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BackgroundAlthough previous clinical studies and animal experiments have demonstrated the efficacy of Gegen Qinlian Decoction (GQD) in treating Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC), the underlying mechanisms of its therapeutic effects remain elusive.PurposeThis study aims to investigate the shared pathogenic mechanisms between T2DM and UC and elucidate the mechanisms through which GQD modulates these diseases using bioinformatics approaches.MethodsData for this study were sourced from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Targets of GQD were identified using PharmMapper and SwissTargetPrediction, while targets associated with T2DM and UC were compiled from the DrugBank, GeneCards, Therapeutic Target Database (TTD), DisGeNET databases, and differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Our analysis encompassed six approaches: weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), immune infiltration analysis, single-cell sequencing analysis, machine learning, DEG analysis, and network pharmacology.ResultsThrough GO and KEGG analysis of weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) modular genes and DEGs intersection, we found that the co-morbidity between T2DM and UC is primarily associated with immune-inflammatory pathways, including IL-17, TNF, chemokine, and toll-like receptor signaling pathways. Immune infiltration analysis supported these findings. Three distinct machine learning studies identified IGFBP3 as a biomarker for GQD in treating T2DM, while BACE2, EPHB4, and EPHA2 emerged as biomarkers for GQD in UC treatment. Network pharmacology revealed that GQD treatment for T2DM and UC mainly targets immune-inflammatory pathways like Toll-like receptor, IL-17, TNF, MAPK, and PI3K-Akt signaling pathways.ConclusionThis study provides insights into the shared pathogenesis of T2DM and UC and clarifies the regulatory mechanisms of GQD on these conditions. It also proposes novel targets and therapeutic strategies for individuals suffering from T2DM and UC.

Abstract The developments on next generation IoT sensing devices, with the advances on their low power computational capabilities and high speed networking has led to the introduction of the edge computing paradigm. Within an edge cloud environment, services may generate and consume data locally, without involving cloud computing infrastructures. Aiming to tackle the low computational resources of the IoT nodes, Virtual-Function-Chain has been proposed as an intelligent distribution model for exploiting the maximum of the computational power at the edge, thus enabling the support of demanding services. An intelligent migration model with the capacity to support Virtual-Function-Chains is introduced in this work. According to this model, migration at the edge can support individual features of a Virtual-Function-Chain. First, auto-healing can be implemented with cold migrations, if a Virtual Function fails unexpectedly. Second, a Quality of Service monitoring model can trigger live migrations, aiming to avoid edge devices overload. The evaluation studies of the proposed model revealed that it has the capacity to increase the robustness of an edge-based service on low-powered IoT devices. Finally, comparison with similar frameworks, like Kubernetes, showed that the migration model can effectively react on edge network fluctuations.

BackgroundT1–2 breast cancer patients with only one sentinel lymph node (SLN) metastasis have an extremely low non-SLN (NSLN) metastatic rate and are favorable for axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) exemption. This study aimed to construct a nomogram-based preoperative prediction model of NSLN metastasis for such patients, thereby assisting in preoperatively selecting proper surgical procedures.MethodsA total of 729 T1–2 breast cancer patients with only one SLN metastasis undergoing sentinel lymph node biopsy and ALND were retrospectively selected from Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital between January 2013 and December 2020, followed by random assignment into training (n=467) and validation cohorts (n=262). A nomogram-based prediction model for NSLN metastasis risk was constructed by incorporating the independent predictors of NSLN metastasis identified from multivariate logistic regression analysis in the training cohort. The performance of the nomogram was evaluated by the calibration curve and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Finally, decision curve analysis (DCA) was used to determine the clinical utility of the nomogram.ResultsOverall, 160 (21.9%) patients had NSLN metastases. Multivariate analysis in the training cohort revealed that the number of negative SLNs (OR: 0.98), location of primary tumor (OR: 2.34), tumor size (OR: 3.15), and lymph-vascular invasion (OR: 1.61) were independent predictors of NSLN metastasis. The incorporation of four independent predictors into a nomogram-based preoperative estimation of NSLN metastasis demonstrated a satisfactory discriminative capacity, with a C-index and area under the ROC curve of 0.740 and 0.689 in the training and validation cohorts, respectively. The calibration curve showed good agreement between actual and predicted NSLN metastasis risks. Finally, DCA revealed the clinical utility of the nomogram.ConclusionThe nomogram showed a satisfactory discriminative capacity of NSLN metastasis risk in T1–2 breast cancer patients with only one SLN metastasis, and it could be used to preoperatively estimate NSLN metastasis risk, thereby facilitating in precise clinical decision-making on the selective exemption of ALND in such patients.

