Showing papers in "IEEE Access in 2020"

Can AI Help in Screening Viral and COVID-19 Pneumonia?

Abstract: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a pandemic disease, which has already caused thousands of causalities and infected several millions of people worldwide. Any technological tool enabling rapid screening of the COVID-19 infection with high accuracy can be crucially helpful to the healthcare professionals. The main clinical tool currently in use for the diagnosis of COVID-19 is the Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), which is expensive, less-sensitive and requires specialized medical personnel. X-ray imaging is an easily accessible tool that can be an excellent alternative in the COVID-19 diagnosis. This research was taken to investigate the utility of artificial intelligence (AI) in the rapid and accurate detection of COVID-19 from chest X-ray images. The aim of this paper is to propose a robust technique for automatic detection of COVID-19 pneumonia from digital chest X-ray images applying pre-trained deep-learning algorithms while maximizing the detection accuracy. A public database was created by the authors combining several public databases and also by collecting images from recently published articles. The database contains a mixture of 423 COVID-19, 1485 viral pneumonia, and 1579 normal chest X-ray images. Transfer learning technique was used with the help of image augmentation to train and validate several pre-trained deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). The networks were trained to classify two different schemes: i) normal and COVID-19 pneumonia; ii) normal, viral and COVID-19 pneumonia with and without image augmentation. The classification accuracy, precision, sensitivity, and specificity for both the schemes were 99.7%, 99.7%, 99.7% and 99.55% and 97.9%, 97.95%, 97.9%, and 98.8%, respectively. The high accuracy of this computer-aided diagnostic tool can significantly improve the speed and accuracy of COVID-19 diagnosis. This would be extremely useful in this pandemic where disease burden and need for preventive measures are at odds with available resources.

A Survey of Autonomous Driving: Common Practices and Emerging Technologies

Abstract: Automated driving systems (ADSs) promise a safe, comfortable and efficient driving experience. However, fatalities involving vehicles equipped with ADSs are on the rise. The full potential of ADSs cannot be realized unless the robustness of state-of-the-art is improved further. This paper discusses unsolved problems and surveys the technical aspect of automated driving. Studies regarding present challenges, high-level system architectures, emerging methodologies and core functions including localization, mapping, perception, planning, and human machine interfaces, were thoroughly reviewed. Furthermore, many state-of-the-art algorithms were implemented and compared on our own platform in a real-world driving setting. The paper concludes with an overview of available datasets and tools for ADS development.

A Comprehensive Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Role of IoT, Drones, AI, Blockchain, and 5G in Managing its Impact

Abstract: The unprecedented outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus, termed as COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO), has placed numerous governments around the world in a precarious position. The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, earlier witnessed by the citizens of China alone, has now become a matter of grave concern for virtually every country in the world. The scarcity of resources to endure the COVID-19 outbreak combined with the fear of overburdened healthcare systems has forced a majority of these countries into a state of partial or complete lockdown. The number of laboratory-confirmed coronavirus cases has been increasing at an alarming rate throughout the world, with reportedly more than 3 million confirmed cases as of 30 April 2020. Adding to these woes, numerous false reports, misinformation, and unsolicited fears in regards to coronavirus, are being circulated regularly since the outbreak of the COVID-19. In response to such acts, we draw on various reliable sources to present a detailed review of all the major aspects associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the direct health implications associated with the outbreak of COVID-19, this study highlights its impact on the global economy. In drawing things to a close, we explore the use of technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and 5G, among others, to help mitigate the impact of COVID-19 outbreak.

Digital Twin: Enabling Technologies, Challenges and Open Research

Abstract: Digital Twin technology is an emerging concept that has become the centre of attention for industry and, in more recent years, academia. The advancements in industry 4.0 concepts have facilitated its growth, particularly in the manufacturing industry. The Digital Twin is defined extensively but is best described as the effortless integration of data between a physical and virtual machine in either direction. The challenges, applications, and enabling technologies for Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) and Digital Twins are presented. A review of publications relating to Digital Twins is performed, producing a categorical review of recent papers. The review has categorised them by research areas: manufacturing, healthcare and smart cities, discussing a range of papers that reflect these areas and the current state of research. The paper provides an assessment of the enabling technologies, challenges and open research for Digital Twins.

