N G van Kampen 1981 Amsterdam: North-Holland xiv + 419 pp price Dfl 180 This is a book which, at a lower price, could be expected to become an essential part of the library of every physical scientist concerned with problems involving fluctuations and stochastic processes, as well as those who just enjoy a beautifully written book. It provides an extensive graduate-level introduction which is clear, cautious, interesting and readable.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0031-9112/34/4/040/pdf

Stochastic Processes in Physics and Chemistry

A survey on vehicular cloud computing

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are networks of distributed autonomous devices that can sense or monitor physical or environmental conditions cooperatively. WSNs face many challenges, mainly caused by communication failures, storage and computational constraints and limited power supply. Paradigms of computational intelligence (CI) have been successfully used in recent years to address various challenges such as data aggregation and fusion, energy aware routing, task scheduling, security, optimal deployment and localization. CI provides adaptive mechanisms that exhibit intelligent behavior in complex and dynamic environments like WSNs. CI brings about flexibility, autonomous behavior, and robustness against topology changes, communication failures and scenario changes. However, WSN developers are usually not or not completely aware of the potential CI algorithms offer. On the other side, CI researchers are not familiar with all real problems and subtle requirements of WSNs. This mismatch makes collaboration and development difficult. This paper intends to close this gap and foster collaboration by offering a detailed introduction to WSNs and their properties. An extensive survey of CI applications to various problems in WSNs from various research areas and publication venues is presented in the paper. Besides, a discussion on advantages and disadvantages of CI algorithms over traditional WSN solutions is offered. In addition, a general evaluation of CI algorithms is presented, which will serve as a guide for using CI algorithms for WSNs.

Computational Intelligence in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

Edge detection is one of the most commonly used operations in image analysis, andthere are probably more algorithms in the literature for enhancing and detecting edgesthan any other single subject. The reason for this is that edges form the outline of anobject. An edge is the boundary between an object and the background, and indicatesthe boundary between overlapping objects. This means that if the edges in an image canbe identified accurately, all of the objects can be located and basic properties such asarea, perimeter, and shape can be measured. Since computer vision involves theidentification and classification of objects in an image, edge detections is an essential tool. In this paper, we have compared several techniques for edge detection in image processing.

Study and comparison of various image edge detection techniques

Simulation and emulation are techniques frequently used for performance evaluation of wireless multi-hop networks. If the wireless devices are mobile, the movement patterns of these objects are found to have significant impact on the simulation and emulation results. This is quite obvious as the movements influence the topology of the network.In this paper we describe and present BonnMotion. BonnMotion is an open-source Java software which creates and analyzes mobility scenarios. It has been developed at the University of Bonn, Germany, where it serves as a tool for the investigation of mobile multi-hop network scenario characteristics. The scenarios can also be exported for the network simulators ns-2, GloMoSim/QualNet, COOJA, and MiXiM.

BonnMotion: a mobility scenario generation and analysis tool

In the smart grid, huge amounts of consumption data are used to train deep learning models for applications such as load monitoring and demand response. However, these applications raise concerns regarding security and have high accuracy requirements. In one hand, the data used is privacy-sensitive. For instance, the fine-grained data collected by a smart meter at a consumer's home may reveal information on the appliances and thus the consumer's behaviour at home. On the other hand, the deep learning models require big data volumes with enough variety and to be trained adequately. In this paper, we evaluate the use of Edge computing and federated learning, a decentralized machine learning scheme that allows to increase the volume and diversity of data used to train the deep learning models without compromising privacy. This paper reports, to the best of our knowledge, the first use of federated learning for household load forecasting and achieves promising results. The simulations were done using Tensorflow Federated on the data from 200 houses from Texas, USA.

