arXiv subjects

Hamza Kheddar

Publications and source records attributed to Hamza Kheddar.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A Deployment-Oriented and Resource-Efficient Neuro-Symbolic Framework for Explainable DDoS Detection in Operational Technology Networks

Operational technology (OT) environments, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs), industrial control systems (ICS), and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, are increasingly targeted by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. This paper presents a neuro-symbolic framework specifically designed for robust DDoS detection in these resource-constrained environments. The framework fuses a gated recurrent unit (GRU) neural network with a shallow decision tree as a symbolic component. The symbolic component alone provides a compact, interpretable rule set, while the fusion combines the strengths of both paradigms. The hybrid model is evaluated on three real-world benchmark DDoS datasets: CIC-DDoS2019, Edge-IIoTset, and CICIoT23. A unified comprehensive preprocessing pipeline including label mapping, numerical feature selection, robust scaling, and class balancing is applied. The fusion weight alpha and decision threshold are jointly optimised on validation data to maximise F1-score. The hybrid model attains 99.04% accuracy (MCC 0.97) on CIC-DDoS2019 and 98.61% accuracy (MCC 0.76) on CICIoT23, in both cases reducing the FNR below that of the pure-neural and pure-symbolic baselines; on the linearly separable Edge-IIoTset the shallow decision tree alone already reaches 100%, so this benchmark validates the preprocessing pipeline rather than the fusion. The principal gain of the fusion is a lower FNR at a controlled false-positive cost, which matters in operational technology, where a missed attack is more damaging than a false alarm. Model-only inference latency is sub-millisecond (0.58-0.79 milliseconds per sample) on a standard central processing unit; including on-device flow-feature extraction, the end-to-end path remains within a single-digit-millisecond budget, which is compatible with OT control-loop timing.

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arXiv2026

BreathAI: Transfer Learning-Based Thermal Imaging for Automated Breathing Pattern Recognition

This study presents an Adaptive Transfer Learning and Thresholding-based Deep Learning Model (ATL-TDLM) for automated breathing pattern recognition using thermal imaging. Unlike conventional methods that rely on sound-based respiratory data, our approach leverages hierarchical deep feature extraction and adaptive multi-thresholding (AMT) to enhance feature segmentation. The model integrates knowledge distillation-based fine-tuning (KD-FT) to optimize learning transfer and contrastive representation learning (CRL) to improve inter-class separability between inhalation (INH) and exhalation (EXH) phases. The ATL-TDLM framework achieves an accuracy of 98.8%, significantly outperforming state-of-the-art models while ensuring computational efficiency. This approach has potential applications in respiratory disorder detection, including sleep apnea and asthma monitoring.

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arXiv2026

Portable Medical Imaging in Modern Healthcare: Fundamentals, AI-Based Taxonomy, Image Quality, and Open Challenges

Portable medical imaging (PMI) has emerged as an important solution for point-of-care diagnosis in emergency, rural, and resource-limited settings where conventional imaging infrastructure is not readily available. Modalities such as portable computed tomography, portable magnetic resonance imaging, portable ultrasound, and wireless capsule endoscopy improve access to timely diagnosis, but they remain highly vulnerable to image-quality degradation caused by motion artifacts, environmental interference, hardware limitations, and unstable acquisition conditions. This review provides a systematic and quality-centered synthesis of recent advances in PMI. It introduces a taxonomy of AI-based PMI methods spanning machine learning, deep learning, transfer learning, and Transformer-based approaches, and examines their roles in image enhancement, reconstruction, quality assessment, detection, and classification. The review also analyzes PMI devices, sensing pipelines, modality-specific distortions, evaluation metrics, and publicly available datasets. In contrast to existing surveys that are mainly modality-driven or application-focused, this work emphasizes the relationship between image quality, AI robustness, and clinical usability in portable settings. Finally, it identifies current research gaps and outlines future directions toward reliable, interpretable, and clinically deployable PMI systems.