Digital Twin: Values, Challenges and Enablers From a Modeling Perspective

Abstract: Digital twin can be defined as a virtual representation of a physical asset enabled through data and simulators for real-time prediction, optimization, monitoring, controlling, and improved decision making. Recent advances in computational pipelines, multiphysics solvers, artificial intelligence, big data cybernetics, data processing and management tools bring the promise of digital twins and their impact on society closer to reality. Digital twinning is now an important and emerging trend in many applications. Also referred to as a computational megamodel, device shadow, mirrored system, avatar or a synchronized virtual prototype, there can be no doubt that a digital twin plays a transformative role not only in how we design and operate cyber-physical intelligent systems, but also in how we advance the modularity of multi-disciplinary systems to tackle fundamental barriers not addressed by the current, evolutionary modeling practices. In this work, we review the recent status of methodologies and techniques related to the construction of digital twins mostly from a modeling perspective. Our aim is to provide a detailed coverage of the current challenges and enabling technologies along with recommendations and reflections for various stakeholders.

Pymoo: Multi-Objective Optimization in Python

Abstract: Python has become the programming language of choice for research and industry projects related to data science, machine learning, and deep learning. Since optimization is an inherent part of these research fields, more optimization related frameworks have arisen in the past few years. Only a few of them support optimization of multiple conflicting objectives at a time, but do not provide comprehensive tools for a complete multi-objective optimization task. To address this issue, we have developed pymoo, a multi-objective optimization framework in Python. We provide a guide to getting started with our framework by demonstrating the implementation of an exemplary constrained multi-objective optimization scenario. Moreover, we give a high-level overview of the architecture of pymoo to show its capabilities followed by an explanation of each module and its corresponding sub-modules. The implementations in our framework are customizable and algorithms can be modified/extended by supplying custom operators. Moreover, a variety of single, multi- and many-objective test problems are provided and gradients can be retrieved by automatic differentiation out of the box. Also, pymoo addresses practical needs, such as the parallelization of function evaluations, methods to visualize low and high-dimensional spaces, and tools for multi-criteria decision making. For more information about pymoo, readers are encouraged to visit: https://pymoo.org.

6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems

Abstract: 6G and beyond will fulfill the requirements of a fully connected world and provide ubiquitous wireless connectivity for all. Transformative solutions are expected to drive the surge for accommodating a rapidly growing number of intelligent devices and services. Major technological breakthroughs to achieve connectivity goals within 6G include: (i) a network operating at the THz band with much wider spectrum resources, (ii) intelligent communication environments that enable a wireless propagation environment with active signal transmission and reception, (iii) pervasive artificial intelligence, (iv) large-scale network automation, (v) an all-spectrum reconfigurable front-end for dynamic spectrum access, (vi) ambient backscatter communications for energy savings, (vii) the Internet of Space Things enabled by CubeSats and UAVs, and (viii) cell-free massive MIMO communication networks. In this roadmap paper, use cases for these enabling techniques as well as recent advancements on related topics are highlighted, and open problems with possible solutions are discussed, followed by a development timeline outlining the worldwide efforts in the realization of 6G. Going beyond 6G, promising early-stage technologies such as the Internet of NanoThings, the Internet of BioNanoThings, and quantum communications, which are expected to have a far-reaching impact on wireless communications, have also been discussed at length in this paper.

Internet of Things (IoT) for Next-Generation Smart Systems: A Review of Current Challenges, Future Trends and Prospects for Emerging 5G-IoT Scenarios

Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT)-centric concepts like augmented reality, high-resolution video streaming, self-driven cars, smart environment, e-health care, etc. have a ubiquitous presence now. These applications require higher data-rates, large bandwidth, increased capacity, low latency and high throughput. In light of these emerging concepts, IoT has revolutionized the world by providing seamless connectivity between heterogeneous networks (HetNets). The eventual aim of IoT is to introduce the plug and play technology providing the end-user, ease of operation, remotely access control and configurability. This paper presents the IoT technology from a bird’s eye view covering its statistical/architectural trends, use cases, challenges and future prospects. The paper also presents a detailed and extensive overview of the emerging 5G-IoT scenario. Fifth Generation (5G) cellular networks provide key enabling technologies for ubiquitous deployment of the IoT technology. These include carrier aggregation, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), massive-MIMO (M-MIMO), coordinated multipoint processing (CoMP), device-to-device (D2D) communications, centralized radio access network (CRAN), software-defined wireless sensor networking (SD-WSN), network function virtualization (NFV) and cognitive radios (CRs). This paper presents an exhaustive review for these key enabling technologies and also discusses the new emerging use cases of 5G-IoT driven by the advances in artificial intelligence, machine and deep learning, ongoing 5G initiatives, quality of service (QoS) requirements in 5G and its standardization issues. Finally, the paper discusses challenges in the implementation of 5G-IoT due to high data-rates requiring both cloud-based platforms and IoT devices based edge computing.

