Breast cancer is one of the most common diseases in women worldwide. Many studies have been conducted to predict the survival indicators, however most of these analyses were predominantly performed using basic statistical methods. As an alternative, this study used machine learning techniques to build models for detecting and visualising significant prognostic indicators of breast cancer survival rate. A large hospital-based breast cancer dataset retrieved from the University Malaya Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (n = 8066) with diagnosis information between 1993 and 2016 was used in this study. The dataset contained 23 predictor variables and one dependent variable, which referred to the survival status of the patients (alive or dead). In determining the significant prognostic factors of breast cancer survival rate, prediction models were built using decision tree, random forest, neural networks, extreme boost, logistic regression, and support vector machine. Next, the dataset was clustered based on the receptor status of breast cancer patients identified via immunohistochemistry to perform advanced modelling using random forest. Subsequently, the important variables were ranked via variable selection methods in random forest. Finally, decision trees were built and validation was performed using survival analysis. In terms of both model accuracy and calibration measure, all algorithms produced close outcomes, with the lowest obtained from decision tree (accuracy = 79.8%) and the highest from random forest (accuracy = 82.7%). The important variables identified in this study were cancer stage classification, tumour size, number of total axillary lymph nodes removed, number of positive lymph nodes, types of primary treatment, and methods of diagnosis. Interestingly the various machine learning algorithms used in this study yielded close accuracy hence these methods could be used as alternative predictive tools in the breast cancer survival studies, particularly in the Asian region. The important prognostic factors influencing survival rate of breast cancer identified in this study, which were validated by survival curves, are useful and could be translated into decision support tools in the medical domain.

Breast cancer survival prediction can have an extreme effect on selection of best treatment protocols. Many approaches such as statistical or machine learning models have been employed to predict the survival prospects of patients, but newer algorithms such as deep learning can be tested with the aim of improving the models and prediction accuracy. In this study, we used machine learning and deep learning approaches to predict breast cancer survival in 4,902 patient records from the University of Malaya Medical Centre Breast Cancer Registry. The results indicated that the multilayer perceptron (MLP), random forest (RF) and decision tree (DT) classifiers could predict survivorship, respectively, with 88.2 %, 83.3 % and 82.5 % accuracy in the tested samples. Support vector machine (SVM) came out to be lower with 80.5 %. In this study, tumour size turned out to be the most important feature for breast cancer survivability prediction. Both deep learning and machine learning methods produce desirable prediction accuracy, but other factors such as parameter configurations and data transformations affect the accuracy of the predictive model.

Ficus is one of the largest genera in plant kingdom reaching to about 1000 species worldwide. While taxonomic keys are available for identifying most species of Ficus, it is very difficult and time consuming for interpretation by a nonprofessional thus requires highly trained taxonomists. The purpose of the current study is to develop an efficient baseline automated system, using image processing with pattern recognition approach, to identify three species of Ficus, which have similar leaf morphology. Leaf images from three different Ficus species namely F. benjamina, F. pellucidopunctata and F. sumatrana were selected. A total of 54 leaf image samples were used in this study. Three main steps that are image pre-processing, feature extraction and recognition were carried out to develop the proposed system. Artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM) were the implemented recognition models. Evaluation results showed the ability of the proposed system to recognize leaf images with an accuracy of 83.3%. However, the ANN model performed slightly better using the AUC evaluation criteria. The system developed in the current study is able to classify the selected Ficus species with acceptable accuracy.

The reliable classification of benign and malignant lesions in breast ultrasound images can provide an effective and relatively low-cost method for the early diagnosis of breast cancer. The accuracy of the diagnosis is, however, highly dependent on the quality of the ultrasound systems and the experience of the users (radiologists). The use of deep convolutional neural network approaches has provided solutions for the efficient analysis of breast ultrasound images. In this study, we propose a new framework for the classification of breast cancer lesions with an attention module in a modified VGG16 architecture. The adopted attention mechanism enhances the feature discrimination between the background and targeted lesions in ultrasound. We also propose a new ensembled loss function, which is a combination of binary cross-entropy and the logarithm of the hyperbolic cosine loss, to improve the model discrepancy between classified lesions and their labels. This combined loss function optimizes the network more quickly. The proposed model outperformed other modified VGG16 architectures, with an accuracy of 93%, and also, the results are competitive with those of other state-of-the-art frameworks for the classification of breast cancer lesions. Our experimental results show that the choice of loss function is highly important and plays a key role in breast lesion classification tasks. Additionally, by adding an attention block, we could improve the performance of the model.

The practice of medical decision making is changing rapidly with the development of innovative computing technologies. The growing interest of data analysis with improvements in big data computer processing methods raises the question of whether machine learning can be integrated with conventional statistics in health research. To help address this knowledge gap, this paper presents a review on the conceptual integration between conventional statistics and machine learning, focusing on the health research. The similarities and differences between the two are compared using mathematical concepts and algorithms. The comparison between conventional statistics and machine learning methods indicates that conventional statistics are the fundamental basis of machine learning, where the black box algorithms are derived from basic mathematics, but are advanced in terms of automated analysis, handling big data and providing interactive visualizations. While the nature of both these methods are different, they are conceptually similar. Based on our review, we conclude that conventional statistics and machine learning are best to be integrated to develop automated data analysis tools. We also strongly believe that machine learning could be explored by health researchers to enhance conventional statistics in decision making for added reliable validation measures.

Copepods are planktonic organisms that play a major role in the marine food chain. Studying the community structure and abundance of copepods in relation to the environment is essential to evaluate their contribution to mangrove trophodynamics and coastal fisheries. The routine identification of copepods can be very technical, requiring taxonomic expertise, experience and much effort which can be very time-consuming. Hence, there is an urgent need to introduce novel methods and approaches to automate identification and classification of copepod specimens. This study aims to apply digital image processing and machine learning methods to build an automated identification and classification technique.