本篇論文為在宏觀大學中設計、發展和實作一個虛擬實驗室系統架構，透過這系統架構給全世界的學生創造一個豐富的多元化的網路學習環境。此系統架構包括四個主要的部份：代理人執行環境、行動代理人、包裝代理人及實驗作業平台。所有的行動代理人於代理人執行環境下被接收並執行，代理人執行環境提供了行動代理人於本地端執行的空間其及其它執行需要用到的資源。包裝代理人扮演了行動代理人與實驗作業平台間仲介者的角色。
實驗作業平台是一個已發展完成的應用程式，它可以是一個學習軟體像是一般的電腦輔助教學軟體工具，也可以是一個設計工具軟體像是一般的電腦輔助設計系統軟體。此系統主要的貢獻在為一個只能單機執行的應用軟體，不需要獲得軟體原始碼即可賦予網路即時連線功能。此系統雛型為一個單機執行的數位電路實驗室，加上網路功能成為網路化的虛擬實驗室。在實驗結果數據中顯示本論文所提的方法是可行的。

This work designs, develops and implements a virtual laboratory for digital circuit design in Macro Universities that can create a rich learning environment for students from all over the world. Our system consists of four parts: agent execution environments, mobile agents, wrapper agents and experimental platforms. Mobile agents are received and executed in the agent execution environment, which provides locations and other resources for the mobile agents. The wrapper agent acts as a middleware for the mobile agent and the experimental platform.
The experimental platform is an existing application program that could be a learning program, such as a CAI tool or a design tool, such as a CAD system. The major merit of our system is that it enables network capability for a standalone program without the need for the source code of the original program. The prototype of our virtual laboratory is targeted to a digital circuit laboratory. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of our approach.

摘要I
AbstractII
Table of ContentIII
List of FiguresV
List of TablesVII
Chapter 1Introduction1
1.1.Motivation1
1.2.Overview of the Research3
1.3.Thesis Organization6
Chapter 2Related Work7
2.1.Macro University7
2.2.Virtual Library8
2.3.Mobile Agent9
2.4.Digital Circuits System10
2.5.Software Reuse11
Chapter 3System Architecture13
3.1.System Overview13
3.2.System Modules16
3.2.1.Agent Execution Environments16
3.2.2.Mobile Agents16
3.2.3.Wrappers17
3.2.4.Experimental Platforms17
Chapter 4Implementation18
4.1.Platform18
4.2.Network capability19
4.3.Agent Models and User Interface20
4.3.1.Agent Models20
4.3.2.Assessment Models21
4.3.3.User Interface21
4.3.4.Database22
Chapter 5System Prototype23
5.1.Demonstration23
Chapter 6Experimental Evaluation29
6.1.Experiment Design29
6.2.Dispatching Time vs. Agent Size33
6.3.Dispatching Time vs. Number of Nodes36
6.3.1.Line Structure36
6.3.2.Tree Structure38
6.3.3.Star Structure39
6.3.4.Client-Server Structure41
6.4.Dispatching Time vs. Dispatching Structure42
6.5.Result Analysis52
Chapter 7Concluding Remarks54
7.1.Conclusions54
7.2.Future Work54
References56
APPENDIX A59
Feasibility Evaluation of VDSL59

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