Yi-Hsung Li

A transparent and ubiquitous access framework for networking and embedded system laboratories

With the advances in network technology and development of an e‐learning population, using the Internet to realize a distance laboratory has become prevalent and the distance laboratory can be accessed anytime from anywhere. However, it is difficult to present a seamless environment from the traditional physical laboratory into a distance laboratory. Practical devices in the traditional laboratory rarely supported distance access functions, and thus, constructing distance laboratories is difficult and time consuming. Hence, this work presents a distance laboratory framework with transparent and ubiquitous access platforms for various console‐based experiments, especially for networking and embedded system laboratories. The proposed system can support multiple users to access a device at the same time. Thus, students can easily share their experiences with each other to increase cooperative learning chances. Moreover, the proposed framework can be integrated to various distance laboratories and the user can access multiple platforms in one or several distance laboratories at the same time. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework can effectively improve the learning effect and the access platform can be used to increase the utilization of system resources. It can also reduce the cost of conducting laboratories and enhance student learning interest.

Development of activity generation and behavior observation systems for distance learning

Distance learning and e‐learning are popular and widely used technology in todays teaching environment; monitoring systems allow teachers to assess the learning state of their students. This study proposes a development of activity generation and behavior observation systems that allows teachers to assess the learning activities of their students. We use the concept of deterministic finite automaton to define learning activities. In the proposed system, teachers only need to click the drop‐down list items to manage learning activities. The proposed system also generates an activity recognizer after defining the activity. The activity recognizer can parse student‐learning logs allowing teachers to get the real‐time learning activities of students. When students are in abnormal learning states, teachers can immediately provide them with active guidance. The experiments in this study demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed system. Experimental results show that students received higher grades and exhibited less abnormal learning with the proposed monitoring system. These results demonstrate that the proposed system provides teachers with a convenient interface for assisting their students. The proposed monitoring system improves the learning outcomes of students.

An Implementation of Augmented Reality and Location Awareness Services in Mobile Devices

The popularization of smartphones and advances in location-based technology have led to the creation of many applications and diverse mobile cloud technologies. Augmented reality (AR), which integrates virtual reality with the real world, is one of the mobile service technologies that have been receiving considerable attention in recent years. This study focuses on AR technology, which in conjunction with point of interest (POI) information

u-TA: A ubiquitous teaching assistant using knowledge retrieval and adaptive learning techniques

Learning environments with rich interactivity, friendly communication interface, as well agents for instruction assistance have become the goal many distance education applications seek to achieve. In this paper, we have designed and implemented a virtual teaching assistant agent that possesses both domain-specific course-related knowledge, as well as the intelligence to handle daily conversation. Constructed using standardized knowledge base representation, the virtual teaching assistant agents knowledge is thus replaceable, making it reusable in multiple courses. Carried in both Web as well as modern instance message interfaces, the agent supports both keyword and sentence based query, as well as multi-lingual functionality. In addition, it owns the ability to learn from other agents or knowledge sources, thus enriching its intelligence. The experimental results showed that a pedagogical agent with adaptive learning and communication capabilities indeed has a significant improvement to the quality of modern distance education

A Prompt Response Monitoring System for the Guiding Support of Learning Activities

A guiding system is important for teacher to monitor the learning state of students. Therefore, this work proposes a monitoring system for teacher to get the types of learning activities of students immediately. The concept of deterministic finite automaton (DFA) is used to define learning activities. Teacher only needs to click the drop down list items to manage the learning activities. An activity parser will be generated by the parser generator after the activity is defined. The activity parser can parse students’ learning logs to get their current learning activities. When students are locating at the abnormal learning activities, the active assistant agent can provide basic guiding for these students immediately. The teacher can provide the advance guiding, if it is needed. The experimental results show that students got better grade and had less abnormal learning states with the proposed monitoring system. And the proposed system improves students’ learning outcomes.

