Deep reinforcement learning based multi-level dynamic reconfiguration for urban distribution network:a cloud-edge collaboration architecture

With the construction of the power Internet of Things(IoT),communication between smart devices in urban distribution networks has been gradually moving towards high speed,high compatibility,and low latency,which provides reliable support for reconfiguration optimization in urban distribution networks.Thus,this study proposed a deep reinforcement learning based multi-level dynamic reconfiguration method for urban distribution networks in a cloud-edge collaboration architecture to obtain a real-time optimal multi-level dynamic reconfiguration solution.First,the multi-level dynamic reconfiguration method was discussed,which included feeder-,transformer-,and substation-levels.Subsequently,the multi-agent system was combined with the cloud-edge collaboration architecture to build a deep reinforcement learning model for multi-level dynamic reconfiguration in an urban distribution network.The cloud-edge collaboration architecture can effectively support the multi-agent system to conduct“centralized training and decentralized execution”operation modes and improve the learning efficiency of the model.Thereafter,for a multi-agent system,this study adopted a combination of offline and online learning to endow the model with the ability to realize automatic optimization and updation of the strategy.In the offline learning phase,a Q-learning-based multi-agent conservative Q-learning(MACQL)algorithm was proposed to stabilize the learning results and reduce the risk of the next online learning phase.In the online learning phase,a multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient(MADDPG)algorithm based on policy gradients was proposed to explore the action space and update the experience pool.Finally,the effectiveness of the proposed method was verified through a simulation analysis of a real-world 445-node system.

Pedestrian and Vehicle Detection Based on Pruning YOLOv4 with Cloud-Edge Collaboration

Nowadays,the rapid development of edge computing has driven an increasing number of deep learning applications deployed at the edge of the network,such as pedestrian and vehicle detection,to provide efficient intelligent services to mobile users.However,as the accuracy requirements continue to increase,the components of deep learning models for pedestrian and vehicle detection,such as YOLOv4,become more sophisticated and the computing resources required for model training are increasing dramatically,which in turn leads to significant challenges in achieving effective deployment on resource-constrained edge devices while ensuring the high accuracy performance.For addressing this challenge,a cloud-edge collaboration-based pedestrian and vehicle detection framework is proposed in this paper,which enables sufficient training of models by utilizing the abundant computing resources in the cloud,and then deploying the well-trained models on edge devices,thus reducing the computing resource requirements for model training on edge devices.Furthermore,to reduce the size of the model deployed on edge devices,an automatic pruning method combines the convolution layer and BN layer is proposed to compress the pedestrian and vehicle detection model size.Experimental results show that the framework proposed in this paper is able to deploy the pruned model on a real edge device,Jetson TX2,with 6.72 times higher FPS.Meanwhile,the channel pruning reduces the volume and the number of parameters to 96.77%for the model,and the computing amount is reduced to 81.37%.

Anomaly Detection and Access Control for Cloud-Edge Collaboration Networks

Software-defined networking(SDN)enables the separation of control and data planes,allowing for centralized control and management of the network.Without adequate access control methods,the risk of unau-thorized access to the network and its resources increases significantly.This can result in various security breaches.In addition,if authorized devices are attacked or controlled by hackers,they may turn into malicious devices,which can cause severe damage to the network if their abnormal behaviour goes undetected and their access privileges are not promptly restricted.To solve those problems,an anomaly detection and access control mechanism based on SDN and neural networks is proposed for cloud-edge collaboration networks.The system employs the Attribute Based Access Control(ABAC)model and smart contract for fine-grained control of device access to the network.Furthermore,a cloud-edge collaborative Key Performance Indicator(KPI)anomaly detection method based on the Gated Recurrent Unit and Generative Adversarial Nets(GRU-GAN)is designed to discover the anomaly devices.An access restriction mechanism based on reputation value and anomaly detection is given to prevent anomalous devices.Experiments show that the proposed mechanism performs better anomaly detection on several datasets.The reputation-based access restriction effectively reduces the number of malicious device attacks.

A Deep Neural Collaborative Filtering Based Service Recommendation Method with Multi-Source Data for Smart Cloud-Edge Collaboration Applications

Service recommendation provides an effective solution to extract valuable information from the huge and ever-increasing volume of big data generated by the large cardinality of user devices.However,the distributed and rich multi-source big data resources raise challenges to the centralized cloud-based data storage and value mining approaches in terms of economic cost and effective service recommendation methods.In view of these challenges,we propose a deep neural collaborative filtering based service recommendation method with multi-source data(i.e.,NCF-MS)in this paper,which adopts the cloud-edge collaboration computing paradigm to build recommendation model.More specifically,the Stacked Denoising Auto Encoder(SDAE)module is adopted to extract user/service features from auxiliary user profiles and service attributes.The Multiple Layer Perceptron(MLP)module is adopted to integrate the auxiliary user/service features to train the recommendation model.Finally,we evaluate the effectiveness of the NCF-MS method on three public datasets.The experimental results show that our proposed method achieves better performance than existing methods.