Unsupervised K-Means Clustering Algorithm

Abstract: The k-means algorithm is generally the most known and used clustering method. There are various extensions of k-means to be proposed in the literature. Although it is an unsupervised learning to clustering in pattern recognition and machine learning, the k-means algorithm and its extensions are always influenced by initializations with a necessary number of clusters a priori. That is, the k-means algorithm is not exactly an unsupervised clustering method. In this paper, we construct an unsupervised learning schema for the k-means algorithm so that it is free of initializations without parameter selection and can also simultaneously find an optimal number of clusters. That is, we propose a novel unsupervised k-means (U-k-means) clustering algorithm with automatically finding an optimal number of clusters without giving any initialization and parameter selection. The computational complexity of the proposed U-k-means clustering algorithm is also analyzed. Comparisons between the proposed U-k-means and other existing methods are made. Experimental results and comparisons actually demonstrate these good aspects of the proposed U-k-means clustering algorithm.

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Based Wireless Communications: Antenna Design, Prototyping, and Experimental Results

Abstract: One of the key enablers of future wireless communications is constituted by massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, which can improve the spectral efficiency by orders of magnitude. In existing massive MIMO systems, however, conventional phased arrays are used for beamforming. This method results in excessive power consumption and high hardware costs. Recently, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has been considered as one of the revolutionary technologies to enable energy-efficient and smart wireless communications, which is a two-dimensional structure with a large number of passive elements. In this paper, we develop a new type of high-gain yet low-cost RIS that bears 256 elements. The proposed RIS combines the functions of phase shift and radiation together on an electromagnetic surface, where positive intrinsic-negative (PIN) diodes are used to realize 2-bit phase shifting for beamforming. This radical design forms the basis for the world's first wireless communication prototype using RIS having 256 two-bit elements. The prototype consists of modular hardware and flexible software that encompass the following: the hosts for parameter setting and data exchange, the universal software radio peripherals (USRPs) for baseband and radio frequency (RF) signal processing, as well as the RIS for signal transmission and reception. Our performance evaluation confirms the feasibility and efficiency of RISs in wireless communications. We show that, at 2.3 GHz, the proposed RIS can achieve a 21.7 dBi antenna gain. At the millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency, that is, 28.5 GHz, it attains a 19.1 dBi antenna gain. Furthermore, it has been shown that the RIS-based wireless communication prototype developed is capable of significantly reducing the power consumption.

A Survey of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps

Abstract: The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has taken the world by surprise, forcing lockdowns and straining public health care systems COVID-19 is known to be a highly infectious virus, and infected individuals do not initially exhibit symptoms, while some remain asymptomatic Thus, a non-negligible fraction of the population can, at any given time, be a hidden source of transmissions In response, many governments have shown great interest in smartphone contact tracing apps that help automate the difficult task of tracing all recent contacts of newly identified infected individuals However, tracing apps have generated much discussion around their key attributes, including system architecture, data management, privacy, security, proximity estimation, and attack vulnerability In this article, we provide the first comprehensive review of these much-discussed tracing app attributes We also present an overview of many proposed tracing app examples, some of which have been deployed countrywide, and discuss the concerns users have reported regarding their usage We close by outlining potential research directions for next-generation app design, which would facilitate improved tracing and security performance, as well as wide adoption by the population at large

CovidGAN: Data Augmentation Using Auxiliary Classifier GAN for Improved Covid-19 Detection

