Alexander A. Kist

University of Southern Queensland  · Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences

Laboratory and practical learning activities play an essential role in delivering Engineering and Science Education. While these activities have traditionally been delivered face-to-face, technology allows moving lab-based learning activities online. In this context, pedagogical considerations must also be part of the implementation. This chapter o...

Smart buildings have grown in numbers and capabilities worldwide. Smart buildings rely on the sensor networks and Internet of Things (IoT), which allows the development and optimization performance through various methods, including efficient energy management solutions and predictive technologies for future decisions. Smart buildings generate data...

Für den Abschluss des vorliegenden Sammelbandes „Labore in der Hochschullehre“wurden sieben einschlägige internationale Expert*innen zu ihren Erfahrungen undVisionen in Bezug auf die Zukunft des Lehrens und Lernens im Labor befragt. Indiesem Beitrag kommen sie und ihre persönliche Perspektive weitgehend ungefiltertzu Wort. Daher stellen ihre konkre...

The emergence of video applications and video capable devices have contributed substantially to the increase of video traffic on Internet. New mechanisms recommending video rate adaptation towards delivering enhanced Quality of Experience (QoE) at the same time making room for more sessions. This paper introduces a cross-layer QoE-aware architectur...

Using instantaneous aggregate arrival rate as an admission control parameter will contribute to either bandwidth under-utilization or over-utilization. Being bursty in nature and variable in rate, video flows might encode any rate between a range of minimum and maximum values. At the time the decision is made, if the measured rate is at the minimum...

The emergence of video applications and video capable devices have contributed substantially to the increase of video traffic on Internet. New mechanisms recommending video rate adaptation towards delivering enhanced Quality of Experience (QoE) at the same time making room for more sessions. This paper introduces a cross-layer QoE-aware architectur...

Using instantaneous aggregate arrival rate as an admission control parameter will contribute to either bandwidth under-utilization or over-utilization. Being bursty in nature and variable in rate, video flows might encode any rate between a range of minimum and maximum values. At the time the decision is made, if the measured rate is at the minimum...

div>The rapid shift toward video on-demand and real time information systems has affected mobile as well as wired networks. The research community has placed a strong focus on optimizing the Quality of Experience (QoE) of video traffic, mainly because video is popular among Internet users. Techniques have been proposed in different directions towar...

div>The rapid shift toward video on-demand and real time information systems has affected mobile as well as wired networks. The research community has placed a strong focus on optimizing the Quality of Experience (QoE) of video traffic, mainly because video is popular among Internet users. Techniques have been proposed in different directions towar...

Using instantaneous aggregate arrival rate as an admission control parameter will contribute to either bandwidth under-utilization or over-utilization. Being bursty in nature and variable in rate, video flows might encode any rate between a range of minimum and maximum values. At the time the decision is made, if the measured rate is at the minimum...

The emergence of video applications and video capable devices have contributed substantially to the increase of video traffic on Internet. New mechanisms recommending video rate adaptation towards delivering enhanced Quality of Experience (QoE) at the same time making room for more sessions. This paper introduces a cross-layer QoE-aware architectur...

The popularity of the video services on the Internet has evolved various mechanisms that target the Quality of Experience (QoE) optimization of video traffic. The video quality has been enhanced through adapting the sending bitrates. However, rate adaptation alone is not sufficient for maintaining a good video QoE when congestion occurs. This paper...

Transmission of video traffic over the Internet has grown exponentially in the past few years with no sign of waning. This increasing demand for video services has changed user expectation of quality. Various mechanisms have been proposed to optimise the Quality of Experience (QoE) of end users’ video. Studying these approaches are necessary for ne...

Transmission of video traffic over the Internet has grown exponentially in the past few years with no sign of waning. This increasing demand for video services has changed user expectation of quality. Various mechanisms have been proposed to optimise the Quality of Experience (QoE) of end users’ video. Studying these approaches are necessary for ne...