Market Equilibrium Based on Cloud-edge Collaboration

Market participants can only bid with lagged information disclosure under the existing market mechanism,which can lead to information asymmetry and irrational market behavior,thus influencing market efficiency.To promote rational bidding behavior of market participants and improve market efficiency,a novel electricity market mechanism based on cloudedge collaboration is proposed in this paper.Critical market information,called residual demand curve,is published to market participants in real-time on the cloud side,while participants on the edge side are allowed to adjust their bids according to the information disclosure prior to closure gate.The proposed mechanism can encourage rational bids in an incentive-compatible way through the process of dynamic equilibrium while protecting participants’privacy.This paper further formulates the mathematical model of market equilibrium to simulate the process of each market participant’s strategic bidding behavior towards equilibrium.A case study based on the IEEE 30-bus system shows the proposed market mechanism can effectively guide bidding behavior of market participants,while condensing exchanged information and protecting privacy of participants.

Robust and Trustworthy Data Sharing Framework Leveraging On-Chain and Off-Chain Collaboration

The proliferation of Internet of Things(IoT)systems has resulted in the generation of substantial data,presenting new challenges in reliable storage and trustworthy sharing.Conventional distributed storage systems are hindered by centralized management and lack traceability,while blockchain systems are limited by low capacity and high latency.To address these challenges,the present study investigates the reliable storage and trustworthy sharing of IoT data,and presents a novel system architecture that integrates on-chain and off-chain data manage systems.This architecture,integrating blockchain and distributed storage technologies,provides high-capacity,high-performance,traceable,and verifiable data storage and access.The on-chain system,built on Hyperledger Fabric,manages metadata,verification data,and permission information of the raw data.The off-chain system,implemented using IPFS Cluster,ensures the reliable storage and efficient access to massive files.A collaborative storage server is designed to integrate on-chain and off-chain operation interfaces,facilitating comprehensive data operations.We provide a unified access interface for user-friendly system interaction.Extensive testing validates the system’s reliability and stable performance.The proposed approach significantly enhances storage capacity compared to standalone blockchain systems.Rigorous reliability tests consistently yield positive outcomes.With average upload and download throughputs of roughly 20 and 30 MB/s,respectively,the system’s throughput surpasses the blockchain system by a factor of 4 to 18.

FPGA-based edge computing: Task modeling for cloud-edge collaboration

With the development of the Internet of Things and devices continuing to scale,using cloud computing resources to process data in real-time is challenging.Edge computing technologies can improve real-time performance in processing data.By introducing the FPGA into the computing node and using the dynamic reconfigurability of the FPGA,the FPGA-based edge node can increase the edge node capability.In this paper,a task-based collaborative method for an FPGA-based edge computing system is proposed in order to meet the collaboration among FPGA-based edge nodes,edge nodes,and the cloud.The modeling of the task includes two parts,task information and task-dependent file.Task information is used to describe the running information and dependency infor-mation required for the task execution.Task-dependent file contains the configuration bit-stream of FPGA in running of the task.By analyzing the task behavior,this paper builds four basic behaviors,analyzes the critical attributes of each behavior,and summa-rizes the task model suitable for FPGA-based edge nodes.Tasks with specific functions can be created by modifying different attributes of model nodes.Finally,the availability of the model and the task-based collaborative method are verified by simulation exper-iments.The experimental results that the task model proposed in this paper can meet cloud-edge collaboration in the FPGA-based edge computing environment.

Global collaboration of eye research--personal experience

On December 9,2023,I was privileged to be honored and participate in the Dr.Chi Chao Chan Symposium on Global Collaboration of Eye Research as the Global Eye Genetic Consortium(GEGC)session,which was held in the 16th Congress of the Asia-Pacific Vitreo-Retina Society(APVRS)in Hong Kong.Along with my talk on“Global collaboration of eye research:personal experience”,other prominent international speakers provided their own perspectives on opportunities for networking,collaboration,and exchange of ideas with global leaders and experts in ophthalmic practice,research,and education.

