Data science is an interdisciplinary field that extracts knowledge and insights from many structural and unstructured data, using scientific methods, data mining techniques, machine-learning algorithms, and big data. The healthcare industry generates large datasets of useful information on patient demography, treatment plans, results of medical examinations, insurance, etc. The data collected from the Internet of Things (IoT) devices attract the attention of data scientists. Data science provides aid to process, manage, analyze, and assimilate the large quantities of fragmented, structured, and unstructured data created by healthcare systems. This data requires effective management and analysis to acquire factual results. The process of data cleansing, data mining, data preparation, and data analysis used in healthcare applications is reviewed and discussed in the article. The article provides an insight into the status and prospects of big data analytics in healthcare, highlights the advantages, describes the frameworks and techniques used, briefs about the challenges faced currently, and discusses viable solutions. Data science and big data analytics can provide practical insights and aid in the decision-making of strategic decisions concerning the health system. It helps build a comprehensive view of patients, consumers, and clinicians. Data-driven decision-making opens up new possibilities to boost healthcare quality.

Renewable environmentally friendly polysaccharides and their composites meet the requirements of green chemistry, which have been extensively used for biodegradable food packaging applications. Renewable polysaccharides include cellulose, nanocellulose, hemicellulose, chitosan, starch, pectin, etc. The present study is divided into biomass-based composites (cellulose, nanocellulose, and hemicellulose), chitosan-based composites, and other polysaccharide-based composites (starch, pectin, etc.). Special attention has been paid to various synthetic strategies, intrinsic microstructures, inherent properties, and potential food packaging applications. The differences among these renewable polysaccharide-based composites were comparably reviewed with detailed examples. The problems and future research on renewable polysaccharide-based composites are suggested for biodegradable food packaging applications. It is expected that the potential superiority of polysaccharide-based composites in food packaging will promote the development of green chemistry.

Objective: Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in various urological conditions such as urolithiasis, pediatric urology, urogynecology, benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH), renal transplant, and uro-oncology. The various models of AI and its application in urology subspecialties are reviewed and discussed. Material and methods: Search strategy was adapted to identify and review the literature pertaining to the application of AI in urology using the keywords “urology,” “artificial intelligence,” “machine learning,” “deep learning,” “artificial neural networks,” “computer vision,” and “natural language processing” were included and categorized. Review articles, editorial comments, and non-urologic studies were excluded. Results: The article reviewed 47 articles that reported characteristics and implementation of AI in urological cancer. In all cases with benign conditions, artificial intelligence was used to predict outcomes of the surgical procedure. In urolithiasis, it was used to predict stone composition, whereas in pediatric urology and BPH, it was applied to predict the severity of condition. In cases with malignant conditions, it was applied to predict the treatment response, survival, prognosis, and recurrence on the basis of the genomic and biomarker studies. These results were also found to be statistically better than routine approaches. Application of radiomics in classification and nuclear grading of renal masses, cystoscopic diagnosis of bladder cancers, predicting Gleason score, and magnetic resonance imaging with computer-assisted diagnosis for prostate cancers are few applications of AI that have been studied extensively. Conclusions: In the near future, we will see a shift in the clinical paradigm as AI applications will find their place in the guidelines and revolutionize the decision-making process. Cite this article as: Shah M, Naik N, Somani BK, Hameed BMZ. Artificial intelligence (AI) in urology-Current use and future directions: An iTRUE study. Turk J Urol 2020; 46(Supp. 1): S27-S39.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have certainly had a significant impact on the healthcare industry. In urology, AI has been widely adopted to deal with numerous disorders, irrespective of their severity, extending from conditions such as benign prostate hyperplasia to critical illnesses such as urothelial and prostate cancer. In this article, we aim to discuss how algorithms and techniques of artificial intelligence are equipped in the field of urology to detect, treat, and estimate the outcomes of urological diseases. Furthermore, we explain the advantages that come from using AI over any existing traditional methods.