![](bg4.png)
ceives the JSON message from the server, parses it,
and notifies the FlotBlock and HTMLfield blocks, to
present the data to the user interface, namely the real-
time, filtered ECG signal and the heart rate. FlotBlock
owes its name to the Javascript library used for plot-
ting in jQuery, that produces graphical plots of arbi-
trary datasets on-the-fly on the client-side(Flot, 2012).
The application connects automatically to the
server on start-up, and as soon as the start button is
pressed, the Android device connects to the bioPLUX
unit and starts to receive real time data. The bottom
panel displays the processed data, namely the filtered
ECG signal trace, and the heart rate information.
4 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE
WORK
In this paper we presented a rapid application devel-
opment framework for mobile devices. It can be used
both for standalone or client/server applications.
The presented framework is based on a MVC
paradigm for rapid application development, that
cano be used by researchers and clinicians to facili-
tate the prototyping of mobile applications.
Alongside, we have devised a Data Processing
Language, that can be used to easily define the struc-
ture of the end-user application.
Furthermore, the UI of our mobile framework is
supported on web technologies, allowing easy con-
figuration of the layout, look-and-feel, among other
aspects of the graphical interface with the user, which
is fundamental given the latest trends in mobile appli-
cation development.
The proposed architecture has undoubtable bene-
fits, namely the ones arising from its versatility, due
to the fact that the user can define his application be-
havior by combining the different blocks, and reuse
the layout of a web UI.
Due to its sophistication, we assessed the per-
formance of our framework in terms of computation
times and message exchange robustness. The profil-
ing done to the demo version shows that the system
components running in the native part of the Android
have sub-millisecond performance. Since this is a
real-time demo applications, and one that communi-
cates with a remote server through the web, most of
the time consumed in this communication.
In the overall, tests have shown that our frame-
work performs adequately for rapid prototyping of
mobile applications. The example application pre-
sented serves not only as a proof of concept but also
as way to demonstrate the potential of the platform.
The integration of the Websocket block to communi-
cate with a remote server, provides a testbed for func-
tionalities that can be supported by algorithms already
featured on the server toolbox.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was partially funded by the IT - Instituto de
Telecomunicac¸˜oes under the grant ”Android Biomet-
rics Platform”, by the Fundac¸˜ao para a Ciˆencia e Tec-
nologia (FCT) under grants SFRH/BD/65248/2009
and SFRH /PROTEC/49512/2009, whose support the
authors gratefully acknowledge. The authors also
thank the Institute for Systems and Technologies
of Information, Control and Communication (IN-
STICC), the graphic designer Andr´e Lista, Prof. Pe-
dro Oliveira, and the Instituto Superior de Educac¸˜ao e
Ciˆencias (ISEC), for their support to this work.
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