Abstract: Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a viral disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The spread of COVID-19 seems to have a detrimental effect on the global economy and health. A positive chest X-ray of infected patients is a crucial step in the battle against COVID-19. Early results suggest that abnormalities exist in chest X-rays of patients suggestive of COVID-19. This has led to the introduction of a variety of deep learning systems and studies have shown that the accuracy of COVID-19 patient detection through the use of chest X-rays is strongly optimistic. Deep learning networks like convolutional neural networks (CNNs) need a substantial amount of training data. Because the outbreak is recent, it is difficult to gather a significant number of radiographic images in such a short time. Therefore, in this research, we present a method to generate synthetic chest X-ray (CXR) images by developing an Auxiliary Classifier Generative Adversarial Network (ACGAN) based model called CovidGAN. In addition, we demonstrate that the synthetic images produced from CovidGAN can be utilized to enhance the performance of CNN for COVID-19 detection. Classification using CNN alone yielded 85% accuracy. By adding synthetic images produced by CovidGAN,the accuracy increased to 95%. We hope this method will speed up COVID-19 detection and lead to more robust systems of radiology.

Explainable Machine Learning for Scientific Insights and Discoveries

Abstract: Machine learning methods have been remarkably successful for a wide range of application areas in the extraction of essential information from data. An exciting and relatively recent development is the uptake of machine learning in the natural sciences, where the major goal is to obtain novel scientific insights and discoveries from observational or simulated data. A prerequisite for obtaining a scientific outcome is domain knowledge, which is needed to gain explainability, but also to enhance scientific consistency. In this article, we review explainable machine learning in view of applications in the natural sciences and discuss three core elements that we identified as relevant in this context: transparency, interpretability, and explainability. With respect to these core elements, we provide a survey of recent scientific works that incorporate machine learning and the way that explainable machine learning is used in combination with domain knowledge from the application areas.

Communications in the 6G Era

Abstract: The focus of wireless research is increasingly shifting toward 6G as 5G deployments get underway. At this juncture, it is essential to establish a vision of future communications to provide guidance for that research. In this paper, we attempt to paint a broad picture of communication needs and technologies in the timeframe of 6G. The future of connectivity is in the creation of digital twin worlds that are a true representation of the physical and biological worlds at every spatial and time instant, unifying our experience across these physical, biological and digital worlds. New themes are likely to emerge that will shape 6G system requirements and technologies, such as: (i) new man-machine interfaces created by a collection of multiple local devices acting in unison; (ii) ubiquitous universal computing distributed among multiple local devices and the cloud; (iii) multi-sensory data fusion to create multi-verse maps and new mixed-reality experiences; and (iv) precision sensing and actuation to control the physical world. With rapid advances in artificial intelligence, it has the potential to become the foundation for the 6G air interface and network, making data, compute and energy the new resources to be exploited for achieving superior performance. In addition, in this paper we discuss the other major technology transformations that are likely to define 6G: (i) cognitive spectrum sharing methods and new spectrum bands; (ii) the integration of localization and sensing capabilities into the system definition, (iii) the achievement of extreme performance requirements on latency and reliability; (iv) new network architecture paradigms involving sub-networks and RAN-Core convergence; and (v) new security and privacy schemes.

Analysis of Dimensionality Reduction Techniques on Big Data

Abstract: Due to digitization, a huge volume of data is being generated across several sectors such as healthcare, production, sales, IoT devices, Web, organizations. Machine learning algorithms are used to uncover patterns among the attributes of this data. Hence, they can be used to make predictions that can be used by medical practitioners and people at managerial level to make executive decisions. Not all the attributes in the datasets generated are important for training the machine learning algorithms. Some attributes might be irrelevant and some might not affect the outcome of the prediction. Ignoring or removing these irrelevant or less important attributes reduces the burden on machine learning algorithms. In this work two of the prominent dimensionality reduction techniques, Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) are investigated on four popular Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, Decision Tree Induction, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naive Bayes Classifier and Random Forest Classifier using publicly available Cardiotocography (CTG) dataset from University of California and Irvine Machine Learning Repository. The experimentation results prove that PCA outperforms LDA in all the measures. Also, the performance of the classifiers, Decision Tree, Random Forest examined is not affected much by using PCA and LDA.To further analyze the performance of PCA and LDA the eperimentation is carried out on Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) and Intrusion Detection System (IDS) datasets. Experimentation results prove that ML algorithms with PCA produce better results when dimensionality of the datasets is high. When dimensionality of datasets is low it is observed that the ML algorithms without dimensionality reduction yields better results.

A survey of multi-access edge computing in 5G and beyond : fundamentals, technology integration, and state-of-the-art.

