{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,19]],"date-time":"2026-03-19T01:58:38Z","timestamp":1773885518616,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":55,"publisher":"Elsevier BV","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,1]],"date-time":"2026-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1782864000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.elsevier.com\/tdm\/userlicense\/1.0\/"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,1]],"date-time":"2026-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1782864000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.elsevier.com\/legal\/tdmrep-license"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,1]],"date-time":"2026-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1782864000000},"content-version":"stm-asf","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15223\/policy-017"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,1]],"date-time":"2026-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1782864000000},"content-version":"stm-asf","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15223\/policy-037"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,1]],"date-time":"2026-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1782864000000},"content-version":"stm-asf","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15223\/policy-012"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,1]],"date-time":"2026-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1782864000000},"content-version":"stm-asf","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15223\/policy-029"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,1]],"date-time":"2026-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1782864000000},"content-version":"stm-asf","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15223\/policy-004"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["elsevier.com","sciencedirect.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Expert Systems with Applications"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,7]]},"DOI":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,13]],"date-time":"2026-03-13T08:52:31Z","timestamp":1773391951000},"page":"132044","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/elsevier_cm_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"special_numbering":"C","title":["MAG-Q: Multi-agent Actor-Critic based GRL with Quantum inspired Forwarding for Enhanced Task Offloading in Clustered Fog Computing environment"],"prefix":"10.1016","volume":"318","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-8763-9740","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nilesh","family":"Kumar Verma","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6332-418X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"K. Jairam","family":"Naik","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"78","reference":[{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jnca.2022.103568","article-title":"Task offloading paradigm in mobile edge computing-current issues, adopted approaches, and future directions","volume":"212","author":"Akhlaqi","year":"2023","journal-title":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications"},{"issue":"6","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6221","DOI":"10.1109\/TWC.2023.3330868","article-title":"Quantum deep reinforcement learning for dynamic resource allocation in mobile edge computing-based iot systems","volume":"23","author":"Ansere","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Arora, D., & Sharma, O. (2025). Fog computing in healthcare: Enhancing security and privacy in distributed systems.Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity in Healthcare(pp. 57\u201384). 10.1002\/9781394229826.ch3.","DOI":"10.1002\/9781394229826.ch3"},{"issue":"1","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0004","first-page":"26","article-title":"Edge computing and its impact on real-time data processing for iot-driven applications","volume":"5","author":"Bablu","year":"2025","journal-title":"Journal of Advanced Computing Systems"},{"issue":"10","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"17878","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2024.3358900","article-title":"Quantum-computing-inspired optimal power allocation mechanism in edge computing environment","volume":"11","author":"Bhatia","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Internet of Things Journal"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1007\/s10723-025-09795-5","article-title":"Optimizing workflow offloading and migration under timed constraints in fog and cloud computing","volume":"23","author":"Boubaker","year":"2025","journal-title":"Journal of Grid Computing"},{"issue":"12","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"21632","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2024.3374969","article-title":"Dependent task offloading in edge computing using gnn and deep reinforcement learning","volume":"11","author":"Cao","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Internet of Things Journal"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0008","article-title":"Living on the edge: A survey of digital twin-assisted task offloading in safety-critical environments","author":"Carmo","year":"2024","journal-title":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0009","article-title":"Computation offloading optimization for UAV-based cloud-edge collaborative task scheduling strategy","author":"Chen","year":"2025","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0010","article-title":"Joint task and computing resource allocation in distributed edge computing systems via multi-agent deep reinforcement learning","author":"Chen","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s10586-024-04712-z","article-title":"An efficient deep reinforcement learning based task scheduler in cloud-fog environment","volume":"28","author":"Choppara","year":"2025","journal-title":"Cluster Computing"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0012","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"108","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jpdc.2022.06.006","article-title":"Towards scalable and efficient deep-rl in edge computing: A game-based partition approach","volume":"168","author":"Dai","year":"2022","journal-title":"Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0013","article-title":"Task offloading in internet of vehicles: A DRL-based approach with representation learning for dag scheduling","author":"Deng","year":"2025","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0014","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1109\/TITS.2025.3542365","article-title":"Task offloading and resource allocation in vehicular cooperative perception with integrated sensing, communication, and computation","author":"Dong","year":"2025","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems"},{"issue":"1","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0015","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1007\/s10586-024-04760-5","article-title":"Context-aware resource allocation for iort-aware business processes based on decentralized multi-agent reinforcement learning","volume":"28","author":"Fattouch","year":"2025","journal-title":"Cluster