Benchmarking of deep learning algorithms for skin cancer detection based on a hybrid framework of entropy and VIKOR techniques

Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide caused by excessive development of skin cells. Considering the rapid growth of the use of deep learning algorithms for skin cancer detection, selecting the optimal algorithm has become crucial to determining the efficiency of computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems developed for the healthcare sector. However, a sufficient number of criteria and parameters must be considered when selecting an ideal deep learning algorithm. A generally accepted method for benchmarking deep learning models for skin cancer classification is unavailable in the current literature. This paper presents a multi-criteria decision-making framework for evaluating and benchmarking deep learning models for skin cancer detection based on hybridisation of entropy and VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) methods. Twelve well-known convolution networks are evaluated and tested on eleven publicly available image datasets to achieve the target of the study. Several criteria related to deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) architectures, including optimisation technique, transfer learning, class balancing, transfer learning, data augmentation, and network complexity, have been considered in the multi-criteria evaluation. The decision matrix (DM) is designed based on a crossover of the five evaluation criteria and twelve (CNNs) classificationmodels on different datasets. Subsequently, in the benchmarking and ranking of deep learning classification models, multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques are used. The MCDM uses a scheme that involves the integration of entropy with VIKOR approaches. For the weight calculations of evaluation criteria, entropy is applied, while VIKOR is used to benchmark and rank the models. The obtained results reveal that the InceptionResNetV2 model gained the first rank and is selected as the optimal architecture for skin cancer detection considering the five criteria investigated in our study. The presented framework achieves a significant performance in selecting the best algorithm, which could provide substantial guidance to the researcher working in the field

Diabetic Macular Edema Grading Based on Deep Neural Networks

Diabetic Macular Edema (DME) is a major cause of vision loss in diabetes. Its early detection and treatment is therefore a vital task in management of diabetic retinopathy. In this paper, we propose a new featurelearning approach for grading the severity of DME using color retinal fundus images. An automated DME diagnosis system based on the proposed featurelearning approach is developed to help early diagnosis of the disease and thus averts (or delays) its progression. It utilizes the convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to identify and extract features of DME automatically without any kind of user intervention. The developed prototype was trained and assessed by using an existing MESSIDOR dataset of 1200 images. The obtained preliminary results showed accuracy of (88.8 %), sensitivity (74.7%) and specificity (96.5 %). These results compare favorably to state-of-the-art findings with the added benefit of an automatic feature-learning approach rather than a time-consuming handcrafted approach

Attention Mechanism Guided Deep Regression Model for Acne Severity Grading

Acne vulgaris is the common form of acne that primarily affects adolescents, characterised by an eruption of inflammatory and/or non-inflammatory skin lesions. Accurate evaluation and severity grading of acne play a significant role in precise treatment for patients. Manual acne examination is typically conducted by dermatologists through visual inspection of the patient skin and counting the number of acne lesions. However, this task costs time and requires excessive effort by dermatologists. This paper presents automated acne counting and severity grading method from facial images. To this end, we develop a multi-scale dilated fully convolutional regressor for density map generation integrated with an attention mechanism. The proposed fully convolutional regressor module adapts UNet with dilated convolution filters to systematically aggregate multi-scale contextual information for density maps generation. We incorporate an attention mechanism represented by prior knowledge of bounding boxes generated by Faster R-CNN into the regressor model. This attention mechanism guides the regressor model on where to look for the acne lesions by locating the most salient features related to the understudied acne lesions, therefore improving its robustness to diverse facial acne lesion distributions in sparse and dense regions. Finally, integrating over the generated density maps yields the count of acne lesions within an image, and subsequently the acne count indicates the level of acne severity. The obtained results demonstrate improved performance compared to the state-of-the-art methods in terms of regression and classification metrics. The developed computer-based diagnosis tool would greatly benefit and support automated acne lesion severity grading, significantly reducing the manual assessment and evaluation workload.</jats:p

Integrated Multi-Model Face Shape and Eye Attributes Identification for Hair Style and Eyelashes Recommendation

