The COVID-19 pandemic has not only disrupted the lives of millions but also created exigent operational and scheduling challenges for public transit agencies. Agencies are struggling to maintain transit accessibility with reduced resources, changing ridership patterns, vehicle capacity constraints due to social distancing, and reduced services due to driver unavailability. A number of transit agencies have also begun to help the local food banks deliver food to shelters, which further strains the available resources if not planned optimally.

The rapid evolution of data-driven analytics, Internet of things (IoT) and cyber-physical systems (CPS) are fueling a growing set of Smart and Connected Communities (SCC) applications, including for smart transportation and smart energy. However, the deployment of such technological solutions without proper security mechanisms makes them susceptible to data integrity and privacy attacks, as observed in a large number of recent incidents. If not addressed properly, such attacks will not only cripple SCC operations but also influence the extent to which customers are willing to share data.

Ubiquitous access to mobile and web technologies enables the public to share valuable information about their surroundings anywhere and anytime. For example, during an emergency or crisis people report needs from affected areas via social media as an alternative to the traditional 911 calls. This can be valuable information for a range of emergency service officials. However, the utilization of this data poses several computational challenges as it is generated in real time, is heterogeneous, highly unstructured, redundant, and sometimes unreliable.

Anomaly detection, prognostication and automated mitigation are very critical for data center management. Most of these approaches can be divided into two categories - model-based and data-driven. While model-based techniques rely on physics guided models that can explain and predict the expected progression of parameters such as temperature and voltage in electronics, the data-driven approach is suitable for complex scenarios where a suitable physics based model is unavailable. The data-driven approaches can be further divided into supervised and unsupervised methods.

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are engineered systems created as networks of interacting physical and computational processes. Most modern products in major industrial sectors, such as automotive, avionics, medical devices, and power systems already are or rapidly becoming CPS driven by new requirements and competitive pressures.