This paper presents Splitter, a novel architecture designed to enhance feature extraction and optimize computational efficiency in deep learning models. Splitter employs a unique channel-splitting mechanism that divides input channels into three parallel path; Identity, Activation, and Spatial Mixing to perform distinct operations. By selectively applying spatial mixing via max-pooling or multi-head attention, Splitter balances computational frugality with representational richness. On the ImageNet-1k benchmark, Splitter-S achieves 74.4% Top-1 accuracy at 9,347images/s, while Splitter-M and Splitter-L deliver 76.2% and 78.3% Top-1 accuracy at 5,893images/s and 4,719images/s, respectively. When integrated into a RetinaNet detector on COCO, Splitter-S attains 32.1% AP (52.4% AP50, 33.7% AP75). These results confirm that Splitter matches or surpasses state-of-the-art efficient models while significantly boosting throughput, making it exceptionally well-suited for deployment in resource-limited environments.

Data are the essential component in the pipeline of training a model that determines the performance of the model. However, there may not be enough data that meet the requirements of some tasks. In this paper, we introduce a knowledge distillation-based approach that mitigates the disadvantages of data scarcity. Specifically, we propose a method that boosts the pixel domain performance of a model, by utilizing compressed domain knowledge via cross distillation between these two modalities. To evaluate our approach, we conduct experiments on two computer vision tasks which are object detection and recognition. Results indicate that compressed domain features can be utilized for a task in the pixel domain via our approach, where data are scarce or not completely available due to privacy or copyright issues.

Artificial neural networks (ANN) face challenges in the biomedical and health care sectors due to the elastic nature of biomedical data. This data requires a knowledge-centric approach rather than a purely data-centric one. Fuzzy systems efficiently handle the vagueness in medical big data, emulating human perception. These systems provide precise analysis for various medical situations, neutralizing uncertainties like varying disease patterns. They also support ranking populations based on health attributes, aiding in early prognosis and preventive medicine. This special issue is dedicated to focus on the recent advancements and applications of fuzzy systems within the area of healthcare data analysis. It has provided a platform for researchers to share innovative techniques andmethodologiesmore effectively. Through this issue,we aspire to stimulate discussions, foster collaborations and inspire further innovations in leveraging fuzzy systems for more nuanced, human-like interpretations of complex biomedical datasets. As technology evolves, healthcare and diagnostics keeps changing continously. Taking a look at the array of innovative methods, we observe a clear inclination towards deep learning and computational intelligence in diagnostics. For instance, the application of Computational intelligence for analysing CT images for lung cancer detection and the XlmNet, which uses an Extreme Learning Machine Algorithm for classifying lung cancer from histopathological images, both focus on early-stage detection of lung diseases. Their reliance on intricate computational techniques demonstrates a move towards more precise and early diagnostic procedures. On the other hand, we have algorithms like the Residual neural network-assisted one-class classification, specifically tailored for melanoma recognition in imbalanced datasets. It’s evident that there’s a conscious effort to tackle class imbalance issues, which have long been a hurdle in medical image analysis. Mental health and wellbeing are not left behind either. The “Smart Analysis of Anxiety People and Their Activities” and the “Classification Analysis of Burnout People’s Brain Images” both emphasize the growing role of technology in understanding and diagnosing psychological health issues. Similarly, kidney diseases, retinal issues, skin lesions, and other specific conditions are being targeted with specialized models like the Explainable Deep Learning Model for early-stage Chronic Kidney Disease prediction and the modified CNN for retina disease prediction, incorporating the strengths of SVM classifiers. Finally, the integration of ontology-based speculative sense models and hybrid methods like the SVM-ABC for gene expression data classification illustrates a blend of traditional computational methods with modern deep learning, enhancing accuracy and efficiency. We extend our heartfelt appreciation to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal for granting us the opportunity to organise this special issue. We would also like to express our gratitude to the authors and reviewers for their punctual and valuable contributions.We believe that this special issue will provide an additional valuable contribution to the research community.

Cervical squamous intra-epithelial lesions (SIL) are precursor cancer lesions and their diagnosis is important because patients have a chance to be cured before cancer develops. In the diagnosis of the disease, pathologists decide by considering the cell distribution from the basal to the upper membrane. The idea, inspired by the pathologists' point of view, is based on the fact that cell amounts differ in the basal, central, and upper regions of tissue according to the level of Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia (CIN). Therefore, histogram information can be used for tissue classification so that the model can be explainable. In this study, two different classification schemes are proposed to show that the local histogram is a useful feature for the classification of cervical tissues. The first classifier is Kullback Leibler divergence-based, and the second one is the classification of the histogram by combining the embedding feature vector from morphometric features. These algorithms have been tested on a public dataset.The method we propose in the study achieved an accuracy performance of 78.69% in a data set where morphology-based methods were 69.07% and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) patch-based algorithms were 75.77%. The proposed statistical features are robust for tackling real-life problems as they operate independently of the lesions manifold.

