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The rising challenges posed by electronic waste (e‐waste) to environmental and human health necessitate the advancement of smarter, faster, and more accurate e‐waste management solutions. Despite significant advancements in object detection technologies, current models often struggle with the real‐time classification of diverse e‐waste categories, limiting their practical application in large‐scale recycling operations. Addressing this gap, this paper introduces YOLO11, a next‐generation real‐time object detection framework specifically optimized for the detection and classification of diverse e‐waste categories. Leveraging the power of deep learning, our model was trained on two distinct custom datasets, achieving remarkable classification accuracies of 99% and 98%, respectively. This study is among the first to demonstrate the real‐world applicability of the newly released YOLO11 architecture in the domain of e‐waste, showcasing its robustness and speed in diverse and cluttered environments. The system is capable of accurately detecting and classifying various categories of e‐waste in real‐time, offering a practical solution for automated sorting and collection processes. Through extensive experiments, the YOLO11 model achieved exceptional performance, achieving a recall of 0.968, mAP@ (Mean Average Precision) 0.5 of 0.992, and mAP@0.5–0.95 of 0.884 in all classes. Strong generalization and precise object recognition are shown by high class‐wise mAP@0.5–0.95 values, such as 0.991 for phone, 0.943 for keyboard, and 0.912 for laptop. The model is ideal for real‐time applications since it can identify a variety of e‐waste objects with a fast GPU‐based inference time (4.9 ms). The experimental findings show that YOLO11 is not only a significant advancement in the field of real‐time object detection but also a promising step toward smarter, more automated e‐waste management systems. By bridging AI innovation with environmental sustainability, the proposed work contributes to the urgent global effort to foster greener, more circular economies. The proposed system introduced YOLO11, an advanced real‐time object detection framework specifically developed to address the complex challenges of detecting and classifying diverse categories of electronic waste. This study is among the first to demonstrate the real‐world applicability of the newly released YOLO11 architecture in the domain of e‐waste, showcasing its robustness and speed in diverse and cluttered environments.

Smart cities can be complemented by fusing various components and incorporating recent emerging technologies. IoT communications are crucial to smart city operations, which are designed to support the concept of a “Smart City” by utilising the most cutting-edge communication technologies to enhance city administration and resident services. Smart cities have been outfitted with numerous IoT-based gadgets; the Internet of Things is a modular method to integrate various sensors with all ICT technologies. This paper provides an overview of smart cities’ concepts, characteristics, and applications. We thoroughly investigate smart city applications, challenges, and possibilities with solutions in recent technological trends and perspectives, such as machine learning and blockchain. We discuss cloud and fog IoT ecosystems in the in capacity of IoT devices, architectures, and machine learning approaches. In addition we integrate security and privacy aspects, including blockchain applications, towards more trustworthy and resilient smart cities. We also highlight the concepts, characteristics, and applications of smart cities and provide a conceptual model of the smart city mega-events framework. Finally, we outline the impact of recent emerging technologies’ implications on challenges, applications, and solutions for futuristic smart cities.

With the increase in urbanization and smart cities initiatives, the management of waste generation has become a fundamental task. Recent studies have started applying machine learning techniques to prognosticate solid waste generation to assist authorities in the efficient planning of waste management processes, including collection, sorting, disposal, and recycling. However, identifying the best machine learning model to predict solid waste generation is a challenging endeavor, especially in view of the limited datasets and lack of important predictive features. In this research, we developed an ensemble learning technique that combines the advantages of (1) a hyperparameter optimization and (2) a meta regressor model to accurately predict the weekly waste generation of households within urban cities. The hyperparameter optimization of the models is achieved using the Optuna algorithm, while the outputs of the optimized single machine learning models are used to train the meta linear regressor. The ensemble model consists of an optimized mixture of machine learning models with different learning strategies. The proposed ensemble method achieved an R2 score of 0.8 and a mean percentage error of 0.26, outperforming the existing state-of-the-art approaches, including SARIMA, NARX, LightGBM, KNN, SVR, ETS, RF, XGBoosting, and ANN, in predicting future waste generation. Not only did our model outperform the optimized single machine learning models, but it also surpassed the average ensemble results of the machine learning models. Our findings suggest that using the proposed ensemble learning technique, even in the case of a feature-limited dataset, can significantly boost the model performance in predicting future household waste generation compared to individual learners. Moreover, the practical implications for the research community and respective city authorities are discussed.

Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) has rapidly become one of the key enabling technologies for the development of Internet of Things (IoT) architectures. A wide range of different solutions relying on this communication technology can be found in the literature: nevertheless, the most part of these architectures focus on single task systems. Conversely, the aim of this paper is to present the architecture of a LoRaWAN infrastructure gathering under the same network different typologies of services within one of the most significant sub-systems of the Smart City ecosystem (i.e., the Smart Waste Management). The proposed architecture exploits the whole range of different LoRaWAN classes, integrating nodes of growing complexity according to the different functions. The lowest level of this architecture is occupied by smart bins that simply collect data about their status. Moving on to upper levels, smart drop-off containers allow the interaction with users as well as the implementation of asynchronous downlink queries. At the top level, Video Surveillance Units (VSUs) are provided with machine learning capabilities for the detection of the presence of fire nearby bins or drop-off containers, thus fully implementing the Edge Computing paradigm. The proposed network infrastructure and its subsystems have been tested in a laboratory and in the field. This study has enhanced the readiness level of the proposed technology to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 3.

This research presents key factors influencing smart building integration into smart cities considering the city as a technological system. This paper begins with an overview of the concept of smart buildings, defining their features and discussing the technological advancements driving their development. The frameworks for smart buildings are presented, emphasizing energy efficiency, sustainability, automation, and data analytics. Then, the concept of a smart city and the role of digitalization in its development is explored. The conceptual framework of smart building into a smart city is presented, contributing to understanding the complex process of integrating smart buildings into smart cities. Further research delves into the factors influencing the integration of smart buildings into smart cities, focusing on energy, mobility, water, security systems, and waste management infrastructure domains. Each thematic area is examined, highlighting the importance of integration and the associated challenges and opportunities, based on research in the literature and the analysis of case studies. This enables the identification of 26 factors influencing integration and the synthesis of findings. The findings indicate that the successful integration of smart buildings into smart cities requires attention to multiple factors related to smart energy, smart mobility, smart water, smart security, and smart waste management infrastructures. The results obtained from this research provide valuable insights into the factors influencing smart building integration into a smart city from a technological perspective, enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions and develop strategies paving the way for sustainable, resilient, and efficient urban environments.

Waste classification is a critical step in waste management that is time-consuming and necessitates automation to replace traditional approaches. Recently, machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) have gained attention from researchers seeking to automate waste classification by providing alternative computational techniques to address various waste-related challenges. Significant research on waste classification has emerged in recent years, reflecting the growing focus on this domain. This systematic literature review (SLR) explores the role of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL), in automating waste classification. Using Kitchenham’s and PRISMA guidelines, we analyze over 97 studies, categorizing AI-based techniques into ML-based, DL-based, and hybrid models. We further present an in-depth review of over fifteen publicly available waste classification datasets, highlighting key limitations such as dataset imbalance, real-world variability, and standardization issues. Our analysis reveals that deep learning and hybrid approaches dominate the current research landscape, with CNN-based architecture and transfer learning techniques showing particularly promising results. To guide future advancements, this study also proposes a structured roadmap that organizes challenges and opportunities into short-, mid-, and long-term priorities. The roadmap integrates insights on model accuracy, system efficiency, and sustainability goals to support the practical deployment of AI-powered waste classification systems. This work provides researchers with a comprehensive understanding of the state-of-the-art in ML and DL for waste classification and offers insights into areas that remain unexplored.

