MEDICAL & BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING & COMPUTING

Correction to: Evaluating and enhancing the robustness of vision transformers against adversarial attacks in medical imaging
Kanca E, Ayas S, Baykal Kablan E and Ekinci M
Mark3D - A semi-automated open-source toolbox for 3D head- surface reconstruction and electrode position registration using a smartphone camera video
Ganguly S, Chhaya MM, Jain A, Koppula A, Raghavan M and Sridharan KS
Source localization in EEG necessitates co-registering the EEG sensor locations with the subject's MRI, where EEG sensor locations are typically captured using electromagnetic tracking or 3D scanning of the subject's head with EEG cap, using commercially available 3D scanners. Both methods have drawbacks, where, electromagnetic tracking is slow and immobile, while 3D scanners are expensive. Photogrammetry offers a cost-effective alternative but requires multiple photos to sample the head, with good spatial sampling to adequately reconstruct the head surface. Post-reconstruction, the existing tools for electrode position labelling on the 3D head-surface have limited visual feedback and do not easily accommodate customized montages, which are typical in multi-modal measurements. We introduce Mark3D, an open-source, integrated tool for 3D head-surface reconstruction from phone camera video. It eliminates the need for keeping track of spatial sampling during image capture for video-based photogrammetry reconstruction. It also includes blur detection algorithms, a user-friendly interface for electrode and tracking, and integrates with popular toolboxes such as FieldTrip and MNE Python. The accuracy of the proposed method was benchmarked with the head-surface derived from a commercially available handheld 3D scanner Einscan-Pro + (Shining 3D Inc.,) which we treat as the "ground truth". We used reconstructed head-surfaces of ground truth (G1) and phone camera video (M) to mark the EEG electrode locations in 3D space using a dedicated UI provided in the tool. The electrode locations were then used to form pseudo-specific MRI templates for individual subjects to reconstruct source information. Somatosensory source activations in response to vibrotactile stimuli were estimated and compared between G1 and M. The mean positional errors of the EEG electrodes between G1 and M in 3D space were found to be 0.09 ± 0.01 mm across different cortical areas, with temporal and occipital areas registering a relatively higher error than other regions such as frontal, central or parietal areas. The error in source reconstruction was found to be 0.033 ± 0.016 mm and 0.037 ± 0.017 mm in the left and right cortical hemispheres respectively.
A non-invasive heart rate prediction method using a convolutional approach
Karapinar E and Sevinc E
The research focuses on leveraging convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to enhance the analysis of physiological signals, specifically photoplethysmogram (PPG) data which is a valuable tool for non-invasive heart rate prediction. Recognizing the global challenge of heart failure, the study seeks to provide a rapid, accurate, and non-invasive alternative to traditional, uncomfortable blood pressure cuffs. To achieve more accurate and efficient heart rate estimates, a k-fold CNN model with an optimal number of convolutional layers is employed. While the findings show promising results, the study addresses potential sources of error in cuffless PPG-based heart rate measurement, including motion artifacts and skin color variations, emphasizing the need for validation against gold standard methods. The research optimizes a CNN model with optimal layers, operating on 1D arrays of 8-s data slices and employing k-fold cross-validation to mitigate probabilistic uncertainties. Finally, the model yields a remarkable minimum absolute error (MAE) rate of 6.98 beats per minute (bpm), marking a significant 10% improvement over recent studies. The study also advances medical diagnostics and data analysis, then lays a strong foundation for developing cost-effective, reliable devices that offer a more comfortable and efficient way of predicting heart rate.
Computer-aided diagnosis for China-Japan Friendship Hospital classification of necrotic femurs using statistical shape and appearance model based on CT scans
Zhang J, Gong H, Ren P, Liu S, Jia Z and Shi P
The purpose of this study is to quantify the three-dimensional (3D) structural morphology, bone mineral density (BMD) distribution, and mechanical properties of different China-Japan Friendship Hospital (CJFH) classification types and assist clinicians in classifying necrotic femurs accurately. In this study, 41 cases were classified as types L2 and L3 based on CT images. Then, 3D Statistical Shape and Appearance Models (SSM and SAM) were established, and 80 principal component (PC) modes were extracted from the SSM and SAM as the candidate features. The bone strength of each case was also calculated as the candidate feature using finite element analysis (FEA). Support vector machine (SVM) and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) were used to establish 10 machine learning models. Feature selection methods were used to screen the candidate features. The performance of each model was evaluated based on sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. This resulted in a SVM model for CJFH classification with the performance: accuracy of 87.5%, sensitivity of 85.0%, specificity of 76.0%, and AUC of 94.2%. This study provided effective machine learning models for assisting in diagnosing CJFH types, increasing the objectivity of the diagnosis. They may have great potential for application in clinical assessments of CJFH classification.
