Effects of the design of mobile security notifications and mobile app usability on users’ security perceptions and continued use intention

The explosive global adoption of mobile applications (i.e., apps) has been fraught with security and privacy issues. App users typically have a poor understanding of information security; worse, they routinely ignore security notifications designed to increase security on apps. By considering both mobile app interface usability and mobile security notification (MSN) design, we investigate how security perceptions of apps are formed and how these perceptions influence users’ intentions to continue using apps. Accordingly, we designed and conducted a set of controlled survey experiments with 317 participants in different MSN interface scenarios by manipulating the types of MSN interfaces (i.e., high vs. low disruption), the context (hedonic vs. utilitarian scenarios), and the degree of MSN intrusiveness (high vs. low intrusiveness). We found that both app interface usability and the design of MSNs significantly impacted users’ perceived security, which, in turn, has a positive influence on users’ intention to continue using the app. In addition, we identified an important conundrum: disruptive MSNs—a common approach to delivering MSNs—irritate users and negatively influence their perceptions of app security. Thus, our results directly challenge current practice. If these results hold, current practice should shift away from MSNs that interrupt task performance.     

State of the art of frameworks and middleware for facilitating mobile and ubiquitous learning development

The emergence of mobile and ubiquitous technologies as important tools to complement formal learning has been accompanied by a growing interest in their educational benefits and applications. Mobile devices can be used to promote learning anywhere and anytime, to foster social learning and knowledge sharing, or to visualize augmented reality applications for learning purposes. However, the development of these applications is difficult for many researchers because it requires understanding many different protocols; dealing with distributed schemas, processes, platforms, and services; learning new programming languages; and interacting with different hardware sensors and drivers. For that reason, the use of frameworks and middleware that encapsulate part of this complexity appears to be fundamental to the further development of mobile learning projects. This study analyzes the state of the art of frameworks and middleware devoted to simplifying the development of mobile and ubiquitous learning applications. The results can be useful to many researchers involved in the development of projects using these technologies by providing an overview of the features implemented in each of these frameworks.     

A lightweight and distributed middleware to provide presence awareness in mobile ubiquitous systems

Several researchers have identified the need to count on presence awareness in ubiquitous systems that support mobile activities, particularly when these systems are used to perform loosely-coupled mobile work. In such a work style, mobile users conduct face-to-face on-demand interactions, therefore counting on awareness information about the position and availability of potential collaborators becomes mandatory for these applications. Most proposed solutions that provide user presence awareness involve centralized components, have reusability limitations, or simply address a part of that service. This article presents a lightweight and fully distributed middleware named Moware, which allows developers to embed presence awareness services in mobile ubiquitous systems in a simple way. The article also describes the Moware architecture, its main components and strategies used to deal with several aspects of the presence awareness support. These design strategies can be reused by software designers to provide presence awareness capabilities into middleware and specific software applications. Moware services were embedded in a mobile ubiquitous system that supports inspectors during the construction inspection process. The preliminary results indicate that the middleware was easy to use for developers, and its services were useful for the end-users.     

Leveraging social networks in the adoption of mobile technologies for collaboration

Mobile devices such as tablets, smart phones, and portable computers are connecting users in a myriad of contexts. Social networks can be a benefit for individuals in the knowledge acquisition process, and group dynamics disclosed by Social Network Analysis provides a good basis for studying how mobile collaboration is affected by social networks. This study focuses on two aspects of social network mechanism, namely eigenvector centrality and network reciprocity. The assumption is that social networks influence mobile technology use behaviors, and can be optimized to leverage mobile collaboration. A series of controlled field experiments involving 327 groups were conducted to evaluate the differences between two modes of mobile collaborative settings: individual non-collaborative vs. group collaborative. Results indicate that by leveraging social networks in a mobile platform, study participants were able to positively heighten their collaborative knowledge acquisition process through enhanced group interactions and enjoyment.     