Future university campuses will be characterized by a series of novel services enabled by the vision of Internet of Things, such as smart parking and smart libraries. In this paper, we propose a complete solution for a smart waste management system with the purpose of increasing the recycling rate in the campus and provide better management of the entire waste cycle. The system is based on a prototype of a smart waste bin, able to accurately classify pieces of trash typically produced in the campus premises with a hybrid sensor/image classification algorithm, as well as automatically segregate the different waste materials. We discuss the entire design of the system prototype, from the analysis of requirements to the implementation details and we evaluate its performance in different scenarios. Finally, we discuss advanced application functionalities built around the smart waste bin, such as optimized maintenance scheduling.

Urban waste-collection centres (WCCs) routinely overflow because maintenance routes are scheduled reactively rather than on data-driven forecasts. Overspill, odour, and leachate therefore threaten public health and sustainability targets in rapidly growing smart cities. We introduce ProWaste, an end-to-end Internet-of-Things and machine-learning platform that proactively prioritises WCC servicing. Fifteen automated and manual indicators, including population density, weather, maintenance history, and weekly waste build-up, are streamed from low-cost sensors, public APIs, and a mobile app to a cloud database. Twenty-five off-the-shelf classifiers were benchmarked under repeated stratified cross-validation; a Decision Tree Classifier offered the best balance of interpretability and near-top accuracy. Binary Particle Swarm Optimisation (BPSO) removed 80% of the inputs, revealing that three features alone predict criticality with>99% accuracy on a hold-out test set. SHAP analysis confirms the interpretability of the three-feature model. The predicted class and confidence score are pushed to a Sustainable Smart Waste Management (SSWM) app that alerts field teams and dynamically reorders maintenance queues. Compared with current practice, ProWaste can eliminate missed pickups while reducing on-road inspections and data bandwidth. The proposed architecture is readily transferable to other cities and can be extended to recycling or composting streams.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly becoming one of the most talked-about and essential components of any digitization process. The IoT is comprised of several key necessary components, the most important of which are sensors, communication (the internet), and user interfaces for data processing. IoTs are currently finding applications in virtually every industry, including healthcare, where they are known as the internet of medical things (IoMT), industry, where they are known as the industrial internet of things (IIoT), and interconnection between people, where they are known as the internet of everything (IoE). The challenge is to leverage the Internet of Things (IoT), technology, and data to create smarter and more sustainable cities that enhance the quality of life for residents. Therefore, in this article; we have demonstrated the use of the IoT in a variety of applications for smart communities. These applications include smart transportation, smart water management, smart garbage management, smart house illumination, smart parking, smart infrastructure, etc. This research also includes an explanation of the flow process of implementing the IoT in different applications of smart communities, as well as their characteristics and particular applications. Along with their flow illustration, the stages involved in the implementation of smart city applications and the components they consist of are also displayed here. We have also taken into consideration the instances of particular cases and their implementation utilizing IoT. Some of these cases include the automated water collection methods of smart water management systems as well as the condition of the water. Based on the findings of the research, we came to the conclusion that IoT devices play an essential role in each and every one of the smart city project implementations.

Effective waste management and recycling are essential for sustainable development and environmental conservation. It is a global issue around the globe and emerging in Saudi Arabia. The traditional approach to waste sorting relies on manual labor, which is both time-consuming, inefficient, and prone to errors. Nonetheless, the rapid advancement of computer vision techniques has paved the way for automating garbage classification, resulting in enhanced efficiency, feasibility, and management. In this regard, in this study, a comprehensive investigation of garbage classification using a state-of-the-art computer vision algorithm, such as Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), as well as pre-trained models such as DenseNet169, MobileNetV2, and ResNet50V2 has been presented. As an outcome of the study, the CNN model achieved an accuracy of 88.52%, while the pre-trained models DenseNet169, MobileNetV2, and ResNet50V2, achieved 94.40%, 97.60%, and 98.95% accuracies, respectively. That is considerable in contrast to the state-of-the-art studies in the literature. The proposed study is a potential contribution to automating garbage classification and to facilitating an effective waste management system as well as to a more sustainable and greener future. Consequently, it may alleviate the burden on manual labor, reduce human error, and encourage more effective recycling practices, ultimately promoting a greener and more sustainable future.