Internet of Things (IoT) sensing models often suffer from overfitting due to data distribution shifts between training dataset and real-world scenarios. To address this, data augmentation techniques have been adopted to enhance model robustness by bolstering the diversity of synthetic samples within a defined vicinity of existing samples. This paper introduces a novel paradigm of data augmentation for IoT sensing signals by adding fine-grained control to generative models. We define a metric space with statistical metrics that capture the essential features of the short-time Fourier transformed (STFT) spectrograms of IoT sensing signals. These metrics serve as strong conditions for a generative model, enabling us to tailor the spectrogram characteristics in the time-frequency domain according to specific application needs. Furthermore, we propose a set of data augmentation techniques within this metric space to create new data samples. Our method is evaluated across various generative models, datasets, and downstream IoT sensing models. The results demonstrate that our approach surpasses the conventional transformation-based data augmentation techniques and prior generative data augmentation models.

This paper introduces a novel paradigm of data augmentation for IoT sensing signals by adding fine-grained control to generative models.

Multi-environment (M-En) networks integrate diverse traffic sources, including Internet of Things (IoT) and traditional computing systems, creating complex and evolving conditions for malicious traffic detection. Existing machine learning (ML)-based approaches, typically trained on static single-domain datasets, often fail to generalize across heterogeneous network environments. To address this gap, we develop a realistic Docker-NS3-based testbed that emulates both IoT and traditional traffic conditions, enabling the generation and capture of live, labeled network flows. The resulting M-En Dataset combines this traffic with curated public PCAP traces to provide comprehensive coverage of benign and malicious behaviors. Building on this foundation, we propose Multi-LF, a real-time continuous learning framework that combines a lightweight model (M1) for rapid detection with a deeper model (M2) for high-confidence refinement and adaptation. A confidence-based coordination mechanism enhances efficiency without compromising accuracy, while weight interpolation mitigates catastrophic forgetting during continuous updates. Features extracted at 1-second intervals capture fine-grained temporal patterns, enabling early recognition of evolving attack behaviors. Implemented and evaluated within the Docker-NS3 testbed on live traffic, Multi-LF achieves an accuracy of 0.999 while requiring human intervention for only 0.0026 percent of packets, demonstrating its effectiveness and practicality for real-time malicious traffic detection in heterogeneous network environments.

In August 2024, Bittensor's Subnet 9 (SN9) demonstrated that a distributed network of incentivized, permissionless actors could each pretrain large language models (LLMs) ranging from 700 million to 14 billion parameters, while surpassing established baselines. While that work validated blockchain-based decentralized pretraining as viable, it contained core issues: (i) every miner had to fit an entire model locally, and (ii) "winner-takes-all" rewards encouraged model hoarding. Here we introduce IOTA (Incentivized Orchestrated Training Architecture), an architecture that addresses these limitations by transforming SN9's previously isolated competitors into a single cooperating unit that can scale arbitrarily while still rewarding each contributor fairly. Key preliminary results: (1) Data- and Pipeline-parallel SWARM architecture - An orchestrator distributes model layers across heterogeneous miners and streams activations between them, enabling model sizes to scale with the number of participants rather than being constrained by the VRAM of a single machine; (2) Granular, continuous incentives - Validators measure each miner's contribution and allocate token emissions proportionally; (3) Activation compression - We used model-bottlenecks to cut communication bandwidths of activations by up to 128x, vastly improving training speed; (4) Butterfly All-Reduce - Miners average disjoint parameter slices in O(1) bandwidth, offering linear scalability, redundancy and built-in collusion detection; (5) CLASP (Contribution Loss Assessment via Sampling of Pathways) - A fair attribution scheme assigns credit to miners proportional to their marginal utility and detects exploits, even when contributions are interdependent across the pipeline.

--Over two thirds of women of all ages in the UK have experienced some form of sexual harassment in a public space. Recent tragic incidents involving female pedestrians have highlighted some of the personal safety issues that women still face in cities today. There exist many popular location-based safety applications as a result of this; however, these applications tend to take a reactive approach where action is taken only after an incident has occurred. This paper proposes a preventative approach to the problem by creating safer public environments through societal incentivisation. The proposed system, called "Herd Routes ", improves the safety of female pedestrians by generating busier pedestrian routes as a result of route incen-tivisation. A novel application of distributed ledgers is proposed to provide security and trust, a record of system users' locations and IDs, and a platform for token exchange. A proof-of-concept was developed using the simulation package SUMO (Simulation of Urban Mobility), and a smartphone app. With positive results from the initial testing of the proof-of-concept, further development could significantly contribute towards creating safer pedestrian routes through cities, and tackle the societal change that is required to improve female pedestrian safety in the long term. Emales of all ages face gender-inequities in every day life, and the associated feelings of compromised safety and fearfulness that can arise. Of course, in these situations, women do as much as they can to prioritise their personal safety. Notably, women approach walking through cities with extreme caution, especially at night. In London, for example, there are ongoing initiatives such as the UN Women's Global initiative of "Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces for Women and Girls", which commits to identifying gender-responsive, locally relevant and owned interventions [1].

