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24 pages, 4325 KB  
Article
Complexity and Performance Analysis of Supervised Machine Learning Models for Applied Technologies: An Experimental Study with Impulsive α-Stable Noise
by Areeb Ahmed and Zoran Bosnić
Technologies 2026, 14(5), 252; https://doi.org/10.3390/technologies14050252 - 23 Apr 2026
Abstract
Impulsive alpha (α)-stable noise, characterized by heavy tails and intense outliers, is a key ingredient in simulating financial, medical, seismic, and digital communication technologies. It poses versatile challenges to conventional machine learning (ML) algorithms in predicting noise parameters for multidisciplinary artificial intelligence (AI)-embedded [...] Read more.
Impulsive alpha (α)-stable noise, characterized by heavy tails and intense outliers, is a key ingredient in simulating financial, medical, seismic, and digital communication technologies. It poses versatile challenges to conventional machine learning (ML) algorithms in predicting noise parameters for multidisciplinary artificial intelligence (AI)-embedded devices. In this study, we adopted a two-phase methodology to investigate the complexity and performance of supervised ML algorithms while classifying impulsive noise parameters. We generated synthetic datasets of α-stable noise distributions for experimentation in a controlled environment. It was followed by experimental evaluation to derive the complexity and performance of ML classifiers—k-nearest neighbors (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naïve Bayes (NB), Decision Tree (DT), and Random Forest (RF). Moreover, we employed a very high channel noise level of −15 dB in the test datasets to ensure that the derived analysis applies to real-world devices. The results demonstrate the high performance of DT and RF in structured binary classification of the α regime and the sign of skewness, while incurring satisfactory computational costs. However, SVM and kNN are comparatively more robust for multi-class classification, albeit with higher memory and training costs. On the contrary, NB fails to address the skewed and impulsive behavior of α-stable noise. We observed that even the most effective classifiers struggle to achieve perfect accuracy in multi-class classification. Overall, the experimental results reveal significant trade-off relationships between the complexity and performance of ML classifiers. Conclusively, simple models are well-suited for coarse-grained tasks, such as α-approximation and sign-of-skewness classification. In contrast, sophisticated models can be deployed to predict noise parameters to some extent. Our study provides a clear set of trade-offs for future applied AI devices that address adversarial and impulsive noise. Full article
25 pages, 3924 KB  
Article
SemAlign3D: Multi-Dataset Point Cloud Segmentation with Learnable Class Prompts and KNN Multi-Scale Attention
by Xuanhong Bao and Hao Zhang
Remote Sens. 2026, 18(9), 1284; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18091284 - 23 Apr 2026
Abstract
Point cloud segmentation is a core technology in remote sensing, enabling the extraction of rich semantic information from complex scenes. Existing methods struggle with semantic inconsistency across multiple heterogeneous datasets in complex urban environments. To address semantic inconsistencies, we propose SemAlign3D, a novel [...] Read more.
Point cloud segmentation is a core technology in remote sensing, enabling the extraction of rich semantic information from complex scenes. Existing methods struggle with semantic inconsistency across multiple heterogeneous datasets in complex urban environments. To address semantic inconsistencies, we propose SemAlign3D, a novel multimodal framework for point cloud segmentation that combines learnable class prompts with a multi-scale feature attention module. We integrate five large-scale datasets (SensatUrban, STPLS3D, WHU3D, SemanticKITTI, Semantic3D) to construct a unified training framework, ensuring label consistency by recalibrating semantic labels. The learnable class prompt mechanism dynamically adapts to dataset-specific semantics, enhancing the semantic consistency across multiple datasets of point cloud segmentation. Additionally, the Multi-scale K-Nearest Neighbor Feature Attention Enhancement module integrates local and global features, improving semantic discriminability in complex scenes. Within a single unified training framework, our method effectively aligns semantic labels from multiple heterogeneous datasets, achieving gains of +1.61% mIoU on WHU3D and +0.98% mIoU on SemanticKITTI. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework in improving semantic consistency and robustness across heterogeneous point cloud datasets. Full article
25 pages, 2551 KB  
Article
Functional Similarity of Financial Trajectories for Corporate Bankruptcy Prediction: A k-Nearest Neighbors Approach
by Luis Eduardo Ruiz Paredes, Jorge Morales Paredes and Carlos Fabián Ruiz Paredes
J. Risk Financial Manag. 2026, 19(5), 303; https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm19050303 - 23 Apr 2026
Abstract
Corporate risk prediction is a central problem in financial analysis and corporate risk management. This study proposes a functional approach in which firms are represented through multivariate financial trajectories constructed from retrospective windows of accounting indicators, over which a similarity measure is defined [...] Read more.