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arXiv2026

Hybrid ResNet-1D-BiGRU with Multi-Head Attention for Cyberattack Detection in Industrial IoT Environments

This study introduces a hybrid deep learning model for intrusion detection in Industrial IoT (IIoT) systems, combining ResNet-1D, BiGRU, and Multi-Head Attention (MHA) for effective spatial-temporal feature extraction and attention-based feature weighting. To address class imbalance, SMOTE was applied during training on the EdgeHoTset dataset. The model achieved 98.71% accuracy, a loss of 0.0417%, and low inference latency (0.0001 sec /instance), demonstrating strong real-time capability. To assess generalizability, the model was also tested on the CICIoV2024 dataset, where it reached 99.99% accuracy and F1-score, with a loss of 0.0028, 0 % FPR, and 0.00014 sec/instance inference time. Across all metrics and datasets, the proposed model outperformed existing methods, confirming its robustness and effectiveness for real-time IoT intrusion detection.

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arXiv2026

SE-Enhanced ViT and BiLSTM-Based Intrusion Detection for Secure IIoT and IoMT Environments

With the rapid growth of interconnected devices in Industrial and Medical Internet of Things (IIoT and MIoT) ecosystems, ensuring timely and accurate detection of cyber threats has become a critical challenge. This study presents an advanced intrusion detection framework based on a hybrid Squeeze-and-Excitation Attention Vision Transformer-Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (SE ViT-BiLSTM) architecture. In this design, the traditional multi-head attention mechanism of the Vision Transformer is replaced with Squeeze-and-Excitation attention, and integrated with BiLSTM layers to enhance detection accuracy and computational efficiency. The proposed model was trained and evaluated on two real-world benchmark datasets; EdgeIIoT and CICIoMT2024; both before and after data balancing using the Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (SMOTE) and RandomOverSampler. Experimental results demonstrate that the SE ViT-BiLSTM model outperforms existing approaches across multiple metrics. Before balancing, the model achieved accuracies of 99.11% (FPR: 0.0013%, latency: 0.00032 sec/inst) on EdgeIIoT and 96.10% (FPR: 0.0036%, latency: 0.00053 sec/inst) on CICIoMT2024. After balancing, performance further improved, reaching 99.33% accuracy with 0.00035 sec/inst latency on EdgeIIoT and 98.16% accuracy with 0.00014 sec/inst latency on CICIoMT2024.

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arXiv2025

A Robust Cross-Domain IDS using BiGRU-LSTM-Attention for Medical and Industrial IoT Security

The increased Internet of Medical Things IoMT and the Industrial Internet of Things IIoT interconnectivity has introduced complex cybersecurity challenges, exposing sensitive data, patient safety, and industrial operations to advanced cyber threats. To mitigate these risks, this paper introduces a novel transformer-based intrusion detection system IDS, termed BiGAT-ID a hybrid model that combines bidirectional gated recurrent units BiGRU, long short-term memory LSTM networks, and multi-head attention MHA. The proposed architecture is designed to effectively capture bidirectional temporal dependencies, model sequential patterns, and enhance contextual feature representation. Extensive experiments on two benchmark datasets, CICIoMT2024 medical IoT and EdgeIIoTset industrial IoT demonstrate the model's cross-domain robustness, achieving detection accuracies of 99.13 percent and 99.34 percent, respectively. Additionally, the model exhibits exceptional runtime efficiency, with inference times as low as 0.0002 seconds per instance in IoMT and 0.0001 seconds in IIoT scenarios. Coupled with a low false positive rate, BiGAT-ID proves to be a reliable and efficient IDS for deployment in real-world heterogeneous IoT environments

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arXiv2025

Recent Advances in Transformer and Large Language Models for UAV Applications

The rapid advancement of Transformer-based models has reshaped the landscape of uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) systems by enhancing perception, decision-making, and autonomy. This review paper systematically categorizes and evaluates recent developments in Transformer architectures applied to UAVs, including attention mechanisms, CNN-Transformer hybrids, reinforcement learning Transformers, and large language models (LLMs). Unlike previous surveys, this work presents a unified taxonomy of Transformer-based UAV models, highlights emerging applications such as precision agriculture and autonomous navigation, and provides comparative analyses through structured tables and performance benchmarks. The paper also reviews key datasets, simulators, and evaluation metrics used in the field. Furthermore, it identifies existing gaps in the literature, outlines critical challenges in computational efficiency and real-time deployment, and offers future research directions. This comprehensive synthesis aims to guide researchers and practitioners in understanding and advancing Transformer-driven UAV technologies.