Unsupervised cervical cell instance segmentation method integrating cellular characteristics
Xie Y, Gao J, Bi X and Zhao J
Cell instance segmentation is a key technology for cervical cancer auxiliary diagnosis systems. However, pixel-level annotation is time-consuming and labor-intensive, making it difficult to obtain a large amount of annotated data. This results in the model not being fully trained. In response to these problems, this paper proposes an unsupervised cervical cell instance segmentation method that integrates cell characteristics. Cervical cells have a clear corresponding structure between the nucleus and cytoplasm. This method fully takes this feature into account by building a dual-flow framework to locate the nucleus and cytoplasm and generate high-quality pseudo-labels. In the nucleus segmentation stage, the position and range of the nucleus are determined using the standard cell-restricted nucleus segmentation method. In the cytoplasm segmentation stage, a multi-angle collaborative segmentation method is used to achieve the positioning of the cytoplasm. First, taking advantage of the self-similarity characteristics of pixel blocks in cells, a cytoplasmic segmentation method based on self-similarity map iteration is proposed. The pixel blocks are mapped from the perspective of local details, and the iterative segmentation is repeated. Secondly, using low-level features such as cell color and shape, a self-supervised heatmap-aware cytoplasm segmentation method is proposed to obtain the activation map of the cytoplasm from the perspective of global attention. The two methods are fused to determine cytoplasmic regions, and combined with nuclear locations, high-quality pseudo-labels are generated. These pseudo-labels are used to train the model cyclically, and the loss strategy is used to encourage the model to discover new object masks, thereby obtaining a segmentation model with better performance. Experimental results show that this method achieves good results in cytoplasm segmentation. On the three datasets of ISBI, MS_CellSeg, and Cx22, 54.32%, 44.64%, and 66.52% AJI were obtained, respectively, which is better than other typical unsupervised methods selected in this article.
An adaptive session-incremental broad learning system for continuous motor imagery EEG classification
Yang Y, Li M and Wang L
Motor imagery electroencephalography (MI-EEG) is usually used as a driving signal in neuro-rehabilitation systems, and its feature space varies with the recovery progress. It is required to endow the recognition model with continuous learning and self-updating capability. Broad learning system (BLS) can be remodeled in an efficient incremental learning way. However, its architecture is intractable to change automatically to adapt to new incoming MI-EEG with time-varying and complex temporal-spatial characteristics. In this paper, an adaptive session-incremental BLS (ASiBLS) is proposed based on mutual information theory and BLS. For the initial session data, a compact temporal-spatial feature extractor (CTS) is designed to acquire the temporal-spatial features, which are input to a baseline BLS (bBLS). Furthermore, for new session data, a mutual information maximization constraint (MIMC) is introduced into the loss function of CTS to make the features' probability distribution sufficiently similar to that of the previous session, a new incremental BLS sequence (iBLS) is obtained by adding a small number of nodes to the previous model, and so on. Experiments are conducted based on the BCI Competition IV-2a dataset with two sessions and IV-2b dataset with five sessions, ASiBLS achieves average decoding accuracies of 79.89% and 87.04%, respectively. The kappa coefficient and forgetting rate are also used to evaluate the model performance. The results show that ASiBLS can adaptively generate an optimized and reduced model for each session successively, which has better plasticity in learning new knowledge and stability in retaining old knowledge as well.
