Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
Enhanced Single Shot Small Object Detector for Aerial Imagery Using Super-Resolution, Feature Fusion and Deconvolution

One common issue of object detection in aerial imagery is the small size of objects in proportion to the overall image size. This is mainly caused by high camera altitude and wide-angle lenses that are commonly used in drones aimed to maximize the coverage. State-of-the-art general purpose object detector tend to under-perform and struggle with small object detection due to loss of spatial features and weak feature representation of the small objects and sheer imbalance between objects and the background. This paper aims to address small object detection in aerial imagery by offering a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model that utilizes the Single Shot multi-box Detector (SSD) as the baseline network and extends its small object detection performance with feature enhancement modules including super-resolution, deconvolution and feature fusion. These modules are collectively aimed at improving the feature representation of small objects at the prediction layer. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated using three datasets including two aerial images datasets that mainly consist of small objects. The proposed model is compared with the state-of-the-art small object detectors. Experiment results demonstrate improvements in the mean Absolute Precision (mAP) and Recall values in comparison to the state-of-the-art small object detectors that investigated in this study.
A Sentiment Analysis Method Based on a Blockchain-Supported Long Short-Term Memory Deep Network

Traditional sentiment analysis methods are based on text-, visual- or audio-processing using different machine learning and/or deep learning architecture, depending on the data type. This situation comes with technical processing diversity and cultural temperament effect on analysis of the results, which means the results can change according to the cultural diversities. This study integrates a blockchain layer with an LSTM architecture. This approach can be regarded as a machine learning application that enables the transfer of the metadata of the ledger to the learning database by establishing a cryptographic connection, which is created by adding the next sentiment with the same value to the ledger as a smart contract. Thus, a "Proof of Learning" consensus blockchain layer integrity framework, which constitutes the confirmation mechanism of the machine learning process and handles data management, is provided. The proposed method is applied to a Twitter dataset with the emotions of negative, neutral and positive. Previous sentiment analysis methods on the same data achieved accuracy rates of 14% in a specific culture and 63% in a the culture that has appealed to a wider audience in the past. This study puts forth a very promising improvement by increasing the accuracy to 92.85%.
Blockchain-based traceability system for supply chain: potentials, gaps, applicability and adoption game

There are hypes towards blockchain-based traceability systems (BCTS) both from academia and industry. This paper discusses challenges and policy recommendations for BCTS from a viewpoint of industrial application and market competition. First, the potentials of BCTS and the gaps between the ideal and the reality of BCTS are elaborated. Second, we discuss the applicability of BCTS. Third, by a game-theoretic model, we study when supply chains should invest in BCTS. Investment is recommended when investment cost is relatively low compared to the price and market competition is less intense. A prisoner’s dilemma arises when investment cost is at a moderate level.
Few-Shot Multi-Class Ship Detection in Remote Sensing Images Using Attention Feature Map and Multi-Relation Detector

Monitoring and identification of ships in remote sensing images is of great significance for port management, marine traffic, marine security, etc. However, due to small size and complex background, ship detection in remote sensing images is still a challenging task. Currently, deep-learning-based detection models need a lot of data and manual annotation, while training data containing ships in remote sensing images may be in limited quantities. To solve this problem, in this paper, we propose a few-shot multi-class ship detection algorithm with attention feature map and multi-relation detector (AFMR) for remote sensing images. We use the basic framework of You Only Look Once (YOLO), and use the attention feature map module to enhance the features of the target. In addition, the multi-relation head module is also used to optimize the detection head of YOLO. Extensive experiments on publicly available HRSC2016 dataset and self-constructed REMEX-FSSD dataset validate that our method achieves a good detection performance.
Instance Segmentation Based on Improved Self-Adaptive Normalization

The single batch normalization (BN) method is commonly used in the instance segmentation algorithms. The batch size is concerned with some drawbacks. A too small sample batch size leads to a sharp drop in accuracy, but a too large batch may result in the memory overflow of graphic processing units (GPU). These problems make BN not feasible to some instance segmentation tasks with inappropriate batch sizes. The self-adaptive normalization (SN) method, with an adaptive weight loss layer, shows good performance in instance segmentation algorithms, such as the YOLACT. However, the parameter averaging mechanism in the SN method is prone to problems in the weight learning and assignment process. In response to such a problem, the paper proposes to replace the single BN with an adaptive weight loss layer in SN models, based on which a weight learning method is developed. The proposed method increases the input feature expression ability of the subsequent layers. By building a Pytorch deep learning framework, the proposed method is validated in the MS-COCO data set and Autonomous Driving Cityscapes data set. The experimental results prove that the proposed method is effective in processing samples independent from the batch size. The stable accuracy for all kinds of target segmentation is achieved, and the overall loss value is significantly reduced at the same time. The convergence speed of the network is also improved.
Development of variational quantum deep neural networks for image recognition