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arXiv2025

Hierarchical Graph Neural Network for Compressed Speech Steganalysis

Steganalysis methods based on deep learning (DL) often struggle with computational complexity and challenges in generalizing across different datasets. Incorporating a graph neural network (GNN) into steganalysis schemes enables the leveraging of relational data for improved detection accuracy and adaptability. This paper presents the first application of a Graph Neural Network (GNN), specifically the GraphSAGE architecture, for steganalysis of compressed voice over IP (VoIP) speech streams. The method involves straightforward graph construction from VoIP streams and employs GraphSAGE to capture hierarchical steganalysis information, including both fine grained details and high level patterns, thereby achieving high detection accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate that the developed approach performs well in uncovering quantization index modulation (QIM)-based steganographic patterns in VoIP signals. It achieves detection accuracy exceeding 98 percent even for short 0.5 second samples, and 95.17 percent accuracy under challenging conditions with low embedding rates, representing an improvement of 2.8 percent over the best performing state of the art methods. Furthermore, the model exhibits superior efficiency, with an average detection time as low as 0.016 seconds for 0.5-second samples an improvement of 0.003 seconds. This makes it efficient for online steganalysis tasks, providing a superior balance between detection accuracy and efficiency under the constraint of short samples with low embedding rates.

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arXiv2025

Multilinear subspace learning for person re-identification based fusion of high order tensor features

Video surveillance image analysis and processing is a challenging field in computer vision, with one of its most difficult tasks being Person Re-Identification (PRe-ID). PRe-ID aims to identify and track target individuals who have already been detected in a network of cameras, using a robust description of their pedestrian images. The success of recent research in person PRe-ID is largely due to effective feature extraction and representation, as well as the powerful learning of these features to reliably discriminate between pedestrian images. To this end, two powerful features, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Local Maximal Occurrence (LOMO), are modeled on multidimensional data using the proposed method, High-Dimensional Feature Fusion (HDFF). Specifically, a new tensor fusion scheme is introduced to leverage and combine these two types of features in a single tensor, even though their dimensions are not identical. To enhance the system's accuracy, we employ Tensor Cross-View Quadratic Analysis (TXQDA) for multilinear subspace learning, followed by cosine similarity for matching. TXQDA efficiently facilitates learning while reducing the high dimensionality inherent in high-order tensor data. The effectiveness of our approach is verified through experiments on three widely-used PRe-ID datasets: VIPeR, GRID, and PRID450S. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach outperforms recent state-of-the-art methods.

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arXiv2025

Transfer Learning-Based Deep Residual Learning for Speech Recognition in Clean and Noisy Environments

Addressing the detrimental impact of non-stationary environmental noise on automatic speech recognition (ASR) has been a persistent and significant research focus. Despite advancements, this challenge continues to be a major concern. Recently, data-driven supervised approaches, such as deep neural networks, have emerged as promising alternatives to traditional unsupervised methods. With extensive training, these approaches have the potential to overcome the challenges posed by diverse real-life acoustic environments. In this light, this paper introduces a novel neural framework that incorporates a robust frontend into ASR systems in both clean and noisy environments. Utilizing the Aurora-2 speech database, the authors evaluate the effectiveness of an acoustic feature set for Mel-frequency, employing the approach of transfer learning based on Residual neural network (ResNet). The experimental results demonstrate a significant improvement in recognition accuracy compared to convolutional neural networks (CNN) and long short-term memory (LSTM) networks. They achieved accuracies of 98.94% in clean and 91.21% in noisy mode.

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arXiv2025

Enhancing Cochlear Implant Signal Coding with Scaled Dot-Product Attention

Cochlear implants (CIs) play a vital role in restoring hearing for individuals with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss by directly stimulating the auditory nerve with electrical signals. While traditional coding strategies, such as the advanced combination encoder (ACE), have proven effective, they are constrained by their adaptability and precision. This paper investigates the use of deep learning (DL) techniques to generate electrodograms for CIs, presenting our model as an advanced alternative. We compared the performance of our model with the ACE strategy by evaluating the intelligibility of reconstructed audio signals using the short-time objective intelligibility (STOI) metric. The results indicate that our model achieves a STOI score of 0.6031, closely approximating the 0.6126 score of the ACE strategy, and offers potential advantages in flexibility and adaptability. This study underscores the benefits of incorporating artificial intelligent (AI) into CI technology, such as enhanced personalization and efficiency.

