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Simple Summary: Breast cancer is a significant cause of female cancer-related deaths in the US. Checking how severe the cancer is helps in planning treatment. Modern AI methods are good at grading cancer, but they are not used much in hospitals yet. We developed and utilized ensemble deep learning algorithms for addressing the tasks of classifying (1) breast cancer subtype and (2) breast cancer invasiveness from whole slide image (WSI) histopathology slides. The ensemble models used were based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) known for extracting distinctive features crucial for accurate classification. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive analysis of these models and the used methodology for breast cancer diagnosis tasks. Cancer diagnosis and classification are pivotal for effective patient management and treatment planning. In this study, a comprehensive approach is presented utilizing ensemble deep learning techniques to analyze breast cancer histopathology images. Our datasets were based on two widely employed datasets from different centers for two different tasks: BACH and BreakHis. Within the BACH dataset, a proposed ensemble strategy was employed, incorporating VGG16 and ResNet50 architectures to achieve precise classification of breast cancer histopathology images. Introducing a novel image patching technique to preprocess a high-resolution image facilitated a focused analysis of localized regions of interest. The annotated BACH dataset encompassed 400 WSIs across four distinct classes: Normal, Benign, In Situ Carcinoma, and Invasive Carcinoma. In addition, the proposed ensemble was used on the BreakHis dataset, utilizing VGG16, ResNet34, and ResNet50 models to classify microscopic images into eight distinct categories (four benign and four malignant). For both datasets, a five-fold cross-validation approach was employed for rigorous training and testing. Preliminary experimental results indicated a patch classification accuracy of 95.31% (for the BACH dataset) and WSI image classification accuracy of 98.43% (BreakHis). This research significantly contributes to ongoing endeavors in harnessing artificial intelligence to advance breast cancer diagnosis, potentially fostering improved patient outcomes and alleviating healthcare burdens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influenza affects millions of people every year. It causes a considerable amount of medical visits and hospitalisations as well as hundreds of thousands of deaths. Forecasting influenza prevalence with good accuracy can significantly help public health agencies to timely react to seasonal or novel strain epidemics. Although significant progress has been made, influenza forecasting remains a challenging modelling task. In this paper, we propose a methodological framework that improves over the state-of-the-art forecasting accuracy of influenza-like illness (ILI) rates in the United States. We achieve this by using Web search activity time series in conjunction with historical ILI rates as observations for training neural network (NN) architectures. The proposed models incorporate Bayesian layers to produce associated uncertainty intervals to their forecast estimates, positioning themselves as legitimate complementary solutions to more conventional approaches. The best performing NN, referred to as the iterative recurrent neural network (IRNN) architecture, reduces mean absolute error by 10.3% and improves skill by 17.1% on average in nowcasting and forecasting tasks across 4 consecutive flu seasons. Author summary: Modelling the prevalence of an infectious disease enables public health organisations to prepare for and minimise its impact. However, traditional disease indicators are often quite restrictive as they provide information with a significant delay. Recent research efforts have provided evidence of the value of alternative information sources such as Web search activity trends. Our work incorporates this information into influenza forecasting models to achieve state-of-the-art accuracy. In addition, the proposed Bayesian neural network architectures also provide associated uncertainty estimates for the forecasts, positioning our methodology as a practical complementary tool for disease surveillance and policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods are significant global hazards that generally lead to loss of lives and billions worth of properties, especially in flood-prone regions. Various excellent artificial intelligence algorithms that are aimed at predicting streamflow to minimize the effects of floods are proposed by researchers. Most of these models depend on the assumption that both training and testing data set are similar and sufficient. However, in reality, many of these data set varies along with time and are insufficient in some new basins. Motivated by the success of transfer learning in natural language processing, image processing and time series forecasting. In this paper, we proposed two hybrid transfer learning models for streamflow forecasting. The proposed models, which integrate Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) with transfer learning and integration of Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) with transfer learning, are compared to our reference model. The proposed coupled Transfer Learning with the GRU (TL+GRU) model outperforms the baseline models, i.e., the transfer learning model and the coupled Transfer Learning with LSTM model (TL+LSTM) for most of the basins when streamflow and precipitation data set from Model Parameter Estimation Experiment (MOPEX) basins in the United States of America is used. As a result, we can finally conclude that, with Artificial Neural Networks' (ANN) integration to transfer learning, more enhanced performance are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Annual turnover of home care workers represents a huge loss of revenue and is a key source of inefficiency in the home health care industry. In this article, we propose a data-driven approach to monitor employee churn and to capture the evolution of employee intent to leave. Unlike most papers in the literature, we use machine learning techniques to analyze over 2 million visits in the US, Canada, and Australia between 2016 and 2019. Results show that the gap between the number of hours worked and in the contract is the most important factor to predict employee intent to leave, which means an employee should be given as many