Editorial

Internet of things: Smart things network and communication

The “internet of things” (IoT) concept is used to define orreference systems that rely on autonomous communication of agroup of physical objects. The application areas of the IoT arenumerous, such as smart homes, smart cities and industrialautomation. IoT systems often provide great benefits to numerousindustries and society as a whole. Many of the IoT systems andtechnologies are relatively novel. Though, there are still manyuntapped applications areas, and numerous challenges and issuesneed to be tackled.

The evolution of the Internet of things still poses manychallenges for the future, like unsolved problems, possibleimprovements of current solutions and a lot of fields where itcan be applied that have not yet been explored, based on thedesign of innovative solutions and the combination of existingtechnologies.

This special issue selects 7 relevant papers from total 35publications submitted. The selected papers present innovativecontributions concerning the issues of interest in IoT solutions. Theselected papers cover a wide range of topics related to IoTsolutions and smart objects.

The first paper is titled “A Survey on Trust Management forInternet of Things” (Yan et al., 2014). In this research work theauthors pointed out the importance of trust management IoT. Inorder to conduct holistic IoT trust relationships, classified theminto five categories and indicated that holistic trust managementshould concern part or all of them in different context and fordifferent purposes. Based on a general IoT System model theauthors propose ten objectives for holistic IoT trust managementand indicated their supporting IoT layers by emphasizing verticaltrust. In this research also raised future research trends byproposing a research model for holistic trust management in IoT.

The second paper is titled “RFID seeking: Finding a lost tagrather than only detecting its missing” (Xie et al., 2014). Theauthors propose a novel type of Radio Frequency Identification(RFID) application protocol. This RFID protocol present novelapplications and can be used to guide a user to find a lost taggeditem in a blind spot or a wanted item among a mass of similarones. The proposed protocol have strong safety considerations, islightweight with the privacy-friendly to both readers and tags, andis secure against common attacks such as eavesdropping, manip-ulating, replaying, tracing, and denial-of-service attacks.

The third paper is titled “Cooperative Artificial Bee ColonyAlgorithm for Multi-objective RFID Network Planning” (Chen etal., 2014). In this research work the authors proposes a novelapproach to RFID network planning. Instead of transformingmulti-objective functions into a single objective function, theproposed model focuses on the use of multi-objective algorithms

to find all the Pareto optimal solutions and to achieve the optimalplanning solutions by simultaneously optimizing four conflictingobjectives. By applying multi-objective approaches for solvingMORNP, the authors establish a new framework in which couldhandle different objectives and would enable the planner to findthe optimal RFID network plan based on multi-objective EAsand SI.

The fourth paper is titled “Optimization of the Logical Topologyfor Mobile MEMS Networks” (Lakhlef et al., 2014). The authorspropose an improvement of the logical topology by using self-reconfiguration protocol in MEMS microrobot networks. Theproposed protocol raises an alternative solution that is not basedon the map of the target shape, which makes the algorithmefficient and scalable. The proposed protocol provides a novelself-reconfiguration standalone and portable independent of themap that builds the target shape starting from any connectednetwork.

The fifth paper is titled “Vitruvius: An expert system for vehiclesensor tracking and managing application generation” (Cueva-Fernandez et al., 2014). This research Q3work focuses on the field ofinterconnected road vehicles that obtain information from theenvironment using different types of sensors. The authors presentVitruvius, a novel platform where users with no programmingknowledge can design and quickly implement rich web applica-tions based on the data consumption in real time from intercon-nected vehicles and sensors. The proposal includes a vehicleregistration system and a specific domain specific language. Thesolution was verified with non-expert users who were able tospecify and create applications based on data obtained fromvehicles.