Corporate risk prediction is a central problem in financial analysis and corporate risk management. This study proposes a functional approach in which firms are represented through multivariate financial trajectories constructed from retrospective windows of accounting indicators, over which a similarity measure is defined and incorporated into a k-nearest neighbors classifier. The target variable is derived from administrative records, combining reporting discontinuity and firm administrative status as a proxy for financial distress. The empirical application is conducted using data from firms in the tourism sector in Colombia and is evaluated through stratified cross-validation. The results show that the trajectory-based representation captures gradual patterns of financial deterioration and improves the performance of k-NN relative to its static variable counterpart. In addition, the approach enhances interpretability by enabling the identification of historically comparable firms and the analysis of the financial dimensions that explain their similarity. Overall, the model provides a complementary perspective for corporate risk analysis based on the comparison of financial trajectories. Full article
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29 pages, 2502 KB  
Article
An Enhanced KNN–ConvLSTM Framework for Short-Term Bus Travel Time Prediction on Signalized Urban Arterials
by Jili Zhang, Wei Quan, Chunjiang Liu, Yuchen Yan, Baicheng Jiang and Hua Wang
Appl. Sci. 2026, 16(9), 4090; https://doi.org/10.3390/app16094090 - 22 Apr 2026
Abstract
Reliable short-term prediction of bus travel time on signalized urban arterials is essential for improving service reliability and may provide a useful forecasting basis for prediction-informed transit signal priority (TSP) and arterial coordination applications. However, bus operations on urban arterials are highly variable [...] Read more.
Reliable short-term prediction of bus travel time on signalized urban arterials is essential for improving service reliability and may provide a useful forecasting basis for prediction-informed transit signal priority (TSP) and arterial coordination applications. However, bus operations on urban arterials are highly variable due to stop dwell times, signal delays, and interactions with mixed traffic, leading to nonlinear and nonstationary travel time patterns with strong spatiotemporal dependence. This study proposes a hybrid KNN–ConvLSTM framework for short-term arterial bus travel time prediction using real-world field data. A K-nearest neighbors (KNNs) module is first employed to retrieve historical operation sequences that are most similar to the current corridor state, thereby reducing interference from mismatched traffic regimes and improving robustness. Smart-card (IC card) transaction data are incorporated as demand-related features to represent passenger activity and its impact on dwell time and travel time variability. The selected sequences are then organized into a corridor-ordered spatiotemporal representation and further refined by lightweight temporal enhancement operations, including relevance gating, multi-scale aggregation, adaptive feature fusion, and residual enhancement, before being fed into the convolutional long short-term memory (ConvLSTM) predictor. The proposed approach is evaluated using weekday service-hour data extracted from 30 days of real-world bus operation records collected from a typical urban arterial corridor in Changchun, China, and is compared with several benchmark models, including ARIMA, KNN, LSTM, CNN, ConvLSTM, Transformer, and DCRNN. The results indicate that the proposed KNN–ConvLSTM framework achieves an MAE of 40.1 s, an RMSE of 55.8 s, a SMAPE of 10.7%, and an R2 of 0.878, outperforming all benchmark models. Specifically, compared with the Transformer baseline, the proposed framework