Widespread changes to forested watersheds affected by the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) epidemic across western North America raised concerns about the effects of this climate-induced disturba...Widespread changes to forested watersheds affected by the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) epidemic across western North America raised concerns about the effects of this climate-induced disturbance on drinking water and natural resources. Effective communication and knowledge exchange across scientists and stakeholders (i.e., drinking water managers) is essential for constructively responding to such landscape scale disturbances, providing improved adaptive capacity through knowledge sharing. An assessment of stakeholder knowledge levels, information needs, primary concerns, and suggested communication strategies were conducted via an online elicitation survey and World Science Café workshops. Knowledge levels, assessed via a survey of local water managers and experts, were relatively low with approximately half of the respondents reporting little to no knowledge of the effects of mountain pine beetle on drinking water quality and quantity, thereby indicating limited knowledge exchange between scientists and drinking water stakeholders. Increased accessibility and dissemination of research findings pertinent to the mountain pine beetle epidemic’s effects on drinking water quality and quantity is necessary for natural resource management. Recommendations for improved communication among scientists and drinking water stakeholders in particular and forest health in general include dispersal of non-academic research summaries, information exchange through existing media and community resources, demonstration projects, and information clearinghouses. This information provides a better understanding of the challenges, concerns, and first-hand experience of stakeholders of a landscape disturbance issue to apply this knowledge to enhance land management practice and how researchers on this overall project enhanced science communication efforts.展开更多
This study employed the bibliometric software CiteSpace 6.1.R6 to analyze the correlation between thermal infrared,spectral remote sensing technology,and the estimation of economic forest water stress.It aimed to revi...This study employed the bibliometric software CiteSpace 6.1.R6 to analyze the correlation between thermal infrared,spectral remote sensing technology,and the estimation of economic forest water stress.It aimed to review the development and current status of this field,as well as to identify future research trends.A search was conducted on the China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI)database using the keyword“water stress”for relevant studies from 2003 to 2023.The visual analysis function of CNKI was used to generate the distribution of annual publication volume,and CiteSpace 6.1.R6 was utilized to create network maps illustrating collaboration among authors and institutions.The study also analyzed the hotspots and frontiers of economic forest water stress.As a result,a total of 6664 academic journal articles related to water stress were retrieved.Considerable collaboration networks were observed among scholars and institutions,with a focus on using crown temperature monitoring to diagnose crop water stress.Based on the research findings,it was evident that the primary research trend involved the use of thermal infrared and spectral remote sensing technology for estimating water stress,making it a future research hotspot.展开更多
240 nm AlGaN-based micro-LEDs with different sizes are designed and fabricated.Then,the external quantum efficiency(EQE)and light extraction efficiency(LEE)are systematically investigated by comparing size and edge ef...240 nm AlGaN-based micro-LEDs with different sizes are designed and fabricated.Then,the external quantum efficiency(EQE)and light extraction efficiency(LEE)are systematically investigated by comparing size and edge effects.Here,it is revealed that the peak optical output power increases by 81.83%with the size shrinking from 50.0 to 25.0μm.Thereinto,the LEE increases by 26.21%and the LEE enhancement mainly comes from the sidewall light extraction.Most notably,transversemagnetic(TM)mode light intensifies faster as the size shrinks due to the tilted mesa side-wall and Al reflector design.However,when it turns to 12.5μm sized micro-LEDs,the output power is lower than 25.0μm sized ones.The underlying mechanism is that even though protected by SiO2 passivation,the edge effect which leads to current leakage and Shockley-Read-Hall(SRH)recombination deteriorates rapidly with the size further shrinking.Moreover,the ratio of the p-contact area to mesa area is much lower,which deteriorates the p-type current spreading at the mesa edge.These findings show a role of thumb for the design of high efficiency micro-LEDs with wavelength below 250 nm,which will pave the way for wide applications of deep ultraviolet(DUV)micro-LEDs.展开更多
In this paper,we consider mobile edge computing(MEC)networks against proactive eavesdropping.To maximize the transmission rate,IRS assisted UAV communications are applied.We take the joint design of the trajectory of ...In this paper,we consider mobile edge computing(MEC)networks against proactive eavesdropping.To maximize the transmission rate,IRS assisted UAV communications are applied.We take the joint design of the trajectory of UAV,the transmitting beamforming of users,and the phase shift matrix of IRS.The original problem is strong non-convex and difficult to solve.We first propose two basic modes of the proactive eavesdropper,and obtain the closed-form solution for the boundary conditions of the two modes.Then we transform the original problem into an equivalent one and propose an alternating optimization(AO)based method to obtain a local optimal solution.The convergence of the algorithm is illustrated by numerical results.Further,we propose a zero forcing(ZF)based method as sub-optimal solution,and the simulation section shows that the proposed two schemes could obtain better performance compared with traditional schemes.展开更多
In a network environment composed of different types of computing centers that can be divided into different layers(clod,edge layer,and others),the interconnection between them offers the possibility of peer-to-peer t...In a network environment composed of different types of computing centers that can be divided into different layers(clod,edge layer,and others),the interconnection between them offers the possibility of peer-to-peer task offloading.For many resource-constrained devices,the computation of many types of tasks is not feasible because they cannot support such computations as they do not have enough available memory and processing capacity.In this scenario,it is worth considering transferring these tasks to resource-rich platforms,such as Edge Data Centers or remote cloud servers.For different reasons,it is more exciting and appropriate to download various tasks to specific download destinations depending on the properties and state of the environment and the nature of the functions.At the same time,establishing an optimal offloading policy,which ensures that all tasks are executed within the required latency and avoids excessive workload on specific computing centers is not easy.This study presents two alternatives to solve the offloading decision paradigm by introducing two well-known algorithms,Graph Neural Networks(GNN)and Deep Q-Network(DQN).It applies the alternatives on a well-known Edge Computing simulator called PureEdgeSimand compares them with the two defaultmethods,Trade-Off and Round Robin.Experiments showed that variants offer a slight improvement in task success rate and workload distribution.In terms of energy efficiency,they provided similar results.Finally,the success rates of different computing centers are tested,and the lack of capacity of remote cloud servers to respond to applications in real-time is demonstrated.These novel ways of finding a download strategy in a local networking environment are unique as they emulate the state and structure of the environment innovatively,considering the quality of its connections and constant updates.The download score defined in this research is a crucial feature for determining the quality of a download path in the GNN training process and has not previously been proposed.Simultaneously,the suitability of Reinforcement Learning(RL)techniques is demonstrated due to the dynamism of the network environment,considering all the key factors that affect the decision to offload a given task,including the actual state of all devices.展开更多
