CFMT: a collaborative filtering approach based on the nonnegative matrix factorization technique and trust relationships

peer reviewedAs a method of information filtering, the Recommender System (RS) has gained considerable popularity because of its efficiency and provision of the most superior numbers of useful items. A recommender system is a proposed solution to the information overload problem in social media and algorithms. Collaborative Filtering (CF) is a practical approach to the recommendation; however, it is characterized by cold start and data sparsity, the most severe barriers against providing accurate recommendations. Rating matrices are finely represented by Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) models, fundamental models in CF-based RSs. However, most NMF methods do not provide reasonable accuracy due to the dispersion of the rating matrix. As a result of the sparsity of data and problems concerning the cold start, information on the trust network among users is further utilized to elevate RS performance. Therefore, this study suggests a novel trust-based matrix factorization technique referred to as CFMT, which uses the social network data in the recommendation process by modeling user’s roles as trustees and trusters, given the trust network’s structural information. The proposed method seeks to lower the sparsity of the data and the cold start problem by integrating information sources including ratings and trust statements into the recommendation model, an attempt by which significant superiority over state-of-the-art approaches is demonstrated an empirical examination of real-world datasets

IKH-EFT: An improved method of workflow scheduling using the krill herd algorithm in the fog-cloud environment

peer reviewedGiven the increase diversity of smart devices and objectives of the application management such as energy consumption, makespan users expect their requests to be responded to in an appropriate computation environment as properly as possible. In this paper, a method of workflow scheduling based on the fog-cloud architecture has been designed given the high processing capability of the cloud and the close communication between the user and the fog computing node, which reduces delay in response. We also seek to minimize consumption and reduce energy use and monetary cost in order to maximize customer satisfaction with proper scheduling. Given the large number of variables that are used in workflow scheduling and the optimization of contradictory objectives, the problem is NP-hard, and the multi-objective metaheuristic krill herd algorithm is used to solve it. The initial population is generated in a smart fashion to allow fast convergence of the algorithm. For allocation of tasks to the available fog-cloud resources, the EFT (earliest finish time) technique is used, and resource voltage and frequency are assumed to be dynamic to reduce energy use. A comprehensive simulation has been made for assessment of the proposed method in different scenarios with various values of CCR. The simulation results indicate that makespan exhibits improvements by 9.9, 8.7% and 6.7% on average compared with respect to the methods of IHEFT, HEFT and IWO-CA, respectively. Moreover, the monetary cost of the method and energy use have simultaneously decreased in the fog-cloud environment

TrustDL: Use of trust-based dictionary learning to facilitate recommendation in social networks

peer reviewedCollaborative filtering (CF) is a widely applied method to perform recommendation tasks in a wide range of domains and applications. Dictionary learning (DL) models, which are highly important in CF-based recommender systems (RSs), are well represented by rating matrices. However, these methods alone do not resolve the cold start and data sparsity issues in RSs. We observed a significant improvement in rating results by adding trust information on the social network. For that purpose, we proposed a new dictionary learning technique based on trust information, called TrustDL, where the social network data were employed in the process of recommendation based on structural details on the trusted network. TrustDL sought to integrate the sources of information, including trust statements and ratings, into the recommendation model to mitigate both problems of cold start and data sparsity. It conducted dictionary learning and trust embedding simultaneously to predict unknown rating values. In this paper, the dictionary learning technique was integrated into rating learning, along with the trust consistency regularization term designed to offer a more accurate understanding of the feature representation. Moreover, partially identical trust embedding was developed, where users with similar rating sets could cluster together, and those with similar rating sets could be represented collaboratively. The proposed strategy appears significantly beneficial based on experiments conducted on four frequently used datasets: Epinions, Ciao, FilmTrust, and Flixster

An energy-efficient and deadline-aware workflow scheduling algorithm in the fog and cloud environment

peer reviewedThe Internet of Things (IoT) is constantly evolving. The variety of IoT applications has caused new demands to emerge on users’ part and competition between computing service providers. On the one hand, an IoT application may exhibit several important criteria, such as deadline and runtime simultaneously, and it is confronted with resource limitations and high energy consumption on the other hand. This has turned to adopting a computing environment and scheduling as a fundamental challenge. To resolve the issue, IoT applications are considered in this paper as a workflow composed of a series of interdependent tasks. The tasks in the same workflow (at the same level) are subject to priorities and deadlines for execution, making the problem far more complex and closer to the real world. In this paper, a hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization and Simulated Annealing algorithm (PSO–SA) is used for prioritizing tasks and improving fitness function. Our proposed method managed the task allocation and optimized energy consumption and makespan at the fog-cloud environment nodes. The simulation results indicated that the PSO–SA enhanced energy and makespan by 5% and 9% respectively on average compared with the baseline algorithm (IKH-EFT)