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Source author record

Mohamed Abdallah

Mohamed Abdallah appears in the imported research catalog. Authorship, coauthor and topic links are available while profile ownership is still unclaimed.

ResearcherUnclaimed source record
Cryptography and SecurityMachine Learningmath.OCNetworking and Internet ArchitectureInformation Theorymath.ITDistributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computingeess.SPeess.SYInformation RetrievalPerformanceSystems and Control

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Published work

15 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

Budget-Constrained Online Retrieval-Augmented Generation: The Chunk-as-a-Service Model

Large Language Models (LLMs) have revolutionized the field of natural language processing. However, they exhibit some limitations, including a lack of reliability and transparency: they may hallucinate and fail to provide sources that support the generated output. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) was introduced to address such limitations in LLMs. One popular implementation, RAG-as-a-Service (RaaS), has shortcomings that hinder its adoption and accessibility. For instance, RaaS pricing is based on the number of submitted prompts, without considering whether the prompts are enriched by relevant chunks, i.e., text segments retrieved from a vector database, or the quality of the utilized chunks (i.e., their degree of relevance). This results in an opaque and less cost-effective payment model. We propose Chunk-as-a-Service (CaaS) as a transparent and cost-effective alternative. CaaS includes two variants: Open-Budget CaaS (OB-CaaS) and Limited-Budget CaaS (LB-CaaS), which is enabled by our ``Utility-Cost Online Selection Algorithm (UCOSA)''. UCOSA further extends the cost-effectiveness and the accessibility of the OB-CaaS variant by enriching, in an online manner, a subset of the submitted prompts based on budget constraints and utility-cost tradeoff. Our experiments demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed UCOSA compared to both offline and relevance-greedy selection baselines. In terms of the performance metric-the number of enriched prompts (NEP) multiplied by the Average Relevance (AR)-UCOSA outperforms random selection by approximately 52% and achieves around 75% of the performance of offline selection methods. Additionally, in terms of budget utilization, LB-CaaS and OB-CaaS achieve higher performance-to-budget ratios of 140% and 86%, respectively, compared to RaaS, indicating their superior efficiency.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2022arXiv

Exploration and Exploitation in Federated Learning to Exclude Clients with Poisoned Data

Federated Learning (FL) is one of the hot research topics, and it utilizes Machine Learning (ML) in a distributed manner without directly accessing private data on clients. However, FL faces many challenges, including the difficulty to obtain high accuracy, high communication cost between clients and the server, and security attacks related to adversarial ML. To tackle these three challenges, we propose an FL algorithm inspired by evolutionary techniques. The proposed algorithm groups clients randomly in many clusters, each with a model selected randomly to explore the performance of different models. The clusters are then trained in a repetitive process where the worst performing cluster is removed in each iteration until one cluster remains. In each iteration, some clients are expelled from clusters either due to using poisoned data or low performance. The surviving clients are exploited in the next iteration. The remaining cluster with surviving clients is then used for training the best FL model (i.e., remaining FL model). Communication cost is reduced since fewer clients are used in the final training of the FL model. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, we conduct a number of experiments using FEMNIST dataset and compare the result against the random FL algorithm. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the baseline algorithm in terms of accuracy, communication cost, and security.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2021arXiv

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Radio Resource Allocation and Management in Next Generation Heterogeneous Wireless Networks: A Survey

Next generation wireless networks are expected to be extremely complex due to their massive heterogeneity in terms of the types of network architectures they incorporate, the types and numbers of smart IoT devices they serve, and the types of emerging applications they support. In such large-scale and heterogeneous networks (HetNets), radio resource allocation and management (RRAM) becomes one of the major challenges encountered during system design and deployment. In this context, emerging Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) techniques are expected to be one of the main enabling technologies to address the RRAM in future wireless HetNets. In this paper, we conduct a systematic in-depth, and comprehensive survey of the applications of DRL techniques in RRAM for next generation wireless networks. Towards this, we first overview the existing traditional RRAM methods and identify their limitations that motivate the use of DRL techniques in RRAM. Then, we provide a comprehensive review of the most widely used DRL algorithms to address RRAM problems, including the value- and policy-based algorithms. The advantages, limitations, and use-cases for each algorithm are provided. We then conduct a comprehensive and in-depth literature review and classify existing related works based on both the radio resources they are addressing and the type of wireless networks they are investigating. To this end, we carefully identify the types of DRL algorithms utilized in each related work, the elements of these algorithms, and the main findings of each related work. Finally, we highlight important open challenges and provide insights into several future research directions in the context of DRL-based RRAM. This survey is intentionally designed to guide and stimulate more research endeavors towards building efficient and fine-grained DRL-based RRAM schemes for future wireless networks.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2021arXiv