The rapid development of emerging technologies,such as edge intelligence and digital twins,have added momentum towards the development of the Industrial Internet of Things(IIo T).However,the massive amount of data gen...The rapid development of emerging technologies,such as edge intelligence and digital twins,have added momentum towards the development of the Industrial Internet of Things(IIo T).However,the massive amount of data generated by the IIo T,coupled with heterogeneous computation capacity across IIo T devices,and users’data privacy concerns,have posed challenges towards achieving industrial edge intelligence(IEI).To achieve IEI,in this paper,we propose a semi-federated learning framework where a portion of the data with higher privacy is kept locally and a portion of the less private data can be potentially uploaded to the edge server.In addition,we leverage digital twins to overcome the problem of computation capacity heterogeneity of IIo T devices through the mapping of physical entities.We formulate a synchronization latency minimization problem which jointly optimizes edge association and the proportion of uploaded nonprivate data.As the joint problem is NP-hard and combinatorial and taking into account the reality of largescale device training,we develop a multi-agent hybrid action deep reinforcement learning(DRL)algorithm to find the optimal solution.Simulation results show that our proposed DRL algorithm can reduce latency and have a better convergence performance for semi-federated learning compared to benchmark algorithms.展开更多
By pushing computation,cache,and network control to the edge,mobile edge computing(MEC)is expected to play a leading role in fifth generation(5G)and future sixth generation(6G).Nevertheless,facing ubiquitous fast-grow...By pushing computation,cache,and network control to the edge,mobile edge computing(MEC)is expected to play a leading role in fifth generation(5G)and future sixth generation(6G).Nevertheless,facing ubiquitous fast-growing computational demands,it is impossible for a single MEC paradigm to effectively support high-quality intelligent services at end user equipments(UEs).To address this issue,we propose an air-ground collaborative MEC(AGCMEC)architecture in this article.The proposed AGCMEC integrates all potentially available MEC servers within air and ground in the envisioned 6G,by a variety of collaborative ways to provide computation services at their best for UEs.Firstly,we introduce the AGC-MEC architecture and elaborate three typical use cases.Then,we discuss four main challenges in the AGC-MEC as well as their potential solutions.Next,we conduct a case study of collaborative service placement for AGC-MEC to validate the effectiveness of the proposed collaborative service placement strategy.Finally,we highlight several potential research directions of the AGC-MEC.展开更多
We construct a one-dimensional quasiperiodic quantum walk to investigate the localization–delocalization transition.The inverse participation ratio and Lyapunov exponent are employed as two indexes to determine the m...We construct a one-dimensional quasiperiodic quantum walk to investigate the localization–delocalization transition.The inverse participation ratio and Lyapunov exponent are employed as two indexes to determine the mobility edge, a critical energy to distinguish the energy regions of extended and localized states. The analytical solution of mobility edge is obtained by the Lyapunov exponents in global theory, and the consistency of the two indexes is confirmed. We further study the dynamic characteristics of the quantum walk and show that the probabilities are localized to some specific lattice sites with time evolution. This phenomenon is explained by the effective potential of the Hamiltonian which corresponds to the phase in the coin operator of the quantum walk.展开更多
In mega-constellation Communication Systems, efficient routing algorithms and data transmission technologies are employed to ensure fast and reliable data transfer. However, the limited computational resources of sate...In mega-constellation Communication Systems, efficient routing algorithms and data transmission technologies are employed to ensure fast and reliable data transfer. However, the limited computational resources of satellites necessitate the use of edge computing to enhance secure communication.While edge computing reduces the burden on cloud computing, it introduces security and reliability challenges in open satellite communication channels. To address these challenges, we propose a blockchain architecture specifically designed for edge computing in mega-constellation communication systems. This architecture narrows down the consensus scope of the blockchain to meet the requirements of edge computing while ensuring comprehensive log storage across the network. Additionally, we introduce a reputation management mechanism for nodes within the blockchain, evaluating their trustworthiness, workload, and efficiency. Nodes with higher reputation scores are selected to participate in tasks and are appropriately incentivized. Simulation results demonstrate that our approach achieves a task result reliability of 95% while improving computational speed.展开更多
Users and edge servers are not fullymutually trusted inmobile edge computing(MEC),and hence blockchain can be introduced to provide trustableMEC.In blockchain-basedMEC,each edge server functions as a node in bothMEC a...Users and edge servers are not fullymutually trusted inmobile edge computing(MEC),and hence blockchain can be introduced to provide trustableMEC.In blockchain-basedMEC,each edge server functions as a node in bothMEC and blockchain,processing users’tasks and then uploading the task related information to the blockchain.That is,each edge server runs both users’offloaded tasks and blockchain tasks simultaneously.Note that there is a trade-off between the resource allocation for MEC and blockchain tasks.Therefore,the allocation of the resources of edge servers to the blockchain and theMEC is crucial for the processing delay of blockchain-based MEC.Most of the existing research tackles the problem of resource allocation in either blockchain or MEC,which leads to unfavorable performance of the blockchain-based MEC system.In this paper,we study how to allocate the computing resources of edge servers to the MEC and blockchain tasks with the aimtominimize the total systemprocessing delay.For the problem,we propose a computing resource Allocation algorithmfor Blockchain-based MEC(ABM)which utilizes the Slater’s condition,Karush-Kuhn-Tucker(KKT)conditions,partial derivatives of the Lagrangian function and subgradient projection method to obtain the solution.Simulation results show that ABM converges and effectively reduces the processing delay of blockchain-based MEC.展开更多
In this paper,we present a comprehensive system model for Industrial Internet of Things(IIoT)networks empowered by Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access(NOMA)and Mobile Edge Computing(MEC)technologies.The network comprises e...In this paper,we present a comprehensive system model for Industrial Internet of Things(IIoT)networks empowered by Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access(NOMA)and Mobile Edge Computing(MEC)technologies.The network comprises essential components such as base stations,edge servers,and numerous IIoT devices characterized by limited energy and computing capacities.The central challenge addressed is the optimization of resource allocation and task distribution while adhering to stringent queueing delay constraints and minimizing overall energy consumption.The system operates in discrete time slots and employs a quasi-static approach,with a specific focus on the complexities of task partitioning and the management of constrained resources within the IIoT context.This study makes valuable contributions to the field by enhancing the understanding of resourceefficient management and task allocation,particularly relevant in real-time industrial applications.Experimental results indicate that our proposed algorithmsignificantly outperforms existing approaches,reducing queue backlog by 45.32% and 17.25% compared to SMRA and ACRA while achieving a 27.31% and 74.12% improvement in Qn O.Moreover,the algorithmeffectively balances complexity and network performance,as demonstratedwhen reducing the number of devices in each group(Ng)from 200 to 50,resulting in a 97.21% reduction in complexity with only a 7.35% increase in energy consumption.This research offers a practical solution for optimizing IIoT networks in real-time industrial settings.展开更多