Semantic-spatial feature-fused cortical surface parcellation: a scale-unified spatial learning network with boundary contrastive loss
Ye H, Liu S, Li M, Zhu H and Cao F
The cortical surface parcellation provides prior guidance for studying mental disorders and human cognition. Graph neural networks (GNNs) have gained popularity in this task to preserve its spatial structure. However, previous GNNs struggled to effectively exploit the information contained in the complex spatial structure of the cortical surface and generally encountered an uneven node distribution issue. Meanwhile, labeling boundary nodes was also identified as a widespread problem in this task. Accordingly, this paper develops a scale-unified spatial learning network with a boundary contrastive loss (SSLNet) for cortical surface parcellation. Its core is the scale-unified spatial learning module. It devises neighbor feature extraction and aggregation strategies by fully integrating spatial coordinates and semantic structure to learn effective spatial features of local neighborhoods. More importantly, spatial scale unification is incorporated into this module to mitigate the negative effect on spatial learning caused by node distribution differences among local areas. Additionally, a universal boundary contrastive loss is constructed, enhancing the feature discriminability of boundary nodes by constraining them to be close to the same class nodes and apart from different class nodes in the feature space. It considerably improves boundary performance without increasing parameters or changing the network structure. Experiments regarding public Mindboggle demonstrate that the dice score and accuracy of SSLNet achieve and , respectively, surpassing existing methods.
Load-bearing optimization for customized exoskeleton design based on kinematic gait reconstruction
Tu Z, Xu J, Dong Z, Zhang S and Tan J
This paper presents a load-bearing optimization method for customized exoskeleton design based on kinematic gait reconstruction (KGR). For people with acute joint injury, it is no longer probable to obtain the movement gait via computer vision. With this in mind, the 3D reconstruction can be executed from the CT (computed tomography) or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of the injured area, in order to generate micro-morphology of the joint occlusion. Innovatively, the disconnected entities can be registered into a whole by surface topography matching with semi-definite computing, further implementing KGR by rebuilding continuous kinematic skeletal flexion postures. To verify the effectiveness of reconstructed kinematic gait, finite element analysis (FEA) is conducted via Hertz contact theory. The lower limb exoskeleton is taken as a verification instance, where rod length ratio and angular rotation range can be set as the design considerations, so as to optimize the load-bearing parameters, which is suitable for individual kinematic gaits. The instance demonstrates that the proposed KGR helps to provide a design paradigm for optimizing load-bearing capacity, on the basis of which the ergonomic customized exoskeleton can be designed from merely medical images, thereby making it more suitable for the large rehabilitation population.
A new sensing paradigm for the vibroacoustic detection of pedicle screw loosening
Seibold M, Sigrist B, Götschi T, Widmer J, Hodel S, Farshad M, Navab N, Fürnstahl P and Laux CJ
The current clinical gold standard to assess the condition and detect loosening of pedicle screw implants is radiation-emitting medical imaging. However, solely based on medical imaging, clinicians are not able to reliably identify loose implants in a substantial amount of cases. To complement medical imaging for pedicle screw loosening detection, we propose a new methodology and paradigm for the radiation-free, non-destructive, and easy-to-integrate loosening detection based on vibroacoustic sensing. For the detection of a loose implant, we excite the vertebra of interest with a sine sweep vibration at the spinous process and use a custom highly sensitive piezo vibration sensor attached directly at the screw head to capture the propagated vibration characteristics which are analyzed using a detection pipeline based on spectrogram features and a SE-ResNet-18. To validate the proposed approach, we propose a novel, biomechanically validated simulation technique for pedicle screw loosening, conduct experiments using four human cadaveric lumbar spine specimens, and evaluate our algorithm in a cross-validation experiment. The proposed method reaches a sensitivity of and a specificity of for pedicle screw loosening detection.
TCKAN: a novel integrated network model for predicting mortality risk in sepsis patients
Dong F, Li S and Li W
Sepsis poses a major global health threat, accounting for millions of deaths annually and significant economic costs. Accurately predicting the risk of mortality in sepsis patients enables early identification, promotes the efficient allocation of medical resources, and facilitates timely interventions, thereby improving patient outcomes. Current methods typically utilize only one type of data-either constant, temporal, or ICD codes. This study introduces a novel approach, the Time-Constant Kolmogorov-Arnold Network (TCKAN), which uniquely integrates temporal data, constant data, and ICD codes within a single predictive model. Unlike existing methods that typically rely on one type of data, TCKAN leverages a multi-modal data integration strategy, resulting in superior predictive accuracy and robustness in identifying high-risk sepsis patients. Validated against the MIMIC-III and MIMIC-IV datasets, TCKAN surpasses existing machine learning and deep learning methods in accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. Notably, TCKAN achieved AUCs of 87.76% and 88.07%, demonstrating superior capability in identifying high-risk patients. Additionally, TCKAN effectively combats the prevalent issue of data imbalance in clinical settings, improving the detection of patients at elevated risk of mortality and facilitating timely interventions. These results confirm the model's effectiveness and its potential to transform patient management and treatment optimization in clinical practice. Although the TCKAN model has already incorporated temporal, constant, and ICD code data, future research could include more diverse medical data types, such as imaging and laboratory test results, to achieve a more comprehensive data integration and further improve predictive accuracy.
