VR-Rides: An object-oriented application framework for immersive virtual reality exergames

Exercise can improve health and well-being. With this in mind, immersive virtual reality (VR) games are being developed to promote physical activity, and are generally evaluated through user studies. However, building such applications is time consuming and expensive. This paper introduces VR-Rides, an object-oriented application framework focused on the development of experiment-oriented VR exergames. Following the modular programming pattern, this framework facilitates the integration of different hardware (such as VR devices, sensors, and physical activity devices) within immersive VR experiences that overlay game narratives on Google Street View panoramas. Combining software engineering and interaction patterns, modules of VR-Rides can be easily added and managed in the Unity game engine. We evaluate the code efficiency and development effort across our VR exergames developed using VR-Rides. The reliability, maintainability, and usability of our framework are also demonstrated via code metrics analysis and user studies. The results show that investing in a systematic approach to reusing code and design can be a worthwhile effort for researchers beyond software engineering.     

Robust LCMV Beamformer for Direction of Arrival Mismatch Without Beam Broadening

Wireless Personal Communications - In this work, we propose a new and efficient algorithm to mitigate the signal look direction error problem in adaptive beamforming without broadening the main...     

Novel sensing and joint beam and null steering based resource allocation for cross-tier interference mitigation in cognitive femtocell networks

Wireless Networks - Cognitive radios and femtocell networks are gaining much popularity due to the formers ability to carry out unlicensed transmission in licensed bands and the latter’s...     

On the Handling of Continuous-Valued Attributes in Decision Tree Generation

We present a result applicable to classification learning algorithms that generate decision trees or rules using the information entropy minimization heuristic for discretizing continuous-valued attributes. The result serves to give a better understanding of the entropy measure, to point out that the behavior of the information entropy heuristic possesses desirable properties that justify its usage in a formal sense, and to improve the efficiency of evaluating continuous-valued attributes for cut value selection. Along with the formal proof, we present empirical results that demonstrate the theoretically expected reduction in evaluation effort for training data sets from real-world domains.     

Sweepline algorithm for unstructured-grid generation on two-dimensional non-convex domains

The sweepline algorithm has been modified to triangulate a set of nodes on a non-convex domain. The new method is based on a fragile sweepline which is split and rejoined in a manner which ensures that boundaries are preserved. Both the original and the modified algorithms are introduced using simple examples. It is shown that a set of N nodes is triangulated in O(N log N) time. The validity of the new method has been confirmed through testing on a variety of problems, and two test cases are presented in this paper.     

An adaptive handoff strategy for cognitive radio networks

Spectrum handoff plays an important role in spectrum management as it is the process of seamlessly shifting the on-going transmission of a secondary user (SU) to a free channel without degrading the quality of service. In this paper, we develop an adaptive handoff algorithm that allows an SU to detect the arrival of a primary user (via sensing) and adapt to a reactive or a proactive handoff strategy accordingly. The adaptive handoff scheme first allows an SU to decide whether to stay and wait on current channel or to perform handoff. Then, in case of handoff, an SU intelligently shifts between proactive or reactive handoff modes based on primary use (PU) arrival rate. Further, a PU prioritized Markov approach is presented in order to model the interactions between PUs and SUs for smooth channel access. Numerical results show that the proposed handoff scheme minimizes the blocking probability, number of handoffs, handoff delay and data delivery time while maintaining channel utilization and system throughput at maximal level compared to simple reactive and proactive schemes.     

Pseudo random sequences based on elliptic curve subgroups and mathematical model for its application to digital image security

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The security strength of the elliptic curve cryptosystems (ECC) is due to its core operations-based group law. This aspect of the elliptic curve provides key...     

MOPT: list-based heuristic for scheduling workflows in cloud environment

Cloud computing is a popular and widely adopted computing platform for the execution of scientific workflows as it provides flexible infrastructure and offers access to collection of autonomous heterogeneous resources. Effective scheduling of computationally complex workflows which contain many interconnected tasks is a complex problem and becomes more challenging in cloud environment. Optimal solutions can be obtained by considering not only the heterogeneity of computation costs involved, but also by taking into account the communication costs among the tasks in a way that schedule length of the application is reduced. In this paper, we propose a list scheduling heuristic, namely minimal optimistic processing time (MOPT), with optimized duplication approach. The additional feature is introduced for the entry task and is applied only in scenarios in which duplication is more practical and effective. The prioritization phase of the proposed work is based on an optimistic processing time matrix that is used for ranking of the tasks. The algorithm has same time complexity as state-of-the-art existing algorithms, but notable improvements are acquired in terms of makespan and other performance evaluation parameters. Extensive experimental analysis of the proposed algorithm is carried out using synthesized graphs and graphs from the real-world applications. The results prove that MOPT achieves quality schedules with reduced makespans. As communication cost among the tasks grows higher, performance of the proposed algorithm becomes more effective, thus providing the evidence that the MOPT algorithm is well-suited for communication-intensive applications.

     

An Efficient Rule-Based Distributed Reasoning Framework for Resource-bounded Systems

Mobile Networks and Applications - Over the last few years, context-aware computing has received a growing amount of attention among the researchers in the IoT and ubiquitous computing community....