The use of decentralized reinforcement learning (RL) in the context of multi-agent systems (MAS) poses some difficult problems. The speed of the learning process for example. Indeed, if the convergence of these algorithms has been widely studied and mathematically proven, they suffer from being very slow. In this context, we propose to use RL in…

The development of an aggregated system consisting of autonomously developed components is usually implemented as a self-contained unit. If such an aggregation is understood as a system of systems (SoS) that communicates via interfaces with its autonomous subsystems and components, the interfaces and communication exchange should play a central role in the architectural design. In…

Social networks have become a valuable platform for tracking and analyzing Internet users’ feelings. This analysis provides crucial information for decision-making in various areas, such as politics and marketing. In addition to this challenge and our interest in the field of big data and sentiment analysis in social networks, we have dedicated this work to…

Overall Performance (OP) measurement is an essential instrument in sustainable manufacturing implementation and management. The effective use of key performance indicators (KPIs) can potentially contribute to identify the firm’s overall performance, provide the crucial gaps between desired results and current actions, and thus facilitate the implementation and execution of improvement strategies. This study attempts to…

The leading place among diseases of the musculoskeletal system is occupied by various feet deformations. Clinical movement analysis and posturological examination are required to objectively assess the distribution for load caused by the weight of human body on the feet and its locomotion effect. In normal conditions, the foot is exposed to elastic deformations. When…

Blockchain technology is seeing a trend of popularity and adoption in many different application areas. One such area is healthcare, as there is a need to develop a system that can reliably store and share electronic health records (EHRs) among hospital-based health facilities. In this paper, we present a cloud-based hierarchical consortium blockchain framework for…

This paper presents findings and proposes recommendations from an evaluation of the level of digital competencies among Saudi university graduates to ascertain their readiness for becoming digital citizens, with high confidence in using digital technologies to successfully engage in digital transformation efforts to achieve Saudi Vision 2030. The sample comprised 352 University of Tabuk students…

The use of Covid-19 contact tracing applications has become almost irrelevant now that several flavors of Covid-19 vaccine have been developed and are constantly being distributed to people during the pandemic to help alleviate the need for lockdowns. Also, the availability of at-home testing kits and testing sites means that people do not need to…

With the development of Internet of Things technology and the widespread use of smart devices, artificial intelligence is now being applied as a decision-making tool in a variety of fields. To make machine learning models, including deep neural network models, more interpretable, various techniques have been proposed. In this paper, a method for explaining the…

Instead of approaches of solid mechanics or a formal description of experimental data an interdisciplinary approach is proposed to consider failure and deformation as thermodynamic processes. Mathematical modeling of the processes is carried out using rheological models of the material. One fracture criterion is used, that formally corresponds to the achievement of a threshold concentration…

WhatsApp application is considered the largest messaging application around the world and an important source of information, they just incorporated a new technique that operates on end-to-end encryption, which presents a significant problem for forensic investigators and analysts. This study describes how to recover the encryption key from WhatsApp to decrypt WhatsApp databases and retrieve…

An enduring vision of Artificial Intelligence is to build robots that can recognize and learn the visual world and who can speak about it in natural language. Automatic image description generation is a demanding problem in Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing. The applications of image description generation systems are in biomedicine, military, commerce, digital…

On Renewable Energy (RE), this field covers the most significant share of the world energy demand and challenges on the expensive measurement and maintenance equipment to be used. In all studies and designs, global solar radiation (GSR) measurements require assessment, estimation, and models to be applied together with the environment and meteorological data on installing…

Our world is characterised by uncertainty and complex, relational structures that carry temporal information, yielding large dynamic probabilistic relational models at the centre of many applications. We consider an example from logistics in which the transportation of cargoes using vessels (objects) driven by the amount of supply and the potential to generate revenue (relational) changes…

DC Microgrids (DCMGs) aggregate and integrate various distribution generation (DG) units through the use of power electronic converters (PECs) that are present on both the source side and the load side of the DCMGs. Tightly regulated PECs at the load side behave as constant power loads (CPLs) and may promote instability in the entire DCMG.…

Using Proofs of Retrievability (PORs), a file owner is able to check that a cloud server correctly stores her files. Using Proofs of Retrievability and Reliability (PORRs), she can even verify at the same time that the cloud server correctly stores both her original files and their replicas. In 2020, a new PORR combined with…

This paper presents novel Energy Management Strategies (EMSs), and the control of a Grid-Connected Hybrid Renewable Energy System (GCHRES). The GCHRES describes a Photovoltaic Generator (PVG) and a Battery-Based Storage System. Both are tied to the Common Coupling Point (CCP) through a reversible three-phase inverter. The CCP combines the Utility Grid (UG) and an AC…

Various applications have helped make vehicular Ad-hoc network communication a reality. Real-time applications, for example, need broadcasting in high video quality with minimal latency. The new High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) has shown great promise for real-time video transmission through Vehicle Ad-hoc Networks due to its high compression level. These networks, on the other hand, have…

The present work develops an estimator for thermal conductivity using a simple exper- iment implemented in a simulated solid metallic bar. The bar is sectioned in a finite number of segments, lately called nodes, and a discretization of the Fourier heat equation is applied in each node to generate a timed-spaced model of the temperature…

The transmission network has been considered among the globe’s prevalent complex systems, comprised of hundreds of electrical transmission lines and other equipment used to transmit electrical energy from one location to another. Over a decade, power engineers have worked tirelessly to ensure that the transmission network operates reliably, transmitting electrical energy from the power station…

Sustainable energy is gradually becoming the norm today due to greenhouse warming effects; as a result, the quests for different renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic cells as well as energy efficient electrical appliances are becoming popular. Therefore, this article explores the alternative energy case for thermoelectricity with focus on the steady-state mathematics, mixed modelings…

The technological revolution penetrates every aspect of our dailylives; it changed our lives in different fields such as communication, decision-making, information access and work environment. These changes have benefits, but they also have costs. These costs include many ethical and social problems that need more investigation. The human element is the most affected part of…

The main goal of the work is to determine the basic conceptual solutions of a nuclear reactor operating on the surface of another planet. The problem was solved using the example of the Martian nuclear power plant. The article uses calculation and optimization research methods and corresponding program codes (well-known and author’s). The results of…

Kahoot is one of the most popular learning platforms, with over 2.5 billion players per year worldwide, used mainly for knowledge review through gamification. However, students´ opinion and its effectiveness in online distance learning as well as in another language teaching has been little studied. With these aims, this study was carried out in the…

Concomitant with the ubiquity of lightweight electronic terminals, such as smartphones and tablets, e-books have increased in popularity. However, studies have shown that their display method and information-presentation efficiency need improvement. We investigated visual information processing during reading to develop a more efficient display method that presents information in an easier to see fashion than…