A proposal for distinguishing between bacterial and viral meningitis using genetic programming and decision trees

Role of artificial intelligence in early diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases

Infectious diseases remain a global health challenge, necessitating innovative approaches for their early diagnosis and effective treatment. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force in healthcare, offering promising solutions to address this challenge. This review article provides a comprehensive overview of the pivotal role AI can play in the early diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases. It explores how AI-driven diagnostic tools, including machine learning algorithms, deep learning, and image recognition systems, enhance the accuracy and efficiency of disease detection and surveillance. Furthermore, it delves into the potential of AI to predict disease outbreaks, optimise treatment strategies, and personalise interventions based on individual patient data and how AI can be used to gear up the drug discovery and development (D3) process.The ethical considerations, challenges, and limitations associated with the integration of AI in infectious disease management are also examined. By harnessing the capabilities of AI, healthcare systems can significantly improve their preparedness, responsiveness, and outcomes in the battle against infectious diseases.

Supervised Machine Learning Methods for Seasonal Influenza Diagnosis

Influenza has been a stationary disease in Mexico since 2009, and this causes a high cost for the national public health system, including its detection using RT-qPCR tests, treatments, and absenteeism in the workplace. Despite influenza's relevance, the main clinical features to detect the disease defined by international institutions like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) do not follow the same pattern in all populations. The aim of this work is to find a machine learning method to facilitate decision making in the clinical differentiation between positive and negative influenza patients, based on their symptoms and demographic features. The research sample consisted of 15480 records, including clinical and demographic data of patients with a positive/negative RT-qPCR influenza tests, from 2010 to 2020 in the public healthcare institutions of Mexico City. The performance of the methods for classifying influenza cases were evaluated with indices like accuracy, specificity, sensitivity, precision, the f1-measure and the area under the curve (AUC). Results indicate that random forest and bagging classifiers were the best supervised methods; they showed promise in supporting clinical diagnosis, especially in places where performing molecular tests might be challenging or not feasible.

Development and validation of an artificial intelligence model for the early classification of the aetiology of meningitis and encephalitis: a retrospective observational study

Background

Early diagnosis and appropriate treatment are essential in meningitis and encephalitis management. We aimed to implement and verify an artificial intelligence (AI) model for early aetiological determination of patients with encephalitis and meningitis, and identify important variables in the classification process.

Methods

In this retrospective observational study, patients older than 18 years old with meningitis or encephalitis at two centres in South Korea were enrolled for development (n = 283) and external validation (n = 220) of AI models, respectively. Their clinical variables within 24 h after admission were used for the multi-classification of four aetiologies including autoimmunity, bacteria, virus, and tuberculosis. The aetiology was determined based on the laboratory test results of cerebrospinal fluid conducted during hospitalization. Model performance was assessed using classification metrics, including the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), recall, precision, accuracy, and F1 score. Comparisons were performed between the AI model and three clinicians with varying neurology experience. Several techniques (eg, Shapley values, F score, permutation feature importance, and local interpretable model-agnostic explanations weights) were used for the explainability of the AI model.

Findings

Between January 1, 2006, and June 30, 2021, 283 patients were enrolled in the training/test dataset. An ensemble model with extreme gradient boosting and TabNet showed the best performance among the eight AI models with various settings in the external validation dataset (n = 220); accuracy, 0.8909; precision, 0.8987; recall, 0.8909; F1 score, 0.8948; AUROC, 0.9163. The AI model outperformed all clinicians who achieved a maximum F1 score of 0.7582, by demonstrating a performance of F1 score greater than 0.9264.

Interpretation

This is the first multiclass classification study for the early determination of the aetiology of meningitis and encephalitis based on the initial 24-h data using an AI model, which showed high performance metrics. Future studies can improve upon this model by securing and inputting time-series variables and setting various features about patients, and including a survival analysis for prognosis prediction.

Funding

MD-PhD/Medical Scientist Training Program through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea.

Analysis on determining the solution of fourth-order fuzzy initial value problem with Laplace operator

This study presents a new analytical method to extract the fuzzy solution of the fuzzy initial value problem (FIVP) of fourth-order fuzzy ordinary differential equations (FODEs) using the Laplace operator under the strongly generalized Hukuhara differentiability (SGH-differentiability). To this end, firstly the fourth-order derivative of the fuzzy valued function (FVF) according to the type of the SGH-differentiability is introduced, and then the relationships between the fourth-order derivative of the FVF and its Laplace transform are established. Furthermore, considering the types of differentiabilities and switching points, some fundamental theorems related to the Laplace transform of the fourth-order derivative of the FVF are stated and proved in detail and a method to solve FIVP by the fuzzy Laplace transform is presented in detail. An application of our proposed method in Resistance-Inductance circuit (RL circuit) is presented. Finally, FIVP's solution is graphically analyzed to visualize and support theoretical results.

