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The transformative impact of modern computational paradigms and technologies, such as high-performance computing (HPC), quantum computing, and cloud computing, has opened up profound new opportunities for scientific simulations. Scalable computational chemistry is one beneficiary of this technological progress. The main focus of this paper is on the performance of various quantum chemical formulations, ranging from low-order methods to high-accuracy approaches, implemented in different computational chemistry packages and libraries, such as NWChem, NWChemEx, Scalable Predictive Methods for Excitations and Correlated Phenomena, ExaChem, and Fermi–Löwdin orbital self-interaction correction on Azure Quantum Elements, Microsoft's cloud services platform for scientific discovery. We pay particular attention to the intricate workflows for performing complex chemistry simulations, associated data curation, and mechanisms for accuracy assessment, which is demonstrated with the Arrows automated workflow for high throughput simulations. Finally, we provide a perspective on the role of cloud computing in supporting the mission of leadership computational facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cybersecurity is a present and growing concern that needs to be addressed with both behavioral and design-oriented research. Public cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services and federal funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation have invested billions of dollars into developing high-performance computing resources accessible to users through configurable virtual machine (VM) images. This approach offers users the flexibility of changing and updating their environment for their computational needs. Despite the substantial benefits, users often introduce thousands of vulnerabilities by installing open-source software packages and misconfiguring file systems. Given the scale of vulnerabilities, security personnel struggle to identify and prioritize vulnerable assets for remediation. In this research, we designed a novel unsupervised deep learning-based Multi-View Combinatorial-Attentive Autoencoder (MV-CAAE) to capture multi-dimensional vulnerability data and automatically identify groups of similar vulnerable compute instances to help facilitate the development of targeted remediation strategies. We rigorously evaluated the proposed MV-CAAE against state-of-the-art methods in three technical clustering experiments. Experiment results indicate that the MV-CAAE achieves V-measure scores (metric of cluster quality) 8 percent-48 percent higher than benchmark methods. We demonstrated the practical value through a comprehensive case study by clustering vulnerable VMs and gathering qualitative feedback from experienced security professionals through semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that clustering vulnerable assets can help prioritize vulnerable instances for remediation and enhance decision-making tasks. The present design-research work also contributes to our theoretical knowledge of cyber-defense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic structure theory, i.e., quantum chemistry, is the fundamental building block for many problems in computational chemistry. We present a new distributed computing framework (BigChem), which allows for an efficient solution of many quantum chemistry problems in parallel. BigChem is designed to be easily composable and leverages industry-standard middleware (e.g., Celery, RabbitMQ, and Redis) for distributed approaches to large scale problems. BigChem can harness any collection of worker nodes, including ones on cloud providers (such as AWS or Azure), local clusters, or supercomputer centers (and any mixture of these). BigChem builds upon MolSSI packages, such as QCEngine to standardize the operation of numerous computational chemistry programs, demonstrated here with Psi4, xtb, geomeTRIC, and TeraChem. BigChem delivers full utilization of compute resources at scale, offers a programable canvas for designing sophisticated quantum chemistry workflows, and is fault tolerant to node failures and network disruptions. We demonstrate linear scalability of BigChem running computational chemistry workloads on up to 125 GPUs. Finally, we present ChemCloud, a web API to BigChem and successor to TeraChem Cloud. ChemCloud delivers scalable and secure access to BigChem over the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dual-scrambling scheme that combines position transformation and bit-plane transformation is a popular image encryption scheme. However, such schemes need more key information, and the encryption and decryption processes are complicated. In addition, the existing quantum image dual-scrambling schemes mainly deal with square images. In this paper, we propose a hybrid scrambling encryption scheme for multi-mode quantum image representation (MQIR) images based on random permutation, in which the H × W quantum image is represented in MQIR. A random number generator factor s uniquely associates one of the random permutations of integers from 1 to a positive integer, so as to hybrid scramble both the pixel position and the binarized position of each pixel value. Meanwhile, the quantum circuits and some examples of scrambling are given. Furthermore, various analyses of the performance of this scheme were conducted, including effectiveness, key space, and computational complexity. By modifying the random generation factor to construct multiple binary grayscale images, the simulated results on the IBM Quantum Cloud platform demonstrate that the proposed quantum image encryption scheme is effective. In comparison to existing quantum image dual scrambling schemes, it is both simple and effective, offering a large key space, lower computational complexity, and applicability to non-square quantum images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud computing is widely applied in modern industrial areas due to its technological advancement, cost reduction, and applicability. Packets (tasks) belonging to different applications (agents) compete to share the common cloud resource through a series of edge nodes (processors) in pursuit of fast transmission. This paper abstracts the cloud computing system as a multi-agent flow-shop scheduling (MAFS) problem. The objective is to minimise the total completion time of several agents with the restriction that the maximum lateness cannot exceed a given bound. Given the complexity of the considered problem, a branch and bound algorithm combined with several pruning rules and lower bounds is proposed to obtain optimal solutions. Furthermore, the considered problem is generalised to a bi-scenario version, and a bi-population cooperative co-evolutionary (BCCE) algorithm is proposed to solve it. A reinforcement learning-based method is presented to generate the initial population. Several