reduces MAE by 1.5%, RMSE by 5.1%, and SMAPE by 7.0%, while increasing R2 by 0.014. Compared with the DCRNN baseline, it reduces MAE by 10.7%, RMSE by 1.9%, and SMAPE by 2.7%, while increasing R2 by 0.008. These findings demonstrate that similarity-aware retrieval combined with spatiotemporal deep learning can substantially enhance short-term bus travel time prediction on signalized urban arterials. More accurate short-term forecasts may support prediction-informed transit signal priority and arterial coordination by providing more reliable downstream arrival-time estimates. However, the generalizability of the reported results is still constrained by the relatively short 30-day observation period and the single-corridor case setting, and the operational and environmental effects of downstream applications remain to be validated through dedicated closed-loop control evaluation in future work. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Transportation Systems and Logistics Technology)
19 pages, 378 KB  
Article
Mislabel Detection in Multi-Label Chest X-Rays via Prototype-Weighted Neighborhood Consistency in CoAtNet Embedding Space
by Ariel Gamboa, Mauricio Araya and Camilo Sotomayor
Appl. Sci. 2026, 16(9), 4067; https://doi.org/10.3390/app16094067 - 22 Apr 2026
Abstract
Large-scale chest X-ray (CXR) datasets often rely on report-derived or weak labels, introducing missing and incorrect annotations that can degrade downstream models and limit trust. We study training-free mislabel detection in multi-label CXRs by scoring neighborhood label consistency in a fixed embedding space. [...] Read more.
Large-scale chest X-ray (CXR) datasets often rely on report-derived or weak labels, introducing missing and incorrect annotations that can degrade downstream models and limit trust. We study training-free mislabel detection in multi-label CXRs by scoring neighborhood label consistency in a fixed embedding space. Using the NIH Chest X-ray Kaggle sample (5606 CXRs), we extract intermediate CoAtNet features and obtain 64-dimensional embeddings with a frozen CoAtNet backbone and a lightweight refinement head. On top of these embeddings, we compare kNN consistency baselines with distance weighting and label-set similarity against LPV-DW-CS, clustered prototype voting weighted by distance and cluster support. We evaluate three synthetic label-noise regimes with review budgets matched to the corruption rate: random single-label (5% and 20%), boundary-noise (20% corruption within the lowest-density 20% subset), and disjoint-label replacement (20% within that subset). LPV-DW-CS yields the highest downstream macro-AUROC after filtering top-ranked samples (up to 0.8860), while kNN variants achieve higher Recall@budget at the same review rates (up to 99.44%). An image-only expert Likert review of top-ranked real samples finds substantial label-set inconsistencies (54.1% for LPV-DW-CS-280-A; 60.5% for KNN-DW-LSS), supporting neighborhood-consistency ranking as a practical, training-free tool for targeted dataset auditing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Computer-Vision-Based Biomedical Image Processing)
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27 pages, 1003 KB  
Article
Classification of Wheat Varieties Using Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Machine-Learning Techniques
by Mahtem Teweldemedhin Mengstu, Alper Taner and Neluș-Evelin Gheorghiță
Agriculture 2026, 16(8), 914; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture16080914 - 21 Apr 2026
Abstract
The combination of Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and machine learning gives a promising result in wheat variety classification. This study aimed to evaluate the contributions of distinct spectral regions and their combinations to classification performance. Out of the full raw spectra of four [...] Read more.
