A new approach to interactive tutorial software for engineeringeducation

The experimental tutorial software described in this paper is designed specifically for engineering education at the university level, and it is significantly different in purpose and structure from other educational software. Its goal is to help students understand, visualize, and connect basic concepts. It is not a design tool or a wealth of hyperlinked text or an infinite source of drill problems. It is intended to be a dynamic and flexible resource for instructors as well as students and to be used by groups as well as individuals. It takes advantage of currently available high-resolution graphics capability to go beyond what can reasonably be expected of textbooks or computer systems with small low-resolution displays. Since the software is written as an X Windows Motif application, it achieves a wide degree of platform independence for workstations and PCs. In addition, the tutorial set can be distributed without license fees or additional software acquisition costs for the user     

A case study in the development of multi-media educationalmaterial: the VHDL interactive tutorial

While industry and academia have been aware of the need for an intensive study of embedded digital system design, resource constraints, fuzzy objectives, and short-time horizon have handicapped progress. The $150M Rapid Prototyping of Application Specific Signal Processors (RASSP) program is a major DARPA/Tri-Service effort designed to overcome these limitations. This effort has developed a number of new technologies that will lead to dramatically shorter prototyping times and reduced life cycle costs. In a effort to ensure the successful transfer of these new technologies, the RASSP Education and Facilitation (RASSP E&F) program is working to transfer this technology into graduate and undergraduate curricula by developing and transferring educational material. Only by successfully inserting these rapid-prototyping technologies into the curricula and research activities of the university community will the long term benefits of these technologies be realized. To achieve this technology transfer objective, the RASSP E&F program has developed educational material on the key elements of rapid-prototyping of embedded digital systems technology. The result of this effort is a set of educational “modules” covering selected topics. In conjunction with IEEE, several of the modules developed by the RASSP E&F program designed to teach students the VHDL language were converted to HTML and linked with the VHDL language reference manual to form a self-paced VHDL interactive tutorial. A demonstration version of this learning tool, currently published by IEEE, is presented     

PXI Express specification tutorial

IntroductionThe PXI industry standard has quickly gained adoption and grown in prevalence in automated test systems since its release in 1998. PXI is being selected as the platform of choice for thousands of applications, from areas such as military and aerospace, consumer electronics, and communications, to process control and industrial automation. One of the key elements driving the rapid adoption of PXI is its use of PCI in the communication backplane. Now, as the commercial PC industry drastically improves the available bus bandwidth by evolving PCI to PCI Express, PXI has the ability to meet even more application needs by integrating PCI Express into the PXI standard.     

Building intelligent tutorial systems for teaching simulation inengineering education

A framework for building intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) to teach students the use of various simulation systems used in engineering education is described. Case studies to two widely used simulators in electronics education (LASAR, a digital logic simulator, and SPICE, an integrated circuit simulator) provide the basis of pedagogical methodology for teaching the use of simulators. This methodology is used to develop a tutorial environment which includes: an authoring system that enables an instructor to develop and tailor the course contents; and a course presentation system that communicates this information via a direct manipulation interface to the user. The student perceives the tutorial as a hypertext network which can be freely explored; however, the tutoring system monitors and dynamically reconfigures the accessible information according to the level and attainment of expertise by the student. The environment includes components to monitor and evaluate the performance of the student. This tutorial framework is used to create intelligent tutorial systems for SPICE and LASAR     

Assessing the utility of an interactive electronic book for learning the Pascal programming language

Hypermedia is a broadly accepted technique to develop educational systems since its hypertext structure reflects a model of learning based on the students' semantic memory model and the use of multimedia provides interactive mechanisms that allow managing, manipulating and organizing the lessons. A hypermedia electronic book called CIPP (Curse Interactive de Programacion en Pascal) is introduced to help students learn the Pascal programming language and the empirical evaluation that was carried out to assess the book utility as an educational tool. One of the most encouraging results from this experience was that, at the end of the course, not only did most students agree with the didactic method which integrated lectures with the use of the electronic book, but also they felt motivated to continue learning Pascal by themselves.     

Interactive online tutorial assistance for a first programming course

Web-based instruction shows great promise toward enriching the student learning experience. One particular area of interest is providing tutorial material and practice problems online so that classroom lecture time can be better utilized. However, the time and cost to develop full tutoring systems can be prohibitive. The project presented in this paper shows that low-cost online modules can be developed to complement existing course delivery methods. The key to the design is limiting the type of tutoring and focusing on instructional challenges involving the repetition of concepts that are introduced in the course lectures. For introductory programming courses, these challenges primarily involve the difficulties inherent in learning the syntax of a particular programming language and gaining sufficient familiarity with programming concepts, such as loops, conditional statements, and simple algorithms. The set of online modules was developed to reduce the need for repetition of these concepts during lectures. Thus, students benefit as they can gain knowledge and comprehension of these concepts at their own pace as they actively engage the tutorials and self-check exercises. The modules were used as an enhancement for an introductory programming course taught in C++ to first-year university students, some of whom had little or no programming experience. Feedback from students and instructors shows that the modules were useful and aided student learning.     

