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Muhammad E. H. Chowdhury

Publications and source records attributed to Muhammad E. H. Chowdhury.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Machine-agnostic Automated Lumbar MRI Segmentation using a Cascaded Model Based on Generative Neurons

Automated lumbar spine segmentation is very crucial for modern diagnosis systems. In this study, we introduce a novel machine-agnostic approach for segmenting lumbar vertebrae and intervertebral discs from MRI images, employing a cascaded model that synergizes an ROI detection and a Self-organized Operational Neural Network (Self-ONN)-based encoder-decoder network for segmentation. Addressing the challenge of diverse MRI modalities, our methodology capitalizes on a unique dataset comprising images from 12 scanners and 34 subjects, enhanced through strategic preprocessing and data augmentation techniques. The YOLOv8 medium model excels in ROI extraction, achieving an excellent performance of 0.916 mAP score. Significantly, our Self-ONN-based model, combined with a DenseNet121 encoder, demonstrates excellent performance in lumbar vertebrae and IVD segmentation with a mean Intersection over Union (IoU) of 83.66%, a sensitivity of 91.44%, and Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) of 91.03%, as validated through rigorous 10-fold cross-validation. This study not only showcases an effective approach to MRI segmentation in spine-related disorders but also sets the stage for future advancements in automated diagnostic tools, emphasizing the need for further dataset expansion and model refinement for broader clinical applicability.

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Self-DenseMobileNet: A Robust Framework for Lung Nodule Classification using Self-ONN and Stacking-based Meta-Classifier

In this study, we propose a novel and robust framework, Self-DenseMobileNet, designed to enhance the classification of nodules and non-nodules in chest radiographs (CXRs). Our approach integrates advanced image standardization and enhancement techniques to optimize the input quality, thereby improving classification accuracy. To enhance predictive accuracy and leverage the strengths of multiple models, the prediction probabilities from Self-DenseMobileNet were transformed into tabular data and used to train eight classical machine learning (ML) models; the top three performers were then combined via a stacking algorithm, creating a robust meta-classifier that integrates their collective insights for superior classification performance. To enhance the interpretability of our results, we employed class activation mapping (CAM) to visualize the decision-making process of the best-performing model. Our proposed framework demonstrated remarkable performance on internal validation data, achieving an accuracy of 99.28\% using a Meta-Random Forest Classifier. When tested on an external dataset, the framework maintained strong generalizability with an accuracy of 89.40\%. These results highlight a significant improvement in the classification of CXRs with lung nodules.

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Deep learning in computed tomography pulmonary angiography imaging: a dual-pronged approach for pulmonary embolism detection

The increasing reliance on Computed Tomography Pulmonary Angiography (CTPA) for Pulmonary Embolism (PE) diagnosis presents challenges and a pressing need for improved diagnostic solutions. The primary objective of this study is to leverage deep learning techniques to enhance the Computer Assisted Diagnosis (CAD) of PE. With this aim, we propose a classifier-guided detection approach that effectively leverages the classifier's probabilistic inference to direct the detection predictions, marking a novel contribution in the domain of automated PE diagnosis. Our classification system includes an Attention-Guided Convolutional Neural Network (AG-CNN) that uses local context by employing an attention mechanism. This approach emulates a human expert's attention by looking at both global appearances and local lesion regions before making a decision. The classifier demonstrates robust performance on the FUMPE dataset, achieving an AUROC of 0.927, sensitivity of 0.862, specificity of 0.879, and an F1-score of 0.805 with the Inception-v3 backbone architecture. Moreover, AG-CNN outperforms the baseline DenseNet-121 model, achieving an 8.1% AUROC gain. While previous research has mostly focused on finding PE in the main arteries, our use of cutting-edge object detection models and ensembling techniques greatly improves the accuracy of detecting small embolisms in the peripheral arteries. Finally, our proposed classifier-guided detection approach further refines the detection metrics, contributing new state-of-the-art to the community: mAP$_{50}$, sensitivity, and F1-score of 0.846, 0.901, and 0.779, respectively, outperforming the former benchmark with a significant 3.7% improvement in mAP$_{50}$. Our research aims to elevate PE patient care by integrating AI solutions into clinical workflows, highlighting the potential of human-AI collaboration in medical diagnostics.