Computing"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0016","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1609\/aaai.v32i1.11794","article-title":"Counterfactual multi-agent policy gradients","volume":"32","author":"Foerster","year":"2018","journal-title":"Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0017","article-title":"\u03bc-DDRL: A QOS-aware distributed deep reinforcement learning technique for service offloading in fog computing environments","author":"Goudarzi","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Services Computing"},{"issue":"5","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0018","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2491","DOI":"10.1109\/TMC.2021.3123165","article-title":"A distributed deep reinforcement learning technique for application placement in edge and fog computing environments","volume":"22","author":"Goudarzi","year":"2021","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing"},{"issue":"5","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0019","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2670","DOI":"10.1109\/TCOMM.2024.3354815","article-title":"Joint task offloading and radio resource management in stochastic mec systems","volume":"72","author":"Hoang","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Communications"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0020","article-title":"A review of research on reinforcement learning algorithms for multi-agents","author":"Hu","year":"2024","journal-title":"Neurocomputing"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0021","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1145\/3715695","article-title":"Safety-critical offloading with constrained reinforcement learning for multi-access edge computing","author":"Huang","year":"2025","journal-title":"ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0022","series-title":"Optimizing parallel processing with quantum-inspired task scheduling techniques","author":"Ivanov","year":"2026"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0023","series-title":"2014 IEEE conference on computer communications workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS), Toronto, ON, Canada","first-page":"352","article-title":"Heuristic offloading of concurrent tasks for computation-intensive applications in mobile cloud computing","author":"Jia","year":"2014"},{"issue":"no. 09","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0024","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.18535\/ijecs.v13i09.4926","article-title":"Emergent architectures in edge computing for low-latency application","volume":"13","author":"Kambala","year":"2024","journal-title":"International Journal Of Engineering And Computer Science"},{"issue":"12","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0025","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"10497","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2023.3240173","article-title":"Cooperative UAV resource allocation and task offloading in hierarchical aerial computing systems: A mappo-based approach","volume":"10","author":"Kang","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Internet of Things Journal"},{"issue":"3","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0026","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.32604\/cmes.2025.060973","article-title":"Quantum inspired adaptive resource management algorithm for scalable and energy efficient fog computing in internet of things (IoT)","volume":"142","author":"Khan","year":"2025","journal-title":"Computer Modeling in Engineering and Sciences"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0027","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"29163","DOI":"10.1007\/s11042-021-11130-5","article-title":"Graph convolutional network-based reinforcement learning for tasks offloading in multi-access edge computing","volume":"80","author":"Leng","year":"2021","journal-title":"Multimedia Tools and Applications"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0028","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.4324\/9781003454700","article-title":"Task prioritization in multiagent environments: A novel approach using nash Q-learning","author":"Li","year":"2025","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics"},{"issue":"2","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0029","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"932","DOI":"10.1109\/TNSM.2023.3250395","article-title":"GASTO: A fast adaptive graph learning framework for edge computing empowered task offloading","volume":"20","author":"Li","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0030","article-title":"Multi-agent actor-critic for mixed cooperative-competitive environments","volume":"30","author":"Lowe","year":"2017","journal-title":"Advances in neural information processing systems"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0031","article-title":"Multi-agent reinforcement learning-based capacity planning for on-demand vehicular fog computing","author":"Mao","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0032","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/j.adhoc.2024.103656","article-title":"A joint optimization of resource allocation management and multi-task offloading in high-mobility vehicular multi-access edge computing networks","volume":"166","author":"Min","year":"2025","journal-title":"Ad Hoc Networks"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0033","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/j.adhoc.2024.103656","article-title":"A joint optimization of resource allocation management and multi-task offloading in high-mobility vehicular multi-access edge computing networks","volume":"166","author":"Min","year":"2025","journal-title":"Ad Hoc Networks"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0034","article-title":"An advanced deep reinforcement learning algorithm for three-layer D2D-edge-cloud computing architecture for efficient task offloading in the internet of things","volume":"43","author":"Moghaddasi","year":"2024","journal-title":"Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0035","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3437","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2023.3348513","article-title":"Multi-objective secure task offloading strategy for blockchain-enabled iov-mec systems: A double deep q-network approach","volume":"12","author":"Moghaddasi","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEe Access"},{"issue":"3","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0036","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"155","DOI":"10.1007\/s10586-024-04833-5","article-title":"Energy-efficient task offloading and efficient resource allocation for edge computing: A quantum inspired particle swarm optimization approach","volume":"28","author":"Naik","year":"2025","journal-title":"Cluster Computing"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0037","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"588","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jmsy.2022.01.010","article-title":"Towards edge computing in intelligent manufacturing: Past, present and future","volume":"62","author":"Nain","year":"2022","journal-title":"Journal of Manufacturing Systems"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0038","article-title":"Digital twin-aided vehicular edge network: A