Zubair Baig¹, Sherali Zeadally²

Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing, Vol.25, No.1, pp. 121-129, 2019, DOI:10.31209/2018.100000049

Abstract A critical infrastructure provides essential services to a nation’s population. Interruptions in its smooth operations are highly undesirable because they will cause significant and devastating consequences on all stakeholders in the society. In order to provide sustained protection to a nation’s critical infrastructure, we must continually assess and evaluate the risks thereof. We propose a risk assessment framework that can evaluate the risks posed to the security of a critical infrastructure from threat agents, with a special emphasis on the smart grid communications infrastructure. The framework defines finegrained risk identification to help quantify and assess More >

Belayat Hossain^a, Takatoshi Morooka^b, Makiko Okuno^b, Manabu Nii^a, Shinichi Yoshiya^b, Syoji Kobashi^a

Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing, Vol.25, No.1, pp. 105-115, 2019, DOI:10.31209/2018.100000034

Abstract This work aimed to predict postoperative knee functions of a new patient prior to total knee arthroplasty (TKA) surgery using machine learning, because such prediction is essential for surgical planning and for patients to better understand the TKA outcome. However, the main difficulty is to determine the relationships among individual varieties of preoperative and postoperative knee kinematics. The problem was solved by constructing predictive models from the knee kinematics data of 35 osteoarthritis patients, operated by posterior stabilized implant, based on generalized linear regression (GLR) analysis. Two prediction methods (without and with principal component analysis… More >

Yasir Mehmood, Waseem Shahzad

Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing, Vol.25, No.1, pp. 91-103, 2019, DOI:10.31209/2018.100000017

Abstract Particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is a global optimization technique that is used to find the optimal solution in multimodal problems. However, one of the limitation of PSO is its slow convergence rate along with a local trapping dilemma in complex multimodal problems. To address this issue, this paper provides an alternative technique known as ACPSO algorithm, which enables to adopt a new simplified velocity update rule to enhance the performance of PSO. As a result, the efficiency of convergence speed and solution accuracy can be maximized. The experimental results show that the ACPSO outperforms More >

Yu-Cheng Chou¹, Wei-Chieh Liao², Yan-Liang Chen², Ming Chang², Po Ting Lin³

Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing, Vol.25, No.1, pp. 79-90, 2019, DOI:10.31209/2018.100000011

Abstract This paper presents the Distributed Heterogeneous Inspection System (DHIS), which comprises two CUDA workstations and is equipped with CPU distributed computing, CPU concurrent computing, and GPU concurrent computing functions. Thirty-two grayscale images, each with 5,000× 12,288 pixels and simulated defect patterns, were created to evaluate the performances of three system configurations: (1) DHIS; (2) two CUDA workstations with CPU distributed computing and GPU concurrent computing; (3) one CUDA workstation with GPU concurrent computing. Experimental results indicated that: (1) only DHIS can satisfy the time limit, and the average turnaround time of DHIS is 37.65% of More >

Juan Li

Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing, Vol.25, No.1, pp. 35-48, 2019, DOI:10.31209/2018.100000003

Abstract K-Nearest Neighbor algorithm (KNN) is a simple and mature classification method. However there are susceptible factors influencing the classification performance, such as k value determination, the overlarge search space, unbalanced and multi-class patterns, etc. To deal with the above problems, a new classification algorithm that absorbs tree structure, tree pruning and adaptive k value method was proposed. The proposed algorithm can overcome the shortcoming of KNN, improve the performance of multi-class and unbalanced classification, reduce the scale of dataset maintaining the comparable classification accuracy. The simulations are conducted and the proposed algorithm is compared with several existing More >

Alessia Callegari¹, Barbara Burkhardt¹, Christa Relly², Walter Knirsch¹, Martin Christmann¹

Congenital Heart Disease, Vol.14, No.4, pp. 671-677, 2019, DOI:10.1111/chd.12830

Abstract Background: Since routine clinical use of antibiotics as well as surgical and catheter‐ based closure of a patent arterial duct (PDA), PDA‐associated infective endarteritis (PDA‐IE) is rare but can still occur when the ductus is still open or as it closes. Thus, clinicians should maintain a high index of concern for patients with unexplained fever.
Methods: We report on a PDA‐IE in a young infant shortly after potentially delayed obliteration of a PDA. We discuss this case report by reviewing the literature in regard to the pathogenesis (infection primary or secondary to PDA thrombus formation), clinical (new… More >