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A Novel 1D Generative Adversarial Network-based Framework for Atrial Fibrillation Detection using Restored Wrist Photoplethysmography Signals

Atrial fibrillation (AF) increases the risk of stroke. Electrocardiogram (ECG) is used for AF detection, while photoplethysmography (PPG) is simple to use and appropriate for long-term monitoring. We have developed a novel approach to detect AF from smartwatch-based wrist PPG signals. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to employ 1D CycleGAN for the reconstruction of 1D wrist PPG signals, since the quality of wrist PPG signals is very poor due to motion artifacts and acquisition site limitations. Our proposed approach is validated on a dataset of 21,278 10s long wrist PPG segments. The dataset was divided into two halves and two experiments were conducted. One half was used for training and the other half for testing and vice versa. Our classification model (Self-AFNet) with 1D-CycleGAN for restoration achieves an accuracy of 96.41% and 97.09% for both splits, respectively. There is a noteworthy improvement in accuracy (2.94% and 5.08% for test splits, respectively) for restored signals as compared to unrestored PPG. AF detection task was also performed using ECG signals with the matched PPG signals to assess the validity of employing reconstructed PPG-based AF classification. Self-AFNet managed to achieve an accuracy of 98.07% and 98.97%, respectively using two ECG splits which is comparable to the performance of AF detection utilizing reconstructed PPG segments. This study reflects that reconstructed wrist PPG signals acquired from wearable devices can be used for reliable detection of atrial fibrillation, which can significantly help in the reduction of the risk of stroke.

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A Novel Deep Learning Technique for Morphology Preserved Fetal ECG Extraction from Mother ECG using 1D-CycleGAN

Monitoring the electrical pulse of fetal heart through a non-invasive fetal electrocardiogram (fECG) can easily detect abnormalities in the developing heart to significantly reduce the infant mortality rate and post-natal complications. Due to the overlapping of maternal and fetal R-peaks, the low amplitude of the fECG, systematic and ambient noises, typical signal extraction methods, such as adaptive filters, independent component analysis, empirical mode decomposition, etc., are unable to produce satisfactory fECG. While some techniques can produce accurate QRS waves, they often ignore other important aspects of the ECG. Our approach, which is based on 1D CycleGAN, can reconstruct the fECG signal from the mECG signal while maintaining the morphology due to extensive preprocessing and appropriate framework. The performance of our solution was evaluated by combining two available datasets from Physionet, "Abdominal and Direct Fetal ECG Database" and "Fetal electrocardiograms, direct and abdominal with reference heartbeat annotations", where it achieved an average PCC and Spectral-Correlation score of 88.4% and 89.4%, respectively. It detects the fQRS of the signal with accuracy, precision, recall and F1 score of 92.6%, 97.6%, 94.8% and 96.4%, respectively. It can also accurately produce the estimation of fetal heart rate and R-R interval with an error of 0.25% and 0.27%, respectively. The main contribution of our work is that, unlike similar studies, it can retain the morphology of the ECG signal with high fidelity. The accuracy of our solution for fetal heart rate and R-R interval length is comparable to existing state-of-the-art techniques. This makes it a highly effective tool for early diagnosis of fetal heart diseases and regular health checkups of the fetus.

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AI-Driven Personalised Offloading Device Prescriptions: A Cutting-Edge Approach to Preventing Diabetes-Related Plantar Forefoot Ulcers and Complications

