The latest World Health Organization’s (WHO) study on 2018 is showing that about 1.5 million people died and around 10 million people are infected with tuberculosis (TB) each year. Moreover, more than 4,000 people die every day from TB. A number of those deaths could have been stopped if the disease was identified sooner. In the recent literature, important work can be found on automating the diagnosis by applying techniques of deep learning (DL) to the medical images. While DL has yielded promising results in many areas, comprehensive TB diagnostic studies remain limited. DL requires a large number of high-quality training samples to yield better performance. Due to the low contrast of TB chest x-ray (CXR) images, they are often is in poor quality. This work assesses the effect of image enhancement on performance of DL technique to address this problem. The employed image enhancement algorithm was able to highlight the overall or local characteristics of the images, including some interesting features. Specifically, three image enhancement algorithms called Unsharp Masking (UM), High-Frequency Emphasis Filtering (HEF) and Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE), were evaluated. The enhanced image samples were then fed to the pre-trained ResNet and EfficientNet models for transfer learning. In a TB image dataset, we achieved 89.92% and 94.8% of classification accuracy and AUC (Area Under Curve) scores, respectively. All the results are obtained using Shenzhen dataset, which are available in the public domain.

Developing a breast cancer screening method is very important to facilitate early breast cancer detection and treatment. Building a screening method using medical imaging modality that does not cause body tissue damage (non-invasive) and does not involve physical touch is challenging. Thermography, a non-invasive and non-contact cancer screening method, can detect tumors at an early stage even under precancerous conditions by observing temperature distribution in both breasts. The thermograms obtained on thermography can be interpreted using deep learning models such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs). CNNs can automatically classify breast thermograms into categories such as normal and abnormal. Despite their demostrated utility, CNNs have not been widely used in breast thermogram classification. In this study, we aimed to summarize the current work and progress in breast cancer detection based on thermography and CNNs. We first discuss of breast thermography potential in early breast cancer detection, providing an overview of the availability of breast thermal datasets together with publicly accessible. We also discuss characteristics of breast thermograms and the differences between healthy and cancerous thermographic patterns. Breast thermogram classification using a CNN model is described step by step including a simulation example illustrating feature learning. We cover most research related to the implementation of deep neural networks for breast thermogram classification and propose future research directions for developing representative datasets, feeding the segmented image, assigning a good kernel, and building a lightweight CNN model to improve CNN performance.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the major diseases that cause death worldwide and lead to complications of diabetic foot ulcers (DFU). Improper and late handling of a diabetic foot patient can result in an amputation of the patient’s foot. Early detection of DFU symptoms can be observed using thermal imaging with a computer-assisted classifier. Previous study of DFU detection using thermal image only achieved 97% of accuracy, and it has to be improved. This article proposes a novel framework for DFU classification based on thermal imaging using deep neural networks and decision fusion. Here, decision fusion combines the classification result from a parallel classifier. We used the convolutional neural network (CNN) model of ShuffleNet and MobileNetV2 as the baseline classifier. In developing the classifier model, firstly, the MobileNetV2 and ShuffleNet were trained using plantar thermogram datasets. Then, the classification results of those two models were fused using a novel decision fusion method to increase the accuracy rate. The proposed framework achieved 100% accuracy in classifying the DFU thermal images in binary classes of positive and negative cases. The accuracy of the proposed Decision Fusion (DF) was increased by about 3.4% from baseline ShuffleNet and MobileNetV2. Overall, the proposed framework outperformed in classifying the images compared with the state-of-the-art deep learning and the traditional machine-learning-based classifier.

Community resilience is increasingly required to adapt to the effects of the frequency and severity of the ever-increasing number of coastal hazards. This paper uses the case study of the city of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, which was devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, with the aim of investigating the city’s level of resilience towards coastal hazards. This paper aims to: (i) assess the preparedness of coastal communities; (ii) evaluate the level of resilience of the city to coastal hazards; and (iii) formulate strategic steps in an effort to mitigate coastal hazards in Banda Aceh. The evaluation was conducted using mixed methods (both quantitative and qualitative) through data triangulation. Data collection involved 311 household surveys, two focus group discussions with 30 participants, and interviews with seven representatives from government and non-government organisations. Regarding the survey, the preparedness level of Banda Aceh’s residents is categorised as “low“. The results of overall city resilience assessments are also classified as “low”. This finding indicates that more planned, systematic, and sustainable efforts are needed. Hence, this study also recommends strategies to enhance resilience in dealing with coastal hazards.

The presence of a well-trained, mobile CNN model with a high accuracy rate is imperative to build a mobile-based early breast cancer detector. In this study, we propose a mobile neural network model breast cancer mobile network (BreaCNet) and its implementation framework. BreaCNet consists of an effective segmentation algorithm for breast thermograms and a classifier based on the mobile CNN model. The segmentation algorithm employing edge detection and second-order polynomial curve fitting techniques can effectively capture the thermograms' region of interest (ROI), thereby facilitating efficient feature extraction. The classifier was developed based on ShuffleNet by adding one block consisting of a convolutional layer with 1028 filters. The modified Shufflenet demonstrated a good fit learning with 6.1 million parameters and 22 MB size. Simulation results showed that modified ShuffleNet alone resulted in a 72% accuracy rate, but the performance excelled to a 100% accuracy rate when integrated with the proposed segmentation algorithm. In terms of diagnostic accuracy of the normal and abnormal test, BreaCNet significantly improves the sensitivity rate from 43% to 100% and specificity of 100%. We confirmed that feeding only the ROI of the input dataset to the network can improve the classifier's performance. On the implementation aspect of BreaCNet, the on-device inference is recommended to ensure users' data privacy and handle an unreliable network connection.