It is still challenging to fully integrate computing in memory chip as edge learning devices.In recent work published on Science,a fully-integrated chip based on neuromorphic memristors was developed for edge learning...It is still challenging to fully integrate computing in memory chip as edge learning devices.In recent work published on Science,a fully-integrated chip based on neuromorphic memristors was developed for edge learning as artificial neural networks with functionality of synapses,dendrites,and somas.A crossbar-array memristor chip facilitated edge learning including hardware realization,learning algorithm,and cycle-parallel sign-and threshold-based learning(STELLAR)scheme.The motion control and demonstration platforms were executed to improve the edge learning ability for adapting to new scenarios.展开更多
Currently,applications accessing remote computing resources through cloud data centers is the main mode of operation,but this mode of operation greatly increases communication latency and reduces overall quality of se...Currently,applications accessing remote computing resources through cloud data centers is the main mode of operation,but this mode of operation greatly increases communication latency and reduces overall quality of service(QoS)and quality of experience(QoE).Edge computing technology extends cloud service functionality to the edge of the mobile network,closer to the task execution end,and can effectivelymitigate the communication latency problem.However,the massive and heterogeneous nature of servers in edge computing systems brings new challenges to task scheduling and resource management,and the booming development of artificial neural networks provides us withmore powerfulmethods to alleviate this limitation.Therefore,in this paper,we proposed a time series forecasting model incorporating Conv1D,LSTM and GRU for edge computing device resource scheduling,trained and tested the forecasting model using a small self-built dataset,and achieved competitive experimental results.展开更多
The development of communication technology will promote the application of Internet of Things,and Beyond 5G will become a new technology promoter.At the same time,Beyond 5G will become one of the important supports f...The development of communication technology will promote the application of Internet of Things,and Beyond 5G will become a new technology promoter.At the same time,Beyond 5G will become one of the important supports for the development of edge computing technology.This paper proposes a communication task allocation algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning for vehicle-to-pedestrian communication scenarios in edge computing.Through trial and error learning of agent,the optimal spectrum and power can be determined for transmission without global information,so as to balance the communication between vehicle-to-pedestrian and vehicle-to-infrastructure.The results show that the agent can effectively improve vehicle-to-infrastructure communication rate as well as meeting the delay constraints on the vehicle-to-pedestrian link.展开更多
With the rapid development of information technology,IoT devices play a huge role in physiological health data detection.The exponential growth of medical data requires us to reasonably allocate storage space for clou...With the rapid development of information technology,IoT devices play a huge role in physiological health data detection.The exponential growth of medical data requires us to reasonably allocate storage space for cloud servers and edge nodes.The storage capacity of edge nodes close to users is limited.We should store hotspot data in edge nodes as much as possible,so as to ensure response timeliness and access hit rate;However,the current scheme cannot guarantee that every sub-message in a complete data stored by the edge node meets the requirements of hot data;How to complete the detection and deletion of redundant data in edge nodes under the premise of protecting user privacy and data dynamic integrity has become a challenging problem.Our paper proposes a redundant data detection method that meets the privacy protection requirements.By scanning the cipher text,it is determined whether each sub-message of the data in the edge node meets the requirements of the hot data.It has the same effect as zero-knowledge proof,and it will not reveal the privacy of users.In addition,for redundant sub-data that does not meet the requirements of hot data,our paper proposes a redundant data deletion scheme that meets the dynamic integrity of the data.We use Content Extraction Signature(CES)to generate the remaining hot data signature after the redundant data is deleted.The feasibility of the scheme is proved through safety analysis and efficiency analysis.展开更多
Collaborative edge computing is a promising direction to handle the computation intensive tasks in B5G wireless networks.However,edge computing servers(ECSs)from different operators may not trust each other,and thus t...Collaborative edge computing is a promising direction to handle the computation intensive tasks in B5G wireless networks.However,edge computing servers(ECSs)from different operators may not trust each other,and thus the incentives for collaboration cannot be guaranteed.In this paper,we propose a consortium blockchain enabled collaborative edge computing framework,where users can offload computing tasks to ECSs from different operators.To minimize the total delay of users,we formulate a joint task offloading and resource optimization problem,under the constraint of the computing capability of each ECS.We apply the Tammer decomposition method and heuristic optimization algorithms to obtain the optimal solution.Finally,we propose a reputation based node selection approach to facilitate the consensus process,and also consider a completion time based primary node selection to avoid monopolization of certain edge node and enhance the security of the blockchain.Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm,and the total delay can be reduced by up to 40%compared with the non-cooperative case.展开更多
Massive computational complexity and memory requirement of artificial intelligence models impede their deploy-ability on edge computing devices of the Internet of Things(IoT).While Power-of-Two(PoT)quantization is pro...Massive computational complexity and memory requirement of artificial intelligence models impede their deploy-ability on edge computing devices of the Internet of Things(IoT).While Power-of-Two(PoT)quantization is pro-posed to improve the efficiency for edge inference of Deep Neural Networks(DNNs),existing PoT schemes require a huge amount of bit-wise manipulation and have large memory overhead,and their efficiency is bounded by the bottleneck of computation latency and memory footprint.To tackle this challenge,we present an efficient inference approach on the basis of PoT quantization and model compression.An integer-only scalar PoT quantization(IOS-PoT)is designed jointly with a distribution loss regularizer,wherein the regularizer minimizes quantization errors and training disturbances.Additionally,two-stage model compression is developed to effectively reduce memory requirement,and alleviate bandwidth usage in communications of networked heterogenous learning systems.The product look-up table(P-LUT)inference scheme is leveraged to replace bit-shifting with only indexing and addition operations for achieving low-latency computation and implementing efficient edge accelerators.Finally,comprehensive experiments on Residual Networks(ResNets)and efficient architectures with Canadian Institute for Advanced Research(CIFAR),ImageNet,and Real-world Affective Faces Database(RAF-DB)datasets,indicate that our approach achieves 2×∼10×improvement in the reduction of both weight size and computation cost in comparison to state-of-the-art methods.A P-LUT accelerator prototype is implemented on the Xilinx KV260 Field Programmable Gate Array(FPGA)platform for accelerating convolution operations,with performance results showing that P-LUT reduces memory footprint by 1.45×,achieves more than 3×power efficiency and 2×resource efficiency,compared to the conventional bit-shifting scheme.展开更多