SFC placement and dynamic resource allocation based on VNF performance-resource function and service requirement in cloud-edge environment

With the continuous development of network func-tions virtualization(NFV)and software-defined networking(SDN)technologies and the explosive growth of network traffic,the requirement for computing resources in the network has risen sharply.Due to the high cost of edge computing resources,coordinating the cloud and edge computing resources to improve the utilization efficiency of edge computing resources is still a considerable challenge.In this paper,we focus on optimiz-ing the placement of network services in cloud-edge environ-ments to maximize the efficiency.It is first proved that,in cloud-edge environments,placing one service function chain(SFC)integrally in the cloud or at the edge can improve the utilization efficiency of edge resources.Then a virtual network function(VNF)performance-resource(P-R)function is proposed to repre-sent the relationship between the VNF instance computing per-formance and the allocated computing resource.To select the SFCs that are most suitable to deploy at the edge,a VNF place-ment and resource allocation model is built to configure each VNF with its particular P-R function.Moreover,a heuristic recur-sive algorithm is designed called the recursive algorithm for max edge throughput(RMET)to solve the model.Through simula-tions on two scenarios,it is verified that RMET can improve the utilization efficiency of edge computing resources.

Privacy-Preserving Healthcare and Medical Data Collaboration Service System Based on Blockchain and Federated Learning

As the volume of healthcare and medical data increases from diverse sources,real-world scenarios involving data sharing and collaboration have certain challenges,including the risk of privacy leakage,difficulty in data fusion,low reliability of data storage,low effectiveness of data sharing,etc.To guarantee the service quality of data collaboration,this paper presents a privacy-preserving Healthcare and Medical Data Collaboration Service System combining Blockchain with Federated Learning,termed FL-HMChain.This system is composed of three layers:Data extraction and storage,data management,and data application.Focusing on healthcare and medical data,a healthcare and medical blockchain is constructed to realize data storage,transfer,processing,and access with security,real-time,reliability,and integrity.An improved master node selection consensus mechanism is presented to detect and prevent dishonest behavior,ensuring the overall reliability and trustworthiness of the collaborative model training process.Furthermore,healthcare and medical data collaboration services in real-world scenarios have been discussed and developed.To further validate the performance of FL-HMChain,a Convolutional Neural Network-based Federated Learning(FL-CNN-HMChain)model is investigated for medical image identification.This model achieves better performance compared to the baseline Convolutional Neural Network(CNN),having an average improvement of 4.7%on Area Under Curve(AUC)and 7%on Accuracy(ACC),respectively.Furthermore,the probability of privacy leakage can be effectively reduced by the blockchain-based parameter transfer mechanism in federated learning between local and global models.

Runout prediction of potential landslides based on the multi-source data collaboration analysis on historical cases

Long runout landslides involve a massive amount of energy and can be extremely hazardous owing to their long movement distance,high mobility and strong destructive power.Numerical methods have been widely used to predict the landslide runout but a fundamental problem remained is how to determine the reliable numerical parameters.This study proposes a framework to predict the runout of potential landslides through multi-source data collaboration and numerical analysis of historical landslide events.Specifically,for the historical landslide cases,the landslide-induced seismic signal,geophysical surveys,and possible in-situ drone/phone videos(multi-source data collaboration)can validate the numerical results in terms of landslide dynamics and deposit features and help calibrate the numerical(rheological)parameters.Subsequently,the calibrated numerical parameters can be used to numerically predict the runout of potential landslides in the region with a similar geological setting to the recorded events.Application of the runout prediction approach to the 2020 Jiashanying landslide in Guizhou,China gives reasonable results in comparison to the field observations.The numerical parameters are determined from the multi-source data collaboration analysis of a historical case in the region(2019 Shuicheng landslide).The proposed framework for landslide runout prediction can be of great utility for landslide risk assessment and disaster reduction in mountainous regions worldwide.

