Search Results (330)

Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) is a cornerstone in minimally invasive thoracic lymph node sampling. In lung cancer staging, precise assessment of lymph node position is crucial for clinical decision-making. This study aimed to demonstrate a new deep learning method to classify thoracic lymph nodes based on their anatomical location using EBUS images. Bronchoscopists labeled lymph node stations in real-time according to the Mountain Dressler nomenclature. EBUS images were then used to train and test a deep neural network (DNN) model, with intraoperative labels as ground truth. In total, 28,134 EBUS images were acquired from 56 patients. The model achieved an overall classification accuracy of 59.5 ± 5.2%. The highest precision, sensitivity, and F1 score were observed in station 4L, 77.6 ± 13.1%, 77.6 ± 15.4%, and 77.6 ± 15.4%, respectively. The lowest precision, sensitivity, and F1 score were observed in station 10L. The average processing and prediction time for a sequence of ten images was 0.65 ± 0.04 s, demonstrating the feasibility of real-time applications. In conclusion, the new DNN-based model could be used to classify lymph node stations from EBUS images. The method performance was promising with a potential for clinical use. Full article

Graph anomaly detection is crucial in many high-impact applications across diverse fields. In anomaly detection tasks, collecting plenty of annotated data tends to be costly and laborious. As a result, few-shot learning has been explored to address the issue by requiring only a few labeled samples to achieve good performance. However, conventional few-shot models may not fully exploit the information within auxiliary sets, leading to suboptimal performance. To tackle these limitations, we propose a dual-level knowledge distillation-based approach for graph anomaly detection, DualKD, which leverages two distinct distillation losses to improve generalization capabilities. In our approach, we initially train a teacher model to generate prediction distributions as soft labels, capturing the entropy of uncertainty in the data. These soft labels are then employed to construct the corresponding loss for training a student model, which can capture more detailed node features. In addition, we introduce two representation distillation losses—short and long representation distillation—to effectively transfer knowledge from the auxiliary set to the target set. Comprehensive experiments conducted on four datasets verify that DualKD remarkably outperforms the advanced baselines, highlighting its effectiveness in enhancing identification performance. Full article

The existing learning resource recommendation systems suffer from data sparsity and missing data labels, leading to the insufficient mining of the correlation between users and courses. To address these issues, we propose a learning resource recommendation method based on graph contrastive learning, which uses graph contrastive learning to construct an auxiliary recommendation task combined with a main recommendation task, achieving the joint recommendation of learning resources. Firstly, the interaction bipartite graph between the user and the course is input into a lightweight graph convolutional network, and the embedded representation of each node in the graph is obtained after compilation. Then, for the input user–course interaction bipartite graph, noise vectors are randomly added to each node in the embedding space to perturb the embedding of graph encoder node, forming a perturbation embedding representation of the node to enhance the data. Subsequently, the graph contrastive learning method is used to construct auxiliary recommendation tasks. Finally, the main task of recommendation supervision and the constructed auxiliary task of graph contrastive learning are jointly learned to alleviate data sparsity. The experimental results show that the proposed method in this paper has improved the Recall@5 by 5.7% and 11.2% and the NDCG@5 by 0.1% and 6.4%, respectively, on the MOOCCube and Amazon-Book datasets compared with the node enhancement methods. Therefore, the proposed method can significantly improve the mining level of users and courses by using a graph comparison method in the auxiliary recommendation task and has better noise immunity and robustness. Full article

IoT (Internet of Things) networks are vulnerable to network viruses and botnets, while facing serious network security issues. The prediction of payload states in IoT networks can detect network attacks and achieve early warning and rapid response to prevent potential threats. Due to the instability and packet loss of communications between victim network nodes, the constructed protocol state machines of existing state prediction schemes are inaccurate. In this paper, we propose a network payload predictor called IoTGuard, which can predict the payload states in IoT networks based on real-time IoT network traffic. The steps of IoTGuard are briefly as follows: Firstly, the application-layer payloads between different nodes are extracted through a module of network payload separation. Secondly, the classification of payload state within network flows is obtained via a payload extraction module. Finally, the predictor of payload state in a network is trained on a payload set, and these payloads have state labels. Experimental results on the Mozi botnet dataset show that IoTGuard can predict the state of payloads in IoT networks more accurately while ensuring execution efficiency. IoTGuard achieves an accuracy of 86% in network payload prediction, which is 8% higher than the state-of-the-art method NetZob, and the training time is reduced by 52.8%. Full article

