The rapid development in network technology has resulted in the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT). This trend has led to a widespread utilization of decentralized data and distributed computing power. While machine learning can benefit from the massive amount of IoT data, privacy concerns and communication costs have caused data silos. Although the adoption of blockchain and federated learning technologies addresses the security issues related to collusion attacks and privacy leakage in data sharing, the “free-rider attacks” and “model poisoning attacks” in the federated learning process require auditing of the training models one by one. However, that increases the communication cost of the entire training process. Hence, to address the problem of increased communication cost due to node security verification in the blockchain-based federated learning process, we propose a communication cost optimization method based on security evaluation. By studying the verification mechanism for useless or malicious nodes, we also introduce a double-layer aggregation model into the federated learning process by combining the competing voting verification methods and aggregation algorithms. The experimental comparisons verify that the proposed model effectively reduces the communication cost of the node security verification in the blockchain-based federated learning process.

In this paper, the authors discuss the importance of provision of Quality of Service (QoS) and Cybersecurity in the field of medical care and Electronic Healthcare Management. The main motivation to present our paper is to discuss the use of data communications, Internet, cloud and Smart Ubiquitous Computational Devices (SUCDs) in medical field while presenting possible scenarios related to ubiquitous access to Patient's Electronic Health Record (PEHR) and remote control of Medical Surgical Robots via Internet and SUCDs. The message of the paper is to stress the importance of quality of service provision and cyber security in the field of telemedicine today and tomorrow. The SUCDs controlling, PEHR and surgical robots are quite new applications in medical practice and little is know about the possible scenarios that may be triggered by cyber security. The control data and PEHR are transmitted via data communications networks and Internet. As such, the quality of service provision and proper cyber security solutions are essential to patient's safety and security

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In this study, we focus on the electronic bus (E-Bus) system developed for Taiwan's mountainous areas. The rural area in Taiwan with its towering mountains has become a sightseeing hot spot. The radio propagation of a (cloud-based) 4G/LTE network may be severely limited by the mountainous geography, leading to unacceptable connection quality. We have built a smart (fog-based) local wireless E-Bus system using a feature-enhanced long-range widearea network (LoRaWAN, also known as GloRa in Taiwan). Since there is no electricity on the mountain roads, the bus stops of this E-Bus system are operated by a dynamo. Furthermore, we present a virtual direction and position algorithm for multiple E-Bus lines. A novel sensing method using the dynamos is proposed to estimate the feasibility of the E-Bus optimization problem.Recently, Boshita et al. (1) developed an IoT-based bus location system using a long-range wide-area network (LoRaWAN). A prototype system was evaluated in Nisshin City, Japan. Its bus stops consisted of a LoRa device, a microcomputer, and e-paper as the display medium, powered by a solar panel. With the usage of LoRaWAN (920 MHz), they compressed the time and position information acquired from the GPS to enable it to be effectively transmitted. They confirmed that an IoT-based bus location system can be realized at a lower cost than a bus location system using 4G/LTE. An intelligent transportation system on rural roads requires both a sustainable and extendable communication infrastructure to deliver smart and safe services. The rapid growth of low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technologies has provided a remedy for rural communication. Specifically, when radio propagation of the (cloud-based) 4G/LTE network is severely limited by path loss, shadowing, or a Doppler shift due to the mountainous geography, the connection quality becomes unacceptable. To build a robust rural E-Bus system, a feature-enhanced LoRaWAN (also known as GloRa in Taiwan) will be used to report bus locations in the rural area.Note that rural areas have a limited power supply due to terrain constraints. (2) In addition to the global energy crisis and the issue of global warming, smart rural area development should support self-generation and zero-emission technology as part of the transition to a green economy. As well as having no electricity, roads in Taiwan's mountainous areas may also lack sunlight due to trees and foggy weather. Instead of a solar panel, we use a dynamo to activate bus stops for radio communication. (3) A dynamo charger is a hand-cranked power generator for power generation when cycling indoors or outdoors. Since there is no electricity on mountain roads in Taiwan, the bus stops of the rural E-Bus system are powered by generators to receive information on the arrival of buses in a bitwise data transmission format. The rural E-Bus bus stops use energy-saving mini LED lights to display bus locations. Additionally, passengers waiting at the bus stop may crank the generator to obtain bus arrival information.Owing...