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This paper aims to propose a simulation-based performance evaluation model for the drone-based delivery of aid items to disaster-affected areas. The objective of the model is to perform analytical studies, evaluate the performance of drone delivery systems for humanitarian logistics and can support the decision-making on the operational design of the system – on where to locate drone take-off points and on assignment and scheduling of delivery tasks to drones.

This simulation model captures the dynamics and variabilities of the drone-based delivery system, including demand rates, location of demand points, time-dependent parameters and possible failures of drones’ operations. An optimization model integrated with the simulation system can update the optimality of drones’ schedules and delivery assignments.

An extensive set of experiments was performed to evaluate alternative strategies to demonstrate the effectiveness for the proposed optimization/simulation system. In the first set of experiments, the authors use the simulation-based evaluation tool for a case study for Central Florida. The goal of this set of experiments is to show how the proposed system can be used for decision-making and decision-support. The second set of experiments presents a series of numerical studies for a set of randomly generated instances.

The goal is to develop a simulation system that can allow one to evaluate performance of drone-based delivery systems, accounting for the uncertainties through simulations of real-life drone delivery flights. The proposed simulation model captures the variations in different system parameters, including interval of updating the system after receiving new information, demand parameters: the demand rate and their spatial distribution (i.e. their locations), service time parameters: travel times, setup and loading times, payload drop-off times and repair times and drone energy level: battery’s energy is impacted and requires battery change/recharging while flying.

Cold supply chain (CSC) distribution systems are vital in preserving the integrity and freshness of transported temperature sensitive products. CSC is also known to be energy intensive with a significant emission footprint. As a result, CSC requires strict monitoring and control management system during storage and transportation to improve safety and reduce profit losses. In this research, a systematic review of recent literature related to the distribution of food CSC products is presented and possible areas to extend research in modeling and decision-making are identified.

The paper analyzes the content of 65 recent articles related to CSC and perishable foods. Several relevant keywords were used in the initial search, which generated a list of 214 articles. The articles were screened based on content relevance in terms of food vehicle routing modeling and quality. Selected articles were categorized and analyzed based on cost elements, modeling framework and solution approach. Finally, recommendations for future research are suggested.

The review identified several research gaps in CSC logistics literature, where more focused research is warranted. First, the review suggests that dynamic vehicle modeling and routing while considering products quality and environmental impacts is still an open area for research. Second, there is no consensus among researchers in terms of quality degradation models used to assess the freshness of transported cold food. As a result, an investigation of critical parameters and quality modeling is warranted. Third, and due to the problem complexity, there is a need for developing heuristics and metaheuristics to solve such models. Finally, there is a need for extending the single product single compartment CSC to multi-compartment multi-temperature routing modeling.

The article identified possible areas to extend research in CSC distribution modeling and decision-making. Modified models that reflect real applications will help practitioners, food authorities and researchers make timely and more accurate decisions that will reduce food waste and improve the freshness of transported food.

Companies in the freight transportation industry can currently make use of an increasing number of applications based on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to improve the performance of their processes. Although these applications have become more widely used in recent years, there is still little research focussing on the actual adoption rate. The present study aims to fill this gap and provide a broad empirical analysis of the use of ICT‐based applications in the freight transportation industry in Italy.

The analysis uses multiple‐case studies. It is based on semi‐structured interviews with the management of leading Italian companies involved in transportation processes.

The study provides an insight into the current adoption of ICT applications among companies involved in freight transportation activities in Italy. The results point out the most used functions in each application area and the level of integration across these application areas.

The sample of companies examined in this study was selected by expert assessment, and is biased towards companies willing to provide data and share results. However, the findings provide some interesting results on how and where investments in ICT can be suitable for companies in the logistics and transportation industry.

The paper fulfils an identified need for in‐depth case studies focussing on the adoption level and the implementation process of ICT applications in transportation, and it is of interest to researchers and practitioners in the field of logistics and transportation management.

The purpose of this paper is to classify research on information and communication technology (ICT) for logistics and freight transportation on the basis of the main themes and methods and proposes directions for future research.

The review is based on 44 papers published from 1994 to 2009 in international peer‐reviewed journals. The academic papers are analysed and classified according to the research methodology adopted and the themes addressed.

While there are many contributions taking the “public transportation” perspective (i.e. the viewpoint of public stakeholders), papers focussing on the “private transportation” perspective (i.e. the viewpoint of the private companies offering logistics and transportation services) are fewer and relatively more recent. Additionally, even though in recent years researchers have also started to examine the decision‐making process of ICT adoption, many themes are under‐represented in literature, such as the subject of integration among different application types, empirical research on ICT adoption and the role of technology providers in the adoption process. As far as the methodology is concerned, the review revealed that many of the papers examined are either conceptual papers or empirical studies (i.e. mostly based on surveys, or else on case studies or interviews), while simulation and modelling are rarely present.

While efforts were made to be all‐inclusive, significant research efforts may have been inadvertently omitted. However, the authors believe that this review is an accurate representation of the body of research on ICT for logistics and transportation companies published during the specified timeframe, and feel that confidence may be placed on the resulting assessments.

The paper offers a guide for the review of previous research on this topic and identifies the most important issues that need to be addressed in future research.

