The rapid evolution of image processing equipment and techniques ensures the development of novel picture analysis methodologies. One of the most powerful yet computationally possible algebraic techniques for measuring the topological characteristics of functions is persistent homology. It's an algebraic invariant that can capture topological details at different spatial resolutions. Persistent homology investigates the topological features of a space using a set of sampled points, such as pixels. It can track the appearance and disappearance of topological features caused by changes in the nested space created by an operation known as filtration, in which a parameter scale, in our case the intensity of pixels, is increased to detect changes in the studied space over a range of varying scales. In addition, at the level of machine learning there were many studies and articles witnessing recently the combination between homological persistence and machine learning algorithms. On another level, prostate cancer is diagnosed referring to a scoring criterion describing the severity of the cancer called Gleason score. The classical Gleason system defines five histological growth patterns (grades). In our study we propose to study the Gleason score on some glands issued from a new optical microscopy technique called SLIM. This new optical microscopy technique that combines two classic ideas in light imaging: Zernike’s phase contrast microscopy and Gabor’s holography. Persistent homology features are computed on these images. We suggested machine learning methods to classify these images into the corresponding Gleason score. Machine learning techniques applied on homological persistence features was very effective in the detection of the right Gleason score of the prostate cancer in these kinds of images and showed an accuracy of above 95%.

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of thousands over the past years. Although pathogenic laboratory testing is the established standard, it carries a significant drawback with a notable rate of false negatives. Consequently, there is an urgent need for alternative diagnostic approaches to combat this threat. In response to this pressing need for accurate and parameter-free methods for COVID-19 identification, particularly within lung images, we introduce a novel approach that combines the principles of topological data analysis with the capabilities of machine learning. Our proposed methodology entails the extraction of persistent homology features from lung images, effectively capturing the intrinsic topological properties inherent in the data. These extracted persistent homology features then serve as inputs for various machine learning methods employed for classification purposes. Our primary objective is to achieve exceptional accuracy in the detection of COVID-19 all while showcasing the effectiveness of these topological features. The experimental results demonstrate that the Random Forest Classifier and the Support Vector Machine models outperform the rest, showcasing their effectiveness in classifying CT scan lung images with remarkable precision—an accuracy rate of 97.5% for the Random Forest model and an AUC score that surpasses 0.99 for the SVM. Results of the model on the same data after exclusion of the topological features and on other data with application of the same model with topological features showed the efficiency of these features in the classification task.

In this paper, we show that topological persistence can be employed in biomedical image processing to perform object segmentation. First we model the pixels of the image by combinatorial transformation into a cubical complex that we will call the pixels' complex. Then a nested sequence of complexes is built on which the persistent homology is computed. By identifying the 1D chains with large life spans, the most persistent classes are extracted. This allows to segment the salient objects in the biomedical image and to spot their components. An example was applied first on a toy image of coins that demonstrate the applicability of the method. Results on two real biomedical images, the first recorded by a quantitative phase technique and the second represents a classical image of cells show the potential of this technique. The insensitivity to continuous deformations and the independence to prior parameters reveals the strength of this method.

Accurate and non-destructive assessment of fruit maturity is critical for sustainable agricultural practices. This study proposes a novel framework for evaluating strawberry ripeness using Mid-Infrared (MIR) spectroscopy combined with metaheuristic feature selection and supervised classification. A dataset of 443 strawberries spanning eight maturity stages was analyzed using six metaheuristic algorithms—Binary Grey Wolf Optimizer, Binary Particle Swarm Optimizer, Bee Colony Optimizer, Genetic Algorithm, Ant Colony Optimizer, and Gravitational Search Optimizer—integrated with four classifiers: Naïve Bayes, Decision Tree, Linear Discriminant Analysis, and Support Vector Machine. A new fitness function was designed to optimize classifier performance, and results were validated through Self-Organizing Map Neural Networks, cross-validation, and statistical significance testing. The Genetic Algorithm–Linear Discriminant Analysis combination achieved the highest and most stable accuracy (94.6–99%), outperforming existing image-based, deep learning, and conventional spectroscopic approaches while retaining interpretability. These findings demonstrate that metaheuristic-driven MIR analysis provides a robust, explainable, and efficient method for precise strawberry maturity assessment, offering significant potential for advancing eco-friendly and intelligent agricultural practices.