Diabetes-related foot ulcers and complications are a significant concern for individuals with diabetes, leading to severe health implications such as lower-limb amputation and reduced quality of life. This chapter discusses applying AI-driven personalised offloading device prescriptions as an advanced solution for preventing such conditions. By harnessing the capabilities of artificial intelligence, this cutting-edge approach enables the prescription of offloading devices tailored to each patient's specific requirements. This includes the patient's preferences on offloading devices such as footwear and foot orthotics and their adaptations that suit the patient's intention of use and lifestyle. Through a series of studies, real-world data analysis and machine learning algorithms, high-risk areas can be identified, facilitating the recommendation of precise offloading strategies, including custom orthotic insoles, shoe adaptations, or specialised footwear. By including patient-specific factors to promote adherence, proactively addressing pressure points and promoting optimal foot mechanics, these personalised offloading devices have the potential to minimise the occurrence of foot ulcers and associated complications. This chapter proposes an AI-powered Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) to recommend personalised prescriptions of offloading devices (footwear and insoles) for patients with diabetes who are at risk of foot complications. This innovative approach signifies a transformative leap in diabetic foot care, offering promising opportunities for preventive healthcare interventions.

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RamanNet: A generalized neural network architecture for Raman Spectrum Analysis

Raman spectroscopy provides a vibrational profile of the molecules and thus can be used to uniquely identify different kind of materials. This sort of fingerprinting molecules has thus led to widespread application of Raman spectrum in various fields like medical dignostics, forensics, mineralogy, bacteriology and virology etc. Despite the recent rise in Raman spectra data volume, there has not been any significant effort in developing generalized machine learning methods for Raman spectra analysis. We examine, experiment and evaluate existing methods and conjecture that neither current sequential models nor traditional machine learning models are satisfactorily sufficient to analyze Raman spectra. Both has their perks and pitfalls, therefore we attempt to mix the best of both worlds and propose a novel network architecture RamanNet. RamanNet is immune to invariance property in CNN and at the same time better than traditional machine learning models for the inclusion of sparse connectivity. Our experiments on 4 public datasets demonstrate superior performance over the much complex state-of-the-art methods and thus RamanNet has the potential to become the defacto standard in Raman spectra data analysis

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Novel techniques for improving NNetEn entropy calculation for short and noisy time series

Entropy is a fundamental concept in the field of information theory. During measurement, conventional entropy measures are susceptible to length and amplitude changes in time series. A new entropy metric, neural network entropy (NNetEn), has been developed to overcome these limitations. NNetEn entropy is computed using a modified LogNNet neural network classification model. The algorithm contains a reservoir matrix of N=19625 elements that must be filled with the given data. The contribution of this paper is threefold. Firstly, this work investigates different methods of filling the reservoir with time series (signal) elements. The reservoir filling method determines the accuracy of the entropy estimation by convolution of the study time series and LogNNet test data. The present study proposes 6 methods for filling the reservoir for time series. Two of them (Method 3 and Method 6) employ the novel approach of stretching the time series to create intermediate elements that complement it, but do not change its dynamics. The most reliable methods for short time series are Method 3 and Method 5. The second part of the study examines the influence of noise and constant bias on entropy values. Our study examines three different time series data types (chaotic, periodic, and binary) with different dynamic properties, Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), and offsets. The NNetEn entropy calculation errors are less than 10% when SNR is greater than 30 dB, and entropy decreases with an increase in the bias component. The third part of the article analyzes real-time biosignal EEG data collected from emotion recognition experiments. The NNetEn measures show robustness under low-amplitude noise using various filters. Thus, NNetEn measures entropy effectively when applied to real-world environments with ambient noise, white noise, and 1/f noise.

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Deep Learning based Automatic Quantification of Urethral Plate Quality using the Plate Objective Scoring Tool (POST)

Objectives: To explore the capacity of deep learning algorithm to further streamline and optimize urethral plate (UP) quality appraisal on 2D images using the plate objective scoring tool (POST), aiming to increase the objectivity and reproducibility of UP appraisal in hypospadias repair. Methods: The five key POST landmarks were marked by specialists in a 691-image dataset of prepubertal boys undergoing primary hypospadias repair. This dataset was then used to develop and validate a deep learning-based landmark detection model. The proposed framework begins with glans localization and detection, where the input image is cropped using the predicted bounding box. Next, a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture is used to predict the coordinates of the five POST landmarks. These predicted landmarks are then used to assess UP quality in distal hypospadias. Results: The proposed model accurately localized the glans area, with a mean average precision (mAP) of 99.5% and an overall sensitivity of 99.1%. A normalized mean error (NME) of 0.07152 was achieved in predicting the coordinates of the landmarks, with a mean squared error (MSE) of 0.001 and a 20.2% failure rate at a threshold of 0.1 NME. Conclusions: This deep learning application shows robustness and high precision in using POST to appraise UP quality. Further assessment using international multi-centre image-based databases is ongoing. External validation could benefit deep learning algorithms and lead to better assessments, decision-making and predictions for surgical outcomes.