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arXiv2025

Improving Pretrained YAMNet for Enhanced Speech Command Detection via Transfer Learning

This work addresses the need for enhanced accuracy and efficiency in speech command recognition systems, a critical component for improving user interaction in various smart applications. Leveraging the robust pretrained YAMNet model and transfer learning, this study develops a method that significantly improves speech command recognition. We adapt and train a YAMNet deep learning model to effectively detect and interpret speech commands from audio signals. Using the extensively annotated Speech Commands dataset (speech_commands_v0.01), our approach demonstrates the practical application of transfer learning to accurately recognize a predefined set of speech commands. The dataset is meticulously augmented, and features are strategically extracted to boost model performance. As a result, the final model achieved a recognition accuracy of 95.28%, underscoring the impact of advanced machine learning techniques on speech command recognition. This achievement marks substantial progress in audio processing technologies and establishes a new benchmark for future research in the field.

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arXiv2025

Advanced Deep Learning and Large Language Models: Comprehensive Insights for Cancer Detection

The rapid advancement of deep learning (DL) has transformed healthcare, particularly in cancer detection and diagnosis. DL surpasses traditional machine learning and human accuracy, making it a critical tool for identifying diseases. Despite numerous reviews on DL in healthcare, a comprehensive analysis of its role in cancer detection remains limited. Existing studies focus on specific aspects, leaving gaps in understanding its broader impact. This paper addresses these gaps by reviewing advanced DL techniques, including transfer learning (TL), reinforcement learning (RL), federated learning (FL), Transformers, and large language models (LLMs). These approaches enhance accuracy, tackle data scarcity, and enable decentralized learning while maintaining data privacy. TL adapts pre-trained models to new datasets, improving performance with limited labeled data. RL optimizes diagnostic pathways and treatment strategies, while FL fosters collaborative model development without sharing sensitive data. Transformers and LLMs, traditionally used in natural language processing, are now applied to medical data for improved interpretability. Additionally, this review examines these techniques' efficiency in cancer diagnosis, addresses challenges like data imbalance, and proposes solutions. It serves as a resource for researchers and practitioners, providing insights into current trends and guiding future research in advanced DL for cancer detection.

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arXiv2025

Adaptive Cyber-Attack Detection in IIoT Using Attention-Based LSTM-CNN Models

The rapid expansion of the industrial Internet of things (IIoT) has introduced new challenges in securing critical infrastructures against sophisticated cyberthreats. This study presents the development and evaluation of an advanced Intrusion detection (IDS) based on a hybrid LSTM-convolution neural network (CNN)-Attention architecture, specifically designed to detect and classify cyberattacks in IIoT environments. The research focuses on two key classification tasks: binary and multi-class classification. The proposed models was rigorously tested using the Edge-IIoTset dataset. To mitigate the class imbalance in the dataset, the synthetic minority over-sampling technique (SMOTE) was employed to generate synthetic samples for the underrepresented classes. This ensured that the model could learn effectively from all classes, thereby improving the overall classification performance. Through systematic experimentation, various deep learning (DL) models were compared, ultimately demonstrating that the LSTM-CNN-Attention model consistently outperformed others across key performance metrics. In binary classification, the model achieved near-perfect accuracy, while in multi-class classification, it maintained a high accuracy level (99.04%), effectively categorizing different attack types with a loss value of 0.0220%.

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arXiv2024

Automatic Speech Recognition with BERT and CTC Transformers: A Review

This review paper provides a comprehensive analysis of recent advances in automatic speech recognition (ASR) with bidirectional encoder representations from transformers BERT and connectionist temporal classification (CTC) transformers. The paper first introduces the fundamental concepts of ASR and discusses the challenges associated with it. It then explains the architecture of BERT and CTC transformers and their potential applications in ASR. The paper reviews several studies that have used these models for speech recognition tasks and discusses the results obtained. Additionally, the paper highlights the limitations of these models and outlines potential areas for further research. All in all, this review provides valuable insights for researchers and practitioners who are interested in ASR with BERT and CTC transformers.