large-scale model optimization by quantum-DRL","author":"Paul","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0039","first-page":"12208","article-title":"FACMAC: Factored multi-agent centralised policy gradients","volume":"34","author":"Peng","year":"2021","journal-title":"Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0040","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"19","DOI":"10.1007\/s10922-024-09887-9","article-title":"Energy and cost aware workflow offloading using quantum inspired differential evolution in the cloud environments","volume":"33","author":"Priyanka","year":"2025","journal-title":"Journal of Network and Systems Management"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0041","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2025.128354","article-title":"EDABTOS: Energy-delay aware binary task offloading strategy of iot devices in a fog-enabled architecture","volume":"290","author":"Sharma","year":"2025","journal-title":"Expert Systems with Applications"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0042","series-title":"International conference on cognitive computing, Cham","first-page":"107","article-title":"Application and optimization of multi-agent reinforcement learning in collaborative decision-making","author":"Sun","year":"2024"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0043","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4416","DOI":"10.1109\/TNSM.2023.3267809","article-title":"Multi-agent deep reinforcement learning for cooperative computing offloading and route optimization in multi cloud-edge networks","volume":"20","author":"Suzuki","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0044","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1109\/TCE.2025.3542133","article-title":"Task offloading and resource allocation based on reinforcement learning and load balancing in vehicular networking","author":"Tian","year":"2025","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0045","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/j.pmcj.2025.102067","article-title":"Task offloading of iot device in fog-enabled architecture using deep reinforcement learning approach","author":"Tomar","year":"2025","journal-title":"Pervasive and Mobile Computing"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0046","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"76","DOI":"10.1007\/s11227-024-06599-4","article-title":"Optimizing vehicular edge computing: Graph-based double-DQN approaches for intelligent task offloading","volume":"81","author":"Ullah","year":"2025","journal-title":"The Journal of Supercomputing"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0047","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"8202","DOI":"10.1007\/s11227-023-05769-0","article-title":"Optimized fog community framework with advanced genetic algorithm for enhanced performance dynamics","volume":"80","author":"Verma","year":"2024","journal-title":"The Journal of Supercomputing"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0048","article-title":"Graph convolutional reinforcementlearning-guided joint trajectory optimization and task offloading for aerial edge computing","author":"Wu","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems"},{"issue":"23","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0049","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"38151","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2024.3443866","article-title":"Trans Edge: Task offloading with GNN and DRL in edge-computing-enabled transportation systems","volume":"11","author":"Xu","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Internet of Things Journal"},{"issue":"12","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0050","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"15613","DOI":"10.1109\/TITS.2022.3221975","article-title":"Computation offloading for energy and delay trade-offs with traffic flow prediction in edge computing-enabled IoV","volume":"24","author":"Xu","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0051","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1002\/dac.5335","article-title":"Energy-efficient computation offloading and resource allocation in delay-constrained vehicular edge network","volume":"38","author":"Yang","year":"2025","journal-title":"International Journal of Communication Systems"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0052","series-title":"Proceedings of the 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)","first-page":"3634","article-title":"Spatio-temporal graph convolutional networks: A deep learning framework for traffic forecasting","author":"Yu","year":"2018"},{"issue":"10","key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0053","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"17700","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2024.3362321","article-title":"Joint cooperative computation offloading and trajectory optimization in heterogeneous UAV-swarm-enabled aerial edge computing networks","volume":"11","author":"Yu","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Internet of Things Journal"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0054","article-title":"Collaborative task offloading optimization for satellite mobile edge computing using multi-agent deep reinforcement learning","author":"Zhang","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology"},{"key":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044_bib0055","series-title":"IEEE transactions on mobile computing","article-title":"Quantum-assisted online task offloading and resource allocation in MEC-enabled satellite-aerial-terrestrial integrated networks","author":"Zhang","year":"2026"}],"container-title":["Expert Systems with Applications"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/api.elsevier.com\/content\/article\/PII:S0957417426009577?httpAccept=text\/xml","content-type":"text\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/api.elsevier.com\/content\/article\/PII:S0957417426009577?httpAccept=text\/plain","content-type":"text\/plain","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,18]],"date-time":"2026-03-18T20:36:48Z","timestamp":1773866208000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/linkinghub.elsevier.com\/retrieve\/pii\/S0957417426009577"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,7]]},"references-count":55,"alternative-id":["S0957417426009577"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044","relation":{},"ISSN":["0957-4174"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0957-4174","type":"print"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,7]]},"assertion":[{"value":"Elsevier","name":"publisher","label":"This article is maintained by"},{"value":"MAG-Q: Multi-agent Actor-Critic based GRL with Quantum inspired Forwarding for Enhanced Task Offloading in Clustered Fog Computing environment","name":"articletitle","label":"Article Title"},{"value":"Expert Systems with Applications","name":"journaltitle","label":"Journal Title"},{"value":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.eswa.2026.132044","name":"articlelink","label":"CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version"},{"value":"article","name":"content_type","label":"Content Type"},{"value":"\u00a9 2026 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright"}],"article-number":"132044"}}