CC-TransXNet: a hybrid CNN-transformer network for automatic segmentation of optic cup and optic disk from fundus images
Yuan Z, Wang J, Xu Y and Xu M
Accurate segmentation of the optic disk (OD) and optic cup (OC) regions of the optic nerve head is a critical step in glaucoma diagnosis. Existing architectures based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) still suffer from insufficient global information and poor generalization ability to small sample datasets. Besides, advanced transformer-based models, although capable of capturing global image features, perform poorly in medical image segmentation due to numerous parameters and insufficient local spatial information. To address the above two problems, we propose an innovative W-shaped hybrid network framework, CC-TransXNet, which combines the advantages of CNN and transformer. Firstly, by employing TransXNet and improved ResNet as feature extraction modules, the network considers local and global features to enhance its generalization ability. Secondly, the convolutional block attention module (CBAM) is introduced in the residual structure to improve the ability to recognize the OD and OC by applying attention in both the channel and spatial dimensions. Thirdly, the Contextual Attention (CoT) self-attention mechanism is used in the skip connection to adaptively allocate attention to the contextual information, further enhancing the segmentation's accuracy. We conducted experiments on four publicly available datasets (REFUGE 2, RIM-ONE DL, GAMMA, and Drishti-GS). Compared with the traditional U-Net, CNN, and transformer-based networks, our proposed CC-TransXNet improves the segmentation accuracy and significantly enhances the generalization ability on small datasets. Moreover, CC-TransXNet effectively controls the number of parameters in the model through optimized design to avoid the risk of overfitting, proving its potential for efficient segmentation.
CorLabelNet: a comprehensive framework for multi-label chest X-ray image classification with correlation guided discriminant feature learning and oversampling
Zhang K, Liang W, Cao P, Mao Z, Yang J and Zaiane OR
Recent advancements in deep learning techniques have significantly improved multi-label chest X-ray (CXR) image classification for clinical diagnosis. However, most previous studies neither effectively learn label correlations nor take full advantage of them to improve multi-label classification performance. In addition, different labels of CXR images are usually severely imbalanced, resulting in the model exhibiting a bias towards the majority class. To address these challenges, we introduce a framework that not only learns label correlations but also utilizes them to guide the learning of features and the process of oversampling. In this paper, our approach incorporates self-attention to capture high-order label correlations and considers label correlations from both global and local perspectives. Then, we propose a consistency constraint and a multi-label contrastive loss to enhance feature learning. To alleviate the imbalance issue, we further propose an oversampling approach that exploits the learned label correlation to identify crucial seed samples for oversampling. Our approach repeats 5-fold cross-validation process experiments three times and achieves the best performance on both the CheXpert and ChestX-Ray14 datasets. Learning accurate label correlation is significant for multi-label classification and taking full advantage of label correlations is beneficial for discriminative feature learning and oversampling. A comparative analysis with the state-of-the-art approaches highlights the effectiveness of our proposed methods.