problem-specific intensification strategies are constructed to explore promising solutions. Comprehensive experiments verified the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. The industrial data from the China Earthquake Network Centre further confirmed the superiority of the BCCE algorithm. Overall, the MAFS model and the proposed algorithms effectively enhance the user experience and reasonably guarantee revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines how a firm's cloud storage implementation affects different types of security breaches in both the short- and long-term. Building on the attention-based view, we find that cloud storage implementation positively relates to a firm's external breaches and accidental internal breaches in the short-term. However, the positive relationship between cloud storage implementation and external breaches diminishes over time and becomes insignificant long-term. Our results demonstrate a long-term security advantage of cloud storage in reducing accidental internal breaches. We did not find a significant association between cloud storage and malicious internal breaches. Findings highlight the need for firms to direct limited resources to different security risks in the short- and long-term of cloud storage implementation over time. This research contributes to our understanding of cloud storage's security implications and explicitly theorizes the role of attention in firm IT security management. We contribute to the attention-based view by contextualizing the theory to IT security. We highlight temporal dynamics through distinct attentional mechanisms, including selective attention, attentional flexibility, and attentional vigilance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organisations are having difficulty in determining and integrating Industry 4.0 technologies (I4.0T) to improve social dimensions of sustainable performance. We address this issue by showing how to identify the impact degree and path of I4.0T using the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs). First, we identify the SDGs associated with I4.0 and establish an evaluation framework. Second, we introduce an evaluation method that integrates hesitant fuzzy sets, rough sets, decision-making, trial evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and interpretative structural modelling methods to identify the impact degree and path of I4.0T on SDGs. Third, we confirm the effectiveness of our framework and method using secondary case data from World Economic Forum reports. The case results show that I4.0T have varying direct and indirect influences on SDGs. Policy makers should consider that 'Big Data and Analytics' and 'Cloud Computing' are central I4.0T that link other technologies and SDGs. The prioritisation of I4.0T can lead to contributions to addressing 'Responsible consumption and production' and indirectly improve SDGs. The findings set an initial stage to help sequence investment in various technologies depending on SDGs. We identify sequential paths that can aid in planning for and investing in adopting I4.0T to better achieve SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with a number of other computing technologies, cloud computing services are increasingly being promoted as a way of enabling openness, reproducibility, and the acceleration of scientific work. While there have been a variety of studies of the cloud in terms of computing performance, there has been little empirical attention to the changes going on around cloud computing at the level of work and practice. Through a qualitative, ethnographic study, we follow a cosmology research group’s transition from a shared high performance computing cluster to a cloud computing service, and examine the cloud service as a coordinative artifact being integrated into a larger ecology of existing practices and artifacts. We find that the transition involves both change and continuity in the group’s coordinative work and maintenance work, and point out some of the effects this adoption has on the group’s larger set of practices. Finally, we discuss practical implications this has for the broader adoption of cloud computing in university-based scientific work.

In recent years, Internet traffic patterns have been changing. Most of the traffic demand by end users is multimedia, in particular, video streaming accounts for over 53%. This demand has led to improved network infrastructures and computing architectures to meet the challenges of delivering these multimedia services while maintaining an adequate quality of experience. Focusing on the preparation and adequacy of multimedia content for broadcasting, Cloud and Edge Computing infrastructures have been and will be crucial to offer high and ultra-high definition multimedia content in live, real-time, or video-on-demand scenarios. For these reasons, this review paper presents a detailed study of research papers related to encoding and transcoding techniques in cloud computing environments. It begins by discussing the evolution of streaming and the importance of the encoding process, with a focus on the latest streaming methods and codecs. Then, it examines the role of cloud systems in multimedia environments and provides details on the cloud infrastructure for media scenarios. After doing a systematic literature review, we have been able to find 49 valid papers that meet the requirements specified in the research questions. Each paper has been analyzed and classified according to several criteria, besides to inspect their relevance. To conclude this review, we have identified and elaborated on several challenges and open research issues associated with the development of video codecs optimized for diverse factors within both cloud and edge architectures. Additionally, we have discussed emerging challenges in designing new cloud/edge architectures aimed at more efficient delivery of media traffic. This involves investigating ways to improve the overall performance, reliability, and resource utilization of architectures that support the transmission of multimedia content over both cloud and edge computing environments ensuring a good quality of experience for the final user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is imperative to take a holistic strategy to thwarting drone threats, including the identification of drones and drone-like gadgets like ornithopters that visually imitate birds. In this study, we present the DroneSilient System, a novel anti-drone system that combines different parts. The DroneSilient system includes components that connect to RF identification technology and image-capture technology. A modified bloom filter method is used to further identify the recognized object after a drone-like object has been found, allowing for the differentiation between regular drones, ornithopters, and genuine birds. The CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) method, created using the