scholarly journals Using Mobile Devices and Apps to Assist the Elder Population in Rural Areas and Generate Business Opportunities

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Carlos R. CUNHA ◽  
Vítor MENDONÇA ◽  
Elisabete Paulo MORAIS ◽  
Joana FERNANDES ◽  
Isaías LETRA
Author(s):  
Panagiota Papadopoulou

The proliferation of mobile phones and tablets shape a new arena for online commercial activity with unprecedented opportunities and challenges. In this omnipresent mobile environment, understanding consumer behavior constitutes a challenge for m-commerce vendors, as they seek to understand factors that affect it, positively and negatively, and to integrate social media in their mobile strategy and across mobile devices. This paper presents an exploratory qualitative research examining separately mobile phones and tablets and the use of social media, in the context of m-commerce. The results of our qualitative analysis show important factors for m-commerce and social media adoption and use, highlighting the similarities and differences between mobile phones and tablets. Our qualitative results also reveal factors having a negative effect to m-commerce, for both mobile devices. Business opportunities enabled by social media for m-commerce and how these can be leveraged in this promising multiple-device mobile context are also discussed.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Santi Caballé ◽  
Fatos Xhafa ◽  
Leonard Barolli

Mobile collaborative learning is considered the next step of on-line collaborative learning by incorporating mobility as a key and breakthrough requirement. Indeed, the current wide spread of mobile devices and wireless technologies brings an enormous potential to e-learning, in terms of ubiquity, pervasiveness, personalization, flexibility, and so on. For this reason, Mobile Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning has recently grown from a minor research field to significant research projects covering a fairly variety of formal and specially informal learning settings, from schools and universities to workplaces, museums, cities and rural areas. Much of this research has shown how mobile technology can offer new opportunities for groups of learners to collaborate inside and beyond the traditional instructor-oriented educational paradigm. However, mobile technologies, when specifically applied to collaborative learning activities, are still in its infancy and many challenges arise. In addition, current research in this domain points to highly specialized study cases, uses, and experiences in specific educational settings and thus the issues addressed in the literature are found dispersed and disconnected from each other. To this end, this paper attempts to bridge relevant aspects of mobile technologies in support for collaborative learning and provides a tighter view by means of a multidimensional approach.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 238
Author(s):  
Jean Louis Ebongue Kedieng Fendji ◽  
Désiré Manuel Taira ◽  
Marcellin Atemkeng ◽  
Adam Musa Ali

Text summarization remains a challenging task in the natural language processing field despite the plethora of applications in enterprises and daily life. One of the common use cases is the summarization of web pages which has the potential to provide an overview of web pages to devices with limited features. In fact, despite the increasing penetration rate of mobile devices in rural areas, the bulk of those devices offer limited features in addition to the fact that these areas are covered with limited connectivity such as the GSM network. Summarizing web pages into SMS becomes, therefore, an important task to provide information to limited devices. This work introduces WATS-SMS, a T5-based French Wikipedia Abstractive Text Summarizer for SMS. It is built through a transfer learning approach. The T5 English pre-trained model is used to generate a French text summarization model by retraining the model on 25,000 Wikipedia pages then compared with different approaches in the literature. The objective is twofold: (1) to check the assumption made in the literature that abstractive models provide better results compared to extractive ones; and (2) to evaluate the performance of our model compared to other existing abstractive models. A score based on ROUGE metrics gave us a value of 52% for articles with length up to 500 characters against 34.2% for transformer-ED and 12.7% for seq-2seq-attention; and a value of 77% for articles with larger size against 37% for transformers-DMCA. Moreover, an architecture including a software SMS-gateway has been developed to allow owners of mobile devices with limited features to send requests and to receive summaries through the GSM network.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 5687-5694
Author(s):  
Oluwole Oluseun Ogundipe

The growing availability of mobile devices across developing countries and coupled with increase awareness of mobile learning as well as the use of mobile devices for laboratory practical warrant the exploration of its wider application in learning. This study explored the factors that contribute to the successful implementation of mobile virtual laboratory in a developing country. A Nigerian higher institution was selected because of its peculiar location in a rural area and was important in the evaluation of the Internet penetration in rural areas of Nigeria for m-Learning. A designed questionnaire for need analysis was distributed to 132 consented participants and the resulting data were analysed using SPSS-21. The study shows that the term mobile learning was not too new to majority of the learners as (44.7%) indicated that they had heard about it. However majority of the respondents (78.8%) had never heard about Mobile Virtual Laboratories. MTN data plan was mostly used for Internet because of its N1000 (5 US dollars) data plan. Again, majority of the respondents used Blackberry (57%) and Android phones (32%). Based on the findings in this study, the network, data plan, device type and learners awareness were important factors characterising the needs and choices of learners. Overall, uptake of mobile learning will be easy and enhanced if determinants of learners needs and choice as identified in this study are considered in the implementation of mobile virtual laboratory in a developing country.