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PPG2ABP: Translating Photoplethysmogram (PPG) Signals to Arterial Blood Pressure (ABP) Waveforms using Fully Convolutional Neural Networks

Cardiovascular diseases are one of the most severe causes of mortality, taking a heavy toll of lives annually throughout the world. The continuous monitoring of blood pressure seems to be the most viable option, but this demands an invasive process, bringing about several layers of complexities. This motivates us to develop a method to predict the continuous arterial blood pressure (ABP) waveform through a non-invasive approach using photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals. In addition we explore the advantage of deep learning as it would free us from sticking to ideally shaped PPG signals only, by making handcrafted feature computation irrelevant, which is a shortcoming of the existing approaches. Thus, we present, PPG2ABP, a deep learning based method, that manages to predict the continuous ABP waveform from the input PPG signal, with a mean absolute error of 4.604 mmHg, preserving the shape, magnitude and phase in unison. However, the more astounding success of PPG2ABP turns out to be that the computed values of DBP, MAP and SBP from the predicted ABP waveform outperforms the existing works under several metrics, despite that PPG2ABP is not explicitly trained to do so.

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Design, Implementation, and Performance Evaluation of a Fiber Bragg Gratings(FBG) based Smart Insole to Measure Plantar Pressure and Temperature

Various foot complications can be easily avoided by continuous monitoring of foot plantar temperature and pressure. In this work, the design, characterization, and implementation of a Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBG) based smart insole capable of simultaneously measuring plantar pressure and temperature has been reported. The instrumented insole was tested and verified during static and gait exercises. The paper also provides a comparison of the developed optoelectronic-based solution with a commercially available and widely used plantar pressure measurement and analysis system and a lab-made, electronic sensor-based smart insole that can measure both plantar temperature and pressure. It was shown that even though the commercially available expensive system is very robust and highly precise due to many sensing units on the insole, the developed insole with a smaller number of sensors can provide both plantar temperature and pressure with reasonable precision while displaying both foot pressure and temperature maps, and gait cycle plots in real-time. The FBG-based solution is comfortable and safer than the other systems being compared. Thus, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed solution as an addition to the research area for detecting foot complications non-invasively using foot insoles.

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BIO-CXRNET: A Robust Multimodal Stacking Machine Learning Technique for Mortality Risk Prediction of COVID-19 Patients using Chest X-Ray Images and Clinical Data

Fast and accurate detection of the disease can significantly help in reducing the strain on the healthcare facility of any country to reduce the mortality during any pandemic. The goal of this work is to create a multimodal system using a novel machine learning framework that uses both Chest X-ray (CXR) images and clinical data to predict severity in COVID-19 patients. In addition, the study presents a nomogram-based scoring technique for predicting the likelihood of death in high-risk patients. This study uses 25 biomarkers and CXR images in predicting the risk in 930 COVID-19 patients admitted during the first wave of COVID-19 (March-June 2020) in Italy. The proposed multimodal stacking technique produced the precision, sensitivity, and F1-score, of 89.03%, 90.44%, and 89.03%, respectively to identify low or high-risk patients. This multimodal approach improved the accuracy by 6% in comparison to the CXR image or clinical data alone. Finally, nomogram scoring system using multivariate logistic regression -- was used to stratify the mortality risk among the high-risk patients identified in the first stage. Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH), O2 percentage, White Blood Cells (WBC) Count, Age, and C-reactive protein (CRP) were identified as useful predictor using random forest feature selection model. Five predictors parameters and a CXR image based nomogram score was developed for quantifying the probability of death and categorizing them into two risk groups: survived (<50%), and death (>=50%), respectively. The multi-modal technique was able to predict the death probability of high-risk patients with an F1 score of 92.88 %. The area under the curves for the development and validation cohorts are 0.981 and 0.939, respectively.

