Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) significantly enhances service response speeds and improves the Quality of Service (QoS) by facilitating the offloading of computation-intensive tasks from Mobile Users (MUs) to nearby Edge Servers (ESs). However, due to the inherent selfishness of involved entities, MUs may be unwilling to offload tasks without reasonable resource pricing, and ESs may lack motivation to provide computation resources without appropriate compensation. Furthermore, improving the utilization of ESs' computation resources and achieving efficient task scheduling remains a major challenge. To ad dress these issues, we introduce a profitable broker between ESs and MUs, and propose TORP, a Two-stage Stackelberg Game based Computation Offloading and Resource Pricing mechanism, to maximize the utility of each entity. Specifically, we model the interactions among three entities (i.e., the broker, MUs, and ESs) as a two-stage Stackelberg game, where the interactions between the broker and ESs is defined as Stage I, while the interactions between the broker and MUs is defined as Stage II. By using the backward induction method, we theoretically prove the Stackelberg Equilibrium (SE) for each stage of the two-stage Stackelberg, and the SE of the whole game. Then, recognizing that the optimization problem is a Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) problem, an Alternating Iteration-Based Resource Pricing and Task Offloading Algorithm (AIPOA) is proposed to obtain the optimal solution. Finally, we perform extensive simulations comparing TORP against multiple base lines. Experimental results show that TORP achieves substantial improvements, enhancing the utilities of three entities by about 2.00%-52.69% under different scenarios.

Federated Learning (FL) faces critical challenges in heterogeneous and resource-constrained environments, including device diversity, high communication overhead, and training delays. Therefore, we propose FedKDC, a federated learning framework that integrates knowledge distillation with data compression to jointly optimize server bandwidth, client computation resources, and compression ratios, thereby minimizing training latency. In particular, FedKDC employs a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN)-based generator to produce synthetic data for knowledge transfer across heterogeneous models without sharing raw data, mitigating privacy risks. Then, FedKDC uses a loss-driven adaptive compression mechanism to adjust the minimum compression threshold based on training stability, reducing communication volume while maintaining accuracy. In addition, we further discuss the problem of resource allocation under system constraints, and uses Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to solve it. Based on the three real world datasets (i.e., Fashion-MNIST, CIFAR-10, and CIFAR-100), the experimental results demonstrate that FedKDC reduces communication cost by up to 17% and training time by 8%. This shows that FedKDC is effective for large-scale heterogeneous FL deployment while maintaining the accuracy of the model.

Vehicle edge computing can effectively ensure the quality of experience for user vehicles (UVs), but road side units (RSUs) with limited resources may not be able to handle intensive tasks under high traffic conditions. In this case, worker vehicles (WVs) with idle resources can share resources to alleviate the pressure on RSUs. However, selfish WVs may be reluctant to share idle computation resources without any rewards. In addition, the optimization problems in previous research are relatively simple and cannot be applied to complex scenarios. To address the above challenges, we propose an incentive-driven partial offloading framework aiming to maximize social welfare. In particular, the computing service provider (CSP) managing RSUs first determines resource prices and offloading rates with UVs, while also determining contract terms with WVs. Then, it generates the optimal task scheduling strategy and notifies the UVs to offload tasks to the corresponding WVs. Considering that maximizing social welfare is a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem, we design the hybrid proximal policy optimization (HPPO)-based task offloading and resource allocation algorithm (HORA) with a hybrid action space to directly solve the original problem. Finally, extensive simulation results show that HORA outperforms other baseline methods across various scenarios, and the contract terms meet the constraints of individual rationality (IR) and incentive compatibility (IC).

As a promising methodology of distributed Machine Learning (ML) paradigm, Federated Learning (FL) protects data privacy and reduces communication cost by aggregating model parameters rather than raw data. However, training superb FL models incurs a lot of energy consumption, which is a significant challenge for energy-limited Mobile Devices (MDs). To address this challenge, this paper proposes a Wireless Power Transfer (WPT)-aided FL framework, where MDs train local FL models for Base Station (BS) and get corresponding payoff, while Wireless Charge Provider (WCP) provides energy supplement for MDs and charges energy fees. Furthermore, we take into account the time-varying nature of MDs datasets, which affects their energy consumption and reward from BS. Then, we formulate the investigated problem to achieve joint optimization of WPT duration, computing resource allocation and the number of local iterations, with the goal of maximizing the total utility of all MDs throughout the whole FL process. The optimization problem is NP-hard and difficult to be solved by traditional optimization methods within limited timeframes. Therefore, we use Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions and Lagrange dual method to analyze the problem, and propose a new Improved Lagrangian Subgradient Method (ILSM) as an efficient solution. Finally, extensive simulation experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme under various scenarios, and the results show that the proposed ILSM significantly outperforms other benchmarks in terms of the total utility of all MDs.

Vehicular edge computing (VEC) is an effective paradigm in Internet of Vehicles (IoV), which allows vehicles to offload delay-sensitive tasks to nearby road side units (RSUs) for processing, thereby enhancing the Quality of Service (QoS). However, the software defined networking (SDN) controller that manages RSUs often have individual rationality and selfishness, and thus is unwilling to provide free computation resources to vehicles. Meanwhile, the dependency relationships among vehicular subtasks are not well investigated, resulting in unsatisfactory task latency and energy consumption. In order to effectively motivate the selfish SDN controller to participate in computation offloading and comprehensively consider all dependency situations among multiple subtasks, this article proposes a Stackelberg game-based dependency-aware task offloading and resource pricing framework (SDOP). Specifically, we first model the interaction between the SDN controller and vehicles as a Stackelberg game, where both parties wish to maximize their utility. Then, we employ the backward induction approach to analyze the investigated problem, and prove the existence and uniqueness of Nash and Stackelberg equilibrium. Next, we propose a gradient ascent plus genetic algorithm (GAPG) to solve the considered problem. Finally, extensive simulation results show that the proposed GAPG can significantly improve the utility of both the SDN controller and vehicles under various scenarios, when compared with other baseline schemes.