2009 ◽  
pp. 589-596
Author(s):  
Robert Statica ◽  
Fadi P. Deek

We discuss an interconnectivity framework for data and content delivery to mobile devices that allows data of higher priority to reach the mobile unit in the shortest time possible. Two possible scenarios are presented; one that connects the servers in an N-cube configuration network, and another that shows the same N servers connected in a grid type network. The goal is to minimize the rate of data jumps from server to server until it reaches the mobile device. As the mobile user travels, the mobile device registers itself with the next server and the session is migrated from the old server to the new one without interruptions, in an analogous way, cell phones move from one cell to another. Starting with the idea that all data is not equal (in importance/priority), this article suggest a framework topology for intelligent mobile computing that guarantees data will reach the mobile device in a minimum amount of time, assuring at the same time the privacy of transmission. The integration of this type of technology into the 3r d Generation (3G), and 4t h Generation (4G) mobile computing is also discussed. Pervasive computing is rapidly emerging as the next generation of computing with the underlying premise of simplicity (of use), minimal technical expertise, reliability, and intuitive interactions. As technology continues to advance and mobile devices become more and more omnipresent, the aim towards achieving easier computing, more availability and prevalence is becoming a given. Through the clever use of advanced technologies, the new generation of intelligent mobile computing has the opportunity to serve user needs via prevalent computing devices that are ever more transportable and connected to an increasingly ubiquitous network structure. Mobile communication is changing as the trends of media convergence including the Internet and its related electronic communication technologies and satellite communications collide into one. A change is being ushered by the 3G (3r d Generation) mobile technology with the usability and usefulness of information delivered to mobile devices taking on added features. For example, multimedia messaging, as opposed to voice transmissions, being delivered to cell phones has rendered such mobile devices an integral part of people’s lives and a core part of how they conduct their daily business rather than an add on tool (Buckingham, 2001). The 3G mobile phone system aims at unifying the disparate standards of current second generation wireless systems. The idea is to eliminate the different types of global networks being adopted with a single standard network. This will allow for the delivery of multimedia content and propagation through the network without the need for conversion from one standard to another. 3G systems need smaller cells thus the need for more base stations (mostly due to their operating frequency, power requirements, and modulation) and in many cases will not be feasible to install them in areas where population is not so dense (i.e., rural areas) (Garber, 2002). Because of these requirements and conditions, a better way to deliver the communication must be established. However, global access to such mobile devices will create data delivery challenges and servers can become clogged with unwanted communication, like that of wired Internet access. The need for moving relevant data to mobile devices in the shortest time possible becomes of utmost importance.


Author(s):  
Robert Statica ◽  
Fadi P. Deek

We discuss an interconnectivity framework for data and content delivery to mobile devices that allows data of higher priority to reach the mobile unit in the shortest time possible. Two possible scenarios are presented; one that connects the servers in an N-cube configuration network, and another that shows the same N servers connected in a grid type network. The goal is to minimize the rate of data jumps from server to server until it reaches the mobile device. As the mobile user travels, the mobile device registers itself with the next server and the session is migrated from the old server to the new one without interruptions, in an analogous way, cell phones move from one cell to another. Starting with the idea that all data is not equal (in importance/priority), this article suggest a framework topology for intelligent mobile computing that guarantees data will reach the mobile device in a minimum amount of time, assuring at the same time the privacy of transmission. The integration of this type of technology into the 3rd Generation (3G), and 4th Generation (4G) mobile computing is also discussed. Pervasive computing is rapidly emerging as the next generation of computing with the underlying premise of simplicity (of use), minimal technical expertise, reliability, and intuitive interactions. As technology continues to advance and mobile devices become more and more omnipresent, the aim towards achieving easier computing, more availability and prevalence is becoming a given. Through the clever use of advanced technologies, the new generation of intelligent mobile computing has the opportunity to serve user needs via prevalent computing devices that are ever more transportable and connected to an increasingly ubiquitous network structure. Mobile communication is changing as the trends of media convergence including the Internet and its related electronic communication technologies and satellite communications collide into one. A change is being ushered by the 3G (3rd Generation) mobile technology with the usability and usefulness of information delivered to mobile devices taking on added features. For example, multimedia messaging, as opposed to voice transmissions, being delivered to cell phones has rendered such mobile devices an integral part of people’s lives and a core part of how they conduct their daily business rather than an add on tool (Buckingham, 2001). The 3G mobile phone system aims at unifying the disparate standards of current second generation wireless systems. The idea is to eliminate the different types of global networks being adopted with a single standard network. This will allow for the delivery of multimedia content and propagation through the network without the need for conversion from one standard to another. 3G systems need smaller cells thus the need for more base stations (mostly due to their operating frequency, power requirements, and modulation) and in many cases will not be feasible to install them in areas where population is not so dense (i.e., rural areas) (Garber, 2002). Because of these requirements and conditions, a better way to deliver the communication must be established. However, global access to such mobile devices will create data delivery challenges and servers can become clogged with unwanted communication, like that of wired Internet access. The need for moving relevant data to mobile devices in the shortest time possible becomes of utmost importance.