Effective compression of hyperspectral (HS) images is essential due to their large data volume. Since these images are high dimensional, processing them is also another challenging issue. In this work, an efficient lossy HS image compression method based on enhanced multivariance products representation (EMPR) is proposed. As an efficient data decomposition method, EMPR enables us to represent the given multidimensional data with lower-dimensional entities. EMPR, as a finite expansion with relevant approximations, can be acquired by truncating this expansion at certain levels. Thus, EMPR can be utilized as a highly effective lossy compression algorithm for hyper spectral images. In addition to these, an efficient variety of EMPR is also introduced in this article, in order to increase the compression efficiency. The results are benchmarked with several state-of-the-art lossy compression methods. It is observed that both higher peak signal-to-noise ratio values and improved classification accuracy are achieved from EMPR-based methods.

Early detection of wildfire smoke in real-time is essentially important in forest surveillance and monitoring systems. We propose a vision-based method to detect smoke using Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Neural Networks (DC-GANs). Many existing supervised learning approaches using convolutional neural networks require substantial amount of labeled data. In order to have a robust representation of sequences with and without smoke, we propose a two-stage training of a DCGAN. Our training framework includes, the regular training of a DCGAN with real images and noise vectors, and training the discriminator separately using the smoke images without the generator. Before training the networks, the temporal evolution of smoke is also integrated with a motion-based transformation of images as a pre-processing step. Experimental results show that the proposed method effectively detects the smoke images with negligible false positive rates in real-time.

In this paper, we propose a compressed domain fire detection algorithm using macroblock types and Markov Model in H.264 video. Compressed domain method does not require decoding to pixel domain, instead a syntax parser extracts syntax elements which are only available in compressed domain. Our method extracts only macroblock type and corresponding macroblock address information. Markov model with fire and non-fire models are evaluated using offline-trained data. Our experiments show that the algorithm is able to detect and identify fire event in compressed domain successfully, despite a small chunk of data is used in the process.

In this paper, an entropy-functional-based online adaptive decision fusion (EADF) framework is developed for image analysis and computer vision applications. In this framework, it is assumed that the compound algorithm consists of several subalgorithms, each of which yields its own decision as a real number centered around zero, representing the confidence level of that particular subalgorithm. Decision values are linearly combined with weights that are updated online according to an active fusion method based on performing entropic projections onto convex sets describing subalgorithms. It is assumed that there is an oracle, who is usually a human operator, providing feedback to the decision fusion method. A video-based wildfire detection system was developed to evaluate the performance of the decision fusion algorithm. In this case, image data arrive sequentially, and the oracle is the security guard of the forest lookout tower, verifying the decision of the combined algorithm. The simulation results are presented.

Spectrum sensing is one of the most important features of Cognitive Radio (CR) systems. Matched-filter based spectrum sensing techniques provide optimum sensing performance given that a number of characteristics of the transmitted signal are known by the sensors. Assuming that the received signal pertains to one communication standard from a given set of wireless technologies, conventional spectrum sensors employ separate filters corresponding to each standard which gives rise to increased power consumption and ciruit size. A novel reconfigurable matched-filter based spectrum sensor to be deployed in CR systems is proposed in order to overcome the disadvantages of conventional design methods. This approach proposes a spectrum of design qualities which trade-off area for reconfiguration overhead. We will show that our approach is capable of designing reconfigurable filter for standards with widely varying filter characteristics.

Spectrum sensing is one of the most essential characteristics of cognitive radios (CRs). Robustness and adaptation to varying wireless propagation scenarios without compromising the sensing accuracy are desirable features of any spectrum sensing method to be deployed in CR systems. In this study, an online adaptive cooperation technique for spectrum sensing is proposed in order to maintain the level of reliability and performance. Cooperation is achieved by sensors which employ energy detection. These sensors send their output to a center where data fusion operation is carried out in an online and adaptive manner. Adaptation is realized by the use of orthogonal projections onto convex sets (POCS). In conjunction with the proposed method, an end-to-end methodology for a flexible experimental setup is also proposed in this study. This setup is arranged to emulate the proposed adaptive cooperation scheme for spectrum sensing and validate its practical use in cognitive radio systems. Comparative performance results for both inphase and quadrature branches are presented.