Google Cloud Platform and AutoML widget, is used in our model for object identification and categorization. DroneSilient has an RF sensor that can identify and imitate the threat presented by recognized drones. Convolutional Network, Modified Blooms Algorithm, RFID, and RF Sensor systems are all integrated into the DroneSilient system as part of this methodology combination, which provides a thorough method for identifying and eliminating drone threats. The bloom filter proposed takes 27.6 to 12.4 microseconds. Overall time for handling the unauthorized drone will be less than 180 s. By tackling every facet of the problem, our strategy outperforms many current anti-drone solutions in terms of functionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy management in datacenters is a major challenge today due to the environmental and economic impact of increasing energy consumption. Efficient placement of virtual machines in physical machines within modern datacenters is crucial for their effective management. In this context, five algorithms named CNN-GA, CNN-greedy, CNN-ABC, CNN-ACO and CNN-PSO, have been developed to minimize hosts' power consumption and ensure service quality with relatively low response times. We propose a comparative approach between the developed algorithms and other existing methods for virtual machine placement. The algorithms use optimization algorithms combined with Convolutional Neural Networks to build predictive models of virtual machine placement. The models were evaluated based on their accuracy and complexity to select the optimal solution. The necessary data is collected using the CloudSim Plus simulator, and the prediction results were used to allocate virtual machines according to the predictions of the models. The main objective of this research is to optimize the management of Information Technology resources within datacenters. This is achieved by seeking a virtual machine placement policy that minimizes hosts' power consumption and ensures an appropriate level of service for users' needs. It considers the imperatives of sustainability, performance, and availability by reducing energy consumption and response times. We studied six scenarios under specific constraints to determine the best model for virtual machines' placement. This approach aims to address current challenges in energy management and operational efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for faster and more accessible alternatives to laboratory microscopy is driving many innovations throughout the image and data acquisition chain in the biomedical field. Benchtop microscopes are bulky, lack communications capabilities, and require trained personnel for analysis. New technologies, such as compact 3D-printed devices integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT) for data sharing and cloud computing, as well as automated image processing using deep learning algorithms, can address these limitations and enhance the conventional imaging workflow. This review reports on recent advancements in microscope miniaturization, with a focus on emerging technologies such as photoacoustic microscopy and more established approaches like smartphone-based microscopy. The potential applications of IoT in microscopy are examined in detail. Furthermore, this review discusses the evolution of image processing in microscopy, transitioning from traditional to deep learning methods that facilitate image enhancement and data interpretation. Despite numerous advancements in the field, there is a noticeable lack of studies that holistically address the entire microscopy acquisition chain. This review aims to highlight the potential of IoT and artificial intelligence (AI) in combination with portable microscopy, emphasizing the importance of a comprehensive approach to the microscopy acquisition chain, from portability to image analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workload migration among cloud data centers is currently an evolving task that requires substantial advancements. The incorporation of fuzzy systems holds potential for enhancing performance and efficiency within cloud computing. This study addresses a multi-objective problem wherein the goal is to maximize the interpretability and the percentage of renewable energy consumed by a fuzzy meta-scheduler system in cloud scenarios. To accomplish this objective, the present research proposes a novel approach utilizing a multi-objective Knowledge Acquisition with a Swarm Intelligence Approach algorithm. Additionally, it takes advantage of a framework built on CloudSim, which includes virtual machine migration capabilities based on an expert system. Furthermore, a hierarchical fuzzy system is employed to assess rule base interpretability, along with another multi-objective algorithm, named Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II. The framework and hierarchical system are employed to perform various simulation results concerning renewable energy and interpretability, while the algorithms aim to enhance the system's performance and interpretability. Empirical results demonstrate that it is possible to improve the performance of cloud data centers while improving the interpretability of the corresponding fuzzy rule-based system. The proposed multi-objective algorithm shows comparable or superior performance to the genetic algorithm across diverse scenarios. The simulation results indicate that improvements in cloud data center performance can be achieved while enhancing system interpretability. The average improvement in the interpretability index ranges from 0.6 to 6%, with a corresponding increase in renewable energy utilization ranging from 5 to 6%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud computing (CC) is a technology that enables the delivery of IT services outside of the workplace. CC, on the other hand, has had several drawbacks. The task scheduling issue is taken as one of the important difficulties because a solid mapping between available resources and users' activities is essential to reduce the execution time of users' jobs (i.e., minimize makespan) and maximize resource utilization. Because the service provider must offer several customers' benefits at distinct times and from distinct locations, task scheduling is indeed a serious challenge in CC. As a result, in the CC environment, these operations must be scheduled in a more dynamic and timely manner. The objective is to provide an enhanced task scheduling algorithm for allocating the task of the user to different computing resources. The major aim of the research work is to reduce the cost and the execution time as well as to improve the resource utilization of the task scheduling problem using the improved support vector machine (ISVM) and the optimization concept. The novel algorithm used here merges two familiar algorithms as squirrel search algorithm (SSA) and the horse herd optimization algorithm (HOA) leading