Coronavirus (COVID-19) was first observed in Wuhan, China, and quickly propagated worldwide. It is considered the supreme crisis of the present era and one of the most crucial hazards threatening worldwide health. Therefore, the early detection of COVID-19 is essential. The common way to detect COVID-19 is the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test, although it has several drawbacks. Computed tomography (CT) scans can enable the early detection of suspected patients, however, the overlap between patterns of COVID-19 and other types of pneumonia makes it difficult for radiologists to diagnose COVID-19 accurately. On the other hand, deep learning (DL) techniques and especially the convolutional neural network (CNN) can classify COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 cases. In addition, DL techniques that use CT images can deliver an accurate diagnosis faster than the RT-PCR test, which consequently saves time for disease control and provides an efficient computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system. The shortage of publicly available datasets of CT images, makes the CAD system’s design a challenging task. The CAD systems in the literature are based on either individual CNN or two-fused CNNs; one used for segmentation and the other for classification and diagnosis. In this article, a novel CAD system is proposed for diagnosing COVID-19 based on the fusion of multiple CNNs. First, an end-to-end classification is performed. Afterward, the deep features are extracted from each network individually and classified using a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Next, principal component analysis is applied to each deep feature set, extracted from each network. Such feature sets are then used to train an SVM classifier individually. Afterward, a selected number of principal components from each deep feature set are fused and compared with the fusion of the deep features extracted from each CNN. The results show that the proposed system is effective and capable of detecting COVID-19 and distinguishing it from non-COVID-19 cases with an accuracy of 94.7%, AUC of 0.98 (98%), sensitivity 95.6%, and specificity of 93.7%. Moreover, the results show that the system is efficient, as fusing a selected number of principal components has reduced the computational cost of the final model by almost 32%.

The precise and rapid diagnosis of coronavirus (COVID-19) at the very primary stage helps doctors to manage patients in high workload conditions. In addition, it prevents the spread of this pandemic virus. Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) based on artificial intelligence (AI) techniques can be used to distinguish between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 from the computed tomography (CT) imaging. Furthermore, the CAD systems are capable of delivering an accurate faster COVID-19 diagnosis, which consequently saves time for the disease control and provides an efficient diagnosis compared to laboratory tests. In this study, a novel CAD system called FUSI-CAD based on AI techniques is proposed. Almost all the methods in the literature are based on individual convolutional neural networks (CNN). Consequently, the FUSI-CAD system is based on the fusion of multiple different CNN architectures with three handcrafted features including statistical features and textural analysis features such as discrete wavelet transform (DWT), and the grey level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) which were not previously utilized in coronavirus diagnosis. The SARS-CoV-2 CT-scan dataset is used to test the performance of the proposed FUSI-CAD. The results show that the proposed system could accurately differentiate between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 images, as the accuracy achieved is 99%. Additionally, the system proved to be reliable as well. This is because the sensitivity, specificity, and precision attained to 99%. In addition, the diagnostics odds ratio (DOR) is ≥ 100. Furthermore, the results are compared with recent related studies based on the same dataset. The comparison verifies the competence of the proposed FUSI-CAD over the other related CAD systems. Thus, the novel FUSI-CAD system can be employed in real diagnostic scenarios for achieving accurate testing for COVID-19 and avoiding human misdiagnosis that might exist due to human fatigue. It can also reduce the time and exertion made by the radiologists during the examination process.

Currently, mental stress is a common social problem affecting people. Stress reduces human functionality during routine work and may lead to severe health defects. Detecting stress is important in education and industry to determine the efficiency of teaching, to improve education, and to reduce risks from human errors that might occur due to workers’ stressful situations. Therefore, the early detection of mental stress using machine learning (ML) techniques is essential to prevent illness and health problems, improve quality of education, and improve industrial safety. The human brain is the main target of mental stress. For this reason, an ML system is proposed which investigates electroencephalogram (EEG) signal for thirty-six participants. Extracting useful features is essential for an efficient mental stress detection (MSD) system. Thus, this framework introduces a hybrid feature-set that feeds five ML classifiers to detect stress and non-stress states, and classify stress levels. To produce a reliable, practical, and efficient MSD system with a reduced number of electrodes, the proposed MSD scheme investigates the electrodes placements on different sites on the scalp and selects that site which has the higher impact on the accuracy of the system. Principal Component analysis is employed also, to reduce the features extracted from such electrodes to lower model complexity, where the optimal number of principal components is examined using sequential forward procedure. Furthermore, it examines the minimum number of electrodes placed on the site which has greater impact on stress detection and evaluation. To test the effectiveness of the proposed system, the results are compared with other feature extraction methods shown in literature. They are also compared with state-of-the-art techniques recorded for stress detection. The highest accuracies achieved in this study are 99.9%(sd = 0.015) and 99.26% (sd = 0.08) for identifying stress and non-stress states, and distinguishing between stress levels, respectively, using only two frontal brain electrodes for detecting stress and non-stress, and three frontal electrodes for evaluating stress levels respectively. The results show that the proposed system is reliable as the sensitivity is 99.9(0.064), 98.35(0.27), specificity is 99.94(0.02), 99.6(0.05), precision is 99.94(0.06), 98.9(0.23), and the diagnostics odd ratio (DOR) is ≥ 100 for detecting stress and non-stress, and evaluating stress levels respectively. This shows that the proposed framework has compelling performance and can be employed for stress detection and evaluation in medical, educational and industrial fields. Finally, the results verified the efficiency and reliability of the proposed system in predicting stress and non-stress on new patients, as the accuracy achieved 98.48% (sd = 1.12), sensitivity = 97.78% (sd = 1.84), specificity = 97.75% (sd = 2.05), precision = 99.26% (sd = 0.67), and DOR ≥ 100 using only two frontal electrodes.