Leveraging Microsoft׳s mobile usability guidelines: Conceptualizing and developing scales for mobile application usability

This research conceptualizes mobile application usability and develops and validates an instrument to measure the same. Mobile application usability has attracted widespread attention in the field of human–computer interaction because well-designed applications can enhance user experiences. To conceptualize mobile application usability, we analyzed Microsoft’s mobile usability guidelines and defined 10 constructs representing mobile application usability. Next, we conducted a pilot study followed by a quantitative assessment of the content validity of the scales. We then sequentially applied exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to two samples (n=404; n=501) consisting of German consumers using mobile social media applications on their smartphones. To evaluate the confirmatory factor model, we followed a step-by-step process assessing unidimensionality, discriminant validity and reliability. To assess the nomological validity of our instrument, we examined the impact of mobile application usability on two outcomes: continued intention to use and brand loyalty. The results confirmed that mobile application usability was a good predictor of both outcomes. The constructs and scales associated with mobile application usability validated in this paper can be used to guide future research in human–computer interaction and aid in the effective design of mobile applications.     

Mosco: a privacy-aware middleware for mobile social computing

The proliferation of mobile devices coupled with Internet access is generating a tremendous amount of highly personal and sensitive data. Applications such as location-based services and quantified self harness such data to bring meaningful context to users’ behavior. As social applications are becoming prevalent, there is a trend for users to share their mobile data. The nature of online social networking poses new challenges for controlling access to private data, as compared to traditional enterprise systems. First, the user may have a large number of friends, each associated with a unique access policy. Second, the access control policies must be dynamic and fine-grained, i.e. they are content-based, as opposed to all-or-nothing. In this paper, we investigate the challenges in sharing of mobile data in social applications. We design and evaluate a middleware running on Google App Engine, named Mosco, that manages and facilitates sharing of mobile data in a privacy-preserving manner. We use Mosco to develop a location sharing and a health monitoring application. Mosco helps shorten the development process. Finally, we perform benchmarking experiments with Mosco, the results of which indicate small overhead and high scalability.     

MESHMdl event spaces — A coordination middleware for self-organizing applications in ad hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are gaining importance as a promising technology for flexible, proximity-based, mobile communication. However, the inherent dynamics of MANETs imposes strong limitations on the design of distributed applications. They need to be able to adapt to changing conditions quickly and organize themselves in terms of component placement and communication habits. In this paper, we present MESHMdl, a middleware that provides a high level of awareness and decoupling for application components to make them more flexible and adaptable. We focus on the Event Space as the central communication medium of MESHMdl. The Event Space offers a simple, unified communication interface for inter-agent communication as well as for communication with the middleware and resource access. Furthermore, it serves as a means for flexibly extending a MESHMdl daemon. We investigate the performance of the Event Space on different mobile devices and show that it is superior to comparable systems.     

基于ICN网络架构的社区感知型MSN路由机制

移动社交网络（mobile social network，简称MSN）利用移动用户之间的社交关系，通过节点间的协作式转发实现消息交付.然而，随着大数据时代的到来，MSN需要满足移动用户日益增长的对内容（如视频）的需求.由于信息中心网络（information-centric networking，简称ICN）对移动性的支持，基于ICN架构，提出了一种MSN中基于社区划分的路由机制.在兴趣决策中，利用节点请求中的内容名字获取用户的兴趣偏好，进而计算用户间的兴趣差异度量；根据兴趣差异将节点划分为兴趣社区，依据这些兴趣社区进行兴趣包路由.在数据决策中，根据节点历史相遇信息计算用户间的相遇规律度量，根据相遇规律将节点划分为社交社区，依据这些社交社区进行数据包路由.同时，根据兴趣社区和社交社区信息优化节点的内容缓存，以快速满足未来的内容请求.进行了仿真实验，通过与现有机制在包交付率、平均延迟、平均跳数和网络开销方面的性能对比，表明所提出的机制是可行且有效的.     