The combination of Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and machine learning gives a promising result in wheat variety classification. This study aimed to evaluate the contributions of distinct spectral regions and their combinations to classification performance. Out of the full raw spectra of four bread wheat varieties, namely Altindane, Cavus, Flamura-85, and Nevzatbey, 15 spectral datasets were prepared. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) models were trained and analyzed. The highest classification performance was obtained using spectral regions associated with protein and lipid bands. The highest average accuracy of 0.9895 was shown by the SVM model, while the ANN produced comparable results with lower variability. Additionally, Variable Importance in Projection (VIP) analysis identified the most influential spectral bands in the protein (Amide II, ~1542 cm−1) and carbonyl (1744–1715 cm−1) regions. These findings indicate that classification is driven by chemically meaningful features rather than purely statistical patterns. The approach followed in this study provides an insight that, in FTIR-based classification, when rigorously evaluated using nested cross-validation, spectral region selection can outweigh model complexity. This approach demonstrates strong potential for rapid and non-destructive assessment, especially for real-time applications in grain processing and automated sorting systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Spectroscopy and Machine Learning for Crop Phenotyping)
15 pages, 5200 KB  
Article
A KNN-Multiplicative Score Approach for Blade Impact Fault Detection of Tidal Current Turbines
by Lei Ren, Tianzhen Wang and Christophe Claramunt
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2026, 14(8), 755; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse14080755 - 21 Apr 2026
Abstract
Blade impact faults degrade power generation quality, if not detected in time, may lead to turbine malfunction or even complete failure. Moreover, the accuracy of blade impact fault detection in tidal current turbine (TCT) is significantly affected by variations in flow velocity and [...] Read more.
Blade impact faults degrade power generation quality, if not detected in time, may lead to turbine malfunction or even complete failure. Moreover, the accuracy of blade impact fault detection in tidal current turbine (TCT) is significantly affected by variations in flow velocity and tidal flow period. To solve this problem, a self-adaptive detection method based on stator current signals and k-nearest neighbor-multiplicative score (KNN-MS) is proposed. The method first employs the KNN algorithm to characterize local feature distributions. Then, robustness under unstable flow conditions is improved through variance-based weighting. Finally, a cumulative multiplicative scoring mechanism is proposed to amplify and quantify fault-related anomaly indicators. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves high diagnostic accuracy and stability across steady, periodic, and variable-period flow scenarios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Ocean Engineering)
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22 pages, 4789 KB  
Article
DTF-STCANet: A Dual Time–Frequency Swin Transformer and ConvNeXt Attention Network for Heart Sound Classification
by Mehmet Nail Bilen, Fatih Mehmet Çelik, Mehmet Ali Kobat and Fatih Demir
Diagnostics 2026, 16(8), 1234; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics16081234 - 21 Apr 2026
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. Therefore, early diagnosis and treatment of these diseases are of critical importance. Stethoscopes are the easiest and fastest medical devices for the initial diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. However, interpreting heart sounds requires [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. Therefore, early diagnosis and treatment of these diseases are of critical importance. Stethoscopes are the easiest and fastest medical devices for the initial diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. However, interpreting heart sounds requires considerable expertise. The use of artificial intelligence in healthcare for decision support has increased and become popular recently. Methods: The popular 2016 PhysioNet/CinC Challenge dataset, consisting of phonocardiogram (PCG) signals, was used to implement the proposed approach. Spectrogram and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) images of the PCG signals were first generated. This increased the distinguishability of the data in terms of both time and frequency components. These two-input images were tested on the developed Dual Time–Frequency Swin Transformer–ConvNeXt Attention Network (DTF-STCANet) model. To further improve classification accuracy, the Weighted KNN algorithm was preferred during the classification phase. Results: With the proposed approach, a 99.29% classification accuracy was achieved. Performance was compared with other state-of-the-art models. Conclusions: The proposed approach, through the integration of PCG signals with artificial intelligence, further strengthens the concept of early diagnosis of heart disease. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Diagnostics and Analysis 2025)
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20 pages, 7188 KB  
Article
Machine Learning-Based Method for Predicting the Mechanical Response of Prestressed Cable Tensioning in Aqueduct Structures
by Yanke Shi, Xufang Liu, Yanjun Chang, Jie Chen, Duoxin Zhang and Yuping Kuang
Buildings 2026, 16(8), 1624; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16081624 - 20 Apr 2026
Abstract
The mechanical behavior of aqueduct structures exhibits highly complex characteristics during prestress tensioning, making it difficult for the traditional double-control method to accurately predict and real-time control the key stresses. To improve the construction safety of prestressed tensioning and the prediction accuracy of [...] Read more.
