Abstract Today, the development of urbanization and increasing the number of vehicles has resulted in displeased consequences like traffic congestion and vehicle queuing. The vast majority of countries in the world encounter the challenge of the explosive rise in traffic demand. In this regard, it is necessary to meet traffic demand in transport networks, especially in metropolitans. In traffic management and shortening the trip duration, traffic lights on the signalized intersections play an essential role in urban pathways. This work provides a multi‐criteria decision‐making method for optimum traffic light control in an isolated corner. The main idea involves establishing a set of sub‐optimal solutions for traffic light timing and selecting the best one among the diverse solutions. We have mathematically modelled the problem as an optimization problem to achieve an optimal solution with less waiting time for vehicles in intersections and the lowest cost. Genetic algorithm (GA) and Teaching‐Learning‐based Optimization (TLBO) are utilized for each phase to create a set of suitable timing scenarios. The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is used to identify the best scenario, considering both waiting vehicles and traffic capacity as decision criteria. Its efficiency has been demonstrated over three different traffic volumes. Also, in a real‐world implementation, its practical capability has been approved at a crossroads in Mashhad, Iran. The simulations indicate the improvement in the number of vehicles waiting behind the crossroad and the traffic capacity by 10% and 6.76% compared to the existing signal timing of the studied intersection, respectively.

Model inversion attack (MIA) is a cyber threat with an increasing alert even for deep-learning-based recognition systems (DLRSs). By targeting a DLRS under a scenario of attacker access to the model structure and parameters, MIA generates a data clone for a certain targeted class label. To avoid the possible threats of such MIA-generated data clones, this research work proposes a social IoT approach to a collaborative cyber-defense among the online recognition systems (RSs) sharing the targeted class label. Since, the generation of an MIA-clone is by targeting an RS model and using its structure, parameters, and class labels output scores in an iterative optimization process, the generated clone is partially inherent to the targeted model. Thus, it is expected for an MIA-clone to show a different performance on a secondary RS wherein the same targeted class label is included. It is because, in the MIA generation of the clone, not only the targeted class label but also other class labels, and model parameters and structure affect the process, while the second model has just the targeted class label in common with the target model. Deploying the Social Internet of Recognition Systems (SIoRS), the proposed technique utilizes a collaborative recognition by SIoRC which plays the role of a complementary recognition besides the targeted RS. The recognition output by the targeted RS is further verified by the SIoRS complementary recognition result. To avoid the MIA-targeted data clones, the verification of recognition is by the log-likelihood ratio test between the targeted RS and the SIoRS complementary recognition confidence scores. The proposed technique is evaluated by statistical analysis on deep face RSs in 10000 Monte Carlo runs for each of the conventional, dc-generative adversarial network (GAN) and$\alpha $-GAN integrated MIA techniques in targeting two different user identities. The$Z$scores of the fitted normal distribution of the log-likelihood ratios indicate almost 100% detection rate of clones generated by conventional MIA and 95.23% and 86% of clones, respectively, generated by DC-GAN and$\alpha $-GAN integrated deep MIA techniques.

Cybersecurity in front of attacks to a face recognition system is an emerging issue in the cloud era, especially due to its strong bonds with the privacy of the users registered to the system. A possible attack is the model inversion attack (MIA) which aims to reveal the identity of a targeted user by generating the most proper datapoint input to the system with maximum corresponding confidence score at the output. The generated data of a registered user can be maliciously used as a serious invasion of the user privacy. In literature, MIA processes are categorized into white-box and black-box scenarios which are respectively with and without information about the system structure, parameters, and partially about the users. This research work assumes the MIA under semi-white box scenario of availability of system model structure and parameters but not any user data information, and verifies it as a severe threat even for a deep-learning-based face recognition system despite its complex structure and the diversity of registered user data. The alert state is promoted by Deep MIA which is the integration of deep generative models in MIA, and$\alpha $-GAN integrated MIA-initilized by a face based seed ($\alpha $-GAN-MIA-FS) is proposed. As a novel MIA search strategy, a pre-trained deep generative model with capability of generating a face image from a random feature vector is used for narrowing down the image search space to the feature vectors space, which has much lower dimensions. This allows the MIA process to efficiently search for a low-dimensional feature vector whose corresponding face image maximizes the confidence score. We have experimentally evaluated the proposed method by two objective criteria and three subjective criteria in comparison to$\alpha $-GAN-integrated MIA initialized with a random seed ($\alpha $-GAN-MIA-RS), DCGAN-integrated MIA (DCGAN-MIA), and the conventional MIA. The evaluation results approve the efficiency and superiority of the proposed technique in generating natural looking face clones with high recognizability as the targeted users.