Abstract: Driven by the emergence of new compute-intensive applications and the vision of the Internet of Things (IoT), it is foreseen that the emerging 5G network will face an unprecedented increase in traffic volume and computation demands. However, end users mostly have limited storage capacities and finite processing capabilities, thus how to run compute-intensive applications on resource-constrained users has recently become a natural concern. Mobile edge computing (MEC), a key technology in the emerging fifth generation (5G) network, can optimize mobile resources by hosting compute-intensive applications, process large data before sending to the cloud, provide the cloud-computing capabilities within the radio access network (RAN) in close proximity to mobile users, and offer context-aware services with the help of RAN information. Therefore, MEC enables a wide variety of applications, where the real-time response is strictly required, e.g., driverless vehicles, augmented reality, robotics, and immerse media. Indeed, the paradigm shift from 4G to 5G could become a reality with the advent of new technological concepts. The successful realization of MEC in the 5G network is still in its infancy and demands for constant efforts from both academic and industry communities. In this survey, we first provide a holistic overview of MEC technology and its potential use cases and applications. Then, we outline up-to-date researches on the integration of MEC with the new technologies that will be deployed in 5G and beyond. We also summarize testbeds and experimental evaluations, and open source activities, for edge computing. We further summarize lessons learned from state-of-the-art research works as well as discuss challenges and potential future directions for MEC research.

Solutions to Scalability of Blockchain: a Survey

Abstract: Blockchain-based decentralized cryptocurrencies have drawn much attention and been widely-deployed in recent years. Bitcoin, the first application of blockchain, achieves great success and promotes more development in this field. However, Bitcoin encounters performance problems of low throughput and high transaction latency. Other cryptocurrencies based on proof-of-work also inherit the flaws, leading to more concerns about the scalability of blockchain. This paper attempts to cover the existing scaling solutions for blockchain and classify them by level. In addition, we make comparisons between different methods and list some potential directions for solving the scalability problem of blockchain.

Blockchain for Industry 4.0: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract: Due to the proliferation of ICT during the last few decades, there is an exponential increase in the usage of various smart applications such as smart farming, smart healthcare, supply-chain & logistics, business, tourism and hospitality, energy management etc. However, for all the aforementioned applications, security and privacy are major concerns keeping in view of the usage of the open channel, i.e., Internet for data transfer. Although many security solutions and standards have been proposed over the years to enhance the security levels of aforementioned smart applications, but the existing solutions are either based upon the centralized architecture (having single point of failure) or having high computation and communication costs. Moreover, most of the existing security solutions have focussed only on few aspects and fail to address scalability, robustness, data storage, network latency, auditability, immutability, and traceability. To handle the aforementioned issues, blockchain technology can be one of the solutions. Motivated from these facts, in this paper, we present a systematic review of various blockchain-based solutions and their applicability in various Industry 4.0-based applications. Our contributions in this paper are in four fold. Firstly, we explored the current state-of-the-art solutions in the blockchain technology for the smart applications. Then, we illustrated the reference architecture used for the blockchain applicability in various Industry 4.0 applications. Then, merits and demerits of the traditional security solutions are also discussed in comparison to their countermeasures. Finally, we provided a comparison of existing blockchain-based security solutions using various parameters to provide deep insights to the readers about its applicability in various applications.

Contrastive Representation Learning: A Framework and Review

Abstract: Contrastive Learning has recently received interest due to its success in self-supervised representation learning in the computer vision domain. However, the origins of Contrastive Learning date as far back as the 1990s and its development has spanned across many fields and domains including Metric Learning and natural language processing. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive literature review and we propose a general Contrastive Representation Learning framework that simplifies and unifies many different contrastive learning methods. We also provide a taxonomy for each of the components of contrastive learning in order to summarise it and distinguish it from other forms of machine learning. We then discuss the inductive biases which are present in any contrastive learning system and we analyse our framework under different views from various sub-fields of Machine Learning. Examples of how contrastive learning has been applied in computer vision, natural language processing, audio processing, and others, as well as in Reinforcement Learning are also presented. Finally, we discuss the challenges and some of the most promising future research directions ahead.

