{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,15]],"date-time":"2026-08-15T05:26:51Z","timestamp":1786771611645,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"16","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,13]],"date-time":"2026-08-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1786579200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This paper considers priority-aware partial computation offloading in an uplink mobile edge computing (MEC) network. Devices assigned to different groups occupy orthogonal subbands, whereas devices within each group use power-domain non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) with successive interference cancellation. Task-input size determines the transmitted and processed workload, while queue backlog and application urgency determine the service weight. The Gaussian multiple-access-channel rate region is convex, but the complete allocation problem is not jointly convex in the adopted variables because the offloaded workload is coupled with reciprocal transmission rate and reciprocal edge-CPU allocation. A structure-exploiting block-coordinate projected-gradient method is developed. It combines exact finite-candidate offloading updates, an exact edge-CPU allocation bounded below by deadline feasibility and above by local-path saturation, and an analytical projected power step with Armijo backtracking. For eight users at 23 dBm, pairwise group-based NOMA reduces the weighted delay\u2013energy cost and device energy by 6.18% and 23.44%, respectively, relative to orthogonal access. Queue-aware weighting reduces upper-backlog-quartile delay by 2.69 ms (95% confidence half-width: 0.78 ms) while increasing lower-quartile delay by 8.34 ms (half-width: 2.07 ms). In a paired 15-iteration ablation, generic projected block-coordinate updates have a cost ratio of 1.0098 (half-width: 0.0086) relative to the structured method. A hybrid deep deterministic policy-gradient policy, evaluated over five training seeds, has an 11.77% higher cost while requiring 0.84% of the median online decision time. Of 432 allocations, 392 satisfy the residual-qualified stopping tests and 40 are explicitly reported as iteration-safeguard terminations.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s26165128","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,13]],"date-time":"2026-08-13T17:01:35Z","timestamp":1786640495000},"page":"5128","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Delay\u2013Energy-Aware Partial Offloading and Coupled Resource Allocation in Hybrid NOMA-MEC Networks: Derivations and Reproducible Evaluation"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"26","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5229-6454","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jamil K. J.","family":"Bataineh","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13133, Jordan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ahlam Shebli","family":"Jawarneh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Information Technology, Jadara University, Irbid 21110, Jordan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Khaled F.","family":"Hayajneh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Engineering and Technology, American University of the Middle East, Egaila 54200, Kuwait"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9990-4189","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zaid","family":"Albataineh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electronics Engineering, Yarmouk University, Irbid 21163, Jordan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2322","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2017.2745201","article-title":"A Survey on Mobile Edge Computing: The Communication Perspective","volume":"19","author":"Mao","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. 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