Parametrized quantum circuits are widely used for supervised learning tasks such as image classification in the noisy intermediate scale quantum era. However, normally, it can only handle low-dimensional data. This study presented a variational quantum deep neural network (VQDNN) model for various scale image recognition tasks. Three classifiers were designed to verify the classification performance of the proposed VQDNN model. In the first classifier, to accommodate the limitations of qubits in both simulation hardware and real quantum hardware – we adopted hybrid principal component analysis – VQDNN architecture. Moreover, the amplitude encoding scheme and the rotation angle coding scheme were employed in the subsequent two classifiers to handle large-size images. Finally, we used the classical neural network and VQDNN model to conduct a comparative experiment of the ten-label classification learning task on the same dataset. The quantum numerical experiment was implemented on two benchmark datasets: the MNIST and UCI databases of handwritten digits. The simulation results showed that the proposed VQDNN classified the two datasets with an accuracy of 100% for the two-class classification task, while the UCI dataset has an accuracy of 90.87% for the ten-label classification task. The proposed VQDNN achieved better classification accuracy than the original classical neural network even under a limited number of qubits available in current hardware, indicating the promising application potential of VQDNN in image recognition.
Deep Learning-Based Pathology Image Analysis Enhances Magee Feature Correlation With Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score

Oncotype DX Recurrence Score (RS) has been widely used to predict chemotherapy benefits in patients with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. Studies showed that the features used in Magee equations correlate with RS. We aimed to examine whether deep learning (DL)-based histology image analyses can enhance such correlations.We retrieved 382 cases with RS diagnosed between 2011 and 2015 from the Emory University and the Ohio State University. All patients received surgery. DL models were developed to detect nuclei of tumor cells and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and segment tumor cell nuclei in hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained histopathology whole slide images (WSIs). Based on the DL-based analysis, we derived image features from WSIs, such as tumor cell number, TIL number variance, and nuclear grades. The entire patient cohorts were divided into one training set (125 cases) and two validation sets (82 and 175 cases) based on the data sources and WSI resolutions. The training set was used to train the linear regression models to predict RS. For prediction performance comparison, we used independent variables from Magee features alone or the combination of WSI-derived image and Magee features.The Pearson's correlation coefficients between the actual RS and predicted RS by DL-based analysis were 0.7058 (p-value = 1.32 × 10-13) and 0.5041 (p-value = 1.15 × 10-12) for the validation sets 1 and 2, respectively. The adjusted R2 values using Magee features alone are 0.3442 and 0.2167 in the two validation sets, respectively. In contrast, the adjusted R2 values were enhanced to 0.4431 and 0.2182 when WSI-derived imaging features were jointly used with Magee features.Our results suggest that DL-based digital pathological features can enhance Magee feature correlation with RS.
PriFoB: A Privacy-aware Fog-enhanced Blockchain-based system for Global Accreditation and Credential Verification

Trusted online credential management solutions are needed for instant and practical verification. Most of the available frameworks targeting this field violate the privacy of end-users or lack sufficient solutions in terms of security and Quality-of-Service (QoS). In this paper, we propose a Privacy-aware Fog-enhanced Blockchain-based online credential management solution, namely PriFoB. Our proposed solution adopts a public permissioned Blockchain model with different reliable encryption schemes, standardized Zero-Knowledge-Proofs (ZKPs) and Digital Signatures (DSs) within a Fog–Blockchain integrated framework, which is also GDPR compliant. We deploy both the Proof-of-Authority (PoA) and the Signatures-of-Work (SoW) consensus algorithms for efficient and secure handling of Verifiable Credentials (VCs) and global accreditation of VC issuers, respectively. Furthermore, we propose a novel three-dimensional DAG-based model of the Distributed Ledger (3DDL), and provide a ready-to-deploy PriFoB implementation. We discuss insights regarding the utilization and the potential of PriFoB, and evaluate it in terms of security, privacy, latency, throughput and power utilization. We analyze its performance in different layers of a Fog-enabled cloud architecture with simulation and emulation, and we show that PriFoB outperforms several Blockchain-based solutions utilizing Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Besu and Hyperledger Indy platforms.
(3N+1)-frame phase retrieval for double-grating Ronchi lateral shearing interferometry

