Th. Richter

Bio: Th. Richter is an academic researcher from University of Stuttgart. The author has contributed to research in topics: Engineering education & Software deployment. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 4 publications receiving 31 citations.

ViPLab - A Virtual Programming Laboratory for Mathematics and Engineering

Abstract: In the process of the implementation of the eBologna program of the European states and the recent change of the German university system from the Diploma to the Bachelor/Master system, studies at German universities have been redesigned, courses have been condensed and learning content has been re-structured into granular "modules", each of which requires an evaluation at the end of the semester. Simultaneously, the skills required for working as an engineer changed as well, handling of computer software, knowledge of mathematical or numerical algorithms and programming skills play an increasingly important role in the daily job routine of the working engineer. To support the learning by practical exercises, engineering faculties, mathematics and physics, and the Computing Center of the University of Stuttgart setup a project for implementing an online programming lab for teaching the required skills. The focus of this project is to provide easy access to the necessary software tools, avoid the overhead of installation and maintenance, and seamlessly integrate these tools into the eLearning infrastructure of the university. This paper describes the motivation and backgrounds, the software infrastructure and early results of this project.

The WebLabs of the University of Cambridge: A study of securing remote instrumentation

Abstract: Safe deployment of web interfaces for remote instrumentation requires that the laboratory system be protected from harmful manipulation by end users or attacks from malicious software over the internet. Industrial control systems, although highly relevant to contemporary engineering education and an essential component of many remote experiments, are typically only designed to run in a secured local area network and cannot safely be exposed to the internet because they lack a sufficiently robust security infrastructure. They also typically require the installation of proprietary software on the end user system which is an obstacle for deployment in learning scenarios at universities. Facing these challenges when bringing the Chemical Engineering WebLabs at the University of Cambridge online, the Computing Center of the University of Stuttgart and the University of Cambridge developed a framework to allow the secure deployment of industrial controller software in remote learning applications; this framework is generic, has a low-barrier for students as it only requires an internet browser and Java™ installation, and it satisfies the high security demands of most university infrastructure providers. Furthermore, the framework has the potential to be applied to almost any remote laboratory setup and is compatible with all commonly-used operating systems at the user end.

A Standardized Metadata Set for Annotation of Virtual and Remote Laboratories

Abstract: Online Laboratories and Virtual Experiments start to play an increasingly important role in the education of Engineering and Science Education. While several repositories for online and virtual experiments are available, a common method for annotating experiments to simplify their discovery is not yet available and accepted. In 2010, an international group of online lab providers formed the Global Online Lab Consortium (GOLC) to address the issues of interoperability between online laboratories and laboratory compilations, one of its activities is the establishment of an ontology and a common metadata set that addresses not only the needs of typical lab providers and lab users, but also of storage and archival institutions such as libraries. This article describes the current status of the GOLC activities in the metadata subcommittee, lists the requirements of various user groups of the metadata set and provides insight into both the underlying ontology and the metadata specifications themselves.

Fast lossless image compression with 2D Golomb parameter adaptation based on JPEG-LS

Abstract: A Fast and Lossless Image Compression (FLIC) algorithm based on the median edge predictor and Golomb coder of JPEG-LS is presented. FLIC eliminates the gradient-based context model from the JPEG-LS standard, the most expensive parts with respect to computational complexity and memory space requirements. To avoid a large context memory, Golomb parameter is selected based on the coding states and the prediction residuals of up to two immediate neighbors, one in each dimension. The FLIC algorithm has low memory footprint and dissolves the data dependencies in JPEG-LS to facilitate parallelization. Experimental results show that the FLIC algorithm achieves a throughput speedup factor of 3.7 over JPEG-LS with less than 4% compression performance penalty. Lossless compression performance results further show that FLIC outperforms other state-of-the-art standards including JPEG 2000 and JPEG XR.