Crop damage attributed to pest birds is an important problem, particularly in low-income countries. This paper describes a prototype system for pest bird detection using a Conv1D neural network model followed by scaring actions to reduce the presence of pest birds on farms. Acoustic recorders were deployed on farms for data collection, supplemented by acoustic libraries. The sounds of pest bird species were identified and labeled. The labeled data were used in Edge Impulse to train a tinyML Conv1D model to detect birds of interest. The model was deployed on Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense (nodes) and XIAO (Base station) microcontrollers to detect the pest birds, and based on the detection, scaring sounds were played to deter the birds. The model achieved an accuracy of 96.1% during training and 92.99% during testing. The testing F1 score was 0.94, and the ROC score was 0.99, signifying a good discriminatory ability of the model. The prototype was able to make inferences in 53 ms using only 14.8 k of peak RAM and only 43.8 K of flash memory to store the model. Results from the prototype deployment in the field demonstrated successful detection and triggering actions and SMS messaging notifications. Further development of this novel integrated and sustainable solution will add another tool for dealing with pest birds. Full article

With the rapid development of smart sensor technology and the Internet of things, ensuring data accuracy and system reliability is paramount. As the number of sensors increases with demand for high-resolution, high-quality input to decision-making systems, models and digital twins, manual quality control of sensor data is no longer an option. In this paper, we leverage insights into sensor technology, environmental dynamics and the correlation between data from different sensors for automatic diagnostics of a sensor node. We propose a method for combining results of automatic quality control of individual sensors with tests for detecting simultaneous anomalies across sensors. Building on both sensor and application knowledge, we develop a diagnostic logic that can automatically explain and diagnose instead of just labeling the individual sensor data as “good” or “bad”. This approach enables us to provide diagnostics that offer a deeper understanding of the data and their quality and of the health and reliability of the measurement system. Our algorithms are adapted for real time and in situ operation on the sensor node. We demonstrate the diagnostic power of the algorithms on high-resolution measurements of temperature and conductivity from the OBSEA observatory about 50 km south of Barcelona, Spain. Full article

Heterogeneous domain adaptation (HDA) utilizes the knowledge of the source domain to model the target domain. Although the two domains are semantically related, the problem of feature and distribution differences in heterogeneous data still needs to be solved. Most of the existing HDA methods only consider the feature or distribution problem but do not consider the geometric semantic information similarity between the domain structures, which leads to a weakened adaptive performance. In order to solve the problem, a centroid connected structure matching network (CCSMN) approach is proposed, which firstly maps the heterogeneous data into a shared public feature subspace to solve the problem of feature differences. Secondly, it promotes the overlap of domain centers and nodes of the same category between domains to reduce the positional distribution differences in the internal structure of data. Then, the supervised information is utilized to generate target domain nodes, and the geometric structural and semantic information are utilized to construct a centroid-connected structure with a reasonable inter-class distance. During the training process, a progressive and integrated pseudo-labeling is utilized to select samples with high-confidence labels and improve the classification accuracy for the target domain. Extensive experiments are conducted in text-to-image and image-to-image HDA tasks, and the results show that the CCSMN outperforms several state-of-the-art baseline methods. Compared with state-of-the-art HDA methods, in the text-to-image transfer task, the efficiency has increased by 8.05%; and in the image-to-image transfer task, the efficiency has increased by about 2%, which suggests that the CCSMN benefits more from domain geometric semantic information similarity. Full article