Artificial Intelligence and COVID-19: Deep Learning Approaches for Diagnosis and Treatment

Abstract: COVID-19 outbreak has put the whole world in an unprecedented difficult situation bringing life around the world to a frightening halt and claiming thousands of lives. Due to COVID-19's spread in 212 countries and territories and increasing numbers of infected cases and death tolls mounting to 5,212,172 and 334,915 (as of May 22 2020), it remains a real threat to the public health system. This paper renders a response to combat the virus through Artificial Intelligence (AI). Some Deep Learning (DL) methods have been illustrated to reach this goal, including Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), and Long/Short Term Memory (LSTM). It delineates an integrated bioinformatics approach in which different aspects of information from a continuum of structured and unstructured data sources are put together to form the user-friendly platforms for physicians and researchers. The main advantage of these AI-based platforms is to accelerate the process of diagnosis and treatment of the COVID-19 disease. The most recent related publications and medical reports were investigated with the purpose of choosing inputs and targets of the network that could facilitate reaching a reliable Artificial Neural Network-based tool for challenges associated with COVID-19. Furthermore, there are some specific inputs for each platform, including various forms of the data, such as clinical data and medical imaging which can improve the performance of the introduced approaches toward the best responses in practical applications.

COVID-19 Detection through Transfer Learning Using Multimodal Imaging Data

Abstract: Detecting COVID-19 early may help in devising an appropriate treatment plan and disease containment decisions. In this study, we demonstrate how transfer learning from deep learning models can be used to perform COVID-19 detection using images from three most commonly used medical imaging modes X-Ray, Ultrasound, and CT scan. The aim is to provide over-stressed medical professionals a second pair of eyes through intelligent deep learning image classification models. We identify a suitable Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model through initial comparative study of several popular CNN models. We then optimize the selected VGG19 model for the image modalities to show how the models can be used for the highly scarce and challenging COVID-19 datasets. We highlight the challenges (including dataset size and quality) in utilizing current publicly available COVID-19 datasets for developing useful deep learning models and how it adversely impacts the trainability of complex models. We also propose an image pre-processing stage to create a trustworthy image dataset for developing and testing the deep learning models. The new approach is aimed to reduce unwanted noise from the images so that deep learning models can focus on detecting diseases with specific features from them. Our results indicate that Ultrasound images provide superior detection accuracy compared to X-Ray and CT scans. The experimental results highlight that with limited data, most of the deeper networks struggle to train well and provides less consistency over the three imaging modes we are using. The selected VGG19 model, which is then extensively tuned with appropriate parameters, performs in considerable levels of COVID-19 detection against pneumonia or normal for all three lung image modes with the precision of up to 86% for X-Ray, 100% for Ultrasound and 84% for CT scans.

The Real-World-Weight Cross-Entropy Loss Function: Modeling the Costs of Mislabeling

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new metric to measure goodness-of-fit for classifiers: the Real World Cost function. This metric factors in information about a real world problem, such as financial impact, that other measures like accuracy or F1 do not. This metric is also more directly interpretable for users. To optimize for this metric, we introduce the Real-World-Weight Cross-Entropy loss function, in both binary classification and single-label multiclass classification variants. Both variants allow direct input of real world costs as weights. For single-label, multiclass classification, our loss function also allows direct penalization of probabilistic false positives, weighted by label, during the training of a machine learning model. We compare the design of our loss function to the binary cross-entropy and categorical cross-entropy functions, as well as their weighted variants, to discuss the potential for improvement in handling a variety of known shortcomings of machine learning, ranging from imbalanced classes to medical diagnostic error to reinforcement of social bias. We create scenarios that emulate those issues using the MNIST data set and demonstrate empirical results of our new loss function. Finally, we discuss our intuition about why this approach works and sketch a proof based on Maximum Likelihood Estimation.

