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  • A method for sleep quality analysis based on CNN ensemble with implementation in a portable wireless device
    Publication . Mendonça, Fábio; Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Dias, Fernando Morgado; Julia-Serda, Gabriel; Ravelo-Garcia, Antonio G.
    The quality of sleep can be affected by the occurrence of a sleep related disorder and, among these disorders, obstructive sleep apnea is commonly undiagnosed. Polysomnography is considered to be the gold standard for sleep analysis. However, it is an expensive and labor-intensive exam that is unavailable to a large group of the world population. To address these issues, the main goal of this work was to develop an automatic scoring algorithm to analyze the single-lead electrocardiogram signal, performing a minute-by-minute and an overall estimation of both quality of sleep and obstructive sleep apnea. The method employs a cross-spectral coherence technique which produces a spectrographic image that fed three one-dimensional convolutional neural networks for the classification ensemble. The predicted quality of sleep was based on the electroencephalogram cyclic alternating pattern rate, a sleep stability metric. Two methods were developed to indirectly evaluate this metric, creating two sleep quality predictions that were combined with the sleep apnea diagnosis to achieve the final global sleep quality estimation. It was verified that the quality of sleep of the nineteen tested subjects was correctly identified by the proposed model, advocating the significance of clinical analysis. The model was implemented in a non-invasive and simple to self-assemble device, producing a tool that can estimate the quality of sleep and diagnose the obstructive sleep apnea at the patient’s home without requiring the attendance of a specialized technician. Therefore, increasing the accessibility of the population to sleep analysis.
  • On the implementation of the gamma function for image correction on a endoscopic camera
    Publication . Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Sousa, L. Natercia; Ferreira, Nuno Fábio; Sousa, Ricardo M.; Santos, João; Dias, F. Morgado; Wany, Martin
    This paper describes part of project that implemented the image processing of a CMOS sensor for endoscopic purposes. The sensor is a small sized device of 1x1mm2 and the image processing has been done inside a FPGA. This part of the work describes the implementation of the Gamma function with a balance between the resources needed and the accuracy. A linear piecewise solution was used that stores the values for 31 gamma functions with values ranging from 1 to 4 with 0.1 steps. The solution developed is 10 bit based, was coded in VHDL and is implemented in a Spartan 6 FPGA. The results show that it is an accurate solution that has a small footprint in terms of used resources.
  • On the Use of Transformer-Based Models for Intent Detection Using Clustering Algorithms
    Publication . Moura, André; Lima, Pedro; Mendonça, Fábio; Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Dias, Fernando Morgado
    Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular and require the ability to interpret natural language to provide clear communication with humans. To achieve this, intent detection is cru cial. However, current applications typically need a significant amount of annotated data, which is time-consuming and expensive to acquire. This article assesses the effectiveness of different text representations for annotating unlabeled dialog data through a pipeline that examines both classical approaches and pre-trained transformer models for word embedding. The resulting embeddings were then used to create sentence embeddings through pooling, followed by dimensionality re duction, before being fed into a clustering algorithm to determine the user’s intents. Therefore, various pooling, dimension reduction, and clustering algorithms were evaluated to determine the most appropriate approach. The evaluation dataset contains a variety of user intents across differ ent domains, with varying intent taxonomies within the same domain. Results demonstrate that transformer-based models perform better text representation than classical approaches. However, combining several clustering algorithms and embeddings from dissimilar origins through ensemble clustering considerably improves the final clustering solution. Additionally, applying the uniform manifold approximation and projection algorithm for dimension reduction can substantially improve performance (up to 20%) while using a much smaller representation.
  • Automated Aviation Wind Nowcasting: Exploring Feature-Based Machine Learning Methods
    Publication . Alves, Décio; Mendonça, Fábio; Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Dias, Fernando Morgado
    Wind factors significantly influence air travel, and extreme conditions can cause operational disruptions. Machine learning approaches are emerging as a valuable tool for predicting wind pat terns. This research, using Madeira International Airport as a case study, delves into the effectiveness of feature creation and selection for wind nowcasting, focusing on predicting wind speed, direction, and gusts. Data from four sensors provided 56 features to forecast wind conditions over intervals of 2, 10, and 20 min. Five feature selection techniques were analyzed, namely mRMR, PCA, RFECV, GA, and XGBoost. The results indicate that combining new wind features with optimized feature selection can boost prediction accuracy and computational efficiency. A strong spatial correlation was observed among sensors at different locations, suggesting that the spatial-temporal context enhances predictions. The best accuracy for wind speed forecasts yielded a mean absolute percentage error of 0.35%, 0.53%, and 0.63% for the three time intervals, respectively. Wind gust errors were 0.24%, 0.33%, and 0.38%, respectively, while wind direction predictions remained challenging with errors above 100% for all intervals.
