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Artificial intelligence is more present than ever, both in our society in general and in science. At the center of this development has been the concept of deep learning, the use of artificial neural networks that are many layers deep and can often reproduce human‐like behavior much better than other machine‐learning techniques. The articles in this collection are some recent examples of its application for X‐ray photon science and crystallography that have been published in Journal of Applied Crystallography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significant risk associated with fault reactivation often necessitates slip tendency analyses for effective risk assessment. However, such analyses are challenging, particularly in large areas with limited or absent reliable stress measurements and where the cost of extensive geomechanical analyses or simulations is prohibitive. In this paper, we propose a novel approach using a physics‐informed neural network that integrates stress orientation and satellite displacement observations in a top‐down multi‐scale framework to estimate two‐dimensional slip tendency analyses even in regions lacking comprehensive stress data. Our study demonstrates that velocities derived from a continental scale analysis, combined with reliable stress orientation averages, can effectively guide models at smaller scales to generate qualitative slip tendency maps. By offering customizable data selection and stress resolution options, this method presents a robust solution to address data scarcity issues, as exemplified through a case study of the South Australian Eyre Peninsula. Plain Language Summary: Fault reactivation poses significant risks, often requiring slip tendency analyses for thorough risk assessment. Yet, such analyses face challenges, especially in large areas lacking reliable stress measurements or where extensive geomechanical analyses are too costly. Our paper suggests a new method using a physics‐based neural network. This approach combines compressive direction and satellite displacement observations to estimate slip tendencies in two dimensions, even where stress data is lacking. Our study shows that by using displacements from a continental scale analysis and reliable averages of compressive directions, we can guide models to create smaller‐scale maps indicating where faults are more likely to reactivate. This method allows for customizable data selection and stress resolution, offering a strong solution to data scarcity issues. We demonstrate its effectiveness through a case study of South Australia's Eyre Peninsula. Key Points: Physics‐based neural networks allow two‐dimensional slip tendency analyses without prior full‐stress informationA multi‐scale approach provides required displacement constraints when inferring full stresses from global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and stress orientation dataWe present a new application for GNSS data that would welcome more stations, even in seismically stable areas [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Accurate segmentation of lung nodules is crucial for the early diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer in clinical practice. However, the similarity between lung nodules and surrounding tissues has made their segmentation a longstanding challenge. Purpose: Existing deep learning and active contour models each have their limitations. This paper aims to integrate the strengths of both approaches while mitigating their respective shortcomings. Methods: In this paper, we propose a few‐shot segmentation framework that combines a deep neural network with an active contour model. We introduce heat kernel convolutions and high‐order total variation into the active contour model and solve the challenging nonsmooth optimization problem using the alternating direction method of multipliers. Additionally, we use the presegmentation results obtained from training a deep neural network on a small sample set as the initial contours for our optimized active contour model, addressing the difficulty of manually setting the initial contours. Results: We compared our proposed method with state‐of‐the‐art methods for segmentation effectiveness using clinical computed tomography (CT) images acquired from two different hospitals and the publicly available LIDC dataset. The results demonstrate that our proposed method achieved outstanding segmentation performance according to both visual and quantitative indicators. Conclusion: Our approach utilizes the output of few‐shot network training as prior information, avoiding the need to select the initial contour in the active contour model. Additionally, it provides mathematical interpretability to the deep learning, reducing its dependency on the quantity of training samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The surface texture of asphalt pavement has a significant effect on skid resistance performance. However, its contribution to the performance of skid resistance is non‐homogeneous and subjects to local validity. There are also a few deep learning models that take into account the effective contact texture region. This paper proposes a convolutional neural network model based on the effective contact texture region, containing macro‐ and micro‐scale awareness sub‐modules. In this study, the asphalt mixture with varying gradations was designed to accurately obtain the effective contact texture region. Then, the textures were disentangled into macro‐ and micro‐texture scales by applying the fast Fourier transform and fed into the model for training. Finally, the area of effective contact texture region was calculated, and the effective contact ratio parameter was then proposed using the triangulation algorithm. The results showed that the effective contact texture