Accurate wavefront measurement using double-grating Ronchi lateral shearing interferometry significantly relies on the accuracy of shear-phase retrieval. Traditional methods cannot effectively suppress the interferences of unwanted diffractions generated by the Ronchi grating at the image plane. In this paper, we propose a method that uses 3N+1 shear interferograms to retrieve the shear phase, where N is a positive integer. The selection of N depends on the number of the diffraction orders existing in the shearogram. According to the numerical aperture of the optical system under test and the period of image grating, the interferograms corresponding to the specific 3N+1 phase shifts are obtained, from which the shear phase is calculated. For validation, the frequency response of the proposed algorithm is characterized, and the improved accuracy of wavefront measurement is demonstrated by comparisons with the existing 8-frame, 10-frame and 13-frame methods.
Deep Residual Network for Image Recognition

Training of a neural network is easier than it goes deeper. Deeper architecture makes neural networks more difficult to train because of vanishing gradient and complexity problems, and via this training, deeper neural networks become much time taking and high utilization of computer resources. Introducing residual blocks in neural networks train specifically deeper architecture networks than those used previously. Residual networks gain this achievement by attaching a trip connection to the layers of artificial neural networks. This paper is about showing residual networks and how they work like formulas, we will see residual networks obtain good accuracy, and as well as the model is easier to optimize because Res Net makes training of large structured neural networks more efficient. We will check residual nets on the Image Net dataset with a depth of 152 layers which is 8x more intense than VGG nets yet very less complex. After building this architecture of residual nets gets error up to 3.57% on the Image Net test dataset. We also compare the Res Net result to its equivalent Convolutional Network without residual connection. Our results show that ResNet provides higher accuracy but apart from that, it is more prone to over fitting. Stochastic augmentation of training datasets and adding dropout layers in networks are some of the over fitting prevention methods.
Deep learning feature representation for image matching under large viewpoint and viewing direction change

Feature based image matching has been a research focus in photogrammetry and computer vision for decades, as it is the basis for many applications where multi-view geometry is needed. A typical feature based image matching algorithm contains five steps: feature detection, affine shape estimation, orientation assignment, description and descriptor matching. This paper contains innovative work in different steps of feature matching based on convolutional neural networks (CNN). For the affine shape estimation and orientation assignment, the main contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we define a canonical shape and orientation for each feature. As a consequence, instead of the usual Siamese CNN, only single branch CNNs needs to be employed to learn the affine shape and orientation parameters, which turns the related tasks from supervised to self supervised learning problems, removing the need for known matching relationships between features. Second, the affine shape and orientation are solved simultaneously. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time these two modules are reported to have been successfully trained together. In addition, for the descriptor learning part, a new weak match finder is suggested to better explore the intra-variance of the appearance of matched features. For any input feature patch, a transformed patch that lies far from the input feature patch in descriptor space is defined as a weak match feature. A weak match finder network is proposed to actively find these weak match features; they are subsequently used in the standard descriptor learning framework. The proposed modules are integrated into an inference pipeline to form the proposed feature matching algorithm. The algorithm is evaluated on standard benchmarks and is used to solve for the parameters of image orientation of aerial oblique images. It is shown that deep learning feature based image matching leads to more registered images, more reconstructed 3D points and a more stable block geometry than conventional methods. The code is available at https://github.com/Childhoo/Chen_Matcher.git.
“Scaling, blockchain technology, and entrepreneurial opportunities in developing countries”

Applications of blockchain technology (BCT) are scaling globally, especially in developing countries, where the opportunities that they exploit are often most prevalent. Achieving scale is vital for BCT ventures, which rely on network effects. BCT ventures seeking to scale employ innovative methods for scaling and also provide interesting insights on entrepreneurial scaling. We draw attention to three approaches that support scaling – promoting technology platforms, leveraging collective action, and navigating institutional contexts– and identify theoretically-grounded strategies for scaling related to these three approaches. We also build from the practical experience of cLabs, a BCT venture seeking to scale Celo, a mobile-first cryptocurrency blockchain platform focused on the developing world. We examine what BCT proponents like cLabs need to do to scale quickly and synthesize key insights, strategies for BCT ventures in developing contexts, and opportunities for future research.
Self-supervised learning for fair recommender systems

