Multimodal image fusion and object detection play a vital role in autonomous driving. Current joint learning methods have made significant progress in the multimodal fusion detection task combining the texture detail and objective semantic information. However, the tedious training steps have limited its applications to wider real-world industrial deployment. To address this limitation, we propose a novel end-to-end multimodal fusion detection algorithm, named EfficientMFD, to simplify models that exhibit decent performance with only one training step. Synchronous joint optimization is utilized in an end-to-end manner between two components, thus not being affected by the local optimal solution of the individual task. Besides, a comprehensive optimization is established in the gradient matrix between the shared parameters for both tasks. It can converge to an optimal point with fusion detection weights. We extensively test it on several public datasets, demonstrating superior performance on not only visually appealing fusion but also favorable detection performance (e.g., 6.6% mAP50:95) over other state-of-the-art approaches.
Despite the importance of closely monitoring patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), many aspects are still assessed in a limited manner due to the time constraints imposed on healthcare providers. For example, although excessive visitations during rest hours can potentially exacerbate the risk of circadian rhythm disruption and delirium, it is not captured in the ICU. Likewise, while mobility can be an important indicator of recovery or deterioration in ICU patients, it is only captured sporadically or not captured at all. In the past few years, the computer vision field has found application in many domains by reducing the human burden. Using computer vision systems in the ICU can also potentially enable non-existing assessments or enhance the frequency and accuracy of existing assessments while reducing the staff workload. In this study, we leverage a state-of-the-art noninvasive computer vision system based on depth imaging to characterize ICU visitations and patients' mobility. We then examine the relationship between visitation and several patient outcomes, such as pain, acuity, and delirium. We found an association between deteriorating patient acuity and the incidence of delirium with increased visitations. In contrast, self-reported pain, reported using the Defense and Veteran Pain Rating Scale (DVPRS), was correlated with decreased visitations. Our findings highlight the feasibility and potential of using noninvasive autonomous systems to monitor ICU patients.
With recent advancements in aerospace technology, the volume of unlabeled remote sensing image (RSI) data has increased dramatically. Effectively leveraging this data through self-supervised learning (SSL) is vital in the field of remote sensing. However, current methodologies, particularly contrastive learning (CL), a leading SSL method, encounter specific challenges in this domain. Firstly, CL often mistakenly identifies geographically adjacent samples with similar semantic content as negative pairs, leading to confusion during model training. Secondly, as an instance-level discriminative task, it tends to neglect the essential fine-grained features and complex details inherent in unstructured RSIs. To overcome these obstacles, we introduce SwiMDiff, a novel self-supervised pre-training framework designed for RSIs. SwiMDiff employs a scene-wide matching approach that effectively recalibrates labels to recognize data from the same scene as false negatives. This adjustment makes CL more applicable to the nuances of remote sensing. Additionally, SwiMDiff seamlessly integrates CL with a diffusion model. Through the implementation of pixel-level diffusion constraints, we enhance the encoder's ability to capture both the global semantic information and the fine-grained features of the images more comprehensively. Our proposed framework significantly enriches the information available for downstream tasks in remote sensing. Demonstrating exceptional performance in change detection and land-cover classification tasks, SwiMDiff proves its substantial utility and value in the field of remote sensing.
Accurate cloud recognition and warning are crucial for various applications, including in-flight support, weather forecasting, and climate research. However, recent deep learning algorithms have predominantly focused on detecting cloud regions in satellite imagery, with insufficient attention to the specificity required for accurate cloud recognition. This limitation inspired us to develop the novel FY-4A-Himawari-8 (FYH) dataset, which includes nine distinct cloud categories and uses precise domain adaptation methods to align 70,419 image-label pairs in terms of projection, temporal resolution, and spatial resolution, thereby facilitating the training of supervised deep learning networks. Given the complexity and diversity of cloud formations, we have thoroughly analyzed the challenges inherent to cloud recognition tasks, examining the intricate characteristics and distribution of the data. To effectively address these challenges, we designed a Distribution-aware Interactive-Attention Network (DIAnet), which preserves pixel-level details through a high-resolution branch and a parallel multi-resolution cross-branch. We also integrated a distribution-aware loss (DAL) to mitigate the imbalance across cloud categories. An Interactive Attention Module (IAM) further enhances the robustness of feature extraction combined with spatial and channel information. Empirical evaluations on the FYH dataset demonstrate that our method outperforms other cloud recognition networks, achieving superior performance in terms of mean Intersection over Union (mIoU). The code for implementing DIAnet is available at https://github.com/icey-zhang/DIAnet.
