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  • New
  • Open Access Icon
  • Research Article
  • 10.3390/fi18040218
Classification Model of Emotional Tone in Hate Speech and Its Relationship with Inequality and Gender Stereotypes, Using NLP and Machine Learning Algorithms
  • Apr 20, 2026
  • Future Internet
  • Aymé Escobar Escobar Díaz + 3 more

Hate speech on social media reproduces norms of inequality and gender stereotypes, disproportionately affecting women. This study proposes a hybrid approach that integrates emotional tone classification with explicit hostility detection to strengthen preventive moderation. We constructed a corpus from three open data sets (1,236,371 records; 1,003,991 after ETL) and represented the text using TF-IDF and contextual RoBERTa embeddings. We trained individual models (RoBERTa fine-tuned, Random Forest, and XGBoost) and a stacking metamodel (Gradient Boosting) that combines their probabilities. On the test set, the ensemble outperformed the base classifiers, achieving accuracy of 0.93 in hate detection and 0.90 in emotion classification, with an AUC of 0.98 for emotion classification. We implemented a RESTful API and a web client to validate the moderation flow before publication, along with an administration panel for auditing. Performance tests in a prototype deployment (Google Colab exposed through an Ngrok tunnel) provided proof-of-concept validation, revealing concurrency limitations from around 300 users due to infrastructure constraints. In general, the results indicate that incorporating emotional tone analysis improves the model’s ability to identify implicit hostility and offers a practical way to promote safer digital environments. The probabilistic outputs produced by the ensemble model were subsequently analyzed using the Bayesian Calibration and Optimal Design under Asymmetric Risk (BACON-AR) framework, which serves as a mathematical post hoc decision layer for evaluating classification behaviour under unequal error costs. Rather than modifying the trained architecture or improving its predictive performance, the framework identifies a cost-sensitive operating threshold that minimizes the total expected risk under the selected asymmetric cost configuration. The experiments were conducted using an English-language data set; therefore, the findings of this study are limited to hate speech detection in English.

  • New
  • Open Access Icon
  • Research Article
  • 10.3390/fi18040217
2024 and 2025 Feature Papers from Future Internet’s Editorial Board Members
  • Apr 19, 2026
  • Future Internet
  • Gianluigi Ferrari

As indicated on the journal’s website, Future Internet fosters contributions to the future Internet ecosystem, which, in turn, is expected to lead to significant improvement in well-being in all spheres of human life (private, public, professional) [...]

  • New
  • Open Access Icon
  • Research Article
  • 10.3390/fi18040216
A Physically Aware Residual Learning Framework for Outdoor Localization in LoRaWAN Networks
  • Apr 18, 2026
  • Future Internet
  • Askhat Bolatbek + 9 more

The rapid growth of large-scale Internet of Things (IoT) deployments in urban environments requires accurate and energy-efficient localization methods for low-power wireless devices. In long-range wide-area networks (LoRaWAN), traditional GPS-based positioning is often impractical due to energy consumption constraints and signal propagation challenges in urban areas. This study proposes a hybrid localization system that integrates weighted centroid localization (WCL) with a machine learning (ML) regression model to improve outdoor positioning accuracy. The proposed approach first estimates approximate transmitter coordinates using a physically grounded WCL method based on received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurements. These initial estimates are subsequently refined by ML models trained to learn nonlinear residual corrections. In addition to random partitioning, a spatial data splitting strategy is proposed and evaluated using a publicly available LoRaWAN dataset. The experimental results demonstrate that the hybrid WCL framework combined with a multilayer perceptron (MLP) significantly outperforms other ML models. The proposed method achieves a mean localization error of 160.47 m and a median error of 73.78 m. Compared to the baseline model, the integration of WCL reduces the mean localization error by approximately 29%, highlighting the effectiveness of incorporating physically interpretable priors into localization models.

  • New
  • Open Access Icon
  • Research Article
  • 10.3390/fi18040206
IoT, Edge, and Cloud Computing in Smart Cities
  • Apr 14, 2026
  • Future Internet
  • Stefano Rinaldi + 1 more

The Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, and cloud computing are essential drivers of the smart city concept, enabling urban-scale sensing, immediate decision-making, and data-driven services [...]