to a new hybrid metaheuristic algorithm called the horse herd–squirrel search algorithm (HO–SSA). The developed HO–SSA assists in introducing a multiobjective optimization for efficiently handling task scheduling issues in the cloud sector. The proposed HO–SSA method for the task scheduling in CC model in terms of cost is 22.22%, 15.73%, and 38.74% better than SSA, HOA, and TSA, respectively. Similarly, the proposed HO–SSA method for the task scheduling in CC model with respect to energy is 9.68%, 5.35%, and 22.50% superior to SSA, HOA, and TSA, respectively. The proposed method outperformed the existing methods like SSA, HOA, and TSA in terms of cost, energy, degree of imbalance, makespan, speedup, and efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile cloud computing (MCC) is one of the most visible efforts to take computing technology beyond the use of tools and achieve universal penetration. Mobile and cloud computing are becoming increasingly important in people's daily lives, highlighting the urgent need for new approaches. The motivation of mobile users and the nature of cloud computing make it ideal for developing mobile cloud services. The focus of this paper is on the cognitive, social, and technical motivations that mobile users experience when owning, interacting with, and using mobile devices through MCC. We also explore the moderating role of network externalities between perceived utility of MCC, usage attitudes, and actual use of MCC. The results show that the positive effects of perceived utility and attitudes on mobile cloud computing usage increase gradually with network externalities. This study provides a theoretical basis for academics and practical guidance for service providers to promote MCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The use of Cloud-based storage of personal health records has increased globally. The GPOC Series introduces the concept of a Global Patient co-Owned Cloud (GPOC) of personal health records. Here, we present the GPOC Series' international survey on the necessity of a GPOC. Methods: Online global survey with invitations sent to health ministries and major organisations. It received answers from health ministries and affiliated advisors of all 193 United Nations (UN) member states, 2 UN observer states (Holy See & Palestine) and 1 de facto UN non-member state (Taiwan) and from 18 major international organisations. The survey examined a dozen aspects encompassing demographics, privacy, sharing, movability, co-ownership, research, company usage, regulation and the necessity of a GPOC. Results: The GPOC Survey elicited responses from 267 individuals from 214 entities, including all UN member states, and major international organisations. Twelve domains were identified, covering demographics, correctness, privacy, commercial use, medical and non-medical research, co-ownership, data sharing, record movement, ownership centralisation, patient rights, environmental concerns, and foundation creation. Results show high agreement on most issues, including support for co-ownership (89%) and movement of personal health records (84%). Disagreement was prominent regarding centralised ownership by the state (64%) and data sharing without consent (85%). Additionally, respondents expressed interest in a neutral, decentralised foundation for regulation (73%) and the environmental sustainability of electronic health records (84%). Conclusions: A Global Patient co-Owned Cloud (GPOC) of personal health records could significantly enhance patient independence and involvement in health management, supported by the near consensus agreement across various domains identified in our survey. This consensus underscores the potential of GPOC to democratise healthcare and align with UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The survey results demonstrate strong support for GPOC's role in promoting evidence-based patient management, reducing information silos, and fostering ethical data sharing. Moreover, the overwhelming agreement on key principles of co-ownership, data sharing, and environmental sustainability highlights the global inclination for a decentralised, patient-controlled PHR platform. This platform stands to empower patients worldwide, advance precision medicine, and contribute to the global development and dissemination of artificial intelligence in healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cryogenic electron microscopy (Cryo-EM) is a widely used technique for visualizing the 3D structures of many drug design targets, including membrane proteins, at atomic resolution. However, the necessary throughput for structure-based drug design (SBDD) is not yet achieved. Currently, data analysis is a major bottleneck due to the rapid advancements in detector technology and image acquisition methods. Here we show "GoToCloud", a cloud-computing-based platform for advanced data analysis and data management in Cryo-EM. With GoToCloud, it is possible to optimize computing resources and reduce costs by selecting the most appropriate parallel processing settings for each processing step. Our benchmark tests on GoToCloud demonstrate that parallel computing settings, including the choice of computational hardware, as well as a required target resolution have significant impacts on the processing time and cost performance. Through this optimization of a cloud computing environment, GoToCloud emerges as a promising platform for the acceleration of Cryo-EM SBDD. The design philosophy, implementation, optimization, and performance evaluation of a cloud-computing platform for data analysis and management in Cryo-EM single particle analysis to achieve a significant reduction in processing time and cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tool design is very important in the modern manufacturing industry. However, the traditional tool design process often has a heavy workload, which reduces the production efficiency of tool manufacturing enterprises. To deal with these problems, this paper proposes an integrated tool design platform to solve the problems in tool design. The tool-integrated design platform uses parametric modeling technology to allow design engineers to quickly create a geometric model of the tool by setting key parameters. The platform also introduces cutting simulation technology. Design engineers can perform simulation analysis on the platform and evaluate its performance and feasibility by simulating different tool design schemes. At the same time, this paper also uses cloud database technology to realize the function of multi-person remote collaborative design. In addition, the platform also uses genetic algorithm to optimize the cutting depth, cutting width, feed rate, and spindle speed of the tool with the minimum three-way milling force as the goal to guide the actual processing and production. In summary, by introducing technologies such as parametric modeling, parametric simulation, and