In the traditional agricultural wireless sensor networks (WSNs), there is a large amount of redundant data and high latency on critical events (CEs) for data collection systems, which increases the time and energy consumption. In order to overcome these problems, an effective edge computing (EC) enabled data collection approach for CE in smart agriculture is proposed. First, the key features data types (KFDTs) are extracted from the historical dataset to keep the main information on CEs. Next, the KFDTs are selected as the collection data type of the software-defined wireless sensor network (SDWSN). Then, the event types are decided by searching the minimum average variance between the sensing data of active nodes and the average value of the key feature data obtained by EC. Furthermore, the sensing nodes are driven to sense the event-related data with a consideration of latency constraints by the SDWSN servers. A real-world testbed was set up in a smart greenhouse for experimental verification of the proposed approach. The results showed that the proposed approach could reduce the number of needed sensors, sensing time, collection data volume, communication time, and provide the low latency agricultural data collection system. Thus, the proposed approach can improve the efficiency of CE sensing in smart agriculture.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) has a high prevalence and is prone to many complications. However, current MetS diagnostic methods require blood tests that are not conducive to self-testing, so a user-friendly and accurate method for predicting MetS is needed to facilitate early detection and treatment. In this study, a MetS prediction model based on a simple, small number of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinical indicators and biological indicators combined with machine learning algorithms is investigated. Electronic medical record data from 2040 patients who visited outpatient clinics at Guangdong Chinese medicine hospitals from 2020 to 2021 were used to investigate the fusion of Bayesian optimization (BO) and eXtreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) in order to create a BO-XGBoost model for screening nineteen key features in three categories: individual bio-information, TCM indicators, and TCM habits that influence MetS prediction. Subsequently, the predictive diagnostic model for MetS was developed. The experimental results revealed that the model proposed in this paper achieved values of 93.35 %, 90.67 %, 80.40 %, and 0.920 for the F1, sensitivity, FRS, and AUC metrics, respectively. These values outperformed those of the seven other tested machine learning models. Finally, this study developed an intelligent prediction application for MetS based on the proposed model, which can be utilized by ordinary users to perform self-diagnosis through a web-based questionnaire, thereby accomplishing the objective of early detection and intervention for MetS.

This study proposes Combining Attention and Brightness Adjustment Network (CABA-Net), a deep learning network for underwater image restoration, to address the issues of underwater image color-cast, low brightness, and low contrast. The proposed approach achieves a multi-branch ambient light estimation by extracting the features of different levels of underwater images to achieve accurate estimates of the ambient light. Additionally, an encoder-decoder transmission map estimation module is designed to combine spatial attention structures that can extract the different layers of underwater images’ spatial features to achieve accurate transmission map estimates. Then, the transmission map and precisely predicted ambient light were included in the underwater image formation model to achieve a preliminary restoration of underwater images. HSV brightness adjustment was conducted by combining the channel and spatial attention to the initial underwater image to complete the final underwater image restoration. Experimental results on the Underwater Image Enhancement Benchmark (UIEB) and Real-world Underwater Image Enhancement (RUIE) datasets show excellent performance of the proposed method in subjective comparisons and objective assessments. Furthermore, several ablation studies are conducted to understand the effect of each network component and prove the effectiveness of the suggested approach.

In aquaculture, the presence of dead fish on the water surface can serve as a bioindicator of health issues or environmental stressors. To enhance the precision of detecting dead fish floating on the water’s surface, this paper proposes a detection approach that integrates data-driven insights with advanced modeling techniques. Firstly, to reduce the influence of aquatic disturbances and branches during the identification process, prior information, such as branches and ripples, is annotated in the dataset to guide the model to better learn the scale and shape characteristics of dead fish, reduce the interference of branch ripples on detection, and thus improve the accuracy of target identification. Secondly, leveraging the foundational YOLOv8 architecture, a DD-IYOLOv8 (Data-Driven Improved YOLOv8) dead fish detection model is designed. Considering the significant changes in the scale of dead fish at different distances, DySnakeConv (Dynamic Snake Convolution) is introduced into the neck network detection head to adaptively adjust the receptive field, thereby improving the network’s capability to capture features. Additionally, a layer for detecting minor objects has been added, and the detection head of YOLOv8 has been modified to 4, allowing the network to better focus on small targets and occluded dead fish, which improves detection performance. Furthermore, the model incorporates a HAM (Hybrid Attention Mechanism) in the later stages of the backbone network to refine global feature extraction, sharpening the model’s focus on dead fish targets and further enhancing detection accuracy. The experimental results showed that the accuracy of DD-IYOLOv8 in detecting dead fish reached 92.8%, the recall rate reached 89.4%, the AP reached 91.7%, and the F1 value reached 91.0%. This study can achieve precise identification of dead fish, which will help promote the research of automatic pond patrol machine ships.

In practical usage, QR codes often become difficult to recognize due to damage. Traditional restoration methods exhibit a limited effectiveness for severely damaged or densely encoded QR codes, are time-consuming, and have limitations in addressing extensive information loss. To tackle these challenges, we propose a two-stage restoration model named the EHFP-GAN, comprising an edge restoration module and a QR code reconstruction module. The edge restoration module guides subsequent restoration by repairing the edge images, resulting in finer edge details. The hierarchical feature pyramid within the QR code reconstruction module enhances the model’s global image perception. Using our custom dataset, we compare the EHFP-GAN against several mainstream image processing models. The results demonstrate the exceptional restoration performance of the EHFP-GAN model. Specifically, across various levels of contamination, the EHFP-GAN achieves significant improvements in the recognition rate and image quality metrics, surpassing the comparative models. For instance, under mild contamination, the EHFP-GAN achieves a recognition rate of 95.35%, while under a random contamination, it reaches 31.94%, both outperforming the comparative models. In conclusion, the EHFP-GAN model demonstrates remarkable efficacy in the restoration of damaged QR codes.