Maria Fedchenko, Zacharias Mandalenakis, Helena Dellborg, Görel Hultsberg‐Olsson, Anna Björk, Peter Eriksson, Mikael Dellborg

Congenital Heart Disease, Vol.14, No.4, pp. 549-558, 2019, DOI:10.1111/chd.12785

Abstract Background: The aging patient with adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) faces the risk of developing atherosclerotic disease. Patients with coarctation of the aorta (CoA) are especially vulnerable because of an inherent high risk of developing hy‐ pertension. However, data on the prevalence of other cardiovascular risk factors are scarce. Therefore, this study aimed to describe the prevalence of traditional cardio‐ vascular risk factors (diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, smoking, obesity, and sedentary lifestyle) in adult patients with CoA.
Methods: Patients with CoA who were registered at the ACHD clinic in Gothenburg were asked to participate in a comprehensive cardiovascular… More >

Alexander C. Egbe, William R. Miranda, Patricia A. Pellikka, Sorin V. Pislaru, Barry A. Borlaug, Srikanth Kothapalli, Sindhura Ananthaneni, Harigopal Sandhyavenu, Maria Najam, Mohamed Farouk Abdelsamid, Heidi M. Connolly

Congenital Heart Disease, Vol.14, No.4, pp. 657-664, 2019, DOI:10.1111/chd.12768

Abstract Background: We hypothesized that echocardiographic indices of right ventricular to pulmonary artery (RV‐PA) coupling were comparable to cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMRI)‐derived RV volumetric indices in predicting disease severity in chronic pulmonary regurgitation (PR).
Methods: Patients with ≥ moderate PR (2003‐2015) with and without prior CMRI scans were enrolled into the study cohort and validation cohort, respectively. Endpoint was to determine the association between noninvasive RV‐PA coupling in‐ dices (tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion/right ventricular systolic pressure [TAPSE/RVSP] and fractional area change [FAC]/RVSP ratio) and markers of disease severity, and compared this association to that of CMRI‐derived… More >

Madalena Coutinho Cruz¹, André Viveiros Monteiro¹, Guilherme Portugal¹, Sérgio Laranjo², Ana Lousinha¹, Bruno Valente¹, Paulo Osório¹, Pedro Silva Cunha¹, Lídia de Sousa¹, José Alberto Oliveira¹, Ana Agapito¹, Mário Martins Oliveira¹, Fátima Pinto², Rui Cruz Ferreira¹

Congenital Heart Disease, Vol.14, No.4, pp. 525-533, 2019, DOI:10.1111/chd.12767

Abstract Objective: Sudden cardiac death is common in the adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) population. Knowledge and experience about the use of implantable cardio‐ verter defibrillators (ICD) in ACHD patients is very limited. We aimed to characterize a cohort of patients with ACHD and ICDs.
Design: Thirty consecutive ACHD patients submitted to an ICD implantation in a single tertiary center were evaluated. Data on baseline clinical features, heart defect, indication for ICD, type of device, appropriate therapies, ICD‐related complication, and mortality during follow‐up were collected.
Results: Of the 30 patients, 56.7% received appropriate therapies due to ventricular tachycardia (VT)… More >

Jenny Alenius Dahlqvist¹, Jan Sunnegårdh², Katarina Hanséus³, Eva Strömvall Larsson², Anders Nygren², Magnus Dalén^4,5, Håkan Berggren⁶, Jens Johansson Ramgren⁷, Urban Wiklund⁸, Annika Rydberg¹

Congenital Heart Disease, Vol.14, No.4, pp. 582-589, 2019, DOI:10.1111/chd.12766

Abstract Objective: Fontan surgery is performed in children with univentricular heart defects. Previous data regarding permanent pacemaker implantation frequency and indica‐ tions in Fontan patients are limited and conflicting. We examined the prevalence of and risk factors for pacemaker treatment in a consecutive national cohort of patients after Fontan surgery in Sweden.
Methods: We retrospectively reviewed all Swedish patients who underwent Fontan surgery from 1982 to 2017 (n = 599).
Results: After a mean follow‐up of 12.2 years, 13% (78/599) of the patients with Fontan circulation had received pacemakers. Patients operated with the extracardiac conduit (EC) type of total… More >