cloud databases, enterprises can effectively solve the problems in the tool design process. The design time cycle is greatly shortened, and multi-person remote collaborative design becomes more convenient. This will significantly improve the enterprise's production efficiency and help the tool's precise design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment and adaptation of remote symptom analysis remains a significant challenge for researchers. Qualitative evaluation in real-time clinical settings is crucial for the formative adaptation of remote symptom analysis. Remote patient monitoring and cloud integration unlock opportunities for affordability, personalization, and transparency. Despite facing barriers, the authors skilfully showcase how the integration of Natural language processing (NLP) and Deep learning (DL) can lead to impactful interventions. The study identifies Bi-directional long short term memory (Bi-LSTM) and contextual embedding techniques as pivotal in improving model accuracy. By combining patient symptom sequences with specialist recommendations, the research aims to facilitate the smooth transition of patients from the hospital to home, ensuring they receive the necessary attention. The 96% accuracy rate discovered by the researchers is a compelling indicator of the potential to drive the development of future remote palliative care units. This paper emphasizes the importance of capturing patient symptom notes and highlights the extensive pilot studies conducted by the researcher before to developing this innovative adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of IoT and cloud services enhances communication and quality of life, while predictive analytics powered by AI and deep learning enables proactive healthcare. Deep learning, a subset of machine learning, efficiently analyzes vast datasets, offering rapid disease prediction. Leveraging recurrent neural networks on electronic health records improves accuracy for timely intervention and preventative care. In this manuscript, Internet of Things and Cloud Computing-based Disease Diagnosis using Optimized Improved Generative Adversarial Network in Smart Healthcare System (IOT-CC-DD-OICAN-SHS) is proposed. Initially, an Internet of Things (IoT) device collects diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and heart disease data from patients via wearable devices and intelligent sensors and then saves the patient’s large data in the cloud. These cloud data are pre-processed to turn them into a suitable format. The pre-processed dataset is sent into the Improved Generative Adversarial Network (IGAN), which reliably classifies the data as disease-free or diseased. Then, IGAN was optimized using the Flamingo Search optimization algorithm (FSOA). The proposed technique is implemented in Java using Cloud Sim and examined utilizing several performance metrics. The proposed method attains greater accuracy and specificity with lower execution time compared to existing methodologies, IoT-C-SHMS-HDP-DL, PPEDL‐MDTC and CSO-CLSTM-DD-SHS respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a Privacy-Preserving Deep Neural Network for Credit Risk Prediction (PPDNN-CRP) framework that leverages homomorphic encryption (HE) to ensure data privacy throughout the credit risk prediction process. The PPDNN-CRP framework employs the Paillier homomorphic encryption scheme to secure sensitive loan application data during both the training and inference phases. Implemented using TensorFlow for deep neural network operations and TenSEAL for HE, the framework uses the Kaggle loan dataset to evaluate its performance. The results show that PPDNN-CRP achieved an accuracy of 80.48%, demonstrating competitive performance compared to Privacy-Preserving Logistic Regression (PPLR) at 77.23% and a slight decrease from the non-private DNN-CRP model at 86.18%. The model exhibited strong metrics with a precision of 0.84, recall of 0.91, F1-score of 0.87, and an AUC of 0.74. Security analysis confirms that PPDNN-CRP effectively defends against various privacy attacks, including poisoning, evasion, membership inference, model inversion, and model extraction, through robust encryption techniques and privacy measures. This framework offers a promising approach for achieving high-quality credit risk prediction while maintaining data privacy and complying with legal and ethical standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Akin to the impact that digital microelectronics had on electronic devices for information technology, digital microfluidics (DMF) was anticipated to transform fluidic devices for lab-on-a-chip (LoC) applications. However, despite a wealth of research and publications, electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) DMF has not achieved the anticipated wide adoption, and commercialization has been painfully slow. By identifying the technological and resource hurdles in developing DMF chip and control systems as the culprit, we envision democratizing DMF by building a standardized design and manufacturing platform. To achieve this vision, we introduce a proof-of-concept cloud platform that empowers any user to design, obtain, and operate DMF chips (https://edroplets.org). For chip design, we establish a web-based EWOD chip design platform with layout rules and automated wire routing. For chip manufacturing, we build a web-based EWOD chip manufacturing platform and fabricate four types of EWOD chips (i.e., glass, paper, PCB, and TFT) to demonstrate the foundry service workflow. For chip control, we introduce a compact EWOD control system along with web-based operating software. Although industrial fabrication services are beyond the scope of this work, we hope this perspective will inspire academic and commercial stakeholders to join the initiative toward a DMF ecosystem for the masses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data-driven damage detection methods are widely researched and implemented due to the availability of advanced sensing and cloud technologies, where machine learning models are used to process the various data collected from the sensors for damage diagnosis. Supervised methods have shown to be accurate in identifying damages given that they are trained with sufficient historical damage samples. As damage events are rare, supervised methods often face the cold-start problem, that is, insufficient labelled damage samples to initiate model training. Unsupervised methods do not require training and have shown to be practical up to detecting damage presence, but prior knowledge or labelled historical damage samples are still required as references to further locate and quantify the damage. To solve the cold-start issue, a modal-based method, which relates the modal parameters with damages, is proposed to bridge the gap between the unsupervised and supervised methods. Therefore, this work proposes an integration strategy of a modal-based method into