Graphite interfaces are an important part of the anode in lithium-ion batteries(LIBs),significantly influencing Li intercalation kinetics.Graphite anodes adopt different stacking sequences depending on the concentrati...Graphite interfaces are an important part of the anode in lithium-ion batteries(LIBs),significantly influencing Li intercalation kinetics.Graphite anodes adopt different stacking sequences depending on the concentration of the intercalated Li ions.In this work,we performed first-principles calculations to comprehensively address the energetics and dynamics of Li intercalation and Li vacancy diffusion near the no n-basal edges of graphite,namely the armchair and zigzag-edges,at high Li concentration.We find that surface effects persist in stage-Ⅱ that bind Li strongly at the edge sites.However,the pronounced effect previously identified at the zigzag edge of pristine graphite is reduced in LiC_(12),penetrating only to the subsurface site,and eventually disappearing in LiC_(6).Consequently,the distinctive surface state at the zigzag edge significantly impacts and restrains the charging rate at the initial lithiation of graphite anodes,whilst diminishes with an increasing degree of lithiation.Longer diffusion time for Li hopping to the bulk site from either the zigzag edge or the armchair edge in LiC_(6) was observed during high state of charge due to charge repulsion.Effectively controlling Li occupation and diffusion kinetics at this stage is also crucial for enhancing the charge rate.展开更多
Recently,deep learning-based image inpainting methods have made great strides in reconstructing damaged regions.However,these methods often struggle to produce satisfactory results when dealing with missing images wit...Recently,deep learning-based image inpainting methods have made great strides in reconstructing damaged regions.However,these methods often struggle to produce satisfactory results when dealing with missing images with large holes,leading to distortions in the structure and blurring of textures.To address these problems,we combine the advantages of transformers and convolutions to propose an image inpainting method that incorporates edge priors and attention mechanisms.The proposed method aims to improve the results of inpainting large holes in images by enhancing the accuracy of structure restoration and the ability to recover texture details.This method divides the inpainting task into two phases:edge prediction and image inpainting.Specifically,in the edge prediction phase,a transformer architecture is designed to combine axial attention with standard self-attention.This design enhances the extraction capability of global structural features and location awareness.It also balances the complexity of self-attention operations,resulting in accurate prediction of the edge structure in the defective region.In the image inpainting phase,a multi-scale fusion attention module is introduced.This module makes full use of multi-level distant features and enhances local pixel continuity,thereby significantly improving the quality of image inpainting.To evaluate the performance of our method.comparative experiments are conducted on several datasets,including CelebA,Places2,and Facade.Quantitative experiments show that our method outperforms the other mainstream methods.Specifically,it improves Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio(PSNR)and Structure Similarity Index Measure(SSIM)by 1.141~3.234 db and 0.083~0.235,respectively.Moreover,it reduces Learning Perceptual Image Patch Similarity(LPIPS)and Mean Absolute Error(MAE)by 0.0347~0.1753 and 0.0104~0.0402,respectively.Qualitative experiments reveal that our method excels at reconstructing images with complete structural information and clear texture details.Furthermore,our model exhibits impressive performance in terms of the number of parameters,memory cost,and testing time.展开更多
Hierarchical networks are frequently encountered in animal groups,gene networks,and artificial engineering systems such as multiple robots,unmanned vehicle systems,smart grids,wind farm networks,and so forth.The struc...Hierarchical networks are frequently encountered in animal groups,gene networks,and artificial engineering systems such as multiple robots,unmanned vehicle systems,smart grids,wind farm networks,and so forth.The structure of a large directed hierarchical network is often strongly influenced by reverse edges from lower-to higher-level nodes,such as lagging birds’howl in a flock or the opinions of lowerlevel individuals feeding back to higher-level ones in a social group.This study reveals that,for most large-scale real hierarchical networks,the majority of the reverse edges do not affect the synchronization process of the entire network;the synchronization process is influenced only by a small part of these reverse edges along specific paths.More surprisingly,a single effective reverse edge can slow down the synchronization of a huge hierarchical network by over 60%.The effect of such edges depends not on the network size but only on the average in-degree of the involved subnetwork.The overwhelming majority of active reverse edges turn out to have some kind of“bunching”effect on the information flows of hierarchical networks,which slows down synchronization processes.This finding refines the current understanding of the role of reverse edges in many natural,social,and engineering hierarchical networks,which might be beneficial for precisely tuning the synchronization rhythms of these networks.Our study also proposes an effective way to attack a hierarchical network by adding a malicious reverse edge to it and provides some guidance for protecting a network by screening out the specific small proportion of vulnerable nodes.展开更多
文摘Widespread changes to forested watersheds affected by the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) epidemic across western North America raised concerns about the effects of this climate-induced disturbance on drinking water and natural resources. Effective communication and knowledge exchange across scientists and stakeholders (i.e., drinking water managers) is essential for constructively responding to such landscape scale disturbances, providing improved adaptive capacity through knowledge sharing. An assessment of stakeholder knowledge levels, information needs, primary concerns, and suggested communication strategies were conducted via an online elicitation survey and World Science Café workshops. Knowledge levels, assessed via a survey of local water managers and experts, were relatively low with approximately half of the respondents reporting little to no knowledge of the effects of mountain pine beetle on drinking water quality and quantity, thereby indicating limited knowledge exchange between scientists and drinking water stakeholders. Increased accessibility and dissemination of research findings pertinent to the mountain pine beetle epidemic’s effects on drinking water quality and quantity is necessary for natural resource management. Recommendations for improved communication among scientists and drinking water stakeholders in particular and forest health in general include dispersal of non-academic research summaries, information exchange through existing media and community resources, demonstration projects, and information clearinghouses. This information provides a better understanding of the challenges, concerns, and first-hand experience of stakeholders of a landscape disturbance issue to apply this knowledge to enhance land management practice and how researchers on this overall project enhanced science communication efforts.