Effects of nursing team communication and collaboration on treatment outcomes in intensive care unit patients with severe pneumonia

BACKGROUND Severe pneumonia is a common severe respiratory infection worldwide,and its treatment is challenging,especially for patients in the intensive care unit(ICU).AIM To explore the effect of communication and collaboration between nursing teams on the treatment outcomes of patients with severe pneumonia in ICU.METHODS We retrospectively analyzed 60 patients with severe pneumonia who were treated at the ICU of the hospital between January 1,2021 and December 31,2023.We compared and analyzed the respiratory mechanical indexes[airway resistance(Raw),mean airway pressure(mPaw),peak pressure(PIP)],blood gas analysis indexes(arterial oxygen saturation,arterial oxygen partial pressure,and oxygenation index),and serum inflammatory factor levels[C-reactive protein(CRP),procalcitonin(PCT),cortisol(COR),and high mobility group protein B1(HMGB1)]of all patients before and after treatment.RESULTS Before treatment,there was no significant difference in respiratory mechanics index and blood gas analysis index between 2 groups(P>0.05).However,after treatment,the respiratory mechanical indexes of patients in both groups were significantly improved,and the improvement of Raw,mPaw,plateau pressure,PIP and other indexes in the combined group after communication and collaboration with the nursing team was significantly better than that in the single care group(P<0.05).The serum CRP and PCT levels of patients were significantly decreased,and the difference was statistically significant compared with that of nursing group alone(P<0.05).The levels of serum COR and HMGB1 before and after treatment were also significantly decreased between the two groups.CONCLUSION The communication and collaboration of the nursing team have a significant positive impact on respiratory mechanics indicators,blood gas analysis indicators and serum inflammatory factor levels in the treatment of severe pneumonia patients in ICU.

Cloud control for IIoT in a cloud-edge environment

The industrial Internet of Things(IIoT)is a new indus-trial idea that combines the latest information and communica-tion technologies with the industrial economy.In this paper,a cloud control structure is designed for IIoT in cloud-edge envi-ronment with three modes of 5G.For 5G based IIoT,the time sensitive network(TSN)service is introduced in transmission network.A 5G logical TSN bridge is designed to transport TSN streams over 5G framework to achieve end-to-end configuration.For a transmission control protocol(TCP)model with nonlinear disturbance,time delay and uncertainties,a robust adaptive fuzzy sliding mode controller(AFSMC)is given with control rule parameters.IIoT workflows are made up of a series of subtasks that are linked by the dependencies between sensor datasets and task flows.IIoT workflow scheduling is a non-deterministic polynomial(NP)-hard problem in cloud-edge environment.An adaptive and non-local-convergent particle swarm optimization(ANCPSO)is designed with nonlinear inertia weight to avoid falling into local optimum,which can reduce the makespan and cost dramatically.Simulation and experiments demonstrate that ANCPSO has better performances than other classical algo-rithms.

Optimization and Design of Cloud-Edge-End Collaboration Computing for Autonomous Robot Control Using 5G and Beyond

Robots have important applications in industrial production, transportation, environmental monitoring and other fields, and multi-robot collaboration is a research hotspot in recent years. Multi-robot autonomous collaborative tasks are limited by communication, and there are problems such as poor resource allocation balance, slow response of the system to dynamic changes in the environment, and limited collaborative operation capabilities. The combination of 5G and beyond communication and edge computing can effectively reduce the transmission delay of task offloading and improve task processing efficiency. First, this paper designs a robot autonomous collaborative computing architecture based on 5G and beyond and mobile edge computing(MEC).Then, the robot cooperative computing optimization problem is studied according to the task characteristics of the robot swarm. Then, a reinforcement learning task offloading scheme based on Qlearning is further proposed, so that the overall energy consumption and delay of the robot cluster can be minimized. Finally, simulation experiments demonstrate that the method has significant performance advantages.

Global trends in international research collaboration, 1980-2021

Purpose:The aim of this study is to analyze the evolution of international research collaboration from 1980 to 2021.The study examines the main global patterns as well as those specific to individual countries,country groups,and different areas of research.Design/methodology/approach:The study is based on the Web of Science Core collection database.More than 50 million publications are analyzed using co-authorship data.International collaboration is defined as publications having authors affiliated with institutions located in more than one country.Findings:At the global level,the share of publications representing international collaboration has gradually increased from 4.7%in 1980 to 25.7%in 2021.The proportion of such publications within each country is higher and,in 2021,varied from less than 30%to more than 90%.There are notable disparities in the temporal trends,indicating that the process of internationalization has impacted countries in different ways.Several factors such as country size,income level,and geopolitics may explain the variance.Research limitations:Not all international research collaboration results in joint co-authored scientific publications.International co-authorship is a partial indicator of such collaboration.Another limitation is that the applied full counting method does not take into account the number of authors representing in each country in the publication.Practical implications:The study provides global averages,indicators,and concepts that can provide a useful framework of reference for further comparative studies of international research collaboration.Originality/value:Long-term macro-level studies of international collaboration are rare,and as a novelty,this study includes an analysis by the World Bank’s division of countries into four income groups.