a hybrid machine learning-based method for damage detection and localisation of beam-like structures. A two-stage scheme with unsupervised, supervised, and modal-based methods is proposed. The first stage detects damage presence using PCA-FRF as the damage-sensitive feature in an unsupervised manner, and the second stage locates the damages using the first mode shape. Mode shape assessment-based damage localisation is performed at the second stage when no trained model is available due to zero or limited damage samples for training to solve the cold-start and manual labelling issue. Supervised model training starts once there are at least two classes of damage, and the trained model is only used for damage localisation when it surpasses the 90% validation accuracy benchmark. Results showed accuracies of 100%, 100%, and 95.85% for the first stage unsupervised detection, second stage mode shape assessment-based damage localisation and the supervised model-based damage localisation, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ImageGP is an extensively utilized, open‐access platform for online data visualization and analysis. Over the past 7 years, it has catered to more than 700,000 usages globally, garnering substantial user feedback. The updated version, ImageGP 2 (available at https://www.bic.ac.cn/BIC), introduces a redesigned interface leveraging cutting‐edge web technologies to enhance functionality and user interaction. Key enhancements include the following: (i) Addition of modules for data format transformation, facilitating operations such as matrix merging, subsetting, and transformation between long and wide formats. (ii) Streamlined workflows with features like preparameter selection data validation and grouping of parameters with similar attributes. (iii) Expanded repertoire of visualization functions and analysis tools, including Weighted Gene Co‐Expression Network Analysis, differential gene expression analysis, and FASTA sequence processing. (iv) Personalized user space for uploading large data sets, tracking analysis history, and sharing reproducible analysis data, scripts, and results. (v) Enhanced user support through a simplified error debugging feature accessible with a single click. (vi) Introduction of an R package, ImageGP, enabling local data visualization and analysis. These updates position ImageGP 2 as a versatile tool serving both wet‐lab and dry‐lab researchers with expanded capabilities. Highlights: Advanced user interface, expanded analytical capabilities, and seamless data handling.New modules for data transformation and preparameter selection data validation.Personalized user center, reproducible scripts, seamless error debugging, the introduction of local analysis capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With FaSS-MVS, we present a fast, surface-aware semi-global optimization approach for multi-view stereo that allows for rapid depth and normal map estimation from monocular aerial video data captured by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The data estimated by FaSS-MVS, in turn, facilitate online 3D mapping, meaning that a 3D map of the scene is immediately and incrementally generated as the image data are acquired or being received. FaSS-MVS is composed of a hierarchical processing scheme in which depth and normal data, as well as corresponding confidence scores, are estimated in a coarse-to-fine manner, allowing efficient processing of large scene depths, such as those inherent in oblique images acquired by UAVs flying at low altitudes. The actual depth estimation uses a plane-sweep algorithm for dense multi-image matching to produce depth hypotheses from which the actual depth map is extracted by means of a surface-aware semi-global optimization, reducing the fronto-parallel bias of Semi-Global Matching (SGM). Given the estimated depth map, the pixel-wise surface normal information is then computed by reprojecting the depth map into a point cloud and computing the normal vectors within a confined local neighborhood. In a thorough quantitative and ablative study, we show that the accuracy of the 3D information computed by FaSS-MVS is close to that of state-of-the-art offline multi-view stereo approaches, with the error not even an order of magnitude higher than that of COLMAP. At the same time, however, the average runtime of FaSS-MVS for estimating a single depth and normal map is less than 14% of that of COLMAP, allowing us to perform online and incremental processing of full HD images at 1–2 Hz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Objectives: Lung and cardiovascular diseases are leading causes of mortality worldwide, yet early detection remains challenging due to the subtle symptoms. Digital clubbing, characterized by the bulbous enlargement of the fingertips, serves as an early indicator of these diseases. This study aims to develop an automated system for detecting digital clubbing using deep-learning models for real-time monitoring and early intervention. Methods: The proposed system utilizes the YOLOv8 model for object detection and U-Net for image segmentation, integrated with the ESP32-CAM development board to capture and analyze finger images. The severity of digital clubbing is determined using a custom algorithm based on the Lovibond angle theory, categorizing the condition into normal, mild, moderate, and severe. The system was evaluated using 1768 images and achieved cloud-based and real-time processing capabilities. Results: The system demonstrated high accuracy (98.34%) in real-time detection with precision (98.22%), sensitivity (99.48%), and specificity (98.22%). Cloud-based processing achieved slightly lower but robust results, with an accuracy of 96.38%. The average processing time was 0.15 s per image, showcasing its real-time potential. Conclusions: This automated system provides a scalable and cost-effective solution for the early detection of digital clubbing, enabling timely intervention for lung and cardiovascular diseases. Its high accuracy and real-time capabilities make it suitable for both clinical and home-based health monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of satellite data with deep learning has revolutionized various tasks in remote sensing, including classification, object detection, and semantic segmentation. Cloud segmentation in high-resolution satellite imagery is a critical application within this domain, yet progress in developing advanced algorithms for this task has been hindered by the scarcity of specialized datasets and annotation tools. This study addresses this challenge by introducing CloudLabel, a semi-automatic annotation technique leveraging region growing and morphological algorithms including flood fill, connected components, and guided filter. CloudLabel v1.0 streamlines the annotation process for high-resolution satellite images, thereby addressing the limitations of existing annotation platforms which are not specifically