A Fetal Well-Being Diagnostic Method Based on Cardiotocographic Morphological Pattern Utilizing Autoencoder and Recursive Feature Elimination.

Cardiotocography (CTG), which measures the fetal heart rate (FHR) and maternal uterine contractions (UC) simultaneously, is used for monitoring fetal well-being during delivery or antenatally at the third trimester. Baseline FHR and its response to uterine contractions can be used to diagnose fetal distress, which may necessitate therapeutic intervention. In this study, a machine learning model based on feature extraction (autoencoder), feature selection (recursive feature elimination), and Bayesian optimization, was proposed to diagnose and classify the different conditions of fetuses (Normal, Suspect, Pathologic) along with the CTG morphological patterns. The model was evaluated on a publicly available CTG dataset. This research also addressed the imbalance nature of the CTG dataset. The proposed model has a potential application as a decision support tool to manage pregnancies. The proposed model resulted in good performance analysis metrics. Using this model with Random Forest resulted in a model accuracy of 96.62% for fetal status classification and 94.96% for CTG morphological pattern classification. In rational terms, the model was able to accurately predict 98% Suspect cases and 98.6% Pathologic cases in the dataset. The combination of predicting and classifying fetal status as well as the CTG morphological patterns shows potential in monitoring high-risk pregnancies.

Classification of Retinal Diseases in Optical Coherence Tomography Images Using Artificial Intelligence and Firefly Algorithm.

In recent years, the number of studies for the automatic diagnosis of biomedical diseases has increased. Many of these studies have used Deep Learning, which gives extremely good results but requires a vast amount of data and computing load. If the processor is of insufficient quality, this takes time and places an excessive load on the processor. On the other hand, Machine Learning is faster than Deep Learning and does not have a much-needed computing load, but it does not provide as high an accuracy value as Deep Learning. Therefore, our goal is to develop a hybrid system that provides a high accuracy value, while requiring a smaller computing load and less time to diagnose biomedical diseases such as the retinal diseases we chose for this study. For this purpose, first, retinal layer extraction was conducted through image preprocessing. Then, traditional feature extractors were combined with pre-trained Deep Learning feature extractors. To select the best features, we used the Firefly algorithm. In the end, multiple binary classifications were conducted instead of multiclass classification with Machine Learning classifiers. Two public datasets were used in this study. The first dataset had a mean accuracy of 0.957, and the second dataset had a mean accuracy of 0.954.

Fracture Detection in Wrist X-ray Images Using Deep Learning-Based Object Detection Models.

Hospitals, especially their emergency services, receive a high number of wrist fracture cases. For correct diagnosis and proper treatment of these, images obtained from various medical equipment must be viewed by physicians, along with the patient's medical records and physical examination. The aim of this study is to perform fracture detection by use of deep-learning on wrist X-ray images to support physicians in the diagnosis of these fractures, particularly in the emergency services. Using SABL, RegNet, RetinaNet, PAA, Libra R-CNN, FSAF, Faster R-CNN, Dynamic R-CNN and DCN deep-learning-based object detection models with various backbones, 20 different fracture detection procedures were performed on Gazi University Hospital's dataset of wrist X-ray images. To further improve these procedures, five different ensemble models were developed and then used to reform an ensemble model to develop a unique detection model, 'wrist fracture detection-combo (WFD-C)'. From 26 different models for fracture detection, the highest detection result obtained was 0.8639 average precision (AP50) in the WFD-C model. Huawei Turkey R&D Center supports this study within the scope of the ongoing cooperation project coded 071813 between Gazi University, Huawei and Medskor.

A Computer-Aided Diagnosis System for Measuring Carotid Artery Intima-Media Thickness (IMT) Using Quaternion Vectors.

