Abstract: This paper presents Online Python Tutor, a web-based program visualization tool for Python, which is becoming a popular language for teaching introductory CS courses. Using this tool, teachers and students can write Python programs directly in the web browser (without installing any plugins), step forwards and backwards through execution to view the run-time state of data structures, and share their program visualizations on the web. In the past three years, over 200,000 people have used Online Python Tutor to visualize their programs. In addition, instructors in a dozen universities such as UC Berkeley, MIT, the University of Washington, and the University of Waterloo have used it in their CS1 courses. Finally, Online Python Tutor visualizations have been embedded within three web-based digital Python textbook projects, which collectively attract around 16,000 viewers per month and are being used in at least 25 universities. Online Python Tutor is free and open source software, available at pythontutor.com.

Abstract: Web services, as an aspect of cloud computing, are becoming an important part of the general IT infrastructure, and scientific computing is no exception to this trend. We propose a simple approach to develop chemical Web services, through which servers could expose the essential data manipulation functionality that students and researchers need for chemical calculations. These services return their results as JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) objects, which facilitates their use for Web applications. The ChemCalc project http://www.chemcalc.org demonstrates this approach: we present three Web services related with mass spectrometry, namely isotopic distribution simulation, peptide fragmentation simulation, and molecular formula determination. We also developed a complete Web application based on these three Web services, taking advantage of modern HTML5 and JavaScript libraries (ChemDoodle and jQuery).

Abstract: Web Apollo is the first instantaneous, collaborative genomic annotation editor available on the web. One of the natural consequences following from current advances in sequencing technology is that there are more and more researchers sequencing new genomes. These researchers require tools to describe the functional features of their newly sequenced genomes. With Web Apollo researchers can use any of the common browsers (for example, Chrome or Firefox) to jointly analyze and precisely describe the features of a genome in real time, whether they are in the same room or working from opposite sides of the world.

Abstract: JavaScript is widely used for writing client-side web applications and is getting increasingly popular for writing mobile applications. However, unlike C, C++, and Java, there are not that many tools available for analysis and testing of JavaScript applications. In this paper, we present a simple yet powerful framework, called Jalangi, for writing heavy-weight dynamic analyses. Our framework incorporates two key techniques: 1) selective record-replay, a technique which enables to record and to faithfully replay a user-selected part of the program, and 2) shadow values and shadow execution, which enables easy implementation of heavy-weight dynamic analyses. Our implementation makes no special assumption about JavaScript, which makes it applicable to real-world JavaScript programs running on multiple platforms. We have implemented concolic testing, an analysis to track origins of nulls and undefined, a simple form of taint analysis, an analysis to detect likely type inconsistencies, and an object allocation profiler in Jalangi. Our evaluation of Jalangi on the SunSpider benchmark suite and on five web applications shows that Jalangi has an average slowdown of 26X during recording and 30X slowdown during replay and analysis. The slowdowns are comparable with slowdowns reported for similar tools, such as PIN and Valgrind for x86 binaries. We believe that the techniques proposed in this paper are applicable to other dynamic languages.

Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging network superstructure that will connect physical resources and actual users. It will support an ecosystem of smart applications and services bringing hyper-connectivity to our society by using augmented and rich interfaces. Whereas in the beginning IoT referred to the advent of barcodes and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), which helped to automate inventory, tracking and basic identification, today IoT is characterized by a dynamic trend toward connecting smart sensors, objects, devices, data and applications. The next step will be cognitive IoT, facilitating object and data re-use across application domains and leveraging hyper-connectivity, interoperability solutions and semantically enriched information distribution. The Architectural Reference Model (ARM), presented in this book by the members of the IoT-A project team driving this harmonization effort, makes it possible to connect vertically closed systems, architectures and application areas so as to create open interoperable systems and integrated environments and platforms. It constitutes a foundation from which software companies can capitalize on the benefits of developing consumer-oriented platforms including hardware, software and services. The material is structured in two parts. Part A introduces the general concepts developed for and applied in the ARM. It is aimed at end users who want to use IoT technologies, managers interested in understanding the opportunities generated by these novel technologies, and system architects who are interested in an overview of the underlying basic models. It also includes several case studies to illustrate how the ARM has been used in real-life scenarios. Part B then addresses the topic at a more detailed technical level and is targeted at readers with a more scientific or technical background. It provides in-depth guidance on the ARM, including a detailed description of a process for generating concrete architectures, as well as reference manuals with guidelines on how to use the various models and perspectives presented to create a concrete architecture. Furthermore, best practices and tips on how system engineers can use the ARM to develop specific IoT architectures for dedicated IoT solutions are illustrated and exemplified in reverse mapping exercises of existing standards and platforms.