An Improved Trilateration Positioning Algorithm with Anchor Node Combination and K-Means Clustering

As a classic positioning algorithm with a simple principle and low computational complexity, the trilateration positioning algorithm utilizes the coordinates of three anchor nodes to determine the position of an unknown node, which is widely applied in various positioning scenes. However, due to the environmental noise, environmental interference, the distance estimation error, the uncertainty of anchor nodes' coordinates, and other negative factors, the positioning error increases significantly. For this problem, we propose a new trilateration algorithm based on the combination and K-Means clustering to effectively remove the positioning results with significant errors in this paper, which makes full use of the position and distance information of the anchor nodes in the area. In this method, after analyzing the factors affecting the optimization of the trilateration and selecting optimal parameters, we carry out experiments to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed algorithm. We also compare the positioning accuracy and positioning efficiency of the proposed algorithm with those of other algorithms in different environments. According to the comparison of the least-squares method, the maximum likelihood method, the classical trilateration and the proposed trilateration, the results of the experiments show that the proposed trilateration algorithm performs well in the positioning accuracy and efficiency in both light-of-sight (LOS) and non-light-of-sight (NLOS) environments. Then, we test our approach in three realistic environments, i.e., indoor, outdoor and hall. The experimental results show that when there are few available anchor nodes, the proposed localization method reduces the mean distance error compared with the classical trilateration, the least-squares method, and the maximum likelihood.

A genetic programming-based approach for classifying pancreatic adenocarcinoma: the SICED experience

Ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas is a cancer with a high mortality rate. Among the main reasons for this baleful prognosis is that, in most patients, this neoplasm is diagnosed at a too advanced stage. Clinical oncology research is now particularly focused on decoding the cancer molecular onset by understanding the complex biological architecture of tumor cell proliferation. In this direction, machine learning has proved to be a valid solution in many sectors of the biomedical field, thanks to its ability to mine useful knowledge by biological and genetic data. Since the major risk factor is represented by genetic predisposition, the aim of this study is to find a mathematical model describing the complex relationship existing between genetic mutations of the involved genes and the onset of the disease. To this end, an approach based on evolutionary algorithms is proposed. In particular, genetic programming is used, which allows solving a symbolic regression problem through the use of genetic algorithms. The identification of these correlations is a typical objective of the diagnostic approach and is one of the most critical and complex activities in the presence of large amounts of data that are difficult to correlate through traditional statistical techniques. The mathematical model obtained highlights the importance of the complex relationship existing between the different gene’s mutations present in the tumor tissue of the group of patients considered.

Applications of Machine Learning in Knowledge Management System: A Comprehensive Review

As new generations of technology appear, legacy knowledge management solutions and applications become increasingly out of date, necessitating a paradigm shift. Machine learning presents an opportunity by foregoing rule-based knowledge intensive systems inundating the marketplace. An extensive review was made on the literature pertaining to machine learning which common machine learning algorithms were identified. This study has analysed more than 200 papers extracted from Scopus and IEEE databases. Searches ranged with the bulk of the articles from 2018 to 2021, while some articles ranged from 1959 to 2017. The research gap focusses on implementing machine learning algorithm to knowledge management systems, specifically knowledge management attributes. By investigating and reviewing each algorithm extensively, the usability of each algorithm is identified, with its advantages and disadvantages. From there onwards, these algorithms were mapped for what area of knowledge management it may be beneficial. Based on the findings, it is evidently seen how these algorithms are applicable in knowledge management and how it can enhance knowledge management system further. Based on the findings, the paper aims to bridge the gap between the literature in knowledge management and machine learning. A knowledge management–machine learning framework is conceived based on the review done on each algorithm earlier and to bridge the gap between the two literatures. The framework highlights how machine learning algorithm can play a part in different areas of knowledge management. From the framework, it provides practitioners how and where to implement machine learning in knowledge management.

Micro-Scale Spherical and Cylindrical Surface Modeling via Metaheuristic Algorithms and Micro Laser Line Projection

With the increasing micro-scale manufacturing industry, the micro-scale spherical and cylindrical surface modeling has become an important factor in the manufacturing process. Thus, the micro-scale manufacturing processes require efficient micro-scale spherical and cylindrical models to achieve accurate assembly. Therefore, it is necessary to implement models to represent micro-scale spherical and cylindrical surfaces. This study addresses metaheuristic algorithms based on micro laser line projection to perform micro-scale spherical and cylindrical surface modeling. In this technique, the micro-scale surface is recovered by an optical microscope system, which computes the surface coordinates via micro laser line projection. From the surface coordinates, a genetic algorithm determines the parameters of the mathematical models to represent the spherical and cylindrical surfaces. The genetic algorithm performs exploration and exploitation in the search space to optimize the models’ mathematical parameters. The search space is constructed via surface data to provide the optimal parameters, which determine the spherical and cylindrical surface models. The proposed technique improves the fitting accuracy of the micro-scale spherical and cylindrical surface modeling performed via optical microscope systems. This contribution is elucidated by a discussion about the model fitting between the genetic algorithms based on micro laser line projection and the optical microscope systems.

Parallel Particle Swarm Optimization Using Apache Beam

The majority of complex research problems can be formulated as optimization problems. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is very effective in solving optimization problems because of its robustness, simplicity, and global search capabilities. Since the computational cost of these problems is usually high, it has been necessary to develop optimization algorithms with parallelization. With the advent of big-data technology, such problems can be solved by distributed parallel computing. In previous related work, MapReduce (a programming model that implements a distributed parallel approach to processing and producing large datasets on a cluster) has been used to parallelize the PSO algorithm, but frequent file reads and writes make the execution time of MRPSO very long. We propose Apache Beam particle swarm optimization (BPSO), which uses Apache Beam parallel programming model. In the experiment, we compared BPSO and PSO based on MapReduce (MRPSO) on four benchmark functions by changing the number of particles and optimizing the dimensions of the problem. The experimental results show that, as the number of particles increases, MRPSO remains largely constant when the number of particles is small (<1000), while the time required for algorithm execution increases rapidly when the number of particles exceeds a certain amount (>1000), while BPSO grows slowly and tends to yield better results than MRPSO. As the dimensionality of the optimization problem increases, BPSO can take half the time of MRPSO and obtain better results than it does. MRPSO requires more execution time than BPSO, as the problem complexity varies, but both MRPSO and BPSO are not very sensitive to problem complexity. All program code and input data are uploaded to GitHub.