MediLite3DNet: A lightweight network for segmentation of nasopharyngeal airways
Dai Y, Wang Q, Cui S, Yin Y and Song W
The precise segmentation and three-dimensional reconstruction of the nasopharyngeal airway are crucial for the diagnosis and treatment of adenoid hypertrophy in children. However, traditional methods face challenges such as information loss and low computational efficiency when addressing this task. To overcome these issues, this paper introduces an innovative lightweight 3D medical image segmentation network-MediLite3DNet. The core of this network is the Parallel Multi-Scale High-Resolution Network (PMHNet), which effectively retains detailed features of the airway and optimizes the fusion of multi-scale features through its parallel structure. In response to the complexity of existing networks and their reliance on vast amounts of training data, this paper presents an efficient Hierarchical Decoupled Convolution Module (EHDC) to reduce computational costs while maintaining efficient feature extraction capabilities. Furthermore, to enhance the accuracy of segmentation, a lightweight Channel and Spatial Attention Mechanism (LCSA) is proposed. This mechanism identifies and emphasizes key channels and spatial features, improving the processing of complex medical images while controlling the increase in the number of parameters. Experiments conducted on a clinical CT dataset demonstrate the network's exceptional performance, with a Dice coefficient of 97.42%, sensitivity of 98.69%, and Jaccard index of 95%. Maintaining high precision, the model has a parameter count of only 0.227M and a floating-point operation count (FLOPs) of 24.526G, proving its computational efficiency. The significance of this study is that it provides a highly efficient and accurate diagnostic tool for children with adenoid hypertrophy. Additionally, with the innovative MediLite3DNet design, it brings a new lightweight solution to the domain of medical image segmentation.
Numerical modeling and analysis of neck injury induced by parachute opening shock
Zhu F, Voo L, Balakrishnan K, Lapera M and Cheng Z
Neck injuries from parachute opening shock (POS) are a concern in skydiving and military operations. This study employs finite element modeling to simulate POS scenarios and assess cervical spine injury risks. Validated against various conditions, including whiplash, the model replicates head/neck kinematics and soft tissue responses. POS simulations capture body/head motions during parachute deployment, indicating minimal risk of severe neck injuries (Abbreviated Injury Score/AIS ≥ 2) and low risk of soft tissue tears. Vertebral stress analysis during a rougher jump highlights high stress at C5/C6 lamina, indicating fracture risk. Comparative analysis with rear impact scenarios reveals distinct strain patterns, with rear impacts showing higher ligament strain, consistent with higher soft tissue damage risk. Though POS simulations exhibit lower strain values, they emphasize similar neck deformation patterns. The model's capability to accurately simulate head and neck movements during parachute openings provides critical validation for its use in assessing injury risks. The study's findings underline the importance of considering specific loading conditions in injury assessments and contribute to refining safety standards for skydiving and military operations. By highlighting the differences in injury mechanisms between POS and rear impacts, this research offers valuable insights into tailored injury mitigation strategies. The results not only enhance our understanding of neck injury mechanisms but also inform the development of protective gear and safety protocols, ultimately aiding in injury prevention for skydivers and military personnel.
Multi-type stroke lesion segmentation: comparison of single-stage and hierarchical approach
Samak ZA
Stroke, a major cause of death and disability worldwide, can be haemorrhagic or ischaemic depending on the type of bleeding in the brain. Rapid and accurate identification of stroke type and lesion segmentation is critical for timely and effective treatment. However, existing research primarily focuses on segmenting a single stroke type, potentially limiting their clinical applicability. This study addresses this gap by exploring multi-type stroke lesion segmentation using deep learning methods. Specifically, we investigate two distinct approaches: a single-stage approach that directly segments all tissue types in one model and a hierarchical approach that first classifies stroke types and then utilises specialised segmentation models for each subtype. Recognising the importance of accurate stroke classification for the hierarchical approach, we evaluate ResNet, ResNeXt and ViT networks, incorporating focal loss and oversampling techniques to mitigate the impact of class imbalance. We further explore the performance of U-Net, U-Net++ and DeepLabV3 models for segmentation within each approach. We use a comprehensive dataset of 6650 images provided by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Türkiye. This dataset includes 1130 ischaemic strokes, 1093 haemorrhagic strokes and 4427 non-stroke cases. In our comparative experiments, we achieve an AUC score of 0.996 when classifying stroke and non-stroke slices. For lesion segmentation task, while the performance of different architectures is comparable, the hierarchical training approach outperforms the single-stage approach in terms of intersection over union (IoU). The performance of the U-Net model increased significantly from an IoU of 0.788 to 0.875 when the hierarchical approach is used. This comparative analysis aims to identify the most effective approach and deep learning model for multi-type stroke lesion segmentation in brain CT scans, potentially leading to improved clinical decision-making, treatment efficiency and outcomes.
