Organisation of The 15th International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT 2025)

The 15th International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT 2025) is set to take place in late November 2025 in Vienna, Austria, organized by TU Wien. The conference will feature a research paper track, keynotes, workshops, and poster and demo sessions, all held in the unique “Kuppelsaal” of TU Wien. Dragi Kimovski from Klagenfurt University will serve as one of the Workshop Chairs, focusing on attracting high-quality workshops that drive innovation in IoT research. The conference aims to connect world-class researchers with industry experts to steer innovation across various IoT verticals, including smart industry, smart cities, smart health, and smart environments (iot-conference.org).

 

Organisation of The 8th Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing Performance (HotCloudPerf 2025)

The 8th Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing Performance (HotCloudPerf 2025) will be held on May 5 or 6, 2025, in Toronto, Canada, in conjunction with the International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE). This workshop serves as a venue for academics and practitioners to discuss performance-related aspects of cloud computing across the computational continuum, from data centers to edge resources and IoT devices. Key topics include empirical performance studies, performance analysis using modeling and queuing theory, simulation-based studies, operational techniques for resource management, end-to-end performance engineering, and tools for monitoring cloud computing performance. Dragi Kimovski is one of the workshop organizers, playing a key role in shaping the event’s agenda and fostering discussions on cutting-edge cloud performance challenges. (hotcloudperf.spec.org)

 

Organisation of The Third International Workshop on Intelligent and Adaptive Edge-Cloud Operations and Services (Intel4EC 2025)

The Third International Workshop on Intelligent and Adaptive Edge-Cloud Operations and Services (Intel4EC 2025) is scheduled for June 4, 2025, in Milan, Italy, as part of the 39th IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS). This workshop aims to bring together researchers, developers, and practitioners from academia and industry to present their experiences and research progress in AI/ML/LLM-enabled edge-cloud operations and services. Topics of interest include performance instrumentation, monitoring and observability, causal attribution and root-cause analysis, performance diagnosis and prognosis, and failure prediction and fault localization. Dragi Kimovski is one of the workshop organizers, contributing to the design of the program and topic selection. (intel4ec-workshop.nl)

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Workshop paper accepted: Serverless Large Language Models: Edge vs. Cloud Deployment Trade-offs

Authors: Reza Farahani, Radu Prodan

Venue: Workshop on AI for Sustainable Energy Systems and Green AI, Brdo Estate, Slovenia, 11-12 March 2025

 

 

Hadi
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Paper accepted at ACM TOMM: Counterfeiting Attacks on a RDH-EI scheme based on block-permutation and Co-XOR

Authors: Fan Chen (Southwest Jiaotong University, China),  Lingfeng Qu (Guangzhou University, China), Hadi Amirpour (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), and Hongjie He (Southwest Jiaotong University, China)

Journal: ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing Communications and Applications (ACM TOMM)

Abstract: Reversible data hiding in encrypted images (RDH-EI) has gained widespread attention due to its potential applications in secure cloud storage. However, the security challenges of RDH-EI in cloud storage scenarios remain largely unexplored.} In this paper, we present a counterfeiting attack on RDH-EI schemes that utilize block-permutation and Co-XOR (BPCX) encryption. We demonstrate that ciphertext images generated by BPCX-based RDH-EI are easily tampered with to produce a counterfeit decrypted image with different contents imperceptible to the human eye. This vulnerability is mainly because the block permutation key information of BPCX is susceptible to known-plaintext attacks (KPAs). Taking ciphertext images in telemedicine scenarios as an example, we describe two potential counterfeiting attacks, namely fixed-area and optimal-area attacks. We show that the quality of forged decrypted images depends on the accuracy of the estimated block-permutation key under KPA conditions. To improve the invisibility of counterfeit decrypted images, we analyze the limitations of existing KPA methods against BPCX encryption for 2×2 block sizes and propose a novel diagonal inversion rule specifically designed for image blocks. This rule further enhances the accuracy of the estimated block-permutation key. The experiments show that, compared to existing KPA methods, the accuracy of the estimated block-permutation key in the UCID dataset increases by an average of 11.5%. In the counterfeiting attack experiments on Camera’s encrypted image, we successfully tampered with over 80% of the pixels in the target area under the fixed-region attack. Additionally, we achieved a tampering success rate exceeding 90% in the optimal-region attack.

 

Hadi
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Accepted tutorial: Video Coding Advancements in HTTP Adaptive Streaming

Tutorial title: Video Coding Advancements in HTTP Adaptive Streaming

Venue: IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME) 2025 (https://2025.ieeeicme.org/tutorials/)

We are happy to announce that our tutorial “Video Coding Advancements in HTTP Adaptive Streaming” (by Hadi Amirpourazarian and Christian Timmerer) has been accepted for IEEE ICME 2025, which will take place in Nantes, France, June 30 – July 4, 2025.

Description: This tutorial provides a comprehensive exploration of the HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) pipeline, covering advancements from content provisioning to content consumption. We begin by tracing the history of video streaming and the evolution of video coding technologies. Attendees will gain insights into the timeline of significant developments, from early proprietary solutions to modern adaptive streaming standards like HAS. A comparative analysis of video codecs is presented, highlighting milestones such as H.264, HEVC, and the latest standard, Versatile Video Coding (VVC), emphasizing their efficiency, adoption, and impact on streaming technologies. Additionally, new trends in video coding, including AI-based coding solutions, will be covered, showcasing their potential to transform video compression and streaming workflows.