  • New
  • Open Access Icon
  • Research Article
  • 10.3390/fi18040205
CNN-LSTM-POT-Based Anomaly Detection for Smart Greenhouse Sensor Data: A Real-Time Edge Deployment Approach
  • Apr 13, 2026
  • Future Internet
  • Jun Shu + 1 more

Traditional agricultural greenhouse environmental monitoring systems often lack effective anomaly detection mechanisms, which can lead to inaccurate environmental regulation and negatively affect plant growth. To address this issue, this paper proposes a greenhouse monitoring system integrating Zigbee and 4G communication technologies, combined with a CNN-LSTM-POT anomaly detection algorithm. The system employs a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to extract local spatial features from multi-source sensor data and a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network to model long-term temporal dependencies. To accurately identify anomalies, the Peaks Over Threshold (POT) method from extreme value theory is applied to prediction residuals, enabling adaptive dynamic threshold determination. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm substantially improves anomaly detection precision, prevents erroneous data from disrupting greenhouse control decisions and reduces the volume of data transmitted to the cloud platform, thereby lowering computational overhead. This work provides a reliable and efficient solution for data monitoring and precise environmental control in smart agricultural greenhouses.

  • New
  • Open Access Icon
  • Research Article
  • 10.3390/fi18040202
EGGA: An Error-Guided Generative Augmentation and Optimized ML-Based IDS for EV Charging Network Security
  • Apr 13, 2026
  • Future Internet
  • Li Yang + 1 more

Electric Vehicle Charging Systems (EVCSs) are increasingly connected with the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart grid infrastructure, yet they face growing cyber risks due to expanded attack interfaces. These systems are vulnerable to various attacks that potentially impact both charging operations and user privacy. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) are essential for identifying suspicious activities and mitigating risks to protect EVCS networks, but conventional ML-based IDSs are often unable to achieve optimal performance due to imbalanced datasets, complex traffic distributions, and human design limitations. In practice, EVCS traffic is typically multi-class, imbalanced, and safety-critical, where both missed attacks and false alarms can lead to denial of charging, service interruption, unnecessary incident escalation, financial loss, and reduced user trust. Automated ML (AutoML) and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) have emerged as promising solutions in cybersecurity. Existing GAI and augmentation methods are mostly class-frequency-driven, but this does not necessarily improve the error-prone regions where IDSs actually fail. In this paper, we propose a GAI and an AutoML-based IDS that incorporates a Conditional Generative Adversarial Network (cGAN) with the optimized XGBoost model to improve the effectiveness of intrusion detection in EVCS networks and IoT systems. The proposed framework involves two techniques: (1) a novel cGAN-based error-guided generative augmentation (EGGA) method that extracts misclassified samples and generates a more robust training set for IDS development, and (2) an optimized IDS model that automatically constructs an optimized XGBoost model based on Bayesian Optimization with Tree-structured Parzen Estimator (BO-TPE). The main algorithmic novelty lies in EGGA, which uses model errors to guide generative augmentation toward difficult decision regions, while the overall pipeline represents a practical system-level integration of EGGA, XGBoost, and BO-TPE. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that combines GAI and AutoML to specifically improve detection on hard samples, enabling more autonomous and reliable identification of diverse cyber attacks in EV charging networks and IoT systems. Experiments are conducted on two benchmark EVCS and cybersecurity datasets, CICEVSE2024 and CICIDS2017, demonstrating consistent and statistically meaningful improvements over state-of-the-art IDS models. This research highlights the importance of combining automation, generative balancing, and optimized learning to strengthen cybersecurity solutions for EV charging networks and IoT systems.

  • New
  • Open Access Icon
  • Research Article
  • 10.3390/fi18040203
eMQTT Traffic Generator for IoT Intrusion Detection Systems
  • Apr 13, 2026
  • Future Internet
  • Jorge Ortega-Moody + 5 more

The development of effective Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) for Internet of Things (IoT) environments is constrained by the absence of realistic, large-scale datasets, particularly for the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, which is prevalent in industrial IoT. Existing datasets are frequently limited in scope, imbalanced, or do not capture MQTT-specific attack patterns, thereby impeding the training of accurate machine learning models. To address this gap, the extensible Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (eMQTT) Traffic Generator is introduced as a modular platform capable of simulating both legitimate MQTT communication and targeted denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. The framework features a scalable and reproducible architecture that incorporates protocol-aware attack modeling, automated traffic labeling, and direct export of datasets suitable for machine learning applications. The system produces standardized, configurable, repeatable, and publicly accessible datasets, thereby facilitating reproducible research and scalable experimentation. Experimental validation demonstrates that the simulated traffic aligns with established DoS behavior models. Two high-volume datasets were generated: one representing normal MQTT traffic and another emulating CONNECT-flooding attacks. Machine learning classifiers trained on these datasets exhibited strong performance, with gradient boosting models achieving over 95% accuracy in distinguishing benign from malicious traffic. This work offers a practical solution to the scarcity of datasets in IoT security research. By providing a controlled, extensible, and reproducible traffic-generation platform alongside validated datasets, eMQTT enables systematic experimentation, supports the advancement of IDS solutions, and enhances MQTT security for critical IoT infrastructures.