The deep migration of soil nitrogen (N) poses a significant risk of N leaching, contributing to non-point-source pollution. This study examines the influence of microbial networks on the deep migration of chemical fertilizer N under varying irrigation management and multiple N fertilizer sources. A soil column experiment with eight treatments was conducted, utilizing ¹⁵N isotope labeling and metagenomic sequencing technology. The findings revealed that reduced irrigation significantly curbs the deep migration of chemical fertilizer N, and straw returning also mitigates this migration under conventional irrigation. Microbial network complexity and stability were markedly higher under reduced irrigation compared to conventional practices. Notably, network node count, average degree, and modularity exhibited significant negative correlations with the deep migration of chemical fertilizer N. The network topology indices, including node count, average clustering coefficient, average degree, modularity, and edge count, were found to be relatively more important for the deep migration of chemical fertilizer N. In conclusion, microbial networks play an important role in reducing the deep migration of chemical fertilizer N. Full article

Autonomous navigation in dynamic environments presents a significant challenge for mobile robotic systems. This paper proposes a novel approach utilizing Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for multi-object detection in 3D space and 2D segmentation using bird’s eye view (BEV) maps derived from 3D Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data. Our method aims to enable mobile robots to localize movable objects and their occupancy, which is crucial for safe and efficient navigation. To address the scarcity of labeled real-world datasets, a synthetic dataset based on a simulation environment is generated to train and evaluate our model. Additionally, we employ a subset of the NVIDIA r2b dataset for evaluation in the real world. Furthermore, we integrate our CNN-based detection and segmentation model into a Robot Operating System 2 (ROS2) framework, facilitating communication between mobile robots and a centralized node for data aggregation and map creation. Our experimental results demonstrate promising performance, showcasing the potential applicability of our approach in future assembly systems. While further validation with real-world data is warranted, our work contributes to advancing perception systems by proposing a solution for multi-source, multi-object tracking and mapping. Full article

With the rapid advancement in edge computing, container technology has gained widespread adoption. This is due to its lightweight isolation mechanisms, high portability, and fast deployment capabilities. Despite these advantages, container technology also introduces significant security risks. One of the most critical is container escape. However, current detection research is incomplete. Many methods lack comprehensive detection coverage or fail to fully reconstruct the attack process. To address these gaps, this paper proposes a container escape detection method based on a dependency graph. The method uses various nodes and edges to describe diverse system behaviors. This approach enables the detection of a broader range of attack types. It also effectively captures the contextual relationships between system events, facilitating attack traceability and reconstruction. We design a method to identify container processes on the dependency graph through label generation and propagation. Based on this, container escape detection is implemented using file access control within the graph. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in detecting container escapes. Full article

The detection and analysis of cancer cell exosomes with high sensitivity and precision are pivotal for the early diagnosis and treatment strategies of prostate cancer. To this end, a microfluidic chip, equipped with a cactus-like array substrate (CAS) based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) was designed and fabricated for the detection of exosome concentrations in Lymph Node Carcinoma of the Prostate (LNCaP). Double layers of polystyrene (PS) microspheres were self-assembled onto a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film to form an ordered cactus-like nanoarray for detection and analysis. By combining EpCAM aptamer-labeled SERS nanoprobes and a CD63 aptamer-labeled CAS, a ‘sandwich’ structure was formed and applied to the microfluidic chips, further enhancing the Raman scattering signal of Raman reporter molecules. The results indicate that the integrated microfluidic sensor exhibits a good linear response within the detection concentration range of 10⁵ particles μL⁻¹ to 1 particle μL⁻¹. The detection limit of exosomes in cancer cells can reach 1 particle μL⁻¹. Therefore, we believed that the CAS integrated microfluidic sensor offers a superior solution for the early diagnosis and therapeutic intervention of prostate cancer. Full article

