Experimentation made easy with the AMazING panel

Experimental testbeds for evaluating solutions in computer networks, are today required as a complement to simulation and emulation. As these testbeds become larger, and accessible to a broader universe of the research community, dedicated management tools become mandatory. These tools ease the complex management of the testbed specific resources, while providing an environment for researchers to define their experiments with large flexibility. While there are currently several management tools, the research community is still lacking tools that smooth the experimentation workflow. These were key aspects that we considered when developing the management infrastructure for our wireless testbed[4] (AMazING). We developed a experimentation support framework supported by an attractive GUI, automation and scripting capabilities, as well as experiment versioning and integrated result gathering and analysis

Crowd Sensing and Living Lab Outdoor Experimentation Made Easy

Living lab outdoor experimentation using pervasive computing provides new opportunities: higher realism, external validity, and socio-spatio-temporal observations in large scale. However, experimentation “in the wild” is complex and costly. Noise, biases, privacy concerns, compliance with standards of ethical review boards, remote moderation, control of experimental conditions, and equipment perplex the collection of high-quality data for causal inference. This article introduces Smart Agora, a novel open-source software platform for rigorous systematic outdoor experimentation. Without writing a single line of code, highly complex experimental scenarios are visually designed and automatically deployed to smart phones. Novel geolocated survey and sensor data are collected subject of participants verifying desired experimental conditions, for instance, their localization at certain urban spots. This new approach drastically improves the quality and purposefulness of crowd sensing, tailored to conditions that confirm/reject hypotheses. The features that support this innovative functionality and the broad spectrum of its applicability are demonstrated

Control Systems Engineering made Easy: Motivating Students through Experimentation on UAVs

International audienceThis paper focuses on a new elective course on modeling and control of multi-agent systems, with experimentation on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The module is taught for students with basic knowledge in Automatic Control and Optimization and it intends to increase their interest in applying advanced control techniques on UAVs in an enjoyable framework favorable to develop creativity, practical and team working skills, together with a solid and persistent theoretical background

Experimentation with large scale ICN multimedia services on the Internet made easy

International audienceIn this paper we present a framework for evaluating ICN solutions in general, and multimedia solutions in particular. This framework simplifies the challenges of conducting large scale experiments on the wild Internet. We leverage on the existing PlanetLab testbed to provide worldwide distributed access to the Internet at minimum cost, and propose the NEPI tool to simplify the design and deployment of experiments. As a means of illustrating the capabilities of the framework, we consider an example experiment in which we evaluate the performance of broadcasting video to over 100 consumers using CCNx against a classical client-server solution

Numerical simulation of centrifugal pumps

The power computers increase and the specific calculation software development have made possible, nowadays, the numerical simulation of flow and energy transfer inside the turbomachinery. To teach Fluid Mechanics is not easy not only for the professors but also for the students because the theoretical part must be complemented with a technical part where students can see the phenomena. However, specially in hydraulic turbomachinery, we canít see the phenomena except if we have a specific material, for example a PIV. Even if we would have this material, the access to specific parts of turbomachinery is not possible due to its constructive layout. The use of numerical simulation tools allows us to obtain data in inaccessible positions for the experimentation, as well as the study of unusual or dangerous performances. With the numerical simulation, the pressure fluctuation at any point of the pump can be easily obtained. Other important results are the radial forces on the impeller, which have a significant variation with the working points. One of the advantages of this kind of modelling is the ease to carry out changes in the geometry, parametric studies and analysis of anomalous operation conditions

Synthesis of 2D porous crystalline materials in simulated microgravity

Altres ajuts: the ICN2 is funded by the CERCA programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. The GIWAXS experiments were conducted on the NCD-SWEET beamline of the ALBA synchrotron, Spain. GIWAXS experiments of Ni(HITP) and COF-TAPB-BTCA were performed at the NCD-SWEET beamline at ALBA Synchrotron with the collaboration of ALBA staff.To date, crystallization studies conducted in space laboratories, which are prohibitively costly and unsuitable to most research laboratories, have shown the valuable effects of microgravity during crystal growth and morphogenesis. Herein, an easy and highly efficient method is shown to achieve space-like experimentation conditions on Earth employing custom-made microfluidic devices to fabricate 2D porous crystalline molecular frameworks. It is confirmed that experimentation under these simulated microgravity conditions has unprecedented effects on the orientation, compactness and crack-free generation of 2D porous crystalline molecular frameworks as well as in their integration and crystal morphogenesis. It is believed that this work will provide a new "playground" to chemists, physicists, and materials scientists that desire to process unprecedented 2D functional materials and devices

Creating Interaction Scenarios With a New Graphical User Interface

The field of human-centered computing has known a major progress these past few years. It is admitted that this field is multidisciplinary and that the human is the core of the system. It shows two matters of concern: multidisciplinary and human. The first one reveals that each discipline plays an important role in the global research and that the collaboration between everyone is needed. The second one explains that a growing number of researches aims at making the human commitment degree increase by giving him/her a decisive role in the human-machine interaction. This paper focuses on these both concerns and presents MICE (Machines Interaction Control in their Environment) which is a system where the human is the one who makes the decisions to manage the interaction with the machines. In an ambient context, the human can decide of objects actions by creating interaction scenarios with a new visual programming language: scenL.Comment: 5th International Workshop on Intelligent Interfaces for Human-Computer Interaction, Palerme : Italy (2012

Digital television, Personal Video Recorders and Media, Automation, Data and Entertainment convergence in the home

Out of the confusion of possible delivery technologies for domestic digital video entertainment, the personal video recorder (PVR) with an electronic program guide (EPG) emerges as a key component. Serving as a content manager for video broadcasts, PVRs can automatically record, sort, schedule, store and integrate video material from different sources in a convenient, easy-to-use and timely fashion. Such devices are gradually being adopted in the homes of the developed world, and are the increasing subject of pioneering commercial enterprise, innovative experimentation and open-source community development. Going one step further, the concept of a 'MADE system' is introduced as a system with converged functionality for media, automation, data and entertainment. This article describes and compares three systems with PVR functionality and evaluates their current and future roles as a component for MADE systems. The drivers for and threats to the convergence of functionality towards a MADE system are also considered

The Online Laboratory: Conducting Experiments in a Real Labor Market

Online labor markets have great potential as platforms for conducting experiments, as they provide immediate access to a large and diverse subject pool and allow researchers to conduct randomized controlled trials. We argue that online experiments can be just as valid---both internally and externally---as laboratory and field experiments, while requiring far less money and time to design and to conduct. In this paper, we first describe the benefits of conducting experiments in online labor markets; we then use one such market to replicate three classic experiments and confirm their results. We confirm that subjects (1) reverse decisions in response to how a decision-problem is framed, (2) have pro-social preferences (value payoffs to others positively), and (3) respond to priming by altering their choices. We also conduct a labor supply field experiment in which we confirm that workers have upward sloping labor supply curves. In addition to reporting these results, we discuss the unique threats to validity in an online setting and propose methods for coping with these threats. We also discuss the external validity of results from online domains and explain why online results can have external validity equal to or even better than that of traditional methods, depending on the research question. We conclude with our views on the potential role that online experiments can play within the social sciences, and then recommend software development priorities and best practices