A fast solution method for multiobjective optimal power flow using an interactive approach

In modern industrialized societies, it is mandatory to provide an uninterrupted supply of high-quality electric energy at modest cost while promoting a better environment. This can only be realized through very sophisticated power system operations that compromise several contradictory factors, namely, economy, security and environment. Since these factors are in trade-off relationships to each other, they should be analyzed appropriately. One class of problems that simultaneously satisfy several criteria in trade-off relationships is called “multiobjective optimization problems.” Optimal power flow (OPF) has been regarded as the most powerful means to obtain effective system operation plans since it only optimizes a single objective function. This paper proposes an efficient solution methodology for a class of multiobjective optimal power flow problems which makes use of a heuristic search method. An optimal solution can be found in the proposed heuristic search method based on local information about a preference index, which is chosen arbitrarily from a given set of objectives. This circumvents the exhaustive evaluation of all noninferior solutions needed in the existing multiobjective OPF algorithm proposed by the authors, thus dramatically reducing the solution time. The proposed method has been coded and applied to the IEEE 57 node test system. Simulation results have demonstrated the possibility of utilizing this method in on-line environments.     

A tutorial description of an interior point method and itsapplications to security-constrained economic dispatch

The authors deal with the use of successive linear programming (SLP) for the solution of the security-constrained economic dispatch (SCED) problem. They tutorially describe an interior point method (IPM) for the solution of linear programming (LP) problems, discussing important implementation issues that really make this method far superior to the simplex method. A study of the convergence of the SLP technique and a practical criterion to avoid oscillatory behavior in the iteration process are also proposed. A comparison of the proposed method with an efficient simplex code (MINOS) is carried out by solving SCED problems on two standard IEEE systems. The results show that the interior point technique is reliable, accurate, and more than two times as fast as the simplex algorithm     

Biosensors: a tutorial review

This paper discusses various biosensors in detail, where the biosensor consists of bioelement and a sensor element. The bioelement may be an enzyme, antibody, living cells etc., and the sensing element may be electric current, electric potential, and so on. This survey initially introduces the basic concept of the biosensors. High-level overviews of different types of biosensors are given and the working principles, constructions, advantages and applications of many biosensors are also presented. In addition to these MEMS have given rise to a whole new class of biosensors which involve the transduction of mechanical energy and are based on mechanical phenomena.     

COMPNET: an interactive computer networks analysis and designpackage

COMPNET is an educational software package being used as a teaching tool to study, analyze, and design computer networks. This package is an interactive, user-friendly, entirely menu-driven, and graphics-oriented software tool, implemented for the Apple's MacPlus and Digital's VAX 11/780. The authors describe the applications of this package, and cover topics in graph theory, centralized network design, and queuing systems. The software work has been successfully implemented and classroom-tested by the authors at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Several computer exercises using COMPNET are suggested to accompany classroom lectures and traditional problem assignments     

ACES: an interactive software platform for self-instruction and self-evaluation in automatic control systems

This paper presents an interactive-, menu-driven prototype software platform, namely automatic control educational software (ACES), for self-instruction and self-evaluation in automatic control systems. ACES is used for enriching instruction in automatic control at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The ACES platform includes theory with hyperlinks, a concept-graph, and a database with exercises. Students' answers to exercises are evaluated automatically "on-line." Furthermore, exercises can be proposed automatically by ACES. An instructor/supervisor can support in person the learning effort of a student, monitor the progress of a student, and, also, tailor a course's contents on the modular ACES platform. Two statistical hypothesis tests on both attitude questionnaires and student marks in the final (written) exam confirmed that the employment of ACES in the educational process can improve the performance of students in an automatic control course although the attitude of students toward the course does not change significantly with the use of ACES.     

Sinusoidal current‐tracking control for utility interactive inverter with an LCL filter

A voltage source inverter with an LCL filter is often used for a utility interface to control its output current to a grid side because of its harmonic reduction advantages. The integral compensator is often used to reduce the steady‐state errors. However, there is always a control delay due to sinusoidal variations. This paper proposes a digital sinusoidal compensator which is based on the internal model principle to realize a fast sinusoidal response with no delay. It is based on the internal model principle to realize a response with no deviation for a periodic sinusoidal reference input. It has a simple numerator and a denominator z² ? 2z cosωT + 1 of a transfer function which is equal to the z function of a sinusoidal waveform of the angular frequency ω and the sample time T. Compensator and feedback gains of the inverter are determined by the deadbeat or the optimal control principle. The proposed method is investigated for performances and it is validated through simulation and experimental results by a DSP control system. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 183(2): 22–28, 2013; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.22339     

政企互动服务客户需求的实践

围绕新形势下供电企业如何处理与政府之间的关系,介绍了江苏常州供电公司基于搭建"政企工作互动平台",建立健全供电公司与政府之间常态化沟通机制,构建了与各利益相关方全方位、多层次对接平台,通过真诚服务、深度合作,实现了发展公司与服务社会相融共进。     

