AI and deep learning for processing the huge amount of patient-centric data that assist in clinical decisions

The area of clinical decision support systems (CDSS) is facing a boost in research and development with the increasing amount of data in clinical analysis together with new tools to support patient care. This creates a vibrant and challenging environment for the medical and technical staff. This chapter presents a discussion about the challenges and trends of CDSS considering big data and patient-centered constraints. Two case studies are presented in detail. The first presents the development of a big data and AI classification system for maternal and fetal ambulatory monitoring, composed by different solutions such as the implementation of an Internet of Things sensors and devices network, a fuzzy inference system for emergency alarms, a feature extraction model based on signal processing of the fetal and maternal data, and finally a deep learning classifier with six convolutional layers achieving an F1-score of 0.89 for the case of both maternal and fetal as harmful. The system was designed to support maternal–fetal ambulatory premises in developing countries, where the demand is extremely high and the number of medical specialists is very low. The second case study considered two artificial intelligence approaches to providing efficient prediction of infections for clinical decision support during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. First, LSTM recurrent neural networks were considered with the model achieving R2=0.93 and MAE=40,604.4 in average, while the best, R2=0.9939, was achieved for the time series 3. Second, an open-source framework called H2O AutoML was considered with the "stacked ensemble” approach and presented the best performance followed by XGBoost. Brazil has been one of the most challenging environments during the pandemic and where efficient predictions may be the difference in saving lives. The presentation of such different approaches (ambulatory monitoring and epidemiology data) is important to illustrate the large spectrum of AI tools to support clinical decision-making. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Explainable AI to Analyze Outcomes of Spike Neural Network in Covid-19 Chest X-rays

Analysis of irregularities in Covid-19 data could open a new window to learn more about the unprecedented problems of the current global pandemic. Of many, radiographs and clinical records are reliable sources for viral infection investigation and treatment planning. Clinical records help track the Covid-19 pandemic. In this paper, we present a Spike Neural Network (SNN) with supervised synaptic learning to detect abnormalities in Chest X-rays (CXRs) In other words, the proposed SNN can distinguish Covid-19 positive cases from healthy ones. In our decision-making procedure, we introduce clinical practice so Explainable AI (XAI) is possible to carry out. In addition, Support Vector Machine (SVM) with local interpretable model-agnostic explanation (LIME) provides reliable analysis of abnormalities in Covid-19 clinical data. © 2021 IEEE.

Determining the Impact of Perspex Obstacles on Bluetooth Transmission Paths Within a Simulated Office Environment for More Accurate Location Determination

Research on Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) for indoor environments establishes Bluetooth Low Energy as a promising technological low-cost solution for various environments. However, in indoor environments, there are numerous obstacles such as furniture, walls, partitions, etc. that will cause obstructions to Bluetooth signals. This research established the effect of Perspex on Bluetooth transmission in an indoor environment. This research extends on our previous research which evaluated RTLS technologies, RTLS constraints, and an energy efficient design model for sensor detection in indoor environments. Perspex was chosen for this research as it is used as a common shield used to minimize COVID transmission in an office environment. In general, the 3 mm and 5 mm Perspex did not have a significant impact on Bluetooth transmission. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Prediction for Decision Support During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The task known as prediction is widely applied in several different areas of knowledge, from popular applications such as weather forecasting, going through supply chain management, an increasing range of adoption in healthcare and, more specifically in epidemiology, the central topic of this book. The new challenges brought with the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the possibilities and necessity of using prediction techniques to support decisions related to epidemiology in both managerial and clinical areas. In practice, the current outbreak created a strong need for the adoption of different computational models to support both medical teams and public health administrators. The methods vary from simple linear regressions to very complex algorithms based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. The present chapter contextualizes the use of prediction for decision support as a foundation of the following chapters which are focused on the application for the COVID-19 pandemic time series. With such a large number of methods for data-driven predictions, a clear distinction between explanation and prediction is firstly provided. From there, a methodological framework is presented, from the data source definition and selection of countries as references for the analysis, going through data handling for validation, until the definition of the evaluation criteria for the proposed models. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Predicting the Geographic Spread of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study from Brazil

