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Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2020 & 2021)
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Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2020 & 2021)

A special issue of Information (ISSN 2078-2489). This special issue belongs to the section "Information Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 33785

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Shahram Latifi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA
Interests: image processing; data and image compression; gaming and statistics; information coding; sensor networks; reliability; applied graph theory; biometrics; bio-surveillance; computer networks; fault tolerant computing; parallel processing; interconnection networks
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Doina Bein

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Computer Science, California State University, Fullerton, CA, USA
Interests: automatic dynamic decision-making; computational sensing; distributed algorithms; energy-efficient wireless networks; fault tolerant data structures; fault tolerant network coverage; graph embedding; multi-modal sensor fusion; randomized algorithms; routing and broadcasting in wireless networks; secure network communication; self-stabilizing algorithms; self-organizing ad-hoc networks; supervised machine learning; urban sensor networks; wireless sensor networks
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Information proposes a Special Issue on “Information Technology: New Generations”. This Special Issue intends to contain a selection of carefully revised and extended papers to be presented at the ITNG 2020 and ITNG 2021, to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 8–11 April 2020 and 11–14 April 2021. Contributors are invited to submit original papers dealing with state-of-the-art technologies pertaining to digital information and communications for publication in this Special Issue of the journal. The papers need to be submitted to the Guest Editor by email: [email protected] (or the Information Editorial Office: [email protected]). Please follow the instructions available here regarding the number of pages and page formatting. The research papers should reach us latest by 30 September 2021.

Prof. Dr. Shahram Latifi
Dr. Doina Bein
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Information is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Machine learning
  • Cybersecurity
  • Communications
  • Software engineering
  • Computers