基金the Inner Mongolia Natural Science Foundation(2023MS06002)the Scientific Research Project of Higher Education Institutions of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region(NJZZ22509)+1 种基金the Development Project of Young Scientific and Technological Talents(Innovative Teams)of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region 2023(NHGIRT2312)the Project of Research and Practice on Teaching Reform of Graduate Education of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region(JGCG2023049)were funded.
文摘This study employed the bibliometric software CiteSpace 6.1.R6 to analyze the correlation between thermal infrared,spectral remote sensing technology,and the estimation of economic forest water stress.It aimed to review the development and current status of this field,as well as to identify future research trends.A search was conducted on the China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI)database using the keyword“water stress”for relevant studies from 2003 to 2023.The visual analysis function of CNKI was used to generate the distribution of annual publication volume,and CiteSpace 6.1.R6 was utilized to create network maps illustrating collaboration among authors and institutions.The study also analyzed the hotspots and frontiers of economic forest water stress.As a result,a total of 6664 academic journal articles related to water stress were retrieved.Considerable collaboration networks were observed among scholars and institutions,with a focus on using crown temperature monitoring to diagnose crop water stress.Based on the research findings,it was evident that the primary research trend involved the use of thermal infrared and spectral remote sensing technology for estimating water stress,making it a future research hotspot.
基金This work was supported by National Key R&D Program of China(2022YFB3605103)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(62204241,U22A2084,62121005,and 61827813)+3 种基金the Natural Science Foundation of Jilin Province(20230101345JC,20230101360JC,and 20230101107JC)the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of CAS(2023223)the Young Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program By CAST(YESS20200182)the CAS Talents Program(E30122E4M0).
文摘240 nm AlGaN-based micro-LEDs with different sizes are designed and fabricated.Then,the external quantum efficiency(EQE)and light extraction efficiency(LEE)are systematically investigated by comparing size and edge effects.Here,it is revealed that the peak optical output power increases by 81.83%with the size shrinking from 50.0 to 25.0μm.Thereinto,the LEE increases by 26.21%and the LEE enhancement mainly comes from the sidewall light extraction.Most notably,transversemagnetic(TM)mode light intensifies faster as the size shrinks due to the tilted mesa side-wall and Al reflector design.However,when it turns to 12.5μm sized micro-LEDs,the output power is lower than 25.0μm sized ones.The underlying mechanism is that even though protected by SiO2 passivation,the edge effect which leads to current leakage and Shockley-Read-Hall(SRH)recombination deteriorates rapidly with the size further shrinking.Moreover,the ratio of the p-contact area to mesa area is much lower,which deteriorates the p-type current spreading at the mesa edge.These findings show a role of thumb for the design of high efficiency micro-LEDs with wavelength below 250 nm,which will pave the way for wide applications of deep ultraviolet(DUV)micro-LEDs.
基金This work was supported by the Key Scientific and Technological Project of Henan Province(Grant Number 222102210212)Doctoral Research Start Project of Henan Institute of Technology(Grant Number KQ2005)Key Research Projects of Colleges and Universities in Henan Province(Grant Number 23B510006).
文摘In this paper,we consider mobile edge computing(MEC)networks against proactive eavesdropping.To maximize the transmission rate,IRS assisted UAV communications are applied.We take the joint design of the trajectory of UAV,the transmitting beamforming of users,and the phase shift matrix of IRS.The original problem is strong non-convex and difficult to solve.We first propose two basic modes of the proactive eavesdropper,and obtain the closed-form solution for the boundary conditions of the two modes.Then we transform the original problem into an equivalent one and propose an alternating optimization(AO)based method to obtain a local optimal solution.The convergence of the algorithm is illustrated by numerical results.Further,we propose a zero forcing(ZF)based method as sub-optimal solution,and the simulation section shows that the proposed two schemes could obtain better performance compared with traditional schemes.
基金funding from TECNALIA,Basque Research and Technology Alliance(BRTA)supported by the project aOptimization of Deep Learning algorithms for Edge IoT devices for sensorization and control in Buildings and Infrastructures(EMBED)funded by the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council and approved under the 2023 call of the Guipuzcoan Network of Science,Technology and Innovation Program with File Number 2023-CIEN-000051-01.
文摘In a network environment composed of different types of computing centers that can be divided into different layers(clod,edge layer,and others),the interconnection between them offers the possibility of peer-to-peer task offloading.For many resource-constrained devices,the computation of many types of tasks is not feasible because they cannot support such computations as they do not have enough available memory and processing capacity.In this scenario,it is worth considering transferring these tasks to resource-rich platforms,such as Edge Data Centers or remote cloud servers.For different reasons,it is more exciting and appropriate to download various tasks to specific download destinations depending on the properties and state of the environment and the nature of the functions.At the same time,establishing an optimal offloading policy,which ensures that all tasks are executed within the required latency and avoids excessive workload on specific computing centers is not easy.This study presents two alternatives to solve the offloading decision paradigm by introducing two well-known algorithms,Graph Neural Networks(GNN)and Deep Q-Network(DQN).It applies the alternatives on a well-known Edge Computing simulator called PureEdgeSimand compares them with the two defaultmethods,Trade-Off and Round Robin.Experiments showed that variants offer a slight improvement in task success rate and workload distribution.In terms of energy efficiency,they provided similar results.Finally,the success rates of different computing centers are tested,and the lack of capacity of remote cloud servers to respond to applications in real-time is demonstrated.These novel ways of finding a download strategy in a local networking environment are unique as they emulate the state and structure of the environment innovatively,considering the quality of its connections and constant updates.The download score defined in this research is a crucial feature for determining the quality of a download path in the GNN training process and has not previously been proposed.Simultaneously,the suitability of Reinforcement Learning(RL)techniques is demonstrated due to the dynamism of the network environment,considering all the key factors that affect the decision to offload a given task,including the actual state of all devices.
