Postgraduate Continuing Medical Education via Videoconferencing at the K.U.Leuven in Belgium: An Evaluation of Pentalfa

In: A.J. Kallenberg and M.J.J.M. van de Ven (Eds), 2002, The New Educational Benefits of ICT in Higher Education: Proceedings. Rotterdam: Erasmus Plus BV, OECR ISBN 90-9016127-9Traditionally medical specialists attended seminars organized by clinical university departments of the K.U.Leuven Medical Faculty. However due to increasing travel and traffic problems the Pentalfa project was initiated in an effort to replace face-to-face seminars. We applied ISDN-videoconferencing technology to interconnect the video and sound signals of the different sites in real time. In all sites the session could be followed on two screens. On one screen, either the speaker/moderator or person involved in dialogue at a remote site could be seen or whatever else was being sent via videoconference. On the second one, which was linked to a multimedia computer, digitized images are projected. A voting system was used to interconnect all sites and allowed the participation in the various voting opportunities, which occurred during each session. For each session, a topic within a specific discipline was chosen and treated in a multidisciplinary way. The Pentalfa project was initially planned for a period of 3 years. During each academic year, 2 to 3 periods of 8-9 sessions each were organized (total of 74 session). A questionnaire, completed with open questions, was given to all participants (over three years 13 489 participants). 28.2 % of the questionnaires were returned. We reached 64.6 % male and 35.4% female participants with the program. The percentage female participants was higher at the central than at the guest sites. The mean age of the participants was 37.7 years. Male participants were older than female. At the central location the mean age was lower than at the guest locations. The percentage female participants decreased in the older age groups. Timesaving was an important goal for starting up the project. Nearly 90% of the public at the guest sites said they saved time by attending the session. The averaged time saving per participant in these guest locations increased from 99 min in the first year to 145 min in the third year. This emphasizes the growing mobility problems of our society. Globally, participants were satisfied with the pedagogical approach used in Pentalfa. More than 55 % of the participants found the Pentalfa session easier than classical seminars. Participants at the guest sites and older participants had a more positive appreciation than the average. In the evaluation we found that satisfaction about the technology was very high. The very excellent appreciation of the quality of the image, even in the absence of a lecturer, indicates that the concept of using 3 ISDN (6 lines) connections is sufficient for long-distance education The global cost per participant at the guest locations was 44.5 euro/h broadcasting and their virtual saving was 64 euro/h. More than 85 % of the participants at the guest sites stated that they would no longer go to Leuven (the central location) for these sessions if they were to be organized in a traditional face-to-face manner, mostly due to time and/or traffic. In order to come to a sufficient result for long-distance education via videoconferences from the participants, a lot of efforts are required. Once all those problems are resolved, this medium seems to be very suitable as an alternative for the increasing mobility- and accompanying time problems The experience obtained with Pentalfa, will be used for other aspects of the medical service such as “second opinion” or “Telemedicine”

Analysing the characteristics of VoIP traffic

In this study, the characteristics of VoIP traffic in a deployed Cisco VoIP phone system and a SIP based soft phone system are analysed. Traffic was captured in a soft phone system, through which elementary understanding about a VoIP system was obtained and experimental setup was validated. An advanced experiment was performed in a deployed Cisco VoIP system in the department of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan. Three months of traffic trace was collected beginning October 2006, recording address and protocol information for every packet sent and received on the Cisco VoIP network. The trace was analysed to find out the features of Cisco VoIP system and the findings were presented.This work appears to be one of the first real deployment studies of VoIP that does not rely on artificial traffic. The experimental data provided in this study is useful for design and modeling of such systems, from which more useful predictive models can be generated. The analysis method used in this research can be used for developing synthetic workload models. A clear understanding of usage patterns in a real VoIP network is important for network deployment and potential network activities such as integration, optimizations or expansion. The major factors affecting VoIP quality such as delay, jitter and loss were also measured and simulated in this study, which will be helpful in an advanced VoIP quality study. A traffic generator was developed to generate various simulated VoIP traffic. The data used to provide the traffic model parameters was chosen from peak traffic periods in the captured data from University of Saskatchewan deployment. By utilizing the Traffic Trace function in ns2, the simulated VoIP traffic was fed into ns2, and delay, jitter and packet loss were calculated for different scenarios. Two simulation experiments were performed. The first experiment simulated the traffic of multiple calls running on a backbone link. The second experiment simulated a real network environment with different traffic load patterns. It is significant for network expansion and integration

MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization

This book provides an approachable overview of the most recent advances in the fascinating field of media synchronization (mediasync), gathering contributions from the most representative and influential experts. Understanding the challenges of this field in the current multi-sensory, multi-device, and multi-protocol world is not an easy task. The book revisits the foundations of mediasync, including theoretical frameworks and models, highlights ongoing research efforts, like hybrid broadband broadcast (HBB) delivery and users' perception modeling (i.e., Quality of Experience or QoE), and paves the way for the future (e.g., towards the deployment of multi-sensory and ultra-realistic experiences). Although many advances around mediasync have been devised and deployed, this area of research is getting renewed attention to overcome remaining challenges in the next-generation (heterogeneous and ubiquitous) media ecosystem. Given the significant advances in this research area, its current relevance and the multiple disciplines it involves, the availability of a reference book on mediasync becomes necessary. This book fills the gap in this context. In particular, it addresses key aspects and reviews the most relevant contributions within the mediasync research space, from different perspectives. Mediasync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization is the perfect companion for scholars and practitioners that want to acquire strong knowledge about this research area, and also approach the challenges behind ensuring the best mediated experiences, by providing the adequate synchronization between the media elements that constitute these experiences