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The integration of connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) has significantly enhanced driving convenience, but it has also raised serious privacy concerns, particularly regarding the personal identifiable information (PII) stored on infotainment systems. Recent advances in connected and autonomous vehicle control, such as multi-agent system (MAS)-based hierarchical architectures and privacy-preserving strategies for mixed-autonomy platoon control, underscore the increasing complexity of privacy management within these environments. Rental cars with infotainment systems pose substantial challenges, as renters often fail to delete their data, leaving it accessible to subsequent renters. This study investigates the risks associated with PII in connected vehicles and emphasizes the necessity of automated solutions to ensure data privacy. We introduce the Vehicle Inactive Profile Remover (VIPR), an innovative automated solution designed to identify and delete PII left on infotainment systems. The efficacy of VIPR is evaluated through surveys, hands-on experiments with rental vehicles, and a controlled laboratory environment. VIPR achieved a 99.5% success rate in removing user profiles, with an average deletion time of 4.8 s or less, demonstrating its effectiveness in mitigating privacy risks. This solution highlights VIPR as a critical tool for enhancing privacy in connected vehicle environments, promoting a safer, more responsible use of connected vehicle technology in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic wounds affect the lives of millions of individuals globally, and due to substantial medical costs, treating chronic injuries is very challenging for the healthcare system. The classification of regular wound type is essential in wound care management and diagnosis since it can assist clinicians in deciding on the appropriate treatment method. Hence, an effective wound diagnostic tool would enable clinicians to classify the different types of chronic wounds in less time. The majority of the existing chronic wound classification methods are mainly focused on the binary classification of the wound types. A few approaches exist that classify chronic wounds into multiple classes, but these achieved lower performances for pressure and diabetic wound classification. Furthermore, cross-corpus evaluation is absent in chronic wound type classification, in order to better evaluate the efficacy of existing methods on real-time wound images. To address the limitations of the current studies, we propose a novel Swish-ELU EfficientNet-B4 (SEEN-B4) deep learning framework that can effectively identify and classify chronic wounds into multiple classes. Moreover, we also extend the existing Medetec and Advancing the Zenith of Healthcare (AZH) datasets to deal with the class imbalance problem of these datasets. Our proposed model is evaluated on publicly available AZH and Medetec datasets and their extended versions. Our experimental results indicate that the proposed SEEN-B4 model has attained an accuracy of 87.32%, 88.17%, 88%, and 89.34% on the AZH, Extended AZH, Medetec, and Extended Medetec datasets, respectively. We also show the effectiveness of our method against the existing state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods. Furthermore, we evaluated the proposed model for the cross-corpora scenario to demonstrate the model generalization aptitude, and interpret the model's result through explainable AI techniques. The experimental results show the proposed model's effectiveness for classifying chronic wound types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a synthetic augmentation approach towards improving monocular face presentation–attack–detection (PAD) robustness to real-world noise additions. Face PAD algorithms secure authentication systems against spoofing attacks, such as pictures, videos, and 2D-inspired masks. Best-in-class PAD methods typically use 3D imagery, but these can be expensive. To reduce application cost, there is a growing field investigating monocular algorithms that detect facial artifacts. These approaches work well in laboratory conditions, but can be sensitive to the imaging environment (e.g., sensor noise, dynamic lighting, etc.). The ideal solution for noise robustness is training under all expected conditions; however, this is time consuming and expensive. Instead, we propose that physics-informed noise-augmentations can pragmatically achieve robustness. Our toolbox contains twelve sensor and lighting effect generators. We demonstrate that our toolbox generates more robust PAD features than popular augmentation methods in noisy test-evaluations. We also observe that the toolbox improves accuracy on clean test data, suggesting that it inherently helps discern spoof artifacts from imaging artifacts. We validate this hypothesis through an ablation study, where we remove liveliness pairs (e.g., live or spoof imagery only for participants) to identify how much real data can be replaced with synthetic augmentations. We demonstrate that using these noise augmentations allows us to achieve better test accuracy while only requiring 30% of participants to be fully imaged