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Scalable streaming has emerged as a feasible solution to resolve users' heterogeneity problems. Scalable Video Streaming (SVC) is the technology that has served as the definitive impulse for the growth of streaming adaptive systems. Systems need to incorporate user's Quality of Experience (QoE) in the layer switching algorithms. This paper characterizes the relation between human decisions and objective metrics that could be mapped into systems. We have performed extensive subjective experiments to corroborate the preference towards adaptive systems when compared to traditional non-adaptive systems. The resulting subjective scores are correlated with most relevant Full Reference (FR) objective metrics. We obtain an exponential relationship between human decisions and the same decisions expressed as a difference of objective metrics. A strong correlation with subjective scores validates objective metrics to be used as aid in the adaptive decision taking algorithms to improve overall systems performance. Results show that, among the evaluated objective metrics, PSNR is the metric that provide worse results in terms of reproducing the human decisions.

Experimental activities with real components are an essential part of all courses including or devoted to electrical and electronic circuits theory and practice. The knowledge triangle composed of hand-written exercises, simulations and traditional lab experiments has been enriched with the possibility for students to conduct real experiments over the Internet, using remote labs. This tutorial is devoted to one such remote lab named Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (VISIR). The Global Online Laboratory Consortium (GOLC) elected VISIR as the best remote controlled laboratory in the world, at the first time this distinction was awarded. At the end of this tutorial, attendees are expected to know what is VISIR, what can (not) be done with it, who is currently using it, and how can one integrate it in a given course curriculum.

Abstract-Practical knowledge is increasingly getting more attention in the higher education, especially in the field of engineering education. Engineering is a discipline which has, by its own definition, a large amount of practical contents. Allowing students to interact with real equipment can give to them a qualitative knowledge that cannot be obtained in other way. In this situation, remote laboratories are especially useful. This paper presents a way of reusing remote labs code by its XML representation. The idea is that students learn not only the basic subjects of the course, even more, that students do not only manipulate lab equipment. The idea is to give the students a practical way to check the potential of work organization and to give a taste of the powerfulness of code reusing, that is, in the end, a way to improve work efficiency.

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