Assessment of Primary Human Liver Cancer Cells by Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Raman Spectroscopy

We investigated the possibility of using Raman spectroscopy assisted by artificial intelligence methods to identify liver cancer cells and distinguish them from their Non-Tumor counterpart. To this aim, primary liver cells (40 Tumor and 40 Non-Tumor cells) obtained from resected hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumor tissue and the adjacent non-tumor area (negative control) were analyzed by Raman micro-spectroscopy. Preliminarily, the cells were analyzed morphologically and spectrally. Then, three machine learning approaches, including multivariate models and neural networks, were simultaneously investigated and successfully used to analyze the cells' Raman data. The results clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted Raman spectroscopy for Tumor cell classification and prediction with an accuracy of nearly 90% of correct predictions on a single spectrum.

A systematic review on artificial intelligence techniques for detecting thyroid diseases

The use of artificial intelligence approaches in health-care systems has grown rapidly over the last few years. In this context, early detection of diseases is the most common area of application. In this scenario, thyroid diseases are an example of illnesses that can be effectively faced if discovered quite early. Detecting thyroid diseases is crucial in order to treat patients effectively and promptly, by saving lives and reducing healthcare costs. This work aims at systematically reviewing and analyzing the literature on various artificial intelligence-related techniques applied to the detection and identification of various diseases related to the thyroid gland. The contributions we reviewed are classified according to different viewpoints and taxonomies in order to highlight pros and cons of the most recent research in the field. After a careful selection process, we selected and reviewed 72 papers, analyzing them according to three main research questions, i.e., which diseases of the thyroid gland are detected by different artificial intelligence techniques, which datasets are used to perform the aforementioned detection, and what types of data are used to perform the detection. The review demonstrates that the majority of the considered papers deal with supervised methods to detect hypo- and hyperthyroidism. The average accuracy of detection is high (96.84%), but the usage of private and outdated datasets with a majority of clinical data is very common. Finally, we discuss the outcomes of the systematic review, pointing out advantages, disadvantages, and future developments in the application of artificial intelligence for thyroid diseases detection.

Deep neural networks ensemble to detect COVID-19 from CT scans

Research on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) detection methods has increased in the last months as more accurate automated toolkits are required. Recent studies show that CT scan images contain useful information to detect the COVID-19 disease. However, the scarcity of large and well balanced datasets limits the possibility of using detection approaches in real diagnostic contexts as they are unable to generalize. Indeed, the performance of these models quickly becomes inadequate when applied to samples captured in different contexts (e.g., different equipment or populations) from those used in the training phase. In this paper, a novel ensemble-based approach for more accurate COVID-19 disease detection using CT scan images is proposed. This work exploits transfer learning using pre-trained deep networks (e.g., VGG, Xception, and ResNet) evolved with a genetic algorithm, combined into an ensemble architecture for the classification of clustered images of lung lobes. The study is validated on a new dataset obtained as an integration of existing ones. The results of the experimental evaluation show that the ensemble classifier ensures effective performance, also exhibiting better generalization capabilities.

An approach for semantic integration of heterogeneous data sources

Integrating data from multiple heterogeneous data sources entails dealing with data distributed among heterogeneous information sources, which can be structured, semi-structured or unstructured, and providing the user with a unified view of these data. Thus, in general, gathering information is challenging, and one of the main reasons is that data sources are designed to support specific applications. Very often their structure is unknown to the large part of users. Moreover, the stored data is often redundant, mixed with information only needed to support enterprise processes, and incomplete with respect to the business domain. Collecting, integrating, reconciling and efficiently extracting information from heterogeneous and autonomous data sources is regarded as a major challenge. In this paper, we present an approach for the semantic integration of heterogeneous data sources, DIF (Data Integration Framework), and a software prototype to support all aspects of a complex data integration process. The proposed approach is an ontology-based generalization of both Global-as-View and Local-as-View approaches. In particular, to overcome problems due to semantic heterogeneity and to support interoperability with external systems, ontologies are used as a conceptual schema to represent both data sources to be integrated and the global view.

Tracing Links Between Business Processes and Software Systems

The traceability links existing between a business process and the supporting software systems s is a critical concern for the organizations, as it directly affects their performance. Methodologies and tools are needed for detecting these kinds of relationships and keeping an evidence of the existing connections. This paper proposes an approach for modelling a business processes evidencing the links existing between their activities and the components of the supporting software systems. The approach described in this paper is concerned with the use of information retrieval techniques to software maintenance and, in particular, to the problem of recovering traceability links between the business process models and the components of the supporting software system. An information retrieval approach is introduced based on two processing phases including syntactic and semantic analysis. The application of the approach is explored through a case study.