Multi-access edge computing (MEC) is emerging as a promising paradigm to provide flexible computing services close to user devices (UDs). However, meeting the computation-hungry and delay-sensitive demands of UDs faces several challenges, including the resource constraints of MEC servers, inherent dynamic and complex features in the MEC system, and difficulty in dealing with the time-coupled and decision-coupled optimization. In this work, we first present an edge-cloud collaborative MEC architecture, where the MEC servers and cloud collaboratively provide offloading services for UDs. Moreover, we formulate an energy-efficient and delay-aware optimization problem (EEDAOP) to minimize the energy consumption of UDs under the constraints of task deadlines and long-term queuing delays. Since the problem is proved to be non-convex mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP), we propose an online joint communication resource allocation and task offloading approach (OJCTA). Specifically, we transform EEDAOP into a real-time optimization problem by employing the Lyapunov optimization framework. Then, to solve the real-time optimization problem, we propose a communication resource allocation and task offloading optimization method by employing the Tammer decomposition mechanism, convex optimization method, bilateral matching mechanism, and dependent rounding method. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed OJCTA can achieve superior system performance compared to the benchmark approaches.

With the rapid evolution of wireless communication technology, smart homes have significantly improved the quality of peoples daily lives by taking advantage of the low latency and high transmission rates of 6G communication technology. Users can now conveniently manage the consumer electronics remotely. However, in the pratical smart home scenarios, the users and consumer electronics communicate with each other through an open public channels where charted and uncharted security risks and privacy vulnerabilities exist. To protect users confidential data from malicious interception and modification, diverse authentication protocols have been proposed so far. However, existing protocols often suffer from efficiency issues or vulnerabilities to known attacks. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a novel three-factor ECC-based anonymous authentication protocol. The protocols security properties can be rigorously proven using the formal analysis under the ROR model. Subsequently, the resistance to numerous types of attacks, including man-in-the-middle and replay attacks, can be demonstrated through informal analysis and the AVISPA verification process. Finally, the protocol is compared with the state-of-the-arts and the results show that the protocol strikes a good balance between security and efficiency and is well suited for smart home environments.