  • Multiple Time Series Fusion Based on LSTM: An Application to CAP A Phase Classification Using EEG
    Publication . Mendonça, Fábio; Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Freitas, Diogo; Dias, Fernando Morgado; Ravelo-García, Antonio G.
    The Cyclic Alternating Pattern (CAP) is a periodic activity detected in the electroencephalo gram (EEG) signals. This pattern was identified as a marker of unstable sleep with several possible clinical applications; however, there is a need to develop automatic methodologies to facilitate real-world applications based on CAP assessment. Therefore, a deep learning-based EEG channels’ feature level fusion was proposed in this work and employed for the CAP A phase classification. Two optimization algorithms optimized the channel selection, fusion, and classification procedures. The developed methodologies were evaluated by fusing the information from multiple EEG channels for patients with nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy and patients without neurological disorders. Results showed that both optimization algorithms selected a comparable structure with similar feature level fusion, consisting of three electroencephalogram channels (Fp2–F4, C4–A1, F4–C4), which is in line with the CAP protocol to ensure multiple channels’ arousals for CAP detection. Moreover, the two optimized models reached an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.82, with average accuracy ranging from 77% to 79%, a result in the upper range of the specialist agreement and best state-of-the-art works, despite a challenging dataset. The proposed methodology also has the advantage of providing a fully automatic analysis without requiring any manual procedure. Ultimately, the models were revealed to be noise-resistant and resilient to multiple channel loss, being thus suitable for real-world application.
  • Heuristic Optimization of Deep and Shallow Classifiers: An Application for Electroencephalogram Cyclic Alternating Pattern Detection
    Publication . Mendonça, Fábio; Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Freitas, Diogo; Dias, Fernando Morgado; Ravelo-García, Antonio G.
    Methodologies for automatic non-rapid eye movement and cyclic alternating pattern analysis were proposed to examine the signal from one electroencephalogram monopolar derivation for the A phase, cyclic alternating pattern cycles, and cyclic alternating pattern rate assessments. A population composed of subjects free of neurological disorders and subjects diagnosed with sleep-disordered breathing was studied. Parallel classifications were performed for non-rapid eye movement and A phase estimations, examining a one-dimension convolutional neural network (fed with the electroencephalogram signal), a long short-term memory (fed with the electroencephalogram signal or with proposed features), and a feed-forward neural network (fed with proposed features), along with a finite state machine for the cyclic alternating pattern cycle scoring. Two hyper-parameter tuning algorithms were developed to optimize the classifiers. The model with long short-term memory fed with proposed features was found to be the best, with accuracy and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 83% and 0.88, respectively, for the A phase classification, while for the non-rapid eye movement estimation, the results were 88% and 0.95, respectively. The cyclic alternating pattern cycle classification accuracy was 79% for the same model, while the cyclic alternating pattern rate percentage error was 22%.
  • An oximetry based wireless device for sleep apnea detection
    Publication . Mendonça, Fabio; Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Dias, Fernando Morgado; Ravelo-García, Antonio G.
    Sleep related disorders can severely disturb the quality of sleep. Among these disorders, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is highly prevalent and commonly undiagnosed. Polysomnography is considered to be the gold standard exam for OSA diagnosis. Even though this multi-parametric test provides highly accurate results, it is time consuming, labor-intensive, and expensive. A non-invasive and easy to self-assemble home monitoring device was developed to address these issues. The device can perform the OSA diagnosis at the patient’s home and a specialized technician is not required to supervise the process. An automatic scoring algorithm was developed to examine the blood oxygen saturation signal for a minute-by-minute OSA assessment. It was performed by analyzing statistical and frequency-based features that were fed to a classifier. Afterward, the ratio of the number of minutes classified as OSA to the time in bed in minutes was compared with a threshold for the global (subject-based) OSA diagnosis. The average accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the minute-by-minute assessment were, respectively, 88%, 80%, 91%, and 0.86. The subject-based accuracy was 95%. The performance is in the same range as the best state of the art methods for the models based only on the blood oxygen saturation analysis. Therefore, the developed model has the potential to be employed in clinical analysis.