The popularity of the video services on the Internet has evolved various mechanisms that target the Quality of Experience (QoE) optimization of video traffic. The video quality has been enhanced through adapting the sending bitrates. However, rate adaptation alone is not sufficient for maintaining a good video QoE when congestion occurs. This paper...

Low power wide area (LPWA) technologies are strongly recommended as the underlying networks for Internet of things (IoT) applications. They offer attractive features, including wide-range coverage, long battery life and low data rates. This paper reviews the current trends in this technology, with an emphasis on the services it provides and the cha...

div>Low-power wide area (LPWA) technologies are strongly recommended as the underlying networks for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. They offer attractive features, including wide-range coverage, long battery life, and low data rates. This paper reviews the current trends in this technology, with an emphasis on the services it provides and...

div>Low-power wide area (LPWA) technologies are strongly recommended as the underlying networks for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. They offer attractive features, including wide-range coverage, long battery life, and low data rates. This paper reviews the current trends in this technology, with an emphasis on the services it provides and...

With the inevitable dominance of video traffic on the Internet, providing perceptually good video quality is becoming a challenging task. This is partly due to the bursty nature of video traffic, changing network conditions and limitations of network transport protocols. This growth of video traffic has made Quality of Experience (QoE) of the end u...

With the inevitable dominance of video traffic on the Internet, providing perceptually good video quality is becoming a challenging task. This is partly due to the bursty nature of video traffic, changing network conditions and limitations of network transport protocols. This growth of video traffic has made Quality of Experience (QoE) of the end u...

With the inevitable dominance of video traffic on the Internet, providing perceptually good video quality is becoming a challenging task. This is partly due to the bursty nature of video traffic, changing network conditions and limitations of network transport protocols. This growth of video traffic has made Quality of Experience (QoE) of the end u...

In the context of virtual and augmented reality, computer vision plays a pivotal role. To benchmark performance, evaluation of computer vision models, such as edge detection is essential. Traditionally this has relied on subjective analysis of the resultant images. Alternatively, models have been assessed against ground truth images. However, groun...

Remote Laboratories are online learning environments where a major component of student’s learning objectives is met though visual feedback. This is usually through a static webcam feedback at non-HD resolution. An effective method of enhancing the learning procedure is by tracking certain objects of learning interests in the video feedback. Detect...

Digital electronics laboratory activities involve setting several circuits using logic gates. The circuits are created according to a specific Boolean algebra model or computing components. Such activities include setting up basic gates such as AND OR, NOT etc. followed by complex circuits e.g. Adder, Flip-Flops, Registers. These activities involve...

Remote Laboratories are used to teach a variety of experiment in an online mode. One of the fields of RAL is control systems where various embedded controller or similar devices such as FPGA, PLC and MicroController Units (MCU) are the main focus of teaching and learning. For these experiments, the students upload a program to the device. Once the...

Constructing augmented reality systems for remote access laboratory environments may seem daunting to many institutions. Utilizing open source tools may benefit from the large user and developer base, providing advice and support. Platforms such as Unity 3D provide comprehensive resources to developers when deciding how to construct a working frame...

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are widely used for industrial control applications. Developing programming skills with these devices is essential for students of electrical engineering, and also for professionals wanting to learn new skills. Whilst programming is performed using software development tools, it is essential that learners have...

appears in Higher Education and the Future of Graduate Employability: A Connectedness Learning Approach, edited by Ruth Bridgstock and Neil Tippett

Low power wide area (LPWA) technologies are strongly recommended as the underlying networks for Internet of things (IoT) applications. They offer attractive features, including wide-range coverage, long battery life and low data rates. This paper reviews the current trends in this technology, with an emphasis on the services it provides and the cha...

Internet of Things (IoT) applications can be seen as network-controlled systems with a distributed architecture connecting many smart objects through the Internet. A typical IoT application aims to connect a set of nodes, capable of processing data and making decisions regarding the goal of the IoT application, with other nodes containing smart obj...

