Background: Chronic kidney disease is a prevalent global health issue, particularly in advanced stages requiring dialysis. Vascular access (VA) quality is crucial for the well-being of hemodialysis (HD) patients, ensuring optimal blood transfer through a dialyzer machine. The ultrasound dilution technique (UDT) is used as the gold standard for assessing VA quality; however, its limited availability due to high costs impedes its widespread adoption. We aimed to develop a novel deep learning model specifically designed to predict VA quality from Photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors. Methods: Clinical data were retrospectively gathered from 398 HD patients, spanning from February 2021 to February 2022. The DeepVAQ model leverages a convolutional neural network (CNN) to process PPG sensor data, pinpointing specific frequencies and patterns that are indicative of VA quality. Meticulous training and fine-tuning were applied to ensure the model’s accuracy and reliability. Validation of the DeepVAQ model was carried out against established diagnostic standards using key performance metrics, including accuracy, specificity, precision, F-score, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Result: DeepVAQ demonstrated superior performance, achieving an accuracy of 0.9213 and a specificity of 0.9614. Its precision and F-score stood at 0.8762 and 0.8364, respectively, with an AUC of 0.8605. In contrast, traditional models like Decision Tree, Naive Bayes, and kNN demonstrated significantly lower performance across these metrics. This comparison underscores DeepVAQ's enhanced capability in accurately predicting VA quality compared to existing methodologies. Conclusion: Exemplifying the potential of artificial intelligence in healthcare, particularly in the realm of deep learning, DeepVAQ represents a significant advancement in non-invasive diagnostics. Its precise multi-class classification ability for VA quality in hemodialysis patients holds substantial promise for improving patient outcomes, potentially leading to a reduction in mortality rates.

Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) and thalassemia (THL) are common hematological disorders that necessitate efficient and accurate screening for early diagnosis. Traditional blood smear analysis is labor-intensive, prone to subjectivity, and lacks reproducibility, highlighting the urgent need for AI-driven methods to improve diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. This study proposes a novel hybrid AI framework for patient-level classification, integrating soft voting with optimized probability-based thresholds. The model was trained and validated using a real-world dataset from Hatyai Hospital, Thailand, and evaluated at both the patch and patient levels. The proposed approach achieved 96% accuracy on the test set. Specifically, it yielded precision-recall values of 1.00 and 0.83 for IDA, and 0.95 and 1.00 for THL, respectively. At the patient level, sensitivity reached 1.00 for THL and 0.83 for IDA. Bayesian probability updates further confirmed prediction reliability, yielding post-test probabilities exceeding 99.99% for IDA and 80% for THL. The model explained 62.84% of the variance in patient classifications, demonstrating strong discriminatory power. Model interpretability, assessed using SHAP and Grad-CAM, highlighted key red blood cell morphological features. The proposed framework thus serves as a cost-effective screening tool. Limitations include the use of a single-center dataset and the need for adaptive threshold optimization. Future work will focus on multi-center validation and real-world clinical integration. This study thereby establishes a structured baseline for AI-assisted hematology screening, fostering early detection and improved clinical decision-making in resource-limited settings.

Objective: To develop and evaluate a novel feature selection technique, using photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors, for enhancing the performance of deep learning models in classifying vascular access quality in hemodialysis patients. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved creating a novel feature selection method based on SelectKBest principles, specifically designed to optimize deep learning models for PPG sensor data, in hemodialysis patients. The method effectiveness was assessed by comparing the performance of multiple deep learning models using the feature selection approach versus complete feature set. The model with the highest accuracy was then trained and tested using a 70:30 approach, respectively, with the full dataset and the SelectKBest dataset. Performance results were compared using Student’s paired t-test. Results: Data from 398 hemodialysis patients were included. The 1-dimensional convolutional neural network (CNN1D) displayed the highest accuracy among different models. Implementation of the SelectKBest-based feature selection technique resulted in a statistically significant improvement in the CNN1D model’s performance, achieving an accuracy of 92.05% (with feature selection) versus 90.79% (with full feature set). Conclusion: These findings suggest that the newly developed feature selection approach might aid in accurately predicting vascular access quality in hemodialysis patients. This advancement may contribute to the development of reliable diagnostic tools for identifying vascular complications, such as stenosis, potentially improving patient outcomes and their quality of life.

Sleep Stage Classification (SSC) is a standard process in the Polysomnography (PSG) for studying sleep patterns and events. The SSC provides sleep stage information of a patient throughout an entire sleep test. A physician uses results from SSCs to diagnose sleep disorder symptoms. However, the SSC data processing is time-consuming and requires trained sleep technicians to complete the task. Over the years, researchers attempted to find alternative methods, which are known as Automatic Sleep Stage Classification (ASSC), to perform the task faster and more efficiently. Proposed ASSC techniques usually derived from existing statistical methods and machine learning (ML) techniques. The objective of this study is to develop a new hybrid ASSC technique, Multi-Layer Hybrid Machine Learning Model (MLHM), for classifying sleep stages. The MLHM blends two baseline ML techniques, Decision Tree (DT) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). It operates on a newly developed multi-layer architecture. The multi-layer architect...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has raised global concern, with moderate to severe cases displaying lung inflammation and respiratory failure. Chest x-ray (CXR) imaging is crucial for diagnosis and is usually interpreted by experienced medical specialists. Machine learning has been applied with acceptable accuracy, but computational efficiency has received less attention. Objective: We introduced a novel hybrid machine learning model to accurately classify COVID-19, non-COVID-19, and healthy patients from CXR images with reduced computational time and promising results. Our proposed model was thoroughly evaluated and compared with existing models. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted to analyze 5 public data sets containing 4200 CXR images using machine learning techniques including decision trees, support vector machines, and neural networks. The images were preprocessed to undergo image segmentation, enhancement, and feature extraction. The best performing machine learning technique was selected and combined into a multilayer hybrid classification model for COVID-19 (MLHC-COVID-19). The model consisted of 2 layers. The first layer was designed to differentiate healthy individuals from infected patients, while the second layer aimed to classify COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients. Results: The MLHC-COVID-19 model was trained and evaluated on unseen COVID-19 CXR images, achieving reasonably high accuracy and F measures of 0.962 and 0.962, respectively. These results show the effectiveness of the MLHC-COVID-19 in classifying COVID-19 CXR images, with improved accuracy and a reduction in interpretation time. The model was also embedded into a web-based MLHC-COVID-19 computer-aided diagnosis system, which was made publicly available. Conclusions: The study found that the MLHC-COVID-19 model effectively differentiated CXR images of COVID-19 patients from those of healthy and non-COVID-19 individuals. It outperformed other state-of-the-art deep learning techniques and showed promising results. These results suggest that the MLHC-COVID-19 model could have been instrumental in early detection and diagnosis of COVID-19 patients, thus playing a significant role in controlling and managing the pandemic. Although the pandemic has slowed down, this model can be adapted and utilized for future similar situations. The model was also integrated into a publicly accessible web-based computer-aided diagnosis system.