Although there is a great value hidden in the massive data, it can also easily expose user privacy.Aiming at efficiently and securely sharing data from multiple parties and avoiding leakage of user private information, the development of related research and technologies on the non-aggregated data sharing field was introduced.Firstly, secure multi-party computing and its technologies were briefly described, including homomorphic encryption, oblivious transfer, secret sharing, etc.Secondly, the federated learning architecture was analyzed from the aspects of source data nodes and transmission optimization.Finally, the existing non-aggregated data sharing frameworks were listed and compared.In addition, the challenges and future potential research directions were summarized, such as complex multi-party scenarios, the balance between optimization and cost, as well as related security risks.

Background and ObjectiveSentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is used to assess the status of axillary lymph node (ALN), but it causes many adverse reactions. Considering the low rate of sentinel lymph node (SLN) metastasis in T1 breast cancer, this study aims to identify the characteristics of T1 breast cancer without SLN metastasis and to select T1 breast cancer patients who avoid SLNB through constructing a nomogram.MethodsA total of 1,619 T1 breast cancer patients with SLNB in our hospital were enrolled in this study. Through univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis, we analyzed the tumor anatomical and clinicopathological factors and constructed the Heilongjiang Medical University (HMU) nomogram. We selected the patients exempt from SLNB by using the nomogram.ResultsIn the training cohort of 1,000 cases, the SLN metastasis rate was 23.8%. Tumor volume, swollen axillary lymph nodes, pathological types, and molecular subtypes were found to be independent predictors for SLN metastasis in multivariate regression analysis. Distance from nipple or surface and position of tumor have no effect on SLN metastasis. A regression model based on the results of the multivariate analysis was developed to predict the risk of SLN metastasis, indicating an AUC of 0.798. It showed excellent diagnostic performance (AUC = 0.773) in the validation cohort.ConclusionThe HMU nomogram for predicting SLN metastasis incorporates four variables, including tumor volume, swollen axillary lymph nodes, pathological types, and molecular subtypes. The SLN metastasis rates of intraductal carcinoma and HER2 enriched are 2.05% and 6.67%. These patients could be included in trials investigating the SLNB exemption.

The Internet of Things (IoT) technology is not just about the connection among billions of devices but also about enabling a wide range of new capabilities, architectures, or service paradigms. The scale of the IoT is set to have a major economic, social, and environmental impact. However, the implementation of IoT faces various challenges, including sensing ability, energy consumption, power supply, data security, privacy, and data accountability. In order to mitigate these challenges, more and more IoT systems are embracing the new IoT paradigm, such as millimeter-wave (mmWave), sensor-less sensing, backscattering Wi-Fi/RFID, wireless/vision hybrid, blockchain, fat client, and so on. These modes shed light on the emerging technologies that could revolutionize the conventional IoT systems.

Abstract The multi-access edge computing (MEC) has higher computing power and lower latency than user equipment and remote cloud computing, enabling the continuing emergence of new types of services and mobile application. However, the movement of users could induce service migration or interruption in the MEC network. Especially for highly mobile users, they accelerate the frequency of services’ migration and handover, impacting on the stability of the total MEC network. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical multi-access edge computing architecture, setting up the infrastructure for dynamic service migration in the ultra-dense MEC networks. Moreover, we propose a new mechanism for users with high mobility in the ultra-dense MEC network, efficiently arranging service migrations for users with high-mobility and ordinary users together. Then, we propose an algorithm for evaluating migrated services to contribute to choose the suitable MEC servers for migrated services. The results show that the proposed mechanism can efficiently arrange service migrations and more quickly restore the services even in the blockage. On the other hand, the proposed algorithm is able to make a supplement to the existing algorithms for selecting MEC servers because it can better reflect the capability of migrated services.