Abstract: Although Java does not run on some handheld devices, e.g., iPads and iPhones, JavaScript does. The development of JSmol, a JavaScript-only version of Jmol, is described, and its use in Proteopedia is demonstrated. A key aspect of JSmol is that it includes the full implementation of the entire set of Jmol functionalities, including file reading and writing, scripting, and rendering. The relative performances of Java-based Jmol and JavaScript-only JSmol are discussed. We can now confirm that the guiding principles of Java programming can be completely and relatively straightforwardly transformed directly into JavaScript, requiring no Java applet, and producing identical graphical results. JSmol is thus the first full-featured molecular viewer, and the first ever viewer for proteins, which can be utilized with an internet browser on handheld devices lacking Java. Since the MediaWiki features of Proteopedia have been modified to optionally use JSmol, the wealth of crowd-sourced content in Proteopedia is now directly available on such devices, without the need to download any additional applet.

Abstract: Adapting user interfaces to a user's cultural background can increase satisfaction, revenue, and market share. Conventional approaches to catering for culture are restricted to adaptations for specific countries and modify only a limited number of interface components, such as the language or date and time formats. We argue that a more comprehensive personalization of interfaces to cultural background is needed to appeal to users in expanding markets. This paper introduces a low-cost, yet efficient method to achieve this goal: cultural adaptivity. Culturally adaptive interfaces are able to adapt their look and feel to suit visual preferences. In a design science approach, we have developed a number of artifacts that support cultural adaptivity, including a prototype web application. We evaluate the efficacy of the prototype's automatically generated interfaces by comparing them with the preferred interfaces of 105 Rwandan, Swiss, Thai, and multicultural users. The findings demonstrate the feasibility of providing users with interfaces that correspond to their cultural preferences in a novel yet effective manner.

Abstract: As the Internet develops as a medium for disseminating health-related information, research on Web-based health information consumption grows increasingly important to academics and practitioners. Building on the current research in this area, our study proposes a model of initial trust formation in Web-based health information, rooted in the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and Toulmin's model of argumentation. The proposed model theorizes trust as a function of perceived information quality and perceived risk, which are in turn determined by the structural quality of the message (argument quality) and the expertise of the message source (source expertise). Testing of the research model was accomplished via a field experiment involving 300 online users who had searched for health information on the Web. Overall, the results largely support the proposed model, explaining substantial variance in trust and highlighting the important but distinct roles that argument quality, source expertise, and user perceptions of information quality and risk play in determining an individual's decision to trust health information online.

Abstract: Nowadays, native mobile applications (mobile apps) are targeted at specific mobile platforms. This phenomenon imposes severe constraints, such as the use of different development environments, technologies, and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for each mobile platform, leading inevitably to a waste of development time and effort, and an increased maintenance cost.The paper focuses on the current trends in developing cross-platform mobile apps. Our analysis focuses primarily on three areas. In the first place, we clarify the cross-platform development landscape by exploring the most important cross-platform app types, which are web, hybrid, interpreted and generated apps. Secondly, key issues for each app type are presented and a comparative analysis is performed to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each type. Thirdly, taking into account the current status in cross-platform mobile app development we identify a promising cross-platform app type and we investigate its effectiveness in practice. Finally, we draw some conclusions regarding cross-platform mobile app development approaches and make proposals for further research on the field.

Abstract: JavaScript is a powerful and flexible prototype-based scripting language that is increasingly used by developers to create interactive web applications. The language is interpreted, dynamic, weakly-typed, and has first-class functions. In addition, it interacts with other web languages such as CSS and HTML at runtime. All these characteristics make JavaScript code particularly error-prone and challenging to write and maintain. Code smells are patterns in the source code that can adversely influence program comprehension and maintainability of the program in the long term. We propose a set of 13 JavaScript code smells, collected from various developer resources. We present a JavaScript code smell detection technique called JSNOSE. Our metric-based approach combines static and dynamic analysis to detect smells in client-side code. This automated technique can help developers to spot code that could benefit from refactoring. We evaluate the smell finding capabilities of our technique through an empirical study. By analyzing 11 web applications, we investigate which smells detected by JSNOSE are more prevalent.

