Concatenation of Pre-Trained Convolutional Neural Networks for Enhanced COVID-19 Screening Using Transfer Learning Technique

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is the most prevalent coronavirus infection with respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough, dyspnea, pneumonia, and weariness being typical in the early stages. On the other hand, COVID-19 has a direct impact on the circulatory and respiratory systems as it causes a failure to some human organs or severe respiratory distress in extreme circumstances. Early diagnosis of COVID-19 is extremely important for the medical community to limit its spread. For a large number of suspected cases, manual diagnostic methods based on the analysis of chest images are insufficient. Faced with this situation, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques have shown great potential in automatic diagnostic tasks. This paper aims at proposing a fast and precise medical diagnosis support system (MDSS) that can distinguish COVID-19 precisely in chest-X-ray images. This MDSS uses a concatenation technique that aims to combine pre-trained convolutional neural networks (CNN) depend on the transfer learning (TL) technique to build a highly accurate model. The models enable storage and application of knowledge learned from a pre-trained CNN to a new task, viz., COVID-19 case detection. For this purpose, we employed the concatenation method to aggregate the performances of numerous pre-trained models to confirm the reliability of the proposed method for identifying the patients with COVID-19 disease from X-ray images. The proposed system was trialed on a dataset that included four classes: normal, viral-pneumonia, tuberculosis, and COVID-19 cases. Various general evaluation methods were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed model. The first proposed model achieved an accuracy rate of 99.80% while the second model reached an accuracy of 99.71%.

The Sense of Smell in Logopaedic Theory and Practice

Olfactory disorders concern many diseases of laryngological, neurological, oncological and gerontological origins, and sometimes are one of the diagnostic symptoms of a serious illness. The aim of this article is to describe the sense of smell (anatomy, physiology, functions, etiology and characteristics of disorders) and, in particular, to present this sense in the context of logopedic theory and practice. Speech therapists may inter alia assess the functioning of the sense of smell on the basis of an interview with the patient or caregiver, make a general evaluation of the functioning of the sense of smell, using different olfactory samples. As part of speech therapy, speech therapists may include stimulation of the sense of smell through various exercises, e.g. odour differentiation exercises, exercises in guessing and naming different odours, exercises in differentiating odour intensity, exercises in searching the source of smell.

Codings for rhythm generation

In this work, we present a brief review of strategies to code rhythms and point to their possibilities and limitations in a unified way. We start by giving an overview of the representation (coding) of rhythms and their possible uses. Then we present different methods to analyse and generate rhythm patterns, which can be easily read by humans, through a simple algorithm. We also aim to provide a general evaluation of their pros and cons regarding their use in composition and analysis. In a more abstract approach, we define Rhythm Spaces as sets of strings of symbols endowed with suitable operations and algorithms that can be applied to generate new and complex rhythm patterns. Our approach can be useful in order to provide suitable code/notation to be used in computer applications in rhythm analysis and composition.

An analysis on the statistics of occupational accidents in Turkish fisheries and aquaculture sector; 2013-2019 period

This study was carried out to make a holistic evaluation on the occupational health and safety (OHS) of fisheries and aquaculture sector with its subsectors and to reveal the actual situation of fisheries and aquaculture sector by comparing relevant OHS statistics reported in Turkey. Annual average of accidents in the fisheries and aquaculture sector was found to be 312 (± 147.6), of which 2.14 (± 1.57) resulted in permanent incapacity and 1.57 (± 1.51) of them with fatality. While general incidence rate, fatal incidence rate, permanent incapacity incidence rate and work accident frequency rate were calculated as 2211.8 (±574) 103.6 (±13.4), 5.88 (±2.41) ve 8.36 (±1.93), these values for fisheries and aquaculture sector were determined to be 3579.1 (±1549.3) 175.65 (±152.34), 240.67 (154.62) ve 13.65 (±5.84), respectively. In 2019, the fatal accident rate in Turkey was found to be 0.27% in general, 0.34% in the mining sector, 0.77% in construction and 0.80% in transportation. This ratio was calculated as 1% in the fisheries and aquaculture sector. It was determined that there were more work accidents and fatal incidents in fisheries and aquaculture activities in the seas than in fresh water. Difference between number of work accidents and the duration of temporary incapacity as a result of work accidents in fisheries and aquaculture activities in marine and fresh waters were also significant (p<0.05). Number of fatal accidents in aquaculture sector was found to be more than 4 times than in fisheries. It was determined that the all types of incident rates, work accident frequency rates and fatality rates per work accident in fisheries and aquaculture sector were higher than that of Turkey in general. Evaluation of occupational accidents in the fisheries and aquaculture activity was found to be riskier than expected. Although some evaluations and suggestions are put forward to reduce the number of accidents and the severity of these accidents, a systematic and legislative approach will be more effective. Therefore, it would be a suitable approach to raise the hazard classes of fisheries and aquaculture economic activity to the “very dangerous” class. In this way, the training period of the sector employees on occupational risks and the titles and numbers of OHS professionals working in the sector will be increased, a more qualified specialization will be realized, and control and audit activities will be more frequent.

Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading in Microgrids and Local Energy Systems

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading is an innovative approach for managing increasing numbers of Distributed Energy Resources in microgrids or local energy systems. In P2P energy trading, prosumers and consumers directly trade and exchange power and energy with each other. The development of P2P energy trading is described in five key aspects, that is, market design, trading platforms, power and ICT infrastructure, regulation and policy, and from a social science perspective. A general multiagent framework is established to simulate the behaviour of and interaction between multiple entities in P2P energy trading. A general evaluation index hierarchy is proposed to assess various P2P energy trading mechanisms. Finally, a residential community that is set in the context of Great Britain is studied using multiagent simulation and hierarchical evaluation methods. Both the technical and economic benefits of P2P energy trading are demonstrated.

Evolution in Public Governance Models: From Administrative Management to the Hybrid and Normative Concept of Good Governance (Part II)

Bulgaria adopts the principles of good governance along with its EU membership. That occurred with harmonization of public policies. The study makes a review on the application of the following principles of good governance: sustainability and long-term orientation in development, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability and transparency and the adoption of these principles at local level. The general evaluation: Bulgaria follows and applies in great extent the principles of good governance, but in the reality, there are numerous deviations, delays and negligence, which lead to their partial implementation. The country needs more political commitment, regulatory changes and institutional efforts to reach better levels of good governance.

Nutritional biomarkers and machine learning for personalized nutrition applications and health optimization

The doctrine of the “one size fits all” approach in the field of disease diagnosis and patient management is being replaced by a more per patient approach known as “personalized medicine”. In this spirit, biomarkers are key variables in the research and development of new methods for prognostic and classification model training based on advances in the field of artificial intelligence [1, 2, 3]. Metabolomics refers to the systematic study of the unique chemical fingerprints that cellular processes leave behind. The metabolic profile of a person can provide a snapshot of cell physiology and, by extension, metabolomics provide a direct “functional reading of the physiological state” of an organism. Via employing machine learning methodologies, a general evaluation chart of nutritional biomarkers is formulated and an optimised prediction method for body to mass index is investigated with the aim to discover dietary patterns.

Rapid evidence review to understand effective frailty care pathways and their components in primary and community care

PurposeDifferent pathways of frailty care to prevent or delay progression of frailty and enable people to live well with frailty are emerging in primary and community care in the UK. The purpose of the study is to understand effective frailty care pathways and their components to inform future service development and pathway evaluation in primary- and community-care services.Design/methodology/approachA rapid evidence review was conducted: 11 research publications met the inclusion criteria and were analysed using narrative thematic synthesis.FindingsThere is strong evidence that resistance-based exercise, self-management support, community geriatric services and hospital at home (HAH) improve patient health and function. In general, evaluation and comparison of frailty care pathways, components and pathway operations is challenging due to weaknesses, inconsistencies and differences in evaluation, but it is essential to include consideration of process, determinant and implementation of pathways in evaluations.Originality/valueTo achieve meaningful evaluations and facilitate comparisons of frailty pathways, a standardised evaluation toolkit that incorporates evaluation of how pathways are operated is required for evaluating the impact of frailty pathways of care.