This study aims investigating adjustable distant fuzzy c-means segmentation on carotid Doppler images, as well as quaternion-based convolution filters and saliency mapping procedures. We developed imaging software that will simplify the measurement of carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) on saliency mapping images. Additionally, specialists evaluated the present images and compared them with saliency mapping images. In the present research, we conducted imaging studies of 25 carotid Doppler images obtained by the Department of Cardiology at Firat University. After implementing fuzzy c-means segmentation and quaternion-based convolution on all Doppler images, we obtained a model that can be analyzed easily by the doctors using a bottom-up saliency model. These methods were applied to 25 carotid Doppler images and then interpreted by specialists. In the present study, we used color-filtering methods to obtain carotid color images. Saliency mapping was performed on the obtained images, and the carotid artery IMT was detected and interpreted on the obtained images from both methods and the raw images are shown in Results. Also these results were investigated by using Mean Square Error (MSE) for the raw IMT images and the method which gives the best performance is the Quaternion Based Saliency Mapping (QBSM). 0,0014 and 0,000191 mm(2) MSEs were obtained for artery lumen diameters and plaque diameters in carotid arteries respectively. We found that computer-based image processing methods used on carotid Doppler could aid doctors' in their decision-making process. We developed software that could ease the process of measuring carotid IMT for cardiologists and help them to evaluate their findings.

Neonatal Jaundice Detection System.

Neonatal jaundice is a common condition that occurs in newborn infants in the first week of life. Today, techniques used for detection are required blood samples and other clinical testing with special equipment. The aim of this study is creating a non-invasive system to control and to detect the jaundice periodically and helping doctors for early diagnosis. In this work, first, a patient group which is consisted from jaundiced babies and a control group which is consisted from healthy babies are prepared, then between 24 and 48 h after birth, 40 jaundiced and 40 healthy newborns are chosen. Second, advanced image processing techniques are used on the images which are taken with a standard smartphone and the color calibration card. Segmentation, pixel similarity and white balancing methods are used as image processing techniques and RGB values and pixels' important information are obtained exactly. Third, during feature extraction stage, with using colormap transformations and feature calculation, comparisons are done in RGB plane between color change values and the 8-color calibration card which is specially designed. Finally, in the bilirubin level estimation stage, kNN and SVR machine learning regressions are used on the dataset which are obtained from feature extraction. At the end of the process, when the control group is based on for comparisons, jaundice is succesfully detected for 40 jaundiced infants and the success rate is 85 %. Obtained bilirubin estimation results are consisted with bilirubin results which are obtained from the standard blood test and the compliance rate is 85 %.

Gastric Cancer Regional Detection System.

In this study, a novel system was created to localize cancerous regions for stomach images which were taken with computed tomography(CT). The aim was to determine the coordinates of cancerous regions which spread in the stomach area in the color space with using this system. Also, to limit these areas with a high accuracy ratio and to feedback to the user of this system were the other objectives. This integration was performed with using energy mapping, analysis methods and multiple image processing methods and the system which was consisted from these advanced algorithms was appeared. For this work, in the range of 25-40 years and when gender discrimination was insignificant, 30 volunteer patients were chosen. During the formation of the system, to exalt the accuracy to the maximum level, 2 main stages were followed up. First, in the system, advanced image processing methods were processed between each other and obtained data were studied. Second, in the system, FFT and Log transformations were used respectively for the first two cases, then these transformations were used together for the third case. For totally three cases, energy distribution and DC energy intensity analysis were done and the performance of this system was investigated. Finally, with using the system's unique algorithms, a non-invasive method was achieved to detect the gastric cancer and when FFT and Log transformation were used together, the maximum success rate was obtained and this rate was calculated as 83,3119 %.

A new approach to optic disc detection in human retinal images using the firefly algorithm.