With the rapid growth of advanced driving assistance technology, how to implement human-car interaction humanely and personally becomes increasingly important. Existing methods typically rely on hand-crafted data to conduct training, which cannot fully extract information hidden in text. In this paper, we tackle the problem of label data acquisition difficulties and inadequate feature extraction via semi-supervised learning and multi-granularity learning. To fulfill the goal of label data acquisition and feature extraction, we present a novel semi-supervised multi-granularity convolutional neural networks (CNNs)-based (SSMGCNNs-based) model for an application in human-car interaction, which consists of the two-view-embedding (TVE) module and the multi-granularity CNNs (MGCNNs) module. The TVE module learns embeddings of text regions from the unlabeled user command data set and then integrate the learned tv-embeddings into MGCNNs, so that the learned tv-embedded regions are used as an additional input into MGCNNs' convolution layer to solve the problem of data annotation. MGCNNs can fully extract information hidden in text by multiple convolution kernels of the same convolution layer. We compared our model with some state-of-the-art machine learning models. On the car operation command data set, the simulation results demonstrated that, compared with CNNs, our method respectively improved 5.13%, 5.64%, 3.60% and 5.34% on precision, recall, F-1 and training loss.

In order to achieve the safe and efficient energy use in the electric vehicle, the continuous and accurate monitoring of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has become a long-standing research hot spot. However, existing researches of LIBs state of charge (SOC) prediction are at the cost of unrefined vector representation and inadequate feature extraction, which have been unable to meet prediction requirements of LIBs SOC. Complementarily, in this study, a deep learning-based SOC prediction model is proposed to ensure reliable vector representation and sufficient feature extraction. In order to improve battery data representation, a recursive neural networks (RNNs)-based method is proposed. Then, aiming to fully extract feature information, a multi-channel extended convolutional neural networks (CNNs)-based method, which is fed with the well-trained vector representation, is proposed to accurately predict LIBs SOC. Based on the reliable vector representation and sufficient feature extraction, the proposed method can provide improved SOC prediction performance. Merits of the proposed method are verified using simulation test, which shows that the proposed method gives improved prediction performance of 4.3% and 11.3% compared with recurrent neural networks and Ah counting method, respectively.

Breast cancer (BRCA) is one of the leading causes of death among women worldwide, and drug resistance often leads to a poor prognosis. Necroptosis is a type of programmed cell death (PCD) and exhibits regulatory effects on tumor progression, but few studies have focused on the relationships between necroptosis-associated lncRNAs and BRCA. In this study, we established a signature basis of 7 necroptosis-related lncRNAs associated with prognosis and divided BRCA patients into high- and low-risk groups. Kaplan-Meier curves all showed an adverse prognosis for patients in the high-risk group. Cox assays confirmed that risk score was an independent prognostic factor for BRCA patients. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve proved the predictive accuracy of the signature and the area under the curve (AUC) values of the risk score reached 0.722. The nomogram relatively accurately predicted the prognosis of the patients. GSEA analysis suggested that the related signaling pathways and biological processes enriched in the high- and low-risk groups may influence the tumor microenvironment (TME) of BRCA. ssGSEA showed the difference in immune cell infiltration, immune pathway activation, and immune checkpoint expression between the two risk groups, with the low-risk group more suitable for immunotherapy. According to the significant difference in IC50 between risk groups, patients can be guided for an individualized treatment plan. Overall, the authors established a prognostic signature consisting of 7 necroptosis-associated lncRNAs that can independently predict the clinical outcome of BRCA patients. The difference in the tumor immune microenvironment between the low- and high-risk populations may be the reason for the resistance to immunotherapy in some patients.

The current methods for evaluating the operating condition of electricity transmission lines (ETLs) and providing early warning have several problems, such as the low correlation of data, ignoring the influence of seasonal factors, and strong subjectivity. This paper analyses the sensitive factors that influence dynamic key evaluation indices such as grounding resistance, sag, and wire corrosion, establishes the evaluation criteria of the ETL operation state, and proposes five ETL status levels and seven principles for selecting evaluation indices. Nine grade I evaluation indices and twenty-nine grade II evaluation indices, including passageway and meteorological environments, are determined. The cloud model theory is embedded and used to propose a warning technology for the operation state of ETLs based on inspection defect parameters and the cloud model. Combined with the inspection defect parameters of a line in the Baicheng district of Jilin Province and the critical evaluation index data such as grounding resistance, sag, and wire corrosion, which are used to calculate the timeliness of the data, the solid line is evaluated. The research shows that the dynamic evaluation model is correct and that the ETL status evaluation and early warning method have reasonable practicability.