Optimisation of the Magnetic Circuit of a Measuring Head for Diagnostics of Steel-Polyurethane Load-Carrying Belts Using Numerical Methods

The paper describes the process of a prototype head optimisation for magnetic diagnostics of steel-polyurethane load-carrying belts. The prototype, validated on a number of cranes, was subject to an improvement and optimisation attempt using numerical analysis of magnetic field distribution in the magnetic circuit, tested load-carrying belt, and environment. The analysis was carried out in the ANSYS environment using PDS—Probabilistic Design System tools (DOE—Design of Experiment). Taking the dimensions of individual elements of the magnetic circuit, material densities, and magnetic material properties as the input data, the magnetic circuit was optimised with respect to metrological properties as well as mass and size criteria. Based on the analyses carried out and the results obtained, the head design was modernised, which involved changing the geometry of elements forming the magnetic circuit. Based on observations made during tests of the prototype version of the device performed on real objects, several improvements were also proposed, consisting of the replacement of selected components with elements printed in the FDM technology. The correctness of the performed numerical analyses was verified by comparing the measured and calculated values of the total magnetic field induction in the defined plane of the magnetic circuit. The prototype versions of heads before and after modernisation were subject to comparative tests. Under laboratory conditions, both versions of heads were used to diagnose the steel-polyurethane load-carrying belts with modelled damages. The obtained test results and their statistical characteristics were analysed in detail.

Differential Evolution Algorithm for Optimizing the Energy Usage of Vertical Transportation in an Elevator (VTE), Taking into Consideration Rush Hour Management and COVID-19 Prevention

This research aimed to develop an effective algorithm to minimize the energy use of vertical transportation in elevators while controlling the number of passengers in the elevator waiting area and the number of passengers in the elevator during rush hour, thus maintaining social distancing to limit the spread of COVID-19. A mobile application and Internet of Things (IoT) devices were used to electronically communicate between the elevator’s control system and the passengers. IoT devices were used to reduce the number of passengers waiting for an elevator and passengers’ waiting time, while the energy consumption of the lift was reduced by using passenger scheduling and elevator stopping strategies. Three mathematical models were formulated to represent the different strategies used to cause the elevator to stop. These strategies were normal (allowing the elevator to stop at every floor), odd–even (some elevators are allowed to stop at odd floors and others are allowed to stop at even floors of the building), and high–low (some elevators are allowed to stop at high floors and others are allowed to stop at low floors of the building). Lingo v.11 and the differential evolution algorithm (DE) were used to address the optimal scheduling of the passengers and the elevators. The computational results show that the odd–even strategy had a 13.91–23.71% lower energy consumption compared with the high–low and normal strategies. Furthermore, the use of DE consumed 6.67–7.99% less energy than the use of Lingo.v11. Finally, the combination of DE and the designed application reduced the number of waiting passengers, the average passenger waiting time, and the total energy consumption by 74.55%, 75.12%, and 45.01%, respectively.

Balancing a U-Shaped Assembly Line with a Heuristic Algorithm Based on a Comprehensive Rank Value

An aim of sustainable development of the manufacturing industry is to reduce the idle time in the product-assembly process and improve the balance efficiency of the assembly line. A priority relationship diagram is obtained on an existing assembly line in the laboratory by measuring the task time of the chassis model, analyzing the product structure, and designing the assembly process. The type-E balance model of the U-shaped assembly line is established and solved by a heuristic algorithm based on the comprehensive rank value. The type-E balance problem of the U-shaped assembly-line plan of the chassis model is obtained, and the production line layout is planned. Combining instances to compare the results of the heuristic algorithm, genetic algorithm, and simulated annealing, comparison of the results shows that the degree of load balancing is slightly higher than genetic algorithm and simulated annealing. The balance efficiencies obtained by the heuristic algorithm are smaller than the genetic algorithm and simulated annealing. The calculation time is significantly less than the genetic algorithm and simulated annealing, and the scale of instances has little effect on the calculation time. The results verify that the model and the algorithm are effective. This study provides a reference for the entire process of the U-shaped assembly-line, type-E balance and the assembly products in laboratories.

Metaheuristic with Cooperative Processes for the University Course Timetabling Problem

This work presents a metaheuristic with distributed processing that finds solutions for an optimization model of the university course timetabling problem, where collective communication and point-to-point communication are applied, which are used to generate cooperation between processes. The metaheuristic performs the optimization process with simulated annealing within each solution that each process works. The highlight of this work is presented in the algorithmic design for optimizing the problem by applying cooperative processes. In each iteration of the proposed heuristics, collective communication allows the master process to identify the process with the best solution and point-to-point communication allows the best solution to be sent to the master process so that it can be distributed to all the processes in progress in order to direct the search toward a space of solutions which is close to the best solution found at the time. This search is performed by applying simulated annealing. On the other hand, the mathematical representation of an optimization model present in the literature of the university course timing problem is performed. The results obtained in this work show that the proposed metaheuristics improves the results of other metaheuristics for all test instances. Statistical analysis shows that the proposed metaheuristic presents a different behavior from the other metaheuristics with which it is compared.