There are various methods and algorithms to detect the optic discs in retinal images. In recent years, much attention has been given to the utilization of the intelligent algorithms. In this paper, we present a new automated method of optic disc detection in human retinal images using the firefly algorithm. The firefly intelligent algorithm is an emerging intelligent algorithm that was inspired by the social behavior of fireflies. The population in this algorithm includes the fireflies, each of which has a specific rate of lighting or fitness. In this method, the insects are compared two by two, and the less attractive insects can be observed to move toward the more attractive insects. Finally, one of the insects is selected as the most attractive, and this insect presents the optimum response to the problem in question. Here, we used the light intensity of the pixels of the retinal image pixels instead of firefly lightings. The movement of these insects due to local fluctuations produces different light intensity values in the images. Because the optic disc is the brightest area in the retinal images, all of the insects move toward brightest area and thus specify the location of the optic disc in the image. The results of implementation show that proposed algorithm could acquire an accuracy rate of 100 % in DRIVE dataset, 95 % in STARE dataset, and 94.38 % in DiaRetDB1 dataset. The results of implementation reveal high capability and accuracy of proposed algorithm in the detection of the optic disc from retinal images. Also, recorded required time for the detection of the optic disc in these images is 2.13 s for DRIVE dataset, 2.81 s for STARE dataset, and 3.52 s for DiaRetDB1 dataset accordingly. These time values are average value.

The rate of mucosal healing by azathioprine therapy and prediction by artificial systems.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: We aimed to assess the effect of azathioprine on mucosal healing in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Artificial neural networks were applied to IBD data for predicting mucosal remission. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two thousand seven hundred patients with IBD were evaluated. According to the computer-based study, data of 129 patients with IBD were used. Artificial neural networks were performed and tested. RESULTS: Endoscopic mucosal healing was found in 37% patients with IBD. Male gender group showed a negative impact on the efficacy of azathioprine (p<0.05). Responder patients with IBD were older than the nonresponder (p<0.05) patients. According to this study, the cascade-forward neural network study provides 79.1% correct results. In addition to a 0.16033 training error, mean square error (MSE) was taken at the 16th epoch from the feed-forward back-propagation neural network. This neural structure, used for predicting mucosal remission with azathioprine, was also validated. CONCLUSION: Analyzing all parameters within each other to azathioprine therapy were shown that which parameters gave better healing were determined by statistical, and for the most weighted six input parameters, artificial neural network structures were constructed. In this study, feed-forward back-propagation and cascade-forward artificial neural network models were used.

Analyses of a cirrhotic patient's evolution using self organizing mapping and Child-Pugh scoring.

Due to the importance of cirrhosis evolution, this study examined cirrhotic patients using Self Organizing Mapping (SOM) based on the Child-Pugh scoring method. Because Colored Doppler Ultrasound (CDU) has too many parameters, scoring can be a very difficult task. Classifying cirrhotic patients via SOM and investigating weights of the cirrhotic CDU parameters are aimed in this study. SOM was used to map high dimensional cirrhotic data onto two dimensional clustered data. These clusters provided a feature map of cirrhotic patients. In this study, 103 cirrhotic patients and a control group of 44 healthy individuals were examined in the hospital, and parameters were analyzed using SOM. These data were obtained using CDU, and age and sex parameters were analyzed in this study. Cirrhotic patients were histopathologically separated into subgroups using the Child-Pugh scoring method, and the presence of ascites was determined using SOM. In this study, differences between the control group and cirrhotic patients with their subgroups were investigated using SOM, and the results were discussed. Renal artery indices, hepatic artery indices, portal vein parameters, age and the degree of ascites were analyzed using SOM for a total of 147 individuals. The combination of SOM and Child-Pugh scoring method can be useful for the interpretation of cirrhotic patient's evolution. Computer-based SOM algorithm and negative effectiveness of a large scale dataset could be minimized by adjusting the weight of the parameters. This study will faciliate doctors to make better decisions for their patients.

Retinal blood vessel segmentation with neural network by using gray-level co-occurrence matrix-based features.