Research on imaging biomarkers for chronic subdural hematoma recurrence
Wu L, Zhu Y, Huang Q, Chen S, Zhou H, Xu Z, Li B, Chen H and Lv J
This study utilizes radiomics to explore imaging biomarkers for predicting the recurrence of chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH), aiming to improve the prediction of CSDH recurrence risk. Analyzing CT scans from 64 patients with CSDH, we extracted 107 radiomic features and employed recursive feature elimination (RFE) and the XGBoost algorithm for feature selection and model construction. The feature selection process identified six key imaging biomarkers closely associated with CSDH recurrence: flatness, surface area to volume ratio, energy, run entropy, small area emphasis, and maximum axial diameter. The selection of these imaging biomarkers was based on their significance in predicting CSDH recurrence, revealing deep connections between postoperative variables and recurrence. After feature selection, there was a significant improvement in model performance. The XGBoost model demonstrated the best classification performance, with the average accuracy improving from 46.82% (before feature selection) to 80.74% and the AUC value increasing from 0.5864 to 0.7998. These results prove that precise feature selection significantly enhances the model's predictive capability. This study not only reveals imaging biomarkers for CSDH recurrence but also provides valuable insights for future personalized treatment strategies.
Effects of 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz mobile phone radiation on the blood-brain barrier of New Zealand rabbits
Kizilçay AO, Tütüncü B, Koçarslan M and Gözel MA
In this study, the impact of mobile phone radiation on blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability was investigated. A total of 21 New Zealand rabbits were used for the experiments, divided into three groups, each consisting of 7 rabbits. One group served as the control, while the other two were exposed to electromagnetic radiation at frequencies of 1800 MHz with a distance of 14.5 cm and 2100 MHz with a distance of 17 cm, maintaining a constant power intensity of 15 dBm, for a duration equivalent to the current average daily conversation time of 38 min. The exposure was conducted under non-thermal conditions, with RF radiation levels approximately ten times lower than normal values. Evans blue (EB) dye was used as a marker to assess BBB permeability. EB binds to plasma proteins, and its presence in brain tissue indicates a disruption in BBB integrity, allowing for a quantitative evaluation of radiation-induced permeability changes. Left and right brain tissue samples were analyzed using trichloroacetic acid (TCA) and phosphate-buffered solution (PBS) solutions to measure EB amounts at 620 nm via spectrophotometry. After the experiments, BBB tissue samples were collected from the right and left brains of all rabbits in the three groups and subjected to a series of medical procedures. Samples from Group 1 were compared with those from Group 2 and Group 3 using statistical methods to determine if there were any significant differences. As a result, it was found that there was no statistically significant difference in the BBB of rabbits exposed to 1800 MHz radiation, whereas there was a statistically significant difference at a 95% confidence level in the BBB of rabbits exposed to 2100 MHz radiation. A decrease in EB values was observed upon the arithmetic examination of the BBB.
Optimization of three-dimensional esophageal tumor ablation by simultaneous functioning of multiple electrodes
Wang H, Zou J, Zhao S and Zhang A
Radiofrequency ablation is a widely accepted minimal-invasive and effective local treatment for tumors. However, its current application in esophageal cancer treatment is limited to targeting thin and superficial lesions, such as Barrett's Esophagus. This study proposes an optimization method using multiple electrodes simultaneously to regulate the temperature field and achieve conformal ablation of tumors. A particle swarm optimization algorithm, coupled with a three-dimensional thermal ablation model, was developed to optimize the status of the functioning electrodes, the optimal voltage (V), and treatment duration (t) for targeted esophageal tumors. This approach takes into account both the electrical and thermal interactions of the electrodes. The results indicate that for esophageal cancers at various stages, with thickness (c) ranging from 4.5 mm to 10.0 mm, major axis (a) ranging from 7.3 mm to 27.3 mm, and minor axis (b) equaling 7.3 mm or 27.3 mm, as well as non-symmetrical geometries, complete tumor coverage (over 99.5%) close to conformal can be achieved. This method illustrates possible precise conformal ablation of esophageal cancers and it may also be used for conformal treatments of other intraluminal lesions.
