AI

Navigating the stock market’s unpredictability and reducing vulnerability to its volatility requires well-informed decisions on stock selection, capital allocation, and transaction timing. While stock selection can be accomplished through fundamental analysis, the extensive data involved often pose challenges in discerning pertinent information. Timing, typically managed through technical analysis, may experience delays, leading to missed opportunities for stock transactions. Capital allocation, a quintessential resource optimization dilemma, necessitates meticulous planning for resolution. Consequently, this thesis leverages the optimization attributes of genetic algorithms, in conjunction with fundamental analysis and the concept of combination with repetition optimization, to identify appropriate stock selection and capital allocation strategies. Regarding timing, it employs deep learning coupled with the Ohlson model for stock valuation to ascertain the intrinsic worth of stocks. This lays the groundwork for transactions to yield favorable returns. In terms of experimentation, this study juxtaposes the integrated analytical approach of this thesis with the equal capital allocation strategy, TAIEX, and the Taiwan 50 index. The findings affirm that irrespective of the Taiwan stock market’s bullish or bearish tendencies, the method proposed in this study indeed facilitates investors in making astute investment decisions and attaining substantial profits. Full article

This narrative review explores the potential, complexities, and consequences of using artificial intelligence (AI) to screen large government-held facial image databases for the early detection of rare genetic diseases. Government-held facial image databases, combined with the power of artificial intelligence, offer the potential to revolutionize the early diagnosis of rare genetic diseases. AI-powered phenotyping, as exemplified by the Face2Gene app, enables highly accurate genetic assessments from simple photographs. This and similar breakthrough technologies raise significant privacy and ethical concerns about potential government overreach augmented with the power of AI. This paper explores the concept, methods, and legal complexities of AI-based phenotyping within the EU. It highlights the transformative potential of such tools for public health while emphasizing the critical need to balance innovation with the protection of individual privacy and ethical boundaries. This comprehensive overview underscores the urgent need to develop robust safeguards around individual rights while responsibly utilizing AI’s potential for improved healthcare outcomes, including within a forensic context. Furthermore, the intersection of AI and sensitive genetic data necessitates proactive cybersecurity measures. Current and future developments must focus on securing AI models against attacks, ensuring data integrity, and safeguarding the privacy of individuals within this technological landscape. Full article

It is natural and efficient to use human natural language (NL) directly to instruct robot task executions without prior user knowledge of instruction patterns. Currently, NL-instructed robot execution (NLexe) is employed in various robotic scenarios, including manufacturing, daily assistance, and health caregiving. It is imperative to summarize the current NLexe systems and discuss future development trends to provide valuable insights for upcoming NLexe research. This review categorizes NLexe systems into four types based on the robot’s cognition level during task execution: NL-based execution control systems, NL-based execution training systems, NL-based interactive execution systems, and NL-based social execution systems. For each type of NLexe system, typical application scenarios with advantages, disadvantages, and open problems are introduced. Then, typical implementation methods and future research trends of NLexe systems are discussed to guide the future NLexe research. Full article

Multi-object tracking (MOT) aims at estimating locations and identities of objects in videos. Many modern multiple-object tracking systems follow the tracking-by-detection paradigm, consisting of a detector followed by a method for associating detections into tracks. Tracking by associating detections through motion-based similarity heuristics is the basic way. Motion models aim at utilizing motion information to estimate future locations, playing an important role in enhancing the performance of association. Recently, a large-scale dataset, DanceTrack, where objects have uniform appearance and diverse motion patterns, was proposed. With existing hand-crafted motion models, it is hard to achieve decent results on DanceTrack because of the lack of prior knowledge. In this work, we present a motion-based algorithm named TLtrack, which adopts a hybrid strategy to make motion estimates based on confidence scores. For high confidence score detections, TLtrack employs transformers to predict its locations. For low confidence score detections, a simple linear model that estimates locations through trajectory historical information is used. TLtrack can not only consider the historical information of the trajectory, but also analyze the latest movements. Our experimental results on the DanceTrack dataset show that our method achieves the best performance compared with other motion models. Full article