This paper focuses on the issue of extracting retina vessels with supervised approach. Since the green channel in the retina image has the best contrast between vessel and non-vessel, this channel is used to separate vessels. In our approach we are proposing a technique of using gray-level co-occurrence matrix method for composition of the retinal images. It is based on fact that the co-occurrence matrix of retina image describes the transition of intensities between neighbour pixels, indicating spatial structural information of retina image. So, we first extract the features vector based on specified characteristics of the gray-level co-occurrence matrix and then we use these features vector to train a neural network approach for the classification method which makes our proposed approach more effective. Obtained results from the experiments in DRIVE and STARE database shows the advantage of the proposed method in contrast to current methods. This advantage is evaluated by the criteria of sensitivity, specificity, area under ROC and accuracy. The result of such a conversion as the input vector of a multilayer perceptron neural network will be trained and tested. Although in recent years different methods have been presented in this respect, but results of simulation shows that the proposed algorithm has a very high efficiency than the other researches.

Comparison of MLP neural network and neuro-fuzzy system in transcranial Doppler signals recorded from the cerebral vessels.

Transcranial Doppler signals recorded from cerebral vessels of 110 patients were transferred to a personal computer by using a 16 bit sound card. Spectral analyses of Transcranial Doppler signals were performed for determining the Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) neural network and neuro Ankara-fuzzy system inputs. In order to do a good interpretation and rapid diagnosis, FFT parameters of Transcranial Doppler signals classified using MLP neural network and neuro-fuzzy system. Our findings demonstrated that 92% correct classification rate was obtained from MLP neural network, and 86% correct classification rate was obtained from neuro-fuzzy system.

Determination of carotid disease with the application of STFT and CWT methods.

In this study, Doppler signals were recorded from the output of carotid arteries of 40 subjects and transferred to a personal computer (PC) by using a 16-bit sound card. Doppler difference frequencies were recorded from each of the subjects, and then analyzed by using short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) methods to obtain their sonograms. These sonograms were then used to determine the relationships of applied methods with medical conditions. The sonograms that were obtained by CWT method gave better results for spectral resolution than the STFT method. The sonograms of CWT method offer net envelope and better imaging, so that the measurement of blood flow and brain pressure can be made more accurately. Simultaneously, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis has been conducted for this study and the estimation performance of the spectral resolution for the STFT and CTW has been obtained. The STFT has shown a 80.45% success for the spectral resolution while CTW has shown a 89.90% success.

Examination of electric field effects on tissues by using back propagation neural network.

The aim of this study is to determine lipid peroxidation and antioxidant enzyme levels in spleen and testis tissues of guinea pigs which were exposed to different intensities and periods of DC (direct current) and AC (alternating current) electric fields. The experimental results are applied to neural networks as learning data and the training of the feed forward neural network is realized. At the end of this training; without applying electric field to the tissues, the determination of the effects of the electric field on tissues by using computer is predicted by the neural network. After the experiments, the prediction of the neural network is averagely 99%.

Prediction of minor head injured patients using logistic regression and MLP neural network.

In this study it is aimed to assess the posttraumatic cerebral hemodynamia in minor head injured patients. Eighty patients with minor head injury (Group 1) evaluated in the early 8 h of posttraumatic period between July 2003 and February 2004. The control group (Group 2) has composed of 32 healthy people. Bilateral blood flow velocities of middle cerebral arteries (MCA) had measured using transtemporal technique while internal carotid arteries were evaluated by submandibular examination. Two different mathematical models such as the traditional statistical method on the basis of logistic regression and a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network are used to classify the age, sex, velocitiy parameters of MCA, mean velocity of extracranial ICAs and V(MCA)/ V(ICA) ratios. The neural network was trained, cross-validated and tested with subject's transcranial Doppler signals. As a result of these classifications, we found the success rate of logistic regression, the success rate of MLP neural network is 88.2 and 89.1%, respectively. The classification results show that MLP neural network is offering the best results in the case of diagnosis.

Examination of the effects of degeneration on vertebral artery by using neural network in cases with cervical spondylosis.