Innovations in infectious disease testing: Leveraging COVID-19 pandemic technologies for the future

Innovations in infectious disease testing have improved our abilities to detect and understand the microbial world. The 2019 novel coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) pandemic introduced new innovations including non-prescription “over the counter” infectious disease tests, mass spectrometry-based detection of COVID-19 host response, and the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to identify individuals infected by the severe acute respiratory syndrome - coronavirus – 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic; these innovative solutions will give rise to a new era of infectious disease tests extending beyond the detection of SARS-CoV-2. To this end, the purpose of this review is to summarize current trends in infectious disease testing and discuss innovative applications specifically in the areas of POC testing, MS, molecular diagnostics, sample types, and AI/ML.

Evolving Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Infectious Diseases Testing

Background

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are poised to transform infectious disease testing. Uniquely, infectious disease testing is technologically diverse spaces in laboratory medicine, where multiple platforms and approaches may be required to support clinical decision-making. Despite advances in laboratory informatics, the vast array of infectious disease data is constrained by human analytical limitations. Machine learning can exploit multiple data streams, including but not limited to laboratory information and overcome human limitations to provide physicians with predictive and actionable results. As a quickly evolving area of computer science, laboratory professionals should become aware of AI/ML applications for infectious disease testing as more platforms are become commercially available.

Content

In this review we: (a) define both AI/ML, (b) provide an overview of common ML approaches used in laboratory medicine, (c) describe the current AI/ML landscape as it relates infectious disease testing, and (d) discuss the future evolution AI/ML for infectious disease testing in both laboratory and point-of-care applications.

Summary

The review provides an important educational overview of AI/ML technique in the context of infectious disease testing. This includes supervised ML approaches, which are frequently used in laboratory medicine applications including infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, sepsis, hepatitis, malaria, meningitis, Lyme disease, and tuberculosis. We also apply the concept of “data fusion” describing the future of laboratory testing where multiple data streams are integrated by AI/ML to provide actionable clinical knowledge.

Formation Control of a Multi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Event-Triggered Mechanism Based on the Hungarian Algorithm

Among the key technologies of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) leader–follower formations control, formation reconfiguration technology is one of the main technologies to ensure that multiple AUVs successfully complete their tasks in a complex operating environment. The biggest drawback of the leader–follower formations technology is the failure of the leader and the excessive communication pressure of the leader. Aiming at the problem of leader failure in multi- AUV leader–follower formations, the Hungarian algorithm is used to reconstruct the failed formation with a minimum cost, and the improvement of the Hungarian algorithm can solve the problem of a non-standard assignment. In order to solve the problem of an increased leader communication task after formation reconfiguration, the application of an event-triggered mechanism (ETM) can reduce unnecessary and useless communication, while the efficiency of the ETM can be improved through increasing the event-triggered conditions of the sampling error threshold. The simulation results of multi-AUV formation control show that the Hungarian algorithm proposed in this paper can deal with the leader failure in the multi-AUV leader–follower formation, and the ETM designed in this paper can reduce about 90% of the communication traffic of the formation which also proves the highly efficient performance of the improved ETM in the paper.

Mixed Scheduling Model for Limited-Stop and Normal Bus Service with Fleet Size Constraint

Limited-stop service is useful to increase operation efficiency where the demand is unbalanced at different stops and unidirectional. A mixed scheduling model for limited-stop buses and normal buses is proposed considering the fleet size constraint. This model can optimize the total cost in terms of waiting time, in-vehicle time and operation cost by simultaneously adjusting the frequencies of limited-stop buses and normal buses. The feasibility and validity of the proposed model is shown by applying it to one bus route in the city of Zhenjiang, China. The results indicate that the mixed scheduling service can reduce the total cost and travel time compared with the single scheduling service in the case of unbalanced passenger flow distribution and fleet constraints. With a larger fleet, the mixed scheduling service is superior. There is an optimal fleet allocation that minimizes the cost for the system, and a significant saving could be attained by the mixed scheduling service. This study contributed to the depth analysis of the relationship among the influencing factors of mixed scheduling, such as fleet size constraint, departure interval and cost.

Simultaneous Feature Selection and Support Vector Machine Optimization Using an Enhanced Chimp Optimization Algorithm

Chimp Optimization Algorithm (ChOA), a novel meta-heuristic algorithm, has been proposed in recent years. It divides the population into four different levels for the purpose of hunting. However, there are still some defects that lead to the algorithm falling into the local optimum. To overcome these defects, an Enhanced Chimp Optimization Algorithm (EChOA) is developed in this paper. Highly Disruptive Polynomial Mutation (HDPM) is introduced to further explore the population space and increase the population diversity. Then, the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient between the chimps with the highest fitness and the lowest fitness is calculated. In order to avoid the local optimization, the chimps with low fitness values are introduced with Beetle Antenna Search Algorithm (BAS) to obtain visual ability. Through the introduction of the above three strategies, the ability of population exploration and exploitation is enhanced. On this basis, this paper proposes an EChOA-SVM model, which can optimize parameters while selecting the features. Thus, the maximum classification accuracy can be achieved with as few features as possible. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, the proposed method is compared with seven common methods, including the original algorithm. Seventeen benchmark datasets from the UCI machine learning library are used to evaluate the accuracy, number of features, and fitness of these methods. Experimental results show that the classification accuracy of the proposed method is better than the other methods on most data sets, and the number of features required by the proposed method is also less than the other algorithms.