DQN-Based Multi-User Power Allocation for Hybrid RF/VLC Networks

In this paper, a Deep Q-Network (DQN) based multi-agent multi-user power allocation algorithm is proposed for hybrid networks composed of radio frequency (RF) and visible light communication (VLC) access points (APs). The users are capable of multihoming, which can bridge RF and VLC links for accommodating their bandwidth requirements. By leveraging a non-cooperative multi-agent DQN algorithm, where each AP is an agent, an online power allocation strategy is developed to optimize the transmit power for providing users' required data rate. Our simulation results demonstrate that DQN's median convergence time training is 90% shorter than the Q-Learning (QL) based algorithm. The DQN-based algorithm converges to the desired user rate in half duration on average while converging with the rate of 96.1% compared to the QL-based algorithm's convergence rate of 72.3% Additionally, thanks to its continuous state-space definition, the DQN-based power allocation algorithm provides average user data rates closer to the target rates than the QL-based algorithm when it converges.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2020arXiv

A Survey on Security and Privacy Issues in Edge Computing-Assisted Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) is an innovative paradigm envisioned to provide massive applications that are now part of our daily lives. Millions of smart devices are deployed within complex networks to provide vibrant functionalities including communications, monitoring, and controlling of critical infrastructures. However, this massive growth of IoT devices and the corresponding huge data traffic generated at the edge of the network created additional burdens on the state-of-the-art centralized cloud computing paradigm due to the bandwidth and resources scarcity. Hence, edge computing (EC) is emerging as an innovative strategy that brings data processing and storage near to the end users, leading to what is called EC-assisted IoT. Although this paradigm provides unique features and enhanced quality of service (QoS), it also introduces huge risks in data security and privacy aspects. This paper conducts a comprehensive survey on security and privacy issues in the context of EC-assisted IoT. In particular, we first present an overview of EC-assisted IoT including definitions, applications, architecture, advantages, and challenges. Second, we define security and privacy in the context of EC-assisted IoT. Then, we extensively discuss the major classifications of attacks in EC-assisted IoT and provide possible solutions and countermeasures along with the related research efforts. After that, we further classify some security and privacy issues as discussed in the literature based on security services and based on security objectives and functions. Finally, several open challenges and future research directions for secure EC-assisted IoT paradigm are also extensively provided.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2020arXiv

Exploiting Unlabeled Data in Smart Cities using Federated Learning

Privacy concerns are considered one of the main challenges in smart cities as sharing sensitive data brings threatening problems to people's lives. Federated learning has emerged as an effective technique to avoid privacy infringement as well as increase the utilization of the data. However, there is a scarcity in the amount of labeled data and an abundance of unlabeled data collected in smart cities, hence there is a need to use semi-supervised learning. We propose a semi-supervised federated learning method called FedSem that exploits unlabeled data. The algorithm is divided into two phases where the first phase trains a global model based on the labeled data. In the second phase, we use semi-supervised learning based on the pseudo labeling technique to improve the model. We conducted several experiments using traffic signs dataset to show that FedSem can improve accuracy up to 8% by utilizing the unlabeled data in the learning process.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2020arXiv