In multi-label data, a sample is associated with multiple labels at the same time, and the computational complexity is manifested in the high-dimensional feature space as well as the interdependence and unbalanced distribution of labels, which leads to challenges regarding feature selection. As a result, a multi-label feature selection method based on feature–label subgraph association with graph representation learning (SAGRL) is proposed to represent the complex correlations of features and labels, especially the relationships between features and labels. Specifically, features and labels are mapped to nodes in the graph structure, and the connections between nodes are established to form feature and label sets, respectively, which increase intra-class correlation and decrease inter-class correlation. Further, feature–label subgraphs are constructed by feature and label sets to provide abundant feature combinations. The relationship between each subgraph is adjusted by graph representation learning, the crucial features in different label sets are selected, and the optimal feature subset is obtained by ranking. Experimental studies on 11 datasets show the superior performance of the proposed method with six evaluation metrics over some state-of-the-art multi-label feature selection methods. Full article

The Prostate cancer (PC) is a major problem all over worldwide and this is the second highest cancer-related mortality rate after lung cancer all over worldwide. At least 299,010 likely cases in men were reported in the US in 2024 and about 35,250 deaths are reported. The overexpression of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is a key factor in the progression of prostate cancer and contributes to metastasis in lymph nodes, soft tissues and bones metastasis. The numerous studies have reported that, Glu-ureido-based molecules exhibit high binding affinity for PSMA. The earliest imaging agents developed from this structure were labeled with radioactive halogen isotopes and demonstrated nanomolar binding affinity, leading to exceptional imaging properties. Hence the Glu-ureido chemical moiety is a very important template as inhibitor of PSMA. In this study to explore the chemical structural and electronic features of Glu-Ureido structure with the aid of quantum chemistry computer simulations. In this study, first optimized the structure of this chemical structure using the B3LYP 6311-G (++, d, p) basis set. In this study investigated the maximal quantity of electronic charge transfer (N_max), chemical hardness (η), electrostatic potential, chemical potential (µ) and electrophilicity (ω). By the using Natural Bond Orbital (NBO) analysis, the examination shows that the molecule’s chemically active regions π-electron-electron delocalization within the molecule that contribute to its stability. Full article

With the integration of sustainable energy, the power grid has become increasingly information-intensive and complex. To address the issue of power grid cyber-physical systems being unable to operate securely and stably when systems suffer false data injection attacks, a two-stage detection method based on Stacking and Maximum Information Coefficient and Dual-layer Confidence Extreme Gradient Boosting (MIC-DCXGB) is proposed by the paper. Firstly, a Stacking classification model consisting of multiple heterogeneous learners detects anomalies in real-time measurement data samples to determine if false data are present. Secondly, the method incorporates the Maximum Information Coefficient (MIC) for feature selection, which non-linearly measures the correlation between data features and fairly removes redundant features by evaluating the amount of information one feature variable contains about another. This approach effectively tackles the high-dimensional redundancy problem commonly faced in false data injection attack detection. Then, the paper introduces a dual-layer confidence Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) tree with positive feedback information transmission to classify node states. By combining grid topology learning with label correlation, it selectively uses preceding label information to reduce errors in the predictions learned by subsequent classifiers, achieving precise localization of the attack positions. Finally, extensive simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Full article

The identification of key nodes in complex networks is an important topic in many network science areas. It is vital to a variety of real-world applications, including viral marketing, epidemic spreading and influence maximization. In recent years, machine learning algorithms have proven to outperform the conventional, centrality-based methods in accuracy and consistency, but this approach still requires further refinement. What information about the influencers can be extracted from the network? How can we precisely obtain the labels required for training? Can these models generalize well? In this paper, we answer these questions by presenting an enhanced machine learning-based framework for the influence spread problem. We focus on identifying key nodes for the Independent Cascade model, which is a popular reference method. Our main contribution is an improved process of obtaining the labels required for training by introducing “Smart Bins” and proving their advantage over known methods. Next, we show that our methodology allows ML models to not only predict the influence of a given node, but to also determine other characteristics of the spreading process—which is another novelty to the relevant literature. Finally, we extensively test our framework and its ability to generalize beyond complex networks of different types and sizes, gaining important insight into the properties of these methods. Full article