  • New
  • Open Access Icon
  • Research Article
  • 10.3390/fi18040204
Detecting Objects in Aerial Imagery Using Drones and a YOLO-C3 Hybrid Approach
  • Apr 13, 2026
  • Future Internet
  • Salvatore Calcagno + 4 more

Drones have proven effective for acquiring aerial imagery, and when equipped with onboard analysis tools, they can automatically identify objects of interest. Neural-network methods for image analysis typically require large training datasets and substantial computational resources. By contrast, algorithmic techniques can detect objects using simple features, such as pixel colors, thereby reducing the need for extensive training and computational resources. Once trained, both types of system can analyze images in a short time. In our experiments, each approach has distinct strengths. The YOLO-based detector is more accurate for complex-shaped objects, such as trees, whereas the pixel-color approach performs better on sparser objects. This paper proposes YOLO-C3, a hybrid system designed for onboard drone image processing. By leveraging the strengths of both YOLO-based and pixel-based approaches, YOLO-C3 balances detection accuracy with estimation confidence. Trained on Mediterranean imagery dataset, the system is optimized for identifying natural objects, including citrus groves and trees.To assess the robustness of the image classifier, a K-fold cross-validation is performed.Compared to existing models, YOLO-C3 detects a wider range of natural objects with high accuracy and minimal latency, achieving a processing speed of 0.01 s per image. By performing object detection locally, drones can adapt their trajectories to support emergency response, helping to map safe corridors and locate buildings where people may be awaiting rescue after a natural disaster.

  • New
  • Open Access Icon
  • Research Article
  • 10.3390/fi18040198
Reddit Depression Communities as Spaces of Emotion Regulation: A Data-Informed Analysis of Coping and Engagement
  • Apr 8, 2026
  • Future Internet
  • Virginia Morini + 6 more

Online social platforms increasingly function as informal self-help environments for individuals experiencing depression, offering spaces for emotional expression and peer support outside traditional clinical settings. However, how coping strategies and psychological engagement states—individuals’ emotional and cognitive involvement in managing their condition—are reflected through online self-disclosure remains poorly understood. We analyzed a large-scale dataset from Reddit depression-related communities to investigate how different psycho-linguistic profiles and coping orientations emerge from users’ language. We collected posts and comments from over 300,000 users across six depression-focused subreddits over two years. User-generated text was characterized through multiple psychological and linguistic dimensions capturing emotions, sentiment, subjectivity, and related features, then aggregated at the user-month level and analyzed using unsupervised clustering techniques. Our analysis identifies four distinct groups characterized by different emotional profiles and dominant coping orientations. These states exhibit meaningful correspondences with established theoretical frameworks, including the Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced model and the Patient Health Engagement model. Our findings demonstrate that large-scale textual data from online communities can provide interpretable insights into coping behaviors and engagement patterns, offering a complementary perspective to traditional approaches for studying mental health.

  • New
  • Open Access Icon
  • Research Article
  • 10.3390/fi18040177
Learning Italian Hand Gesture Culture Through an Automatic Gesture Recognition Approach
  • Mar 24, 2026
  • Future Internet
  • Chiara Innocente + 8 more

Italian hand gestures constitute a distinctive and widely recognized form of nonverbal communication, deeply embedded in everyday interaction and cultural identity. Despite their prominence, these gestures are rarely formalized or systematically taught, posing challenges for foreign speakers and visitors seeking to interpret their meaning and pragmatic use. Moreover, their ephemeral and embodied nature complicates traditional preservation and transmission approaches, positioning them within the broader domain of intangible cultural heritage. This paper introduces a machine learning–based framework for recognizing iconic Italian hand gestures, designed to support cultural learning and engagement among foreign speakers and visitors. The approach combines RGB–D sensing with depth-enhanced geometric feature extraction, employing interpretable classification models trained on a purpose-built dataset. The recognition system is integrated into a non-immersive virtual reality application simulating an interactive digital totem conceived for public arrival spaces, providing tutorial content, real-time gesture recognition, and immediate feedback within a playful and accessible learning environment. Three supervised machine learning pipelines were evaluated, and Random Forest achieved the best overall performance. Its integration with an Isolation Forest module was further considered for deployment, achieving a macro-averaged accuracy and F1-score of 0.82 under a 5-fold cross-validation protocol. An experimental user study was conducted with 25 subjects to evaluate the proposed interactive system in terms of usability, user engagement, and learning effectiveness, obtaining favorable results and demonstrating its potential as a practical tool for cultural education and intercultural communication.