Symmetric and Asymmetric Data in Solution Models

This book is a Printed Edition of the Special Issue that covers research on symmetric and asymmetric data that occur in real-life problems. We invited authors to submit their theoretical or experimental research to present engineering and economic problem solution models that deal with symmetry or asymmetry of different data types. The Special Issue gained interest in the research community and received many submissions. After rigorous scientific evaluation by editors and reviewers, seventeen papers were accepted and published. The authors proposed different solution models, mainly covering uncertain data in multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problems as complex tools to balance the symmetry between goals, risks, and constraints to cope with the complicated problems in engineering or management. Therefore, we invite researchers interested in the topics to read the papers provided in the book

Brain-Computer Interface and Silent Speech Recognition on Decentralized Messaging Applications

Online communications have been increasingly gaining prevalence in people’s daily lives, with its widespread adoption being catalyzed by technological advances, especially in instant messaging platforms. Although there have been strides for the inclusion of disabled individuals to ease communication between peers, people who suffer hand/arm impairments have little to no support in regular mainstream applications to efficiently communicate with other individuals. Moreover, a problem with the current solutions that fall back on speech-to-text techniques is the lack of privacy when the usage of these alternatives is conducted in public. Additionally, as centralized systems have come into scrutiny regarding privacy and security, the development of alternative decentralized solutions has increased by the use of blockchain technology and its variants. Within the inclusivity paradigm, this project showcases an alternative on human-computer interaction with support for the aforementioned disabled people, through the use of a braincomputer interface allied to a silent speech recognition system, for application navigation and text input purposes, respectively. A brain-computer interface allows a user to interact with the platform just by though, while the silent speech recognition system enables the input of text by reading activity from articulatory muscles without the need of actually speaking audibly. Therefore, the combination of both techniques creates a full hands-free interaction with the platform, empowering hand/arm disabled users in daily life communications. Furthermore, the users of the application will be inserted in a decentralized system that is designed for secure communication and exchange of data between peers, enforcing the privacy concern that is a cornerstone of the platform.Comunicações online têm cada vez mais ganhado prevalência na vida contemporânea de pessoas, tendo a sua adoção sido catalisada pelos avanços tecnológicos, especialmente em plataformas de mensagens instantâneas. Embora tenham havido desenvolvimentos relativamente à inclusão de indivíduos com deficiência para facilitar a comunicação entre pessoas, as que sofrem de incapacidades motoras nas mãos/braços têm um suporte escasso em aplicações convencionais para comunicar de forma eficiente com outros sujeitos. Além disso, um problema com as soluções atuais que recorrem a técnicas de voz-para-texto é a falta de privacidade nas comunicações quando usadas em público. Adicionalmente, há medida que sistemas centralizados têm atraído ceticismo relativamente à privacidade e segurança, o desenvolvimento de soluções descentralizadas e alternativas têm aumentado pelo uso de tecnologias de blockchain e as suas variantes. Dentro do paradigma de inclusão, este projeto demonstras uma alternativa na interação humano-computador com suporte para os indivíduos referidos anteriormente, através do uso de uma interface cérebro-computador aliada a um sistema de reconhecimento de fala silenciosa, para navegação na aplicação e introdução de texto, respetivamente. Uma interface cérebro-computador permite o utilizador interagir com a plataforma apenas através do pensamento, enquanto que um sistema de reconhecimento de fala silenciosa possibilita a introdução de texto pela leitura da atividade dos músculos articulatórios, sem a necessidade de falar em voz alta. Assim, a combinação de ambas as técnicas criam uma interação totalmente de mãos-livres com a plataforma, melhorando as comunicações do dia-a-dia de pessoas com incapacidades nas mãos/braços. Além disso, os utilizadores serão inseridos num sistema descentralizado, desenhado para comunicações e trocas de dados seguras entre pares, reforçando, assim, a preocupação com a privacidade, que é um conceito base da plataforma

