A bilateral filtering-based image enhancement for Alzheimer disease classification using CNN.

This study aims to develop an optimally performing convolutional neural network to classify Alzheimer's disease into mild cognitive impairment, normal controls, or Alzheimer's disease classes using a magnetic resonance imaging dataset. To achieve this, we focused the study on addressing the challenge of image noise, which impacts the performance of deep learning models. The study introduced a scheme for enhancing images to improve the quality of the datasets. Specifically, an image enhancement algorithm based on histogram equalization and bilateral filtering techniques was deployed to reduce noise and enhance the quality of the images. Subsequently, a convolutional neural network model comprising four convolutional layers and two hidden layers was devised for classifying Alzheimer's disease into three (3) distinct categories, namely mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, and normal controls. The model was trained and evaluated using a 10-fold cross-validation sampling approach with a learning rate of 0.001 and 200 training epochs at each instance. The proposed model yielded notable results, such as an accuracy of 93.45% and an area under the curve value of 0.99 when trained on the three classes. The model further showed superior results on binary classification compared with existing methods. The model recorded 94.39%, 94.92%, and 95.62% accuracies for Alzheimer's disease versus normal controls, Alzheimer's disease versus mild cognitive impairment, and mild cognitive impairment versus normal controls classes, respectively.

Ensuring confidentiality and privacy of cloud data using a non-deterministic cryptographic scheme.

The amount of data generated by electronic systems through e-commerce, social networks, and data computation has risen. However, the security of data has always been a challenge. The problem is not with the quantity of data but how to secure the data by ensuring its confidentiality and privacy. Though there are several research on cloud data security, this study proposes a security scheme with the lowest execution time. The approach employs a non-linear time complexity to achieve data confidentiality and privacy. A symmetric algorithm dubbed the Non-Deterministic Cryptographic Scheme (NCS) is proposed to address the increased execution time of existing cryptographic schemes. NCS has linear time complexity with a low and unpredicted trend of execution times. It achieves confidentiality and privacy of data on the cloud by converting the plaintext into Ciphertext with a small number of iterations thereby decreasing the execution time but with high security. The algorithm is based on Good Prime Numbers, Linear Congruential Generator (LGC), Sliding Window Algorithm (SWA), and XOR gate. For the implementation in C#, thirty different execution times were performed and their average was taken. A comparative analysis of the NCS was performed against AES, DES, and RSA algorithms based on key sizes of 128kb, 256kb, and 512kb using the dataset from Kaggle. The results showed the proposed NCS execution times were lower in comparison to AES, which had better execution time than DES with RSA having the longest. Contrary, to existing knowledge that execution time is relative to data size, the results obtained from the experiment indicated otherwise for the proposed NCS algorithm. With data sizes of 128kb, 256kb, and 512kb, the execution times in milliseconds were 38, 711, and 378 respectively. This validates the NCS as a Non-Deterministic Cryptographic Algorithm. The study findings hence are in support of the argument that data size does not determine the execution time of a cryptographic algorithm but rather the size of the security key.

A Novel Computer Vision Model for Medicinal Plant Identification Using Log-Gabor Filters and Deep Learning Algorithms.

Computer vision is the science that enables computers and machines to see and perceive image content on a semantic level. It combines concepts, techniques, and ideas from various fields such as digital image processing, pattern matching, artificial intelligence, and computer graphics. A computer vision system is designed to model the human visual system on a functional basis as closely as possible. Deep learning and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) in particular which are biologically inspired have significantly contributed to computer vision studies. This research develops a computer vision system that uses CNNs and handcrafted filters from Log-Gabor filters to identify medicinal plants based on their leaf textural features in an ensemble manner. The system was tested on a dataset developed from the Centre of Plant Medicine Research, Ghana (MyDataset) consisting of forty-nine (49) plant species. Using the concept of transfer learning, ten pretrained networks including Alexnet, GoogLeNet, DenseNet201, Inceptionv3, Mobilenetv2, Restnet18, Resnet50, Resnet101, vgg16, and vgg19 were used as feature extractors. The DenseNet201 architecture resulted with the best outcome of 87% accuracy and GoogLeNet with 79% preforming the worse averaged across six supervised learning algorithms. The proposed model (OTAMNet), created by fusing a Log-Gabor layer into the transition layers of the DenseNet201 architecture achieved 98% accuracy when tested on MyDataset. OTAMNet was tested on other benchmark datasets; Flavia, Swedish Leaf, MD2020, and the Folio dataset. The Flavia dataset achieved 99%, Swedish Leaf 100%, MD2020 99%, and the Folio dataset 97%. A false-positive rate of less than 0.1% was achieved in all cases.

Efficient Authentication Protocol and Its Application in Resonant Inductive Coupling Wireless Power Transfer Systems.

Chaos theory and its extension into cryptography has generated significant applications in industrial mixing, pulse width modulation and in electric compaction. Likewise, it has merited applications in authentication mechanisms for wireless power transfer systems. Wireless power transfer (WPT) via resonant inductive coupling mechanism enables the charging of electronic devices devoid of cords and wires. In practice, the key to certified charging requires the use of an authentication protocol between a transmitter (charger) and receiver (smartphone/some device). Via the protocol, a safe level and appropriate charging power can be harvested from a charger. Devoid of an efficient authentication protocol, a malicious charger may fry the circuit board of a receiver or cause a permanent damage to the device. In this regard, we first propose a chaos-based key exchange authentication protocol and analyze its robustness in terms of security and computational performance. Secondly, we theoretically demonstrate how the protocol can be applied to WPT systems for the purposes of charger to receiver authentication. Finally, we present insightful research problems that are relevant for future research in this paradigm.