under all conditions. These findings indicate that synthetic noise augmentations are a great way to improve PAD, addressing noise robustness while simplifying data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research article examines the impact of economic, health, environmental, and social-economic factors on diverse forms of pro-environmental consumption: energy conservation, water conservation, and recycling. Primary data concerning these variables were collected from 430 individuals using a structured questionnaire following the cluster sampling methodology. Results indicate that one unit increase in environmental, economic, and health concerns improve pro-environment behavior by 52, 64, and 25 units, respectively. In contrast, a 1 unit increase in income deteriorates pro-environment behavior by 0.01 units. Education, age, gender, and owning a home have an insignificant impact on pro-environmental habits. The model explains a 52% variation in pro-environmental habits. The study recommends that effective electronic and social media campaigns increase environmental, economic, and health concerns and improve green behavior. More courses on environmental sustainability in schools and universities can effectively increase ecological knowledge and concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: Face-recognition for monocular systems (e.g., phones and buildings). This paper presents a novel material spectroscopy approach to facial presentation–attack–defense (PAD). Best-in-class PAD methods typically detect artifacts in the 3D space. This paper proposes similar features can be achieved in a monocular, single-frame approach by using controlled light. A mathematical model is produced to show how live faces and their spoof counterparts have unique reflectance patterns due to geometry and albedo. A rigorous dataset is collected to evaluate this proposal: 30 diverse adults and their spoofs (paper-mask, display-replay, spandex-mask and COVID mask) under varied pose, position, and lighting for 80,000 unique frames. A panel of 13 texture classifiers are then benchmarked to verify the hypothesis. The experimental results are excellent. The material spectroscopy process enables a conventional MobileNetV3 network to achieve 0.8% average-classification-error rate, outperforming the selected state-of-the-art algorithms. This demonstrates the proposed imaging methodology generates extremely robust features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things is a system of interconnected smart devices that can communicate with each other and with other devices over the Internet, with or without human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. Although IoT devices, which have IPs, make living easier, they are also a threat to the security and privacy of people. This research work presents a solution to the problem of security in the network of IoT, based on the idea of implementing the blockchain in IoT. Blockchain is a decentralized technology that adds blocks at the end of the chain. It saves the hash value for every block, and corresponds to the previous block. The decentralized behavior of blockchain is best for IoT as an extensive network, because IoT must not have a single point of failure, and one entity must not decide what to do. All the capable storage devices will save the same data entered from any device, removing the risk of receiving altered data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Face-swap-attacks (FSAs) are a new threat to face recognition systems. FSAs are essentially imperceptible replay-attacks using an injection device and generative networks. By placing the device between the camera and computer device, attackers can present any face as desired. This is particularly potent as it also maintains liveliness features, as it is a sophisticated alternation of a real person, and as it can go undetected by traditional anti-spoofing methods. To address FSAs, this research proposes a noise-verification framework. Even the best generative networks today leave alteration traces in the photo-response noise profile; these are detected by doing a comparison of challenge images against the camera enrollment. This research also introduces compression and sub-zone analysis for efficiency. Benchmarking with open-source tampering-detection algorithms shows the proposed compressed-PRNU verification robustly verifies facial-image authenticity while being significantly faster. This demonstrates a novel efficiency for mitigating face-swap-attacks, including denial-of-service attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of face masks has increased dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic started in order to to curb the spread of the disease. Additionally, breakthrough infections caused by the Delta and Omicron variants have further increased the importance of wearing a face mask, even for vaccinated individuals. However, the use of face masks also induces attenuation in speech signals, and this change may impact speech processing technologies, e.g., automated speaker verification (ASV) and speech to text conversion. In this paper we examine Automatic Speaker Verification (ASV) systems against the speech samples in the presence of