Mohammed Atiquzzaman

Aditya Pribadi Kalapaaking, Ibrahim Khalil, Mohammad Saidur Rahman et al.

This paper proposes a blockchain-based Federated Learning (FL) framework with Intel Software Guard Extension (SGX)-based Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to securely aggregate local models in Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoTs). In FL, local models can be tampered with by attackers. Hence, a global model generated from the tampered local models can be erroneous. Therefore, the proposed framework leverages a blockchain network for secure model aggregation. Each blockchain node hosts an SGX-enabled processor that securely performs the FL-based aggregation tasks to generate a global model. Blockchain nodes can verify the authenticity of the aggregated model, run a blockchain consensus mechanism to ensure the integrity of the model, and add it to the distributed ledger for tamper-proof storage. Each cluster can obtain the aggregated model from the blockchain and verify its integrity before using it. We conducted several experiments with different CNN models and datasets to evaluate the performance of the proposed framework.

Maisha Maliha, Golnaz Habibi, Mohammed Atiquzzaman

Multipath TCP (MPTCP) has been widely used as an efficient way for communication in many applications. Data centers, smartphones, and network operators use MPTCP to balance the traffic in a network efficiently. MPTCP is an extension of TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), which provides multiple paths, leading to higher throughput and low latency. Although MPTCP has shown better performance than TCP in many applications, it has its own challenges. The network can become congested due to heavy traffic in the multiple paths (subflows) if the subflow rates are not determined correctly. Moreover, communication latency can occur if the packets are not scheduled correctly between the subflows. This paper reviews techniques to solve the above-mentioned problems based on two main approaches; non data-driven (classical) and data-driven (Machine Learning) approaches. This paper compares these two approaches and highlights their strengths and weaknesses with a view to motivating future researchers in this exciting area of machine learning for communications. This paper also provides details on the simulation of MPTCP and its implementations in real environments.

Kosar Haghani, Zahra Kolagar, Mohammed Atiquzzaman

The delivery of traditional substance education has remained problematic due to challenges in scalability, personalization, and the currency of information in a rapidly evolving substance use landscape. While artificial intelligence (AI) offers a promising frontier for enhancing educational delivery, its application in providing real-time, authoritative substance use education remains largely underexplored. We built an agentic-based AI web application that combined Drug Enforcement Administration records with peer-reviewed literature in real-time to provide transparent context-sensitive substance use education. The system uses retrieval-augmented generation with a carefully filtered corpus of 102 documents and dynamic PubMed queries. Document storage was semantically chunked and placed in a vector representation in order to be easily retrieved. We conducted an expert evaluation study in which a panel of five subject matter experts generated 30 domain-specific questions, and two independent raters assessed 90 system interactions (30 primary questions plus two contextual follow-ups each) using a five-point Likert scale across four criteria: factual accuracy, citation quality, contextual coherence, and regulatory appropriateness. Mean ratings ranged from 4.18 to 4.35 across the four criteria (overall category range: 4.05-4.52), with substantial inter-rater agreement (Cohen's kappa = 0.78). These findings suggest that agentic AI architectures integrating authoritative regulatory sources with real-time scientific literature represent a promising direction for scalable, accurate, and verifiable health education delivery, warranting further evaluation through longitudinal user studies.

Haoxiang Luo, Gang Sun, Yinqiu Liu et al.

Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate strong potential across a variety of tasks in communications and networking due to their advanced reasoning capabilities. However, because different LLMs have different model structures and are trained using distinct corpora and methods, they may offer varying optimization strategies for the same network issues. Moreover, the limitations of an individual LLM's training data, aggravated by the potential maliciousness of its hosting device, can result in responses with low confidence or even bias. To address these challenges, we propose a blockchain-enabled collaborative framework that connects multiple LLMs into a Trustworthy Multi-LLM Network (MultiLLMN). This architecture enables the cooperative evaluation and selection of the most reliable and high-quality responses to complex network optimization problems. Specifically, we begin by reviewing related work and highlighting the limitations of existing LLMs in collaboration and trust, emphasizing the need for trustworthiness in LLM-based systems. We then introduce the workflow and design of the proposed Trustworthy MultiLLMN framework. Given the severity of False Base Station (FBS) attacks in B5G and 6G communication systems and the difficulty of addressing such threats through traditional modeling techniques, we present FBS defense as a case study to empirically validate the effectiveness of our approach. Finally, we outline promising future research directions in this emerging area.

Ndagijimana Cyprien, Mehdi Sookhak, Hosein Zarini et al.

Joint deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) has been shown to be an effective method to establish communications in areas affected by disasters. However, ensuring good Quality of Services (QoS) while using as few UAVs as possible also requires optimal positioning and trajectory planning for UAVs and UGVs. This paper proposes a joint UAV-UGV-based positioning and trajectory planning framework for UAVs and UGVs deployment that guarantees optimal QoS for ground users. To model the UGVs' mobility, we introduce a road graph, which directs their movement along valid road segments and adheres to the road network constraints. To solve the sum rate optimization problem, we reformulate the problem as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and propose a novel asynchronous Advantage Actor Critic (A3C) incorporated with meta-learning for rapid adaptation to new environments and dynamic conditions. Numerical results demonstrate that our proposed Meta-A3C approach outperforms A3C and DDPG, delivering 13.1\% higher throughput and 49\% faster execution while meeting the QoS requirements.