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 627 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of Continuous Power-Down Schemes
by James Andro-Vasko and Wolfgang Bein
Information 2022, 13(1), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/info13010037 - 13 Jan 2022
Viewed by 2077
Abstract
We consider a power-down system with two states—“on” and “off”—and a continuous set of power states. The system has to respond to requests for service in the “on” state and, after service, the system can power off or switch to any of the [...] Read more.
We consider a power-down system with two states—“on” and “off”—and a continuous set of power states. The system has to respond to requests for service in the “on” state and, after service, the system can power off or switch to any of the intermediate power-saving states. The choice of states determines the cost to power on for subsequent requests. The protocol for requests is “online”, which means that the decision as to which intermediate state (or the off-state) the system will switch has to be made without knowledge of future requests. We model a linear and a non-linear system, and we consider different online strategies, namely piece-wise linear, logarithmic and exponential. We provide results under online competitive analysis, which have relevance for the integration of renewable energy sources into the smart grid. Our analysis shows that while piece-wise linear systems are not specific for any type of system, logarithmic strategies work well for slack systems, whereas exponential systems are better suited for busy systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2020 & 2021))
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10 pages, 3375 KiB  
Article
TextQ—A User Friendly Tool for Exploratory Text Analysis
by April Edwards, MaryLyn Sullivan, Ezrah Itkowsky and Dana Weinberg
Information 2021, 12(12), 508; https://doi.org/10.3390/info12120508 - 7 Dec 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3120
Abstract
As the amount of textual data available on the Internet grows substantially each year, there is a need for tools to assist with exploratory data analysis. Furthermore, to democratize the process of text analytics, tools must be usable for those with a non-technical [...] Read more.
As the amount of textual data available on the Internet grows substantially each year, there is a need for tools to assist with exploratory data analysis. Furthermore, to democratize the process of text analytics, tools must be usable for those with a non-technical background and those who do not have the financial resources to outsource their data analysis needs. To that end, we developed TextQ, which provides a simple, intuitive interface for exploratory analysis of textual data. We also tested the efficacy of TextQ using two case studies performed by subject matter experts—one related to a project on the detection of cyberbullying communication and another related to the user of Twitter for influence operations. TextQ was able to efficiently process over a million social media messages and provide valuable insights that directly assisted in our research efforts on these topics. TextQ is built using an open access platform and object-oriented architecture for ease of use and installation. Additional features will continue to be added to TextQ, based on the needs and interests of the installed base. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2020 & 2021))
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22 pages, 7314 KiB  
Article
Hardware-Based Emulator with Deep Learning Model for Building Energy Control and Prediction Based on Occupancy Sensors’ Data
by Zhijing Ye, Zheng O’Neill and Fei Hu
Information 2021, 12(12), 499; https://doi.org/10.3390/info12120499 - 1 Dec 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3548
Abstract
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the largest source of residential energy consumption. Occupancy sensors’ data can be used for HVAC control since it indicates the number of people in the building. HVAC and sensors form a typical cyber-physical system (CPS). In [...] Read more.
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the largest source of residential energy consumption. Occupancy sensors’ data can be used for HVAC control since it indicates the number of people in the building. HVAC and sensors form a typical cyber-physical system (CPS). In this paper, we aim to build a hardware-based emulation platform to study the occupancy data’s features, which can be further extracted by using machine learning models. In particular, we propose two hardware-based emulators to investigate the use of wired/wireless communication interfaces for occupancy sensor-based building CPS control, and the use of deep learning to predict the building energy consumption with the sensor data. We hypothesize is that the building energy consumption may be predicted by using the occupancy data collected by the sensors, and question what type of prediction model should be used to accurately predict the energy load. Another hypothesis is that an in-lab hardware/software platform could be built to emulate the occupancy sensing process. The machine learning algorithms can then be used to analyze the energy load based on the sensing data. To test the emulator, the occupancy data from the sensors is used to predict energy consumption. The synchronization scheme between sensors and the HVAC server will be discussed. We have built two hardware/software emulation platforms to investigate the sensor/HVAC integration strategies, and used an enhanced deep learning model—which has sequence-to-sequence long short-term memory (Seq2Seq LSTM)—with an attention model to predict the building energy consumption with the preservation of the intrinsic patterns. Because the long-range temporal dependencies are captured, the Seq2Seq models may provide a higher accuracy by using LSTM architectures with encoder and decoder. Meanwhile, LSTMs can capture the temporal and spatial patterns of time series data. The attention model can highlight the most relevant input information in the energy prediction by allocating the attention weights. The communication overhead between the sensors and the HVAC control server can also be alleviated via the attention mechanism, which can automatically ignore the irrelevant information and amplify the relevant information during CNN training. Our experiments and performance analysis show that, compared with the traditional LSTM neural network, the performance of the proposed method has a 30% higher prediction accuracy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2020 & 2021))
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11 pages, 230 KiB  
Article
Risk Factors When Implementing ERP Systems in Small Companies
by Ann Svensson and Alexander Thoss
Information 2021, 12(11), 478; https://doi.org/10.3390/info12110478 - 19 Nov 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 8507
Abstract
Implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems often aims to improve the companies’ processes in order to gain competitive advantage on the market. Especially, small companies need to integrate systems with suppliers and customers; hence, ERP systems often become a requirement. ERP system [...] Read more.
Implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems often aims to improve the companies’ processes in order to gain competitive advantage on the market. Especially, small companies need to integrate systems with suppliers and customers; hence, ERP systems often become a requirement. ERP system implementation processes in small enterprises contain several risk factors. Research has concluded that ERP implementation projects fail to a relatively high degree. Small companies are found to be constrained by limited resources, limited IS (information systems) knowledge and lack of IT expertise in ERP implementation. There are relatively few empirical research studies on implementing ERP systems in small enterprises and there is a large gap in research that could guide managers of small companies. This paper is based on a case study of three small enterprises that are planning to implement ERP systems that support their business processes. The aim of the paper is to identify the risk factors that can arise when implementing ERP systems in small enterprises. The analysis shows that an ERP system is a good solution to avoid using many different, separate systems in parallel. However, the study shows that it is challenging to integrate all systems used by suppliers and customers. An ERP system can include all information in one system and all information can also easily be accessed within that system. However, the implementation could be a demanding process as it requires engagement from all involved people, especially the managers of the companies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2020 & 2021))
28 pages, 396 KiB  
Article
An Equilibrium Analysis of a Secondary Mobile Data-Share Market
by Jordan Blocher and Frederick C. Harris, Jr.
Information 2021, 12(11), 434; https://doi.org/10.3390/info12110434 - 20 Oct 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1872
Abstract
Internet service providers are offering shared data plans where multiple users may buy and sell their overage data in a secondary market managed by the ISP. We propose a game-theoretic approach to a software-defined network for modeling this wireless data exchange market: a [...] Read more.
Internet service providers are offering shared data plans where multiple users may buy and sell their overage data in a secondary market managed by the ISP. We propose a game-theoretic approach to a software-defined network for modeling this wireless data exchange market: a fully connected, non-cooperative network. We identify and define the rules for the underlying progressive second price (PSP) auction for the respective network and market structure. We allow for a single degree of statistical freedom—the reserve price—and show that the secondary data exchange market allows for greater flexibility in the acquisition decision making of mechanism design. We have designed a framework to optimize the strategy space using the elasticity of supply and demand. Wireless users are modeled as a distribution of buyers and sellers with normal incentives. Our derivation of a buyer-response strategy for wireless users based on second price market dynamics leads us to prove the existence of a balanced pricing scheme. We examine shifts in the market price function and prove that our network upholds the desired properties for optimization with respect to software-defined networks and prove the existence of a Nash equilibrium in the overlying non-cooperative game. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2020 & 2021))
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28 pages, 787 KiB  
Article
Could a Conversational AI Identify Offensive Language?
by Daniela America da Silva, Henrique Duarte Borges Louro, Gildarcio Sousa Goncalves, Johnny Cardoso Marques, Luiz Alberto Vieira Dias, Adilson Marques da Cunha and Paulo Marcelo Tasinaffo
Information 2021, 12(10), 418; https://doi.org/10.3390/info12100418 - 12 Oct 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 7008
Abstract
In recent years, we have seen a wide use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in the Internet and everywhere. Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning are important sub-fields of AI that have made Chatbots and Conversational AI applications possible. Those algorithms are built [...] Read more.
In recent years, we have seen a wide use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in the Internet and everywhere. Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning are important sub-fields of AI that have made Chatbots and Conversational AI applications possible. Those algorithms are built based on historical data in order to create language models, however historical data could be intrinsically discriminatory. This article investigates whether a Conversational AI could identify offensive language and it will show how large language models often produce quite a bit of unethical behavior because of bias in the historical data. Our low-level proof-of-concept will present the challenges to detect offensive language in social media and it will discuss some steps to propitiate strong results in the detection of offensive language and unethical behavior using a Conversational AI. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2020 & 2021))
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19 pages, 1187 KiB  
Article
Detecting Cyber Attacks in Smart Grids Using Semi-Supervised Anomaly Detection and Deep Representation Learning
by Ruobin Qi, Craig Rasband, Jun Zheng and Raul Longoria
Information 2021, 12(8), 328; https://doi.org/10.3390/info12080328 - 15 Aug 2021
Cited by 30 | Viewed by 5942
Abstract
Smart grids integrate advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) into traditional power grids for more efficient and resilient power delivery and management, but also introduce new security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by adversaries to launch cyber attacks, causing severe consequences such as [...] Read more.
Smart grids integrate advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) into traditional power grids for more efficient and resilient power delivery and management, but also introduce new security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by adversaries to launch cyber attacks, causing severe consequences such as massive blackout and infrastructure damages. Existing machine learning-based methods for detecting cyber attacks in smart grids are mostly based on supervised learning, which need the instances of both normal and attack events for training. In addition, supervised learning requires that the training dataset includes representative instances of various types of attack events to train a good model, which is sometimes hard if not impossible. This paper presents a new method for detecting cyber attacks in smart grids using PMU data, which is based on semi-supervised anomaly detection and deep representation learning. Semi-supervised anomaly detection only employs the instances of normal events to train detection models, making it suitable for finding unknown attack events. A number of popular semi-supervised anomaly detection algorithms were investigated in our study using publicly available power system cyber attack datasets to identify the best-performing ones. The performance comparison with popular supervised algorithms demonstrates that semi-supervised algorithms are more capable of finding attack events than supervised algorithms. Our results also show that the performance of semi-supervised anomaly detection algorithms can be further improved by augmenting with deep representation learning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2020 & 2021))
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