Abstract: Web-based distributed modelling architectures are gaining increasing recognition as potentially useful tools to build holistic environmental models, combining individual components in complex workflows. However, existing web-based modelling frameworks currently offer no support for managing uncertainty. On the other hand, the rich array of modelling frameworks and simulation tools which support uncertainty propagation in complex and chained models typically lack the benefits of web based solutions such as ready publication, discoverability and easy access. In this article we describe the developments within the UncertWeb project which are designed to provide uncertainty support in the context of the proposed 'Model Web'. We give an overview of uncertainty in modelling, review uncertainty management in existing modelling frameworks and consider the semantic and interoperability issues raised by integrated modelling. We describe the scope and architecture required to support uncertainty management as developed in UncertWeb. This includes tools which support elicitation, aggregation/disaggregation, visualisation and uncertainty/sensitivity analysis. We conclude by highlighting areas that require further research and development in UncertWeb, such as model calibration and inference within complex environmental models.

Abstract: We introduce AToMPM, an open-source framework for designing domain-specific modeling environments, performing model transformations, manipulating and managing models. It runs completely over the web, making it independent from any operating system, platform, or device it may execute on. AToMPM offers an online collaborative experience for modeling. Its unique architecture makes the framework flexible and completely customizable, given that AToMPM is modeled by itself, and external applications can be easily integrated. Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbdpmpwn6M

Abstract: Due to the increasing popularity of web applications, and the number of browsers and platforms on which such applications can be executed, cross-browser incompatibilities (XBIs) are becoming a serious concern for organizations that develop web-based software. Most of the techniques for XBI detection developed to date are either manual, and thus costly and error-prone, or partial and imprecise, and thus prone to generating both false positives and false negatives. To address these limitations of existing techniques, we developed X-PERT, a new automated, precise, and comprehensive approach for XBI detection. X-PERT combines several new and existing differencing techniques and is based on our findings from an extensive study of XBIs in real-world web applications. The key strength of our approach is that it handles each aspects of a web application using the differencing technique that is best suited to accurately detect XBIs related to that aspect. Our empirical evaluation shows that X-PERT is effective in detecting real-world XBIs, improves on the state of the art, and can provide useful support to developers for the diagnosis and (eventually) elimination of XBIs.

Abstract: A policy engine is situated within the communications path of a cloud computing environment and a user of the cloud computing environment to comply with an organization's policies for deploying web applications in the cloud computing environment. The policy engine intercepts communications packets to the cloud computing environment from a user, such as a web application developer, for example, in preparation for deploying a web application in the cloud computing environment. The policy engine identifies commands corresponding to the communications packets and directs the communications packets to appropriate rules engines corresponding to such commands in order to execute rules to comply with an organization's policies. Upon completion of execution of the rules, the communications packets are forwarded to the cloud computing environment if they comply with the policies.

Abstract: The present invention relates to field of application and more specifically to analysis of applications for determining security and quality issues. The present invention describes an application analysis system providing a platform for analyzing applications which is useful in finding security and quality issues in an application. In particular, the present invention is composed of an advanced fusion analyzer which gains an understanding of the application behavior by using a multi-way coordination and orchestration across components used in the present invention to build an continuously refine a model representing knowledge and behavior of the application as a large network of objects across different dimensions and using reasoning and learning logic on this model along with information and events received from the components to both refine and model further as well as drive the components further by sending information and events to them and again using the information and events received as a result to further trigger the entire process until the system stabilizes. The present invention is useful in analysis of internet/intranet based web applications, desktop applications, mobile applications and also embedded systems as well as for hardware, equipment and machines controlled by software.

Abstract: The Proteomics Standard Initiative Common QUery InterfaCe (PSICQUIC) specification was created by the Human Proteome Organization Proteomics Standards Initiative (HUPO-PSI) to enable computational access to molecular-interaction data resources by means of a standard Web Service and query language. Currently providing >150 million binary interaction evidences from 28 servers globally, the PSICQUIC interface allows the concurrent search of multiple molecular-interaction information resources using a single query. Here, we present an extension of the PSICQUIC specification (version 1.3), which has been released to be compliant with the enhanced standards in molecular interactions. The new release also includes a new reference implementation of the PSICQUIC server available to the data providers. It offers augmented web service capabilities and improves the user experience. PSICQUIC has been running for almost 5 years, with a user base growing from only 4 data providers to 28 (April 2013) allowing access to 151 310 109 binary interactions. The power of this web service is shown in PSICQUIC View web application, an example of how to simultaneously query, browse and download results from the different PSICQUIC servers. This application is free and open to all users with no login requirement (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/webservices/psicquic/view/main.xhtml).

