Windson Viana

PhotoMap - automatic spatiotemporal annotation for mobile photos

The amount of photos in personal digital collections has grown rapidly making their management and retrieval a complicated task. In addition, existing tools performing manual spatial and content annotation are still time consuming for the users. To annotate automatically these photos using mobile devices is the emerging solution to decrease the lack of the description in photo files. In this context, this paper proposes a mobile and location-based system, called PhotoMap, for the automatic annotation and the spatiotemporal visualization of photo collections. PhotoMap uses the new technologies of the Semantic Web in order to infer information about the taken photos and to improve both the visualization and the retrieval. We also present a demonstration of the PhotoMap application during a tourist tour in the city of Grenoble.

PhotoMap: from location and time to context-aware photo annotations

Despite the growth of geotagged multimedia data on the Web, spatial and temporal metadata are still poorly exploited by Web search engines and multimedia systems. Interpretation and inference processes can enlarge these metadata towards high quality information that are useful for annotating multimedia automatically. In this article, we propose a semi-automatic approach for annotating personal photos based on the use of OWL-DL ontologies together with the next generation of mobile devices. We present an ontology called ContextPhoto and a contextual photo annotation approach which improve the development of more efficient personal image management tools. ContextPhoto provides concepts for representing captured and inferred context information reusing Web standards that describe spatial, temporal and social networking data. In order to validate the context annotation process we propose, we have also designed and developed a mobile and Web location-based system. This new system, called PhotoMap, is an evolution of the related mobile annotation systems since it provides automatic annotation about the spatial, temporal and social contexts of a photo. We also present a demonstration of the PhotoMap application during a tourist tour in the city of Rome.

Towards the semantic and context-aware management of mobile multimedia

Users of mobile devices can nowadays easily create large quantities of mobile multimedia documents tracing significant events attended, places visited or, simply, moments of their everyday life. However, they face the challenge of organizing these documents in order to facilitate searching through them at a later time and sharing them with other users. We propose using context awareness and semantic technologies in order to improve and facilitate the organization, annotation, retrieval and sharing of personal mobile multimedia documents. Our approach combines metadata extracted and enriched automatically from the users’ context with annotations provided manually by the users and with annotations inferred by applying user-defined rules to context features. These new contextual metadata are integrated into the processes of annotation, sharing and keyword-based retrieval.

MobiLine: A Nested Software Product Line for the domain of mobile and context-aware applications

Mobile devices are multipurpose and multi-sensor equipments supporting applications able to adapt their behavior according to changes in the users context (device, location, time, etc.). Meanwhile, the development of mobile and context-aware software is not a simple task, mostly due to the peculiar characteristics of these devices. Although several solutions have been proposed to facilitate their development, reuse is not systematically used throughout the software development life-cycle. In this paper, we discuss an approach for the development of mobile and context-aware software using the Software Product Line (SPL) paradigm. Furthermore, a Nested SPL for the domain of mobile and context-aware applications is presented, lessons learned in the SPL development are discussed and a product for a context-aware visit guide is shown.

A software product line for the mobile and context-aware applications domain

The mobile and context-aware application domain presents challenging requirements to software development. Although several solutions have been proposed for this type of application, reuse is not systematically used throughout the software development lifecycle. Then, in this paper we propose an approach for the development of a mobile and context-aware Software Product Line (SPL). A SPL for the mobile and context-ware mobile guide domain is presented in order to illustrate the steps of the proposed approach. Furthermore, the lessons learned in the SPL development are discussed. Both approach and SPL are the main contributions of this paper.

LOCCAM - loosely coupled context acquisition middleware

Sensors of all kinds are being integrated with mobile and portable devices (tablets, smartphones). This opens up the possibility of context-aware applications to effectively be able to adapt their behavior, user interfaces and content according to the current users situation. Frequently, context-aware applications require an infrastructure for acquisition, aggregation and reasoning of contextual information. However, existing context management infrastructures are not always appropriated to the heterogeneous and particular environment of mobile devices. In this paper, we present a context management middleware called LoCCAM (Loosely Coupled Context Acquisition Middeware) to provide self-adaptive acquisition of contextual information. It can execute both locally, on a single device, or distributed among nearby devices. The middleware proposes a model for publication, and notification of contextual information based on tuple spaces. As consequence, it offers a lower coupling among applications and the context acquisition layer. In this paper, we also present a performance evaluation of the adaptation mechanism.

A semantic approach and a web tool for contextual annotation of photos using camera phones

The increasing number of personal digital photos on the Web makes their management, retrieval and visualization a difficult task. To annotate these images using Semantic Web technologies is the emerging solution to decrease the lack of the description in photos files. However, existing tools performing manual annotation are time consuming for the users. In this context, this paper proposes a semi-automatic approach for annotating photos and photo collections combining OWL-DL ontologies and contextual metadata acquired by mobile devices. We also describe a mobile and Web-based system, called PhotoMap, that provides automatic annotation about the spatial, temporal and social contexts of a photo (i.e., where, when, and who). PhotoMap uses the Web Services and Semantic Web reasoning methods in order to infer information about the taken photos and to improve both browsing and retrieval.

