronic commerce to a new application and research subject: mobile commerce. Understanding or constructing a mobile commerce system is an arduous task because the system involves a wide variety of disciplines and technologies. To facilitate understanding and constructing such a system, this article divides a mobile commerce system into six components: (i) mobile commerce applications, (ii) mobile stations, (iii) mobile middleware, (iv) wireless networks, (v) wired networks, and (vi) host computers. Elements in components related to mobile commerce are described in detail and lists of technologies for component construction are also given.

Predicting neuropathic ulceration: analysis of static temperature distributions in thermal images

Foot ulcers affect millions of Americans annually. Conventional methods used to assess skin integrity, including inspection and palpation, may be valuable approaches, but they usually do not detect changes in skin integrity until an ulcer has already developed. We analyze the feasibility of thermal imaging as a technique to assess the integrity of the skin and its many layers. Thermal images are analyzed using an asymmetry analysis, combined with a genetic algorithm, to examine the infrared images for early detection of foot ulcers. Preliminary results show that the proposed technique can reliably and efficiently detect inflammation and hence effectively predict potential ulceration.

Alternative Technique to Asymmetry Analysis-Based Overlapping for Foot Ulcer Examination: Scalable Scanning

Asymmetry analysis based on the overlapping of thermal images proved able to detect inflammation and, predict foot ulceration. This technique involves three main steps: segmentation, geometric transformation, and overlapping. However, the overlapping technique, which consists of subtracting the intensity levels of the right foot from those of the left foot, can also detect false abnormal areas if the projections of the left and right feet are not the same. In this paper, we present an alternative technique to asymmetry analysis-based overlapping. The proposed technique, scalable scanning, allows for an effective comparison even if the shapes and sizes of the feet projections appear differently in the image. The tested results show that asymmetry analysis- based scalable scanning provides fewer false abnormal areas than does asymmetry analysis -based overlapping.

Contemporary Issues in Handheld Computing Research

Mobile phones have become ubiquitous in todays society. However, mobile users are no longer satisfied with simple phones but instead expect ever more powerful functions to be available from their mobile devices. Advanced phones known as smartphones allow mobile users to perform a wide variety of advanced handheld functions such as browsing the mobile Internet or finding a nearby theater showing a specific movie. The design and development of these new, improved handheld functions require the help of handheld computing research. This article introduces handheld computing research using three themes: i mobile handheld devices, ii mobile computing, and iii current issues in handheld computing research. Information about other handheld topics of interest to researchers is given in the last section.

A Bayesian approach to estimate and model SINR in wireless networks

Summary In wireless communications, the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) is important in spectrum management and link scheduling. In cognitive radio and ad hoc networks, where the spectrum is shared between nodes, the SINR is required to measure the outage probability and the level of accumulated interference on a specific node from other nodes sharing the same band. Several techniques have been proposed to estimate and statistically model the SINR. However, most of these techniques do not account for uncertainty in factors such as the number of nodes and their locations, the distance between nodes, the transmission powers, and the frequencies. In addition, these methods are not able to learn from and adapt to the changes of the network. Therefore, there is a need for models able to dynamically deal with the uncertainty affecting the SINR and provide a modular framework for its estimation. In this article, a Bayesian model is proposed to probabilistically model the SINR and describe how variables affect its probability distribution. Simulation results confirm the validity and robustness of the proposed method.

Mobile and Electronic Commerce Systems and Technologies

The emergence of wireless and mobile networks has made possible the introduction of electronic commerce to a new application and research subject: mobile commerce. Understanding or constructing a mobile or an electronic commerce system is an arduous task because the system involves a wide variety of disciplines and technologies and the technologies are constantly changing. To facilitate understanding and constructing such a system, this article divides the system into six components: (i) applications, (ii) client computers or devices, (iii) mobile middleware, (iv) wireless networks, (v) wired networks, and (vi) host computers. Elements in these components specifically related to the subject are described in detail and lists of current technologies for component construction are discussed. Another important and complicated issue related to the subject is the mobile or electronic commerce application programming. It includes two types of programming: client-side and server-side programming, which will be introduced too.

Performance evaluation of spectrum sensing techniques for cognitive radio systems

With the increase in utilization of portable devices and ever-growing demand for greater data rates in wireless transmission, an increasing demand for spectrum channels was observed since last decade. Currently, radio spectrum channels are assigned for quite long time periods to licensed subscribers who may not constantly use these bands, which leads to an inefficient use of the radio spectrum. The concept of cognitive radio technology was suggested to deal with the problem of spectrum scarcity caused by the underutilization of the radio spectrum. A cognitive radio system is able to sense its functional and geographical surrounding and adjust its operation. Therefore, cognitive radio operation has to be considered with intelligent sensing and smart decision-making methods. The aim of the paper is to examine and evaluate the three most fundamental spectrum sensing techniques i.e. energy detection-based, autocorrelation-based, and matched filter-based sensing. Simulation platforms were developed for each of the approaches using GNU radio and Python language.

Big Data Management, Technologies, and Applications

Due to the tremendous amount of data generated daily from fields such as business, research, and sciences, big data is everywhere. Therefore, alternative management and processing methods have to be created to handle this complex and unstructured data size. Big Data Management, Technologies, and Applications discusses the exponential growth of information size and the innovative methods for data capture, storage, sharing, and analysis for big data. With its prevalence, this collection of articles on big data methodologies and technologies are beneficial for IT workers, researchers, students, and practitioners in this timely field.

Energy-Aware Systems and Networking for Sustainable Initiatives

Naima Kaabouch received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. all in Electrical Engineering from the University of Paris 11 and the University of Paris 6, Paris, France, in 1982, 1986, 1990, respectively. She is currently an Assistant Professor, in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of North Dakota. Dr. Kaabouch research interests include configurable computing, real time systems, and signal/image processing. She published over 80 articles on refereed journal, proceedings, and books. In green computing field, she is the co-editod two books. In teaching, she developed and taught several courses in the field of configurable computing and real time systems involving microcontrollers and Field Programmable Gate Array devices-based devices. Market: This premier publication is essential for all academic and research library reference collections. It is a crucial tool for academicians, researchers, and practitioners and is ideal forclassroom use. Naima Kaabouch (University of North Dakota, USA) & Wen-Chen Hu (University of North Dakota, USA)

Handheld Computing and Programming for Mobile Commerce

Using Internet‐enabled mobile handheld devices to access the World Wide Web is a promising addition to the Web and traditional e‐commerce. Mobile handheld devices provide convenience and portable access to the huge information on the Internet for mobile users from anywhere and at anytime. However, mobile commerce has not enjoyed the same level of success as the e‐commerce has so far because mobile Web contents are scarce and mostly awkward for browsing. The major reason of the problems is most software engineers are not familiar with handheld devices, let alone programming for them. To help software engineers better understand this subject, this article gives a comprehensive study of handheld computing and programming for mobile commerce. It includes five major topics: (i) mobile commerce systems, (ii) mobile handheld devices, (iii) handheld computing, (iv) server‐side handheld computing and programming, and (v) client‐side handheld computing and programming. The most popular server‐side handheld applicat...