Production scheduling of off-site prefabricated construction components considering sequence dependent due dates

The growing environmental concerns, excessive utilization of natural resources, and high energy consumption have put a severe pressure on the construction industry to adopt new methods in response to these challenges. As a remedy, prefabricated construction methods are broadly utilized to enhance the productivity of the construction activities. However, challenges associated with on-time production of precast components have not adequately been addressed. Thus, this study proposes a new insight to the theory of scheduling dealing with sequence-dependent due dates, in which total weighted earliness and tardiness are minimized. To tackle uncertainties and complexities associated with the stochastic nature of production problems, three integrated simulation-optimization algorithms, which employ simulation methods inside a metaheuristic framework, are proposed. Three metaheuristic algorithms, including genetic algorithm (GA), differential evolution (DE), and imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA), are employed to minimize objective function. A series of computational tests are conducted to investigate the performance of these approaches. Results indicate that integrated DE-simulation approach can provide better results in comparison with other approaches.

Intelligent Backpropagation Networks with Bayesian Regularization for Mathematical Models of Environmental Economic Systems

The research community of environmental economics has had a growing interest for the exploration of artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems to provide enriched efficiencies and strengthened human knacks in daily live maneuvers, business stratagems, and society evolution. In this investigation, AI-based intelligent backpropagation networks of Bayesian regularization (IBNs-BR) were exploited for the numerical treatment of mathematical models representing environmental economic systems (EESs). The governing relations of EESs were presented in the form of differential models representing their fundamental compartments or indicators for economic and environmental parameters. The reference datasets of EESs were assembled using the Adams numerical solver for different EES scenarios and were used as targets of IBNs-BR to find the approximate solutions. Comparative studies based on convergence curves on the mean square error (MSE) and absolute deviation from the reference results were used to verify the correctness of IBNs-BR for solving EESs, i.e., MSE of around 10−9 to 10−10 and absolute error close to 10−5 to 10−7. The endorsement of results was further validated through performance evaluation by means of error histogram analysis, the regression index, and the mean squared deviation-based figure of merit for each EES scenario.

Cross-Project Defect Prediction Method Based on Manifold Feature Transformation

Traditional research methods in software defect prediction use part of the data in the same project to train the defect prediction model and predict the defect label of the remaining part of the data. However, in the practical realm of software development, the software project that needs to be predicted is generally a brand new software project, and there is not enough labeled data to build a defect prediction model; therefore, traditional methods are no longer applicable. Cross-project defect prediction uses the labeled data of the same type of project similar to the target project to build the defect prediction model, so as to solve the problem of data loss in traditional methods. However, the difference in data distribution between the same type of project and the target project reduces the performance of defect prediction. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a cross-project defect prediction method based on manifold feature transformation. This method transforms the original feature space of the project into a manifold space, then reduces the difference in data distribution of the transformed source project and the transformed target project in the manifold space, and finally uses the transformed source project to train a naive Bayes prediction model with better performance. A comparative experiment was carried out using the Relink dataset and the AEEEM dataset. The experimental results show that compared with the benchmark method and several cross-project defect prediction methods, the proposed method effectively reduces the difference in data distribution between the source project and the target project, and obtains a higher F1 value, which is an indicator commonly used to measure the performance of the two-class model.

Optimal model for the aircraft arrival and departure scheduling problem with fuzzy runway incursion time

This paper presents an optimization model for assigning a set of arrival and departure flights to multiple runways and determining their actual times with consideration of incursions. Due to the lack of data, fuzzy incursion time is used to describe the uncertainty with the help of artificial experience. Moreover, the multiple-goal priority considerations of air traffic controllers are also fully considered in this model. The two objectives are to simultaneously minimize delays in arrival and departure flights. Since this problem is NP-hard, a novel polynomial algorithm based on queuing theory is also proposed to obtain acceptable solutions efficiently. Finally, a real-world example is provided to analyze the effect of different times and places of incursion events on the scheduling scheme, which can verify the correctness of the model. Results show that higher runway incursion times lead to longer queue lengths for take-off and landing flights, resulting in more flight delays.

A Data-Trait-Driven Rolling Decomposition-Ensemble Model for Gasoline Consumption Forecasting

In order to predict the gasoline consumption in China, this paper propose a novel data-trait-driven rolling decomposition-ensemble model. This model consists of five steps: the data trait test, data decomposition, component trait analysis, component prediction and ensemble output. In the data trait test and component trait analysis, the original time series and each decomposed component are thoroughly analyzed to explore hidden data traits. According to these results, decomposition models and prediction models are selected to complete the original time series data decomposition and decomposed component prediction. In the ensemble output, the ensemble method corresponding to the decomposition method is used for final aggregation. In particular, this methodology introduces the rolling mechanism to solve the misuse of future information problem. In order to verify the effectiveness of the model, the quarterly gasoline consumption data from four provinces in China are used. The experimental results show that the proposed model is significantly better than the single prediction models and decomposition-ensemble models without the rolling mechanism. It can be seen that the decomposition-ensemble model with data-trait-driven modeling ideas and rolling decomposition and prediction mechanism possesses the superiority and robustness in terms of the evaluation criteria of horizontal and directional prediction.