An intelligent magnetic resonance imagining-based multistage Alzheimer's disease classification using swish-convolutional neural networks
B A and Kalirajan K
Alzheimer's disease (AD) refers to a neurological disorder that causes damage to brain cells and results in decreasing cognitive abilities and memory. In brain scans, this degeneration can be seen in different ways. The disease can be classified into four stages: Non-demented (ND), moderate demented (MoD), mild demented (MiD), and very mild demented (VMD). To prepare the raw dataset for analysis, the collected magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images are subjected to several pre-processing techniques in order to improve the performance accuracy of the proposed model. Medical images generally have poor contrast and get affected by noise, which ends up with inaccurate diagnosis. For the different phases of AD to be detected, a clear image is necessary. To address this issue, the influence of the artefacts must be reduced, enhance the contrast, and reduce the loss of information. A novel framework for image enhancement is suggested to increase the accuracy in the detection and identification of AD. In this study, the raw MRI dataset from the Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative (ADNI) database is subjected to skull stripping, contrast enhancement, and image filtering followed by data augmentation to balance the dataset with four types of Alzheimer's classes. The pre-processed data are subjected to five different pre-trained models such as AlexNet, ResNet, VGG 16, EfficientNet, and Inceptionv3 achieving a testing accuracy rate of 91.2%, 88.21%, 92.34%, 93.45%, and 85.12%, respectively. These pre-trained models are compared with the proposed CNN (convolutional neural network) model designed with Adam optimizer and Flatten Swish activation function which reaches the highest accuracy of 96.5% with a learning rate of 0.000001. The five pre-trained CNN models along with the proposed swish-based AD-CNN were tested using various performance metrics to evaluate the model efficiency in classifying and identifying the AD classes. From the result analysis, it is evident that the proposed AD-CNN model outperforms all the other models.
NSSC: a neuro-symbolic AI system for enhancing accuracy of named entity recognition and linking from oncologic clinical notes
García-Barragán Á, Sakor A, Vidal ME, Menasalvas E, Gonzalez JCS, Provencio M and Robles V
Accurate recognition and linking of oncologic entities in clinical notes is essential for extracting insights across cancer research, patient care, clinical decision-making, and treatment optimization. We present the Neuro-Symbolic System for Cancer (NSSC), a hybrid AI framework that integrates neurosymbolic methods with named entity recognition (NER) and entity linking (EL) to transform unstructured clinical notes into structured terms using medical vocabularies, with the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) as a case study. NSSC was evaluated on a dataset of clinical notes from breast cancer patients, demonstrating significant improvements in the accuracy of both entity recognition and linking compared to state-of-the-art models. Specifically, NSSC achieved a 33% improvement over BioFalcon and a 58% improvement over scispaCy. By combining large language models (LLMs) with symbolic reasoning, NSSC improves the recognition and interoperability of oncologic entities, enabling seamless integration with existing biomedical knowledge. This approach marks a significant advancement in extracting meaningful information from clinical narratives, offering promising applications in cancer research and personalized patient care.
Artificial blood-hope and the challenges to combat tumor hypoxia for anti-cancer therapy
Sharma R, Kashyap M, Zayed H, Krishnia L and Kashyap MK
The blood plays a vital role in the human body and serves as an intermediary between various physiological systems and organs. White blood cells, which are a part of the immune system, defend against infections and regulate the body temperature and pH balance. Blood platelets play a crucial role in clotting, the prevention of excessive bleeding, and the promotion of healing. Blood also serves as a courier system that transports hormones to facilitate communication and synchronization between different organs and systems in the body. The circulatory system, comprised of arteries, veins, and capillaries, plays a crucial role in the efficient transportation and connection of vital nutrients and oxygen. Despite the importance of natural blood, there are often supply shortages, compatibility issues, and medical conditions, which make alternatives such as artificial blood necessary. This is particularly relevant in cancer treatment, which was the focus of our study. In this study, we investigated the potential of artificial blood in cancer therapy, specifically to address tumor hypoxia. We also examined the potential of red blood cell substitutes such as hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers and perfluorocarbons. Additionally, we examined the production of hemoglobin using E. coli and the role of hemoglobin in oncogenesis. Furthermore, we explored the potential use of artificial platelets for cancer treatment. Our study emphasizes the significance of artificial blood in improving cancer treatment outcomes.