Cluster-group based trusted computing for mobile social networks using implicit social behavioral graph

Mobile Social Networks (MSNs) facilitate connections between mobile devices, and are capable of providing an effective mobile computing environment for users to access, share, and distribute information. However, MSNs are virtual social spaces, the available information may not be trustworthy to all. Therefore, trust inference plays a critical role for establishing social links between mobile users. In MSNs, users’ transactions will more and more be complemented with group contact. Hence, future usage patterns of mobile devices will involve more group contacts. In this paper, we describe the implicit social behavioral graph, i.e., ego-i graph which is formed by users’ contacts, and present an algorithm for initiating ego-i graph. We rate these relationships to form a dynamic contact rank, which enables users to evaluate the trust values between users within the context of MSNs. We, then, calculate group-based trust values according to the level of contacts, interaction evolution, and users’ attributes. Based on group-based trust, we obtain a cluster trust by the aggregation of inter group-based trust values. Due to the unique nature of MSNs, we discuss the propagation of cluster trust values for global MSNs. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our trust model through simulations, and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of group-based behavioural relationships in MSNs’ information sharing system.     

基于J2ME和Agent的移动应用平台的设计

本文介绍了移动计算的特点,根据目前无线网络和移动设备应用程序设计的局限性,提出了基于J2ME+Agent的多线程的移动应用平台的设计方案,并引入了中间件思想。本文最后把该方案应用一个面向移动用户的云南省大型仪器协作共用网,从而证实了该平台在移动系统环境中具有较高的适应性和良好的使用性。     

EMMA: Epidemic Messaging Middleware for Ad hoc networks

The characteristics of mobile environments, with the possibility of frequent disconnections and fluctuating bandwidth, have forced a rethink of traditional middleware. In particular, the synchronous communication paradigms often employed in standard middleware do not appear to be particularly suited to ad hoc environments, in which not even the intermittent availability of a backbone network can be assumed. Instead, asynchronous communication seems to be a generally more suitable paradigm for such environments. Message oriented middleware for traditional systems has been developed and used to provide an asynchronous paradigm of communication for distributed systems, and, also for some specific mobile computing systems recently. In this paper, we present our experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating Epidemic Messaging Middleware for Ad hoc networks (EMMA), an adaptation of Java Message Service (JMS) for mobile ad hoc environments, discussing in detail the design challenges and the solutions that have been adopted.

Mobile data collection in sensor networks: The TinyLime middleware

In this paper we describe TinyLime, a novel middleware for wireless sensor networks that departs from the traditional setting where sensor data is collected by a central monitoring station, and enables instead multiple mobile monitoring stations to access the sensors in their proximity and share the collected data through wireless links. This intrinsically context-aware setting is demanded by applications where the sensors are sparse and possibly isolated, and where on-site, location-dependent data collection is required. An extension of the Lime middleware for mobile ad hoc networks, TinyLime makes sensor data available through a tuple space interface, providing the illusion of shared memory between applications and sensors. Data aggregation capabilities and a power-savvy architecture complete the middleware features. The paper presents the model and application programming interface of TinyLime, together with its implementation for the Crossbow MICA2 sensor platform.     

面向移动社会网络的好友推荐方法

针对移动社会网络（MSN）的好友推荐问题,提出了一种基于多维相似度的好友推荐方法。该方法隶属于基于内容的好友推荐,但与现有方法相比,不再局限于单一维度的匹配信息,而是从空间、时间和兴趣三个维度出发,判断用户在各个维度上的相似度,最终通过“差异距离”进行综合评判,向目标用户推荐与之在地理位置、在线时间和兴趣爱好上更具一致性的其他用户成为其好友。由实验结果表明,该方法应用于移动社会网络中的好友推荐服务时,其推荐结果查准率接近80%,查准效率接近60%,性能远高于只基于单一维度的好友推荐方法;同时,通过对三维权重值的调整,该方法可应用于多种特性的移动社会网络中。     

一种支持自适应程序设计的移动机器人中间件

机器人控制中间件是软件中间件设计研究领域的一个热点.为了开发一种支持自适应程序设计的移动机器人中间件平台,首先提出这种中间件平台需要满足的设计要求:跨底层硬件平台、保证服务质量以及具备一定的自适应能力.从Java虚拟机的移植、服务质量表现形式的选择、自适应机制及SCC(Sensor/Compute/Control)设计结构的应用4个方面来阐述此中间件平台的设计思路和开发过程.最后,通过真实实验的数据对比,说明此中间件可为移动机器人程序的有效开发提供服务质量保证.     