Aiming at the difficulty of fault location of multi-source transmission lines, this paper proposes a fault location method for multi-terminal transmission lines based on a fault branch judgment matrix. The fault traveling wave signal is decomposed by Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (CEEMDAN), and the IMFs sensitive components that can characterize the fault characteristics of the target signals are selected by constructing a correlation-rearrangement entropy function. The arrival time of fault signals at the endpoint has been accurately calibrated by combining them with the Teager Energy Operator (TEO). To eliminate the influence of wave velocity and fault time on the location results, this paper proposes a two-terminal location method based on the line mode component to improve the location accuracy. On this basis, combined with the fault branch judgment matrix, the accurate location of multi-terminal transmission line faults is realized. This method has been shown to have high accuracy in detecting traveling wave heads, accurately judging fault branches, and producing a small error in fault location results. Compared with the existing multi-terminal transmission line fault location algorithm, it has obvious advantages and meets the needs of actual working conditions.

Due to the barely resonant earthed system used in the transmission line, it is more challenging to identify faults at a 66 kV voltage level because of insufficient fault identification techniques. In this paper, a 66 kV transmission line fault identification method based on a fault characteristic matrix and an improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO)-wavelet neural network (WNN) is proposed to address the difficulties in extracting and detecting characteristic parameters. The maximum matrix of the dbN wavelet was used to determine its decomposition scale and construct the fault characteristic matrix based on the energy values of frequency bands. The decomposition scale of the dbN wavelet was determined by the modulus maximum matrix to ensure the integrity of fault information. The fault feature matrix was then constructed based on the energy values of frequency bands and the fault feature was accurately extracted. In this research, aiming at the problems such as slow convergence speed and a tendency to fall into local minima, the WNN algorithm is enhanced with the IPSO algorithm. This significantly increased the convergence speed of the identification model and its ability to discover the global optimal solution. The simulation results demonstrate that this method can effectively and accurately identify the fault type with high identification accuracy, quick identification, and robust adaptability. Under challenging working conditions, it is capable of accurately identifying the fault type of 66 kV transmission lines.

The dysregulation of transfer RNA (tRNA) expression contributes to the diversity of proteomics, heterogeneity of cell populations, and instability of the genome, which may be related to human cancer susceptibility. However, the relationship between tRNA dysregulation and cancer susceptibility remains elusive because the landscape of cancer-associated tRNAs has not been portrayed yet. Furthermore, the molecular mechanisms of tRNAs involved in tumorigenesis and cancer progression have not been systematically understood. In this review, we detail current knowledge of cancer-related tRNAs and comprehensively summarize the basic characteristics and functions of these tRNAs, with a special focus on their role and involvement in human cancer. This review bridges the gap between tRNAs and cancer and broadens our understanding of their relationship, thus providing new insights and strategies to improve the potential clinical applications of tRNAs for cancer diagnosis and therapy.

Transmission lines are primarily deployed overhead, and the transmission tower, acting as the fulcrum, can be affected by the unbalanced force of the wire and extreme weather, resulting in the transmission tower tilt, deformation, or collapse. This can jeopardize the safe operation of the power grid and even cause widespread failures, resulting in significant economic losses. Given the limitations of current tower tilt detection methods, this paper proposes a tower tilt detection and analysis method based on monocular vision images. The monocular camera collects the profile and contour features of the tower, and the tower tilt model is combined to realize the calculation and analysis of the tower tilt. Through this improved monocular visual monitoring method, the perception accuracy of the tower tilt is improved by 7.5%, and the axial eccentricity is accurate to ±2 mm. The method provides real-time reliability and simple operation for detecting tower inclination, significantly reducing staff inspection intensity and ensuring the power system operates safely and efficiently.