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arXiv2024

Deep Learning Techniques for Hand Vein Biometrics: A Comprehensive Review

Biometric authentication has garnered significant attention as a secure and efficient method of identity verification. Among the various modalities, hand vein biometrics, including finger vein, palm vein, and dorsal hand vein recognition, offer unique advantages due to their high accuracy, low susceptibility to forgery, and non-intrusiveness. The vein patterns within the hand are highly complex and distinct for each individual, making them an ideal biometric identifier. Additionally, hand vein recognition is contactless, enhancing user convenience and hygiene compared to other modalities such as fingerprint or iris recognition. Furthermore, the veins are internally located, rendering them less susceptible to damage or alteration, thus enhancing the security and reliability of the biometric system. The combination of these factors makes hand vein biometrics a highly effective and secure method for identity verification. This review paper delves into the latest advancements in deep learning techniques applied to finger vein, palm vein, and dorsal hand vein recognition. It encompasses all essential fundamentals of hand vein biometrics, summarizes publicly available datasets, and discusses state-of-the-art metrics used for evaluating the three modes. Moreover, it provides a comprehensive overview of suggested approaches for finger, palm, dorsal, and multimodal vein techniques, offering insights into the best performance achieved, data augmentation techniques, and effective transfer learning methods, along with associated pretrained deep learning models. Additionally, the review addresses research challenges faced and outlines future directions and perspectives, encouraging researchers to enhance existing methods and propose innovative techniques.

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arXiv2024

Transformers and Large Language Models for Efficient Intrusion Detection Systems: A Comprehensive Survey

With significant advancements in Transformers LLMs, NLP has extended its reach into many research fields due to its enhanced capabilities in text generation and user interaction. One field benefiting greatly from these advancements is cybersecurity. In cybersecurity, many parameters that need to be protected and exchanged between senders and receivers are in the form of text and tabular data, making NLP a valuable tool in enhancing the security measures of communication protocols. This survey paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the utilization of Transformers and LLMs in cyber-threat detection systems. The methodology of paper selection and bibliometric analysis is outlined to establish a rigorous framework for evaluating existing research. The fundamentals of Transformers are discussed, including background information on various cyber-attacks and datasets commonly used in this field. The survey explores the application of Transformers in IDSs, focusing on different architectures such as Attention-based models, LLMs like BERT and GPT, CNN/LSTM-Transformer hybrids, emerging approaches like ViTs, among others. Furthermore, it explores the diverse environments and applications where Transformers and LLMs-based IDS have been implemented, including computer networks, IoT devices, critical infrastructure protection, cloud computing, SDN, as well as in autonomous vehicles. The paper also addresses research challenges and future directions in this area, identifying key issues such as interpretability, scalability, and adaptability to evolving threats, and more. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the findings and highlights the significance of Transformers and LLMs in enhancing cyber-threat detection capabilities, while also outlining potential avenues for further research and development.

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arXiv2024

Deep Transfer Learning for Kidney Cancer Diagnosis

Incurable diseases continue to pose major challenges to global healthcare systems, with their prevalence shaped by lifestyle, economic, social, and genetic factors. Among these, kidney disease remains a critical global health issue, requiring ongoing research to improve early diagnosis and treatment. In recent years, deep learning (DL) has shown promise in medical imaging and diagnostics, driving significant progress in automatic kidney cancer (KC) detection. However, the success of DL models depends heavily on the availability of high-quality, domain-specific datasets, which are often limited and expensive to acquire. Moreover, DL models demand substantial computational power and storage, restricting their real-world clinical use. To overcome these barriers, transfer learning (TL) has emerged as an effective approach, enabling the reuse of pre-trained models from related domains to enhance KC diagnosis. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of DL-based TL frameworks for KC detection, systematically reviewing key methodologies, their advantages, and limitations, and analyzing their practical performance. It further discusses challenges in applying TL to medical imaging and highlights emerging trends that could influence future research. This review demonstrates the transformative role of TL in precision medicine, particularly oncology, by improving diagnostic accuracy, lowering computational demands, and supporting the integration of AI-powered tools in healthcare. The insights provided offer valuable guidance for researchers and practitioners, paving the way for future advances in KC diagnostics and personalized treatment strategies.

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