Wireless sensor networks, due to their potentially wide application perspectives, may proliferate in future. Two major stumbling blocks are the dynamic variance of the network caused by both the capacity constraint of sensor nodes and uncertainties of wireless links, and secure routing in the special security sensitive environment. Therefore, adaptable and defendable routing mechanism is in urgent need for the deployment of sensor networks. This paper aims to propose a feedback‐based secure routing protocol (FBSR).

Feedback from the neighboring nodes serves as the dynamic information of the current network, with which sensor nodes make forwarding decisions in a secure and energy aware manner. Feedback message is included in the MAC layer acknowledgement frame to avoid network congestion, and it is authenticated with the proposed Keyed One Way Hash Chain (Keyed‐OWHC) to avoid feedback fabrication. FBSR's resilience to node compromise is enhanced by statistic efforts accomplished by the base station.

Both mathematical analysis and simulation results show that FBSR is not only reliable but also energy efficient.

The paper introduces a novel routing scheme for wireless sensor networks.

Cables are widely used, and they play a key role in complex electromechanical products such as vehicles, ships, aircraft and satellites. Cable design and assembly significantly impact the development cycle and assembly quality, which is be-coming a key element affecting the function of a product. However, there are various kinds of cables, with complex geo-metric configurations and a narrow assembly space, which can easily result in improper or missed assembly, an unreasonable layout or interference. Traditional serial design methods are inefficient and costly, and they cannot predict problems in installation and use. Based on physical modeling, computer-aided cable design and assembly can effectively solve these problems. This paper aims to address virtual assembly (VA) of flexible cables based on physical modeling.

Much research has focused recently on virtual design and assembly-process planning for cables. This paper systematically reviews the research progress and the current state of mechanical models, virtual design, assembly-process planning, collision detection and geometric configuration and proposes areas for further research.

In the first instance, the main research groups and typical systems are investigated, followed by extensive exploration of the major research issues. The latter can be reviewed from five perspectives: the current state of mechanical models, virtual design, assembly-process planning, collision detection and geometric configuration. Finally, the barriers that prevent successful application of VA are also discussed, and the future research directions are summarized.

This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the topics of VA of flexible cables based on physical modeling and investigates some new ideas and recent advances in the area.

The successful application of the group of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the tasks of monitoring large areas is becoming a promising direction in modern robotics. This paper aims to study the tasks related to the control of the UAV group while performing a common mission.

This paper discusses the main tasks solved in the process of developing an autonomous UAV group. During the survey, five key tasks of group robotics were investigated, namely, UAV group control, path planning, reconfiguration, task assignment and conflict resolution. Effective methods for solving each problem are presented, and an analysis and comparison of these methods are carried out. Several specifics of various types of UAVs are also described.

The analysis of a number of modern and effective methods showed that decentralized methods have clear advantages over centralized ones, since decentralized methods effectively perform the assigned mission regardless of on the amount of resources used. As for the method of planning the group movement of UAVs, it is worth choosing methods that combine the algorithms of global and local planning. This combination eliminates the possibility of collisions not only with static and dynamic obstacles, but also with other agents of the group.

The results of scientific research progress in the tasks of UAV group control have been summed up.

Multimedia applications such as digital audio and video have stringent quality of service (QoS) requirement in mobile ad hoc network. To support wide range of QoS, complex routing protocols with multiple QoS constraints are necessary. In QoS routing, the basic problem is to find a path that satisfies multiple QoS constraints. Moreover, mobility, congestion and packet loss in dynamic topology of network also leads to QoS performance degradation of protocol.

In this paper, the authors proposed a multi-path selection scheme for QoS aware routing in mobile ad hoc network based on fractional cuckoo search algorithm (FCS-MQARP). Here, multiple QoS constraints energy, link life time, distance and delay are considered for path selection.

The experimentation of proposed FCS-MQARP is performed over existing QoS aware routing protocols AOMDV, MMQARP, CS-MQARP using measures such as normalized delay, energy and throughput. The extensive simulation study of the proposed FCS-based multipath selection shows that the proposed QoS aware routing protocol performs better than the existing routing protocol with maximal energy of 99.1501 and minimal delay of 0.0554.

This paper presents a hybrid optimization algorithm called the FCS algorithm for the multi-path selection. Also, a new fitness function is developed by considering the QoS constraints such as energy, link life time, distance and delay.

Nowadays, more interest is found among the researchers in MANETs in practical and theoretical areas and their performance under various environments. WSNs have begun to combine with the IoT via the sensing capability of Internet-connected devices and the Internet access ability of sensor nodes. It is essential to shelter the network from attacks over the Internet by keeping the secure router.

This paper plans to frame an effective literature review on diverse intrusion detection and prevention systems in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) highly suitable for security in Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The literature review is focused on various types of attacks concentrated in each contribution and the adoption of prevention and mitigation models are observed. In addition, the types of the dataset used, types of attacks concentrated, types of tools used for implementation, and performance measures analyzed in each contribution are analyzed. Finally, an attempt is made to conclude the review with several future research directions in designing and implementing IDS for MANETs that preserve the security aspects of IoT.

It observed the different attack types focused on every contribution and the adoption of prevention and mitigation models. Additionally, the used dataset types, the focused attack types, the tool types used for implementation, and the performance measures were investigated in every contribution.

This paper presents a literature review on diverse contributions of attack detection and prevention, and the stand of different machine learning and deep learning models along with the analysis of types of the dataset used, attacks concentrated, tools used for implementation and performance measures on the network security for IoT applications.