The scope of this study is to diagnose vertebral arterial inefficiency by using Doppler measurements from both right and left vertebral arterials. Total of 96 patients' Doppler measurements, consisting of 42 of healthy, 30 of spondylosis, and 24 of clinically proven vertebrobasillary insufficiency (VBI), were examined. Patients' age and sex information as well as RPSN, RPSVN, LPSN, LPSVN, and TOTALVOL medical parameters obtained from vertebral arterials were classified by neural networks, and the performance of said classification reached up to 93.75% in healthy, 83.33% in spondylosis, and 97.22% in VBI cases. The area under ROC curve, which is a direct indication of repeating success ratio, is calculated as 92.3%, and the correlation coefficient of the classification groups is 0.9234. It is also demonstrated that those medical parameters of age and systolic velocity, which were applied into the neural networks, were more effective in developing vertebral deficiency.

Classification of aorta insufficiency and stenosis using neuro-fuzzy system.

Cardiac Doppler signals recorded from aorta valve of 60 patients were transferred to a personal computer by using a 16 bit sound card. The fast Fourier transform (FFT) method was applied to the recorded signal from each patient. Since FFT method inherently cannot offer a good spectral resolution at jet blood flows such as cardiac Doppler signals, it sometimes causes wrong interpretation. In order to do a good interpretation and rapid diagnosis, cardiac Doppler blood flow signals were statistically arranged and then classified using neuro-fuzzy system. The NEFCLASS model, which is used to create a fuzzy classification system from data, was used. The classification results show that neuro-fuzzy system offers best results in the case of diagnosis.

EMG circuit design and AR analysis of EMG signs.

In this study, electromyogram (EMG) circuit was designed and tested on 27 people. Autoregressive (AR) analysis of EMG signals recorded on the ulnar nerve region of the right hand in resting position was performed. AR method, especially in the calculation of the spectrums of stable signs, is used for frequency analysis of signs, which give frequency response as sharp peaks and valleys. In this study, as the result of AR method analysis of EMG signals frequency-time domain, frequency spectrum curves (histogram curves) were obtained. As the images belonging to these histograms were evaluated, fibrillation potential widths of the muscle fibers of the ulnar nerve region of the people (material of the study) were examined. According to the degeneration degrees of the motor nerves, nine people had myopathy, nine had neuropathy, and nine were normal.

Classification of mitral insufficiency and stenosis using MLP neural network and neuro-fuzzy system.

Cardiac Doppler signals recorded from mitral valve of 60 patients were transferred to a personal computer by using a 16-bit sound card. The power spectral density (PSD) was applied to the recorded signal from each patient. In order to do a good interpretation and rapid diagnosis, PSD values classified using multilayer perceptron (MLP) and neuro-fuzzy system. Our findings demonstrated that 93.33% classification success rate was obtained from MLP, 90% classification success rate was obtained from neuro-fuzzy system. The classification results show that MLP offers best results in the case of diagnosis.

Classification of MCA stenosis in diabetes by MLP and RBF neural network.

For the classification of Middle Cerebral Artery (MCA) stenosis, Doppler signals have been received from the diabetes and control group by using 2 MHz Transcranial Doppler. After the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analyses of the Doppler signals, Power Spectrum Density (PSD) estimations have been made and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Radial Basis Function (RBF) have been dealt to apply to the neural networks. PSD estimations of Doppler signals received from MCA of 104 subjects have been successfully classified by MLP (correct classification = 94.2%) and RBF (correct classification = 88.4%) neural network. As we have seen in the area under ROC curve (AUC), MLP neural network (AUC = 0.934) has classified more successfully when compared with RBF neural network (AUC = 0.873).

The examination of the effects of obesity on a number of arteries and body mass index by using expert systems.

In this study, the areas affected from obesity were examined by classifying divergent arteries and body mass index (BMI) of 30 healthy persons and 52 obese persons by using expert systems, and the classifying performances of NEFCLASS and CANFIS, which are expert systems were compared. As a result of this comparison, it is observed that the classifying performance of NEFCLASS is better than that of CANFIS, and the causes of this are examined. Furthermore, it is observed that after these classifications, obesity affects the BMI rather than divergent arteries.