area of pavement varies by the asphalt mixture type. The effective contact ratio parameter exhibited a significant positive correlation (Pearson correlation coefficient is 0.901, R2= 0.8129) with skid resistance performance and was also influenced by key sieve aggregate content from 2.36 to 4.75 mm. The data of effective contact texture region following disentanglement significantly released the model performance (the relative error dropped to 1.81%). The model exhibited improved precision and performance, which can be utilized as an efficient, non‐contact alternative method for skid resistance analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, research on infrared and visible image fusion has mainly focused on deep learning‐based approaches, particularly deep neural networks with auto‐encoder architectures. However, these approaches suffer from problems such as insufficient feature extraction capability and inefficient fusion strategies. Therefore, this paper introduces a novel image fusion network to address the limitations of infrared and visible image fusion networks with auto‐encoder architectures. In the designed network, the encoder employs a multi‐branch cascade structure, and these convolution branches with different kernel sizes provide the encoder with an adaptive receptive field to extract multi‐scale features. In addition, the fusion layer incorporates a non‐local attention module that is inspired by the self‐attention mechanism. With its global receptive field, this module is used to build a non‐local attention fusion network, which works together with the l1${l}_1$‐norm spatial fusion strategy to extract, split, filter, and fuse global and local features. Comparative experiments on the TNO and MSRS datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other state‐of‐the‐art fusion approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The macular ganglion cell layer (mGCL) is a strong potential biomarker of axonal degeneration in multiple sclerosis (MS). For this reason, this study aims to develop a computer‐aided method to facilitate diagnosis and prognosis in MS. Methods: This paper combines a cross‐sectional study of 72 MS patients and 30 healthy control subjects for diagnosis and a 10‐year longitudinal study of the same MS patients for the prediction of disability progression, during which the mGCL was measured using optical coherence tomography (OCT). Deep neural networks were used as an automatic classifier. Results: For MS diagnosis, greatest accuracy (90.3%) was achieved using 17 features as inputs. The neural network architecture comprised the input layer, two hidden layers and the output layer with softmax activation. For the prediction of disability progression 8 years later, accuracy of 81.9% was achieved with a neural network comprising two hidden layers and 400 epochs. Conclusion: We present evidence that by applying deep learning techniques to clinical and mGCL thickness data it is possible to identify MS and predict the course of the disease. This approach potentially constitutes a non‐invasive, low‐cost, easy‐to‐implement and effective method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text-independent speaker verification (TI-SV) is a crucial task in speaker recognition, as it involves verifying an individual's claimed identity from speech of arbitrary content without any human intervention. The target for TI-SV is to design a discriminative network to learn deep speaker embedding for speaker idiosyncrasy. In this paper, we propose a deep speaker embedding learning approach of a hybrid deep neural network (DNN) for TI-SV in FM broadcasting. Not only acoustic features are utilized, but also phoneme features are introduced as prior knowledge to collectively learn deep speaker embedding. The hybrid DNN consists of a convolutional neural network architecture for generating acoustic features and a multilayer perceptron architecture for extracting phoneme features sequentially, which represent significant pronunciation attributes. The extracted acoustic and phoneme features are concatenated to form deep embedding descriptors for speaker identity. The hybrid DNN demonstrates not only the complementarity between acoustic and phoneme features but also the temporality of phoneme features in a sequence. Our experiments show that the hybrid DNN outperforms existing methods and delivers a remarkable performance in FM broadcasting TI-SV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skin cancer is a common type of malignant tumor that poses a serious threat to patients' lives and health, especially melanoma. It may spread to other body parts, resulting in serious complications and death. In the medical field, accurate identification of skin lesion images is crucial for diagnosing different diseases. However, due to the similarity between different skin lesions, it brings some challenges to medical diagnosis. In this paper, a novel Ensemble Learning Model (EL‐DLOA) based on deep learning and optimization algorithms is proposed, which uses four different deep neural network architectures to generate confidence levels for classes, and optimization algorithms are used to integrate these confidence levels to make the final predictions. To ensure the model's accuracy and reliability, it is first trained using three different learning rates to find the best classification performance of the model. Then, a new search method based on the grey wolf optimization algorithm is proposed to enhance the grey wolf search efficiency. The method improves the search mechanism by changing the grey wolf's individual position through random perturbation or adaptive mutation, which solves the problem that the grey wolf algorithm is easy to fall into local optimum. Finally, four different ensemble strategies are used to reduce individual model bias in the classification process. The