Human-Robot Collaboration Framework Based on Impedance Control in Robotic Assembly

Human–robot(HR)collaboration(HRC)is an emerging research field because of the complementary advantages of humans and robots.An HRC framework for robotic assembly based on impedance control is proposed in this paper.In the HRC framework,the human is the decision maker,the robot acts as the executor,while the assembly environment provides constraints.The robot is the main executor to perform the assembly action,which has the position control,drag and drop,positive impedance control,and negative impedance control modes.To reveal the characteristics of the HRC framework,the switch condition map of different control modes and the stability analysis of the HR coupled system are discussed.In the end,HRC assembly experiments are conducted,where the HRC assembly task can be accomplished when the assembling tolerance is 0.08 mm or with the interference fit.Experiments show that the HRC assembly has the complementary advantages of humans and robots and is efficient in finishing complex assembly tasks.

End-cloud collaboration method enables accurate state of health and remaining useful life online estimation in lithium-ion batteries

Though the lithium-ion battery is universally applied,the reliability of lithium-ion batteries remains a challenge due to various physicochemical reactions,electrode material degradation,and even thermal runaway.Accurate estimation and prediction of battery health conditions are crucial for battery safety management.In this paper,an end-cloud collaboration method is proposed to approach the track of battery degradation process,integrating end-side empirical model with cloud-side data-driven model.Based on ensemble learning methods,the data-driven model is constructed by three base models to obtain cloud-side highly accurate results.The double exponential decay model is utilized as an empirical model to output highly real-time prediction results.With Kalman filter,the prediction results of end-side empirical model can be periodically updated by highly accurate results of cloud-side data-driven model to obtain highly accurate and real-time results.Subsequently,the whole framework can give an accurate prediction and tracking of battery degradation,with the mean absolute error maintained below 2%.And the execution time on the end side can reach 261μs.The proposed end-cloud collaboration method has the potential to approach highly accurate and highly real-time estimation for battery health conditions during battery full life cycle in architecture of cyber hierarchy and interactional network.

A robust optimization model for demand response management with source-grid-load collaboration to consume wind-power

To accommodate wind power as safely as possible and deal with the uncertainties of the output power of winddriven generators,a min-max-min two-stage robust optimization model is presented,considering the unit commitment,source-network load collaboration,and control of the load demand response.After the constraint functions are linearized,the original problem is decomposed into the main problem and subproblem as a matrix using the strong dual method.The minimum-maximum of the original problem was continuously maximized using the iterative method,and the optimal solution was finally obtained.The constraint conditions expressed by the matrix may reduce the calculation time,and the upper and lower boundaries of the original problem may rapidly converge.The results of the example show that the injected nodes of the wind farms in the power grid should be selected appropriately;otherwise,it is easy to cause excessive accommodation of wind power at some nodes,leading to a surge in reserve costs and the load demand response is continuously optimized to reduce the inverse peak regulation characteristics of wind power.Thus,the most economical optimization scheme for the worst scenario of the output power of the generators is obtained,which proves the economy and reliability of the two-stage robust optimization method.

Efficient Multi-Authority Attribute-Based Searchable Encryption Scheme with Blockchain Assistance for Cloud-Edge Coordination

Cloud storage and edge computing are utilized to address the storage and computational challenges arising from the exponential data growth in IoT.However,data privacy is potentially risky when data is outsourced to cloud servers or edge services.While data encryption ensures data confidentiality,it can impede data sharing and retrieval.Attribute-based searchable encryption(ABSE)is proposed as an effective technique for enhancing data security and privacy.Nevertheless,ABSE has its limitations,such as single attribute authorization failure,privacy leakage during the search process,and high decryption overhead.This paper presents a novel approach called the blockchain-assisted efficientmulti-authority attribute-based searchable encryption scheme(BEM-ABSE)for cloudedge collaboration scenarios to address these issues.BEM-ABSE leverages a consortium blockchain to replace the central authentication center for global public parameter management.It incorporates smart contracts to facilitate reliable and fair ciphertext keyword search and decryption result verification.To minimize the computing burden on resource-constrained devices,BEM-ABSE adopts an online/offline hybrid mechanism during the encryption process and a verifiable edge-assisted decryption mechanism.This ensures both low computation cost and reliable ciphertext.Security analysis conducted under the random oracle model demonstrates that BEM-ABSE is resistant to indistinguishable chosen keyword attacks(IND-CKA)and indistinguishable chosen plaintext attacks(INDCPA).Theoretical analysis and simulation results confirm that BEM-ABSE significantly improves computational efficiency compared to existing solutions.