With the emergence of COVID-19, social distancing detection is a crucial technique for epidemic prevention and control. However, the current mainstream detection technology cannot obtain accurate social distance in real-time. To address this problem, this paper presents a first study on smartphone-based social distance detection technology based on near-ultrasonic signals. Firstly, according to auditory characteristics of the human ear and smartphone frequency response characteristics, a group of 18 kHz–23 kHz inaudible Chirp signals accompanied with single frequency signals are designed to complete ranging and ID identification in a short time. Secondly, an improved mutual ranging algorithm is proposed by combining the cubic spline interpolation and a two-stage search to obtain robust mutual ranging performance against multipath and NLoS affect. Thirdly, a hybrid channel access protocol is proposed consisting of Chirp BOK, FDMA, and CSMA/CA to increase the number of concurrencies and reduce the probability of collision. The results show that in our ranging algorithm, 95% of the mutual ranging error within 5 m is less than 10 cm and gets the best performance compared to the other traditional methods in both LoS and NLoS. The protocol can efficiently utilize the limited near-ultrasonic channel resources and achieve a high refresh rate ranging under the premise of reducing the collision probability. Our study can realize high-precision, high-refresh-rate social distance detection on smartphones and has significant application value during an epidemic.

With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), the security of the network layer in the IoT is getting more and more attention. The traditional intrusion detection technologies cannot be well adapted in the complex Internet environment of IoT. For the deep learning algorithm of intrusion detection, a neural network structure may have fine detection accuracy for one kind of attack, but it may not have a good detection effect when facing other attacks. Therefore, it is urgent to design a self-adaptive model to change the network structure for different attack types. This paper presents an intrusion detection model based on improved genetic algorithm (GA) and deep belief network (DBN). Facing different types of attacks, through multiple iterations of the GA, the optimal number of hidden layers and number of neurons in each layer are generated adaptively, so that the intrusion detection model based on the DBN achieves a high detection rate with a compact structure. Finally, the NSL-KDD dataset was used to simulate and evaluate the model and algorithms. The experimental results show that the improved intrusion detection model combined with DBN can effectively improve the recognition rate of intrusion attacks and reduce the complexity of the neural network structure.

The rapid advancements of Micro/NanoBOTs (MNBOTs) introduce a new research opportunity in routing multiple MNBOTs to perform practical biomedical applications. In this paper, leveraging on existing group communication and motion control schemes for MNBOTs, we propose an Activation Based Molecular Routing (ABMR) scheme in MNBOT networks to coordinate the movement of MNBOTs to activate all the nodes on the routing path to the sink node in bio-sensing applications. An optimization-based algorithm, Lagrangian Algorithm (LGA), is proposed to identify cost efficient ABMR solutions. In the computation experiments, we adopt the MNBOT's parameters from a newly developed biocompatible microcapsule to consider the interplay between the MNBOT guiding force from magnetic field and the MNBOT movement deviation from Brownian motion. It shows that as compared to the conventional diffusion based MNBOT routing scheme, MNBOT routing with magnetic guidance scheme can help to reach the destinations with small receiving volume in shorter propagation time, which is important in high precision bio-medical applications. In addition, LGA outperforms the other heuristics in terms of MNBOT travelled distance under different traffic demands and activation thresholds. LGA also identifies the MNBOT routing decisions with acceptable sink node activation time by minimizing the MNBOT propagation delay as the objective function. This enables ABMR scheme to be applicable to time sensitive biosensing applications.

Recent advances in both lightweight deep learning algorithms and edge computing increasingly enable multiple model inference tasks to be conducted concurrently on resource-constrained edge devices, allowing us to achieve one goal collaboratively rather than getting high quality in each standalone task. However, the high overall running latency for performing multi-model inferences always negatively affects the real-time applications. To combat latency, the algorithms should be optimized to minimize the latency for multi-model deployment without compromising the safety-critical situation. This work focuses on the real-time task scheduling strategy for multi-model deployment and investigating the model inference using an open neural network exchange (ONNX) runtime engine. Then, an application deployment strategy is proposed based on the container technology and inference tasks are scheduled to different containers based on the scheduling strategies. Experimental results show that the proposed solution is able to significantly reduce the overall running latency in real-time applications.