The support provided by geographic data and the corresponding processing tools can play an essential role to support decision-making process, especially for public healthcare during the current pandemic outbreak of the COVID-19. Geographic data collection may be challenging when is necessary to obtain precise latitude and longitude, for example. The current chapter presents a new tool for the geographic location prediction of new cases of COVID-19, considering the confirmed cases in the city of Fortaleza, capital of the State of Ceara, Brazil. The methodology is based on a sequential approach of four clustering algorithms: Agglomerative Clustering, DBSCAN, Mean Shift, and K-Means followed by a two-dimensional predictor based on the Kalman filter. The results are presented following a case study approach with different examples of implementation and the corresponding analysis of the results. The proposed technique could generally predict the trend of the infection geographically in Fortaleza and effectively supported the decision-making process of public healthcare analysts and managers from the Secretariat of Health of the State of Ceara. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Nonlinear Prediction for the COVID-19 Data Based on Quadratic Kalman Filtering

Considering the application of prediction techniques to support the decision-making process during a dynamic environment such as the one faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, demands the evaluation of several different strategies to compare and define the most suitable solution for each necessity of prediction. Analyzing the epidemic time series, for example, the number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 per day, classic compartmental models or linear regressions may not provide results with enough precision to support managerial or clinical decisions. The application of nonlinear models is an alternative to improve the performance of these models. The Kalman Filter (KF) is a state-space model that is used in several applications as a predictor. The filter algorithm requires low computational power and provides estimates of some unknown variables given the measurements observed over time. In this chapter, the KF predictor is considered in the analysis of five countries (China, United States, Brazil, Italy, and Singapore). Similarly to the ARIMA methodology, the results are evaluated based on three criteria: R2 Score, MAE (Mean Absolute Error), and MSE (Mean Square Error). It is important to notice that the definition of a predictor for epidemiological time series shall be carefully evaluated and more complex implementations do not always represent a better prediction on average. For the proposed KF predictor, there were specific time-series samples with no satisfactory result, achieving a negative R2 Score, for example, while, on the other, other samples achieved higher R2 Score and lower MAE and MSE, when compared to other linear predictors. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Forecasting COVID-19 Time Series Based on an Autoregressive Model

When considering time-series forecasting, the application of autoregressive models is a popular and simple technique that is usually considered. In this chapter, we present the basic theoretical aspects and assumptions of the ARIMA—Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average model. It is considered for the prediction of the COVID-19 epidemiological data series of five different countries (China, United States, Brazil, Italy, and Singapore), each of them with specific curves, which are results of the virus reproduction itself but also of policies and government decisions during the pandemic spread. The discussion about the results is performed with the focus on the three evaluation criteria of the model: R2 Score, MAE, and MSE. Higher R2 Score was obtained when the sample time series was smoothly increasing or decreasing. The error metrics were higher when the prediction was performed for oscillating data series. This may indicate that the use of ARIMA models may be suitable as a prediction tool for the COVID-19 when the country is not facing severe oscillations in the number of infections. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Epidemiology Compartmental Models—SIR, SEIR, and SEIR with Intervention

The process of decision-making when dealing with infectious diseases is firmly based on mathematical modeling nowadays. One usual approach is to consider the adoption of compartmental methods such as SIR and SEIR and a large number of corresponding variations for modeling and prediction epidemic time series. Nevertheless, the COVID-19 epidemic characteristics and curves are apparently challenging the results obtained by these models. This chapter presents the results of two traditional compartmental models, SIR (Susceptible—Infected–Recovered) and SEIR (Susceptible–Exposed–Infected–Recovered), and an adapted version of the SEIR, called SEIR with Intervention, which captures the impact of containment measures for the dynamics of the infection rate. The analysis is performed for five countries: China, United States, Brazil, Italy, and Singapore, each of them with specific characteristics of dealing with the pandemic. A sequence of results is presented, considering different parameters, in order to understand the feasibility of application for each model. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Artificial Intelligence Prediction for the COVID-19 Data Based on LSTM Neural Networks and H2O AutoML

The use of computational intelligence techniques is being considered for a vast number of applications not only because of its increasing popularity but also because the results achieve good performance and are promising to keep improving. In this chapter, we present the basic theoretical aspects and assumptions of the LSTM model and H20 AutoML framework. It is evaluated on the prediction of the COVID-19 epidemiological data series for five different countries (China, United States, Brazil, Italy, and Singapore), each of them with specific curves, which are results of policies and decisions during the pandemic spread. The discussion about the results is performed with the focus on three evaluation criteria: R2 Score, MAE, and MSE. Higher R2 Score was obtained when the sample time series was smoothly increasing or decreasing. The results obtained by the AutoML framework achieved a higher R2 Score and lower MAE and MSE when compared with LSTM and also with other techniques proposed in the book, such as ARIMA and Kalman predictor. The application of machine learning algorithm selector might be a promising candidate for a good predictor for epidemic time series. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.