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Design and Implementation of a Complete Wearable Smart Insole Solution to Measure Plantar Pressure and Temperature

A complete smart insole solution that continuously monitors the foot plantar pressure and temperature can detect foot complications early and that too from the convenience of the user home. Widespread health complications such as Diabetic Mellitus need continuous foot complication monitoring to avoid severe complications. With that motivation, this paper provides a detailed design of a wearable insole using popular off-the-shelf sensors to monitor foot plantar pressure and temperature. The design provides details of which temperature and pressure to be used, circuit configuration for characterizing the sensors, and the considerations for developing a compact Printed Circuit board design using appropriate microcontrollers and communication protocol. The system also provides details of how the foot pressure and temperature data from the subjects using the sensors can be transferred wirelessly using a low-power consuming communication protocol to a central device where the data will be recorded. The investigation can help in developing a low-cost, feasible and portable foot monitoring system for patients by facilitating real-time, home monitoring of foot condition using Gait Cycle or Foot Pressure patterns and temperature heterogeneity between two feet. The proposed system will work in real-time.

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OSegNet: Operational Segmentation Network for COVID-19 Detection using Chest X-ray Images

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been diagnosed automatically using Machine Learning algorithms over chest X-ray (CXR) images. However, most of the earlier studies used Deep Learning models over scarce datasets bearing the risk of overfitting. Additionally, previous studies have revealed the fact that deep networks are not reliable for classification since their decisions may originate from irrelevant areas on the CXRs. Therefore, in this study, we propose Operational Segmentation Network (OSegNet) that performs detection by segmenting COVID-19 pneumonia for a reliable diagnosis. To address the data scarcity encountered in training and especially in evaluation, this study extends the largest COVID-19 CXR dataset: QaTa-COV19 with 121,378 CXRs including 9258 COVID-19 samples with their corresponding ground-truth segmentation masks that are publicly shared with the research community. Consequently, OSegNet has achieved a detection performance with the highest accuracy of 99.65% among the state-of-the-art deep models with 98.09% precision.

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Motion Artifacts Correction from Single-Channel EEG and fNIRS Signals using Novel Wavelet Packet Decomposition in Combination with Canonical Correlation Analysis

The electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) signals, highly non-stationary in nature, greatly suffers from motion artifacts while recorded using wearable sensors. This paper proposes two robust methods: i) Wavelet packet decomposition (WPD), and ii) WPD in combination with canonical correlation analysis (WPD-CCA), for motion artifact correction from single-channel EEG and fNIRS signals. The efficacy of these proposed techniques is tested using a benchmark dataset and the performance of the proposed methods is measured using two well-established performance matrices: i) Difference in the signal to noise ratio (ΔSNR) and ii) Percentage reduction in motion artifacts (η). The proposed WPD-based single-stage motion artifacts correction technique produces the highest average ΔSNR (29.44 dB) when db2 wavelet packet is incorporated whereas the greatest average η (53.48%) is obtained using db1 wavelet packet for all the available 23 EEG recordings. Our proposed two-stage motion artifacts correction technique i.e. the WPD-CCA method utilizing db1 wavelet packet has shown the best denoising performance producing an average ΔSNR and η values of 30.76 dB and 59.51%, respectively for all the EEG recordings. On the other hand, the two-stage motion artifacts removal technique i.e. WPD-CCA has produced the best average ΔSNR (16.55 dB, utilizing db1 wavelet packet) and largest average η (41.40%, using fk8 wavelet packet). The highest average ΔSNR and η using single-stage artifacts removal techniques (WPD) are found as 16.11 dB and 26.40%, respectively for all the fNIRS signals using fk4 wavelet packet. In both EEG and fNIRS modalities, the percentage reduction in motion artifacts increases by 11.28% and 56.82%, respectively when two-stage WPD-CCA techniques are employed.

