Why visir? Proliferative activities and collaborative work of visir system

Online laboratories have been increasingly deployed in several universities and institutions around the world. Besides helping to leverage a number of educational developments, they enable teachers and researchers to share their knowledge across institutional boundaries. It has been observed that online laboratories have a positive effect on students' skills acquisition because they promote collaborative work and allow students to perform physical experiments remotely usually 24/7. Today, one can find a wide range of online laboratories in the literature that are supporting many subjects in different engineering and sciences fields, especially in electric and electronic engineering. One such system is VISIR (Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality). VISIR plays an important role in electrical and electronic engineering education by allowing both teachers and students to conduct real experiments with electric and electronic circuits, via the Internet. It also complements hands-on laboratories by serving thousands of students globally, as a result of being spread by several universities and institutes worldwide. Presently, VISIR is installed in eight higher education institutions), in six different countries (Austria, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, India, and Georgia), and is the first remote lab in the world supporting a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). In addition, a number of experiments in VISIR can be freely accessed, using the guest user mode, depending on the institutions available resources. In this study, we have used the data collection method focused on all scholarly papers that are related to the VISIR system, which allowed collecting references from many resources such as conference proceedings, book chapters, and journals. The objective of the paper is to illustrate the researches activities, developments, and studies that contributed to making of VISIR the best remote controlled laboratory in the world, according to the GOLC (Global Online Laboratory Consortium). Our research included the following dimensions: a) courses and subjects that include experiments done in VISIR, from different universities and institutes; b) the number of scholarly papers and authors related to VISIR, with a reference to the publishing sources; c) the different technologies used to deliver the laboratory experiments; d) the total number (and its evolution) of users who have accessed the several VISIR nodes; e) finally, the collaborative work resulting from the use and share of the VISIR system. To conclude, the paper discusses the impact of VISIR in the role of the laboratory in undergraduate engineering education, in particular in electrical and electronic engineering, and its contribution to the collaborative work observed among the academic staff, researchers and students who used it.N/

Chapter 1

Experimenting is fundamental to the training process of all scientists and engineers. While experiments have been traditionally done inside laboratories, the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies added two alter-natives accessible anytime, anywhere. These two alternatives are known as virtual and remote labs, and are sometimes indistinguishably referred as online labs. Sim-ilarly to other instructional technologies, virtual and remote labs require some ef-fort from teachers in integrating them into curricula, taking into consideration sev-eral factors that affect their adoption (i.e. cost) and their educational effectiveness (i.e. benefit). This chapter analyses these two dimensions and sustains the case where only through international cooperation it is possible to serve the large num-ber of teachers and students involved in engineering education. It presents an ex-ample in the area of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, based on a remote lab named Virtual Instruments System in Reality, and it then describes how a number of European and Latin-American institutions have been cooperating under the scope of an Erasmus+ project2, for spreading its use in Brazil and Argentina.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Contribuciones a la integración de instrumentación electrónica y sistemas embebidos en entornos Web

Falta palabras claveEn la actualidad, la instrumentación electrónica afronta constantes cambios, convirtiéndose en una herramienta indispensable para ingenieros, científicos y técnicos que requieren de sistemas electrónicos de medida y estimulación de gran exactitud y precisión. Por un lado, el continuo avance de la microelectrónica, las prestaciones de los paquetes informáticos y el desarrollo de nuevas tecnologías en el diseño de sistemas de medida y estimulación para el control de procesos, verificación de productos, explotación de servicios, análisis de calidad, etc., han permitido el desarrollo de potentes sistemas automatizados de medida (ATE, Automated Test Equipment); mientras que por otro lado, es cada vez más común la utilización de computadoras personales (PC, Personal Computer) como principal recurso en diversas áreas de aplicación, tales como laboratorios, entornos industriales y sistemas de instrumentación, entre otros. Dentro de este contexto, el desarrollo de sistemas de instrumentación remota es una multidisciplina de creciente interés gracias al gran avance que estamos viviendo en el acceso a la información de nuestra sociedad. El estudio del estado del arte y la técnica de estas tecnologías arrojará que, desde antaño, empresas, organizaciones educativas y entidades de investigación han mostrado un enorme interés por la instrumentación remota; dando solución a numerosos problemas que, sin este tipo de desarrollos difícilmente serían alcanzables. Distintas empresas de instrumentación del sector se han hecho eco, desde sus albores, de esta necesidad, desarrollando potentes paquetes software que, como veremos a lo largo del presente trabajo de tesis, ofrecen la oportunidad de crear potentes arquitecturas de instrumentación remota que se aproximan, constantemente, a dar solución a los problemas de la sociedad (empresa, educación e investigación, fundamentalmente). No obstante, gracias al ingente desarrollo de nuevos modelos de programación, la aparición de sistemas multiplataforma, potentes entornos gratuitos de desarrollo y tecnologías orientadas a servicios Web; se plantea la posibilidad de acometer complejas soluciones de instrumentación basándonos en las mismas; aspecto que será desarrollado a lo largo del presente documento, respondiendo afirmativamente a la anterior cuestión. Por último, resulta fundamental poder establecer parámetros no absolutos que permitan medir las bondades de los sistemas de instrumentación, más allá de la percepción del desarrollador, en este sentido, la percepción subjetiva del usuario final tiene gran valor, al mismo tiempo que la medición de parámetros objetivos que nos permitan establecer criterios de mejora en este tipos de plataformas. Todos y cada uno de estos aspectos son los que el presente trabajo de tesis desarrolla a lo largo del documento