In this paper, we describe and test a new approach to better service based on recently obtained understanding of social network behaviour. This method is complementary to DiffServ. We call this new method Defensive Services (DefServ) because rather than focussing on differentiation based on previously nominated preferences, it focuses on protection...

Augmented reality (AR) has a great potential in creating rich user interfaces where users can view and interact with virtual objects. AR can have both passive objects and active objects. The former do not respond to interaction; the latter can be altered in their orientation, shape and position in relation to other virtual objects, for example. Rem...

Smart device networks form the backbone of many Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The performance of these systems depended on many factors. This includes their ability to connect to each other and network latency. In this paper, two algorithms are discussed that build a Peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay network. The focus is on real-time end-to-end...

With increasing reliance on smart devices to communicate with each other to deliver critical services, it is important that the devices become intelligent and reliable. Such devices are widely used in Internet of Things applications that operate on the Internet. These devices often communicate with new nodes and face new situations while interactin...

The growth in remote education through technologies such as Remote Access Laboratories has progressed to a stage where automated interpretations of visual scenes within a video stream are necessary to provide enhanced learning experiences. Augmented Reality tools are under development to expand the current reach and immersion of remote laboratories...

Remote Access Laboratories (RALs) have been used to develop experimental knowledge about practical engineering topics for a while. Distributed remote laboratories aim to share experiment among institutions and individuals through a distributed architecture. Experiments from diverse areas are combined as part of a larger system. Multiple control str...

The impact of air quality on the health, welfare and productivity of livestock needs to be considered, especially when livestock are kept in enclosed buildings. The monitoring of such environmental factors allows for the development of appropriate strategies to reduce detrimental effects of sub-optimal air quality on the respiratory health of both...

Smart devices networks make the backbone of many Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The performance of these systems can be depended on many factors including response time or latency between them and the ability to interconnect between devices. In this paper, a Peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay network is discussed that can be used for real-time end-...

Augmented Reality (AR) is the process of overlaying meaningful interactive information in a live video stream for creating an enriched visual experience for users. Within Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) this enables users to gain design experience along with gaining knowledge about the particular experiment in question and potentially collaborate...

Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) are online platforms for performing experiments from remote locations usually following a centralised service oriented paradigm. This short article presents RALfie - Remote Access Laboratories for Fun, Innovation and Education using a peer-to-peer RAL architecture where some participants or makers can create, host a...

Amid calls for greater emphasis on STEM in primary education, non-specialist teachers required to teach STEM subjects are often prone to anxiety as a consequence of their own education including only limited exposure to STEM. This paper reports on a study in which pre-service primary teachers (N=40) worked with Remote Access laboratory (RAL) activi...

The popularity of the video services on the Internet has evolved various mechanisms that target the Quality of Experience (QoE) optimization of video traffic. The video quality has been enhanced through adapting the sending bitrates. However, rate adaptation alone is not sufficient for maintaining a good video QoE when congestion occurs. This paper...

Remote Access Laboratories are online platform for performing experiments from remote locations which are usually these systems focus on specific experiments and follow a centralised client-server paradigm. This demo will present organisation of experiments and activities in RALfie — Remote Access Laboratories for Fun, Innovation and Education whic...

Remote access laboratories (RAL) allow users to control an experiment or rig remotely via the Internet. This usually involves a client application in a web browser and a server that controls hardware. Control is usually implemented through a graphical user interface and mouse/keyboard interaction. This project investigates gesture recognition as an...

Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) provide mechanisms to operate an experimental setup through the internet for educational purposes. These setups contain a control mechanism that reads inputs from the users, process them and return output data. Based on interactivity between user and experiment, the experiments are classified as interactive or batch...

Bandura’s self-efficacy theory provided the conceptual framework for this mixed methods investigation of pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) self-efficacy to teach Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. The Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument-B (STEBI-B) was modified to create the Technology Teaching Efficacy Belief Inst...