Mobile business application for service and maintenance processes: Using ex post evaluation by end-users as input for iterative design

Although mobile technologies are increasingly used for business purposes, many companies have found it difficult to successfully implement them. Not only do the rapid technological changes increase the risks of companies’ investments into mobile technologies, but many such applications have also failed to gain user acceptance. In contrast to the consumer domain, there are very few empirical studies of mobile applications’ effectiveness from the perspectives of professional end users. Furthermore, designing mobile business applications has become an increasingly iterative and incremental activity, and ex post evaluations by actual users can provide crucial feedback to an iterative design process. In this study, we seek to contribute to establishing a design cycle that closely links the building and the evaluation of mobile business applications. Our objectives are to (1) gain a better understanding of mobile business applications’ success by means of ex post evaluations from end users, and to (2) leverage these empirical insights to inform the design of mobile business applications. We conducted the study in collaboration with DEKRA Automotive, which offers expert services in the automotive sector with experience in mobile business applications. Our primary contribution is a systematic approach to using ex post evaluation as input for the iterative design of mobile business applications. We suggest an adapted version of the D&M information system (IS) Success Model, which has process quality as an additional construct, as a basis for ex post evaluations of a mobile business application by its end users. Furthermore, we illustrate how a performance-based analysis of the empirical results enables one to derive priorities and recommendations for future design iterations. Our results reveal that system quality and process quality are the main determinants of individual benefits of using mobile business applications. Our findings thus contradict other studies that identify information quality as a significant motivator of (consumer-oriented) mobile data services. We conclude that a mobile business application's design should focus on process quality, emphasizing functional support for operational tasks in a specific work context while ensuring system quality, which is largely affected by technology platform choices.     

Mobile communities: How viable are their business models? An exemplary investigation of the leisure industry

Communities (especially Virtual Communities) of Interest have been the focus of substantial discussion in academic literature. This paper addresses Communities of Interest within the leisure industry and discusses possible business models for the parties operating the platform. The described community platform is an innovative value added service concept for a mobile coordination support for individuals—A Mobile Community Support System. In this paper we extend the discussion about mobile communities to hybrid communities. The communities are hybrid in two ways: they use two different access channels, the Web and mobile devices, and they are built on real-world leisure communities that constitute themselves in the form of buddy lists in the virtual world of an ICT supported platform. We briefly depict the state of the art of IT in the leisure industry and describe the empirical aspects of the project objectives of the MCOR (Mobile Community Online Reservation) system. We conclude with some final remarks about design considerations and a blueprint for future research. Felix Hampe holds a chair for Corporate Communication Systems and is Director of the Institute for IS Research at the Faculty of Informatics of the University of Koblenz-Landau in Germany. He studied at the Free University of Berlin and worked later for the University of Bielefeld and the Philipps-University of Marburg prior to his appointment to Koblenz. In 2004/2005, he spent one year as a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, School of Computer and Information Systems. Beside his research interest in application aspects of communication systems, Professor Hampe started very early research in the area of mobile applications and especially mobile commerce. He was cofounder and board member of the Mobile Application Research Center (MARC), a German network for joint research on mobile business. Professor Hampe authored several international conference articles in the area and served for many international conferences.     