Homomorphic encryption with the ability to compute over encrypted data without access to the secret key provides benefits for the secure and powerful computation, storage, and communication of resources in the cloud. One of its important applications is fast-growing robot control systems for building lightweight, low-cost, smarter robots with intelligent brains consisting of data centers, knowledge bases, task planners, deep learning, information processing, environment models, communication support, synchronous map construction and positioning, etc. It enables robots to be endowed with secure, powerful capabilities while reducing sizes and costs. Processing encrypted information using homomorphic ciphers uses the sign function polynomial approximation, which is a widely studied research field with many practical results. State-of-the-art works are mainly focused on finding the polynomial of best approximation of the sign function (PBAS) with the improved errors on the union of the intervals [−1,−ϵ]∪[ϵ,1]. However, even though the existence of the single PBAS with the minimum deviation is well known, its construction method on the complete interval [−1,1] is still an open problem. In this paper, we provide the PBAS construction method on the interval [−1,1], using as a norm the area between the sign function and the polynomial and showing that for a polynomial degree n≥1, there is (1) unique PBAS of the odd sign function, (2) no PBAS of the general form sign function if n is odd, and (3) an uncountable set of PBAS, if n is even.

Inspired by the concept of software-defined network and network function virtualization, vast virtual networks are generated to isolate and share wireless resources for different network operators. To achieve fine-grained resource control and scheduling among virtual networks (VNs), network performance monitoring is essential. However, due to limitation of hardware, real-time performance monitoring is impossible for a complete virtual network. In this paper, taking advantage of the low-rank characteristic of 90 virtual access points (VAPs) measurement data, we propose an intelligent measurement scheme, namely, adaptive and sequential sampling based on matrix completion (MC), which exploits from the MC to construct the complete data of VN performance from a partial direct monitoring data. First, to construct the initial measurement matrix, we propose a sampling correction model based on dispersion and coverage. Second, a stopping condition for the sequential sampling is introduced, based on the stopping condition, the sampling process for a period can stop without waiting for the matrix reconstruction to reach certain of accuracy level. Finally, the sampled VAPs are determined by referring the backforth completed matrixes' normalized mean absolute error. The experiments show that our approach can achieve a constant network perception and maintain a relatively low error rate with a small sampling rate.

This paper proposes a class of time-delay fractional complex Lu¨ system and utilizes the adomian decomposition algorithm to study the dynamics of the system. Firstly, the time chaotic attractor, coexistence attractor and parameter space are studied. The bifurcation diagram and complexity are used to analyze the dynamic characteristics of the system. Secondly, the definition of modified fractional projective difference function synchronization (MFPDFS) is introduced. The corresponding synchronous controller is designed to realize the MFPDFS of the time-delay fractional complex Lu¨ system. Thirdly, based on the background of wireless speech communication system (WSCs), the MFPDFS controller is used to realize the secure speech transmission. Finally, the effectiveness of the controller is verified by numerical simulation. The signal-noise ratio (SNR) analysis of speech transmission is given. The performance of secure communication is verified by numerical simulation.

Accurate power load forecasting has an important impact on power systems. In order to improve the load forecasting accuracy, a new load forecasting model, VMD–CISSA–LSSVM, is proposed. The model combines the variational modal decomposition (VMD) data preprocessing method, the sparrow search algorithm (SSA) and the least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) model. A multi-strategy improved chaotic sparrow search algorithm (CISSA) is proposed to address the shortcomings of the SSA algorithm, which is prone to local optima and a slow convergence. The initial population is generated using an improved tent chaotic mapping to enhance the quality of the initial individuals and population diversity. Second, a random following strategy is used to optimize the position update process of the followers in the sparrow search algorithm, balancing the local exploitation performance and global search capability of the algorithm. Finally, the Levy flight strategy is used to expand the search range and local search capability. The results of the benchmark test function show that the CISSA algorithm has a better search accuracy and convergence performance. The volatility of the original load sequence is reduced by using VMD. The optimal parameters of the LSSVM are optimized by the CISSA. The simulation test results demonstrate that the VMD–CISSA–LSSVM model has the highest prediction accuracy and stabler prediction results.