LSTM-CNN Architecture for Human Activity Recognition

Abstract: In the past years, traditional pattern recognition methods have made great progress. However, these methods rely heavily on manual feature extraction, which may hinder the generalization model performance. With the increasing popularity and success of deep learning methods, using these techniques to recognize human actions in mobile and wearable computing scenarios has attracted widespread attention. In this paper, a deep neural network that combines convolutional layers with long short-term memory (LSTM) was proposed. This model could extract activity features automatically and classify them with a few model parameters. LSTM is a variant of the recurrent neural network (RNN), which is more suitable for processing temporal sequences. In the proposed architecture, the raw data collected by mobile sensors was fed into a two-layer LSTM followed by convolutional layers. In addition, a global average pooling layer (GAP) was applied to replace the fully connected layer after convolution for reducing model parameters. Moreover, a batch normalization layer (BN) was added after the GAP layer to speed up the convergence, and obvious results were achieved. The model performance was evaluated on three public datasets (UCI, WISDM, and OPPORTUNITY). Finally, the overall accuracy of the model in the UCI-HAR dataset is 95.78%, in the WISDM dataset is 95.85%, and in the OPPORTUNITY dataset is 92.63%. The results show that the proposed model has higher robustness and better activity detection capability than some of the reported results. It can not only adaptively extract activity features, but also has fewer parameters and higher accuracy.

COVID-19 Future Forecasting Using Supervised Machine Learning Models

Abstract: Machine learning (ML) based forecasting mechanisms have proved their significance to anticipate in perioperative outcomes to improve the decision making on the future course of actions. The ML models have long been used in many application domains which needed the identification and prioritization of adverse factors for a threat. Several prediction methods are being popularly used to handle forecasting problems. This study demonstrates the capability of ML models to forecast the number of upcoming patients affected by COVID-19 which is presently considered as a potential threat to mankind. In particular, four standard forecasting models, such as linear regression (LR), least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), support vector machine (SVM), and exponential smoothing (ES) have been used in this study to forecast the threatening factors of COVID-19. Three types of predictions are made by each of the models, such as the number of newly infected cases, the number of deaths, and the number of recoveries in the next 10 days. The results produced by the study proves it a promising mechanism to use these methods for the current scenario of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results prove that the ES performs best among all the used models followed by LR and LASSO which performs well in forecasting the new confirmed cases, death rate as well as recovery rate, while SVM performs poorly in all the prediction scenarios given the available dataset.

Federated Learning: A Survey on Enabling Technologies, Protocols, and Applications.

Abstract: This paper provides a comprehensive study of Federated Learning (FL) with an emphasis on enabling software and hardware platforms, protocols, real-life applications and use-cases. FL can be applicable to multiple domains but applying it to different industries has its own set of obstacles. FL is known as collaborative learning, where algorithm(s) get trained across multiple devices or servers with decentralized data samples without having to exchange the actual data. This approach is radically different from other more established techniques such as getting the data samples uploaded to servers or having data in some form of distributed infrastructure. FL on the other hand generates more robust models without sharing data, leading to privacy-preserved solutions with higher security and access privileges to data. This paper starts by providing an overview of FL. Then, it gives an overview of technical details that pertain to FL enabling technologies, protocols, and applications. Compared to other survey papers in the field, our objective is to provide a more thorough summary of the most relevant protocols, platforms, and real-life use-cases of FL to enable data scientists to build better privacy-preserving solutions for industries in critical need of FL. We also provide an overview of key challenges presented in the recent literature and provide a summary of related research work. Moreover, we explore both the challenges and advantages of FL and present detailed service use-cases to illustrate how different architectures and protocols that use FL can fit together to deliver desired results.

Weakly Supervised Deep Learning for COVID-19 Infection Detection and Classification From CT Images

Abstract: An outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease (i.e., COVID-19) has been recorded in Wuhan, China since late December 2019, which subsequently became pandemic around the world. Although COVID-19 is an acutely treated disease, it can also be fatal with a risk of fatality of 4.03% in China and the highest of 13.04% in Algeria and 12.67% Italy (as of 8th April 2020). The onset of serious illness may result in death as a consequence of substantial alveolar damage and progressive respiratory failure. Although laboratory testing, e.g., using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), is the golden standard for clinical diagnosis, the tests may produce false negatives. Moreover, under the pandemic situation, shortage of RT-PCR testing resources may also delay the following clinical decision and treatment. Under such circumstances, chest CT imaging has become a valuable tool for both diagnosis and prognosis of COVID-19 patients. In this study, we propose a weakly supervised deep learning strategy for detecting and classifying COVID-19 infection from CT images. The proposed method can minimise the requirements of manual labelling of CT images but still be able to obtain accurate infection detection and distinguish COVID-19 from non-COVID-19 cases. Based on the promising results obtained qualitatively and quantitatively, we can envisage a wide deployment of our developed technique in large-scale clinical studies.

