Real-world dynamic systems and complex objects are often monitored with multivariate time series where each dimension represents a system signal. Performing accurate diagnostic for a group of dynamic systems while simultaneously taking into account their similarities/distinctions, is a non-trivial task. In this paper, we develop an adaptive regularization approach to learning sparse connectivity structures in complex dynamic systems. The learned connectivity networks shed lights on the structural compositions of the system and hence can serve as highly informative inputs for various machine learning tasks. In particular, we focus on high-dimensional and semi-supervised learning scenarios and present a joint learning method to recover system-wise connectivity patterns by adaptively constructing a shared, sparsity-inducing regularization template across all systems. The shared template can be intuitively interpreted and used as a modeling template for efficient analysis of new systems. Moreover, our approach can flexibly incorporate information such as must-links and cannot-links for constructing regularization templates. Overall, our approach, named sparse adaptive regularization (SAR), can extract structure-related connectivity features efficiently and effectively, and result in significant improvements for machine learning tasks in dynamic systems. We benchmark our approach against the state-of-the-art methods with real-world data. Our results demonstrate the superiority of our approach over the baselines in terms of accuracy, efficiency, and interpretability.

Background Heart disease diagnosis is a challenging task and it is important to explore useful information from the massive amount of electrocardiogram (ECG) records of patients. The high-precision diagnostic identification of ECG can save clinicians and cardiologists considerable time while helping reduce the possibility of misdiagnosis at the same time.Currently, some deep learning-based methods can effectively perform feature selection and classification prediction, reducing the consumption of manpower. Methods In this work, an end-to-end deep learning framework based on convolutional neural network (CNN) is proposed for ECG signal processing and arrhythmia classification. In the framework, a transformer network is embedded in CNN to capture the temporal information of ECG signals and a new link constraint is introduced to the loss function to enhance the classification ability of the embedding vector. Results To evaluate the proposed method, extensive experiments based on real-world data were conducted. Experimental results show that the proposed model achieve better performance than most baselines. The experiment results also proved that the transformer network pays more attention to the temporal continuity of the data and captures the hidden deep features of the data well. The link constraint strengthens the constraint on the embedded features and effectively suppresses the effect of data imbalance on the results. Conclusions In this paper, an end-to-end model is used to process ECG signal and classify arrhythmia. The model combine CNN and Transformer network to extract temporal information in ECG signal and is capable of performing arrhythmia classification with acceptable accuracy. The model can help cardiologists perform assisted diagnosis of heart disease and improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery.

Background The number of patients with neurological diseases is currently increasing annually, which presents tremendous challenges for both patients and doctors. With the advent of advanced information technology, digital medical care is gradually changing the medical ecology. Numerous people are exploring new ways to receive a consultation, track their diseases, and receive rehabilitation training in more convenient and efficient ways. In this paper, we explore the use of facial expression recognition via artificial intelligence to diagnose a typical neurological system disease, Parkinson disease (PD). Objective This study proposes methods to diagnose PD through facial expression recognition. Methods We collected videos of facial expressions of people with PD and matched controls. We used relative coordinates and positional jitter to extract facial expression features (facial expression amplitude and shaking of small facial muscle groups) from the key points returned by Face++. Algorithms from traditional machine learning and advanced deep learning were utilized to diagnose PD. Results The experimental results showed our models can achieve outstanding facial expression recognition ability for PD diagnosis. Applying a long short-term model neural network to the positions of the key features, precision and F1 values of 86% and 75%, respectively, can be reached. Further, utilizing a support vector machine algorithm for the facial expression amplitude features and shaking of the small facial muscle groups, an F1 value of 99% can be achieved. Conclusions This study contributes to the digital diagnosis of PD based on facial expression recognition. The disease diagnosis model was validated through our experiment. The results can help doctors understand the real-time dynamics of the disease and even conduct remote diagnosis.

Partial correlation-based connectivity networks can describe the direct connectivity between features while avoiding spurious effects, and hence they can be implemented in diagnosing complex dynamic multivariate systems. However, existing studies mainly focus on single systems that are ill-equipped for incremental learning. Moreover, related methods estimate temporal connectivity network by imposing only sparse regularization without integrating pattern priors (e.g., inter-system shared pattern and intra-system intrinsic pattern), which have been proven effective in limiting noise interference. To this end, we develop an adaptive connectivity estimation model that incorporates prior patterns, namely Sparse Adaptive Meta-Learning Connectivity Network (SAMCN). Specifically, our model extends ideas of the gradient-based meta-learning to capture inter-system shared prior information by generating fast adaptive initialization parameters for the connectivity matrix. Then, a sparse variational autoencoder is proposed to generate a weight matrix for sparse regularization penalty in reweighted LASSO, which helps extract intra-system intrinsic patterns (local manifold structure). Experimental results on both synthetic data and real-world datasets demonstrate that our method is capable of adequately capturing the aforementioned pattern priors. Further, experiments from corresponding classification tasks validate the strength of the prior pattern-aware features connectivity network in resulting in better classification performance.

