Toward robust and privacy-enhanced facial recognition: A decentralized blockchain-based approach with GANs and deep learning.

In recent years, the extensive use of facial recognition technology has raised concerns about data privacy and security for various applications, such as improving security and streamlining attendance systems and smartphone access. In this study, a blockchain-based decentralized facial recognition system (DFRS) that has been designed to overcome the complexities of technology. The DFRS takes a trailblazing approach, focusing on finding a critical balance between the benefits of facial recognition and the protection of individuals' private rights in an era of increasing monitoring. First, the facial traits are segmented into separate clusters which are maintained by the specialized node that maintains the data privacy and security. After that, the data obfuscation is done by using generative adversarial networks. To ensure the security and authenticity of the data, the facial data is encoded and stored in the blockchain. The proposed system achieves significant results on the CelebA dataset, which shows the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The proposed model has demonstrated enhanced efficacy over existing methods, attaining 99.80% accuracy on the dataset. The study's results emphasize the system's efficacy, especially in biometrics and privacy-focused applications, demonstrating outstanding precision and efficiency during its implementation. This research provides a complete and novel solution for secure facial recognition and data security for privacy protection.

COVID-19 infection analysis framework using novel boosted CNNs and radiological images.

COVID-19, a novel pathogen that emerged in late 2019, has the potential to cause pneumonia with unique variants upon infection. Hence, the development of efficient diagnostic systems is crucial in accurately identifying infected patients and effectively mitigating the spread of the disease. However, the system poses several challenges because of the limited availability of labeled data, distortion, and complexity in image representation, as well as variations in contrast and texture. Therefore, a novel two-phase analysis framework has been developed to scrutinize the subtle irregularities associated with COVID-19 contamination. A new Convolutional Neural Network-based STM-BRNet is developed, which integrates the Split-Transform-Merge (STM) block and Feature map enrichment (FME) techniques in the first phase. The STM block captures boundary and regional-specific features essential for detecting COVID-19 infectious CT slices. Additionally, by incorporating the FME and Transfer Learning (TL) concept into the STM blocks, multiple enhanced channels are generated to effectively capture minute variations in illumination and texture specific to COVID-19-infected images. Additionally, residual multipath learning is used to improve the learning capacity of STM-BRNet and progressively increase the feature representation by boosting at a high level through TL. In the second phase of the analysis, the COVID-19 CT scans are processed using the newly developed SA-CB-BRSeg segmentation CNN to accurately delineate infection in the images. The SA-CB-BRSeg method utilizes a unique approach that combines smooth and heterogeneous processes in both the encoder and decoder. These operations are structured to effectively capture COVID-19 patterns, including region-homogenous, texture variation, and border. By incorporating these techniques, the SA-CB-BRSeg method demonstrates its ability to accurately analyze and segment COVID-19 related data. Furthermore, the SA-CB-BRSeg model incorporates the novel concept of CB in the decoder, where additional channels are combined using TL to enhance the learning of low contrast regions. The developed STM-BRNet and SA-CB-BRSeg models achieve impressive results, with an accuracy of 98.01%, recall of 98.12%, F-score of 98.11%, Dice Similarity of 96.396%, and IOU of 98.85%. The proposed framework will alleviate the workload and enhance the radiologist's decision-making capacity in identifying the infected region of COVID-19 and evaluating the severity stages of the disease.

Transforming Healthcare Analytics with FHIR: A Framework for Standardizing and Analyzing Clinical Data.

In this study, we discussed our contribution to building a data analytic framework that supports clinical statistics and analysis by leveraging a scalable standards-based data model named Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR). We developed an intelligent algorithm that is used to facilitate the clinical data analytics process on FHIR-based data. We designed several workflows for patient clinical data used in two hospital information systems, namely patient registration and laboratory information systems. These workflows exploit various FHIR Application programming interface (APIs) to facilitate patient-centered and cohort-based interactive analyses. We developed an FHIR database implementation that utilizes FHIR APIs and a range of operations to facilitate descriptive data analytics (DDA) and patient cohort selection. A prototype user interface for DDA was developed with support for visualizing healthcare data analysis results in various forms. Healthcare professionals and researchers would use the developed framework to perform analytics on clinical data used in healthcare settings. Our experimental results demonstrate the proposed framework's ability to generate various analytics from clinical data represented in the FHIR resources.

Power-Intent Systolic Array Using Modified Parallel Multiplier for Machine Learning Acceleration.

Systolic arrays are an integral part of many modern machine learning (ML) accelerators due to their efficiency in performing matrix multiplication that is a key primitive in modern ML models. Current state-of-the-art in systolic array-based accelerators mainly target area and delay optimizations with power optimization being considered as a secondary target. Very few accelerator designs directly target power optimizations and that too using very complex algorithmic modifications that in turn result in a compromise in the area or delay performance. We present a novel Power-Intent Systolic Array (PI-SA) that is based on the fine-grained power gating of the multiplication and accumulation (MAC) block multiplier inside the processing element of the systolic array, which reduces the design power consumption quite significantly, but with an additional delay cost. To offset the delay cost, we introduce a modified decomposition multiplier to obtain smaller reduction tree and to further improve area and delay, we also replace the carry propagation adder with a carry save adder inside each sub-multiplier. Comparison of the proposed design with the baseline Gemmini naive systolic array design and its variant, i.e., a conventional systolic array design, exhibits a delay reduction of up to 6%, an area improvement of up to 32% and a power reduction of up to 57% for varying accumulator bit-widths.