proposed model is trained and evaluated using the publicly available dataset HAM10000. The experimental results show that the improved grey wolf optimization algorithm effectively avoids the premature convergence problem and improves the search combination efficiency. Furthermore, in the ensemble methods, the adaptive weight average ensemble strategy effectively improves the classification performance, yielding accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 scores of 0.888, 0.837, 0.897, and 0.862, respectively. These metrics show varying degrees of improvement over the best performing single model. In general, the results indicate that the proposed method achieves high accuracy and practicality in skin lesion classification. Our model shows excellent performance in comparison with other existing models, which makes it significant for research and application in dermatology diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Diagnosis and treatment management for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is guided by routine diagnostic head and neck computed tomography (CT) scans to identify tumor and lymph node features. The extracapsular extension (ECE) is a strong predictor of patients' survival outcomes with HNSCC. It is essential to detect the occurrence of ECE as it changes staging and treatment planning for patients. Current clinical ECE detection relies on visual identification and pathologic confirmation conducted by clinicians. However, manual annotation of the lymph node region is a required data preprocessing step in most of the current machine learning‐based ECE diagnosis studies. Purpose: In this paper, we propose a Gradient Mapping Guided Explainable Network (GMGENet) framework to perform ECE identification automatically without requiring annotated lymph node region information. Methods: The gradient‐weighted class activation mapping (Grad‐CAM) technique is applied to guide the deep learning algorithm to focus on the regions that are highly related to ECE. The proposed framework includes an extractor and a classifier. In a joint training process, informative volumes of interest (VOIs) are extracted by the extractor without labeled lymph node region information, and the classifier learns the pattern to classify the extracted VOIs into ECE positive and negative. Results: In evaluation, the proposed methods are well‐trained and tested using cross‐validation. GMGENet achieved test accuracy and area under the curve (AUC) of 92.2% and 89.3%, respectively. GMGENetV2 achieved 90.3% accuracy and 91.7% AUC in the test. The results were compared with different existing models and further confirmed and explained by generating ECE probability heatmaps via a Grad‐CAM technique. The presence or absence of ECE has been analyzed and correlated with ground truth histopathological findings. Conclusions: The proposed deep network can learn meaningful patterns to identify ECE without providing lymph node contours. The introduced ECE heatmaps will contribute to the clinical implementations of the proposed model and reveal unknown features to radiologists. The outcome of this study is expected to promote the implementation of explainable artificial intelligence‐assiste ECE detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The die shear test is a feasible and conventional method to characterize the shear strength of die‐attaching layer materials in electronic packaging. A new method for determining cohesive zone model (CZM) parameters using deep neural networks (DNN) and die shear tests is proposed, different from classical fracture framework or lap shear test‐based methods. With the sintered nano‐silver die shear test, the results show that the bilinear CZM inversion results agree well with the experimental results. It is found that the DNN model has high accuracy in predicting and identifying the maximum shear traction strength τmax, separation displacement of the interface δf, and the interface stiffness k1 of CZM parameters for sintered nano‐silver adhesive layer through die shear test load versus displacement curves. The presented DNN‐aided inverse identifying method through the die shear test in this paper could provide an alternative and convenient method for extracting CZM parameters of various kinds of adhesive materials in electronic packaging. Highlights: Die shear tests were used for the inverse identification of CZM parameters.The die shear test P–δ curves were established as the dataset.A DNN‐aided CZM inverse identification method was proposed.The DNN‐aided model can accurately identify the CZM parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the discovery of the quasicrystal, approximately 100 stable quasicrystals are identified. To date, the existence of quasicrystals is verified using transmission electron microscopy; however, this technique requires significantly more elaboration than rapid and automatic powder X‐ray diffraction. Therefore, to facilitate the search for novel quasicrystals, developing a rapid technique for phase‐identification from powder diffraction patterns is desirable. This paper reports the identification of a new Al–Si–Ru quasicrystal using deep learning technologies from multiphase powder patterns, from which it is difficult to discriminate the presence of quasicrystalline phases even for well‐trained human experts. Deep neural networks trained with artificially generated multiphase powder patterns determine the presence of quasicrystals with an accuracy >92% from actual powder patterns. Specifically, 440 powder patterns are screened using the trained classifier, from which the Al–Si–Ru quasicrystal is identified. This study demonstrates an excellent potential of deep learning to identify an unknown phase of a targeted structure from powder patterns even when existing in a multiphase sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]