Skin cancers are the most cancers diagnosed worldwide, with an estimated > 1.5 million new cases in 2020. Use of computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems for early detection and classification of skin lesions helps reduce skin cancer mortality rates. Inspired by the success of the transformer network in natural language processing (NLP) and the deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) in computer vision, we propose an end-to-end CNN transformer hybrid model with a focal loss (FL) function to classify skin lesion images. First, the CNN extracts low-level, local feature maps from the dermoscopic images. In the second stage, the vision transformer (ViT) globally models these features, then extracts abstract and high-level semantic information, and finally sends this to the multi-layer perceptron (MLP) head for classification. Based on an evaluation of three different loss functions, the FL-based algorithm is aimed to improve the extreme class imbalance that exists in the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC) 2018 dataset. The experimental analysis demonstrates that impressive results of skin lesion classification are achieved by employing the hybrid model and FL strategy, which shows significantly high performance and outperforms the existing work.

The rapid progress in sensor technology and computational capabilities has significantly improved real-time data collection, enabling precise monitoring of various phenomena and industrial processes. However, the volume and complexity of heterogeneous data present substantial processing challenges. Traditional data-processing techniques, such as data aggregation, filtering, and statistical analysis, are increasingly supplemented by data fusion methods. These methods can be broadly categorised into traditional analytics-based approaches, like the Kalman Filter and Particle Filter, and learning-based approaches, utilising machine learning and deep learning techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). These techniques combine data from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive and accurate representation of information, which is critical in number of fields. Despite this, a comprehensive review of learning-based, particularly deep learning-based, data fusion strategies is lacking. This paper presents a thorough review of deep learning-based data fusion methodologies across various fields, examining their evolution over the past five years. It highlights applications in remote sensing, healthcare, industrial fault diagnosis, intelligent transportation, and other domains. The paper categories fusion strategies into early-level, intermediate-level, late-level, and hybrid fusion, emphasising their synergies, challenges, and suitability. It outlines significant advancements, the comparative advantages of deep learning-based methods over traditional approaches, and emerging trends and future directions. To ensure a comprehensive analysis, the review is structured using the ProKnow-C methodology, a rigorous selection process that focuses on relevant literature from recent years.

Skin cancer is one of the most threatening cancers, which spreads to the other parts of the body if not caught and treated early. During the last few years, the integration of deep learning into skin cancer has been a milestone in health care, and dermoscopic images are right at the center of this revolution. This review study focuses on the state-of-the-art automatic diagnosis of skin cancer from dermoscopic images based on deep learning. This work thoroughly explores the existing deep learning and its application in diagnosing dermoscopic images. This study aims to present and summarize the latest methodology in melanoma classification and the techniques to improve this. We discuss advancements in deep learning-based solutions to diagnose skin cancer, along with some challenges and future opportunities to strengthen these automatic systems to support dermatologists and enhance their ability to diagnose skin cancer.

The increase in Cervical Spondylosis cases and the expansion of the affected demographic to younger patients have escalated the demand for X-ray screening. Challenges include variability in imaging technology, differences in equipment specifications, and the diverse experience levels of clinicians, which collectively hinder diagnostic accuracy. In response, a deep learning approach utilizing a ResNet-34 convolutional neural network has been developed. This model, trained on a comprehensive dataset of 1235 cervical spine X-ray images representing a wide range of projection angles, aims to mitigate these issues by providing a robust tool for diagnosis. Validation of the model was performed on an independent set of 136 X-ray images, also varied in projection angles, to ensure its efficacy across diverse clinical scenarios. The model achieved a classification accuracy of 89.7%, significantly outperforming the traditional manual diagnostic approach, which has an accuracy of 68.3%. This advancement demonstrates the viability of deep learning models to not only complement but enhance the diagnostic capabilities of clinicians in identifying Cervical Spondylosis, offering a promising avenue for improving diagnostic accuracy and efficiency in clinical settings.

Detecting and measuring objects with vision-based systems in uncontrolled environments is a difficult task that today, thanks to the development of increasingly advanced artificial intelligence-based techniques, can be solved with greater ease. In this context, the paper proposes a novel approach for the vision-based measurement of objects in uncontrolled environments using a specific type of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) named YOLO (You Only Look Once) and a Direct Linear Transformation (DLT) process. The case study concerned designing a novel vision-based system for measuring the diameter of wood logs cut and loaded onto trucks. This problem has been occurring in the Swedish forestry industry. In fact, this operation is not carried out with computer vision algorithms because of the high variability of environmental conditions caused by the changing position of the sun, weather conditions, and the variability of truck positioning. To solve this problem, the YOLO network is proposed to locate logs while attempting to maintain a high Intersection over Union (IoU) value for the correct estimation of log size. Furthermore, in order to obtain accurate measurements, the DLT is used to convert into world coordinates the dimensions of the logs themselves. The proposed CNN-based solution is described after briefly introducing today’s methodologies adopted for wood bundle analysis. Particular attention is paid to both the training and the calibration steps. Results report that for 80% of cases, the error reported has been smaller than 4 cm, representing only 8% of the measurement, considering a mean log diameter for the application of 50 cm.

In modern applications such as robotics, autonomous vehicles, and speaker localization, the computational power for sound source localization applications can be limited when other functionalities get more complex. In such application fields, there is a need to maintain high localization accuracy for several sound sources while reducing computational complexity. The array manifold interpolation (AMI) method applied with the Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) algorithm enables sound source localization of multiple sources with high accuracy. However, the computational complexity has so far been relatively high. This paper presents a modified AMI for uniform circular array (UCA) that offers reduced computational complexity compared to the original AMI. The complexity reduction is based on the proposed UCA-specific focusing matrix which eliminates the calculation of the Bessel function. The simulation comparison is done with the existing methods of iMUSIC, the Weighted Squared Test of Orthogonality of Projected Subspaces (WS-TOPS), and the original AMI. The experiment result under different scenarios shows that the proposed algorithm outperforms the original AMI method in terms of estimation accuracy and up to a 30% reduction in computation time. An advantage offered by this proposed method is the ability to implement wideband array processing on low-end microprocessors.