Blockchain in Healthcare: A Decentralized Platform for Digital Health Passport of COVID-19 Based on Vaccination and Immunity Certificates.

COVID-19 has become a very transmissible disease that has had a worldwide impact, resulting in a huge number of infections and fatalities. Testing is critical to the pandemic's successful response because it helps detect illnesses and so attenuate (isolate/cure) them and now vaccination is a life-safer innovation against the pandemic which helps to make the immunity system stronger and fight against this infection. Patient-sensitive information, on the other hand, is now held in a centralized or third-party storage paradigm, according to COVID-19. One of the most difficult aspects of using a centralized storage strategy is maintaining patient privacy and system transparency. The application of blockchain technology to support health initiatives that can minimize the spread of COVID-19 infections in the context of accessibility of the system and for verification of digital passports. Only by combining blockchain technology with advanced cryptographic algorithms can a secure and privacy-preserving solution to COVID-19 be provided. In this article, we investigate the issue and propose a blockchain-based solution incorporating conscience identity, encryption, and decentralized storage via interplanetary file systems (IPFS). For COVID-19 test takers and vaccination takers, our solution includes digital health passports (DHP) as a certification of test or vaccination. We explain smart contracts constructed and tested with Ethereum to preserve a DHP for test and vaccine takers, allowing for a prompt and trustworthy response from the necessary medical authorities. We use an immutable trustworthy blockchain to minimize medical facility response times, relieve the transmission of incorrect information, and stop the illness from spreading via DHP. We give a detailed explanation of the proposed solution's system model, development, and assessment in terms of cost and security. Finally, we put the suggested framework to the test by deploying a smart contract prototype on the Ethereum TESTNET network in a Windows environment. The study's findings revealed that the suggested method is effective and feasible.

Decentralized Patient-Centric Report and Medical Image Management System Based on Blockchain Technology and the Inter-Planetary File System.

Several academicians have been actively contributing to establishing a practical solution to storing and distributing medical images and test reports in the research domain of health care in recent years. Current procedures mainly rely on cloud-assisted centralized data centers, which raise maintenance expenditure, necessitate a large amount of storage space, and raise privacy concerns when exchanging data across a network. As a result, it is critically essential to provide a framework that allows for the efficient exchange and storage of large amounts of medical data in a secure setting. In this research, we describe a unique proof-of-concept architecture for a distributed patient-centric test report and image management (PCRIM) system that aims to facilitate patient privacy and control without the need for a centralized infrastructure. We used an Ethereum blockchain and a distributed file system technology called the Inter-Planetary File System in this system (IPFS). Then, to secure a distributed and trustworthy access control policy, we designed an Ethereum smart contract termed the patient-centric access control protocol. The IPFS allows for the decentralized storage of medical metadata, such as images, with worldwide accessibility. We demonstrate how the PCRIM system design enables hospitals, patients, and image requestors to obtain patient-centric data in a distributed and secure manner. Finally, we tested the proposed framework in the Windows environment by deploying a smart contract prototype on an Ethereum TESTNET blockchain. The findings of the study indicate that the proposed strategy is both efficient and practicable.

Factors Affecting Utilization of the E-Health "Seha" Interactive Application for Online Medical Consultation in Saudi Arabia.

Purpose: Telehealth, Internet interventions, or digital apps provide healthcare to isolated regions and can span borders. The purpose of this research was to assess the use of the Seha application, public perceptions toward the application, and factors that affect its utilization. Methods: The cross-sectional method was used to analyze the quantitative data. Grounded Theory was used to analyze the qualitative data. This study was conducted from December 1, 2018, to January 31, 2019. A total of 419 participants were surveyed online, and semi-structured interviews were conducted for 20 participants. The participants were chosen based on convenience sampling techniques. The survey contained two sections. The first section consisted of demographic data and the second section included eight questions, each covering one main aspect. For the qualitative approach, participants were chosen using a theoretical sampling technique. Researchers acted as the primary data collection instrument. Results: Out of the total, 88.5% of the participants did not use "Seha" application. Among users, the main perceived benefit from the application was the ability to contact a general practitioner anytime. Among non-users, the greatest barrier to use was the lack of awareness about it, while the ability to contact a general practitioner any time (25%) and reducing visits to the doctor (23%) were the top motivations. A conceptual framework was developed to define the different aspects affecting the use of the online medical consultation application. These aspects included awareness and education, technical issues, access, and consultation information. Conclusion: Public awareness and education about the application, as well as the integration of its functions with other healthcare systems were the main recommendations suggested. Implementing these recommendations is encouraged to deliver value to e-health initiatives in Saudi Arabia.