hours as requested in the contract to improve retention. Secondary results show that having diverse shift lengths and continuity in services and patients seem to be associated with less turnover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water distribution network (WDN) leakage is estimated to account for more than 20% of potable water in the United States. Because existing leakage detection practices are mainly laborious or require excessive budget allocation, novel model-based techniques have become prevalent by employing smart meters. Specifically, incorporating machine learning and metaheuristic optimization methods into such model-based approaches to predict water pipeline leakage is one of the state-of-the-art approaches. This paper presents a predictive leakage detection approach by leveraging advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and cyber-monitoring data. Primarily, the synchronous collection of consumption and monitoring data (i.e., flow and pressure) constitutes the proposed predictive tool in a combinative framework of genetic algorithms (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). The time-consuming EPANET 2.2 simulation toolkit in MATLAB is circumvented by a set of trained artificial neural networks (ANNs). Sensitivity analyses are conducted to investigate the sensitivity of the proposed leakage prediction approach to multiple parameters. Ultimately, the number and location of the flow and pressure monitoring stations are optimized using maximum sensor availability thresholds. Mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) is employed to measure the model's accuracy. The proposed predictive tool offers insightful horizons on how considerable background leakage can be detected and prioritized without using labor-intensive, costly methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology forecasting is an important and critical issue that determines the starting point of planning and is considered as a management tool directly related to the future. In the previous research items, the development of renewable energy technologies was of concern. Moreover, due to the increasing need of countries to produce electricity and facing the lack of resources, this research focuses on forecasting photovoltaic technology. Accordingly, in this paper, for technological research in the field of solar energy, the patents extracted from one of the most famous renewable energy databases in the United States (US patent database) between 200 and 2020 were examined. Next, research gaps were analyzed by using the artificial neural network clustering method and also by analyzing covered and uncovered compounds. The results show that in the future, photovoltaic technology research will move towards the third generation of technology (organic materials) as well as focus on environmental parameters and their effects on the performance of photovoltaic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional statistical postprocessing techniques offer limited ability to improve the skills of probabilistic guidance for heavy precipitation. This paper introduces two artificial neural network (ANN)-based, geographically aware, and computationally efficient postprocessing schemes, namely, the ANN-multiclass (ANN-Mclass) and the ANN–censored, shifted gamma distribution (ANN-CSGD). Both schemes are implemented to postprocess Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) forecasts to produce probabilistic quantitative precipitation forecasts (PQPFs) over the contiguous United States (CONUS) using a short (60 days), rolling training window. The performances of these schemes are assessed through a set of hindcast experiments, wherein postprocessed 24-h PQPFs from the two ANN schemes were compared against those produced using the benchmark quantile mapping algorithm for lead times ranging from 1 to 8 days. Outcomes of the hindcast experiments show that ANN schemes overall outperform the benchmark as well as the raw forecast over the CONUS in predicting probability of precipitation over a range of thresholds. The relative performance varies among geographic regions, with the two ANN schemes broadly improving upon quantile mapping over the central, south, and southeast, and slightly underperforming along the Pacific coast where skills of raw forecasts are the highest. Between the two schemes, the hybrid ANN-CSGD outperforms at higher rainfall thresholds (i.e., >50 mm day−1), though the outperformance comes at a slight expense of sharpness and spatial specificity. Collectively, these results confirm the ability of the ANN algorithms to produce skillful PQPFs with a limited training window and point to the prowess of the hybrid scheme for calibrating PQPFs for rare-to-extreme rainfall events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a novel methodology, referenced as ORFEO (Ordinal classifier and Regressor Fusion for Estimating an Ordinal categorical target), to enhance the performance in ordinal classification problems for which the latent variable is observable. ORFEO is an artificial neural network model incorporating two outputs, one for ordinal classification, using the cumulative link model, and one for regression, using a linear model. Both outputs are simultaneously optimised considering a loss function that linearly combines both classification and regression losses. The main motivation behind developing the proposed approach is to enhance the performance of a standard ordinal classifier. This improvement is facilitated by considering the regression output, which allows the model to differentiate between patterns within the same category. The ORFEO model is applied to two problems in the field of marine and ocean engineering: short-term prediction of both significant wave height and flux of energy. Both problems are addressed considering four different coastal zones of the United States of America, using 13 datasets formed by buoys measurements and reanalysis data. A comprehensive comparison against 20 methodologies, including regression and nominal/ordinal classification approaches is performed, by using diverse nominal and ordinal performance metrics. Ranks achieved indicate that ORFEO outperforms all the compared methodologies in terms of all the performance measures, demonstrating the efficacy and robustness of the proposal. Finally, a statistical analysis is conducted, concluding that there are statistically significant differences across ordinal and nominal performance metrics in favour of the proposed ORFEO