Remote access laboratories (RALs) are online environments for operating instruments and collecting measurement data over the Internet. Such systems are often deployed by universities to support undergraduate students and generally follow the client-server paradigm. This paper discusses a RAL system that enables peer-to-peer (P2P) experimental desig...

Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) provide access to experimental setups from remote locations. These experimental setups are composed of controller units programmed to gather data and interact with user inputs. A distributed version of RAL can be maker oriented i.e. the experiment rigs are designed by individuals and shared among each other. This pa...

The RALfie Project began in 2013 with the goal of engaging children and youth with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math learning in formal and informal settings using Remote Access Labs (RAL). A design based research approach is being used to develop and test a peer-to-peer system that incorporates gamification of the system to engage learners...

Remote Access laboratories are online platform for performing experiments from remote locations. Usually these systems follow a centralised client-server paradigm. This demo will present RALfie — Remote Access Laboratories for Fun, Innovation and Education that is a peer-to-peer remote access laboratory architecture where participants are both user...

With the inevitable dominance of video traffic on the Internet, providing perceptually good video quality is becoming a challenging task. This is partly due to the bursty nature of video traffic, changing network conditions, and limitations of network transport protocols. This growth of video traffic has made quality of experience (QoE) of the end...

The growing demand for video applications and services has contributed substantially to the increase of video traffic on the Internet. Measurement-based admission control was proposed with the primary aim of eliminating or reducing the need of flow state information; also to control overhead for admission decision and maximize utilization at the po...

The reliability of a system reflects the state of different sub-systems and the interaction between them. Broadly, it is a measure of the probability of the system being usable and available for users at any given point in time. For a remote access laboratory this condition is satisfied when users are able to successfully locate and run an experime...

Education for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is acknowledged as a priority throughout the world but many K-6 teachers are inadequately prepared for it by virtue of limited exposure in their own schooling and teacher preparation. Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) offer opportunities to enhance the variety of STEM experiences...

Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) are online environments that allow users to access instruments through the Internet. Such environments enable users to control equipment and collect data without being present in the laboratory. This also means that users work in a disjoint manner and cannot coordinate equipment usage directly with each other, as th...

Practical learning activities are effective ways to increase the interest of students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) topics. Attracting school students to STEM careers is a challenge in many parts of the world. Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) allow for offsite control of state-of-the-art science and technology experimen...

Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) provide access to state-of-the-art science experiments and are capable of giving its users increased learning opportunities. These environments, if used in schools, can be highly effective in increasing students' interest and skill in science knowledge and their communication and design skills. Science, Technology,...

The emergence of video applications and video capable devices have contributed substantially to the increase of video traffic on Internet. New mechanisms recommending video rate adaptation towards delivering enhanced Quality of Experience (QoE) at the same time making room for more sessions. This paper introduces a cross-layer QoE-aware architectur...

Remote Access Laboratories are being used around the globe to enable engineering students to practice practical skills and enhance their knowledge through handson experimentation. These facilities also increase access by allowing users to undertake experiments anywhere anytime thus offering more flexibility and mobility. Several RAL systems have su...

Having opportunities to practice basic computer systems and computer networking tasks are important for students to understand underlying concept and to develop the necessary skills. Remote Access Laboratories are a way to allow students off-site hardware access to systems and hardware. This paper introduces a basic networking remote laboratory exp...

Remote access laboratories are being used by universities to provide access to experiments through web based online environments. Usually, such experiments setups are an extension of the real hardware used in on-site laboratories. For a maker oriented RAL, users are encouraged to build their own experiment setups based on their understanding of the...

Remote Access Laboratories are been used for practical learning activities in engineering education in the universities worldwide. Usually these systems follow a centralised client-server paradigm. This work proposes a peer-to-peer remote access laboratory architecture where participants are both users of experiments as well as makers. The feasibil...

Using instantaneous aggregate arrival rate as an admission control parameter will contribute to either bandwidth under-utilization or over-utilization. Being bursty in nature and variable in rate, video flows might encode any rate between a range of minimum and maximum values. At the time the decision is made, if the measured rate is at the minimum...