Effect of Data Scaling Methods on Machine Learning Algorithms and Model Performance

Heart disease, one of the main reasons behind the high mortality rate around the world, requires a sophisticated and expensive diagnosis process. In the recent past, much literature has demonstrated machine learning approaches as an opportunity to efficiently diagnose heart disease patients. However, challenges associated with datasets such as missing data, inconsistent data, and mixed data (containing inconsistent missing data both as numerical and categorical) are often obstacles in medical diagnosis. This inconsistency led to a higher probability of misprediction and a misled result. Data preprocessing steps like feature reduction, data conversion, and data scaling are employed to form a standard dataset—such measures play a crucial role in reducing inaccuracy in final prediction. This paper aims to evaluate eleven machine learning (ML) algorithms—Logistic Regression (LR), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Classification and Regression Trees (CART), Naive Bayes (NB), Support Vector Machine (SVM), XGBoost (XGB), Random Forest Classifier (RF), Gradient Boost (GB), AdaBoost (AB), Extra Tree Classifier (ET)—and six different data scaling methods—Normalization (NR), Standscale (SS), MinMax (MM), MaxAbs (MA), Robust Scaler (RS), and Quantile Transformer (QT) on a dataset comprising of information of patients with heart disease. The result shows that CART, along with RS or QT, outperforms all other ML algorithms with 100% accuracy, 100% precision, 99% recall, and 100% F1 score. The study outcomes demonstrate that the model’s performance varies depending on the data scaling method.

Trust aware routing using sunflower sine cosine-based stacked autoencoder approach for EEG signal classification in WSN

Trust-aware routing is the significant direction for designing the secure routing protocol in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). However, the trust-aware routing mechanism is implemented to evaluate the trustworthiness of the neighboring nodes based on the set of trust factors. Various trust-aware routing protocols are developed to route the data with minimum delay, but detecting the route with good quality poses a challenging issue in the research community. Therefore, an effective method named Sunflower Sine Cosine (SFSC)-based stacked autoencoder is designed to perform Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal classification using trust-aware routing in WSN. Moreover, the proposed SFSC algorithm incorporates Sunflower Optimization (SFO) and Sine Cosine Algorithm (SCA) that reveals an optimal solution, which is the optimal route used to transmit the EEG signal. Initially, the trust factors are computed from the nodes simulated in the network environment, and thereby, the trust-based routing is performed to achieve EEG signal classification. The proposed SFSC-based stacked autoencoder attained better performance by selecting the optimal path based on the fitness parameters, like energy, trust, and distance. The performance of the proposed approach is analyzed using the metrics, such as sensitivity, accuracy, and specificity. The proposed approach acquires 94.708%, 94.431%, and 95.780% sensitivity, accuracy, and specificity, respectively, with 150 nodes.

Improved Effort and Cost Estimation Model Using Artificial Neural Networks and Taguchi Method with Different Activation Functions

Software estimation involves meeting a huge number of different requirements, such as resource allocation, cost estimation, effort estimation, time estimation, and the changing demands of software product customers. Numerous estimation models try to solve these problems. In our experiment, a clustering method of input values to mitigate the heterogeneous nature of selected projects was used. Additionally, homogeneity of the data was achieved with the fuzzification method, and we proposed two different activation functions inside a hidden layer, during the construction of artificial neural networks (ANNs). In this research, we present an experiment that uses two different architectures of ANNs, based on Taguchi’s orthogonal vector plans, to satisfy the set conditions, with additional methods and criteria for validation of the proposed model, in this approach. The aim of this paper is the comparative analysis of the obtained results of mean magnitude relative error (MMRE) values. At the same time, our goal is also to find a relatively simple architecture that minimizes the error value while covering a wide range of different software projects. For this purpose, six different datasets are divided into four chosen clusters. The obtained results show that the estimation of diverse projects by dividing them into clusters can contribute to an efficient, reliable, and accurate software product assessment. The contribution of this paper is in the discovered solution that enables the execution of a small number of iterations, which reduces the execution time and achieves the minimum error.

Genetic programming with separability detection for symbolic regression

Genetic Programming (GP) is a popular and powerful evolutionary optimization algorithm that has a wide range of applications such as symbolic regression, classification and program synthesis. However, existing GPs often ignore the intrinsic structure of the ground truth equation of the symbolic regression problem. To improve the search efficacy of GP on symbolic regression problems by fully exploiting the intrinsic structure information, this paper proposes a genetic programming with separability detection technique (SD-GP). In the proposed SD-GP, a separability detection method is proposed to detect additive separable characteristics of input features from the observed data. Then based on the separability detection results, a chromosome representation is proposed, which utilizes multiple sub chromosomes to represent the final solution. Some sub chromosomes are used to construct separable sub functions by using separate input features, while the other sub chromosomes are used to construct sub functions by using all input features. The final solution is the weighted sum of all sub functions, and the optimal weights of sub functions are obtained by using the least squares method. In this way, the structure information can be learnt and the global search ability of GP can be maintained. Experimental results on synthetic problems with differing characteristics have demonstrated that the proposed SD-GP can perform better than several state-of-the-art GPs in terms of the success rate of finding the optimal solution and the convergence speed.