The safety and robustness of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have raised increasing concerns, especially in safety-critical areas, such as medical applications. Although CNNs are efficient in image classification, their predictions are often sensitive to minor, for human observers, invisible modifications of the image. Thus, a modified, corrupted image can be visually equal to the legitimate image for humans but fool the CNN and make a wrong prediction. Such modified images are called adversarial images throughout this paper. A popular method to generate adversarial images is backpropagating the loss gradient to modify the input image. Usually, only the direction of the gradient and a given step size were used to determine the perturbations (FGSM, fast gradient sign method), or the FGSM is applied multiple times to craft stronger perturbations that change the model classification (i-FGSM). On the contrary, if the step size is too large, the minimum perturbation of the image may be missed during the gradient search. To seek exact and minimal input images for a classification change, in this paper, we suggest starting the FGSM with a small step size and adapting the step size with iterations. A few decay algorithms were taken from the literature for comparison with a novel approach based on an index tracking the loss status. In total, three tracking functions were applied for comparison. The experiments show our loss adaptive decay algorithms could find adversaries with more than a 90% success rate while generating fewer perturbations to fool the CNNs. Full article

Subjective understanding is a complex process that involves the interplay of feelings and cognition. This paper explores how computers can monitor a user’s sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activity in real-time to detect the nature of the understanding the user is experiencing as they engage with study materials. By leveraging advancements in facial expression analysis, transdermal optical imaging, and voice analysis, I demonstrate how one can identify the physiological feelings that indicate a user’s mental state and level of understanding. The mental state model, which views understandings as composed of assembled beliefs, values, emotions, and feelings, provides a framework for understanding the multifaceted nature of the emotion–cognition relationship. As learners progress through the phases of nascent understanding, misunderstanding, confusion, emergent understanding, and deep understanding, they experience a range of cognitive processes, emotions, and physiological responses that can be detected and analyzed by AI-driven assessments. Based on the above approach, I further propose the development of Abel Tutor. This AI-driven system uses real-time monitoring of physiological feelings to provide individualized, adaptive tutoring support designed to guide learners toward deep understanding. By identifying the feelings associated with each phase of understanding, Abel Tutor can offer targeted interventions, such as clarifying explanations, guiding questions, or additional resources, to help students navigate the challenges they encounter and promote engagement. The ability to detect and respond to a student’s emotional state in real-time can revolutionize the learning experience, creating emotionally resonant learning environments that adapt to individual needs and optimize educational outcomes. As we continue to explore the potential of AI-driven assessments of subjective understanding, it is crucial to ensure that these technologies are grounded in sound pedagogical principles and ethical considerations, ultimately empowering learners and facilitating the attainment of deep understanding and lifelong learning for advantaged and disadvantaged students. Full article

The increasing rate of minimally invasive procedures and the growing prevalence of cardiovascular disease have led to a demand for higher-quality guidance systems for catheter tracking. Traditional methods for catheter tracking, such as detection based on single points and applying masking techniques, have been limited in their ability to provide accurate pose information. In this paper, we propose a novel deep learning-based method for catheter tracking and pose detection. Our method uses a Yolov5 bounding box neural network with postprocessing to perform landmark detection in four regions of the catheter: the tip, radio-opaque marker, bend, and entry point. This allows us to track the catheter’s position and orientation in real time, without the need for additional masking or segmentation techniques. We evaluated our method on a dataset of fluoroscopic images from two distinct datasets and achieved state-of-the-art results in terms of accuracy and robustness. Our model was able to detect all four landmark features (tip, marker, bend, and entry) used to generate a pose for a catheter with 0.285 ± 0.143 mm, 0.261 ± 0.138 mm, 0.424 ± 0.361 mm, and 0.235 ± 0.085 mm accuracy. We believe that our method has the potential to significantly improve the accuracy and efficiency of catheter tracking in medical procedures that utilize bi-plane fluoroscopy guidance. Full article

Modern production relies on data-based analytics for the prediction and optimization of production processes. Specialized data scientists perform tasks at companies and research institutions, dealing with real data from actual production environments. The roles of data preprocessing and data quality are crucial in data science, and an active research field deals with methodologies and technologies for this. While anecdotes and generalized surveys indicate preprocessing is the major operational task for data scientists, a detailed view of the subtasks and the domain of production data is missing. In this paper, we present a multi-stage survey on data science tasks in practice in the field of production. Using expert knowledge and insights, we found data preprocessing to be the major part of the tasks of data scientists. In detail, we found that tackling missing values, finding data point meanings, and synchronization of multiple time-series were often the most time-consuming preprocessing tasks. Full article