Touchscreen Mobile Phones Virtual Keyboarding for People with Visual Disabilities

This paper presents the design and initial evaluation of a Braille virtual keyboard which allows text input on touchscreen devices such as smartphones and tablets. The virtual keyboard, called LeBraille, is a metaphor of the Braille writing system that uses audio and vibration feedbacks to promote accessibility for people with visual disabilities. We integrated this keyboard into two mobile applications and implemented an initial usability evaluation with nine people with visual disabilities. The evaluation comprised activities including a comparison of text input in three types of keyboards (physical keyboard, alpha numeric virtual keyboard, and LeBraille). Initial results indicates that writing activities can be as fast as a virtual keyboard depending on the Braille expertise of the user and the degree of blindness, however, the writing pace with a virtual keyboard is lower than the writing pace with a physical keyboard.

FRAMESEC: a framework for the application development with end-to-end security provision in the mobile computing environment

Mobile devices offer network connectivity through wireless system communication that makes possible for applications to get access to information at any time and any place. However, the wireless link is more vulnerable to passive and active attacks than the fixed medium in traditional networks. This kind of connectivity brings security problems to applications that deal with confidential data, such as mobile commerce. Although wireless communication systems, such as IEEE 802.11, implement protection mechanisms for data transmission, they have reported vulnerabilities and do not guarantee end-to-end security, which is desirable for these applications. Thus, the paper proposes an application FRAMEwork that provides a reusable structure with SECurity mechanisms (FRAMESEC), which enable end-to-end security in the mobile computing environment.

Da Elicitação de Requisitos ao Desenvolvimento de Aplicações de Mobile Learning em Matemática

Este artigo discute a colaboracao entre estudantes na internet e a troca de conhecimento por meio desse canal de comunicacao. Propoe uma metodologia que visa potencializar as relacoes entre os usuarios de uma rede educacional situada num contexto especifico. Tal metodo tem como fundamento as teorias do contexto e a analise de redes sociais (ARS), para promover um mapeamento das redes estudadas.Refletir sobre curriculo escolar formal e comunidades de aprendizagem como metafora das TIC dinamizam os caminhos empiricos, construcoes criticas e aprofundamento da difusao do conhecimento como parte do processo de humanizacao/ tecnologizacao do homem. Oriundos de processos e movimentos contemporâneos, a consolidacao de ambientes computacionais nas escolas potencializa a construcao do conhecimento e a socializacao de praticas pedagogicas inovadoras. Esta investigacao assume as situacoes especificas curriculares, procura descobrir o que existe de mais essencial e caracteristico, partindo do conhecimento de curriculo e suas bases teoricas tradicionais, para a construcao da discussao sobre um curriculo em rede associada a instrumentalizacao das comunidades de aprendizagem.O sistema Moodle constitui-se atualmente numa das mais importantes ferramentas de apoio a cursos na Web. Apesar disto, seu modelo apresenta algumas deficiencias para uma estruturacao hierarquica e compartilhamento de materiais digitais entre disciplinas e turmas do seu ambiente virtual. Este artigo apresenta um estudo sobre a arquitetura central do Moodle, propondo a definicao de um novo nucleo, visando o aprimoramento destas caracteristicas.Estudo descritivo, qualitativo, com estudantes da 3a serie de Graduacao em Enfermagem de uma Universidade Publica de Sao Paulo, SP. Os participantes construiram Mapas Conceituais, por meio do software Cmap Tools®. Os dados foram coletados em um Grupo Focal e todos os sujeitos indicaram que o uso do software facilita e garante a organizacao, visualizacao e correlacao dos dados, porem houve dificuldades iniciais relacionadas ao manejo das ferramentas. Conclui-se, que o software Cmap Tools® favoreceu a construcao dos MC por seus recursos de formatacao, porem estrategias de orientacao deveriam ser implantadas. Como resultado, desenvolveu-se um manual para o uso do software Cmap Tool® em video Podcasting.Ha poucas iniciativas com respeito aos ambientes de virtuais para a divulgacao de materiais curriculares sobre modelagem matematica. Esses ambientes oferecem acesso as praticas pedagogicas em modelagem. Este trabalho apresenta um sistema Web para hospedar atividades de modelagem e materiais multimidia para descrever o desenvolvimento do ambiente de modelagem em sala de aula e apoiar outros professores na implementacao em suas praticas pedagogicas.A composicao e sequenciamento de Objetos de Aprendizagem sao discutidas neste trabalho a partir da representacao da estrutura conceitual de um dominio em termos das suas relacoes de dependencia. A composicao de Objetos de Aprendizagem e modelada a partir da estrutura narrativa de um discurso considerando-se os aspetos formais dos planos do conteudo e de expressao. O aspecto formal do conteudo da composicao e dado pelas pelos conceitos e seus relacionamentos e forma da expressao corresponde aos tipos de signos definidos pelo LOM. A estrutura da composicao obtida independe do tipo de midia utilizado e o modelo adequa-se as propostas de composicao adaptativas tanto do ponto de vista do meio como das disponibilidades de conexao.