A Reliable Multicast Routing Protocol Based on Recovery Points and FEC in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

Multicasting is an essential service for mobile ad-hoc networks. A major challenge for multicasting in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) is the unstable forwarding path. This work presents a reliable multicasting protocol for mobile ad-hoc networks. A virtual backbone is used as a shared structure for multiple sessions. A lost packet recovery scheme is developed for reliable packet transmission, called the Recovery Point (RP) scheme. The RP scheme maintains the data packets received from the source for recovering lost packets for its downstream RPs. In addition, we combine the Forward Error Correction (FEC) technology with our RP scheme to enhance the reliability of our RP scheme. A mergence scheme for RP is also proposed to avoid excessive control overhead. Our RP and FEC based scheme can be used to improve the reliability and efficiency of the traditional non-acknowledged multicasting approach. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the proposed multicasting scheme. The results demonstrate that our scheme outperforms other schemes in terms of packet delivery ratio and multicast efficiency. Furthermore, the simulation results also demonstrate that our approach is stable in networks with high mobility.

An efficient channel allocation scheme in cell overlapping systems

With higher requirement for communications and tremendous growth of mobile subscribers, maximizing bandwidth utilization in cell overlapping systems has been attracting much attention. This work develops an efficient channel allocation scheme based on the cell order and channel order to improve the channel capacity in an overlapping cellular system. Experimental results demonstrate that the channel selection order from picocells to macrocells outperforms other schemes in terms of call blocking rate, primary channel utilization rate, and assignment latency. Besides, in order to improve the performance of channel allocation, it is preferred to allocate more channels to smaller cells under a fixed channel capacity in an overlapping system. Furthermore, experimental results demonstrate that the call blocking rate decreases with the increasing of the utilization rate of primary channels.

Design and Implementation of an Open Sourced Location Service System for the Aglets Mobile Agent System

Mobile agent technologies can be applied in many fields, including electronic commerce, personal assistance, secure brokering, distributed information retrieval, telecommunication network services, monitoring and notification, etc. Since most of the mobile agents rely on a location service system to communicate with each other in the network environment, the location service system must provide reliable location information and guarantee the message delivery. The aglets system is a popular open sourced Java-based mobile agent system, yet it current supports no complete location service solution. This work designs and implements an open sourced location service system for the aglets mobile agent system, which has four major advantages: easy to integrate for legacy applications, easy to join servers in a single region, easy to link among multi-regions for different laboratories, and easy to implement, thus making the range of applications more extensive. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate that our system is efficient in various network environments

A Virtual Laboratory for Digital Signal Processing.

This work designs and implements a virtual digital signal processing laboratory, VDSPL. VDSPL consists of four parts: mobile agent execution environments, mobile agents, DSP development software, and DSP experimental platforms. The network capability of VDSPL is created by using mobile agent and wrapper techniques without modifying the source code of the original programs. VDSPL provides human-human and human-computer interaction for students and teachers, and it also can lighten the teacher’s load, increase the learning result of students, and improve the usage of network bandwidth. A prototype of VDSPL has been implemented by using the IBM Aglet system and Java Native Interface for DSP experimental platforms. Also, experimental results demonstrate that our system has received many positive feedbacks from both students and teachers.

A Systematic Framework of Virtual Laboratories Using Mobile Agent and Design Pattern Technologies

Innovations in network and information technology have transformed traditional classroom lectures into new approaches that have given universities the opportunity to create a virtual laboratory. However, there is no systematic framework in existing approaches for the development of virtual laboratories. Further, developing a virtual laboratory from scratch is time consuming and costly. This article proposes a systematic framework to classify the activities between learners and instructors in the laboratory and to design the mobile agent-based virtual laboratory by wrapping the existing CAI tools without knowing the source code. Using the existing CAI tools can reduce the time and cost in constructing a virtual laboratory. The framework consists of three parts: mobile agent execution environment, mobile agent and learning platform. Moreover, various mobile agent design patterns are provided for users to design and implement virtual laboratories. This framework of patterns could make mobile agent based virtual laboratories easier to design and understand. The authors’ framework has the following merits: adaptability, cost-effectiveness and collaboration. Their framework has demonstrated its feasibility in several applications, including digital circuit, language learning and digital signal processing laboratories. [Article copies are available for purchase from InfoSci-on-Demand.com]