The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased research outputs in telemedicine over the last couple of years. One solution to the COVID-19 pandemic as revealed in literature is to leverage telemedicine for accessing health care remotely. In this survey paper, we review several articles on eHealth and Telemedicine with emphasis on the articles’ focus area, including wireless technologies and architectures in eHealth, communications protocols, Quality of Service, and Experience Standards, among other considerations. In addition, we provide an overview of telemedicine for new readers. This survey reviews several telecommunications technologies currently being proposed along with their standards and challenges. In general, an encompassing survey on the developments in telemedicine technology, standards, and protocols is presented while acquainting researchers with several open issues. Special mention of the state-of-the-art specialist application areas are presented. We conclude the survey paper by presenting important research challenges and potential future directions as they pertain to telemedicine technology.

The elbow technique is a well-known method for estimating the number of clusters required as a starting parameter in the K-means algorithm and certain other unsupervised machine-learning algorithms. However, due to the graphical output nature of the method, human assessment is necessary to determine the location of the elbow and, consequently, the number of data clusters. This article presents a simple method for estimating the elbow point, thus, enabling the K-means algorithm to be readily automated. First, the elbow-based graph is normalized using the graph’s minimum and maximum values along the ordinate and abscissa coordinates. Then, the distance between each point on the graph to the minimum (i.e., the origin) and maximum reference points, and the “heel” of the graph are calculated. The estimated elbow location is, thus, the point that maximizes the ratio of these distances, which corresponds to an approximate number of clusters in the dataset. We demonstrate that the strategy is effective, stable, and adaptable over different types of datasets characterized by small and large clusters, different cluster shapes, high dimensionality, and unbalanced distributions. We provide the clustering community with a description of the method and present comparative results against other well-known methods in the prior state of the art.

Hyperparameter tuning is a critical function necessary for the effective deployment of most machine learning (ML) algorithms. It is used to find the optimal hyperparameter settings of an ML algorithm in order to improve its overall output performance. To this effect, several optimization strategies have been studied for fine-tuning the hyperparameters of many ML algorithms, especially in the absence of model-specific information. However, because most ML training procedures need a significant amount of computational time and memory, it is frequently necessary to build an optimization technique that converges within a small number of fitness evaluations. As a result, a simple deterministic selection genetic algorithm (SDSGA) is proposed in this article. The SDSGA was realized by ensuring that both chromosomes and their accompanying fitness values in the original genetic algorithm are selected in an elitist-like way. We assessed the SDSGA over a variety of mathematical test functions. It was then used to optimize the hyperparameters of two well-known machine learning models, namely, the convolutional neural network (CNN) and the random forest (RF) algorithm, with application on the MNIST and UCI classification datasets. The SDSGA’s efficiency was compared to that of the Bayesian Optimization (BO) and three other popular metaheuristic optimization algorithms (MOAs), namely, the genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and biogeography-based optimization (BBO) algorithms. The results obtained reveal that the SDSGA performed better than the other MOAs in solving 11 of the 17 known benchmark functions considered in our study. While optimizing the hyperparameters of the two ML models, it performed marginally better in terms of accuracy than the other methods while taking less time to compute.

The rapid development of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the deployment of advanced Internet of Things (IoT)-based devices has led to the study and implementation of edge computing technologies in smart grid (SG) systems. In addition, substantial work has been expended in the literature to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) techniques into edge computing, resulting in the promising concept of edge intelligence (EI). Consequently, in this article, we provide an overview of the current state-of-the-art in terms of EI-based SG adoption from a range of angles, including architectures, computation offloading, and cybersecurity concerns. The basic objectives of this article are fourfold. To begin, we discuss EI and SGs separately. Then we highlight contemporary concepts closely related to edge computing, fundamental characteristics, and essential enabling technologies from an EI perspective. Additionally, we discuss how the use of AI has aided in optimizing the performance of edge computing. We have emphasized the important enabling technologies and applications of SGs from the perspective of EI-based SGs. Second, we explore both general edge computing and architectures based on EI from the perspective of SGs. Thirdly, two basic questions about computation offloading are discussed: what is computation offloading and why do we need it? Additionally, we divided the primary articles into two categories based on the number of users included in the model, either a single user or a multiple user instance. Finally, we review the cybersecurity threats with edge computing and the methods used to mitigate them in SGs. Therefore, this survey comes to the conclusion that most of the viable architectures for EI in smart grids often consist of three layers: device, edge, and cloud. In addition, it is crucial that computation offloading techniques must be framed as optimization problems and addressed effectively in order to increase system performance. This article typically intends to serve as a primer for emerging and interested scholars concerned with the study of EI in SGs.