Abstract: One area where the use of information and communication technology (ICT), or eHealth, could be developed is the home health care of premature infants. The aim of this randomized controlled study was to investigate whether the use of video conferencing or a web application improves parents’ satisfaction in taking care of a premature infant at home and decreases the need of home visits. In addition, nurses’ attitudes regarding the use of these tools were examined. Thirty-four families were randomized to one of three groups before their premature infant was discharged from the hospital to home health care: a control group receiving standard home health care (13 families); a web group receiving home health care supplemented with the use of a web application (12 families); a video group with home health care supplemented with video conferencing using Skype (9 families). Families and nursing staff answered questionnaires about the usefulness of ICT. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 families. All the parents in the web group found the web application easy to use. 83% of the families thought it was good to have access to their child’s data through the application. All the families in the video group found Skype easy to use and were satisfied with the video calls. 88% of the families thought that video calls were better than ordinary phone calls. 33% of the families in the web group and 75% of those in the video group thought the need for home visits was decreased by the web application or Skype. 50% of the families in the web group and 100% of those in the video group thought the web application or the video calls had helped them feel more confident in caring for their child. Most of the nurses were motivated to use ICT but some were reluctant and avoided using the web application and video conferencing. The families were satisfied with both the web application and video conferencing. The families readily embraced the use of ICT, whereas motivating some of the nurses to accept and use ICT was a major challenge.

Abstract: This paper deals with an original approach to automate Model-Based Vulnerability Testing (MBVT) for Web applications, which aims at improving the accuracy and precision of vulnerability testing Today, Model-Based Testing techniques are mostly used to address functional features The adaptation of such techniques for vulnerability testing defines novel issues in this research domain In this paper, we describe the principles of our approach, which is based on a mixed modeling of the application under test: the specification indeed captures some behavioral aspects of the Web application, and includes vulnerability test purposes to drive the test generation algorithm This approach is illustrated with the widely-used DVWA example

Abstract: This article reports classroom research on learners' perspectives on Web-based instruction that utilizes the Blackboard course management system. The Web-based instruction aims to provide and support collaborative learning while fostering learners' autonomy and accountability. The article also provides a description of the course design along with task-based activities. The results drawn from the questionnaires and final oral interviews show that the experience of using Web-based learning has changed the way students view the role of Internet technology in the development of their Spanish language learning. In addition to the reinforcement of learners' writing and communication skills, Web-based learning empowers learners to be actively involved in the process and to be responsible and accountable for their own learning.

Abstract: In order to meet Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements, efficient scaling of Virtual Machine (VM) resources must be provisioned few minutes ahead due to the VM boot-up time. One way to proactively provision resources is by predicting future resource demands. In this research, we have developed and evaluated cloud client prediction models for TPC-W benchmark web application using three machine learning techniques: Support Vector Machine (SVM), Neural Networks (NN) and Linear Regression (LR). We included the SLA metrics for Response Time and Throughput to the prediction model with the aim of providing the client with a more robust scaling decision choice. Our results show that Support Vector Machine provides the best prediction model.

Abstract: Systems, methods and computer program products for securely accessing enterprise data and services using a mobile device in a BYOD environment. In one embodiment, a system for securely accessing enterprise data and services may include a mobile device, a container application installed on the mobile device, and an application browser embedded in the container application that is capable of requesting and executing enterprise web applications. The container application may also be capable of encrypting cache and local storage and securing a communications channel to a proxy server.

Abstract: A method and system for crowdsourcing and managing contact and profile information of a user's contacts, and exchanging business and personal contact information through a mobile device, personal computer, or a web application. The system comprises a crowdsourcing intelligence module that provides the software, analysis, and algorithms for automatically populating and updating an individual's contact information in a user's address book based on contributed information and changes made to the individual's profile by a large community of users. The module also automatically populates and updates business profile, captures business's external social and business profiles, and analyzes demographic information which can then be transmitted to users. Users may also search for job opportunities, review and purchase products and services, review the location of contacts in proximity to the user, and manage sales and account activities including lead generation, lead qualification, and better understanding their customer base.