three different types of face mask: surgical, cloth, and filtered N95, and analyze the impact on acoustics and other factors. In addition, we explore the effect of different microphones, and distance from the microphone, and the impact of face masks when speakers use ASV systems in real-world scenarios. Our analysis shows a significant deterioration in performance when an ASV system encounters different face masks, microphones, and variable distance between the subject and microphone. To address this problem, this paper proposes a novel framework to overcome performance degradation in these scenarios by realigning the ASV system. The novelty of the proposed ASV framework is as follows: first, we propose a fused feature descriptor by concatenating the novel Ternary Deviated overlapping Patterns (TDoP), Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC), and Gammatone Cepstral Coefficients (GTCC), which are used by both the ensemble learning-based ASV and anomaly detection system in the proposed ASV architecture. Second, this paper proposes an anomaly detection model for identifying vocal samples produced in the presence of face masks. Next, it presents a Peak Norm (PN) filter to approximate the signal of the speaker without a face mask in order to boost the accuracy of ASV systems. Finally, the features of filtered samples utilizing the PN filter and samples without face masks are passed to the proposed ASV to test for improved accuracy. The proposed ASV system achieved an accuracy of 0.99 and 0.92, respectively, on samples recorded without a face mask and with different face masks. Although the use of face masks affects the ASV system, the PN filtering solution overcomes this deficiency up to 4%. Similarly, when exposed to different microphones and distances, the PN approach enhanced system accuracy by up to 7% and 9%, respectively. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented framework against an in-house prepared, diverse Multi Speaker Face Masks (MSFM) dataset, (IRB No. FY2021-83), consisting of samples of subjects taken with a variety of face masks and microphones, and from different distances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicular technology has integrated many features in the system, which enhances the safety and comfort of the user. Among these features, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the only feature that maintains the set cabin air temperature (CAT). The user's command drives the set CAT, and the thermostat provides feedback to the HVAC to maintain the set CAT. The CAT is increased by extracting the heat from the engine surface produced by the fuel combustion, whereas the CAT is reduced by the known processes of the air conditioning system (ACS). Therefore, the CAT driven by the user's command may not be optimal, and estimating the optimal CAT is still unsolved. In this work, we propose a new process where the user can input a range for CAT instead of a single value. Optimal HVAC criteria were defined, and the CAT was estimated by performing iterative analysis in the user-selected range satisfying the criteria. The HVAC criteria were defined based on two measurable parameters: air conditioning refrigerant fluid pressure (ACRFP) and engine surface temperature (EST) empirically defined as the vector CATOP. In this article, a NARX DL model was used by mapping the vehicle-level vectors (VLV) to predict the CATOP in real-time using field data obtained from a 2020 Cadillac CT5 test vehicle. Utilising the DL model, CATOP for future time steps was predicted by varying the CAT in the definite range and applying HVAC criteria. Thus, an optimal set CAT was estimated, corresponding to the optimal CATOP defined by the HVAC criteria. We performed the validation of the DL model for multiple datasets using traditional statistical techniques, namely, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values, first-order derivatives (FOD), and root-mean-square error (RMSE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a novel methodology to predict the optimal adaptive cruise control set speed profile (ACCSSP) by optimizing the engine operating conditions (EOC) considering vehicle level vectors (VLV) (body parameter, environment, driver behaviour) as the affecting parameters. This paper investigates engine operating conditions (EOC) criteria to develop a predictive model of ACCSSP in real-time. We developed a deep learning (DL) model using the NARX method to predict engine operating point (EOP) mapping the VLV. We used real-world field data obtained from Cadillac test vehicles driven by activating the ACC feature for developing the DL model. We used a realistic set of assumptions to estimate the VLV for the future time steps for the range of allowable speed values and applied them at the input of the developed DL model to generate multiple sets of EOP's. We imposed the defined EOC criteria on these EOPs, and the top three modes of speeds satisfying all the requirements are derived at each second. Thus, three eligible speed values are estimated for each second, and an additional criterion is defined to generate a unique ACCSSP for future time steps. A performance comparison between predicted and constant ACCSSP's indicates that the predictive