Smart monitoring of off-road vehicles is cursed by their complex and expensive IoT sensors technologies. High dependence on the cloud/fog computation, availability of the network, and expert knowledge make it handicap in the rural off-network areas. Use of edge devices, such as smartphones, attributed by computation capabilities is the solution that is yet to be developed at commercial level (Fawwaz and Chung 2020) and (Zhengweiet al., 2021). Additionally, the user's growing demand for economic and user-friendly technology motivates to shift from costly and complex sensors to economic. In this article, we present the hybridized computational intelligence methodology to develop an edge-device-enabled AI technology for health monitoring and diagnosis (HM&D) of the off-road vehicles, taking use of super economic microphones as sensors. Smartphones are benefited by integrated microphones, and thus, the App-based developed technology is generalized for all vehicles from old to new. Enhanced selection and log-scaled mutation genetic algorithms is used to evolve the structure of the artificial neural network toward an optimally lightweight structure. Each evolved lightweight ANN structure is trained by scaled conjugate gradient back-propagation training algorithm to optimize corresponding weights and biases. The comparative results with currently reported genetic algorithms for edge computation prove it a breakthrough technology for edge-device-enabled HM&D of off-road vehicles (Yanet al., 2020).

Telecommunications systems with Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) structure using Orthogonal Frequency Division Modulation (OFDM) have great potential for efficient application to a network of Internet of Things (IoT) at a high data rate. When the IoT network is among the underwater sensory devices known as the Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT), the electromagnetic wave cannot play the role of baseband signal due to rapid fall-off inside the water. Thus, acoustic OFDM is a reliable replacement for conventional OFDM inside the water. A blind structure for MIMO acoustic OFDM using Independent Component Analysis (ICA) brings even further advantages in data rate and energy consumption by avoiding the required pilot and preamble data. This research work presents a blind MIMO Acoustic OFDM blind transceiver for IoUT based on Probabilistic Stone’s Blind Source Separation (PS-BSS). The proposed technique has multiple times lower complexity compared to the ICA-based technique while maintaining a comparable efficiency. As observed in the results carried out with 100 Monte Carlo runs of transmission of random data bits over a highly sparse channel that is the common case of an underwater environment, the proposed PS-BSS-based technique dominates the ICA-based one, and as the sparseness of the channel decreases, its efficiency is comparable to the ICA-based technique. Thus, in the case of a highly sparse channel, the proposed technique is superior in both aspects of efficiency and complexity, while over lower sparseness, due to its comparative efficiency, it can be hired as an optimum technique fulfilling a fair tradeoff between efficiency and complexity.

This paper presents a binary coded evolutionary computational method inspired from the evolution in plant genetics. It introduces the concept of artificial DNA which is an abstract idea inspired from inheritance of characteristics in plant genetics through transmitting dominant and recessive genes and Epimutaiton. It involves a rehabilitation process which similar to plant biology provides further evolving mechanism against environmental mutation for being better and better. Test of the effectiveness, consistency, and efficiency of the proposed optimizer have been demonstrated through a variety of complex benchmark test functions. Simulation results and associated analysis of the proposed optimizer in comparison to Self-learning particle swarm optimization (SLPSO), Shuffled Frog Leap Algorithm (SFLA), Multi-species hybrid Genetic Algorithm (MSGA), Gravitational search algorithm (GSA), Group Search Optimization (GSO), Cuckoo Search (CS), Probabilistic Bee Algorithm (PBA), and Hybrid Differential PSO (HDSO) approve its applicability in solving complex problems. In this paper, we have shown effective results on thirty variables benchmark test problems of different classes.

The perceptual adaptation of the image (PAI) is introduced by inspiration from Chevreul–Mach Bands (CMB) visual phenomenon. By boosting the CMB assisting illusory effect on boundaries of the regions, PAI adapts the image to the perception of the human visual system and thereof increases the quality of the image. PAI is proposed for application to standard images or the output of any image processing technique. For the implementation of the PAI on the image, an algorithm of morphological filters (MFs) is presented, which geometrically adds the model of CMB effect. Numerical evaluation by improvement ratios of four no-reference image quality assessment (NR-IQA) indexes approves PAI performance where it can be noticeably observed in visual comparisons. Furthermore, PAI is applied as a postprocessing block for classical morphological filtering, weighted morphological filtering, and median morphological filtering in cancelation of salt and pepper, Gaussian, and speckle noise from MRI images, where the above specified NR-IQA indexes validate it. PAI effect on image enhancement is benchmarked upon morphological image sharpening and high-boost filtering.