Natural and Technological Hazards in Urban Areas

Natural hazard events and technological accidents are separate causes of environmental impacts. Natural hazards are physical phenomena active in geological times, whereas technological hazards result from actions or facilities created by humans. In our time, combined natural and man-made hazards have been induced. Overpopulation and urban development in areas prone to natural hazards increase the impact of natural disasters worldwide. Additionally, urban areas are frequently characterized by intense industrial activity and rapid, poorly planned growth that threatens the environment and degrades the quality of life. Therefore, proper urban planning is crucial to minimize fatalities and reduce the environmental and economic impacts that accompany both natural and technological hazardous events

A patient agent controlled customized blockchain based framework for internet of things

Although Blockchain implementations have emerged as revolutionary technologies for various industrial applications including cryptocurrencies, they have not been widely deployed to store data streaming from sensors to remote servers in architectures known as Internet of Things. New Blockchain for the Internet of Things models promise secure solutions for eHealth, smart cities, and other applications. These models pave the way for continuous monitoring of patient’s physiological signs with wearable sensors to augment traditional medical practice without recourse to storing data with a trusted authority. However, existing Blockchain algorithms cannot accommodate the huge volumes, security, and privacy requirements of health data. In this thesis, our first contribution is an End-to-End secure eHealth architecture that introduces an intelligent Patient Centric Agent. The Patient Centric Agent executing on dedicated hardware manages the storage and access of streams of sensors generated health data, into a customized Blockchain and other less secure repositories. As IoT devices cannot host Blockchain technology due to their limited memory, power, and computational resources, the Patient Centric Agent coordinates and communicates with a private customized Blockchain on behalf of the wearable devices. While the adoption of a Patient Centric Agent offers solutions for addressing continuous monitoring of patients’ health, dealing with storage, data privacy and network security issues, the architecture is vulnerable to Denial of Services(DoS) and single point of failure attacks. To address this issue, we advance a second contribution; a decentralised eHealth system in which the Patient Centric Agent is replicated at three levels: Sensing Layer, NEAR Processing Layer and FAR Processing Layer. The functionalities of the Patient Centric Agent are customized to manage the tasks of the three levels. Simulations confirm protection of the architecture against DoS attacks. Few patients require all their health data to be stored in Blockchain repositories but instead need to select an appropriate storage medium for each chunk of data by matching their personal needs and preferences with features of candidate storage mediums. Motivated by this context, we advance third contribution; a recommendation model for health data storage that can accommodate patient preferences and make storage decisions rapidly, in real-time, even with streamed data. The mapping between health data features and characteristics of each repository is learned using machine learning. The Blockchain’s capacity to make transactions and store records without central oversight enables its application for IoT networks outside health such as underwater IoT networks where the unattended nature of the nodes threatens their security and privacy. However, underwater IoT differs from ground IoT as acoustics signals are the communication media leading to high propagation delays, high error rates exacerbated by turbulent water currents. Our fourth contribution is a customized Blockchain leveraged framework with the model of Patient-Centric Agent renamed as Smart Agent for securely monitoring underwater IoT. Finally, the smart Agent has been investigated in developing an IoT smart home or cities monitoring framework. The key algorithms underpinning to each contribution have been implemented and analysed using simulators.Doctor of Philosoph

Mathematical Fuzzy Logic in the Emerging Fields of Engineering, Finance, and Computer Sciences

Mathematical fuzzy logic (MFL) specifically targets many-valued logic and has significantly contributed to the logical foundations of fuzzy set theory (FST). It explores the computational and philosophical rationale behind the uncertainty due to imprecision in the backdrop of traditional mathematical logic. Since uncertainty is present in almost every real-world application, it is essential to develop novel approaches and tools for efficient processing. This book is the collection of the publications in the Special Issue “Mathematical Fuzzy Logic in the Emerging Fields of Engineering, Finance, and Computer Sciences”, which aims to cover theoretical and practical aspects of MFL and FST. Specifically, this book addresses several problems, such as:- Industrial optimization problems- Multi-criteria decision-making- Financial forecasting problems- Image processing- Educational data mining- Explainable artificial intelligence, etc