The mechanical behavior of aqueduct structures exhibits highly complex characteristics during prestress tensioning, making it difficult for the traditional double-control method to accurately predict and real-time control the key stresses. To improve the construction safety of prestressed tensioning and the prediction accuracy of structural prestress responses, this study develops a rapid structural mechanical property prediction method based on machine learning. Taking prestressed aqueducts as the research object, a system of “finite element simulation—sample generation—machine learning prediction” is established. Firstly, multiple groups of tensioning parameter combinations are designed via Latin hypercube sampling, and the stress responses are obtained through finite element analysis to form a high-quality training sample library. Subsequently, critical structural features are extracted based on mesh reconstruction, and stress prediction models are established using the K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) and Random Forest algorithms respectively; the prediction performance of both models is compared and validated against finite element simulation results. Furthermore, the prediction outputs of the optimal machine learning model were used to analyze the stress distribution and potential stress concentration issues of the structure during the tensioning process. The comparative analysis results indicate that the Random Forest model performs best in terms of stress prediction accuracy and stability, and its prediction results are highly consistent with those of the finite element method. Compared with traditional finite element condition analysis, the machine learning model can complete multi-condition stress prediction in a shorter time. Leveraging its high-efficiency prediction capability, local high-stress areas of the structure in the tensioning construction scheme can be identified, thereby providing effective optimization schemes to improve the stress distribution. The mechanical response prediction method for the prestress tensioning process of aqueducts, with machine learning as the core, constructed in this paper realizes the rapid and reliable prediction of key stresses throughout the entire prestress tensioning process. This method can be applied to assist in optimizing tensioning construction schemes and construction monitoring, providing a practical technical solution for safety control of aqueduct structures during the prestress construction stage. Full article
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24 pages, 1278 KB  
Article
A Study on a Network Intrusion Detection System Based on the Fusion of SAGEConv-GNN and a Transformer Encoder
by Hoang Duc Binh, Yong-ha Choi, Jaeyeong Jeong, Yong-Joon Lee and Dongkyoo Shin
Electronics 2026, 15(8), 1737; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics15081737 - 20 Apr 2026
Abstract
A network intrusion detection system (NIDS) plays a critical role in protecting modern networked environments, but conventional approaches often struggle to balance the detection of previously unseen attacks with a low false alarm rate. This study proposes a hybrid intrusion detection model, HybridSAGETransformerGlobal, [...] Read more.
A network intrusion detection system (NIDS) plays a critical role in protecting modern networked environments, but conventional approaches often struggle to balance the detection of previously unseen attacks with a low false alarm rate. This study proposes a hybrid intrusion detection model, HybridSAGETransformerGlobal, which integrates a SAGEConv-based graph neural network (GNN) and a Transformer encoder to jointly learn local structural information and global contextual dependencies from network traffic. In the proposed framework, network flows are represented as graph nodes, and edges are constructed using IP-group-aware k-nearest neighbors (KNNs) together with a temporal chain. The model further incorporates a gated fusion mechanism, multiple positional encodings, class weighting, label smoothing, and early stopping to improve training stability and detection performance. The proposed method was evaluated under a unified preprocessing and training pipeline on two benchmark datasets, UNSW-NB15 and CIC-IDS2017, using up to approximately 100,000 flow samples per dataset, and was compared with GCN, GAT, GraphSAGE, and a Transformer-only baseline. On UNSW-NB15, repeated-run evaluation over five random seeds showed that the proposed model achieved an accuracy of 0.9841 ± 0.0006, a macro-precision of 0.9684 ± 0.0010, a macro-recall of 0.9818 ± 0.0026, and a