model outperforms constant ACCSSP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetic patients are at the risk of developing different eye diseases i.e., diabetic retinopathy (DR), diabetic macular edema (DME) and glaucoma. DR is an eye disease that harms the retina and DME is developed by the accumulation of fluid in the macula, while glaucoma damages the optic disk and causes vision loss in advanced stages. However, due to slow progression, the disease shows few signs in early stages, hence making disease detection a difficult task. Therefore, a fully automated system is required to support the detection and screening process at early stages. In this paper, an automated disease localization and segmentation approach based on Fast Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (FRCNN) algorithm with fuzzy k-means (FKM) clustering is presented. The FRCNN is an object detection approach that requires the bounding-box annotations to work; however, datasets do not provide them, therefore, we have generated these annotations through ground-truths. Afterward, FRCNN is trained over the annotated images for localization that are then segmented-out through FKM clustering. The segmented regions are then compared against the ground-truths through intersection-over-union operations. For performance evaluation, we used the Diaretdb1, MESSIDOR, ORIGA, DR-HAGIS, and HRF datasets. A rigorous comparison against the latest methods confirms the efficacy of the approach in terms of both disease detection and segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gibberellic acid-stimulated Arabidopsis (GASA/GAST) gene family is widely distributed in plants and involved in various physiological and biological processes. These genes also provide resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses, including antimicrobial, antiviral, and antifungal. We are interested in characterizing the GASA gene family and determining its role in various physiological and biological process in Theobroma cacao. Here, we report 17 tcGASA genes distributed on six chromosomes in T. cacao. The gene structure, promoter region, protein structure and biochemical properties, expression, and phylogenetics of all tcGASAs were analyzed. Phylogenetic analyses divided tcGASA proteins into five groups. Among 17 tcGASA genes, nine segmentally duplicating genes were identified which formed four pairs and cluster together in phylogenetic tree. Differential expression analyses revealed that most of the tcGASA genes showed elevated expression in the seeds (cacao food), implying their role in seed development. The differential expression of tcGASAs was recorded between the tolerant and susceptible cultivars of cacao, which indicating their possible role as fungal resistant. Our findings provide new insight into the function, evolution, and regulatory system of the GASA family genes in T.cacao and may suggest new target genes for development of fungi-resistant cacao varieties in breeding programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modern-day vehicle is evolved in a cyber-physical system with internal networks (controller area network (CAN), Ethernet, etc.) connecting hundreds of micro-controllers. From the traditional core vehicle functions, such as vehicle controls, infotainment, and power-train management, to the latest developments, such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving features, each one of them uses CAN as their communication network backbone. Automated driving and ADAS features rely on data transferred over the CAN network from multiple sensors mounted on the vehicle. Verifying the integrity of the sensor data is essential for the safety and security of occupants and the proper functionality of these applications. Though the CAN interface ensures reliable data transfer, it lacks basic security features, including message authentication, which makes it vulnerable to a wide array of attacks, including spoofing, replay, DoS, etc. Using traditional cryptography-based methods to verify the integrity of data transmitted over CAN interfaces is expected to increase the computational complexity, latency, and overall cost of the system. In this paper, we propose a light-weight alternative to verify the sensor data's integrity for vehicle applications that use CAN networks for data transfers. To this end, a framework for 2-dimensional quantization index modulation (2D QIM)-based data hiding is proposed to achieve this goal. Using a typical radar sensor data transmission scenario in an autonomous vehicle application, we analyzed the performance of the proposed framework regarding detecting and localizing the sensor data tampering. The effects of embedding-induced distortion on the applications using the radar data were studied through a sensor fusion algorithm. It was observed that the proposed framework offers the much-needed data integrity verification without compromising on the quality of sensor fusion data and is implemented with low overall design complexity. This proposed framework can also be used on any physical network interface other than CAN, and it offers traceability to in-vehicle data beyond the scope of the in-vehicle applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]