SpinRadar: a spontaneous service provision middleware for place-aware social interactions

With the advancements of mobile phones and the integration of multiple communication interfaces, online social interaction between users is no longer restricted to a specific place with connectivity to the Internet but can happen anywhere and at any time. This has promoted the development of mobile social applications to enable opportunistic interactions with co-located users. One of the challenging problems in such interactions is to discover interaction opportunities with nearby users. Existing works focus on properties related to mobile users in order to find similar users in the surrounding area; these works depend on predefined logic such as conditional statements to recommend spontaneous social interaction opportunities. However, the social implications of the place in which the interaction is taking place are an important factor for recommendations, as those implications provide hints about the most plausible types of interactions among co-located users. In this work, we present a middleware called SpinRadar which is designed to support spontaneous interactions between co-located users by taking into account the semantics of a place, which we call ‘placeness.’ Our evaluation shows that the proposed scheme satisfies users much more than existing schemes.     

A cross-layer middleware for context-aware cooperative application on mobile ad hoc peer-to-peer network

Mobile ad hoc peer-to-peer (P2P) applications become popular for providing the file sharing, voice communicating, and video streaming services due to entertainments and disaster recovery. However, both the topology of wireless network and the overlay of P2P network are dynamic, so the middleware is proposed to integrate such architectures of service-oriented applications. Therefore, we propose context-aware cooperative application (CACA) to overcome the frequent churn and high mobility problems. CACA proposes a cross-layer middleware to integrate DHT-based lookup, anycast query, and P2P delivery via the IPv6 routing header. Through anycast query, the response delay can be shortened and the query duplication can be minimized. Via IPv6 routing header, the delivery efficiency can be improved. Through the cross-layer design, the finger table in overlay layer is combined with the routing table in network layer to heighten proximity. The simulation results demonstrate that CACA has the outstanding performances of short download delay, high playback continuity, and low signaling overhead in mobile ad hoc network.     

The design of a reliable reputation system

Next generation Web 2.0 communities and distributed P2P systems rely on the cooperation of diverse user populations spread across numerous administrative and security domains. Zero accountability via anonymous online identities and divergent interests result in selfish behavior that can disrupt or manipulate networks for personal gain. While “reputation systems” are recognized as a promising means to establish social control for such communities, developing reliable reputation systems remains a challenge. Several unaddressed threats still limit the effectiveness of reputation systems. Furthermore, most existing work on reputations has focused on accurate reputations for stable systems, but not examined the implications of integrating user reputations into scalable distributed infrastructures. The primary goal of this paper is to investigate and address the critical open challenges that limit the effectiveness of reputations. First, we identify a thorough taxonomy on reputation management, and use it as our framework to classify adversarial threats that compromise reliable operation of reputation systems. Second, we survey existing research to address these threats. Finally, we present our solutions to address the two leading reasons for erroneous and misleading values produced by reputation systems today, i.e., user collusion and short-lived online identities. We believe that this paper not only serves as an introduction to reputation systems design, but will also help researchers deploy reliable reputation solutions that contribute towards improving the performance of large distributed applications.     

Mobile Cloud Middleware

Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is arising as a prominent research area that is seeking to bring the massive advantages of the cloud to the constrained smartphones. Mobile devices are looking towards cloud-aware techniques, driven by their growing interest to provide ubiquitous PC-like functionality to mobile users. These functionalities mainly target at increasing storage and computational capabilities. Smartphones may integrate those functionalities from different cloud levels, in a service oriented manner within the mobile applications, so that a mobile task can be delegated by direct invocation of a service. However, developing these kind of mobile cloud applications requires to integrate and consider multiple aspects of the clouds, such as resource-intensive processing, programmatically provisioning of resources (Web APIs) and cloud intercommunication. To overcome these issues, we have developed a Mobile Cloud Middleware (MCM) framework, which addresses the issues of interoperability across multiple clouds, asynchronous delegation of mobile tasks and dynamic allocation of cloud infrastructure. MCM also fosters the integration and orchestration of mobile tasks delegated with minimal data transfer. A prototype of MCM is developed and several applications are demonstrated in different domains. To verify the scalability of MCM, load tests are also performed on the hybrid cloud resources. The detailed performance analysis of the middleware framework shows that MCM improves the quality of service for mobiles and helps in maintaining soft-real time responses for mobile cloud applications.