Using instance segmentation and video inpainting provides a significant leap in real-time football video broadcast enhancements by removing potential visual distractions, such as an occasional person or another object accidentally occupying the frame. Despite its relevance and importance in the media industry, this area remains challenging and relatively understudied, thus offering potential for research. Specifically, the segmentation and inpainting of camera operator instances from video remains an underexplored research area. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a framework designed to accurately detect and remove camera operators while seamlessly hallucinating the background in real-time football broadcasts. The approach aims to enhance the quality of the broadcast by maintaining its consistency and level of engagement to retain and attract users during the game. To implement the inpainting task, firstly, the camera operators instance segmentation method should be developed. We used a YOLOv8 model for accurate real-time operator instance segmentation. The resulting model produces masked frames, which are used for further camera operator inpainting. Moreover, this paper presents an extensive “Cameramen Instances” dataset with more than 7500 samples, which serves as a solid foundation for future investigations in this area. The experimental results show that the YOLOv8 model performs better than other baseline algorithms in different scenarios. The precision of 95.5%, recall of 92.7%, mAP50-95 of 79.6, and a high FPS rate of 87 in low-volume environment prove the solution efficacy for real-time applications. Full article

This study explores the progress of chatbot technology, focusing on the aspect of error correction to enhance these smart conversational tools. Chatbots, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), are increasingly prevalent across industries such as customer service, healthcare, e-commerce, and education. Despite their use and increasing complexity, chatbots are prone to errors like misunderstandings, inappropriate responses, and factual inaccuracies. These issues can have an impact on user satisfaction and trust. This research provides an overview of chatbots, conducts an analysis of errors they encounter, and examines different approaches to rectifying these errors. These approaches include using data-driven feedback loops, involving humans in the learning process, and adjusting through learning methods like reinforcement learning, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, semi-supervised learning, and meta-learning. Through real life examples and case studies in different fields, we explore how these strategies are implemented. Looking ahead, we explore the different challenges faced by AI-powered chatbots, including ethical considerations and biases during implementation. Furthermore, we explore the transformative potential of new technological advancements, such as explainable AI models, autonomous content generation algorithms (e.g., generative adversarial networks), and quantum computing to enhance chatbot training. Our research provides information for developers and researchers looking to improve chatbot capabilities, which can be applied in service and support industries to effectively address user requirements. Full article

Environmental factors, such as drought stress, significantly impact maize growth and productivity worldwide. To improve yield and quality, effective strategies for early detection and mitigation of drought stress in maize are essential. This paper presents a detailed analysis of three imaging trials conducted to detect drought stress in maize plants using an existing, custom-developed, low-cost, high-throughput phenotyping platform. A pipeline is proposed for early detection of water stress in maize plants using a Vision Transformer classifier and analysis of distributions of near-infrared (NIR) reflectance from the plants. A classification accuracy of 85% was achieved in one of our trials, using hold-out trials for testing. Suitable regions on the plant that are more sensitive to drought stress were explored, and it was shown that the region surrounding the youngest expanding leaf (YEL) and the stem can be used as a more consistent alternative to analysis involving just the YEL. Experiments in search of an ideal window size showed that small bounding boxes surrounding the YEL and the stem area of the plant perform better in separating drought-stressed and well-watered plants than larger window sizes enclosing most of the plant. The results presented in this work show good separation between well-watered and drought-stressed categories for two out of the three imaging trials, both in terms of classification accuracy from data-driven features as well as through analysis of histograms of NIR reflectance. Full article

In ontology engineering, reusing (or extending) ontologies poses a significant challenge, requiring revising their ontological commitments and ensuring accurate representation and coherent reasoning. This study aims to address two main objectives. Firstly, it seeks to develop a methodological approach supporting ontology extension practices. Secondly, it aims to demonstrate its feasibility by applying the approach to the case of extending qualitative spatial reasoning (QSR) theories. Key questions involve effectively interpreting spatial extensions while maintaining consistency. The framework systematically analyzes extensions of formal ontologies, providing a reconstruction of a qualitative calculus. Reconstructed qualitative calculus demonstrates improved interpretative capabilities and reasoning accuracy. The research underscores the importance of methodological approaches when extending formal ontologies, with spatial interpretation serving as a valuable case study. Full article