Identifying human face shape and eye attributes is the first and most vital process before applying for the right hairstyle and eyelashes extension. The aim of this research work includes the development of a decision support program to constitute an aid system that analyses eye and face features automatically based on the image taken from a user. The system suggests a suitable recommendation of eyelashes type and hairstyle based on the automatic reported users’ eye and face features. To achieve the aim, we develop a multi-model system comprising three separate models; each model targeted a different task, including; face shape classification, eye attribute identification and gender detection model. Face shape classification system has been designed based on the development of a hybrid framework of handcrafting and learned feature. Eye attributes have been identified by exploiting the geometrical eye measurements using the detected eye landmarks. Gender identification system has been realised and designed by implementing a deep learning-based approach. The outputs of three developed models are merged to design a decision support system for haircut and eyelash extension recommendation. The obtained detection results demonstrate that the proposed method effectively identifies the face shape and eye attributes. Developing such computer-aided systems is suitable and beneficial for the user and would be beneficial to the beauty industrial.</jats:p

A Comprehensive Evaluation and Benchmarking of Convolutional Neural Networks for Melanoma Diagnosis

Melanoma is the most invasive skin cancer with the highest risk of death. While it is a serious skin cancer, it is highly curable if detected early. Melanoma diagnosis is difficult, even for experienced dermatologists, due to the wide range of morphologies in skin lesions. Given the rapid development of deep learning algorithms for melanoma diagnosis, it is crucial to validate and benchmark these models, which is the main challenge of this work. This research presents a new benchmarking and selection approach based on the multi-criteria analysis method (MCDM), which integrates entropy and the preference ranking organization method for enrichment of evaluations (PROMETHEE) methods. The experimental study is carried out in four phases. Firstly, 19 convolution neural networks (CNNs) are trained and evaluated on a public dataset of 991 dermoscopic images. Secondly, to obtain the decision matrix, 10 criteria, including accuracy, classification error, precision, sensitivity, specificity, F1-score, false-positive rate, false-negative rate, Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC), and the number of parameters are established. Third, entropy and PROMETHEE methods are integrated to determine the weights of criteria and rank the models. Fourth, the proposed benchmarking framework is validated using the VIKOR method. The obtained results reveal that the ResNet101 model is selected as the optimal diagnosis model for melanoma in our case study data. Thus, the presented benchmarking framework is proven to be useful at exposing the optimal melanoma diagnosis model targeting to ease the selection process of the proper convolutional neural network architecture

Multiscale sequential convolutional neural networks for simultaneous detection of fovea and optic disc

Detecting the locations of the optic disc and fovea is a crucial task towards developing automatic diagnosis and screening tools for retinal disease. We propose to address this challenging problem by investigating the potential of applying deep learning techniques to this field. In the proposed method, simultaneous detection of the centers of the fovea and the optic disc (OD) from color fundus images is considered as a regression problem. A deep multiscale sequential convolutional neural network (CNN) is designed and trained. The publically available MESSIDOR and Kaggle datasets are used to train the network and evaluate its performance. The centers of the fovea and the OD in each image were marked by expert graders as the ground truth. The proposed method achieves an accuracy of 97%, 96.7% for the detection of the OD center and 96.6%, 95.6% for the detection of the foveal center of the MESSIDOR and Kaggle test sets respectively. Our promising results demonstrate the excellent performance of the proposed CNNs in simultaneously detecting the centers of both the fovea and OD without human intervention or handcrafted features. Moreover, we can localize the landmarks of an image in 0.007s. This approach could be used as a crucial part of automated diagnosis systems for better management of eye disease

A Novel Choroid Segmentation Method for Retinal Diagnosis Using Deep Learning

Reliable choroid measurements have become an important diagnostic modality for sight-threatening retinal diseases. However, automatic and accurate segmentation of the choroid remains an unresolved challenge. This paper proposes a novel choroid segmentation method, based on a deep learning algorithm that is capable of quick and accurate image segmentation without user intervention. This is achieved through combining pixel clustering, image enhancement and deep learning. The simple linear iterative clustering (SLIC) algorithm has been applied to extract the superpixels (patches). Next, the extracted patches are then enhanced through increasing contrast of the region of interest. After that, the patches are fed to convolutional neural network for labelling the regions into choroid or non-choroid. Performance of the developed algorithm is assessed using a dataset of 169 enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography images. The obtained results demonstrated effectiveness of the proposed segmentation method in terms of accuracy (98.01%)