Accurate medical image segmentation (MIS) is crucial for computer-assisted diagnosis and treatment planning. This research proposes a deep learning (DL) architecture for accurate and efficient MIS, named Dynamic Contextual Residual U-Net (DCRU-Net). This design is a variation of the conventional U-Net that combines dynamic contextual residual block (DCRB) with a squeeze-and-excitation (SE) block. DCRU-Net combines the strengths of the DCRB and SE block. The SE block improves the feature-capture performance of the …

The growing global population, combined with rapid industrialization and rising living standards, has resulted in a substantial increase in energy demand. This trend necessitates the development of innovative energy technologies that align with environmental protection policies. As a result, many newly constructed power plants are increasingly utilizing renewable energy sources or cogeneration methods. This dynamic energy landscape has introduced new challenges, as numerous coal plants have transitioned to flexibl…

User authentication is a necessary mechanism to communicate securely for mobile networks. Recently, Xie et al. have discussed a three-factor authentication (3FA) scheme using elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) for mobile networks and claimed that it is secure even if the user's two factors are known to the attacker. However, in this paper, we cryptanalyse their scheme and find the offline password guessing and user impersonation attacks in it. We also propose a secure 3FA scheme for mobile networks using ECC by rem…

COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges to the world, and vaccination has been a key strategy to combat the disease. Since Twitter is one of the most widely used public microblogging platforms, researchers have analysed COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination Twitter discourse to explore the conversational dynamics around the topic. While contributing to the crisis informatics literature, we curate a large-scale geotagged Twitter dataset, GeoCovaxTweets Extended, and explore the discourse through multiple…

The rapid growth of cloud storage brings forth significant difficulties in ensuring the integrity of data owners' sensitive data. Multi-cloud storage systems, which motive to enhance trustworthiness, are vulnerable to rigorous replacement attacks. These insidious attacks involve malicious actors substituting legitimate data with counterfeit versions, leading to compromised integrity and fraudulent audit outcomes. We propose a novel identity-based data integrity auditing protocol tailored for multi-cloud storage en…