Veronika Stephanie, Ibrahim Khalil, Mohammad Saidur Rahman et al.

We propose a privacy-preserving ensemble infused enhanced Deep Neural Network (DNN) based learning framework in this paper for Internet-of-Things (IoT), edge, and cloud convergence in the context of healthcare. In the convergence, edge server is used for both storing IoT produced bioimage and hosting DNN algorithm for local model training. The cloud is used for ensembling local models. The DNN-based training process of a model with a local dataset suffers from low accuracy, which can be improved by the aforementioned convergence and Ensemble Learning. The ensemble learning allows multiple participants to outsource their local model for producing a generalized final model with high accuracy. Nevertheless, Ensemble Learning elevates the risk of leaking sensitive private data from the final model. The proposed framework presents a Differential Privacy-based privacy-preserving DNN with Transfer Learning for a local model generation to ensure minimal loss and higher efficiency at edge server. We conduct several experiments to evaluate the performance of our proposed framework.

Veronika Stephanie, Ibrahim Khalil, Mohammed Atiquzzaman et al.

The advancement of Internet and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has led to the era of Industry 4.0. This shift is followed by healthcare industries creating the term Healthcare 4.0. In Healthcare 4.0, the use of IoT-enabled medical imaging devices for early disease detection has enabled medical practitioners to increase healthcare institutions' quality of service. However, Healthcare 4.0 is still lagging in Artificial Intelligence and big data compared to other Industry 4.0 due to data privacy concerns. In addition, institutions' diverse storage and computing capabilities restrict institutions from incorporating the same training model structure. This paper presents a secure multi-party computation-based ensemble federated learning with blockchain that enables heterogeneous models to collaboratively learn from healthcare institutions' data without violating users' privacy. Blockchain properties also allow the party to enjoy data integrity without trust in a centralized server while also providing each healthcare institution with auditability and version control capability.

Aditya Pribadi Kalapaaking, Ibrahim Khalil, Mohammed Atiquzzaman

The widespread adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in smart cities, intelligent healthcare systems, and various real-world applications have resulted in the generation of vast amounts of data, often analyzed using different Machine Learning (ML) models. Federated learning (FL) has been acknowledged as a privacy-preserving machine learning technology, where multiple parties cooperatively train ML models without exchanging raw data. However, the current FL architecture does not allow for an audit of the training process due to the various data-protection policies implemented by each FL participant. Furthermore, there is no global model verifiability available in the current architecture. This paper proposes a smart contract-based policy control for securing the Federated Learning (FL) management system. First, we develop and deploy a smart contract-based local training policy control on the FL participants' side. This policy control is used to verify the training process, ensuring that the evaluation process follows the same rules for all FL participants. We then enforce a smart contract-based aggregation policy to manage the global model aggregation process. Upon completion, the aggregated model and policy are stored on blockchain-based storage. Subsequently, we distribute the aggregated global model and the smart contract to all FL participants. Our proposed method uses smart policy control to manage access and verify the integrity of machine learning models. We conducted multiple experiments with various machine learning architectures and datasets to evaluate our proposed framework, such as MNIST and CIFAR-10.

Anirudh Paranjothi, Mohammed Atiquzzaman

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) facilitate vehicles to broadcast beacon messages to ensure road safety. Rogue nodes in VANETs cause a Sybil attack to create an illusion of fake traffic congestion by broadcasting malicious information leading to catastrophic consequences, such as the collision of vehicles. Previous researchers used either cryptography, trust scores, or past vehicle data to detect rogue nodes, but they suffer from high processing delay, overhead, and false-positive rate (FPR). We propose a fog computing-based Sybil attack detection for VANETs (FSDV), which utilizes onboard units (OBUs) of all the vehicles in the region to create a dynamic fog for rogue nodes detection. We aim to reduce the data processing delays, overhead, and FPR in detecting rogue nodes causing Sybil attacks at high vehicle densities. The performance of our framework was carried out with simulations using OMNET++ and SUMO simulators. Results show that our framework ensures 43% lower processing delays, 13% lower overhead, and 35% lower FPR at high vehicle densities compared to existing Sybil attack detection schemes.

Ziaur Rahman, Ibrahim Khalil, Xun Yi et al.

There has been an intense concern for security alternatives because of the recent rise of cyber attacks, mainly targeting critical systems such as industry, medical, or energy ecosystem. Though the latest industry infrastructures largely depend on AI-driven maintenance, the prediction based on corrupted data undoubtedly results in loss of life and capital. Admittedly, an inadequate data-protection mechanism can readily challenge the security and reliability of the network. The shortcomings of the conventional cloud or trusted certificate-driven techniques have motivated us to exhibit a unique Blockchain-based framework for a secure and efficient industry 4.0 system. The demonstrated framework obviates the long-established certificate authority after enhancing the consortium Blockchain that reduces the data processing delay, and increases cost-effective throughput. Nonetheless, the distributed industry 4.0 security model entails cooperative trust than depending on a single party, which in essence indulges the costs and threat of the single point of failure. Therefore, multi-signature technique of the proposed framework accomplishes the multi-party authentication, which confirms its applicability for the real-time and collaborative cyber-physical system.