The ability to overcome an opposition in team sports is reliant upon an understanding of the tactical behaviour of the opposing team members. Recent research is limited to a performance analysts’ own playing team members, as the required opposing team athletes’ geolocation (GPS) data are unavailable. However, in professional Australian rules Football (AF), animations of athlete GPS data from all teams are commercially available. The purpose of this technical study was to obtain the on-field location of AF athletes from animations of the 2019 Australian Football League season to enable the examination of the tactical behaviour of any team. The pre-trained object detection model YOLOv4 was fine-tuned to detect players, and a custom convolutional neural network was trained to track numbers in the animations. The object detection and the athlete tracking achieved an accuracy of 0.94 and 0.98, respectively. Subsequent scaling and translation coefficients were determined through solving an optimisation problem to transform the pixel coordinate positions of a tracked player number to field-relative Cartesian coordinates. The derived equations achieved an average Euclidean distance from the athletes’ raw GPS data of 2.63 m. The proposed athlete detection and tracking approach is a novel methodology to obtain the on-field positions of AF athletes in the absence of direct measures, which may be used for the analysis of opposition collective team behaviour and in the development of interactive play sketching AF tools. Full article

The Internet of Things (IoT) is seeing significant growth, as the quantity of interconnected devices in communication networks is on the rise. The increased connectivity of devices has heightened their susceptibility to hackers, underscoring the need to safeguard IoT devices. This research investigates cybersecurity in the context of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), which encompasses the cybersecurity mechanisms used for various healthcare devices connected to the system. This study seeks to provide a concise overview of several artificial intelligence (AI)-based methodologies and techniques, as well as examining the associated solution approaches used in cybersecurity for healthcare systems. The analyzed methodologies are further categorized into four groups: machine learning (ML) techniques, deep learning (DL) techniques, a combination of ML and DL techniques, Transformer-based techniques, and other state-of-the-art techniques, including graph-based methods and blockchain methods. In addition, this article presents a detailed description of the benchmark datasets that are recommended for use in intrusion detection systems (IDS) for both IoT and IoMT networks. Moreover, a detailed description of the primary evaluation metrics used in the analysis of the discussed models is provided. Ultimately, this study thoroughly examines and analyzes the features and practicality of several cybersecurity models, while also emphasizing recent research directions. Full article

Paddy (Oryza sativa) is one of the most consumed food grains in the world. The process from its sowing to consumption via harvesting, processing, storage and management require much effort and expertise. The grain quality of the product is heavily affected by the weather conditions, irrigation frequency, and many other factors. However, quality control is of immense importance, and thus, the evaluation of grain quality is necessary. Since it is necessary and arduous, we try to overcome the limitations and shortcomings of grain quality evaluation using image processing and machine learning (ML) techniques. Most existing methods are designed for rice grain quality assessment, noting that the key characteristics of paddy and rice are different. In addition, they have complex and expensive setups and utilize black-box ML models. To handle these issues, in this paper, we propose a reliable ML-based IoT paddy grain quality assessment system utilizing affordable sensors. It involves a specific data collection procedure followed by image processing with an ML-based model to predict the quality. Different explainable features are used for classifying the grain quality of paddy grain, like the shape, size, moisture, and maturity of the grain. The precision of the system was tested in real-world scenarios. To our knowledge, it is the first automated system to precisely provide an overall quality metric. The main feature of our system is its explainability in terms of utilized features and fuzzy rules, which increases the confidence and trustworthiness of the public toward its use. The grain variety used for experiments majorly belonged to the Indian Subcontinent, but it covered a significant variation in the shape and size of the grain. Full article

Generating synthetic data is a complex task that necessitates accurately replicating the statistical and mathematical properties of the original data elements. In sectors such as finance, utilizing and disseminating real data for research or model development can pose substantial privacy risks owing to the inclusion of sensitive information. Additionally, authentic data may be scarce, particularly in specialized domains where acquiring ample, varied, and high-quality data is difficult or costly. This scarcity or limited data availability can limit the training and testing of machine-learning models. In this paper, we address this challenge. In particular, our task is to synthesize a dataset with similar properties to an input dataset about the stock market. The input dataset is anonymized and consists of very few columns and rows, contains many inconsistencies, such as missing rows and duplicates, and its values are not normalized, scaled, or balanced. We explore the utilization of generative adversarial networks, a deep-learning technique, to generate synthetic data and evaluate its quality compared to the input stock dataset. Our innovation involves generating artificial datasets that mimic the statistical properties of the input elements without revealing complete information. For example, synthetic datasets can capture the distribution of stock prices, trading volumes, and market trends observed in the original dataset. The generated datasets cover a wider range of scenarios and variations, enabling researchers and practitioners to explore different market conditions and investment strategies. This diversity can enhance the robustness and generalization of machine-learning models. We evaluate our synthetic data in terms of the mean, similarities, and correlations. Full article