In this paper, we propose a novel method for detecting and monitoring Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) gas leaks by using a Pyro-electric (or Passive) Infrared (PIR) sensor whose spectral range intersects with the absorption bands of VOC gases. A continuous time analog signal is obtained from the PIR sensor. This signal is discretized and analyzed in real time. Feature parameters are extracted in wavelet domain and classified using a Markov Model (MM) based classifier. Experimental results are presented.

A computer vision based algorithm for wildfire detection is developed. The main detection algorithm is composed of four sub-algorithms detecting (i) slow moving objects, (ii) gray regions, (iii) rising regions, and (iv) shadows. Each algorithm yields its own decision as a real number in the range [-1,1] at every image frame of a video sequence. Decisions from subalgorithms are fused using an adaptive algorithm. In contrast to standard Weighted Majority Algorithm (WMA), weights are updated using the Least Mean Square (LMS) method in the training (learning) stage. The error function is defined as the difference between the overall decision of the main algorithm and the decision of an oracle, who is the security guard of the forest look-out tower.

A video based method to detect volatile organic compounds (VOC) leaking out of process equipments used in petrochemical refineries is developed. Leaking VOC plume from a damaged component causes edges present in image frames loose their sharpness. This leads to a decrease in the high frequency content of the image. The background of the scene is estimated and decrease of high frequency energy of the scene is monitored using the spatial wavelet transforms of the current and the background images. Plume regions in image frames are analyzed in low-band sub-images, as well. Image frames are compared with their corresponding low-band images. A maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) for adaptive threshold estimation is also developed in this paper.

This paper describes an online learning based method to detect flames in video by processing the data generated by an ordinary camera monitoring a scene. Our fire detection method consists of weak classifiers based on temporal and spatial modeling of flames. Markov models representing the flame and flame colored ordinary moving objects are used to distinguish temporal flame flicker process from motion of flame colored moving objects. Boundary of flames are represented in wavelet domain and high frequency nature of the boundaries of fire regions is also used as a clue to model the flame flicker spatially. Results from temporal and spatial weak classifiers based on flame flicker and irregularity of the flame region boundaries are updated online to reach a final decision. False alarms due to ordinary and periodic motion of flame colored moving objects are greatly reduced when compared to the existing video based fire detection systems.

3D video codecs have attracted recently a lot of attention, due to their compression performance comparable with that of state-of-art hybrid codecs and due to their scalability features. In this work, we propose a least mean square (LMS) based adaptive prediction for the temporal prediction step in lifting implementation. This approach improves the overall quality of the coded video, by reducing both the blocking and ghosting artefacts. Experimental results show that the video quality as well as PSNR values are greatly improved with the proposed adaptive method, especially for video sequences with large contrast between the moving objects and the background and for sequences with illumination variations

A method for detection of tree branches and leaves in video is proposed. It is observed that the motion vectors of tree branches and leaves exhibit random motion. On the other hand regular motion of green colored objects has well-defined directions. In this paper, the wavelet transform of motion vectors are computed and objects are classified according to the wavelet coefficients of motion vectors. Color information is also used to reduce the search space in a given image frame of the video. Motion trajectories of moving objects are modeled as Markovian processes and hidden Markov models (HMMs) are used to classify the green colored objects in the final step of the algorithm.

The paper proposes a novel method to detect fire and/or flame by processing the video data generated by an ordinary camera monitoring a scene. In addition to ordinary motion and color clues, flame and fire flicker are detected by analyzing the video in the wavelet domain. Periodic behavior in flame boundaries is detected by performing a temporal wavelet transform. Color variations in fire are detected by computing the spatial wavelet transform of moving fire-colored regions. Other clues used in the fire detection algorithm include irregularity of the boundary of the fire-colored region and the growth of such regions in time. All of the above clues are combined to reach a final decision.

This paper proposes a novel method to detect flames in video by processing the data generated by an ordinary camera monitoring a scene. In addition to ordinary motion and color clues, flame flicker process is also detected by using a hidden Markov model. Markov models representing the flame and flame colored ordinary moving objects are used to distinguish flame flicker process from motion of flame colored moving objects. Spatial color variations in flame are also evaluated by the same Markov models, as well. These clues are combined to reach a final decision. False alarms due to ordinary motion of flame colored moving objects are greatly reduced when compared to the existing video based fire detection systems.