Deep learning has revolutionized the detection of diseases and is helping the healthcare sector break barriers in terms of accuracy and robustness to achieve efficient and robust computer-aided diagnostic systems. The application of deep learning techniques empowers automated AI-based utilities requiring minimal human supervision to perform any task related to medical diagnosis of fractures, tumors, and internal hemorrhage; preoperative planning; intra-operative guidance, etc. But deep learning faces some major threats to the flourishing healthcare domain. This paper traverses the major challenges that the deep learning community of researchers and engineers faces, particularly in medical image diagnosis, like the unavailability of balanced annotated medical image data, adversarial attacks faced by deep neural networks and architectures due to noisy medical image data, a lack of trustability among users and patients, and ethical and privacy issues related to medical data. This study explores the possibilities of AI autonomy in healthcare by overcoming the concerns about trust that society has in autonomous intelligent systems.
Wireless technology development has increased rapidly due to it's convenience and cost effectiveness compared to wired applications, particularly considering the advantages offered by Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) based applications. Such applications exist in several domains including healthcare, medical, industrial and home automation. In the present study, a home-based wireless ECG monitoring system using Zigbee technology is considered. Such systems can be useful for monitoring people in their own home as well as for periodic monitoring by physicians for appropriate healthcare, allowing people to live in their home for longer. Health monitoring systems can continuously monitor many physiological signals and offer further analysis and interpretation. The characteristics and drawbacks of these systems may affect the wearer's mobility during monitoring the vital signs. Real-time monitoring systems record, measure, and monitor the heart electrical activity while maintaining the consumer's comfort. Zigbee devices can offer low-power, small size, and a low-cost suitable solution for monitoring the ECG signal in the home, but such systems are often designed in isolation, with no consideration of existing home control networks and smart home solutions. The present study offers a state of the art review and then introduces the main concepts and contents of the wireless ECG monitoring systems. In addition, models of the ECG signal and the power consumption formulas are highlighted. Challenges and future perspectives are also reported. The paper concludes that such mass-market health monitoring systems will only be prevalent when implemented together with home environmental monitoring and control systems.
COVID-19 is a pandemic that has affected over 170 countries around the world. The number of infected and deceased patients has been increasing at an alarming rate in almost all the affected nations. Forecasting techniques can be inculcated thereby assisting in designing better strategies and in taking productive decisions. These techniques assess the situations of the past thereby enabling better predictions about the situation to occur in the future. These predictions might help to prepare against possible threats and consequences. Forecasting techniques play a very important role in yielding accurate predictions. This study categorizes forecasting techniques into two types, namely, stochastic theory mathematical models and data science/machine learning techniques. Data collected from various platforms also play a vital role in forecasting. In this study, two categories of datasets have been discussed, i.e., big data accessed from World Health Organization/National databases and data from a social media communication. Forecasting of a pandemic can be done based on various parameters such as the impact of environmental factors, incubation period, the impact of quarantine, age, gender and many more. These techniques and parameters used for forecasting are extensively studied in this work. However, forecasting techniques come with their own set of challenges (technical and generic). This study discusses these challenges and also provides a set of recommendations for the people who are currently fighting the global COVID-19 pandemic.
13 January 2016 in Neural Computing and Applications