Electronic voting (e-voting) systems are gaining increasing attention as a means to modernize electoral processes, enhance transparency, and boost voters’ participation. In recent years, significant developments have occurred in the study of e-voting and blockchain technology systems, hence reshaping many electoral systems globally. For example, real-world implementations of blockchain-based e-voting have been explored in various countries, such as Estonia and Switzerland, which demonstrates the potential of blockchain to enhance the security and transparency of elections. Thus, in this paper, we present a survey of the latest trends in the development of e-voting systems, focusing on the integration of blockchain technology as a promising solution to address various concerns in e-voting, including security, transparency, auditability, and voting integrity. This survey is important because existing survey articles do not cover the latest advancements in blockchain technology for e-voting, particularly as it relates to architecture, global trends, and current concerns in the developmental process. Thus, we address this gap by providing an encompassing overview of architectures, developments, concerns, and solutions in e-voting systems based on the use of blockchain technology. Specifically, a concise summary of the information necessary for implementing blockchain-based e-voting solutions is provided. Furthermore, we discuss recent advances in blockchain systems, which aim to enhance scalability and performance in large-scale voting scenarios. We also highlight the fact that the implementation of blockchain-based e-voting systems faces challenges, including cybersecurity risks, resource intensity, and the need for robust infrastructure, which must be addressed to ensure the scalability and reliability of these systems. This survey also points to the ongoing development in the field, highlighting future research directions such as improving the efficiency of blockchain algorithms and integrating advanced cryptographic techniques to further enhance security and trust in e-voting systems. Hence, by analyzing the current state of e-voting systems and blockchain technology, insights have been provided into the opportunities and challenges in the field with opportunities for future research and development efforts aimed at creating more secure, transparent, and inclusive electoral processes.

The ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed in part to a recent upsurge in the study and development of eHealth systems. Although it is almost impossible to cover all aspects of eHealth in a single discussion, three critical areas have gained traction. These include the need for acceptable eHealth architectures, the development of mobile health (mHealth) technologies, and the need to address eHealth system security concerns. Existing survey articles lack a synthesis of the most recent advancements in the development of architectures, mHealth solutions, and innovative security measures, which are essential components of effective eHealth systems. Consequently, the present article aims at providing an encompassing survey of these three aspects towards the development of successful and efficient eHealth systems. Firstly, we discuss the most recent innovations in eHealth architectures, such as blockchain-, Internet of Things (IoT)-, and cloud-based architectures, focusing on their respective benefits and drawbacks while also providing an overview of how they might be implemented and used. Concerning mHealth and security, we focus on key developments in both areas while discussing other critical topics of importance for eHealth systems. We close with a discussion of the important research challenges and potential future directions as they pertain to architecture, mHealth, and security concerns. This survey gives a comprehensive overview, including the merits and limitations of several possible technologies for the development of eHealth systems. This endeavor offers researchers and developers a quick snapshot of the information necessary during the design and decision-making phases of the eHealth system development lifecycle. Furthermore, we conclude that building a unified architecture for eHealth systems would require combining several existing designs. It also points out that there are still a number of problems to be solved, so more research and investment are needed to develop and deploy functional eHealth systems.