macro-F1-score of 0.9749 ± 0.0011, with statistically significant improvements over the strongest baseline in the macro-F1-score. On CIC-IDS2017, the proposed hybrid model also showed consistently strong performance, achieving an accuracy of 0.9749, a macro-precision of 0.9513, a macro-recall of 0.9722, a macro-F1-score of 0.9613, and an ROC-AUC of 0.9957. Additional ablation, sensitivity, and baseline re-optimization analyses further supported the robustness of the proposed design. These results suggest that a coordinated hybrid architecture combining structural graph learning and long-range contextual modeling can provide an effective framework for robust flow-based network intrusion detection under the evaluated settings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Web Data Management)
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21 pages, 9107 KB  
Article
Experimental and ML Modeling of Drying Shrinkage and Water Loss in Low-Heat Cement Concrete Under Extreme Plateau Curing
by Guohui Zhang, Zhipeng Yang, Rongheng Duan, Zhuang Yan and Gongfei Wang
Buildings 2026, 16(8), 1616; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16081616 - 20 Apr 2026
Abstract
To investigate concrete drying shrinkage in high-altitude environments, moisture evaporation and shrinkage rates were examined under combined curing regimes of four temperatures (40 °C, 20 °C, 0 °C, −10 °C) and three relative humidities (RH40%, RH60%, RH80%). Curing temperature and humidity primarily regulate [...] Read more.
To investigate concrete drying shrinkage in high-altitude environments, moisture evaporation and shrinkage rates were examined under combined curing regimes of four temperatures (40 °C, 20 °C, 0 °C, −10 °C) and three relative humidities (RH40%, RH60%, RH80%). Curing temperature and humidity primarily regulate shrinkage deformation by altering the internal moisture evaporation rate. Both evaporation and shrinkage rates exhibited a rapid initial increase, followed by deceleration, and finally stabilization with increasing age. A strong positive correlation was observed between these two parameters. The high-temperature and low-humidity condition (40 °C, RH40%) induced the most severe shrinkage. Four machine learning algorithms (XGBoost, RF, ANN, and KNN) were used to construct prediction models. After hyperparameter optimization and cross-validation, the RF models exhibited superior generalization and robustness (test set R2 > 0.94). The model accurately captures the complex non-linear relationship between environmental parameters and shrinkage. SHAP analysis on the optimal models identified the moisture evaporation rate as the primary driving factor. The analysis quantified the non-linear contributions of temperature and age, alongside the inhibitory effect of humidity. The study verified the consistency between data-driven models and physical mechanisms. This study elucidates the shrinkage mechanism under extreme conditions. It provides a reliable reference for crack control and life prediction in high-altitude engineering. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geopolymers and Low Carbon Building Materials for Infrastructures)
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20 pages, 9582 KB  
Article
CT-Based Radiomic Signatures Associated with Serum CEA Status in Colon Cancer
by Demet Doğan, Coşku Öksüz, Özgür Çakır and Oğuzhan Urhan
Diagnostics 2026, 16(8), 1221; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics16081221 - 19 Apr 2026
Viewed by 176
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is widely used in colon cancer management; however, its diagnostic and prognostic accuracy is limited by biological variability, as well as false-positive or false-negative results. Radiomics provides quantitative descriptors of tumor heterogeneity and offers objective assessment of tumor characteristics. [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is widely used in colon cancer management; however, its diagnostic and prognostic accuracy is limited by biological variability, as well as false-positive or false-negative results. Radiomics provides quantitative descriptors of tumor heterogeneity and offers objective assessment of tumor characteristics. This study aimed to evaluate the potential of computed tomography (CT)-based radiomic features to distinguish between CEA-positive and CEA-negative colon cancer patients. Methods: In this retrospective study, 150 patients with histopathologically confirmed colon cancer were screened, and 109 were eligible after image-quality assessment (53 CEA-positive, 56 CEA-negative). A total of 107 radiomic features