In multimodal land cover classification (MLCC), a common challenge is the redundancy in data distribution, where irrelevant information from multiple modalities can hinder the effective integration of their unique features. To tackle this, we introduce the Multimodal Informative Vit (MIVit), a system with an innovative information aggregate-distributing mechanism. This approach redefines redundancy levels and integrates performance-aware elements into the fused representation, facilitating the learning of semantics in both forward and backward directions. MIVit stands out by significantly reducing redundancy in the empirical distribution of each modality's separate and fused features. It employs oriented attention fusion (OAF) for extracting shallow local features across modalities in horizontal and vertical dimensions, and a Transformer feature extractor for extracting deep global features through long-range attention. We also propose an information aggregation constraint (IAC) based on mutual information, designed to remove redundant information and preserve complementary information within embedded features. Additionally, the information distribution flow (IDF) in MIVit enhances performance-awareness by distributing global classification information across different modalities' feature maps. This architecture also addresses missing modality challenges with lightweight independent modality classifiers, reducing the computational load typically associated with Transformers. Our results show that MIVit's bidirectional aggregate-distributing mechanism between modalities is highly effective, achieving an average overall accuracy of 95.56% across three multimodal datasets. This performance surpasses current state-of-the-art methods in MLCC. The code for MIVit is accessible at https://github.com/icey-zhang/MIViT.
Deep learning has driven significant progress in object detection using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. Existing methods, while achieving promising results, often struggle to effectively integrate local and global information, particularly direction-aware features. This paper proposes SAR-Net, a novel framework specifically designed for global fusion of direction-aware information in SAR object detection. SAR-Net leverages two key innovations: the Unity Compensation Mechanism (UCM) and the Direction-aware Attention Module (DAM). UCM facilitates the establishment of complementary relationships among features across different scales, enabling efficient global information fusion. Among them, Multi-scale Alignment Module (MAM) and distinct Multi-level Fusion Module (MFM) enhance feature integration by capturing both texture detail and semantic information. Then, Multi-feature Embedding Module (MEM) feeds back global features into the primary branches, further improving information transmission. Additionally, DAM, through bidirectional attention polymerization, captures direction-aware information, effectively eliminating background interference. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of SAR-Net, achieving state-of-the-art results on aircraft (SAR-AIRcraft-1.0) and ship datasets (SSDD, HRSID), confirming its generalization capability and robustness.
High-dimensional images, known for their rich semantic information, are widely applied in remote sensing and other fields. The spatial information in these images reflects the object's texture features, while the spectral information reveals the potential spectral representations across different bands. Currently, the understanding of high-dimensional images remains limited to a single-domain perspective with performance degradation. Motivated by the masking texture effect observed in the human visual system, we present a multi-domain diffusion-driven feature learning network (MDFL) , a scheme to redefine the effective information domain that the model really focuses on. This method employs diffusion-based posterior sampling to explicitly consider joint information interactions between the high-dimensional manifold structures in the spectral, spatial, and frequency domains, thereby eliminating the influence of masking texture effects in visual models. Additionally, we introduce a feature reuse mechanism to gather deep and raw features of high-dimensional data. We demonstrate that MDFL significantly improves the feature extraction performance of high-dimensional data, thereby providing a powerful aid for revealing the intrinsic patterns and structures of such data. The experimental results on three multi-modal remote sensing datasets show that MDFL reaches an average overall accuracy of 98.25%, outperforming various state-of-the-art baseline schemes. The code will be released, contributing to the computer vision community.