To improve crop forecasting and provide farmers with actionable data-driven insights, we propose a novel approach integrating IoT, machine learning, and blockchain technologies. Using IoT, real -time data from sensor networks continuously monitor environmental conditions and soil nutrient levels, significantly improving our understanding of crop growth dynamics. Our study demon - strates the exceptional accuracy of the Random Forest model, achieving a 99.45% accuracy rate in predicting optimal crop types and yields, thereby offering precise crop projections and customized recommendations. To ensure the security and integrity of the sensor data used for these forecasts, we integrate the Ethereum blockchain, which provides a robust and secure platform. This ensures that the forecasted data remain tamper -proof and reliable. Stakeholders can access real - time and historical crop projections through an intuitive online interface, enhancing transparency and facilitating informed decision -making. By presenting mul - tiple predicted crop scenarios, our system enables farmers to optimize production strategies effectively. This integrated approach promises significant advances in precision agriculture, making crop forecasting more accurate, secure, and user - friendly.

--Based on recent trends in artificial intelligence and IoT research. The cooperative potential of integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) and Multimodal Language Models (MLLMs) is presented in this survey paper for future 6G systems. It focuses on the applications of this integration in different fields, such as healthcare, agriculture, and smart cities, and investigates the four pillars of IoT integration, such as sensors, communication, processing, and security. The paper provides a comprehensive description of IoT and MLLM technologies and applications, addresses the role of multimodality in each pillar, and concludes with an overview of the most significant challenges and directions for future research. The general survey is a roadmap for researchers interested in tracing the application areas of MLLMs and IoT, highlighting the potential and challenges in this rapidly growing field. The survey recognizes the need to deal with data availability, computational expense, privacy, and real-time processing to harness the complete potential of IoT, MLLM, and 6G technology. I. INTRODUCTION The Internet of Things (IoT) started in 1999 when Kevin Ashton introduced the idea [1]. IoT can greatly benefit the global economy, but it also brings risks such as security issues, privacy concerns, and moral questions about surveillance. A diverse array of corporations and research organizations have projected various expectations regarding the anticipated influence of the Internet of Things (IoT) on both the Internet and the global economy throughout the upcoming decade. According to [2], an estimated 100 billion IoT connections will be established by 2025. They also predict that the potential economic impact attributed to IoT could reach as much as 11 trillion dollars annually by 2025.

Regarding problems like reduced precipitation and an increase in population, water resource scarcity has become one of the most critical problems in modern-day societies, as a consequence, there is a shortage of available water resources for irrigation in arid and semi-arid countries. On the other hand, it is possible to utilize modern technologies to control irrigation and reduce water loss. One of these technologies is the Internet of Things (IoT). Despite the possibility of using the IoT in irrigation control systems, there are complexities in designing such systems. Considering this issue, it is possible to use agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) methodologies to design complex cyber-physical systems such as IoT-based systems. In this research, a smart irrigation system is designed based on Prometheus AOSE methodology, to reduce water loss by maintaining soil moisture in a suitable interval. The designed system comprises sensors, a central agent, and irrigation nodes. These agents follow defined rules to maintain soil moisture at a desired level cooperatively. For system simulation, a hybrid agent-based and system dynamics model was designed. In this hybrid model, soil moisture dynamics were modeled based on the system dynamics approach. The proposed model, was implemented in AnyLogic computer simulation software. Utilizing the simulation model, irrigation rules were examined. The system's functionality in automatic irrigation mode was tested based on a 256-run, fractional factorial design, and the effects of important factors such as soil properties on total irrigated water and total operation time were analyzed. Based on the tests, the system consistently irrigated nearly optimal water amounts in all tests. Moreover, the results were also used to minimize the system's energy consumption by reducing the system's operational time.

In the modern agricultural industry, technology plays a crucial role in the advancement of cultivation. To increase crop productivity, soil require some specific characteristics. For watermelon cultivation, soil needs to be sandy and of high temperature with proper irrigation. This research aims to design and implement an intelligent IoT-based soil characterization system for the watermelon field to measure the soil characteristics. IoT based developed system measures moisture, temperature, and pH of soil using different sensors, and the sensor data is uploaded to the cloud via Arduino and Raspberry Pi, from where users can obtain the data using mobile application and webpage developed for this system. To ensure the precision of the framework, this study includes the comparison between the readings of the soil parameters by the existing field soil meters, the values obtained from the sensors integrated IoT system, and data obtained from soil science laboratory. Excessive salinity in soil affects the watermelon yield. This paper proposes a model for the measurement of soil salinity based on soil resistivity. It establishes a relationship between soil salinity and soil resistivity from the data obtained in the laboratory using artificial neural network (ANN).