An Overview on Edge Computing Research

Abstract: With the rapid development of the Internet of Everything (IoE), the number of smart devices connected to the Internet is increasing, resulting in large-scale data, which has caused problems such as bandwidth load, slow response speed, poor security, and poor privacy in traditional cloud computing models. Traditional cloud computing is no longer sufficient to support the diverse needs of today's intelligent society for data processing, so edge computing technologies have emerged. It is a new computing paradigm for performing calculations at the edge of the network. Unlike cloud computing, it emphasizes closer to the user and closer to the source of the data. At the edge of the network, it is lightweight for local, small-scale data storage and processing. This article mainly reviews the related research and results of edge computing. First, it summarizes the concept of edge computing and compares it with cloud computing. Then summarize the architecture of edge computing, keyword technology, security and privacy protection, and finally summarize the applications of edge computing.

Deep Learning Algorithms for Bearing Fault Diagnosticsx—A Comprehensive Review

Abstract: In this survey paper, we systematically summarize existing literature on bearing fault diagnostics with deep learning (DL) algorithms. While conventional machine learning (ML) methods, including artificial neural network, principal component analysis, support vector machines, etc., have been successfully applied to the detection and categorization of bearing faults for decades, recent developments in DL algorithms in the last five years have sparked renewed interest in both industry and academia for intelligent machine health monitoring. In this paper, we first provide a brief review of conventional ML methods, before taking a deep dive into the state-of-the-art DL algorithms for bearing fault applications. Specifically, the superiority of DL based methods are analyzed in terms of fault feature extraction and classification performances; many new functionalities enabled by DL techniques are also summarized. In addition, to obtain a more intuitive insight, a comparative study is conducted on the classification accuracy of different algorithms utilizing the open source Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) bearing dataset. Finally, to facilitate the transition on applying various DL algorithms to bearing fault diagnostics, detailed recommendations and suggestions are provided for specific application conditions. Future research directions to further enhance the performance of DL algorithms on health monitoring are also discussed.

Artificial Intelligence in Education: A Review

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on education. Premised on a narrative and framework for assessing AI identified from a preliminary analysis, the scope of the study was limited to the application and effects of AI in administration, instruction, and learning. A qualitative research approach, leveraging the use of literature review as a research design and approach was used and effectively facilitated the realization of the study purpose. Artificial intelligence is a field of study and the resulting innovations and developments that have culminated in computers, machines, and other artifacts having human-like intelligence characterized by cognitive abilities, learning, adaptability, and decision-making capabilities. The study ascertained that AI has extensively been adopted and used in education, particularly by education institutions, in different forms. AI initially took the form of computer and computer related technologies, transitioning to web-based and online intelligent education systems, and ultimately with the use of embedded computer systems, together with other technologies, the use of humanoid robots and web-based chatbots to perform instructors' duties and functions independently or with instructors. Using these platforms, instructors have been able to perform different administrative functions, such as reviewing and grading students' assignments more effectively and efficiently, and achieve higher quality in their teaching activities. On the other hand, because the systems leverage machine learning and adaptability, curriculum and content has been customized and personalized in line with students' needs, which has fostered uptake and retention, thereby improving learners experience and overall quality of learning.

Iteratively Pruned Deep Learning Ensembles for COVID-19 Detection in Chest X-Rays

Abstract: We demonstrate use of iteratively pruned deep learning model ensembles for detecting pulmonary manifestations of COVID-19 with chest X-rays This disease is caused by the novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, also known as the novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) A custom convolutional neural network and a selection of ImageNet pretrained models are trained and evaluated at patient-level on publicly available CXR collections to learn modality-specific feature representations The learned knowledge is transferred and fine-tuned to improve performance and generalization in the related task of classifying CXRs as normal, showing bacterial pneumonia, or COVID-19-viral abnormalities The best performing models are iteratively pruned to reduce complexity and improve memory efficiency The predictions of the best-performing pruned models are combined through different ensemble strategies to improve classification performance Empirical evaluations demonstrate that the weighted average of the best-performing pruned models significantly improves performance resulting in an accuracy of 9901% and area under the curve of 09972 in detecting COVID-19 findings on CXRs The combined use of modality-specific knowledge transfer, iterative model pruning, and ensemble learning resulted in improved predictions We expect that this model can be quickly adopted for COVID-19 screening using chest radiographs