Engineering and Information Technology Collected Works - Research Publications

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    Engineering Blockchain Based Software Systems: Foundations, Survey, and Future Directions
    Fahmideh, M ; Grundy, J ; Ahmed, A ; Shen, J ; Yan, J ; Mougouei, D ; Wang, P ; Ghose, A ; Gunawardana, A ; Aickelin, U ; Abedin, B ( 2021-05-05)
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    Collaborative Human-ML Decision Making Using Experts' Privileged Information under Uncertainty
    Maadi, M ; Khorshidi, HA ; Aickelin, U ( 2021-01-01)
    Machine Learning (ML) models have been widely applied for clinical decision making. However, in this critical decision making field, human decision making is still prevalent, because clinical experts are more skilled to work with unstructured data specially to deal with uncommon situations. In this paper, we use clinical experts' privileged information as an information source for clinical decision making besides information provided by ML models and introduce a collaborative human-ML decision making model. In the proposed model, two groups of decision makers including ML models and clinical experts collaborate to make a consensus decision. As decision making always comes with uncertainty, we present an interval modelling to capture uncertainty in the proposed collaborative model. For this purpose, clinical experts are asked to give their opinion as intervals, and we generate prediction intervals as the outputs of ML models. Using Interval Agreement Approach (IAA), as an aggregation function in our proposed collaborative model, pave the way to minimize loss of information through aggregating intervals to a fuzzy set. The proposed model not only can improve the accuracy and reliability of decision making, but also can be more interpretable especially when it comes to critical decisions. Experimental results on synthetic data shows the power of the proposed collaborative decision making model in some scenarios.
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    A Robust Mathematical Model for Blood Supply Chain Network using Game Theory
    Valizadeh, J ; Aickelin, U ; Khorshidi, HA (IEEE, 2021-12)
    No alternative to human blood has been found so far, and the only source is blood donation by donors. This study presents a blood supply chain optimization model focusing on the location and inventory management of different centers. The main purpose of this model is to reduce total costs, including hospital construction costs, patient allocation costs, patient service costs, expected time-out fines, non-absorbed blood fines, and outsourcing process costs. We then calculate the cost savings of collaborating in each hospital coalition to calculate the fair allocation of cost savings across hospitals. The proposed model is developed based on the data for the city of Tehran and previous studies in the field of the blood supply chain as well as using four Cooperative Game Theory (CGT) methods such as Shapley value, τ- Value, core-center and least core, to reduce the total cost and the fair profit sharing between hospitals have been evaluated.
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    A survey on Optimisation-based Semi-supervised Clustering Methods
    Ghasemi, Z ; Khorshidi, HA ; Aickelin, U (IEEE, 2021-12)
    Clustering methods are developed for categorizing data points into different groups so that data points within each group have high similarities. Classic clustering algorithms are unsupervised, meaning that there is not any kind of complementary information to be utilized for attaining better clustering results. However, in some clustering problems, one may have supplementary information which can be employed for guiding the clustering process. In the presence of such information, the problem is semi-supervised clustering. In some articles, the problem of semi-supervised clustering is modeled as an optimization problem. In this research, optimization-based semi-supervised clustering papers from 2013 to 2020 are reviewed. This review is conducted based on a four-step procedure. It is attempted to explore objective functions and optimization algorithms used in these articles, as well as application domain and types of supervised information.
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    Multi-perspectives systematic review on the applications of sentiment analysis for vaccine hesitancy
    Alamoodi, AH ; Zaidan, BB ; Al-Masawa, M ; Taresh, SM ; Noman, S ; Ahmaro, IYY ; Garfan, S ; Chen, J ; Ahmed, MA ; Zaidan, AA ; Albahri, OS ; Aickelin, U ; Thamir, NN ; Fadhil, JA ; Salahaldin, A (PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2021-12)
    A substantial impediment to widespread Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination is vaccine hesitancy. Many researchers across scientific disciplines have presented countless studies in favor of COVID-19 vaccination, but misinformation on social media could hinder vaccination efforts and increase vaccine hesitancy. Nevertheless, studying people's perceptions on social media to understand their sentiment presents a powerful medium for researchers to identify the causes of vaccine hesitancy and therefore develop appropriate public health messages and interventions. To the best of the authors' knowledge, previous studies have presented vaccine hesitancy in specific cases or within one scientific discipline (i.e., social, medical, and technological). No previous study has presented findings via sentiment analysis for multiple scientific disciplines as follows: (1) social, (2) medical, public health, and (3) technology sciences. Therefore, this research aimed to review and analyze articles related to different vaccine hesitancy cases in the last 11 years and understand the application of sentiment analysis on the most important literature findings. Articles were systematically searched in Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, IEEEXplore, ScienceDirect, and Ovid from January 1, 2010, to July 2021. A total of 30 articles were selected on the basis of inclusion and exclusion criteria. These articles were formed into a taxonomy of literature, along with challenges, motivations, and recommendations for social, medical, and public health and technology sciences. Significant patterns were identified, and opportunities were promoted towards the understanding of this phenomenon.
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    Rise of multiattribute decision-making in combating COVID-19: A systematic review of the state-of-the-art literature
    Alsalem, MA ; Mohammed, R ; Albahri, OS ; Zaidan, AA ; Alamoodi, AH ; Dawood, K ; Alnoor, A ; Albahri, AS ; Zaidan, BB ; Alsattar, H ; Alazab, M ; Jumaah, F (WILEY, 2021-10-04)
    Considering the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the government and health sectors are incapable of making fast and reliable decisions, particularly given the various effects of decisions on different contexts or countries across multiple sectors. Therefore, leaders often seek decision support approaches to assist them in such scenarios. The most common decision support approach used in this regard is multiattribute decision-making (MADM). MADM can assist in enforcing the most ideal decision in the best way possible when fed with the appropriate evaluation criteria and aspects. MADM also has been of great aid to practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, MADM shows resilience in mitigating consequences in health sectors and other fields. Therefore, this study aims to analyse the rise of MADM techniques in combating COVID-19 by presenting a systematic literature review of the state-of-the-art COVID-19 applications. Articles on related topics were searched in four major databases, namely, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, and Scopus, from the beginning of the pandemic in 2019 to April 2021. Articles were selected on the basis of the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the identified systematic review protocol, and a total of 51 articles were obtained after screening and filtering. All these articles were formed into a coherent taxonomy to describe the corresponding current standpoints in the literature. This taxonomy was drawn on the basis of four major categories, namely, medical (n = 30), social (n = 4), economic (n = 13) and technological (n = 4). Deep analysis for each category was performed in terms of several aspects, including issues and challenges encountered, contributions, data set, evaluation criteria, MADM techniques, evaluation and validation and bibliography analysis. This study emphasised the current standpoint and opportunities for MADM in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and promoted additional efforts towards understanding and providing new potential future directions to fulfil the needs of this study field.
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    Online Transfer Learning: Negative Transfer and Effect of Prior Knowledge
    Wu, X ; Manton, JH ; Aickelin, U ; Zhu, J (IEEE, 2021-07-12)
    Transfer learning is a machine learning paradigm where the knowledge from one task is utilized to resolve the problem in a related task. On the one hand, it is conceivable that knowledge from one task could be useful for solving a related problem. On the other hand, it is also recognized that if not executed properly, transfer learning algorithms could in fact impair the learning performance instead of improving it - commonly known as negative transfer. In this paper, we study the online transfer learning problems where the source samples are given in an off-line way while the target samples arrive sequentially. We define the expected regret of the online transfer learning problem, and provide upper bounds on the regret using information-theoretic quantities. We also obtain exact expressions for the bounds when the sample size becomes large. Examples show that the derived bounds are accurate even for small sample sizes. Furthermore, the obtained bounds give valuable insight on the effect of prior knowledge for transfer learning in our formulation. In particular, we formally characterize the conditions under which negative transfer occurs.