model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colon and rectal cancers are the most common kinds of cancer globally. Colon cancer is more prevalent in men than in women. Early detection increases the likelihood of survival, and treatment significantly increases the likelihood of eradicating the disease. The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) programme is an excellent source of domestic cancer statistics. SEER includes nearly 30% of the United States population, covering various races and geographic locations. The data are made public via the SEER website when a SEER limited-use data agreement form is submitted and approved. We investigate data from the SEER programme, specifically colon cancer statistics, in this study. Our objective is to create reliable colon cancer survival and conditional survival prediction algorithms. In this study, we have presented an overview of cancer diagnosis methods and the treatments used to cure cancer. This paper presents an analysis of prediction performance of multiple deep learning approaches. The performance of multiple deep learning models is thoroughly examined to discover which algorithm surpasses the others, followed by an investigation of the network's prediction accuracy. The simulation outcomes indicate that automated prediction models can predict colon cancer patient survival. Deep autoencoders displayed the best performance outcomes attaining 97% accuracy and 95% area under curve-receiver operating characteristic (AUC-ROC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prediction of wave height and flux of energy is essential for most ocean engineering applications. To simultaneously predict both wave parameters, this paper presents a novel approach using short-term time prediction horizons (6h and 12h). Specifically, the methodology proposed presents a twofold simultaneity: 1) both parameters are predicted by a single model, applying the multi-task learning paradigm, and 2) the prediction tasks are tackled for several neighbouring ocean buoys with such single model by the development of a zonal strategy. Multi-Task Evolutionary Artificial Neural Network (MTEANN) models are applied to two different zones located in the United States, considering measurements collected by three buoys in each zone. Zonal MTEANN models have been compared in a two-phased procedure: 1) against the three individual MTEANN models specifically trained for each buoy of the zone, and 2) against some state-of-the-art regression techniques. Results achieved show that the proposed zonal methodology obtains not only better performance than the individual MTEANN models, but it also requires a lower number of connections. Besides, the zonal MTEANN methodology outperforms state-of-the-art regression techniques. Hence, the proposed approach results in an excellent method for predicting both significant wave height and flux of energy at short-term prediction time horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Many electricity consumers around the world are billed electric peak load charges. In the United States, these demand charges can contribute up to 70% of a consumer's electricity bill. Research has shown that the financial impact of these charges to the consumers can be reduced by acting on the intelligence provided by peak electric load day (PELD) forecasts. Unfortunately, published research detailing PELDs forecasting methodologies for facilities adopting behind the meter renewable electricity generation (BTMREG) is non‐existent. This paper contributes: (a) a PELD forecasting methodology applicable to consumers with BTMREG. A case study demonstrates the methodology's ability to achieve 93% of the potential savings in kW, translating to demand charge reductions of approximately US$ 142 129 per year. (b) The first side‐by‐side performance comparisons of electric load and PELD forecasting models for scenarios with and without BTMREG. (c) The first PELD forecasting model savings comparison for scenarios with and without BTMREG. Experimental results suggest that counterintuitively, BTMREG adoption can translate into higher peak load savings for electricity consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malignancy is the tendency of a medical condition to progressively become fatal and generally refers to the presence of cancerous cells that can spread, invade, and destroy tissues. In the United States, a new cancer diagnosis is given every 30 s, and the rates of diagnosis are not indicating any slowdown. The number of cancer cases is projected to increase by 35% over the next decade. Increasing cancer cases have attracted researchers to find new approaches for their identification and characterization. Skin diseases are a significant healthcare burden, affecting millions of people globally. The early detection and diagnosis of skin diseases are essential to prevent adverse health consequences, including the development of malignant skin tumors. Dermoscopy-based diagnosis of skin diseases is a time-consuming process, particularly in resource-limited healthcare settings. Recent advancements in computer vision algorithms have led to the development of several smartphone-based applications for early skin disease prognosis. In this paper, we have utilized a set of 16 distinctive convolutional neural network models, based on deep learning, to process over 45,000 high-quality images from the HAM10000 dataset, encompassing seven categories of skin diseases. Our models were able to effectively identify and classify skin diseases using lesion images as input. Dermoscopy-based diagnosis of skin diseases is a time-consuming process, particularly in resource-limited healthcare settings. Our proposed application for early skin disease detection aims to prevent unintended health consequences, which can result in wastage of operating hours, resources, and, in some cases, compromised patient health. We have benchmarked our models against one another to evaluate their effectiveness and efficiency, using performance measures such as accuracy, precision, sensitivity, specificity, F-score, and G-Mean. Our results demonstrate that most deployed models achieve an accuracy of up to 99%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• More accurate and explanatory model is proposed for natural gas storage deliverability. • A hybrid Sparse Autoencoder and Random Forest model shows on average of 5.7% increase in prediction accuracy. • The first use of machine learning and explanatory methods (XAI) in deliverability prediction for natural gas