“…Diagnosis of DR can be performed through either manual examination by an ophthalmologist or by utilising an automated system. With the advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, automated system development has been facilitated in many application areas including anomaly detection [ 3 ], brain signal analysis [ 4 ], neurodevelopmental disorder assessment and classification focusing on autism [ 5 , 6 , 7 ], neurological disorder detection and management [ 8 ], supporting the detection and management of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 9 ], cyber security and trust management [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ], various disease diagnosis [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ], smart healthcare service delivery [ 18 , 19 ], text and social media mining [ 20 , 21 ], understanding student engagement [ 22 , 23 ], etc. As can be seen in the literature, automated systems for early disease detection have been a major area of development.…”