Research on Comprehensive Evaluation and Early Warning of Transmission Lines' Operation Status Based on Dynamic Cloud Computing

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

Decentralization in messaging applications with support for contactless interaction

Peer-to-peer communication has increasingly been gaining prevalence in people’s daily lives, with its widespread adoption being catalysed by technological advances. Although there have been strides for the inclusion of disabled individuals to ease communication between peers, people who suffer arm/hand impairments have little to no support in regular mainstream applications to efficiently communicate with other individuals. Additionally, as centralized systems have come into scrutiny regarding privacy and security, the development of alternative, decentralized solutions have increased, a movement pioneered by Bitcoin that culminated in the blockchain technology and its variants. Aiming towards expanding inclusivity in the messaging applications panorama, this project showcases an alternative on contactless human-computer interaction with support for disabled individuals with focus on the decentralized backend counterpart. Users of the application partake in a decentralized network based on a distributed hash table that is designed for secure communication (granted by a custom cryptographic messaging protocol) and exchange of data between peers. Such system is both resilient to tampering attacks and central points of failure (akin to blockchains), as well as having no long-term restrictions regarding scalability prospects, something that is a recurring issue in blockchain-based platforms. The conducted experiments showcase a level of performance similar to mainstream centralized approaches, outperforming blockchain-based decentralized applications on the delay between sending and receiving messages.A comunicação ponto-a-ponto tem cada vez mais ganhado prevalência na vida contemporânea de pessoas, tendo a sua adoção sido catalisada pelos avanços tecnológicos. Embora tenham havido desenvolvimentos relativamente à inclusão de indivíduos com deficiência para facilitar a comunicação entre pessoas, as que sofrem imparidades no braço/mão têm um suporte escasso em aplicações convencionais para comunicar de forma eficiente com outros sujeitos. Adicionalmente, à medida que sistemas centralizados têm atraído ceticismo relativamente à sua privacidade e segurança, o desenvolvimento de soluções descentralizadas e alternativas têm aumentado, um movimento iniciado pela Bitcoin que culminou na tecnologia de blockchain e as suas variantes. Tendo como objectivo expandir a inclusão no panorama de aplicações de messaging, este projeto pretende demonstrar uma alternativa na interação humano-computador sem contacto direto físico e com suporte para indivíduos com deficiência, com foco no componente backend decentralizado. Utilizadores da aplicação são inseridos num sistema decentralizado baseado numa hash table distribuída que foi desenhado para comunicação segura (providenciado por um protocolo de messaging criptográfico customizado) e para troca de dados entre utilizadores. Tal sistema é tanto resiliente a ataques de adulteração de dados como também a pontos centrais de falha (presente em blockains), não tendo adicionalmente restrições ao nível de escabilidade a longo-prazo, algo que é um problem recorrente em plataformas baseadas em blockchain. As avaliações e experiências realizadas neste projeto demonstram um nível de performance semelhante a abordagens centralizadas convencionais, tendo uma melhor prestação que aplicações descentralizadas baseadas em blockchain no que toca à diferença no tempo entre enviar e receber mensagens

Multiple-Criteria Decision Making

Decision-making on real-world problems, including individual process decisions, requires an appropriate and reliable decision support system. Fuzzy set theory, rough set theory, and neutrosophic set theory, which are MCDM techniques, are useful for modeling complex decision-making problems with imprecise, ambiguous, or vague data.This Special Issue, “Multiple Criteria Decision Making”, aims to incorporate recent developments in the area of the multi-criteria decision-making field. Topics include, but are not limited to:- MCDM optimization in engineering;- Environmental sustainability in engineering processes;- Multi-criteria production and logistics process planning;- New trends in multi-criteria evaluation of sustainable processes;- Multi-criteria decision making in strategic management based on sustainable criteria