Application independent interactive environment for power systemseducation

The authors present an interactive software package for the simulation of power system stability studies. The package is intended as a supplementary tool for the teaching of power system stability courses at the graduate level. The development of the package was done exclusively for IBM-PC and compatible computers. The hardware mainly requires VGA display and 640 kbyte of memory. Professional libraries used for the development of the package include Meta Windows, graphics Menu, and Object Professional. The authors describe the methods used for the integration of various analysis programs and the organization of the data and information pertinent to a system study     

Back-to-Basics tutorial: X-ray diffraction of thin films

Electrocaloric (EC) refrigeration, is accepted as an auspicious method to develop eco-friendly cooling devices. Here, the investigations on the EC response and energy storage performance of heterovalent-doped Ba(Sn, Ti)O₃ relaxor ferroelectrics are carried out. Doping of aliovalent Mn or Nb elements into Ti site would regulate both the EC and energy storage behaviors. An enhanced EC temperature change up to 1.31 K, and a maximal recoverable energy storage density of 0.24 J cm^??3 with the efficiency as high as 87.11?%, can be observed under 70 kV cm^??1 in 0.5?% acceptor-doped Ba(Sn, Ti)O₃ ceramics. It is found that the local internal stress, the local charge fluctuation, and the oxygen deficiencies would benefit the electrical behaviors of this system. These results would shed light on the effect of the heterovalent substitution on the electrical properties of lead-free BaTiO₃ system and provide a novel and simple route to further improve the EC response and energy storage performance.

     

Development of an efficient utility interactive combined wind/photovoltaic/fuel cell power system with MPPT and DC bus voltage regulation

In this paper, development and simulation of an efficient small-scale centralized dc-bus grid connected hybrid wind/photovoltaic/fuel cell for supplying power to a low voltage distribution system are presented. The hybrid system consists of wind and photovoltaic as a primary power system. A fuel cell is added as a secondary system to ensure continuous power supply and to take care of the intermittent nature of wind and photovoltaic. The objective of this study is to design and control a hybrid system that guarantees the energy continuity. A simple control method is applied to the proposed configuration to simultaneously achieve three desired goals: to extract maximum power from each hybrid power system component; to guarantee dc bus voltage regulation at the input of the inverter; and to transfer the total produced power to the grid at unity power factor, while fulfilling all necessary interconnection requirements. The power fluctuation of the proposed hybrid system has been reduced as compared to that of each individual system and it has been completely suppressed using the FC system. The simulation results indicate that the dc-dc converters are very effective in tracking the maximum power of the wind and photovoltaic sources, the fuel cell controller responds efficiently to the deficit power demands. With both wind and photovoltaic systems operating at their rated capacity, the system can generate power as high as 2 kW and the fuel cell does not need to be utilized in such cases.     

A study of an interactive fuzzy multi‐objective optimal power flow

As the necessity of high‐quality electric power supply increases, it has been required to develop sophisticated power system operations in which several requirements stemming from economy, security, and environmental aspects are simultaneously satisfied. In general, a problem of satisfying several noncommensurable criteria is called a multiobjective optimization problem. Although the most powerful means to obtain desirable system operations is optimal power flow (OPF), a straightforward application of the conventional OPF optimizes only one objective and the remaining objectives must be treated as constraints. However, since such objectives are in trade‐off relationships with each other, it is necessary to develop an efficient multiobjective OPF. In this paper, we propose a solution method of multiobjective OPF by means of fuzzy coordination. In the first step, the degree of Decision Maker (DM) satisfaction on each objective would be maximized with a prespecified membership function. The membership function would be updated in accordance with the DM's preference information and target value of the objective function. The degree of satisfaction will be improved step by step by updating the membership functions. Finally, the satisficing solution for the DM would be obtained. The proposed method has been applied to the IEEE 57 and 118 test systems, producing successful results. © 1999 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 130(1): 59–67, 2000     

A novel approach for interactive protection system simulation

This paper presents a new approach for interactive power network protection system simulation. In the new approach, power system transients are simulated using an Electromagnetic Transients Program (EMTP), while protective relays can be modeled using any high-level language or commercially available software package, such as MATLAB. The interactions between power systems and relays are implemented by using an “interaction buffer”. Using this technique, the EMTP can be run in single-step, multiple-step or mixed mode. This new approach makes the protection system simulation quite efficient, flexible and accurate     

A web-based remote interactive laboratory for Internetworking education

A Web-based remote interactive laboratory (RIL) developed to deliver Internetworking laboratory experience to geographically remote graduate students is presented in this paper. The onsite Internetworking program employs hands-on laboratories in a group setting that correlates with the constructivist and collaborative pedagogical approach. This paper discusses the pedagogical and technical considerations that influence the design and implementation of the remote laboratory environment given the constraints of the special hardware and learning outcomes of the program. For wide-ranging usability, the remote Internetworking (INWK) laboratory uses de facto networking standards and commercial and broad-band Internet connectivity to ensure real-time secure interaction with equipment. A four-tier role architecture consisting of faculty, local facilitators, remote facilitators, and students has been determined appropriate to maintain academic integrity and ensure good quality of interaction with the remote laboratory. A survey employing a five-point scale has been devised to measure the usability of the remote access INWK laboratory.