Retinal vessel segmentation is a critical task in fundus image analysis, providing essential insights for diagnosing various retinal diseases. In recent years, deep learning (DL) techniques, particularly Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), have garnered significant attention for their potential to enhance medical image analysis. This paper presents a novel approach for retinal vessel segmentation by harnessing the capabilities of GANs. Our method, termed GANVesselNet, employs a specialized GAN architecture tailored to the intricacies of retinal vessel structures. In GANVesselNet, a dual-path network architecture is employed, featuring an Auto Encoder-Decoder (AED) pathway and a UNet-inspired pathway. This unique combination enables the network to efficiently capture multi-scale contextual information, improving the accuracy of vessel segmentation. Through extensive experimentation on publicly available retinal datasets, including STARE and DRIVE, GANVesselNet demonstrates remarkable performance compared to traditional methods and state-of-the-art deep learning approaches. The proposed GANVesselNet exhibits superior sensitivity (0.8174), specificity (0.9862), and accuracy (0.9827) in segmenting retinal vessels on the STARE dataset, and achieves commendable results on the DRIVE dataset with sensitivity (0.7834), specificity (0.9846), and accuracy (0.9709). Notably, GANVesselNet achieves remarkable performance on previously unseen data, underscoring its potential for real-world clinical applications. Furthermore, we present qualitative visualizations of the generated vessel segmentations, illustrating the network’s proficiency in accurately delineating retinal vessels. In summary, this paper introduces GANVesselNet, a novel and powerful approach for retinal vessel segmentation. By capitalizing on the advanced capabilities of GANs and incorporating a tailored network architecture, GANVesselNet offers a quantum leap in retinal vessel segmentation accuracy, opening new avenues for enhanced fundus image analysis and improved clinical decision-making.

Node localization is critical for accessing diverse nodes that provide services in remote places. Single-anchor localization techniques suffer co-linearity, performing poorly. The reliable multiple anchor node selection method is computationally intensive and requires a lot of processing power and time to identify suitable anchor nodes. Node localization in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is challenging due to the number and placement of anchors, as well as their communication capabilities. These senor nodes possess limited energy resources, which is a big concern in localization. In addition to convention optimization in WSNs, researchers have employed nature-inspired algorithms to localize unknown nodes in WSN. However, these methods take longer, require lots of processing power, and have higher localization error, with a greater number of beacon nodes and sensitivity to parameter selection affecting localization. This research employed a nature-inspired crow search algorithm (an improvement over other nature-inspired algorithms) for selecting the suitable number of anchor nodes from the population, reducing errors in localizing unknown nodes. Additionally, the weighted centroid method was proposed for identifying the exact location of an unknown node. This made the crow search weighted centroid localization (CS-WCL) algorithm a more trustworthy and efficient method for node localization in WSNs, with reduced average localization error (ALE) and energy consumption. CS-WCL outperformed WCL and distance vector (DV)-Hop, with a reduced ALE of 15% (from 32%) and varying communication radii from 20 m to 45 m. Also, the ALE against scalability was validated for CS-WCL against WCL and DV-Hop for a varying number of beacon nodes (from 3 to 2), reducing ALE to 2.59% (from 28.75%). Lastly, CS-WCL resulted in reduced energy consumption (from 120 mJ to 45 mJ) for varying network nodes from 30 to 300 against WCL and DV-Hop. Thus, CS-WCL outperformed other nature-inspired algorithms in node localization. These have been validated using MATLAB 2022b.

Visual pollution (VP) is the deterioration or disruption of natural and man-made landscapes that ruins the aesthetic appeal of an area. It also refers to physical elements that limit the movability of people on public roads, such as excavation barriers, potholes, and dilapidated sidewalks. In this paper, an end-to-end visual pollution prediction (VPP) framework based on a deep active learning (DAL) approach is proposed to simultaneously detect and classify visual pollutants from whole public road images. The proposed framework is architected around the following steps: real VP dataset collection, pre-processing, a DAL approach for automatic data annotation, data splitting as well as augmentation, and simultaneous VP detection and classification. This framework is designed to predict VP localization and classify it into three categories: excavation barriers, potholes, and dilapidated sidewalks. A real dataset with 34,460 VP images was collected from various regions across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) via the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing (MOMRAH), and this was used to develop and fine-tune the proposed artificial intelligence (AI) framework via the use of five AI predictors: MobileNetSSDv2, EfficientDet, Faster RCNN, Detectron2, and YOLO. The proposed VPP-based YOLO framework outperforms competitor AI predictors with superior prediction performance at 89% precision, 88% recall, 89% F1-score, and 93% mAP. The DAL approach plays a crucial role in automatically annotating the VP images and supporting the VPP framework to improve prediction performance by 18% precision, 27% recall, and 25% mAP. The proposed VPP framework is able to simultaneously detect and classify distinct visual pollutants from annotated images via the DAL strategy. This technique is applicable for real-time monitoring applications.