Building on this foundation, we explore per-title encoding techniques, which dynamically tailor bitrate ladders to the specific characteristics of video content. These methods account for factors such as spatial resolution, frame rate, device compatibility, and energy efficiency, optimizing both Quality of Experience (QoE) and environmental sustainability. Next, we highlight cutting-edge advancements in live streaming, including novel approaches to optimizing bitrate ladders without introducing latency. Fast multi-rate encoding methods are also presented, showcasing how they significantly reduce encoding times and computational costs, effectively addressing scalability challenges for streaming providers.

The tutorial further delves into edge computing capabilities for video transcoding, emphasizing how edge-based architectures can streamline the processing and delivery of streaming content. These approaches reduce latency and enable efficient resource utilization, particularly in live and interactive streaming scenarios.

Finally, we discuss the QoE parameters that influence both streaming and coding pipelines, providing a holistic view of how QoE considerations guide decisions in codec selection, bitrate optimization, and delivery strategies. By combining historical context, theoretical foundations, and practical insights, this tutorial equips attendees with the knowledge to navigate and address the evolving challenges in video streaming applications.

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Accepted tutorial: Serverless Orchestration on the Edge-Cloud Continuum: Challenges and Solutions

Tutorial title: Serverless Orchestration on the Edge-Cloud Continuum: Challenges and Solutions

Venue: 16th ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE) (https://icpe2025.spec.org/)

We are happy to announce that our tutorial “Serverless Orchestration on the Edge-Cloud Continuum: Challenges and Solutions” (by Reza Farahani and Radu Prodan) has been accepted for ACM/SPEC ICPE 2025, which will take place in Torento, Canada, in May 2025.

 

Ria Sommer @ ITEC – Presentation on Actual Play and Let’s Play practices

On 16 January 2024, a special PhD presentation took place as a part of the ongoing open learning space organised by the master’s programme Game Studies and Engineering. Ria Sommer MA from the University of Osnabrück presented her ongoing research on Actual Play and Let’s Play practices. The event was moderated by Dr Felix Schniz BA MA and visited by students from various disciplines and AAU lecturers.

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ITEC Organized the 14th International Video Retrieval Competition and Scored Well

On January 8th, 2025, the 14th Video Browser Showdown (VBS) took place at the International Conference on Multimedia Modeling (MMM2025), in Nara, Japan. 17 international teams competed against each other over about five hours and solved very challenging tasks. VBS is the largest international video retrieval competition and teams had to perform search in a dataset with a total of 31.715 video files and 5.930 hours, coming from the V3C, LHE, and MVK video collections. This year, in addition to the typical task types, such as KIS-V/KIS-T (known-item search with visual and textual hints), AVS (ad-hoc video search) and QA (interactive question answering), we had a new category called KIS-C (conversational known-item search), where an oracle of a few people mentioned hints and answered questions to the teams about the scene of interest. Overall, VBS2025 was a challenging and fascinating event, with a lot of fun, exciting queries, and great video retrieval systems.

We would like to thank the 17 teams with 95 unique authors from 13 countries for their participation and congratulate them to the great success at VBS2025. Congratulations in particular go to
– the NII-UIT team, who was the overall winner and provided the best expert system
– the VEAGLE team, who provided the best novice system

Also ITEC’s video retrieval system, diveXplore, performed very well and achieved the 3rd place in the overall scoring.

VBS is a huge event that requires a lot of organization efforts.
Many thanks go to Werner Bailer for creating and checking all the queries in advance, to Cathal Gurrin for doing an amazing job at moderation over 5 hours, to all the live judges (Dimitris Georgalis, Gylfi Þór Guðmundsson, Björn Þór Jónsson, Andreas Leibetseder, Laura Rettig, Heiko Schuldt, Dimitris Stefanopoulos) for assessing submissions that could not be evaluated automatically, the oracle members (Björn Þór Jónsson, Stevan Rudinac, Heiko Schuldt) for exciting query hints, the developers of the distributed retrieval evaluation servery (DRES) (Luca Rossetto, Loris Sauter, Ralph Gasser), the creators of the datasets (particularly Luca Rossetto and Sai-Kit Yeung), and all the local organizers of MMM2025 (Ichiro Ide, Ioannis Kompatsiaris, ChangSheng Xu, Keiji Yanai, Chong-Wah Ngo, Shin’ichi Satoh, Marc Kastner, and others). THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

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“Magic Academy” on 14 January, 2025

On 14 January, Dr Felix Schniz and GSE Student Peter Miklautz organised the “Magic Academy.” The event took place in the library’s Unruhezone and introduced GSE and other students to the concept of Trading Card Games. It served as an introductory event for a series of follow-up “Magic Academies”, which are scheduled for the end of this semester and over the course of next semester. The series concludes in June with a three-day event on academic perspectives on Trading Card Games, featuring international guest speakers, workshops on the mechanics, stochastics, and analytical observations on different card game systems, and an analogue game design mini-game jam.

With over 30 students attending, this kick-off was a magical success!