Background Parkinson disease (PD) is one of the most common neurological diseases. At present, because the exact cause is still unclear, accurate diagnosis and progression monitoring remain challenging. In recent years, exploring the relationship between PD and speech impairment has attracted widespread attention in the academic world. Most of the studies successfully validated the effectiveness of some vocal features. Moreover, the noninvasive nature of speech signal–based testing has pioneered a new way for telediagnosis and telemonitoring. In particular, there is an increasing demand for artificial intelligence–powered tools in the digital health era. Objective This study aimed to build a real-time speech signal analysis tool for PD diagnosis and severity assessment. Further, the underlying system should be flexible enough to integrate any machine learning or deep learning algorithm. Methods At its core, the system we built consists of two parts: (1) speech signal processing: both traditional and novel speech signal processing technologies have been employed for feature engineering, which can automatically extract a few linear and nonlinear dysphonia features, and (2) application of machine learning algorithms: some classical regression and classification algorithms from the machine learning field have been tested; we then chose the most efficient algorithms and relevant features. Results Experimental results showed that our system had an outstanding ability to both diagnose and assess severity of PD. By using both linear and nonlinear dysphonia features, the accuracy reached 88.74% and recall reached 97.03% in the diagnosis task. Meanwhile, mean absolute error was 3.7699 in the assessment task. The system has already been deployed within a mobile app called No Pa. Conclusions This study performed diagnosis and severity assessment of PD from the perspective of speech order detection. The efficiency and effectiveness of the algorithms indirectly validated the practicality of the system. In particular, the system reflects the necessity of a publicly accessible PD diagnosis and assessment system that can perform telediagnosis and telemonitoring of PD. This system can also optimize doctors’ decision-making processes regarding treatments.

Recent years have witnessed an opportunity for improving healthcare efficiency and quality by mining Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). This paper is aimed at developing a treatment engine, which learns from historical EMR data and provides a patient with next-period prescriptions based on disease conditions, laboratory results, and treatment records of the patient. Importantly, the engine takes consideration of both treatment records and physical examination sequences which are not only heterogeneous and temporal in nature but also often with different record frequencies and lengths. Moreover, the engine also combines static information (e.g., demographics) with the temporal sequences to provide personalized treatment prescriptions to patients. In this regard, a novel Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) learning framework is proposed to model inter-correlations of different types of medical sequences by connections between hidden neurons. With this framework, we develop three multifaceted LSTM models: Fully Connected Heterogeneous LSTM, Partially Connected Heterogeneous LSTM, and Decomposed Heterogeneous LSTM. The experiments are conducted on two datasets: one is the public MIMIC-III ICU data, and the other comes from several Chinese hospitals. Experimental results reveal the effectiveness of the framework and the three models. The work is deemed important and meaningful for both academia and practitioners in the realm of medical treatment and prediction, as well as in other fields of applications where intelligent decision support becomes pervasive.

In recent years, there has been increasing demand for personalized anatomy modelling for medical and industrial applications, such as ergonomics device development, clinical radiological exposure simulation, biomechanics analysis, and 3D animation character design. In this study, we constructed deformable torso phantoms that can be deformed to match the personal anatomy of Chinese male and female adults. The phantoms were created based on a training set of 79 trunk computed tomography (CT) images (41 males and 38 females) from normal Chinese subjects. Major torso organs were segmented from the CT images, and the statistical shape model (SSM) approach was used to learn the inter-subject anatomical variations. To match the personal anatomy, the phantoms were registered to individual body surface scans or medical images using the active shape model method. The constructed SSM demonstrated anatomical variations in body height, fat quantity, respiratory status, organ geometry, male muscle size, and female breast size. The masses of the deformed phantom organs were consistent with Chinese population organ mass ranges. To validate the performance of personal anatomy modelling, the phantoms were registered to the body surface scan and CT images. The registration accuracy measured from 22 test CT images showed a median Dice coefficient over 0.85, a median volume recovery coefficient (RCvlm ) between 0.85 and 1.1, and a median averaged surface distance (ASD) < 1.5 mm. We hope these phantoms can serve as computational tools for personalized anatomy modelling for the research community.

Patent litigation not only covers legal and technical issues, it is also a key consideration for managers of high-technology (high-tech) companies when making strategic decisions. Patent litigation influences the market value of high-tech companies. However, this raises unique challenges. To this end, in this paper, we develop a novel recommendation framework to solve the problem of litigation risk prediction. We will introduce a specific type of patent-related litigation, that is, Section 337 investigations, which prohibit all acts of unfair competition, or any unfair trade practices, when exporting products to the United States. To build this recommendation framework, we collect and exploit a large amount of published information related to almost all Section 337 investigation cases. This study has two aims: (1) to predict the litigation risk in a specific industry category for high-tech companies and (2) to predict the litigation risk from competitors for high-tech companies. These aims can be achieved by mining historical investigation cases and related patents. Specifically, we propose two methods to meet the needs of both aims: a proximal slope one predictor and a time-aware predictor. Several factors are considered in the proposed methods, including the litigation risk if a company wants to enter a new market and the risk that a potential competitor would file a lawsuit against the new entrant. Comparative experiments using real-world data demonstrate that the proposed methods outperform several baselines with a significant margin.

The aging population of China is becoming increasingly more prominent, thus increasing the burden on medical resources. Therefore, the use of data mining technology to improve the efficiency of disease diagnosis has the following important significance. For hospitals, such technology can reduce the cost of providing one-on-one guidance to patients and the probability of registration errors. For patients, it can save time and energy spent on hospital visits; in addition, through remote access, patients can follow the automated guidance at home to complete registration, thereby enhancing admission efficiency. For internet users, such technology enables self-checking of these users' health conditions on a regular basis; based on certain main symptoms, possible diseases can be pre-diagnosed, thus providing a risk warning. Online medical guidance has become a very important step. To this end, we focus on employing the data mining technology to enhance the performance of online medical guidance. In this paper, we propose a medical diagnosis method called the named entity recognition method and a convolutional neural network model. We apply our proposed method and model as an innovative framework for hospitalization guidance to provide human-like, comprehensive and informative automated medical consultations. We perform experiments on real-world datasets. The experimental results show that our methods achieve state-of-the-art performance compared with baselines.