Breast cancer prediction and diagnosis are critical for timely and effective treatment, significantly impacting patient outcomes. Machine learning algorithms have become powerful tools for improving the prediction and diagnosis of breast cancer. The Breast Cancer Prediction and Diagnosis Model (BCPM), which utilises machine learning techniques to improve the precision and efficiency of breast cancer diagnosis and prediction, is presented in this paper. BCPM collects comprehensive and high-quality data from diverse sources, including electronic medical records, clinical trials, and public datasets. Through rigorous pre-processing, the data is cleaned, inconsistencies are addressed, and missing values are handled. Feature scaling techniques are applied to normalize the data, ensuring fair comparison and equal importance among different features. Furthermore, feature-selection algorithms are utilized to identify the most relevant features that contribute to breast cancer projection and diagnosis, optimizing the model’s efficiency. The BCPM employs numerous machine learning methods, such as logistic regression, random forests, decision trees, support vector machines, and neural networks, to generate accurate models. Area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy are only some of the metrics used to assess a model’s performance once it has been trained on a subset of data. The BCPM holds promise in improving breast cancer prediction and diagnosis, aiding in personalized treatment planning, and ultimately taming patient results. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, the BCPM contributes to ongoing efforts in combating breast cancer and saving lives.

The dimensionality of the spatially distributed channels and the temporal resolution of electroencephalogram (EEG) based brain-computer interfaces (BCI) undermine emotion recognition models. Thus, prior to modeling such data, as the final stage of the learning pipeline, adequate preprocessing, transforming, and extracting temporal (i.e., time-series signals) and spatial (i.e., electrode channels) features are essential phases to recognize underlying human emotions. Conventionally, inter-subject variations are dealt with by avoiding the sources of variation (e.g., outliers) or turning the problem into a subject-deponent. We address this issue by preserving and learning from individual particularities in response to affective stimuli. This paper investigates and proposes a subject-independent emotion recognition framework that mitigates the subject-to-subject variability in such systems. Using an unsupervised feature selection algorithm, we reduce the feature space that is extracted from time-series signals. For the spatial features, we propose a subject-specific unsupervised learning algorithm that learns from inter-channel co-activation online. We tested this framework on real EEG benchmarks, namely DEAP, MAHNOB-HCI, and DREAMER. We train and test the selection outcomes using nested cross-validation and a support vector machine (SVM). We compared our results with the state-of-the-art subject-independent algorithms. Our results show an enhanced performance by accurately classifying human affection (i.e., based on valence and arousal) by 16%–27% compared to other studies. This work not only outperforms other subject-independent studies reported in the literature but also proposes an online analysis solution to affection recognition.

The prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) poses a significant public health challenge. Distinguishing AD stages remains a complex process due to ambiguous variability within and across AD stages. Manual classification of such multifaceted and massive data of brain volumes is operationally inefficient and vulnerable to human errors. Here, we propose a precise and systematic framework for AD stages classification. The core of this framework discovers and analyzes functional connectivity among regions of interest (ROIs) of a human brain. Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA) is applied to extract features that reveal complex functional connectivity patterns in the brain. These features are then used as inputs for an Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) model to classify AD stages. The model's performance is assessed through comprehensive evaluation metrics to ensure robustness and reliability. Applying this framework on datasets which contain meticulously validated fMRI scans such as the OASIS and AD Neuroimaging Initiative datasets, we validate the merit of this proposed work. The framework's results show improvement in the collective performance of two-class and multi-class classification. Feeding ELM with MVPA features yield decent outcomes given a generalizable and computationally-efficient model. This study underscores the effectiveness of the proposed approach in accurately distinguishing AD stages, offering potential improvements in AD and AD stages detection.