Data-driven recommender algorithms are widely used in many systems, such as e-commerce recommender systems and movie recommendation systems. However, these systems could be affected by data bias, which leads to unfair recommendations for different groups of users. To address this problem, we propose a group rank fair recommender (GRFRec) method to mitigate the unfairness of recommender algorithms. We design a self-supervised learning framework to enhance user representation from both global and local views for fair results. In addition, adversarial learning is introduced to eliminate group-specific information and results in an unbiased user-item representation space, which avoids some groups suffering from unfair treatment in recommender results. Experimental results on three real-world datasets demonstrate that GRFRec can not only significantly improve fairness but also attain better results on the recommendation accuracy.
Quantitative digital histopathology and machine learning to predict pathological complete response to chemotherapy in breast cancer patients using pre-treatment tumor biopsies

Complete pathological response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is a prognostic factor for breast cancer (BC) patients and is correlated with improved survival. However, pCR rates are variable to standard NAC, depending on BC subtype. This study investigates quantitative digital histopathology coupled with machine learning (ML) to predict NAC response a priori. Clinicopathologic data and digitized slides of BC core needle biopsies were collected from 149 patients treated with NAC. The nuclei within the tumor regions were segmented on the histology images of biopsy samples using a weighted U-Net model. Five pathomic feature subsets were extracted from segmented digitized samples, including the morphological, intensity-based, texture, graph-based and wavelet features. Seven ML experiments were conducted with different feature sets to develop a prediction model of therapy response using a gradient boosting machine with decision trees. The models were trained and optimized using a five-fold cross validation on the training data and evaluated using an unseen independent test set. The prediction model developed with the best clinical features (tumor size, tumor grade, age, and ER, PR, HER2 status) demonstrated an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.73. Various pathomic feature subsets resulted in models with AUCs in the range of 0.67 and 0.87, with the best results associated with the graph-based and wavelet features. The selected features among all subsets of the pathomic and clinicopathologic features included four wavelet and three graph-based features and no clinical features. The predictive model developed with these features outperformed the other models, with an AUC of 0.90, a sensitivity of 85% and a specificity of 82% on the independent test set. The results demonstrated the potential of quantitative digital histopathology features integrated with ML methods in predicting BC response to NAC. This study is a step forward towards precision oncology for BC patients to potentially guide future therapies.
Intelligent Intrusion Detection System for Industrial Internet of Things Environment

Rapid increase in the large quantity of industrial data, Industry 4.0/ 5.0 poses several challenging issues such as heterogeneous data generation, data sensing and collection, real-time data processing, and high request arrival rates.The classical intrusion detection system (IDS) is not a practical solution to the Industry 4.0 environment owing to the resource limitations and complexity.To resolve these issues, this paper designs a new Chaotic Cuckoo Search Optimization Algorithm (CCSOA) with optimal wavelet kernel extreme learning machine (OWKELM) named CCSOA-OWKELM technique for IDS on the Industry 4.0 platform.The CCSOA-OWKELM technique focuses on the design of feature selection with classification approach to achieve minimum computation complexity and maximum detection accuracy.The CCSOA-OWKELM technique involves the design of CCSOA based feature selection technique, which incorporates the concepts of chaotic maps with CSOA.Besides, the OWKELM technique is applied for the intrusion detection and classification process.In addition, the OWKELM technique is derived by the hyperparameter tuning of the WKELM technique by the use of sunflower optimization (SFO) algorithm.The utilization of CCSOA for feature subset selection and SFO algorithm based hyperparameter tuning leads to better performance.In order to guarantee the supreme performance of the CCSOA-OWKELM technique, a wide range of experiments take place on two benchmark datasets and the experimental outcomes demonstrate the promising performance of the CCSOA-OWKELM technique over the recent state of art techniques.
Slice imputation: Multiple intermediate slices interpolation for anisotropic 3D medical image segmentation

We introduce a novel frame-interpolation-based method for slice imputation to improve segmentation accuracy for anisotropic 3D medical images, in which the number of slices and their corresponding segmentation labels can be increased between two consecutive slices in anisotropic 3D medical volumes. Unlike previous inter-slice imputation methods, which only focus on the smoothness in the axial direction, this study aims to improve the smoothness of the interpolated 3D medical volumes in all three directions: axial, sagittal, and coronal. The proposed multitask inter-slice imputation method, in particular, incorporates a smoothness loss function to evaluate the smoothness of the interpolated 3D medical volumes in the through-plane direction (sagittal and coronal). It not only improves the resolution of the interpolated 3D medical volumes in the through-plane direction but also transforms them into isotropic representations, which leads to better segmentation performances. Experiments on whole tumor segmentation in the brain, liver tumor segmentation, and prostate segmentation indicate that our method outperforms the competing slice imputation methods on both computed tomography (1\% Dice improvement for CT liver tumor segmentation) and magnetic resonance images volumes (over 2\% Dice improvement for MRI prostate segmentation) in most cases.