Blood donation heavily depends on voluntary involvement, but the problem of motivating and retaining potential blood donors remains. Understanding the personality traits of donors can assist in this case, bridging communication gaps and increasing participation and retention. To this end, an eye-tracking experiment was designed to examine the viewing behavior of 75 participants as they viewed various blood donation-related advertisements. The purpose of these stimuli was to elicit various types of emotions (positive/negative) and message framings (altruistic/egoistic) to investigate cognitive reactions that arise from donating blood using eye-tracking parameters such as the fixation duration, fixation count, saccade duration, and saccade amplitude. The results indicated significant differences among the eye-tracking metrics, suggesting that visual engagement varies considerably in response to different types of advertisements. The fixation duration also revealed substantial differences in emotions, logo types, and emotional arousal, suggesting that the nature of stimuli can affect how viewers disperse their attention. The saccade amplitude and saccade duration were also affected by the message framings, thus indicating their relevance to eye movement behavior. Generalised linear models (GLMs) showed significant influences of personality trait effects on eye-tracking metrics, including a negative association between honesty–humility and fixation duration and a positive link between openness and both the saccade duration and fixation count. These results indicate that personality traits can significantly impact visual attention processes. The present study broadens the current research frontier by employing machine learning techniques on the collected eye-tracking data to identify personality traits that can influence donation decisions and experiences. Participants’ eye movements were analysed to categorize their dominant personality traits using hierarchical clustering, while machine learning algorithms, including Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest, and k-Nearest Neighbours (KNN), were employed to predict personality traits. Among the models, SVM and KNN exhibited high accuracy (86.67%), while Random Forest scored considerably lower (66.67%). This investigation reveals that computational models can infer personality traits from eye movements, which shows great potential for psychological profiling and human–computer interaction. This study integrates psychology research and machine learning, paving the way for further studies on personality assessment by eye tracking. Full article

Efficiently determining crop water stress is vital for optimising irrigation practices and enhancing agricultural productivity. In this realm, the synergy of deep learning with remote sensing technologies offers a significant opportunity. This study introduces an innovative end-to-end deep learning pipeline for within-field crop water determination. This involves the following: (1) creating an annotated dataset for crop water stress using Landsat 8 imagery, (2) deploying a standalone vision transformer model ViT, and (3) the implementation of a proposed CNN-ViT model. This approach allows for a comparative analysis between the two architectures, ViT and CNN-ViT, in accurately determining crop water stress. The results of our study demonstrate the effectiveness of the CNN-ViT framework compared to the standalone vision transformer model. The CNN-ViT approach exhibits superior performance, highlighting its enhanced accuracy and generalisation capabilities. The findings underscore the significance of an integrated deep learning pipeline combined with remote sensing data in the determination of crop water stress, providing a reliable and scalable tool for real-time monitoring and resource management contributing to sustainable agricultural practices. Full article

In football or soccer, a referee controls the game based on the set rules. The decisions made by the referee are final and can’t be appealed. Some of the decisions, especially after a handball event, whether to award a penalty kick or a yellow/red card can greatly affect the final results of a game. It is therefore necessary that the referee does not make an error. The objective is therefore to create a system that can accurately recognize such events and make the correct decision. This study chose handball, an event that occurs in a football game (Not to be confused with the game of Handball). We define a handball event using object detection and robotic perception and decide whether it is intentional or not. Intention recognition is a robotic perception of emotion recognition. To define handball, we trained a model to detect the hand and ball which are primary objects. We then determined the intention using gaze recognition and finally combined the results to recognize a handball event. On our dataset, the results of the hand and the ball object detection were 96% and 100% respectively. With the gaze recognition at 100%, if all objects were recognized, then the intention and handball event recognition were at 100%. Full article