Real-time distributed systems may sometimes utilize a centralized node to manage and coordinate the exchange of information resulting from network conditions, such as users being behind firewall or proxy servers. Identifying this node is crucial for successful operation of the entire distributed system. The geo-locational placement of this node may...

Remote Access Laboratories have been successfully installed around the world enabling students to practice practical skills and develop their knowledge through experimentation. Remote laboratories have the advantage of being accessible from anywhere anytime allowing users more flexibility and mobility. Typically installations are designed to resolv...

Online learning tools are commonly used for teaching distance education students in tertiary education. These tools rely on Internet connectivity, and network performance impacts on how these systems are used. Network performance is particularly relevant for interactive, real-time interactions such as video conferencing, online control and interact...

Clinical practice is a key element of nursing studies programmes. Amongst its aims are familiarisation with medical equipment, appropriate use of clinical reasoning in a ward setting and calculation and delivery of patient medication fluids requirements. The setting for this is typically a simulated ward environment and is structured around group t...

Learning Tools that rely on information and communication technologies form an essential part of distance education. Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) is one example that has been widely discussed in the research community; in particular, in the context of engineering and science education. However, remote laboratory technology is not widely used. T...

Laboratory-based learning activities are important components of engineering and surveying education and it is difficult to offering practical activities to distance education students. Remote Access Laboratory (RAL) systems are widely discussed as learning tools to offer students remote access to rigs or hardware. In some disciplines laboratory ac...

With rapid growth of video traffic over Internet, it becomes a challenging task to provide perceptually good video quality. Enhancement can be done towards improving the Quality of Experience (QoE) by focusing on all relevant layers and across the networks end-to-end. In this paper, the impact of adapting sender bit rate on QoE is analyzed. Further...

Historically, nursing students have shown great difficulty in mastering equipment during clinical practice sessions. A typical example is the Intravenous (IV) pump infusion driver. Traditional training methods have relied upon on-campus practical group training sessions. Recent work in this area has demonstrated that Remote Access Laboratories (RAL...

Information and Communication Technologies have become a critical part of distance education and Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) have been widely discussed in the research community. However, RAL technology is not as prevalent as other electronic learning tools. This study identifies considerations for the wider implementation, uptake and embeddin...

Practical or laboratory-based learning activities are an important part of engineering and surveying education. Offering such activities to distance education students is both difficult and expensive. Remote Access Laboratory (RAL) systems are gaining popularity to provide students with access to on-campus rigs or hardware. Such RAL systems are equ...

Engaging school children early in STEM activities plays an important role in their choice to study engineering in later years. This paper describes a pilot project where Remote Access Laboratory technology at a university is employed in an inquiry-based learning activity with elementary school children in Japan and Australia. Investigation into how...

BACKGROUND Group-work projects are commonly included in engineering courses to prepare the students for the workplace where this is the standard situation. One of the difficulties students face is that they do not have access to a unified file system where they can create and edit documents related to the project. Such a system reduces the risk of...

BACKGROUND Constructive alignment, authentic assessment and developing professional competencies (transferable/non-technical skills) are important issues in engineering education. These challenges have been highlighted by professional bodies such as Engineers Australia and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). A wealth of r...

Remote Access Laboratories have been successfully installed around the world enabling students to practice practical skills and develop their knowledge through experimentation. Remote laboratories have the advantage of being accessible from anywhere anytime allowing users more flexibility and mobility. Typically installations are designed to resolv...

Online learning tools are commonly used for teaching distance education students in tertiary education. These tools rely on Internet connectivity, and network performance impacts on how these systems are used. Network performance is particularly relevant for interactive, real-time interactions such as video conferencing, online control and interact...

BACKGROUND Not enough children develop and maintain an interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) and as a result, there is a skill shortage to meet Australia’s needs in STEM careers. An effective method for developing a deep understanding of STEM concepts is through conducting experiments. A project is introduced that aims to cr...

Given the vast coverage area and dispersed population centres in which nursing professionals practic