Abstract: Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) enables researchers to directly probe endogenous molecules directly within the architecture of the biological matrix. Unfortunately, efficient access, management, and analysis of the data generated by MSI approaches remain major challenges to this rapidly developing field. Despite the availability of numerous dedicated file formats and software packages, it is a widely held viewpoint that the biggest challenge is simply opening, sharing, and analyzing a file without loss of information. Here we present OpenMSI, a software framework and platform that addresses these challenges via an advanced, high-performance, extensible file format and Web API for remote data access (http://openmsi.nersc.gov). The OpenMSI file format supports storage of raw MSI data, metadata, and derived analyses in a single, self-describing format based on HDF5 and is supported by a large range of analysis software (e.g., Matlab and R) and programming languages (e.g., C++, Fortran, and Python). Careful optimization of the storage layout of MSI data sets using chunking, compression, and data replication accelerates common, selective data access operations while minimizing data storage requirements and are critical enablers of rapid data I/O. The OpenMSI file format has shown to provide >2000-fold improvement for image access operations, enabling spectrum and image retrieval in less than 0.3 s across the Internet even for 50 GB MSI data sets. To make remote high-performance compute resources accessible for analysis and to facilitate data sharing and collaboration, we describe an easy-to-use yet powerful Web API, enabling fast and convenient access to MSI data, metadata, and derived analysis results stored remotely to facilitate high-performance data analysis and enable implementation of Web based data sharing, visualization, and analysis.

Abstract: Mutation testing is an effective test adequacy assessment technique. However, it suffers from two main issues. First, there is a high computational cost in executing the test suite against a potentially large pool of generated mutants. Second, there is much effort involved in filtering out equivalent mutants, which are syntactically different but semantically identical to the original program. Prior work has mainly focused on detecting equivalent mutants after the mutation generation phase, which is computationally expensive and has limited efficiency. In this paper, we propose a technique that leverages static and dynamic program analysis to guide the mutation generation process a-priori towards parts of the code that are error-prone or likely to influence the program's output. Further, we focus on the JavaScript language, and propose a set of mutation operators that are specific to web applications. We implement our approach in a tool called MUTANDIS. We empirically evaluate MUTANDIS on a number of web applications to assess the efficacy of the approach.

Abstract: With the rapid development of Web2.0 and its related technologies, Mashup services (i.e., Web applications created by combining two or more Web APIs) are becoming a hot research topic. The explosion of Mashup services, especially the functionally similar or equivalent services, however, make services discovery more difficult than ever. In this paper, we present an approach to recommend Mashup services to users based on user interest and social network of services. This approach firstly extracts users' interests from their Mashup service usage history and builds a social network based on social relationships information among Mashup services, Web APIs and their tags. The approach then leverages the target user's interest and the social network to perform Mashup service recommendation. Large-scale experiments based on a real-world Mashup service dataset show that our proposed approach can effectively recommend Mashup services to users with excellent performance. Moreover, a Mashup service recommendation prototype system is developed.

Abstract: A framework for implementing multitenant architecture is provided. The framework comprises a framework services module which is configured to provide framework services that facilitate abstraction of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) services and crosscutting services for a Greenfield application and a non SaaS based web application. Further the abstraction results in a SaaS based multitenant web application. The framework further comprises a runtime module configured to automatically integrate and consume the framework services and APIs to facilitate monitoring and controlling of features associated with the SaaS based multitenant web application. The framework further comprises a metadata services module configured to provide a plurality of metadata services to facilitate abstraction of storage structure of metadata associated with the framework and act as APIs for managing the metadata. The framework further comprises a role based administration module that facilitates management of the metadata through a tenant administrator and a product administrator.

Abstract: A fast client-side spell checker is provided that builds efficient structures out of dictionary and a common misspelling lists and uses the structures to prune the number of searches required to identify misspelled words and provide suggestions for correcting the misspelled words. The spell checker is a browser-based application, which is provided by a server to a client device. The server also sends the dictionary and a list of common misspellings to the client device in the form of efficient data structures. The spell checker utilizes a set of rules to identify the words that are not in the dictionary but are intended to be correct as typed. The spell checker is used by different browser-based applications that utilize the same spell checker regardless of the browser platform used to access the applications. In this way, the spell checker provides a uniform spell checking user experience across different browser platforms.