Federated Learning for Localization: A Privacy-Preserving Crowdsourcing Method

Received Signal Strength (RSS) fingerprint-based localization has attracted a lot of research effort and cultivated many commercial applications of location-based services due to its low cost and ease of implementation. Many studies are exploring the use of deep learning (DL) algorithms for localization. DL's ability to extract features and to classify autonomously makes it an attractive solution for fingerprint-based localization. These solutions require frequent retraining of DL models with vast amounts of measurements. Although crowdsourcing is an excellent way to gather immense amounts of data, it jeopardizes the privacy of participants, as it requires to collect labeled data at a centralized server. Recently, federated learning has emerged as a practical concept in solving the privacy preservation issue of crowdsourcing participants by performing model training at the edge devices in a decentralized manner; the participants do not expose their data anymore to a centralized server. This paper presents a novel method utilizing federated learning to improve the accuracy of RSS fingerprint-based localization while preserving the privacy of the crowdsourcing participants. Employing federated learning allows ensuring \emph{preserving the privacy of user data} while enabling an adequate localization performance with experimental data captured in real-world settings. The proposed method improved localization accuracy by 1.8 meters when used as a booster for centralized learning and achieved satisfactory localization accuracy when used standalone.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2020arXiv

Green-PoW: An Energy-Efficient Blockchain Proof-of-Work Consensus Algorithm

This paper opts to mitigate the energy-inefficiency of the Blockchain Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm by rationally repurposing the power spent during the mining process. The original PoW mining scheme is designed to consider one block at a time and assign a reward to the first place winner of a computation race. To reduce the mining-related energy consumption, we propose to compensate the computation effort of the runner(s)-up of a mining round, by granting them exclusivity of solving the upcoming block in the next round. This will considerably reduce the number of competing nodes in the next round and consequently, the consumed energy. Our proposed scheme divides time into epochs, where each comprises two mining rounds; in the first one, all network nodes can participate in the mining process, whereas in the second round only runners-up can take part. Thus, the overall mining energy consumption can be reduced to nearly $50\%$. To the best of our knowledge, our proposed scheme is the first to considerably improve the energy consumption of the original PoW algorithm. Our analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of our scheme in reducing energy consumption, the probability of fork occurrences, the level of mining centralization presented in the original PoW algorithm, and the effect of transaction censorship attack.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2020arXiv

Local Bitcoin Network Simulator for Performance Evaluation using Lightweight Virtualization

This paper presents a new blockchain network simulator that uses bitcoin's original reference implementation as its main application. The proposed simulator leverages the use of lightweight virtualization technology to build a fine tuned local testing network. To enable fast simulation of a large scale network without disabling mining service, the simulator can adjust the bitcoin mining difficulty level to below the default minimum value. In order to assess the performance of blockchain under different network conditions, the simulator allows to define different network topologies, and integrates Linux kernel traffic control (tc) tool to apply distinct delay or packet loss on the network nodes. Moreover, to validate the efficiency of our simulator we conduct a set of experiments and study the impact of the computation power and network delay on the network's consistency in terms of number of forks and mining revenues. The impact of applying different mining difficulty levels is also studied and the block time as well as fork occurrences are evaluated. Furthermore, a comprehensive survey and taxonomy of existing blockchain simulators are provided along with a discussion justifying the need of new simulator. As part of our contribution, we have made the simulator available on Github (https://github.com/noureddinel/core-bitcoin-net-simulator) for the community to use and improve it.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2020arXiv

Outage Analysis of Cognitive Electric Vehicular Networks over Mixed RF/VLC Channels

Modern transportation infrastructures are considered as one of the main sources of the greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. This situation requires the decision-making players to enact the mass use of electric vehicles (EVs) which, in turn, highly demand novel secure communication technologies robust to various cyber-attacks. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a novel jamming-robust communication technique for different outdoor cognitive EV-enabled network cases over mixed radio-frequency (RF)/visible light communication (VLC) channels. One EV acts as a relaying node to allow an aggregator to reach the jammed EV and, at the same time, operates in both RF and VLC spectrum bands while satisfying interference constraints imposed by the primary network entities. We derive exact closed-form analytical expressions for the outage probability and also provide their asymptotic analysis while considering various channel state information quality scenarios. Moreover, we quantify the outage reduction achievable by deploying such mixed VLC/RF channels. Finally, analytical and simulation results validate the accuracy of our analysis.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2017arXiv

On the Feasibility of Interference Alignment in Compounded MIMO Broadcast Channels with Antenna Correlation and Mixed User Classes