Inaccurate electricity load forecasting can lead to the power sector gaining asymmetric information in the supply and demand relationship. This asymmetric information can lead to incorrect production or generation plans for the power sector. In order to improve the accuracy of load forecasting, a combined power load forecasting model based on machine learning algorithms, swarm intelligence optimization algorithms, and data pre-processing is proposed. Firstly, the original signal is pre-processed by the VMD–singular spectrum analysis data pre-processing method. Secondly, the noise-reduced signals are predicted using the Elman prediction model optimized by the sparrow search algorithm, the ELM prediction model optimized by the chaotic adaptive whale algorithm (CAWOA-ELM), and the LSSVM prediction model optimized by the chaotic sparrow search algorithm based on elite opposition-based learning (EOBL-CSSA-LSSVM) for electricity load data, respectively. Finally, the weighting coefficients of the three prediction models are calculated using the simulated annealing algorithm and weighted to obtain the prediction results. Comparative simulation experiments show that the VMD–singular spectrum analysis method and two improved intelligent optimization algorithms proposed in this paper can effectively improve the prediction accuracy. Additionally, the combined forecasting model proposed in this paper has extremely high forecasting accuracy, which can help the power sector to develop a reasonable production plan and power generation plans.

Metro systems are one of the most important transportation systems in people’s lives. Due to the huge amount of energy it consumes every day, highly-efficient operation of a metro system will lead to significant energy savings. In this paper, a new integrated Energy-efficient Operation Methodology (EOM) for metro systems is proposed and validated. Compared with other energy saving methods, EOM does not incur additional cost. In addition, it provides solutions to the frequent disturbance problems in the metro systems. EOM can be divided into two parts: Timetable Optimization (TO) and Compensational Driving Strategy Algorithm (CDSA). First, to get a basic energy-saving effect, a genetic algorithm is used to modify the dwell time of each stop to obtain the most optimal energy-efficient timetable. Then, in order to save additional energy when disturbances happen, a novel CDSA algorithm is formulated and proposed based on the foregoing method. To validate the correctness and effectiveness of the energy-savings possible with EOM, a real case of Shanghai Metro Line One (SMLO) is studied, where EOM was applied. The result shows that a significant amount of energy can be saved by using EOM.

The issues inherent in caring for an ever-increasing aged population has been the subject of endless debate and continues to be a hot topic for political discussion. The use of hospital-based facilities for the monitoring of chronic physiological conditions is expensive and ties up key healthcare professionals. The introduction of wireless sensor devices as part of a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) integrated within an overall eHealth solution could bring a step change in the remote management of patient healthcare. Sensor devices small enough to be placed either inside or on the human body can form a vital part of an overall health monitoring network. An effectively designed energy efficient WBAN should have a minimal impact on the mobility and lifestyle of the patient. WBAN technology can be deployed within a hospital, care home environment or in the patient’s own home. This study is a review of the existing research in the area of WBAN technology and in particular protocol adaptation and energy efficient cross-layer design. The research reviews the work carried out across various layers of the protocol stack and highlights how the latest research proposes to resolve the various challenges inherent in remote continual healthcare monitoring.

This paper develops a novel augmented filtering framework based on information weighted consensus fusion, to achieve the simultaneous localization and tracking (SLAT) via wireless sensor networks (WSNs). By integrating augmented transition and observation models, we formulate a dynamical system that encodes both the target moving manners and coarse sensor locations in an augmented state. We then conduct augmented filtering based on augmented extended Kalman filters to estimate the augmented state. We further refine our target estimate according to information weighted consensus filtering which fuses the target information obtained from neighboring sensors. The fused information is fed back as the target estimate to the augmented filter. Our framework is computationally efficient because it only requires neighboring sensor communications. Experiments on SLAT problem validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in terms of tracking accuracy and localization precision in limited ranging conditions.

The past years have witnessed the significant development of the Internet. Numerous emerging network architectures and protocols have triggered the demand for traffic generators which stand in stark contrast to previous schemes. Namely, fixed test content is inefficient in the presence of such a dynamic and realistic demand. Moreover, the requirement of high-performance has raised the stakes on developing a new concurrent system. In this paper, we present a hierarchical parallel design for a Web traffic generator on a TILERAGX36 processor, called TGMP. We discuss the challenges in developing its hierarchical architectural design, and elaborate on its implementation details. Specifically, in order to generate a realistic network workload over a long and large time scale, we propose a user-control scheme based on cubic spline interpolation. To better improve the scalability of the system and satisfy the required flow rate, we adopt techniques, including optimization of parameters under the Linux kernel, event-driven concurrency, and parallel architectures of a TILERAGX36 processor. The experimental results demonstrate that TGMP is able to create real traffic and simulate 50,000 users accessing the Web server simultaneously.