P2PCF: A collaborative filtering based recommender system for peer to peer social networks

The recent privacy incidents reported in major media about global social networks raised real public concerns about centralized architectures. P2P social networks constitute an interesting paradigm to give back users control over their data and relations. While basic social network functionalities such as commenting, following, sharing, and publishing content are widely available, more advanced features related to information retrieval and recommendation are still challenging. This is due to the absence of a central server that has a complete view of the network. In this paper, we propose a new recommender system called P2PCF. We use collaborative filtering approach to recommend content in P2P social networks. P2PCF enables privacy preserving and tackles the cold start problem for both users and content. Our proposed approach assumes that the rating matrix is distributed within peers, in such a way that each peer only sees interactions made by her friends on her timeline. Recommendations are then computed locally within each peer before they are sent back to the requester. Our evaluations prove the effectiveness of our proposal compared to a centralized scheme in terms of recall and coverage.

In silico analysis of the antimicrobial activity of phytochemicals: towards a technological breakthrough

BACKGROUND

The complications associated with infections from pathogens increasingly resistant to traditional drugs lead to a constant increase in the mortality rate among those affected. In such cases the fundamental purpose of the microbiology laboratory is to determine the sensitivity profile of pathogens to antimicrobial agents. This is an intense and complex work often not facilitated by the test's characteristics. Despite the evolution of the Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (AST) technologies, the technological breakthrough that could guide and facilitate the search for new antimicrobial agents is still missing.

METHODS

In this work, we propose the experimental use of in silico instruments, particularly feedforward Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) Artificial Neural Network, and Genetic Programming (GP), to verify, but also to predict, the effectiveness of natural and experimental mixtures of polyphenols against several microbial strains.

RESULTS

We value the results in predicting the antimicrobial sensitivity profile from the mixture data. Trained MLP shows very high correlations coefficients (0,93 and 0,97) and mean absolute errors (110,70 and 56,60) in determining the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration and Minimum Microbicidal Concentration, respectively, while GP not only evidences very high correlation coefficients (0,89 and 0,96) and low mean absolute errors (6,99 and 5,60) in the same tasks, but also gives an explicit representation of the acquired knowledge about the polyphenol mixtures.

CONCLUSIONS

In silico tools can help to predict phytobiotics antimicrobial efficacy, providing an useful strategy to innovate and speed up the extant classic microbiological techniques.

Estimation of COVID-19 epidemic curves using genetic programming algorithm

This paper investigates the possibility of the implementation of Genetic Programming (GP) algorithm on a publicly available COVID-19 data set, in order to obtain mathematical models which could be used for estimation of confirmed, deceased, and recovered cases and the estimation of epidemiology curve for specific countries, with a high number of cases, such as China, Italy, Spain, and USA and as well as on the global scale. The conducted investigation shows that the best mathematical models produced for estimating confirmed and deceased cases achieved R² scores of 0.999, while the models developed for estimation of recovered cases achieved the R² score of 0.998. The equations generated for confirmed, deceased, and recovered cases were combined in order to estimate the epidemiology curve of specific countries and on the global scale. The estimated epidemiology curve for each country obtained from these equations is almost identical to the real data contained within the data set.

Improved Metaheuristic Optimization Algorithm Applied to Hydrogen Fuel Cell and Photovoltaic Cell Parameter Extraction

As carriers of green energy, proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and photovoltaic (PV) cells are complex and nonlinear multivariate systems. For simulation analysis, optimization control, efficacy prediction, and fault diagnosis, it is crucial to rapidly and accurately establish reliability modules and extract parameters from the system modules. This study employed three types of particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms to find the optimal parameters of two energy models by minimizing the sum squared errors (SSE) and roots mean squared errors (RMSE). The three algorithms are inertia weight PSO, constriction PSO, and momentum PSO. The obtained calculation results of these three algorithms were compared with those obtained using algorithms from other relevant studies. This study revealed that the use of momentum PSO enables rapid convergence (under 30 convergence times) and the most accurate modeling and yields the most stable parameter extraction (SSE of PEMFC is 2.0656, RMSE of PV cells is 8.839 · 10−4). In summary, momentum PSO is the algorithm that is most suitable for system parameter identification with multiple dimensions and complex modules.

Road Traffic Prediction Model Using Extreme Learning Machine: The Case Study of Tangier, Morocco

An efficient and credible approach to road traffic management and prediction is a crucial aspect in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). It can strongly influence the development of road structures and projects. It is also essential for route planning and traffic regulations. In this paper, we propose a hybrid model that combines extreme learning machine (ELM) and ensemble-based techniques to predict the future hourly traffic of a road section in Tangier, a city in the north of Morocco. The model was applied to a real-world historical data set extracted from fixed sensors over a 5-years period. Our approach is based on a type of Single hidden Layer Feed-forward Neural Network (SLFN) known for being a high-speed machine learning algorithm. The model was, then, compared to other well-known algorithms in the prediction literature. Experimental results demonstrated that, according to the most commonly used criteria of error measurements (RMSE, MAE, and MAPE), our model is performing better in terms of prediction accuracy. The use of Akaike’s Information Criterion technique (AIC) has also shown that the proposed model has a higher performance.

Intelligent Sea States Identification Based on Maximum Likelihood Evidential Reasoning Rule

It is necessary to switch the control strategies for propulsion system frequently according to the changes of sea states in order to ensure the stability and safety of the navigation. Therefore, identifying the current sea state timely and effectively is of great significance to ensure ship safety. To this end, a reasoning model that is based on maximum likelihood evidential reasoning (MAKER) rule is developed to identify the propeller ventilation type, and the result is used as the basis for the sea states identification. Firstly, a data-driven MAKER model is constructed, which fully considers the interdependence between the input features. Secondly, the genetic algorithm (GA) is used to optimize the parameters of the MAKER model in order to improve the evaluation accuracy. Finally, a simulation is built to obtain experimental data to train the MAKER model, and the validity of the model is verified. The results show that the intelligent sea state identification model that is based on the MAKER rule can identify the propeller ventilation type more accurately, and finally realize intelligent identification of sea states.