Towards an Online Lab Portal for Inquiry-Based STEM Learning at School

Abstract: Nowadays, the knowledge economy is growing rapidly. To sustain future growth, more well educated people in STEM science, technology, engineering and mathematics are needed. In the Go-Lab project we aim to motivate and orient students from an early age on to study STEM fields in their future educational path by applying inquiry learning using online labs. This paper presents an inquiry learning portal where teachers can discover, use and enhance online labs appropriate for their courses and students can acquire scientific methodology skills while doing experiments using the labs. The Go-Lab portal architecture is presented, which contains a repository of online labs, inquiry learning spaces and complementary services. The paper discusses a first version of the portal and our future plans.

Plug-in Free Web-Based 3-D Interactive Laboratory for Control Engineering Education

Abstract: This paper introduces the design and implementation of a plug-in free online 3-D interactive laboratory based on networked control system laboratory (NCSLab) framework. The system relying only on HTML5 provides full supports for control engineering experimentation. The users are allowed to design their own control algorithms and apply them to the remote test rigs. Using the web-based interface, multiple widgets such as real-time charts, virtual gauges, and live images are available to customize the monitoring interfaces. To enhance the sense of immersion, 3-D animations which are synchronized with the remote experimental processes are also provided. The users can watch and interact with the remote experiments through the 3-D replicas. Various HTML5 based toolkits are integrated seamlessly under the NCSLab framework. NCSLab provides visualized services for the whole process of control experimentation including remote monitoring, tuning, configuration, and control algorithm implementation. As the network delay could disturb the 3-D representation, a communication scheme using web protocols is also implemented. The feedback from teaching shows the general acceptance and effectiveness of NCSLab is notably high. As most existing online laboratories adopt either native applications or plug-ins, the methodologies and technologies used in NCSLab could be insightful for other online laboratories toward web-based cross-platform systems.

A DC Motor Position Control System in a 3D Real-Time Virtual Laboratory Environment Based on NCSLab 3D

Abstract: Virtual laboratories and remote laboratories have been a great complement of traditional laboratories in the last few decades. Virtual laboratories, which use computer technology to perform experiments utilizing virtual instrumentation instead of physical devices, are warmly welcomed for its low-cost advantage, 24/7 operation, remotely accessibility and sharing features. In this paper, a DC motor control system which can be used to carry out the experiments of position control in real time based on NCSLab framework is presented. After describing the process of 3D modelling, rendering in Flash 3D engine and control algorithms that are generated using Matlab Real-Time Workshop, a position control experiment is conducted and the experimental results are demonstrated as an example. For most virtual control laboratories, users are only allowed to design the algorithms and then monitor the control results. However, wiring process which is also an important part of practical control experiments cannot be emulated. To address this problem, a new experiment modelling method which allows the users to do the wiring in the 3D real-time virtual laboratory is proposed in this paper. It could make users feel more sense of reality and immersion when performing the virtual experiments.

Current Trends of Teaching Computer Programming in Undergraduate CS Programs: A Survey from Ecuadorian Universities

Abstract: Computer programming has become a relevant element of the modern era Practically it is involved in all sectors of modern society Currently, many universities around the globe offer bachelor’s degree programs that contain computer programming related courses In order to gain insight into how computer programming is taught in Ecuadorian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), we have conducted the first national survey on teaching computer programming in undergraduate CS programs In this survey participated 53 respondents from 13 Ecuadorian HEIs We report on programming paradigms, programming languages, integrated development environments and teaching strategies used in the programming learning process We found that the object-oriented paradigm along with the Java programming language are the most often used The NetBeans integrated development environment is the most commonly used among the respondents Concerning teaching strategies, e-learning platforms are commonly used as part of computer programming courses More than half of the respondents use collaborative strategies such as pair programming in their courses Finally, a half of the respondents use traditional computer labs for teaching programming; however, other approaches such as mobile devices, games and simulations, Arduino kits and robots start to be used as a teaching strategy Our findings can serve as a starting point for addressing reforms in computer programming courses taught in Ecuadorian CS undergraduate programs