were extracted from preoperative contrast-enhanced CT images. After z-score normalization, feature robustness was assessed using intra- and inter-observer agreement. Correlation-based feature selection (|ρ| ≥ 0.7) was applied. Five machine-learning classifiers—Support Vector Machine (SVM), Decision Tree, Ensemble, k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN), and Neural Network (NN)—were trained using stratified 5-fold cross-validation. Performance was evaluated using accuracy, recall, specificity, F1-score, and ROC-AUC. Results: The best performance was obtained with 41 selected features. The k-NN classifier achieved the highest accuracy (77.4 ± 2%) and ROC-AUC (0.8523 ± 0.013), while SVM and NN achieved the highest recall (83.0 ± 0.3). These models showed balanced and robust performance in distinguishing CEA-positive from CEA-negative patients. Conclusions: CT-based radiomic analysis combined with machine learning—particularly k-NN, SVM, and neural network classifiers—showed promising performance in differentiating colon cancer patients according to serum CEA status. Radiomic features may provide imaging-based information associated with serum biomarkers such as CEA, potentially enhancing tumor characterization and supporting more personalized decision-making. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Medical Imaging and Theranostics)
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22 pages, 8547 KB  
Article
High-Accuracy and Efficient Classification of Uranium Slag by Origin and Category via LIBS Integrated with Hybrid Machine Learning
by Mengjia Zhang, Hao Li, Luan Deng, Rong Hua, Xinglei Zhang, Debo Wu, Xizhu Wang, Xiangfeng Liu, Zuoye Liu and Xiaoliang Liu
Sensors 2026, 26(8), 2522; https://doi.org/10.3390/s26082522 - 19 Apr 2026
Viewed by 94
Abstract
Accurate classification of uranium slag origin and category is essential for nuclear environmental monitoring and safety. This study presents a hybrid framework combining laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), four preprocessing methods, and five machine learning algorithms for rapid uranium slag classification. A total of [...] Read more.
Accurate classification of uranium slag origin and category is essential for nuclear environmental monitoring and safety. This study presents a hybrid framework combining laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), four preprocessing methods, and five machine learning algorithms for rapid uranium slag classification. A total of nine sample categories were collected from three mining areas, with categories defined by their U concentration levels within each origin. Standard normal variate (SNV), Savitzky–Golay smoothing (SG), and their combinations (SNV-SG, SG-SNV) were applied to evaluate preprocessing effects. To address ultra-high-dimensional spectral data (49,242 points per spectrum), principal component analysis (PCA) and random forest (RF) were employed for feature engineering, integrated with support vector machine (SVM), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and K-nearest neighbors (KNN) classifiers. Hyperparameter optimization via five-fold cross-validation and Bayesian optimization enhanced accuracy and efficiency. RF-based hybrid models consistently outperformed PCA-based counterparts. Remarkably, the RF-LDA model with SNV-SG preprocessing achieved 100% classification accuracy across all test sets with a processing time of only 10.46 s, demonstrating exceptional discriminative power and computational efficiency. These findings establish that combining RF feature selection with advanced machine learning offers a robust solution for LIBS-based nuclear material classification, with significant implications for both nuclear safety and resource management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spectroscopic Sensors and Spectral Analysis)
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27 pages, 4664 KB  
Article
Hydrochemical Characterization and Origins of Groundwater in the Semi-Arid Batna Belezma Region Using PCA and Supervised Machine Learning
by Zineb Mansouri, Abdeldjalil Belkendil, Haythem Dinar, Hamdi Bendif, Anis Ahmad Chaudhary, Ouafa Tobbi and Lotfi Mouni
Water 2026, 18(8), 969; https://doi.org/10.3390/w18080969 - 19 Apr 2026
Viewed by 110
Abstract
In the semi-arid Batna Belezma region of northeastern Algeria, groundwater is a vital resource for agriculture and drinking water. However, the climate leads to intense evaporation, which affects its quality. This study aims to identify the key hydrogeochemical processes that control groundwater composition [...] Read more.