The sixth paper is titled “Heterogeneous-Belief Based IncentiveSchemes for Crowd Sensing in Mobile Social Networks” (Sun andMa, 2014). The authors analyze the user participation incentiveissue based on heterogeneous belief values for long term crowdsensing applications in mobile social networks (MSMs) and theevolution procedure of users' social state. The authors propose abelief-value based uplink scheduling algorithm DWI for jointsocial states, real-time throughput requirements that is feasiblefor users in a realistic moving scenario based on transmittingconcurrently. The authors also propose a novel algorithm calledDDWI which integrates DWI and the different delay demands ofthe flows, and simultaneously archives per flow delaydifferentiation.

The seventh paper is titled “Predicting the Content Dissemina-tion Trends by Repost Behavior Modeling in Mobile Social Net-works” (Lu et al., 2014). The authors dissemination of content overa mobile social network, which has become an attractive proxy for

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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jnca

Journal of Network and Computer Applications

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnca.2014.03.0031084-8045/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Journal of Network and Computer Applications ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎

investigating human behaviors due to the rapid development ofmobile phones. The authors explore different approaches topredict the amount of reposts any given post will obtain in popularmobile social networking service (Sina Weibo-China) and proposea RepostsTree based method to model the reposting process in atemporal dynamic manner. The obtained results indicate that theproposed method is effective on content diffusion prediction inmobile social networks.

We really hope this special issue will give some insights intothe recent research results in the field of internet of things. Thisspecial issue also provides certain guidance for academic andindustrial research, offering several innovative solutions and manypossible research directions.

Finally, the guest editors want to express our gratitude to allthe authors and reviewers who have collaborated in this specialissue. A special gratitude to Dr. Mohammed Atiquzzaman theEditor in Chief of Journal of Network and Computer Application forgiving to us the opportunity to present this special issue and alsofor all the support and collaboration throughout the entire pub-lication process.

Uncited referencesQ2

Zheng and Vasilakos (2014) and Guillermo et al. (2014).

References

Chen Hanning, Ma Lianbo, Hu Kunyuan. Cooperative artificial bee colony algorithmfor multi-objective RFID network planning. J Netw Comput Appl 2014 ([X(x):X–X]).

Guillermo Cueva-Fernandez, Jordán Pascual Espada, Vicente García-Díaz, CristianGonzalez García, Nestor Garcia-Fernandez. Vitruvius: an expert system forvehicle sensor tracking and managing application generation. J Netw ComputAppl 2014 ([X(x): X–X]).

Lakhlef Hicham, Mabed Hakim, Bourgeois Julien. Optimization of the LogicalTopology for Mobile MEMS Networks. J Netw Comput Appl 2014 ([X(x): X–X]).

Lu Xinjiang, Yu Zhiwen, Guo Bin, Zhou Xingshe. Predicting the content dissemina-tion trends by repost behavior modeling in mobile social networks. J NetwComput Appl 2014 ([X(x): X–X]).

Sun Jiajun, Ma Huadong. Heterogeneous-belief based incentive schemes for crowdsensing in mobile social networks. J Netw Comput Appl 2014 ([X(x): X–X]).

Xie Wei, Xie Lei, Zhang Chen, Wang Qiang, Xu Jian, Zhang Quan, et al. RFID seeking:finding a lost tag rather than only detecting its missing. J Netw Comput Appl2014 ([X(x): X–X]).

Zheng Yan, Vasilakos Athanasios V. A survey on trust management for internet ofthings. J Netw Comput Appl 2014 ([X(x): X–X]).

Guest EditorsJordán Pascual Espada n Q1

Department of Computer Science, University of Oviedo, SpainE-mail address: pascualjordan@uniovi.es

Ronald R. YagerMachine Intelligence Institute, Iona College, NY, United States

E-mail address: yager@panix.com

Bin GuoSchool of Computer Science, Northwestern Polytechnical University,

ChinaE-mail address: guob@nwpu.edu.cn

Received 10 March 2014; accepted 10 March 2014

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100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132n Corresponding author.

Editorial / Journal of Network and Computer Applications ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎2