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In recent years, the integration of Machine Learning (ML) techniques in the field of healthcare and public health has emerged as a powerful tool for improving decision-making processes [...]

Since the beginning of 2020, Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) has attracted the attention of the World Health Organization (WHO). This paper looks into the infection mechanism, patient symptoms, and laboratory diagnosis, followed by an extensive assessment of different technologies and computerized models (based on Electrocardiographic signals (ECG), Voice, and X-ray techniques) proposed as a diagnostic tool for the accurate detection of COVID-19. The found papers showed high accuracy rate results, ranging between 85.70% and 100%, and F1-Scores from 89.52% to 100%. With this state-of-the-art, we concluded that the models proposed for the detection of COVID-19 already have significant results, but the area still has room for improvement, given the vast symptomatology and the better comprehension of individuals’ evolution of the disease.

The gold standard to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection considers testing methods based on Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Still, the time necessary to confirm patient infection can be lengthy, and the process is expensive. In parallel, X-Ray and CT scans play an important role in the diagnosis and treatment processes. Hence, a trusted automated technique for identifying and quantifying the infected lung regions would be advantageous. Chest X-rays are two-dimensional images of the patient’s chest and provide lung morphological information and other characteristics, like ground-glass opacities (GGO), horizontal linear opacities, or consolidations, which are typical characteristics of pneumonia caused by COVID-19. This chapter presents an AI-based system using multiple Transfer Learning models for COVID-19 classification using Chest X-Rays. In our experimental design, all the classifiers demonstrated satisfactory accuracy, precision, recall, and specificity performance. On the one hand, the Mobilenet architecture outperformed the other CNNs, achieving excellent results for the evaluated metrics. On the other hand, Squeezenet presented a regular result in terms of recall. In medical diagnosis, false negatives can be particularly harmful because a false negative can lead to patients being incorrectly diagnosed as healthy. These results suggest that our Deep Learning classifiers can accurately classify X-ray exams as normal or indicative of COVID-19 with high confidence.

Even with more than 12 billion vaccine doses administered globally, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused several global economic, social, environmental, and healthcare impacts. Computer Aided Diagnostic (CAD) systems can serve as a complementary method to aid doctors in identifying regions of interest in images and help detect diseases. In addition, these systems can help doctors analyze the status of the disease and check for their progress or regression. To analyze the viability of using CNNs for differentiating Covid-19 CT positive images from Covid-19 CT negative images, we used a dataset collected by Union Hospital (HUST-UH) and Liyuan Hospital (HUST-LH) and made available at the Kaggle platform. The main objective of this chapter is to present results from applying two state-of-the-art CNNs on a Covid-19 CT Scan images database to evaluate the possibility of differentiating images with imaging features associated with Covid-19 pneumonia from images with imaging features irrelevant to Covid-19 pneumonia. Two pre-trained neural networks, ResNet50 and MobileNet, were fine-tuned for the datasets under analysis. Both CNNs obtained promising results, with the ResNet50 network achieving a Precision of 0.97, a Recall of 0.96, an F1-score of 0.96, and 39 false negatives. The MobileNet classifier obtained a Precision of 0.94, a Recall of 0.94, an F1-score of 0.94, and a total of 20 false negatives.

The continuous development of robust machine learning algorithms in recent years has helped to improve the solutions of many studies in many fields of medicine, rapid diagnosis and detection of high-risk patients with poor prognosis as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spreads globally, and also early prevention of patients and optimization of medical resources. Here, we propose a fully automated machine learning system to classify the severity of COVID-19 from electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. We retrospectively collected 100 5-minute ECGs from 50 patients in two different positions, upright and supine. We processed the surface ECG to obtain QRS complexes and HRV indices for RR series, including a total of 43 features. We compared 19 machine learning classification algorithms that yielded different approaches explained in a methodology session.

COVID-19 is a respiratory disorder caused by CoronaVirus and SARS (SARS-CoV2). WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020 and several nations’ healthcare systems were on the verge of collapsing. With that, became crucial to screen COVID-19-positive patients to maximize limited resources. NAATs and antigen tests are utilized to diagnose COVID-19 infections. NAATs reliably detect SARS-CoV-2 and seldom produce false-negative results. Because of its specificity and sensitivity, RT-PCR can be considered the gold standard for COVID-19 diagnosis. This test’s complex gear is pricey and time-consuming, using skilled specialists to collect throat or nasal mucus samples. These tests require laboratory facilities and a machine for detection and analysis. Deep learning networks have been used for feature extraction and classification of Chest CT-Scan images and as an innovative detection approach in clinical practice. Because of COVID-19 CT scans’ medical characteristics, the lesions are widely spread and display a range of local aspects. Using deep learning to diagnose directly is difficult. In COVID-19, a Transformer and Convolutional Neural Network module are presented to extract local and global information from CT images. This chapter explains transfer learning, considering VGG-16 network, in CT examinations and compares convolutional networks with Vision Transformers (ViT). Vit usage increased VGG-16 network F1-score to 0.94.