storage. Numerous subsurface factors, including geology and fluid properties, can affect the connectivity of the storage spaces in depleted reservoirs; hence, fluid flow simulations become more complicated, and predicting their deliverability remains challenging. This paper applies Machine Learning (ML) techniques to predict the deliverability of underground natural gas storage (UNGS) in depleted reservoirs. First, three baseline models were developed based on Support Vector Regression (SVR), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Random Forest (RF) algorithms. To improve the accuracy of the RF model as the best-performing baseline model, a unified framework, referred to as SARF, was developed. SARF combines the capabilities of Sparse Autoencoder (SA) and that of Random Forest (RF). To achieve this, the internal representations of the SA, which constitute extracted features of the input variables, are used in RF to develop the proposed SARF framework. The predictive capabilities of the baseline models and the proposed SARF model were validated using 3744 real-world storage data samples of 52 active storage reservoirs in the United States. The experimental result of this study shows that the proposed SARF model achieved an average 5.7% increase in accuracy on four separate data partitions over the baseline RF model. Furthermore, a set of eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) methods were developed to provide an intuitive explanation of which factors influence the deliverability of reservoir storage. The visualizations developed using the XAI method provide an easy-to-understand interpretation of how the SARF model predicted the deliverability values for separate reservoirs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a collection of novel deliverability prediction models for underground natural gas storage (UNGS) in salt caverns based on machine learning algorithms. Considering that the natural gas supply chain is characterized by imbalances between demand and supply on a timely basis, effective and fast models for predicting the deliverability of UNGS would not only be a valuable tool to various stakeholders but also, of great benefit in competitive natural gas marketplace. In this paper, a first step in applying machine learning algorithms to predict the deliverability of UNGS in salt caverns is proposed. To achieve this, the capability of three machine learning algorithms namely, artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM), and Random Forest (RF) are examined. The predictive capabilities of these methods were investigated using different monthly field storage data samples for different years with varied data samples of 36 active UNGS in salt caverns in the United States. Experimental results reveal that the machine learning models developed in this study can serve as suitable tools for predicting the deliverability of UNGS in salt caverns with different performances. Overall result shows that RF model exhibits better prediction performance with varied data partitions over ANN and SVM models. • Deliverability prediction for underground natural gas storage in salt caverns. • Artificial Neural Network, Random Forest, and Support Vector Machines are examined. • Random Forest exhibits better prediction performance on different data samples. • Results can facilitate decisions for narrowing the gap between demand and supply. • Results can guide decisions for future design specification of gas storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavy-duty trucks contribute approximately 20% of fuel consumption in the United States of America (USA). The fuel economy of heavy-duty vehicles (HDV) is affected by several real-world parameters like road parameters, driver behavior, weather conditions, and vehicle parameters, etc. Although modern vehicles comply with emissions regulations, potential malfunction of the engine, regular wear and tear, or other factors could affect vehicle performance. Predicting fuel consumption per trip based on dynamic on-road data can help the automotive industry to reduce the cost and time for on-road testing. Data modeling can easily help to diagnose the reason behind fuel consumption with a knowledge of input parameters. In this paper, an artificial neural network (ANN) was implemented to model fuel consumption in modern heavy-duty trucks for predicting the total and instantaneous fuel consumption of a trip based on very few key parameters, such as engine load (%), engine speed (rpm), and vehicle speed (km/h). Instantaneous fuel consumption data can help to predict patterns in fuel consumption for optimized fleet operations. In this work, the data used for modeling was collected at a frequency of 1Hz during on-road testing of modern heavy-duty vehicles (HDV) at the West Virginia University Center for Alternative Fuels Engines and Emissions (WVU CAFEE) using the portable emissions monitoring system (PEMS). The performance of the artificial neural network was evaluated using mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE). The model was further evaluated with data collected from a vehicle on-road trip. The study shows that artificial neural networks performed slightly better than other machine learning techniques such as linear regression (LR), and random forest (RF), with high R-squared (R2) and lower root mean square error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malignant melanoma accounts for about 1–3% of all malignancies in the West, especially in the United States. More than 9000 people die each year. In general, it is difficult to characterize a skin lesion from a photograph. In this paper, we propose a deep learning-based computer-aided diagnostic algorithm for the classification of malignant melanoma and benign skin tumors from RGB channel skin images. The proposed deep learning model constitutes a tumor lesion segmentation model and a classification model of malignant melanoma. First, U-Net was used to classify skin lesions in dermoscopy images. We implement an algorithm to classify malignant melanoma and benign tumors using skin lesion images and expert labeling results from convolutional neural networks. The U-Net model achieved a dice similarity coefficient of 81.1% compared to the expert labeling results. The classification accuracy of malignant melanoma reached 80.06%. As a result, the proposed AI algorithm is expected to be utilized as a computer-aided diagnostic algorithm to help early detection of malignant melanoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]