Electrical Load Forecasting Using Edge Computing and Federated Learning

Recently, solutions based on mobile edge computing paradigm have been widely discussed in academia and industry. This paradigm offers solutions to address limitations, in terms of battery lifetime and processing power, of mobile and constrained devices. Despite the ever-increasing capabilities of these devices, resource requirements of applications can often transcend what is available within a single device. Offloading intensive computation tasks to a distant server can help applications reach their desired performances. In this work, we tackle the problem of offloading heavy computation tasks of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) while achieving the best possible tradeoff between energy consumption, time delay, and computation cost. We focus on a scenario of a fleet of small UAVs performing an exploration mission. During their mission, these constrained devices have to carry-out highly intensive computation tasks such as pattern recognition and video preprocessing. We formulate the problem using a non-cooperative theoretical game with N players and three pure strategies. We provide a comprehensive proof for the existence of a Nash equilibrium and implement accordingly a distributed algorithm that converges to such an equilibrium. Extensive simulations are performed in order to provide thorough results and assess the performances of the approach compared to three other models. Results show that our algorithm outperforms all the three approaches. Our approach achieved in average about 19%, 58%, and 55% better results compared to local computing, offloading to the edge server, and offloading to base station, respectively.

A Game Theory Based Efficient Computation Offloading in an UAV Network

Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) is a key solution that enables operators to open their networks to new services and IT ecosystems to leverage edge-cloud benefits in their networks and systems. Located in close proximity from the end users and connected devices, MEC provides extremely low latency and high bandwidth while always enabling applications to leverage cloud capabilities as necessary. In this article, we illustrate the integration of MEC into a current mobile networks’ architecture as well as the transition mechanisms to migrate into a standard 5G network architecture. We also discuss SDN, NFV, SFC and network slicing as MEC enablers. Then, we provide a state-of-the-art study on the different approaches that optimize the MEC resources and its QoS parameters. In this regard, we classify these approaches based on the optimized resources and QoS parameters (i.e., processing, storage, memory, bandwidth, energy and latency). Finally, we propose an architectural framework for a MEC-NFV environment based on the standard SDN architecture.

/pdf/multi-access-edge-computing-a-survey-11z1afsuu6.pdf

Multi-Access Edge Computing: A Survey

As electric vehicles become more popular, public charging stations for such vehicles will become common. Since the load introduced by such stations on the grid is high, the smart grid will need to balance the load among charging stations in an area while minimizing the waiting time for users to have their vehicles charged. In this paper, we present an approach for balancing the load among charging stations in an area while minimizing the charging time of electric vehicles. We propose a model where vehicles communicate beforehand with the grid to convey information about their charging status, and develop a mathematical model of handling requests for charging vehicles at public charging station based on queuing theory. Finally, we propose an algorithm for directing vehicles to charging stations in a way to minimize their waiting time to charge completion. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach when considering both real electric vehicle and charging station characteristics and constraints.

Queuing model for EVs charging at public supply stations

5G technologies promise faster connections, lower latency, higher reliability, more capacity and wider coverage. We are looking to rely on these technologies to achieve Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications, which increase the safety and autonomy of vehicles in addition to road safety, saving energy and costs. The integration of vehicular communication systems and 5G is the subject of many research. Nowadays, researchers address challenges such as automated and intelligent networks, cloud and edge data processing, network management, virtualization, security, privacy and finally interoperability. This paper provides a survey of the latest V2X use cases including requirements, and various 5G enabling technologies under consideration for vehicular communications. Subsequently, we first provide an interesting mapping between the three 5G pillars and V2X use case groups. Then, we present a summary of potential applications of enabling technologies for V2X use case groups. Finally, the open directions of research are discussed, and the challenges that await to be met are pointed out.

Soumaya Cherkaoui

Papers

Electrical Load Forecasting Using Edge Computing and Federated Learning

A Game Theory Based Efficient Computation Offloading in an UAV Network

Multi-Access Edge Computing: A Survey

Queuing model for EVs charging at public supply stations

On 5G-V2X Use Cases and Enabling Technologies: A Comprehensive Survey