The visual analysis of cardiotocographic examinations is a very subjective process. The accurate detection and segmentation of the fetal heart rate (FHR) features and their correlation with the uterine contractions in time allow a better diagnostic and the possibility of anticipation of many problems related to fetal distress. This paper presents a computerized diagnostic aid system based on digital signal processing techniques to detect and segment changes in the FHR and the uterine tone signals automatically. After a pre-processing phase, the FHR baseline detection is calculated. An auxiliary signal called detection line is proposed to support the detection and segmentation processes. Then, the Hilbert transform is used with an adaptive threshold for identifying fiducial points on the fetal and maternal signals. For an antepartum (before labor) database, the positive predictivity value (PPV) is 96.80% for the FHR decelerations, and 96.18% for the FHR accelerations. For an intrapartum (during labor) database, the PPV found was 91.31% for the uterine contractions, 94.01% for the FHR decelerations, and 100% for the FHR accelerations. For the whole set of exams, PPV and SE were both 100% for the identification of FHR DIP II and prolonged decelerations.

In February 2020, Macau became one of the first regions where the pandemic of coronavirus or Covid-19 affected the totality of social and economic life leading to increased anxieties over movement and distance. Although Macau has had very few actual cases of the virus – 46 in total –and no deaths from it, the Macau government rapidly instituted a lock­ down. The aim of this article is to reflect on how the social experience of being in lockdown can provide insights into understanding the type of experience or condition that we provisionally term ‘anxious immobility.’ Such a condition is characterized by a total disruption of everyday rhythms and specifically anxious waiting for the normalization of activity while being the subject of biosocial narratives of quarantine and socially responsible. The paper is based upon 3 months of ethnographic research conducted by two researchers based in Macau. We also reflect upon some aspects of the politics of mobilities in the light of disruptions and friction points between Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China, and the rest of the world.

No existing review has synthesized key questions about acculturation experiences among international migrant workers. This review aimed to explore (1) What are global migrant workers’ experiences with acculturation and acculturative stress? (2) What are acculturative stress coping strategies used by migrant workers? And (3) how effective are these strategies for migrant workers in assisting their acculturation in the host countries? Peer-reviewed and gray literature, without time limitation, were searched in six databases and included if the study: focused on acculturative stress and coping strategies; was conducted with international migrant workers; was published in English; and was empirical. Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. Three-layered themes of acculturation process and acculturative stress were identified as: individual layer; work-related layer; and social layer. Three key coping strategies were identified: emotion-focused; problem-focused; and appraisal-focused. These coping strategies were used flexibly to increase coping effectiveness and evidence emerged that a particular type of acculturative stress might be solved more effectively by a specific coping strategy. Migrant workers faced numerous challenges in their acculturative process. Understanding this process and their coping strategies could be used in developing research and interventions to improve the well-being of migrant workers.

Nowadays, the increasing number of medical diagnostic data and clinical data provide more complementary references for doctors to make diagnosis to patients. For example, with medical data, such as electrocardiography (ECG), machine learning algorithms can be used to identify and diagnose heart disease to reduce the workload of doctors. However, ECG data is always exposed to various kinds of noise and interference in reality, and medical diagnostics only based on one-dimensional ECG data is not trustable enough. By extracting new features from other types of medical data, we can implement enhanced recognition methods, called multimodal learning. Multimodal learning helps models to process data from a range of different sources, eliminate the requirement for training each single learning modality, and improve the robustness of models with the diversity of data. Growing number of articles in recent years have been devoted to investigating how to extract data from different sources and build accurate multimodal machine learning models, or deep learning models for medical diagnostics. This paper reviews and summarizes several recent papers that dealing with multimodal machine learning in disease detection, and identify topics for future research.

This paper presents an algorithm that applies metrics derived from automatic QRS detection and segmentation in electrocardiogram signals for analyzing Heart Rate Variability to study the evolution of metrics in the frequency domain of a clinical procedure. The analysis was performed on three sets of elderly people, who are categorized according to frailty phenotype. The first set was comprised of frail elderly, the second pre-frail elderly, and the third robust elderly. Investigators from many disciplines have been encouraged to contribute to the understanding of molecular and physiological changes in multiple systems that may increase the vulnerability of frail elderly. In this work, the frailty phenotype can be characterized by unintentional weight loss, as self-reported, fatigue assessed by self-report, grip strength (measured directly), physical activity level assessed by self-report and gait speed (measured). The results obtained demonstrate the existence of significant differences between Heart Rate Variability metrics for the three groups, especially considering a higher preponderance for sympathetic nervous system for the group of robust patients in response to postural maneuver.