Building Reusable Remote Labs with Adaptable Client User-Interfaces

Nowadays remote laboratories suffer the absence of reusability.In addition,their construction and maintenance require time,money and skills.The system implementation of a specific remote lab is neither generic nor reusable.In this paper,a solution for a reusable remote lab dedicated for disparate types of scientific and engineering experiments is presented. The experiment designer needs only to connect the experiment components and equipment such as capacitors,resistors, transistors,function generators with a switch system of a lab server,then,she/he has to map this connection structure in a configuration data structure.Once a student starts the Web-based client user-interface and logs-in into the lab server, the menu structure of the graphical user-interface builds and initializes itself automatically,using information stored in a configuration data structure.This contribution discusses some hitherto used lab servers,some of their drawbacks,the desirable requirements on a universal remote lab,which simplify the building process of newer lab experiments consisting of experiment components and equipment as well as a client user-interface that could enable students to remotely access the experiment.

Migrating a Desktop Simulator of a Chemical Process to the Cloud

This paper shows how a desktop simulation can be migrated into its cloud equivalence using Windows Azure. It is undeniable that simulators are expensive and cost-intensive regarding maintenance and upgrading, and thus, it is not always feasible to buy such a simulator. Therefore, it will be of great significance if we have an approach, which provides simulators with services through the Internet with the aim of making them accessible from anywhere and at any time. That is, researchers and developers can focus on their actual researches and experiments and the intended output results. The cloud simulation infrastructure of this contribution is capable of hosting different simulations with the ability to be cloned as cloud services. The simulator example used here mimics the process of a distillation column to be seen as a widely used plant in several industrial applications. The cloud simulation core embedded in the cloud environment is fully independent from the developed user-interface of the simulator meaning that the cloud simulator can be connected to any user-interface. This allows simulation users such as process control and alarm management designers to connect to the cloud simulator in order to design, develop and experiment their systems on a “pay-as-you-go” basis as it is the case of most cloud computing services, aimed at providing computing services as utilities like water and electricity. For coding convenience, Windows Azure was selected for both developing the cloud simulation and hosting it in the cloud because of the fact that the source code of the desktop simulator is already available in C# based on dot Net technology. From a software technical point of view, UML graphical notations were applied in order to express the software requirement specifications of the distributed cloud simulation, representing a widespread technology in the object-oriented design and analysis.

Multimedia Internet-Based Platform Project for Saudi Students’ English Language Learning

This paper sets out to shed light on the hierarchical stages of producing technology-enhanced learning software designed to promote English language learning of Saudi students at Madinah College of Technology, Saudi Arabia. The aim of the software was to meet the learners’ language needs, which defined the learning objective. The paper highlights how suitable language learning theories were implemented by coordinating the interface design theories and principles under-pinning the production process. Toward the end of the paper, an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the software is investigated. Finally, the prospects of the software’s future work are presented.