In the semi-arid Batna Belezma region of northeastern Algeria, groundwater is a vital resource for agriculture and drinking water. However, the climate leads to intense evaporation, which affects its quality. This study aims to identify the key hydrogeochemical processes that control groundwater composition in the Merouana Basin and to evaluate the predictive performance of machine learning (ML) models. A total of 30 groundwater samples were analyzed using multivariate statistical techniques, including Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and were modeled using PHREEQC to assess mineral saturation states. Additionally, ML-based regression models, including K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB),were employed to predict groundwater chemistry. The results indicate that the dominant ion distribution follows the following trend: Ca2+ > Mg2+ > Na+ and HCO3 > SO42− > Cl. Alkaline earth metals (Ca2+ and Mg2+) constitute the major fraction of total dissolved cations, reflecting carbonate equilibrium and dolomite dissolution processes. In contrast, Na+ represents a smaller proportion of the cationic load; however, its hydro-agronomic significance is substantial due to its influence on sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) and soil permeability. The PHREEQC modeling showed that calcite and dolomite precipitation promote evaporite dissolution, while most samples remain undersaturated with respect to gypsum. The PCA results reveal high positive loadings of Mg2+, Cl, SO42−, HCO3, and EC, suggesting that ion exchange and seawater mixing are the primary controlling processes, with carbonate weathering playing a secondary role. To enhance predictive assessment, several supervised machine learning models were tested. Among them, the Random Forest model achieved the highest predictive performance (R2 = 0.96) with low RMSE and MAE values, confirming its robustness and reliability. The results indicate that silicate weathering and mineral dissolution are the primary mechanisms governing groundwater chemistry. The integration of multivariate statistics and machine learning provides a comprehensive understanding of groundwater evolution and offers a reliable predictive framework for sustainable water resource management in semi-arid environments. Geochemical model performance showed a high global accuracy (GPI = 0.91), confirming a strong agreement between observed and simulated chemical data. However, the HH value (0.81) indicates some discrepancies, particularly for specific ions or extreme conditions. Full article
28 pages, 8399 KB  
Article
Machine Learning-Enabled Secure Unified Framework for Remote Electrocardiogram Monitoring via a Multi-Level Blockchain System
by Chathumi Samaraweera, Dongming Peng, Michael Hempel and Hamid Sharif
Information 2026, 17(4), 383; https://doi.org/10.3390/info17040383 - 18 Apr 2026
Viewed by 206
Abstract
Timely classification of cardiovascular diseases is crucial to improve medical outcomes. Emerging remote patient monitoring systems help achieve this by enabling continuous monitoring of electrocardiogram signals in home environments. However, these systems struggle with unique challenges like missing genuine medical emergencies, rising energy [...] Read more.
Timely classification of cardiovascular diseases is crucial to improve medical outcomes. Emerging remote patient monitoring systems help achieve this by enabling continuous monitoring of electrocardiogram signals in home environments. However, these systems struggle with unique challenges like missing genuine medical emergencies, rising energy demands, scalability challenges, handling vast medical databases, data processing delays, and safeguarding patient records. To overcome these challenges, we propose a single framework with three main phases: (a) an embedded hardware-driven K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN)-assisted real-time ECG monitoring and classification method; (b) a differentiated communication strategy (DCS) formed with a priority-based ECG data packaging framework and multi-layered security protocols; and (c) a multi-level blockchain network (MLBN) architecture armed with adaptive security mechanisms and real-time cross-chain medical data communication bridges. Simulations are conducted using the ECG signals (1000 fragments) dataset and the Ganache Ethereum development framework. The classification accuracies obtained for patient urgent categories U1 to U5 are 91.43%, 95.71%, 94.23%, 90.00%, and 91.43%, respectively. The performance evaluation results of the KNN-guided classification method, along with DCS and MLBN simulation results obtained from average gas consumption analysis, confirms reliability and viability of our framework, while also revolutionizing remote patient monitoring technology and addressing critical challenges in existing systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Machine Learning and Simulation for Public Health)
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