Extending access to remote labs from mobile devices in educational contexts

This paper describes how to extend the access to remote experiments from mobile devices, aiming to better engage digital native students who expect a more interactive and ubiquitous access mode. The extension is based on features of HTML5 and the jQuery Mobile framework, which allow accessing the experiments from different operating systems via the browser or native applications. As a result, users have a richer interaction mode with the experiments, which includes access from simple hand-held devices such as smartphones and PDAs. Extending the access to remote experiments, from simple devices, enables its use in other educational stages, such as high schools, where teachers struggle to engage students in STEM learning. By enabling students to use their everyday "technological companions", e.g. cellular phones, to access remote experiments, we seek to increase the educational value of this technology-enhanced learning resource.

Topics regarding access to european information institutions: European Union so close and yet so far

From the 1990s, the Parliament, the Council and the European Commission adopted a new approach to disclosure of their working papers. Legal instruments to regulate and allow a fairly broad access to internal working documents of these institutions were created. European institutions also exploited the potential of Information and Communication Technologies, developing new instruments to register the documents produced and make them accessible to the public. The commitment to transparency sought to shows a more credible European government, and reduces the democratic deficit. However, the data analysis regarding access to EU institutions documents shows that general public is still far from direct contact with European bodies.

European institutions at your fingertips: EUROPA gateway tools for dissemination and access to information

This paper intends to present the legal background that support dissemination and access to documents from European institutions, namely the Parliament, the Council and the European Commission. Currently, this legal framework is accomplished with a set of Internet tools that are analyzed regarding official documents types and options searches available. Some statistical data on access to European information published in annual reports from the institutions are also evaluated. The relationship between shadow and light in transparency to access administrative documents and marketing issues of a political communication are underlined. Neo-institutional approach, reputational concept in public organizations and systemic perspective are used as theoretical background.

A Communication and Resources Management Scheme to Support the Smart Grid Integration of Multiplayers Access to Resources Information

The increasing and intensive integration of distributed energy resources into distribution systems requires adequate methodologies to ensure a secure operation according to the smart grid paradigm. In this context, SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems are an essential infrastructure. This paper presents a conceptual design of a communication and resources management scheme based on an intelligent SCADA with a decentralized, flexible, and intelligent approach, adaptive to the context (context awareness). The methodology is used to support the energy resource management considering all the involved costs, power flows, and electricity prices leading to the network reconfiguration. The methodology also addresses the definition of the information access permissions of each player to each resource. The paper includes a 33-bus network used in a case study that considers an intensive use of distributed energy resources in five distinct implemented operation contexts.

An embedded 1149.4 extension to support mixed-signal debugging

Debugging electronic circuits is traditionally done with bench equipment directly connected to the circuit under debug. In the digital domain, the difficulties associated with the direct physical access to circuit nodes led to the inclusion of resources providing support to that activity, first at the printed circuit level, and then at the integrated circuit level. The experience acquired with those solutions led to the emergence of dedicated infrastructures for debugging cores at the system-on-chip level. However, all these developments had a small impact in the analog and mixed-signal domain, where debugging still depends, to a large extent, on direct physical access to circuit nodes. As a consequence, when analog and mixed-signal circuits are integrated as cores inside a system-on-chip, the difficulties associated with debugging increase, which cause the time-to-market and the prototype verification costs to also increase. The present work considers the IEEE1149.4 infrastructure as a means to support the debugging of mixed-signal circuits, namely to access the circuit nodes and also an embedded debug mechanism named mixed-signal condition detector, necessary for watch-/breakpoints and real-time analysis operations. One of the main advantages associated with the proposed solution is the seamless migration to the system-on-chip level, as the access is done through electronic means, thus easing debugging operations at different hierarchical levels.