Author(s):  
Nigel McKelvey ◽  
Adam Crossan ◽  
Kevin Curran

Mobile technology today is increasingly being used to help improve underdeveloped and developing areas such as sub-Saharan Africa. With the statistics showing the number of adults in Africa owning mobile devices steadily increasing, mobile technology has been a popular area of interest to use to help improve areas such as healthcare and education throughout African cities and rural areas. Common that ways mobile technology is being used to help the residents of sub-Saharan Africa are in the sectors of health care and education. Mobile technologies being used in these areas whilst simple are incredibly effective and successful in helping to better the quality of health in education in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the projects and systems developed using mobile technology focus mainly on urban areas. While reports state the huge increase in the number of those using mobile devices in Africa, along with the large estimated increase in the coming years, the difference between rural African countries and countries which contain urban cities is substantial.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 40-51
Author(s):  
Karen Renaud ◽  
Wendy Goucher

Mobile devices have diffused through the global population with unprecedented rapidity. This diffusion has delivered great benefits to the populace at large. In the third world people living in rural areas are now able to contact family members who live in other parts of the country for the first time. For the city-dweller the mobile device revolution has brought the ability to communicate and work on the move, while they travel to and from work, or between meetings, thus making ertswhile “dead” time more productive. It is trivial, nowadays, to utilise workplace functionality, and access confidential information, outside the four walls of the organisation's traditional boundaries. Data now moves across organisational boundaries, is stored on mobile devices, on USB sticks, and in emails, and also stored in the cloud. Organisations have somehow lost control over their data. This mobility and lack of control undeniably creates the potential for information leakage that could hurt the organisation. The almost ubiquitous camera-equipped mobile phones exacerbate the problem. These feature-rich phones change the threat from mere Shoulder Surfing into Visual Information Capture. Information is now no longer merely observed or overheard but potentially captured and retained without the knowledge of the person working on said documents in public. The first step in deciding how to manage any risk is to be able to estimate the extent and nature of the risk. This paper seeks to help organisations to understand the risk related to mobile working. We will model the mobile information leakage risk, depicting the factors that play a role in exacerbating and encouraging the threat. We then report on two experiments that investigated the vulnerability of data on laptops and tablet devices to visual information capture. The authors address both capability and likelihood (probability) of such leakage. The results deliver insight into the size of the Mobile Information Leakage risk. The following stage in this research will be to find feasible ways of mitigating the risk.


Author(s):  
Chiam Chooi Chea

Heritage appreciation has been easily neglected and been taken advantage of over the years despite its invisible primary role in the tourism industry. The value of heritage is invaluable and its loss is an irreversible loss to the nation as a whole. Heritage appreciation could play an important role in rural development, with mostly positive impact to the local and economy as the whole. Tourism has many potential benefits for rural areas because it can secure more jobs for non-metro communities, especially for those that are economically underdeveloped. Mainly because jobs in the tourist industry often do not require advanced training, local residents with few skills can readily work as food servers, retail clerks and hospitality workers. Tourism also not only offers business opportunities to local residents, but it can serve as an opportunity for tourists to return later to retire or start a business locally. Tourism can also enhance local quality life where tourism can serve as an important course of tax revenues for governments.


2016 ◽  
pp. 619-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Rita Barricelli ◽  
Yanet Devis

The use of mobile devices in telemedicine contributes to providing more effective and efficient remote healthcare in rural areas improving patients' life style and medical quality of service in this setting. The idea of creating mobile applications for this scenario led the authors to face important sociotechnical challenges in terms of innovation and design for resource-constrained environments. In this paper the authors present the outcomes of MANTRA (Mobile ANticoagulant TheRApy) Project developed for and evaluated in Venezuela. Through the evaluation of this project under those settings the authors developed an approach to mHealth in the remote management of chronic diseases by supporting the communication between doctors.


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