Strokes are a leading global cause of mortality, underscoring the need for early detection and prevention strategies. However, addressing hidden risk factors and achieving accurate prediction become particularly challenging in the presence of imbalanced and missing data. This study encompasses three imputation techniques to deal with missing data. To tackle data imbalance, it employs the synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE). The study initiates with a baseline model and subsequently employs an extensive range of advanced models. This study thoroughly evaluates the performance of these models by employing k-fold cross-validation on various imbalanced and balanced datasets. The findings reveal that age, body mass index (BMI), average glucose level, heart disease, hypertension, and marital status are the most influential features in predicting strokes. Furthermore, a Dense Stacking Ensemble (DSE) model is built upon previous advanced models after fine-tuning, with the best-performing model as a meta-classifier. The DSE model demonstrated over 96% accuracy across diverse datasets, with an AUC score of 83.94% on imbalanced imputed dataset and 98.92% on balanced one. This research underscores the remarkable performance of the DSE model, compared to the previous research on the same dataset. It highlights the model's potential for early stroke detection to improve patient outcomes.

Currently, information and communication technology (ICT) allows health institutions to reach disadvantaged groups in rural areas using sensing and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Applications of these technologies are even more essential for maternal and infant health, since maternal and infant health is vital for a healthy society. Over the last few years, researchers have delved into sensing and artificially intelligent healthcare systems for maternal and infant health. Sensors are exploited to gauge health parameters, and machine learning techniques are investigated to predict the health conditions of patients to assist medical practitioners. Since these healthcare systems deal with large amounts of data, significant development is also noted in the computing platforms. The relevant literature reports the potential impact of ICT-enabled systems for improving maternal and infant health. This article reviews wearable sensors and AI algorithms based on existing systems designed to predict the risk factors during and after pregnancy for both mothers and infants. This review covers sensors and AI algorithms used in these systems and analyzes each approach with its features, outcomes, and novel aspects in chronological order. It also includes discussion on datasets used and extends challenges as well as future work directions for researchers.

High glucose levels during pregnancy cause Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM). The risks include cesarean deliveries, long-term type 2 diabetes, fetal macrosomia, and infant respiratory distress syndrome. These risks highlight the need for accurate GDM prediction. This research proposes a novel fusion model for early GDM prediction. It uses conventional Machine Learning (ML) and advanced Deep Learning (DL) algorithms. Subsequently, it combines the strengths of both ML and DL algorithms using various ensemble techniques. It incorporates a meta-classifier that further reinforces its robust prediction performance. The dataset is split into training and testing sets in a 70/30 ratio. The initial steps involve exploratory analysis and data preprocessing techniques such as iterative imputation and feature engineering. Subsequently, oversampling is applied to the training set to address class imbalance which ensures the model learns effectively. The testing set remains imbalanced to maintain the credibility of the model’s performance evaluation. The fusion model achieves an accuracy of 98.21%, precision of 97.72%, specificity of 98.64%, recall of 97.47%, F1 score of 97.59%, and an Accuracy Under the Curve (AUC) of 99.91%. The model exhibits efficiency with an average processing time of 0.06 s to predict GDM. These results outperform the previous studies using the same GDM prediction dataset and demonstrate the model's superior performance. Additionally, Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) techniques are utilized to interpret the model’s decisions. They highlight the most influential features in GDM prediction and ensures transparency. The proposed fusion model can facilitate proactive GDM prediction to elevate GDM management and maternal–fetal health outcomes.

The recent surge in Internet of Things (IoT) applications and smart devices has led to a substantial rise in the data generation. One of the major issues involved is to meet strict quality of service (QoS) requirements for computing these applications in terms of execution time, cost and in an energy-efficient manner. To extract useful information, fast processing and analysis of data is needed. Consequently, moving all the data to centralized cloud data centers would lead to high processing times, increased cost and energy consumption and more bandwidth usage; thus, processing of applications with strict latency requirements becomes challenging. The addition of fog layer between cloud and IoT devices has provided promising solutions to such issues. However, efficient employment of computing resources in the hybrid infrastructure of fog and cloud nodes is of great significance and demands an optimal scheduling strategy. Toward this direction, a novel Pareto-based algorithm in fog computing, namely energy-efficient time and cost (ETC) constraint scheduling algorithm, is introduced in this paper for scheduling workflow applications. ETC attempts to optimize monetary cost along with time and energy objectives. Improved multi-objective differential evolution (I-MODE) meta-heuristic is introduced and incorporated with deadline-aware stepwise frequency scaling approach that is based on our previously proposed energy makespan multi-objective optimization (EM-MOO) algorithm. Synthetic and real-world application workflows are used to conduct evaluation of the proposed work with existing well-known algorithms from the literature. The experimental results for synthetic workflows reveal that the proposed algorithm lessens energy utilization by 14–21%, execution time by almost 25% and cost consumption by 22–27%, while for real-world application workflows, energy consumption is reduced by 12–24%, execution time by 14–16% and cost consumption by 23–29%.

Fetal movements are spontaneous actions performed by the fetus in the womb. Monitoring fetal movements is vital for assessing fetal health and detecting potential complications during pregnancy. Unmonitored fetal activity can indicate potential adverse effects such as fetal distress, restricted growth, or placental insufficiency. Regular monitoring helps detect issues early and ensures fetal health. Fetal movements involve monitoring the frequency and force with which the baby kicks as well as the location of the kicks in the abdominal area. Monitoring of these parameters for a longer period gives details about fetal activity and its health. This paper presents a novel fetus monitoring belt system designed to measure and analyze fetal kicks, its’ intensity, frequency, and the position where it occurred in abdomen. The system utilizes high accuracy thin film pressure sensors strategically placed within a flexible and breathable belt to cover the entire abdominal area. The sensors operate by detecting changes in resistance caused by applied force due to fetus kicks and translate these changes into measurable electrical signals. The belt system integrates with a mobile application to offer real-time data visualization and analysis. Additionally, it tracks the temperature and position of the expecting mother using integrated sensors. This innovative system enables home-based monitoring and reduces the need for frequent visits to healthcare facilities and enhances maternal convenience. The belt’s high sensitivity is capable of detecting forces ranging from 1.47 to 98.1 newtons. The belt is flexible and comfortable to wear. The fetus monitoring belt system can store and track data over time, which makes it a practical tool for continuous as well as remote monitoring. The fetus monitoring belt system offers convenience, accuracy, and comprehensive monitoring capabilities. The performance of the belt is evaluated by perceived fetus kicks and movements by volunteers and the comparison results proved significant accuracy of proposed belt system.