Acuity assessments are vital in critical care settings to provide timely interventions and fair resource allocation. Traditional acuity scores rely on manual assessments and documentation of physiological states, which can be time-consuming, intermittent, and difficult to use for healthcare providers. Furthermore, such scores do not incorporate granular information such as patients' mobility level, which can indicate recovery or deterioration in the ICU. We hypothesized that existing acuity scores could be potentially improved by employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques in conjunction with Electronic Health Records (EHR) and wearable sensor data. In this study, we evaluated the impact of integrating mobility data collected from wrist-worn accelerometers with clinical data obtained from EHR for developing an AI-driven acuity assessment score. Accelerometry data were collected from 86 patients wearing accelerometers on their wrists in an academic hospital setting. The data was analyzed using five deep neural network models: VGG, ResNet, MobileNet, SqueezeNet, and a custom Transformer network. These models outperformed a rule-based clinical score (SOFA= Sequential Organ Failure Assessment) used as a baseline, particularly regarding the precision, sensitivity, and F1 score. The results showed that while a model relying solely on accelerometer data achieved limited performance (AUC 0.50, Precision 0.61, and F1-score 0.68), including demographic information with the accelerometer data led to a notable enhancement in performance (AUC 0.69, Precision 0.75, and F1-score 0.67). This work shows that the combination of mobility and patient information can successfully differentiate between stable and unstable states in critically ill patients.
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) increasingly permeating various aspects of society, including healthcare, the adoption of the Transformers neural network architecture is rapidly changing many applications. Transformer is a type of deep learning architecture initially developed to solve general-purpose Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks and has subsequently been adapted in many fields, including healthcare. In this survey paper, we provide an overview of how this architecture has been adopted to analyze various forms of data, including medical imaging, structured and unstructured Electronic Health Records (EHR), social media, physiological signals, and biomolecular sequences. Those models could help in clinical diagnosis, report generation, data reconstruction, and drug/protein synthesis. We identified relevant studies using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We also discuss the benefits and limitations of using transformers in healthcare and examine issues such as computational cost, model interpretability, fairness, alignment with human values, ethical implications, and environmental impact.
Existing Intensive Care Unit (ICU) delirium prediction models do not consider environmental factors despite strong evidence of their influence on delirium. This study reports the first deep-learning based delirium prediction model for ICU patients using only ambient noise and light information. Ambient light and noise intensities were measured from ICU rooms of 102 patients from May 2021 to September 2022 using Thunderboard, ActiGraph sensors and an iPod with AudioTools application. These measurements were divided into daytime (0700 to 1859) and nighttime (1900 to 0659). Deep learning models were trained using this data to predict the incidence of delirium during ICU stay or within 4 days of discharge. Finally, outcome scores were analyzed to evaluate the importance and directionality of every feature. Daytime noise levels were significantly higher than nighttime noise levels. When using only noise features or a combination of noise and light features 1-D convolutional neural networks (CNN) achieved the strongest performance: AUC=0.77, 0.74; Sensitivity=0.60, 0.56; Specificity=0.74, 0.74; Precision=0.46, 0.40 respectively. Using only light features, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks performed best: AUC=0.80, Sensitivity=0.60, Specificity=0.77, Precision=0.37. Maximum nighttime and minimum daytime noise levels were the strongest positive and negative predictors of delirium respectively. Nighttime light level was a stronger predictor of delirium than daytime light level. Total influence of light features outweighed that of noise features on the second and fourth day of ICU stay. This study shows that ambient light and noise intensities are strong predictors of long-term delirium incidence in the ICU. It reveals that daytime and nighttime environmental factors might influence delirium differently and that the importance of light and noise levels vary over the course of an ICU stay.