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    Novel dynamic fuzzy Decision-Making framework for COVID-19 vaccine dose recipients
    Albahri, OS ; Zaidan, AA ; Albahri, AS ; Alsattar, HA ; Mohammed, R ; Aickelin, U ; Kou, G ; Jumaah, FM ; Salih, MM ; Alamoodi, AH ; Zaidan, BB ; Alazab, M ; Alnoor, A ; Al-Obaidi, JR (Elsevier BV, 2021-08)
    Context: The vaccine distribution for the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) is a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problem based on three issues, namely, identification of different distribution criteria, importance criteria and data variation. Thus, the Pythagorean fuzzy decision by opinion score method (PFDOSM) for prioritising vaccine recipients is the correct approach because it utilises the most powerful MCDM ranking method. However, PFDOSM weighs the criteria values of each alternative implicitly, which is limited to explicitly weighting each criterion. In view of solving this theoretical issue, the fuzzy-weighted zeroinconsistency (FWZIC) can be used as a powerful weighting MCDM method to provide explicit weights for a criteria set with zero inconstancy. However, FWZIC is based on the triangular fuzzy number that is limited in solving the vagueness related to the aforementioned theoretical issues. Objectives: This research presents a novel homogeneous Pythagorean fuzzy framework for distributing the COVID-19 vaccine dose by integrating a new formulation of the Pythagorean fuzzy-weighted zero-inconsistency (PFWZIC) and PFDOSM methods. Methods: The methodology is divided into two phases. Firstly, an augmented dataset was generated that included 300 recipients based on five COVID-19 vaccine distribution criteria (i.e., vaccine recipient memberships, chronic disease conditions, age, geographic location severity and disabilities). Then, a decision matrix was constructed on the basis of an intersection of the ‘recipients list’ and ‘COVID-19 distribution criteria’. Then, the MCDM methods were integrated. An extended PFWZIC was developed, followed by the development of PFDOSM. Results: (1) PFWZIC effectively weighted the vaccine distribution criteria. (2) The PFDOSM-based group prioritisation was considered in the final distribution result. (3) The prioritisation ranks of the vaccine recipients were subject to a systematic ranking that is supported by high correlation results over nine scenarios of the changing criteria weights values. A comparison with previous work also proved the efficiency of the proposed framework. Conclusion: The findings of this study are expected to contribute to ensuring equitable protection against COVID-19 and thus help accelerate vaccine progress worldwide.
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    Based on T-spherical fuzzy environment: A combination of FWZIC and FDOSM for prioritising COVID-19 vaccine dose recipients
    Alsalem, MA ; Alsattar, HA ; Albahri, AS ; Mohammed, RT ; Albahri, OS ; Zaidan, AA ; Alnoor, A ; Alamoodi, AH ; Qahtan, S ; Zaidan, BB ; Aickelin, U ; Alazab, M ; Jumaah, FM (ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON, 2021-10)
    The problem complexity of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) has been raised in the distribution of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, which required solid and robust MCDM methods. Compared with other MCDM methods, the fuzzy-weighted zero-inconsistency (FWZIC) method and fuzzy decision by opinion score method (FDOSM) have demonstrated their solidity in solving different MCDM challenges. However, the fuzzy sets used in these methods have neglected the refusal concept and limited the restrictions on their constants. To end this, considering the advantage of the T-spherical fuzzy sets (T-SFSs) in handling the uncertainty in the data and obtaining information with more degree of freedom, this study has extended FWZIC and FDOSM methods into the T-SFSs environment (called T-SFWZIC and T-SFDOSM) to be used in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. The methodology was formulated on the basis of decision matrix adoption and development phases. The first phase described the adopted decision matrix used in the COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The second phase presented the sequential formulation steps of T-SFWZIC used for weighting the distribution criteria followed by T-SFDOSM utilised for prioritising the vaccine recipients. Results revealed the following: (1) T-SFWZIC effectively weighted the vaccine distribution criteria based on several parameters including T = 2, T = 4, T = 6, T = 8, and T = 10. Amongst all parameters, the age criterion received the highest weight, whereas the geographic locations severity criterion has the lowest weight. (2) According to the T parameters, a considerable variance has occurred on the vaccine recipient orders, indicating that the existence of T values affected the vaccine distribution. (3) In the individual context of T-SFDOSM, no unique prioritisation was observed based on the obtained opinions of each expert. (4) The group context of T-SFDOSM used in the prioritisation of vaccine recipients was considered the final distribution result as it unified the differences found in an individual context. The evaluation was performed based on systematic ranking assessment and sensitivity analysis. This evaluation showed that the prioritisation results based on each T parameter were subject to a systematic ranking that is supported by high correlation results over all discussed scenarios of changing criteria weights values.
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    Guest Editorial: Special issue on "Artificial Intelligence in Health Informatics"
    Siuly, S ; Aickelin, U ; Kabir, E ; Huang, Z ; Zhang, Y (SPRINGER, 2021-06-09)