Brain tumor localization and segmentation from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are hard and important tasks for several applications in the field of medical analysis. As each brain imaging modality gives unique and key details related to each part of the tumor, many recent approaches used four modalities T1, T1c, T2, and FLAIR. Although many of them obtained a promising segmentation result on the BRATS 2018 dataset, they suffer from a complex structure that needs more time to train and test. So, in this paper, to obtain a flexible and effective brain tumor segmentation system, first, we propose a preprocessing approach to work only on a small part of the image rather than the whole part of the image. This method leads to a decrease in computing time and overcomes the overfitting problems in a Cascade Deep Learning model. In the second step, as we are dealing with a smaller part of brain images in each slice, a simple and efficient Cascade Convolutional Neural Network (C-ConvNet/C-CNN) is proposed. This C-CNN model mines both local and global features in two different routes. Also, to improve the brain tumor segmentation accuracy compared with the state-of-the-art models, a novel Distance-Wise Attention (DWA) mechanism is introduced. The DWA mechanism considers the effect of the center location of the tumor and the brain inside the model. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on the BRATS 2018 dataset and show that the proposed model obtains competitive results: the proposed method achieves a mean whole tumor, enhancing tumor, and tumor core dice scores of 0.9203, 0.9113 and 0.8726 respectively. Other quantitative and qualitative assessments are presented and discussed.
There are a lot of elements that make road safety assessment situations unpredictable and hard to understand. This could put people's lives in danger, hurt the mental health of a society, and cause permanent financial and human losses. Due to the ambiguity and uncertainty of the risk assessment process, a multi-criteria decision-making technique for dealing with complex systems that involves choosing one of many options is an important strategy of assessing road safety. In this study, an integrated stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) with measurement of alternatives and ranking according to compromise solution (MARCOS) approach under a spherical fuzzy (SF) set was considered. Then, the proposed methodology was applied to develop the approach of failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) for rural roads in Cosenza, southern Italy. Also, the results of modified FMEA by SF-SWARA-MARCOS were compared with the results of conventional FMEA. The risk score results demonstrated that the source of risk (human) plays a significant role in crashes compared to other sources of risk. The two risks, including landslides and floods, had the lowest values among the factors affecting rural road safety in Calabria, respectively. The correlation between scenario outcomes and main ranking orders in weight values was also investigated. This study was done in line with the goals of sustainable development and the goal of sustainable mobility, which was to find risks and lower the number of accidents on the road. As a result, it is thus essential to reconsider laws and measures necessary to reduce human risks on the regional road network of Calabria to improve road safety.
Selecting suitable locations for the disposal of medical waste is a serious matter. This study aims to propose a novel approach to selecting the optimal landfill for medical waste using Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods. For better considerations of the uncertainty in choosing the optimal landfill, the MCDM methods are extended by spherical fuzzy sets (SFS). The identified criteria affecting the selection of the optimal location for landfilling medical waste include three categories; environmental, economic, and social. Moreover, the weights of the 13 criteria were computed by Spherical Fuzzy Step-Wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SFSWARA). In the next step, the alternatives were analyzed and ranked using Spherical Fuzzy Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment (SFWASPAS). Finally, in order to show the accuracy and validity of the results, the proposed approach was compared with the IF-SWARA-WASPAS method. Examination of the results showed that in the IF environment the ranking is not complete, and the results of the proposed method are more reliable. Furthermore, ten scenarios were created by changing the weight of the criteria, and the results were compared with the proposed method. The overall results were similar to the SF-SWARA-WASPAS method.