Breast cancer is one of the major health issues across the world. In this study, a new computer-aided detection (CAD) system is introduced. First, the mammogram images were enhanced to increase the contrast. Second, the pectoral muscle was eliminated and the breast was suppressed from the mammogram. Afterward, some statistical features were extracted. Next, k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) and decision trees classifiers were used to classify the normal and abnormal lesions. Moreover, multiple classifier systems (MCS) was constructed as it usually improves the classification results. The MCS has two structures, cascaded and parallel structures. Finally, two wrapper feature selection (FS) approaches were applied to identify those features, which influence classification accuracy. The two data sets (1) the mammographic image analysis society digital mammogram database (MIAS) and (2) the digital mammography dream challenge were combined together to test the CAD system proposed. The highest accuracy achieved with the proposed CAD system before FS was 99.7% using the Adaboosting of the J48 decision tree classifiers. The highest accuracy after FS was 100 %, which was achieved with k‐NN classifier. Moreover, the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was equal to 1.0. The results showed that the proposed CAD system was able to accurately classify normal and abnormal lesions in mammogram samples.

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BackgroundLifelong surveillance after endovascular repair (EVAR) of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) is considered mandatory to detect potentially life-threatening endograft complications. A minority of patients require reintervention but cannot be predictively identified by existing methods. This study aimed to improve the prediction of endograft complications and mortality, through the application of machine-learning techniques.MethodsPatients undergoing EVAR at 2 centres were studied from 2004-2010. Pre-operative aneurysm morphology was quantified and endograft complications were recorded up to 5 years following surgery. An artificial neural networks (ANN) approach was used to predict whether patients would be at low- or high-risk of endograft complications (aortic/limb) or mortality. Centre 1 data were used for training and centre 2 data for validation. ANN performance was assessed by Kaplan-Meier analysis to compare the incidence of aortic complications, limb complications, and mortality; in patients predicted to be low-risk, versus those predicted to be high-risk.Results761 patients aged 75 +/- 7 years underwent EVAR. Mean follow-up was 36+/- 20 months. An ANN was created from morphological features including angulation/length/areas/diameters/volume/tortuosity of the aneurysm neck/sac/iliac segments. ANN models predicted endograft complications and mortality with excellent discrimination between a low-risk and high-risk group. In external validation, the 5-year rates of freedom from aortic complications, limb complications and mortality were 95.9% vs 67.9%; 99.3% vs 92.0%; and 87.9% vs 79.3% respectively (p<0.001)ConclusionThis study presents ANN models that stratify the 5-year risk of endograft complications or mortality using routinely available pre-operative data.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a common imaging technique used extensively to study human brain activities. Recently, it has been used for scanning the fetal brain. Amongst 1000 pregnant women, 3 of them have fetuses with brain abnormality. Hence, the primary detection and classification are important. Machine learning techniques have a large potential in aiding the early detection of these abnormalities, which correspondingly could enhance the diagnosis process and follow up plans. Most research focused on the classification of abnormal brains in a primary age has been for newborns and premature infants, with fewer studies focusing on images for fetuses. These studies associated fetal scans to scans after birth for the detection and classification of brain defects early in the neonatal age. This type of brain abnormality is named small for gestational age (SGA). This article proposes a novel framework for the classification of fetal brains at an early age (before the fetus is born). As far as we could know, this is the first study to classify brain abnormalities of fetuses of widespread gestational ages (GAs). The study incorporates several machine learning classifiers, such as diagonal quadratic discriminates analysis (DQDA), K-nearest neighbour (K-NN), random forest, naïve Bayes, and radial basis function (RBF) neural network classifiers. Moreover, several bagging and Adaboosting ensembles models have been constructed using random forest, naïve Bayes, and RBF network classifiers. The performances of these ensembles have been compared with their individual models. Our results show that our novel approach can successfully identify and classify numerous types of defects within MRI images of the fetal brain of various GAs. Using the KNN classifier, we were able to achieve the highest classification accuracy and area under receiving operating characteristics of 95.6% and 99% respectively. In addition, ensemble classifiers improved the results of their respective individual models.

The increasing rates of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDs) are threatening pregnant women, parents, and clinicians caring for healthy infants and children. NDs can initially start through embryonic development due to several reasons. Up to three in 1000 pregnant women have embryos with brain defects; hence, the primitive detection of embryonic neurodevelopmental disorders (ENDs) is necessary. Related work done for embryonic ND classification is very limited and is based on conventional machine learning (ML) methods for feature extraction and classification processes. Feature extraction of these methods is handcrafted and has several drawbacks. Deep learning methods have the ability to deduce an optimum demonstration from the raw images without image enhancement, segmentation, and feature extraction processes, leading to an effective classification process. This article proposes a new framework based on deep learning methods for the detection of END. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that uses deep learning techniques for detecting END. The framework consists of four stages which are transfer learning, deep feature extraction, feature reduction, and classification. The framework depends on feature fusion. The results showed that the proposed framework was capable of identifying END from embryonic MRI images of various gestational ages. To verify the efficiency of the proposed framework, the results were compared with related work that used embryonic images. The performance of the proposed framework was competitive. This means that the proposed framework can be successively used for detecting END.