Breast cancer remains one of the leading causes of death among women worldwide. Early detection and diagnosis are crucial for effective treatment and improved patient outcome. In recent years, both deep learning and federated learning have demonstrated significant advancements in terms of their ability to reliably and securely diagnose breast cancer using various imaging techniques. Consequently, a thorough summary of recent advancements in the field of breast cancer screening and diagnosis using deep learning and federated learning, along with future research directions, is imperative. This study presents a comprehensive review of recent deep learning and federated learning-based methods for breast cancer screening and diagnosis from the classification, segmentation, and detection viewpoints using ultrasonography, mammography, magnetic resonance imaging, and histopathology images. In addition, novel deep learning and federated learning architectures that are used to reliably and securely diagnose breast cancer using various imaging techniques are highlighted. Finally, a discussion of the associated challenges and future research directions are presented.

Air compressors are vital across various sectors—automotive, manufacturing, buildings, and healthcare—as they provide pressurized air for air suspension systems in vehicles, supply power pneumatic machines throughout industrial production lines, and support non-clinical infrastructure within hospital environments, including pneumatic control systems, isolation room pressurization, and laboratory equipment operation. Ensuring that such components are reliable is critical, as unexpected failures can disrupt facility functions and compromise patient safety. Predictive maintenance (PdM) has emerged as a key factor in enhancing the reliability and operational efficiency of medical devices by leveraging sensor data and artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithms to detect component degradation before functional failures occur. In this paper, a predictive maintenance solution for condition monitoring and fault prediction for the exhaust valve, bearings, water pump, and radiator of an air compressor is presented, by comparing a hybrid deep neural network (DNN) as a feature extractor and a support vector machine (SVM) for condition classification: a pure DNN classifier as well as a standalone SVM model. Additionally, each model was trained and validated on three devices—NVIDIA T4 GPU, Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, and NVIDIA Jetson Nano—and performance reports in terms of latency, energy consumption, and CO₂ emissions are presented. Moreover, three model agnostic explainable AI (XAI) methods were employed to increase the transparency of the hybrid model’s final decision: Shapley additive explanations (SHAP), local interpretable model-agnostic explanations (LIME) and partial dependence plots (PDP). The hybrid model achieves on average 98.71%, 99.25%, 98.78%, and 99.01% performance in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score across all devices Additionally, the DNN baseline and SVM model achieve on average 93.2%, 88.33%, 90.45%, and 89.37%, as well as 93.34%, 88.11%, 95. 41%, and 91.62% performance in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score across all devices. The integration of XAI methods within the PdM pipeline offers enhanced transparency, interpretability, and trustworthiness of predictive outcomes, thereby facilitating informed decision-making among maintenance personnel.

Through the latest technological and conceptual developments, the centralized cloud-computing approach has moved to structures such as edge, fog, and the Internet of Things (IoT), approaching end users. As mobile network operators (MNOs) implement the new 5G standards, enterprise computing function shifts to the edge. In parallel to interconnection topics, there is the issue of global impact over the environment. The idea is to develop IoT devices to eliminate the greenhouse effect of current applications. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is the technology that has this potential, and it can be used in applications ranging from identifying a person to granting access in a building. Past studies have focused on how to improve RFID communication or to achieve maximal throughput. However, for many applications, system latency and availability are critical aspects. This paper examines, through stochastic Petri nets (SPNs), the availability, dependability, and latency of an object-identification system that uses RFID tags. Through the performed analysis, the optimal balance between latency and throughput was identified. Analyzing multiple communication scenarios revealed the availability of such a system when deployed at the edge layer.

Robots can be very different, from humanoids to intelligent self-driving cars or just IoT systems that collect and process local sensors’ information. This paper presents a way to increase dependability for information exchange and processing in systems with Cloud-Fog-Edge architectures. In an ideal interconnected world, the recognized and registered robots must be able to communicate with each other if they are close enough, or through the Fog access points without overloading the Cloud. In essence, the presented work addresses the Edge area and how the devices can communicate in a safe and secure environment using cryptographic methods for structured systems. The presented work emphasizes the importance of security in a system’s dependability and offers a communication mechanism for several robots without overburdening the Cloud. This solution is ideal to be used where various monitoring and control aspects demand extra degrees of safety. The extra private keys employed by this procedure further enhance algorithm complexity, limiting the probability that the method may be broken by brute force or systemic attacks.

As the integration of cyber and physical components becomes increasingly prevalent in modern systems, ensuring the dependability of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) has emerged as a critical research area. The present paper aims to present a comprehensive analysis of the recent advances in the field of dependable CPS. Firstly, we present an analysis on the evolution of the published papers in the past years and introduce the concepts of dependability and CPSs in the context of Industry 4.0. Secondly, some strategies and challenges that have been encountered in the recent literature for enhancing the dependability of CPS are also presented. Finally, two case studies that highlight the interdependencies between the concepts of dependability and CPS are reviewed. The first one presents the dependability of an object identification system that relies on radio frequency identifier, which can be used in medical services. The second case study shows various techniques for predicting the remaining useful life of a turbofan jet engine using Machine Learning and Deep Learning techniques.

Background: Breast cancer (BrC) and lung cancer (LuC) are two forms of aggressive cancer that affect both men and women worldwide. Recently, multitask learning (MTL) and federated learning (FL) techniques have proven to be efficient in increasing the robustness of deep learning (DL)-based models by performing multiple tasks simultaneously and preserving the confidentiality of medical data. Methods: This paper presents a survey of MTL and FL methods for BrC and LuC screening and diagnosis using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology. Comprehensive tables were created to highlight the performances of both MTL models and FL environments. Results: The main challenges identified were the lack of hybrid MTL models that combine hard and soft sharing, heterogeneous imaging data, and edge FL systems. Conclusions: FL environments obtain competitive performance compared with centralized MTL models, highlighting their potential to preserve medical data confidentiality without compromising performance. Future research directions could include MTL-based models incorporated in FL environments, hybrid MTL models that combine both hard- and soft-sharing parameter methods, and the use of blockchain techniques to increase the security of FL environments.