An Evolutionary Perspective of Virus Propagation

This paper presents an evolutionary algorithm that simulates simplified scenarios of the diffusion of an infectious disease within a given population. The proposed evolutionary epidemic diffusion (EED) computational model has a limited number of variables and parameters, but is still able to simulate a variety of configurations that have a good adherence to real-world cases. The use of two space distances and the calculation of spatial 2-dimensional entropy are also examined. Several simulations demonstrate the feasibility of the EED for testing distinct social, logistic and economy risks. The performance of the system dynamics is assessed by several variables and indices. The global information is efficiently condensed and visualized by means of multidimensional scaling.

DDTree: A Hybrid Deep Learning Model for Real-Time Waterway Depth Prediction and Smart Navigation

Timely and accurate depth estimation of a shallow waterway can improve shipping efficiency and reduce the danger of waterway transport accidents. However, waterway depth data measured during actual maritime navigation is limited, and the depth values can have large variability. Big data collected in real time by automatic identification systems (AIS) might provide a way to estimate accurate waterway depths, although these data include no direct channel depth information. We suggest a deep neural network (DNN) based model, called DDTree, for using the real-time AIS data and the data from Global Mapper to predict waterway depth for ships in an accurate and timely way. The model combines a decision tree and DNN, which is trained and tested on the AIS and Global Mapper data from the Nantong and Fangcheng ports on the southeastern and southwestern coast of China. The actual waterway depth data were used together with the AIS data as the input to DDTree. The latest data on waterway depths from the Chinese maritime agency were used to verify the results. The experiments show that the DDTree model has a prediction accuracy of 91.15%. Therefore, the DDTree model can provide an accurate prediction of waterway depth and compensate for the shortage of waterway depth monitoring means. The proposed hybrid DDTree model could improve marine situational awareness, navigation safety, and shipping efficiency, and contribute to smart navigation.

Classification of Kidney Cancer Data Using Cost-Sensitive Hybrid Deep Learning Approach

Recently, large-scale bioinformatics and genomic data have been generated using advanced biotechnology methods, thus increasing the importance of analyzing such data. Numerous data mining methods have been developed to process genomic data in the field of bioinformatics. We extracted significant genes for the prognosis prediction of 1157 patients using gene expression data from patients with kidney cancer. We then proposed an end-to-end, cost-sensitive hybrid deep learning (COST-HDL) approach with a cost-sensitive loss function for classification tasks on imbalanced kidney cancer data. Here, we combined the deep symmetric auto encoder; the decoder is symmetric to the encoder in terms of layer structure, with reconstruction loss for non-linear feature extraction and neural network with balanced classification loss for prognosis prediction to address data imbalance problems. Combined clinical data from patients with kidney cancer and gene data were used to determine the optimal classification model and estimate classification accuracy by sample type, primary diagnosis, tumor stage, and vital status as risk factors representing the state of patients. Experimental results showed that the COST-HDL approach was more efficient with gene expression data for kidney cancer prognosis than other conventional machine learning and data mining techniques. These results could be applied to extract features from gene biomarkers for prognosis prediction of kidney cancer and prevention and early diagnosis.

Machine learning for clinical decision support in infectious diseases: a narrative review of current applications

BACKGROUND

Machine learning (ML) is a growing field in medicine. This narrative review describes the current body of literature on ML for clinical decision support in infectious diseases (ID).

OBJECTIVES

We aim to inform clinicians about the use of ML for diagnosis, classification, outcome prediction and antimicrobial management in ID.

SOURCES

References for this review were identified through searches of MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, Google Scholar, biorXiv, ACM Digital Library, arXiV and IEEE Xplore Digital Library up to July 2019.

CONTENT

We found 60 unique ML-clinical decision support systems (ML-CDSS) aiming to assist ID clinicians. Overall, 37 (62%) focused on bacterial infections, 10 (17%) on viral infections, nine (15%) on tuberculosis and four (7%) on any kind of infection. Among them, 20 (33%) addressed the diagnosis of infection, 18 (30%) the prediction, early detection or stratification of sepsis, 13 (22%) the prediction of treatment response, four (7%) the prediction of antibiotic resistance, three (5%) the choice of antibiotic regimen and two (3%) the choice of a combination antiretroviral therapy. The ML-CDSS were developed for intensive care units (n = 24, 40%), ID consultation (n = 15, 25%), medical or surgical wards (n = 13, 20%), emergency department (n = 4, 7%), primary care (n = 3, 5%) and antimicrobial stewardship (n = 1, 2%). Fifty-three ML-CDSS (88%) were developed using data from high-income countries and seven (12%) with data from low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). The evaluation of ML-CDSS was limited to measures of performance (e.g. sensitivity, specificity) for 57 ML-CDSS (95%) and included data in clinical practice for three (5%).

IMPLICATIONS

Considering comprehensive patient data from socioeconomically diverse healthcare settings, including primary care and LMICs, may improve the ability of ML-CDSS to suggest decisions adapted to various clinical contexts. Currents gaps identified in the evaluation of ML-CDSS must also be addressed in order to know the potential impact of such tools for clinicians and patients.