1992 NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program

For the 28th consecutive year, a NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program was conducted at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The program was conducted by the University of Alabama and MSFC during the period June 1, 1992 through August 7, 1992. Operated under the auspices of the American Society for Engineering Education, the MSFC program, was well as those at other centers, was sponsored by the Office of Educational Affairs, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. The basic objectives of the programs, which are the 29th year of operation nationally, are (1) to further the professional knowledge of qualified engineering and science faculty members; (2) to stimulate and exchange ideas between participants and NASA; (3) to enrich and refresh the research and teaching activities of the participants' institutions; and (4) to contribute to the research objectives of the NASA centers

Systems of State-Owned Enterprises: from Public Entrepreneurship to State Shareholding

This thesis outlines a new analytical perspective on state ownership through the original concept of systems of state-owned enterprises (SOSOEs). It is argued that the SOSOEs concept adequately captures the evolution of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in modern capitalist economies, challenging and enriching existing economic theories as well as contributing to reinstate the policy instrumentality of state ownership. The concept is defined from a comparative case study analysis of two distinct SOSOEs, operating within the same national context in different time periods. The first case concerns the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), Italy’s former and most relevant state holding company, that played a central role in the Country’s post-WWII economic development. This thesis advances an interpretation of IRI’s economic function based on an original empirical investigation of its archival and documentary sources, focusing on its main public policy missions and on its display of industrial entrepreneurship features. The second case examines the current Italian system of SOEs, assessing the still relevant presence of SOEs in the Italian national context and evaluating the overall governance of the system through a set of interviews with leading executives. Despite the similarity in size and sectoral diversification, the two SOSOEs differ significantly in terms of their operating configurations. In fact, they could be assimilated to two dichotomous ideal types: the IRI SOSOEs represents a template for the policy-oriented and dynamic ‘public entrepreneurship’ model, while the current Italian SOSOEs resembles the policy-neutral and passive ‘state shareholding’ variant. Implicit in these results is the opportunity for current SOSOEs to embrace a public entrepreneurship configuration, in order to exploit the full policy potential of state ownership in driving economic change. The thesis concludes with a proposal for reforming Italy’s current SOSOEs via the creation of a state holding company

Managing the development of valuable intellectual capital : the role of management control

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Endogenous development: a model for the process of man-environment transaction

Iran is currently subject to a number of adverse factors affecting good development in the built environment: population explosion, oil- dependent economy, finite resources, war and natural disasters, etc. The object of the study is to research a development model appropriate to the Country's needs for a proactive system of building environment. This model is not specific to Iran and, as the case studies and the discourse of the thesis indicate, is universal. However, the author suggests that the validity of development approaches will not be determined as a result of theoretical and ideological debate but in the realm of practice. Therefore, he has explored diverse ways in which professionals in the built environment can provide an analytical survey of the problems that beset them. An attempt has been made to bring these various elements into perspective and offer a model of 'endogenous development'.The process for achieving a viable, exciting and humane built environment is very complex and calls for contributions from many individuals and small multi -disciplinary groups. Beside professionals contributions (which is accomplished by deduction inference), there is a need for people's participation in design process (which is accomplished either by deduction or by abduction inferences). This participatory approach can also help shifting the process of design towards a wider domain that of the 'production process' (which is accomplished by abduction and induction inferences). Production process is the first paradigm of the model of endogenous development and is a manifestation of a feedback mechanism and acts as an open - ended living system. The second is 'supply- demand' paradigm which shows the relationships between the components of a system or between different systems in surface- structuresThis model is directed at society's development, not just its economic growth, but it does not preclude the possibility of such growth. The reduction of the problems' effect in an endogenous development is viewed more as a way of improving the quality of life than of increasing the standard of living. Nowadays, people are passive recipients in the consumer society and are totally dependent on others for their survival. This style of living is assumed to project an image of economic development and higher productivity, but there is a confrontation of preadjusted commodities which are the products of others. That is because the process of production is not natural (i.e. a closed loop cyclic process via feedback control). It is artificial (i.e. an open -loop linear process via a feed -forward control) which may not help satisfying the user's needs and wants entirely. In the built environment, the great majority have no say in the planning and design of their homes or places of work.Accordingly, endogenous development offers a framework within which the necessity of employing the people's creative power in building their environment is explained. It is based on the assumption that each individual and society's knowledge and experiences play a central and mediating role between professionals' perceptions of the environment and a series of preferences judgements or choices they might make towards and within that environment. Indigenous knowledge and cultural attributes of traditional societies and the organizational capabilities of traditional polities are essential in qualification of the development plans, which are also evaluated and assessed by this proposed framework