The rapid advancement of high-throughput technologies has led to the generation of vast amounts of omics data, including genomics, epigenomics, and metabolomics. Integrating these diverse datasets has become essential for gaining comprehensive insights into complex biological systems and enhancing personalized healthcare solutions. This critical review examines the current state of multi-omics data integration platforms, highlighting both the strengths and limitations of existing tools. By evaluating the latest digital platforms, such as GraphOmics, OmicsAnalyst, and others, the paper explores how they support seamless integration and analysis of omics data in healthcare applications. Special attention is given to their role in clinical decision-making, disease prediction, and personalized medicine, with a focus on their interoperability, scalability, and usability. The review also discusses the challenges these platforms face, such as data complexity, standardization issues, and the need for improved machine learning and AI-based analytics. Finally, the paper proposes directions for future research and development, emphasizing the importance of more advanced, user-friendly, and secure platforms that can better serve comprehensive healthcare needs.

The detection of mental fatigue is an important issue in the nascent field of neuroergonomics. Although machine learning approaches and especially deep learning designs have constantly demonstrated their efficiency to automatically detect critical features from raw data, the computational resources for training and predictions are usually very demanding. In this work, we propose a shallow convolutional neural network, with three convolutional layers, for fatigue detection using electroencephalogram (EEG) data that can alleviate the computational burden and provide fast mental fatigue detection. As such, a deep learning model was created utilizing time-frequency domain features, extracted with Morlet wavelet analysis. These features, combined with the higher-level characteristics learnt by the model, resulted in a resilient solution, able to attain very high prediction accuracy (97%), while reducing training time and computing costs. Moreover, by incorporating a subsequent SHAP values analysis on the characteristics that contributed in the model creation, indications of low frequency (theta and alpha band) brain wave characteristics were indicated as prominent mental fatigue detectors.

Background: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease characterized by continuous inflammation of the colon and rectum. Accurate disease assessment is essential for effective treatment, with endoscopic evaluation, particularly the Mayo Endoscopic Score (MES), serving as a key diagnostic tool. However, MES measurement can be subjective and inconsistent, leading to variability in treatment decisions. Deep learning approaches have shown promise in providing more objective and standardized assessments of UC severity. Methods: This study utilized publicly available endoscopic images of UC patients to analyze and compare the performance of state-of-the-art deep neural networks for automated MES classification. Several state-of-the-art architectures were tested to determine the most effective model for grading disease severity. The F1 score, accuracy, recall, and precision were calculated for all models, and statistical analysis was conducted to verify statistically significant differences between the networks. Results: VGG19 was found to be the best-performing network, achieving a QWK score of 0.876 and a macro-averaged F1 score of 0.7528 across all classes. However, the performance differences among the top-performing models were very small suggesting that selection should depend on specific deployment requirements. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that multiple state-of-the-art deep neural network architectures could automate UC severity classification. Simpler architectures were found to achieve competitive results with larger models, challenging the assumption that larger networks necessarily provide better clinical outcomes.

Background: Healthcare robotics needs context-aware policy-compliant reasoning to achieve safe human–agent collaboration. The current ontologies fail to provide healthcare-relevant information and flexible semantic enforcement systems. Methods: HERON represents a modular upper ontology which enables healthcare robotic systems to communicate and collaborate while ensuring safety during operations. The system enables domain-specific instantiations through SPARQL queries and SHACL-based constraint validation to perform context-driven logic. The system models robotic task interactions through simulated eldercare and diagnostic and surgical support scenarios which follow ethical and regulatory standards. Results: The validation tests demonstrated HERON’s capacity to enable safe and explainable autonomous operations in changing environments. The semantic constraints enforced proper eligibility for roles and privacy conditions and policy override functionality during agent task execution. The HERON system demonstrated compatibility with healthcare IT systems and demonstrated adaptability to the GDPR and other policy frameworks. Conclusions: The semantically rich framework of HERON establishes an interoperable foundation for healthcare robotics. The system architecture maintains an open design which enables HL7/FHIR standard integration and robotic middleware compatibility. HERON demonstrates superior healthcare-specific capabilities through its evaluation against SUMO HL7 and MIMO. The future research will focus on optimizing HERON for low-resource clinical environments while extending its applications to remote care emergency triage and adaptive human–robot collaboration.

The efficient translation of brain signals into an output device is an essential characteristic to establish a Brain-computer Interface (BCI) link. This research investigates the applicability of diverse correlation indices for the differentiation of specific movements (left, right, both, or none) and states (real or imaginary) in a private BCI dataset, including EEG recordings of 32 participants. As such, the recorded brain activation data were employed to illustrate the differences between visual- and auditory-event-related responses during task performance. Our methodology involved a two-pronged approach. Firstly, EEG data were collected, capturing both the visual- and auditory-event-related signals that corresponded to each of the four movement classes. Secondly, we performed a comparative analysis of the collected dataset using various correlation algorithms, such as Pearson, Spearman, and Kendall, among others, to evaluate their effectiveness in differentiating between movements and states. The results demonstrated distinctive correlation patterns, as the selected indices effectively distinguished between real and imaginary movements, as well as between different lower limp movements in most cases. Moreover, the correlation schemas of certain individuals presented greater sensitivity in discerning nuances within the dataset. In this regard, it can be inferred that the chosen correlation indices can provide valuable insights into the aforementioned differentiation in EEG data. The results open up potential paths for improving BCI interfaces and contributing to more accurate prediction models.

Global population ageing is a pressing issue with significant humanitarian implications associated with compromised independence, social isolation, frailty, and diminished quality of life affecting millions of older individuals and their families worldwide as well as healthcare and social infrastructures. In this context, this chapter presents a personalized smart-living framework for promoting healthy and successful ageing, combining interdisciplinary knowledge and technologies including internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and affective computing (AC). The proposed intervention tackles the health-related, societal, and emotional impacts of ageing within a society with a rising mean global age aiming to mitigate the effects of decline and reduce the associated risks. The outlined architecture is based on sensor-derived information blended with non-sensor-based computerized modules and voice-based inputs for establishing a smart ecosystem that enables older people to live independently inside and outside their home, maintaining a high cognitive and physical status.