基金supported in part by the National Nature Science Foundation of China under Grant 62001168in part by the Foundation and Application Research Grant of Guangzhou under Grant 202102020515。
文摘The rapid development of emerging technologies,such as edge intelligence and digital twins,have added momentum towards the development of the Industrial Internet of Things(IIo T).However,the massive amount of data generated by the IIo T,coupled with heterogeneous computation capacity across IIo T devices,and users’data privacy concerns,have posed challenges towards achieving industrial edge intelligence(IEI).To achieve IEI,in this paper,we propose a semi-federated learning framework where a portion of the data with higher privacy is kept locally and a portion of the less private data can be potentially uploaded to the edge server.In addition,we leverage digital twins to overcome the problem of computation capacity heterogeneity of IIo T devices through the mapping of physical entities.We formulate a synchronization latency minimization problem which jointly optimizes edge association and the proportion of uploaded nonprivate data.As the joint problem is NP-hard and combinatorial and taking into account the reality of largescale device training,we develop a multi-agent hybrid action deep reinforcement learning(DRL)algorithm to find the optimal solution.Simulation results show that our proposed DRL algorithm can reduce latency and have a better convergence performance for semi-federated learning compared to benchmark algorithms.
基金supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62171465,62072303,62272223,U22A2031。
文摘By pushing computation,cache,and network control to the edge,mobile edge computing(MEC)is expected to play a leading role in fifth generation(5G)and future sixth generation(6G).Nevertheless,facing ubiquitous fast-growing computational demands,it is impossible for a single MEC paradigm to effectively support high-quality intelligent services at end user equipments(UEs).To address this issue,we propose an air-ground collaborative MEC(AGCMEC)architecture in this article.The proposed AGCMEC integrates all potentially available MEC servers within air and ground in the envisioned 6G,by a variety of collaborative ways to provide computation services at their best for UEs.Firstly,we introduce the AGC-MEC architecture and elaborate three typical use cases.Then,we discuss four main challenges in the AGC-MEC as well as their potential solutions.Next,we conduct a case study of collaborative service placement for AGC-MEC to validate the effectiveness of the proposed collaborative service placement strategy.Finally,we highlight several potential research directions of the AGC-MEC.
文摘We construct a one-dimensional quasiperiodic quantum walk to investigate the localization–delocalization transition.The inverse participation ratio and Lyapunov exponent are employed as two indexes to determine the mobility edge, a critical energy to distinguish the energy regions of extended and localized states. The analytical solution of mobility edge is obtained by the Lyapunov exponents in global theory, and the consistency of the two indexes is confirmed. We further study the dynamic characteristics of the quantum walk and show that the probabilities are localized to some specific lattice sites with time evolution. This phenomenon is explained by the effective potential of the Hamiltonian which corresponds to the phase in the coin operator of the quantum walk.
基金supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No.U2268204,62172061 and 61871422National Key R&D Program of China under Grant No.2020YFB1711800 and 2020YFB1707900+2 种基金the Science and Technology Project of Sichuan Province under Grant No.2023ZHCG0014,2023ZHCG0011,2022YFG0155,2022YFG0157,2021GFW019,2021YFG0152,2021YFG0025,2020YFG0322Central Universities of Southwest Minzu University under Grant No.ZYN2022032,2023NYXXS034the State Scholarship Fund of the China Scholarship Council under Grant No.202008510081。
文摘In mega-constellation Communication Systems, efficient routing algorithms and data transmission technologies are employed to ensure fast and reliable data transfer. However, the limited computational resources of satellites necessitate the use of edge computing to enhance secure communication.While edge computing reduces the burden on cloud computing, it introduces security and reliability challenges in open satellite communication channels. To address these challenges, we propose a blockchain architecture specifically designed for edge computing in mega-constellation communication systems. This architecture narrows down the consensus scope of the blockchain to meet the requirements of edge computing while ensuring comprehensive log storage across the network. Additionally, we introduce a reputation management mechanism for nodes within the blockchain, evaluating their trustworthiness, workload, and efficiency. Nodes with higher reputation scores are selected to participate in tasks and are appropriately incentivized. Simulation results demonstrate that our approach achieves a task result reliability of 95% while improving computational speed.
基金supported by the Key Research and Development Project in Anhui Province of China(Grant No.202304a05020059)the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China(Grant No.PA2023GDSK0055)the Project of Anhui Province Economic and Information Bureau(Grant No.JB20099).
文摘Users and edge servers are not fullymutually trusted inmobile edge computing(MEC),and hence blockchain can be introduced to provide trustableMEC.In blockchain-basedMEC,each edge server functions as a node in bothMEC and blockchain,processing users’tasks and then uploading the task related information to the blockchain.That is,each edge server runs both users’offloaded tasks and blockchain tasks simultaneously.Note that there is a trade-off between the resource allocation for MEC and blockchain tasks.Therefore,the allocation of the resources of edge servers to the blockchain and theMEC is crucial for the processing delay of blockchain-based MEC.Most of the existing research tackles the problem of resource allocation in either blockchain or MEC,which leads to unfavorable performance of the blockchain-based MEC system.In this paper,we study how to allocate the computing resources of edge servers to the MEC and blockchain tasks with the aimtominimize the total systemprocessing delay.For the problem,we propose a computing resource Allocation algorithmfor Blockchain-based MEC(ABM)which utilizes the Slater’s condition,Karush-Kuhn-Tucker(KKT)conditions,partial derivatives of the Lagrangian function and subgradient projection method to obtain the solution.Simulation results show that ABM converges and effectively reduces the processing delay of blockchain-based MEC.
基金the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid University for funding this work through large group research project under Grant Number RGP2/474/44.