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A machine learning-based severity prediction tool for diabetic sensorimotor polyneuropathy using Michigan neuropathy screening instrumentations

Background: Diabetic Sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN) is a major long-term complication in diabetic patients associated with painful neuropathy, foot ulceration and amputation. The Michigan neuropathy screening instrument (MNSI) is one of the most common screening techniques for DSPN, however, it does not provide any direct severity grading system. Method: For designing and modelling the DSPN severity grading systems for MNSI, 19 years of data from Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) clinical trials were used. MNSI variables and patient outcomes were investigated using machine learning tools to identify the features having higher association in DSPN identification. A multivariable logistic regression-based nomogram was generated and validated for DSPN severity grading. Results: The top-7 ranked features from MNSI: 10-gm filament, Vibration perception (R), Vibration perception (L), previous diabetic neuropathy, the appearance of deformities, appearance of callus and appearance of fissure were identified as key features for identifying DSPN using the extra tree model. The area under the curve (AUC) of the nomogram for the internal and external datasets were 0.9421 and 0.946, respectively. From the developed nomogram, the probability of having DSPN was predicted and a DSPN severity scoring system for MNSI was developed from the probability score. The model performance was validated on an independent dataset. Patients were stratified into four severity levels: absent, mild, moderate, and severe using a cut-off value of 10.5, 12.7 and 15 for a DSPN probability less than 50%, 75% to 90%, and above 90%, respectively. Conclusions: This study provides a simple, easy-to-use and reliable algorithm for defining the prognosis and management of patients with DSPN.

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EDITH :ECG biometrics aided by Deep learning for reliable Individual auTHentication

In recent years, physiological signal based authentication has shown great promises,for its inherent robustness against forgery. Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal, being the most widely studied biosignal, has also received the highest level of attention in this regard. It has been proven with numerous studies that by analyzing ECG signals from different persons, it is possible to identify them, with acceptable accuracy. In this work, we present, EDITH, a deep learning-based framework for ECG biometrics authentication system. Moreover, we hypothesize and demonstrate that Siamese architectures can be used over typical distance metrics for improved performance. We have evaluated EDITH using 4 commonly used datasets and outperformed the prior works using less number of beats. EDITH performs competitively using just a single heartbeat (96-99.75% accuracy) and can be further enhanced by fusing multiple beats (100% accuracy from 3 to 6 beats). Furthermore, the proposed Siamese architecture manages to reduce the identity verification Equal Error Rate (EER) to 1.29%. A limited case study of EDITH with real-world experimental data also suggests its potential as a practical authentication system.

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A Shallow U-Net Architecture for Reliably Predicting Blood Pressure (BP) from Photoplethysmogram (PPG) and Electrocardiogram (ECG) Signals

Cardiovascular diseases are the most common causes of death around the world. To detect and treat heart-related diseases, continuous Blood Pressure (BP) monitoring along with many other parameters are required. Several invasive and non-invasive methods have been developed for this purpose. Most existing methods used in the hospitals for continuous monitoring of BP are invasive. On the contrary, cuff-based BP monitoring methods, which can predict Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) and Diastolic Blood Pressure (DBP), cannot be used for continuous monitoring. Several studies attempted to predict BP from non-invasively collectible signals such as Photoplethysmogram (PPG) and Electrocardiogram (ECG), which can be used for continuous monitoring. In this study, we explored the applicability of autoencoders in predicting BP from PPG and ECG signals. The investigation was carried out on 12,000 instances of 942 patients of the MIMIC-II dataset and it was found that a very shallow, one-dimensional autoencoder can extract the relevant features to predict the SBP and DBP with the state-of-the-art performance on a very large dataset. Independent test set from a portion of the MIMIC-II dataset provides an MAE of 2.333 and 0.713 for SBP and DBP, respectively. On an external dataset of forty subjects, the model trained on the MIMIC-II dataset, provides an MAE of 2.728 and 1.166 for SBP and DBP, respectively. For both the cases, the results met British Hypertension Society (BHS) Grade A and surpassed the studies from the current literature.

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