Clinical utility of handheld fundus and smartphone-based camera for monitoring diabetic retinal diseases: a review study.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the leading global cause of vision loss, accounting for 4.8% of global blindness cases as estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO). Fundus photography is crucial in ophthalmology as a diagnostic tool for capturing retinal images. However, resource and infrastructure constraints limit access to traditional tabletop fundus cameras in developing countries. Additionally, these conventional cameras are expensive, bulky, and not easily transportable. In contrast, the newer generation of handheld and smartphone-based fundus cameras offers portability, user-friendliness, and affordability. Despite their potential, there is a lack of comprehensive review studies examining the clinical utilities of these handheld (e.g. Zeiss Visuscout 100, Volk Pictor Plus, Volk Pictor Prestige, Remidio NMFOP, FC161) and smartphone-based (e.g. D-EYE, iExaminer, Peek Retina, Volk iNview, Volk Vistaview, oDocs visoScope, oDocs Nun, oDocs Nun IR) fundus cameras. This review study aims to evaluate the feasibility and practicality of these available handheld and smartphone-based cameras in medical settings, emphasizing their advantages over traditional tabletop fundus cameras. By highlighting various clinical settings and use scenarios, this review aims to fill this gap by evaluating the efficiency, feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and remote capabilities of handheld and smartphone fundus cameras, ultimately enhancing the accessibility of ophthalmic services.

Micro-segmentation of retinal image lesions in diabetic retinopathy using energy-based fuzzy C-Means clustering (EFM-FCM).

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a prevalent cause of global visual impairment, contributing to approximately 4.8% of blindness cases worldwide as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO). The condition is characterized by pathological abnormalities in the retinal layer, including microaneurysms, vitreous hemorrhages, and exudates. Microscopic analysis of retinal images is crucial in diagnosing and treating DR. This article proposes a novel method for early DR screening using segmentation and unsupervised learning techniques. The approach integrates a neural network energy-based model into the Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) algorithm to enhance convergence criteria, aiming to improve the accuracy and efficiency of automated DR screening tools. The evaluation of results includes the primary dataset from the Shiva Netralaya Centre, IDRiD, and DIARETDB1. The performance of the proposed method is compared against FCM, EFCM, FLICM, and M-FLICM techniques, utilizing metrics such as accuracy in noiseless and noisy conditions and average execution time. The results showcase auspicious performance on both primary and secondary datasets, achieving accuracy rates of 99.03% in noiseless conditions and 93.13% in noisy images, with an average execution time of 16.1 s. The proposed method holds significant potential in medical image analysis and could pave the way for future advancements in automated DR diagnosis and management. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: A novel approach is proposed in the article, integrating a neural network energy-based model into the FCM algorithm to enhance the convergence criteria and the accuracy of automated DR screening tools. By leveraging the microscopic characteristics of retinal images, the proposed method significantly improves the accuracy of lesion segmentation, facilitating early detection and monitoring of DR. The evaluation of the method's performance includes primary datasets from reputable sources such as the Shiva Netralaya Centre, IDRiD, and DIARETDB1, demonstrating its effectiveness in comparison to other techniques (FCM, EFCM, FLICM, and M-FLICM) in terms of accuracy in both noiseless and noisy conditions. It achieves impressive accuracy rates of 99.03% in noiseless conditions and 93.13% in noisy images, with an average execution time of 16.1 s.

A Novel Artificial-Intelligence-Based Approach for Classification of Parkinson's Disease Using Complex and Large Vocal Features.

Parkinson's disease (PD) affects a large proportion of elderly people. Symptoms include tremors, slow movement, rigid muscles, and trouble speaking. With the aging of the developed world's population, this number is expected to rise. The early detection of PD and avoiding its severe consequences require a precise and efficient system. Our goal is to create an accurate AI model that can identify PD using human voices. We developed a transformer-based method for detecting PD by retrieving dysphonia measures from a subject's voice recording. It is uncommon to use a neural network (NN)-based solution for tabular vocal characteristics, but it has several advantages over a tree-based approach, including compatibility with continuous learning and the network's potential to be linked with an image/voice encoder for a more accurate multi modal solution, shifting SOTA approach from tree-based to a neural network (NN) is crucial for advancing research in multimodal solutions. Our method outperforms the state of the art (SOTA), namely Gradient-Boosted Decision Trees (GBDTs), by at least 1% AUC, and the precision and recall scores are also improved. We additionally offered an XgBoost-based feature-selection method and a fully connected NN layer technique for including continuous dysphonia measures, in addition to the solution network. We also discussed numerous important discoveries relating to our suggested solution and deep learning (DL) and its application to dysphonia measures, such as how a transformer-based network is more resilient to increased depth compared to a simple MLP network. The performance of the proposed approach and conventional machine learning techniques such as MLP, SVM, and Random Forest (RF) have also been compared. A detailed performance comparison matrix has been added to this article, along with the proposed solution's space and time complexity.

An automated unsupervised deep learning-based approach for diabetic retinopathy detection.

As per the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) report, 35-60% of people suffering from diabetic retinopathy (DR) have a history of diabetes. DR is one of the primary reasons for blindness and visual impairment worldwide among adults aged 24-74 years. Therefore, this research aims to develop an automated technique for the detection of retinal abnormalities associated with DR, such as microaneurysm. Unsupervised learning has a high potential for data classification. The proposed work accomplishes the following objectives. (a) k-means and fuzzy clustering method is discussed, and the objective function is revised to offer the modified version named modified fuzzy clustering method (MdFCM). (b) A modified convolutional neural network is proposed to consolidate the MdFCM and features for better outcomes. (c) The results are compared on three diverse datasets, DIARETDB1, APTOS, and Liverpool, with the fuzzy clustering method, deep embedded clustering, and k-means for generalizability. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed algorithm is the first to detect DR using a hybrid approach of unsupervised and deep learning methodology. The proposed system achieved an improved accuracy rate of 98.6%. The results show that our proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithm. We intend to design a tool using the proposed system for diabetic retinopathy detection at an early stage. Complete system flow architecture of diabetes retinopathy detection using unsupervised deep learning approach.

Gun identification from gunshot audios for secure public places using transformer learning.

Increased mass shootings and terrorist activities severely impact society mentally and physically. Development of real-time and cost-effective automated weapon detection systems increases a sense of safety in public. Most of the previously proposed methods were vision-based. They visually analyze the presence of a gun in a camera frame. This research focuses on gun-type (rifle, handgun, none) detection based on the audio of its shot. Mel-frequency-based audio features have been used. We compared both convolution-based and fully self-attention-based (transformers) architectures. We found transformer architecture generalizes better on audio features. Experimental results using the proposed transformer methodology on audio clips of gunshots show classification accuracy of 93.87%, with training loss and validation loss of 0.2509 and 0.1991, respectively. Based on experiments, we are convinced that our model can effectively be used as both a standalone system and in association with visual gun-detection systems for better security.