文摘In this paper,we present a comprehensive system model for Industrial Internet of Things(IIoT)networks empowered by Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access(NOMA)and Mobile Edge Computing(MEC)technologies.The network comprises essential components such as base stations,edge servers,and numerous IIoT devices characterized by limited energy and computing capacities.The central challenge addressed is the optimization of resource allocation and task distribution while adhering to stringent queueing delay constraints and minimizing overall energy consumption.The system operates in discrete time slots and employs a quasi-static approach,with a specific focus on the complexities of task partitioning and the management of constrained resources within the IIoT context.This study makes valuable contributions to the field by enhancing the understanding of resourceefficient management and task allocation,particularly relevant in real-time industrial applications.Experimental results indicate that our proposed algorithmsignificantly outperforms existing approaches,reducing queue backlog by 45.32% and 17.25% compared to SMRA and ACRA while achieving a 27.31% and 74.12% improvement in Qn O.Moreover,the algorithmeffectively balances complexity and network performance,as demonstratedwhen reducing the number of devices in each group(Ng)from 200 to 50,resulting in a 97.21% reduction in complexity with only a 7.35% increase in energy consumption.This research offers a practical solution for optimizing IIoT networks in real-time industrial settings.
基金funding support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(52172205).
文摘It is still challenging to fully integrate computing in memory chip as edge learning devices.In recent work published on Science,a fully-integrated chip based on neuromorphic memristors was developed for edge learning as artificial neural networks with functionality of synapses,dendrites,and somas.A crossbar-array memristor chip facilitated edge learning including hardware realization,learning algorithm,and cycle-parallel sign-and threshold-based learning(STELLAR)scheme.The motion control and demonstration platforms were executed to improve the edge learning ability for adapting to new scenarios.
基金supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62172192,U20A20228,and 62171203in part by the Science and Technology Demonstration Project of Social Development of Jiangsu Province under Grant BE2019631。
文摘Currently,applications accessing remote computing resources through cloud data centers is the main mode of operation,but this mode of operation greatly increases communication latency and reduces overall quality of service(QoS)and quality of experience(QoE).Edge computing technology extends cloud service functionality to the edge of the mobile network,closer to the task execution end,and can effectivelymitigate the communication latency problem.However,the massive and heterogeneous nature of servers in edge computing systems brings new challenges to task scheduling and resource management,and the booming development of artificial neural networks provides us withmore powerfulmethods to alleviate this limitation.Therefore,in this paper,we proposed a time series forecasting model incorporating Conv1D,LSTM and GRU for edge computing device resource scheduling,trained and tested the forecasting model using a small self-built dataset,and achieved competitive experimental results.
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.61871283)the Foundation of Pre-Research on Equipment of China(No.61400010304)Major Civil-Military Integration Project in Tianjin,China(No.18ZXJMTG00170).
文摘The development of communication technology will promote the application of Internet of Things,and Beyond 5G will become a new technology promoter.At the same time,Beyond 5G will become one of the important supports for the development of edge computing technology.This paper proposes a communication task allocation algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning for vehicle-to-pedestrian communication scenarios in edge computing.Through trial and error learning of agent,the optimal spectrum and power can be determined for transmission without global information,so as to balance the communication between vehicle-to-pedestrian and vehicle-to-infrastructure.The results show that the agent can effectively improve vehicle-to-infrastructure communication rate as well as meeting the delay constraints on the vehicle-to-pedestrian link.
基金sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant number No. 62172353, No. 62302114, No. U20B2046 and No. 62172115Innovation Fund Program of the Engineering Research Center for Integration and Application of Digital Learning Technology of Ministry of Education No.1331007 and No. 1311022+1 种基金Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions Grant No. 17KJB520044Six Talent Peaks Project in Jiangsu Province No.XYDXX-108
文摘With the rapid development of information technology,IoT devices play a huge role in physiological health data detection.The exponential growth of medical data requires us to reasonably allocate storage space for cloud servers and edge nodes.The storage capacity of edge nodes close to users is limited.We should store hotspot data in edge nodes as much as possible,so as to ensure response timeliness and access hit rate;However,the current scheme cannot guarantee that every sub-message in a complete data stored by the edge node meets the requirements of hot data;How to complete the detection and deletion of redundant data in edge nodes under the premise of protecting user privacy and data dynamic integrity has become a challenging problem.Our paper proposes a redundant data detection method that meets the privacy protection requirements.By scanning the cipher text,it is determined whether each sub-message of the data in the edge node meets the requirements of the hot data.It has the same effect as zero-knowledge proof,and it will not reveal the privacy of users.In addition,for redundant sub-data that does not meet the requirements of hot data,our paper proposes a redundant data deletion scheme that meets the dynamic integrity of the data.We use Content Extraction Signature(CES)to generate the remaining hot data signature after the redundant data is deleted.The feasibility of the scheme is proved through safety analysis and efficiency analysis.
基金supported in part by the National Key R&D Program of China under Grant 2020YFB1005900the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62001220+3 种基金the Jiangsu Provincial Key Research and Development Program under Grants BE2022068the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province under Grants BK20200440the Future Network Scientific Research Fund Project FNSRFP-2021-YB-03the Young Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program,China Association for Science and Technology.
文摘Collaborative edge computing is a promising direction to handle the computation intensive tasks in B5G wireless networks.However,edge computing servers(ECSs)from different operators may not trust each other,and thus the incentives for collaboration cannot be guaranteed.In this paper,we propose a consortium blockchain enabled collaborative edge computing framework,where users can offload computing tasks to ECSs from different operators.To minimize the total delay of users,we formulate a joint task offloading and resource optimization problem,under the constraint of the computing capability of each ECS.We apply the Tammer decomposition method and heuristic optimization algorithms to obtain the optimal solution.Finally,we propose a reputation based node selection approach to facilitate the consensus process,and also consider a completion time based primary node selection to avoid monopolization of certain edge node and enhance the security of the blockchain.Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm,and the total delay can be reduced by up to 40%compared with the non-cooperative case.
基金This work was supported by Open Fund Project of State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Vehicle Safety Technology by Grant with No.IVSTSKL-202311Key Projects of Science and Technology Research Programme of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission by Grant with No.KJZD-K202301505+1 种基金Cooperation Project between Chongqing Municipal Undergraduate Universities and Institutes Affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2021 by Grant with No.HZ2021015Chongqing Graduate Student Research Innovation Program by Grant with No.CYS240801.