This paper presents a generalized closed-form beamforming technique that can achieve the maximum degrees of freedom in compounded multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) broadcast channels with mixed classes of multiple-antenna users. The contribution is firstly described within the context of a three-cell network and later extended to the general multi-cell scenario where we also show how to determine the conditions required to align the interference in a subspace that is orthogonal to the one reserved for the desired signals. This is then followed by an analysis of the impact of antenna correlation for different channel state information acquisition models. The proposed scheme is examined under both conventional and Large-scale MIMO systems. It will be shown that the proposed technique enables networks with any combination of user classes to achieve superior performance even under significant antenna correlation, particularly in the case of the Large-scale MIMO systems.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2015arXiv

A Stochastic Sizing Approach for Sharing-based Energy Storage Applications

In order to foster renewable energy integration, improve power quality and reliability, and reduce hydrocarbon emissions, there is a strong need to deploy energy storage systems (ESSs), which can provide a control medium for peak hour utility operations. ESSs are especially desired at the residential level, as this sector has the most untapped demand response potential. However, considering their high acquisition, operation, and maintenance costs, individual ESS deployment is not economically viable. Hence, in this paper, we propose a \emph{sharing-based} ESS architecture, in which the demand of each customer is modeled stochastically and the aggregate demand is accommodated by a combination of power drawn from the grid and the storage unit when the demand exceeds grid capacity. Stochastic framework for analyzing the optimal size of energy storage systems is provided. An analytical method is developed for a group customers with \emph{single} type of appliances. Then, this framework is extended to any network size with arbitrary number of customers and appliance types. The analytical method provides a tractable solution to the ESS sizing problem. Finally, a detailed cost-benefit analysis is provided, and the results indicate that sharing-based ESSs are practical and significant savings in terms of ESS size can be achieved.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2015arXiv

Capacity Planning Frameworks for Electric Vehicle Charging Stations with Multi-Class Customers

In order to foster electric vehicle (EV) adoption, there is a strong need for designing and developing charging stations that can accommodate different customer classes, distinguished by their charging preferences, needs, and technologies. By growing such charging station networks, the power grid becomes more congested and, therefore, controlling of charging demands should be carefully aligned with the available resources. This paper focuses on an EV charging network equipped with different charging technologies and proposes two frameworks. In the first framework, appropriate for large networks, the EV population is expected to constitute a sizable portion of the light duty fleets. This which necessitates controlling the EV charging operations to prevent potential grid failures and distribute the resources efficiently. This framework leverages pricing dynamics in order to control the EV customer request rates and to provide a charging service with the best level of quality of service. The second framework, on the other hand, is more appropriate for smaller networks, in which the objective is to compute the minimum amount of resources required to provide certain levels of quality of service to each class. The results show that the proposed frameworks ensure grid reliability and lead to significant savings in capacity planning.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2015arXiv

Energy Storage System Sizing for Peak Hour Utility Applications

In future smart grids, energy storage systems (ESSs) are expected to play a key role in reducing peak hour electricity generation cost and the associated level of carbon emissions. Considering their high acquisition, operation, and maintenance costs, ESSs are likely to serve a large number of users. Hence, optimal sizing of energy ESSs plays a critical role as over-provisioning ESS size leads to under-utilizing costly assets and under-provisioning it taxes operation lifetime. This paper proposes a stochastic framework for analyzing the optimal size of energy storage systems. In this framework the demand of each customer is modeled stochastically and the aggregate demand is accommodated by a combination of power drawn from the grid and the storage unit when the demand exceed grid capacity. In this framework an analytical method is developed, which provides tractable solution to the ESS sizing problem of interest. The results indicate that significant savings in terms of ESS size can be achieved.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2014arXiv

A Survey on Energy Trading in Smart Grid

As the distributed energy generation and storage technologies are becoming economically viable, energy trading is gradually becoming a profit making option for end-users. This trend is further supported by the regulators and the policy makers as it aids the efficiency of power grid operations, reduces power generation cost and the Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. To that end, in this paper we provide an overview of distributed energy trading concepts in smart grid. First, we identify the motivation and the desired outcomes of energy trading framework. Then we present the enabling technologies that are required to generate, store, and communicate with the trading agencies. Finally, we survey on the existing literature and present an array of mathematical frameworks employed.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access