adapted to cloud segmentation, and enabling the efficient creation of high-quality cloud segmentation datasets. Notably, we have curated the Annotated Dataset for Training Cloud Segmentation (ADTCS) comprising 32,065 images (512 × 512) for cloud segmentation based on CloudLabel. The ADTCS dataset facilitates algorithmic advancement in cloud segmentation, characterized by uniform cloud coverage distribution and high image entropy (mainly 5–7). These features enable deep learning models to capture comprehensive cloud characteristics, enhancing recognition accuracy and reducing ground object misclassification. This contribution significantly advances remote sensing applications and cloud segmentation algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Droughts have a significant impact on surface water resources, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Computational and data handling limitations have constrained previous time-series analyses. However, advances in cloud computing services and remote sensing technology allow for a more detailed examination. This study integrates multi-source satellite-derived data with a cloud computing platform to assess the impact of long-term drought on surface water and water balance in Iran from 2000 to 2021. Given the varying effects of drought on highlands and lowlands, the analysis was conducted at three levels: the entire country, the highlands, and the lowlands. The results of this study reveal imbalances between water balance from 2000 to 2021, with notable disparities observed during 2000–2007, 2009–2014, and 2016–2019. The results also show varying drought trends (e.g., −1.22 in 2000 and −0.73 in 2021), with severe conditions captured in 2008 (SPI: −1.92). Additionally, our analysis illustrated that lowlands were more impacted by droughts compared to highlands. Long-term drought and permanent surface water had correlation values of 0.33 across the country, 0.33 in the highlands, and 0.31 in the lowlands. For seasonal surface water, coefficients were 0.18 for the entire country, 0.16 for the highlands, and 0.18 for the lowlands. Overall, long-term drought had minimal effect on reducing surface water. These findings show that drought is only part of the explanation for the decrease in surface water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to assess the effectiveness of using cloud storage services as a means to facilitate the rehearsal process in online choral vocal education. Third-year students from three Chinese educational institutions participated in this study. Thus, this research involved a total number of 336 people (320 students and 16 teachers). Accordingly, students were divided into two groups based on the training approach. The first one, Group A, consisted of students who received choral vocal training under the conventional program without the application of online platforms and cloud storage services. The second one, Group B, included students who received education using technology-enabled training methods. They participated in choral rehearsals on Zoom using multimedia materials from Google Drive. According to the results of the final assessment, Group B performed better than Group A; the difference in the average performance score was 5% between the two groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identity authentication scheme in vehicular Ad hoc network is one of the effective ways to solve many security and privacy problems in the Internet of Vehicles. However, most of the existing authentication schemes do not focus on single points of failure or information leakage. In order to solve the above problems, this paper proposed a threshold-based edgeassisted identity authentication scheme in VANET. On the premise of protecting the real identity information of the vehicle, the solution cooperated with multiple edge nodes to authenticate the vehicle, thereby avoiding the issue of a single point of failure. At the same time, in the initial cooperative authentication stage, the scheme generated a token for rapid switching of identity authentication in the authentication stage, and achieved rapid switching based on identity authentication without interacting with multiple edge nodes, which effectively reduced the authentication delay. If there was an abnormality in the authentication process, the cloud computing center could also track the malicious vehicle, restore its real identity and revoke it. The security analysis and simulation experiments show that the proposed scheme is secure and effective. Finally, it prospected the proposed scheme summarized and the future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud computing has become an essential technology for people and enterprises due to the simplicity and rapid availability of services on the internet. These services are usually delivered through a third party, which provides the required resources for users. Therefore, because of the distributed complexity and increased spread of this type of environment, many attackers are attempting to access sensitive data from users and organizations. One counter technique is the use of intrusion detection systems (IDSs), which detect attacks within the cloud environment by monitoring traffic activity. However, since the computing environment varies from the environments of most traditional systems, it is difficult for IDSs to identify attacks and continual changes in attack patterns. Therefore, a system that uses an ensemble learning algorithm is proposed. Ensemble learning is a machine learning technique that collects information from weak classifiers and creates one robust classifier with higher accuracy than the individual weak classifiers. The bagging technique is used with a random forest algorithm as a base classifier and compared to three boosting classifiers: Ensemble AdaBoost, Ensemble LPBoost, and Ensemble RUSBoost. The CICID2017 dataset is utilized to develop the proposed IDS to satisfy cloud computing requirements. Each classifier is also tested on various subdatasets individually to analyze the performance. The results show that Ensemble RUSBoost has the best average performance overall with 99.821% accuracy. Moreover, bagging achieves the best performance on the DS2 subdataset, with an accuracy of 99.997%. The proposed model is also compared to a model from the literature to show the differences and demonstrate its effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtualisation is a major part of the cloud as it permits the deployment of several virtual servers over the same physical layer. Due to the adaption of cloud services, the count of the application running on repositories increases, resulting in overload. However, the application migration in the cloud with optimal resource allocation is still a challenging task. The application migration is employed to reduce the dilemma of resource allocation. Hence, this paper proposes a technique for portability and interoperability-based application migration in the cloud platform. The cloud simulation is done with the Physical Machine (PM), Virtual Machine (VM), and container. The interoperable application migration is provided using the newly devised Lion-based shuffled shepherd (Lion-SS) optimisation algorithm. The Lion-SS algorithm combines the shuffled shepherd optimisation algorithm (SSOA) and the Lion optimisation algorithm (LOA). The new objective function is devised based on predicted load, demand, transmission cost, and resource capacity. Besides, the prediction of the load is performed using Deep long short-term memory (Deep LSTM). The proposed technique obtained the minimal load of 0.007 and resource capacity of 0.342. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building a real-time spatio-temporal forecasting system is a challenging problem with many practical applications such as traffic and road network management. Most forecasting research focuses on achieving (often marginal) improvements in evaluation metrics such as MAE/MAPE on static benchmark datasets, with less attention paid to building practical pipelines which achieve timely and accurate forecasts when the network is under heavy load. Transport authorities also need to leverage dynamic data sources such as roadworks and vehicle-level flow data, while also supporting ad-hoc inference workloads at low cost. Our cloud-based forecasting solution Foresight, developed in collaboration with Transport for the West Midlands (TfWM), is able to ingest, aggregate and process streamed traffic data, enhanced with dynamic vehicle-level flow and urban event information, to produce regularly scheduled forecasts with high accuracy. In this work, we extend Foresight with several novel enhancements, into a new system which we term Foresight Plus. New features include an efficient method for extending the forecasting scale, enabling predictions further into the future. We also augment the inference architecture with a new, fully serverless design which offers a more cost-effective solution and which seamlessly handles sporadic inference workloads over multiple forecasting scales. We observe that Graph Neural Network (GNN) forecasting models are robust to extensions of the forecasting scale, achieving consistent performance up to 48 hours ahead. This is in contrast to the 1 hour forecasting periods popularly considered in this context. Further, our serverless inference solution is shown to be more cost-effective than provisioned alternatives in corresponding use-cases. We identify the optimal memory configuration of serverless resources to achieve an attractive cost-to-performance ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ransomware attacks pose a significant threat to information systems. Server hosts, including cloud infrastructure as a service, are prime targets for ransomware developers. To address this, security mechanisms, such as antivirus software, have proven effective. Moreover, research on ransomware detection advocates for behavior-based finding mechanisms while ransomware is in operation. In response to evolving detections, ransomware developers are now adapting an optimized design tailored for CPU architecture (CPU-optimized ransomware). This variant can rapidly encrypt files, potentially evading detection by traditional antivirus methods that rely on fixed time intervals for file scans. In ransomware detection research, numerous files can be encrypted by CPU-optimized ransomware until malicious activity is detected. This study proposes an early mitigation mechanism named CryptoSniffer, which is designed specifically to counter CPU-optimized ransomware attacks on server hosts. CryptoSniffer focuses on the misuse of CPU architecture-specific encryption instructions for swift file encryption by CPU-optimized ransomware. This can be achieved by capturing the ciphertext in user processes and thwarting file encryption by scrutinizing the content intended for writing. To demonstrate the efficacy of CryptoSniffer, the mechanism was implemented in the latest Linux kernel, and its security and performance were systematically evaluated. The experimental results demonstrate that CryptoSniffer successfully prevents real-world CPU-optimized ransomware, and the performance overhead is well-suited for practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of cloud computing has transformed the way data is stored and managed, yet it has also brought about major security issues, especially concerning the secure transfer of data within cloud systems. In response to these challenges, this research develops a comprehensive cyber-security trust model that provides multi-risk protection for secure data transmission in cloud computing, ensuring the highest level of privacy and data security. This innovative approach aims to ensure the secure transmission of data in cloud computing while harnessing the combined strengths of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Advanced Encryption Algorithm. As cloud environments become integral to modern business operations, safeguarding data against a multitude of security risks, including traditional and emerging threats, is paramount. The Cyber-Security Trust Model leverages blockchain to establish a transparent and tamper-resistant ledger of all data transactions within the cloud. This blockchain layer enhances data integrity, auditability, and traceability while also providing a decentralized and trust-based framework for authentication and authorization. The Multi-Risk Protection Model incorporates both Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and a Modified Advanced Encryption Standard (MAES) to offer multi-layered defence mechanisms. Through rigorous testing and analysis, this study demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed Cyber-Security Trust Model with a Merkle tree-based solution for data integrity verification. It makes a significant impact on the field of secure data transmission in cloud computing by providing strong protection against a constantly changing set of security threats. MATLAB is employed to conduct rigorous experiments, analyse results, and validate the model's performance in various cloud computing scenarios. The findings of the proposed study show the proposed method, combining Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Modified AES (MAES), stands out with exceptional performance, featuring encryption and decryption times of 2.25ms and 1.071ms, respectively. The proposed system outperforms all others, boasting an impressive accuracy rate of 99.84%. This research signifies a ground-breaking advancement in cloud computing security, addressing a spectrum of traditional and emerging threats through a multi-risk protection model incorporating Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and MAES while demonstrating exceptional performance in rigorous experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]