文摘Massive computational complexity and memory requirement of artificial intelligence models impede their deploy-ability on edge computing devices of the Internet of Things(IoT).While Power-of-Two(PoT)quantization is pro-posed to improve the efficiency for edge inference of Deep Neural Networks(DNNs),existing PoT schemes require a huge amount of bit-wise manipulation and have large memory overhead,and their efficiency is bounded by the bottleneck of computation latency and memory footprint.To tackle this challenge,we present an efficient inference approach on the basis of PoT quantization and model compression.An integer-only scalar PoT quantization(IOS-PoT)is designed jointly with a distribution loss regularizer,wherein the regularizer minimizes quantization errors and training disturbances.Additionally,two-stage model compression is developed to effectively reduce memory requirement,and alleviate bandwidth usage in communications of networked heterogenous learning systems.The product look-up table(P-LUT)inference scheme is leveraged to replace bit-shifting with only indexing and addition operations for achieving low-latency computation and implementing efficient edge accelerators.Finally,comprehensive experiments on Residual Networks(ResNets)and efficient architectures with Canadian Institute for Advanced Research(CIFAR),ImageNet,and Real-world Affective Faces Database(RAF-DB)datasets,indicate that our approach achieves 2×∼10×improvement in the reduction of both weight size and computation cost in comparison to state-of-the-art methods.A P-LUT accelerator prototype is implemented on the Xilinx KV260 Field Programmable Gate Array(FPGA)platform for accelerating convolution operations,with performance results showing that P-LUT reduces memory footprint by 1.45×,achieves more than 3×power efficiency and 2×resource efficiency,compared to the conventional bit-shifting scheme.
基金financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(52203303)the International Partnership Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(321GJHZ2023189FN)+2 种基金the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province(2022A1515010076)the Shenzhen Science and Technology Program(SGDX20211123151002003)the Shenzhen International Cooperation Program(GJHZ20220913142812025)。
文摘Graphite interfaces are an important part of the anode in lithium-ion batteries(LIBs),significantly influencing Li intercalation kinetics.Graphite anodes adopt different stacking sequences depending on the concentration of the intercalated Li ions.In this work,we performed first-principles calculations to comprehensively address the energetics and dynamics of Li intercalation and Li vacancy diffusion near the no n-basal edges of graphite,namely the armchair and zigzag-edges,at high Li concentration.We find that surface effects persist in stage-Ⅱ that bind Li strongly at the edge sites.However,the pronounced effect previously identified at the zigzag edge of pristine graphite is reduced in LiC_(12),penetrating only to the subsurface site,and eventually disappearing in LiC_(6).Consequently,the distinctive surface state at the zigzag edge significantly impacts and restrains the charging rate at the initial lithiation of graphite anodes,whilst diminishes with an increasing degree of lithiation.Longer diffusion time for Li hopping to the bulk site from either the zigzag edge or the armchair edge in LiC_(6) was observed during high state of charge due to charge repulsion.Effectively controlling Li occupation and diffusion kinetics at this stage is also crucial for enhancing the charge rate.
基金supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62062061/in part by the Major Project Cultivation Fund of Xizang Minzu University under Grant 324112300447.
文摘Recently,deep learning-based image inpainting methods have made great strides in reconstructing damaged regions.However,these methods often struggle to produce satisfactory results when dealing with missing images with large holes,leading to distortions in the structure and blurring of textures.To address these problems,we combine the advantages of transformers and convolutions to propose an image inpainting method that incorporates edge priors and attention mechanisms.The proposed method aims to improve the results of inpainting large holes in images by enhancing the accuracy of structure restoration and the ability to recover texture details.This method divides the inpainting task into two phases:edge prediction and image inpainting.Specifically,in the edge prediction phase,a transformer architecture is designed to combine axial attention with standard self-attention.This design enhances the extraction capability of global structural features and location awareness.It also balances the complexity of self-attention operations,resulting in accurate prediction of the edge structure in the defective region.In the image inpainting phase,a multi-scale fusion attention module is introduced.This module makes full use of multi-level distant features and enhances local pixel continuity,thereby significantly improving the quality of image inpainting.To evaluate the performance of our method.comparative experiments are conducted on several datasets,including CelebA,Places2,and Facade.Quantitative experiments show that our method outperforms the other mainstream methods.Specifically,it improves Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio(PSNR)and Structure Similarity Index Measure(SSIM)by 1.141~3.234 db and 0.083~0.235,respectively.Moreover,it reduces Learning Perceptual Image Patch Similarity(LPIPS)and Mean Absolute Error(MAE)by 0.0347~0.1753 and 0.0104~0.0402,respectively.Qualitative experiments reveal that our method excels at reconstructing images with complete structural information and clear texture details.Furthermore,our model exhibits impressive performance in terms of the number of parameters,memory cost,and testing time.
基金supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(62225306,U2141235,52188102,and 62003145)the National Key Research and Development Program of China(2022ZD0119601)+1 种基金Guangdong Basic and Applied Research Foundation(2022B1515120069)the Science and Technology Project of State Grid Corporation of China(5100-202199557A-0-5-ZN).
文摘Hierarchical networks are frequently encountered in animal groups,gene networks,and artificial engineering systems such as multiple robots,unmanned vehicle systems,smart grids,wind farm networks,and so forth.The structure of a large directed hierarchical network is often strongly influenced by reverse edges from lower-to higher-level nodes,such as lagging birds’howl in a flock or the opinions of lowerlevel individuals feeding back to higher-level ones in a social group.This study reveals that,for most large-scale real hierarchical networks,the majority of the reverse edges do not affect the synchronization process of the entire network;the synchronization process is influenced only by a small part of these reverse edges along specific paths.More surprisingly,a single effective reverse edge can slow down the synchronization of a huge hierarchical network by over 60%.The effect of such edges depends not on the network size but only on the average in-degree of the involved subnetwork.The overwhelming majority of active reverse edges turn out to have some kind of“bunching”effect on the information flows of hierarchical networks,which slows down synchronization processes.This finding refines the current understanding of the role of reverse edges in many natural,social,and engineering hierarchical networks,which might be beneficial for precisely tuning the synchronization rhythms of these networks.Our study also proposes an effective way to attack a hierarchical network by adding a malicious reverse edge to it and provides some guidance for protecting a network by screening out the specific small proportion of vulnerable nodes.