  • Full image-processing pipeline in field-programmable gate array for a small endoscopic camera
    Publication . Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Sousa, L. Natércia; Ferreira, Nuno Fábio; Sousa, Ricardo M.; Santos, João; Wäny, Martin; Dias, F. Morgado
    Endoscopy is an imaging procedure used for diagnosis as well as for some surgical purposes. The camera used for the endoscopy should be small and able to produce a good quality image or video, to reduce discomfort of the patients, and to increase the efficiency of the medical team. To achieve these fundamental goals, a small endoscopy camera with a footprint of 1 mm × 1 mm × 1.65 mm is used. Due to the physical prop erties of the sensors and human vision system limitations, different image-processing algorithms, such as noise reduction, demosaicking, and gamma correction, among others, are needed to faithfully reproduce the image or video. A full image-processing pipeline is implemented using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to accomplish a high frame rate of 60 fps with minimum processing delay. Along with this, a viewer has also been developed to display and control the image-processing pipeline. The control and data transfer are done by a USB 3.0 end point in the computer. The full developed system achieves real-time processing of the image and fits in a Xilinx Spartan-6LX150 FPGA.
  • A Review of Approaches for Sleep Quality Analysis
    Publication . Mendonça, Fabio; Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Dias, Fernando Morgado; Ravelo-García, Antonio G.; Penzel, Thomas
    Sleep quality is directly related to overall wellness and can reveal symptoms of several diseases. However, the term ‘‘sleep quality’’ still lacks a definitional consensus and is commonly assessed in sleep labs with polysomnography, comprising high costs, or through sleep questionnaires, a highly subjective technique. Multiple methods have been proposed to address the estimation of sleep quality, and devices were developed to conduct the examination in the subject’s home. The objective of this paper is to analyze the methods and the devices presented in the literature, assessing the development of objective markers that could lead to an improvement of the subjective sleep experience understanding, leading to developments in the treatment of sleep quality deficits. A systematic review was conducted, selecting research articles published from 2000 to 2018, and two research questions were formulated, specifically, ‘‘what methods for sleep quality assessment have been developed’’ and ‘‘what kind of measures are employed by the devices that have been developed to estimate sleep quality.’’ The research trend for the assessment of sleep quality is based on the sleep macrostructure, and it was verified that despite the convenience and considerable popularity among the consumers of home health monitoring of devices, such as actigraphs, the validity of these tools regarding the estimation of sleep quality still needs to be systematically examined. A detailed resume of the key findings and the identified challenges are presented, ascertaining the main gaps in the current state of the art.
  • Novel Comparative Study for the Detection of COVID-19 Using CT Scan and Chest X-ray Images
    Publication . Hayat, Ahatsham; Baglat, Preety; Mendonça, Fábio; Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Dias, Fernando Morgado
    The number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases is constantly rising as the pandemic continues, with new variants constantly emerging. Therefore, to prevent the virus from spreading, coronavirus cases must be diagnosed as soon as possible. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on people’s health and the economy worldwide. For COVID-19 detection, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction testing is the benchmark. However, this test takes a long time and necessitates a lot of laboratory resources. A new trend is emerging to address these limitations regarding the use of machine learning and deep learning techniques for automatic analysis, as these can attain high diagnosis results, especially by using medical imaging techniques. However, a key question arises whether a chest computed tomography scan or chest X-ray can be used for COVID-19 detection. A total of 17,599 images were examined in this work to develop the models used to classify the occurrence of COVID-19 infection, while four different classifiers were studied. These are the convolutional neural network (proposed architecture (named, SCovNet) and Resnet18), support vector machine, and logistic regression. Out of all four models, the proposed SCoVNet architecture reached the best performance with an accuracy of almost 99% and 98% on chest computed tomography scan images and chest X-ray images, respectively.