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Dyslexia is a neurological disorder that is characterized by imprecise comprehension of words and generally poor reading performance. It affects a significant population of school-age children, with more occurrences in males, thus, putting them at risk of poor academic performance and low self-esteem for a lifetime. The long-term hope is to have a dyslexia diagnostic method that is informed by neural-biomarkers. In this regard, large numbers of machine learning methods and, more recently, deep learning methods have been implemented across various types of dataset with the above-chance classification accuracy. However, attainment of clinical acceptability of these state-of-the-art methods is bedeviled by certain challenges including lack of biologically-interpretable biomarkers, privacy of dataset and classifiers, hyper-parameter selection/optimization, and overfitting problem among others. This review paper critically analyzes recent machine learning methods for detecting dyslexia and its biomarkers and discusses challenges that require proper attentions from the users of deep learning methods in order to enable them to attain clinically relevance and acceptable level. The review is conducted within the premise of implementation and experimental outcomes for each of the 22 selected articles using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol, with a view to outlining some critical challenges for achieving high accuracy and reliability of the state-of-the-art machine learning methods. As an evidence-based protocol for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses, PRISMA helps to ensure clarity and transparency of this paper by showing a four-phase flow diagram of the selection process for articles used in this review. It is therefore, envisaged that higher classification performance of clinical relevance can be achieved using deep learning models for dyslexia and its biomarkers by addressing identified potential challenges.

Systems of nonlinear equations are known as the basis for many models of engineering and data science, and their accurate solutions are very critical in achieving progress in these fields. However, solving a system with multiple nonlinear equations, usually, is not an easy task. Consequently, finding a robust and accurate solution can be a very challenging problem in complex systems. In this work, a novel hybrid method namely Newton-Harris hawks optimization (NHHO) for solving systems of nonlinear equations is proposed. The proposed NHHO combines Newton’s method, with a second-order convergence where the correct digits roughly double in every step, and the Harris hawks optimization (HHO) to enhance the search mechanism, avoid local optima, improve convergence speed, and find more accurate solutions. We tested a group of six well-known benchmark systems of nonlinear equations to evaluate the efficiency of NHHO. Further, comparisons between NHHO and other optimization algorithms, including the original HHO algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Ant Lion Optimizer (ALO), Butterfly Optimization Algorithm (BOA), and Equilibrium Optimization (EO) were performed. The norm of the equation system was calculated as a fitness function to measure the optimization algorithms’ performance. A solution with less fitness value is considered a better solution. Furthermore, the experimental results confirmed the superiority of NHHO over the other optimization algorithms, in the comparisons, in different aspects, including best solution, average fitness value, and convergence speed. Accordingly, the proposed NHHO is powerful and more effective in all benchmark problems in solving systems of nonlinear equations compared to the other optimization algorithms. Finally, NHHO overcomes the limitations of Newton’s method, including selecting the initial point and divergence problems.

Firefly Algorithm (FA) is one of the new natural inspired optimization algorithms. It is inspired by the flashing behavior of the fireflies. Firefly algorithm, has some drawbacks such as getting trapped into several local optima, FA parameters are set fixed without change during iterations time. Besides that, it does not memorize or remember the history of any situation for each iteration. In this paper, we propos a firefly photinus algorithm (FPA) based on the initialize mate list to solve problems of trapped into several local optima and remember history of situation to forbidden fireflies movements in mate list (history) during the search process, and propose new absorption parameter σ to change the parameters during iterations time which lead to balance between exploration and exploitation, and it controls the dominance area of a lighter firefly during time iterations by reduction or increase σ coefficient whether. The experimental results tested on thirteen benchmark functions are selected to evaluate performance of the FPA and to compare it with the standards of the FA and Some FA variants algorithm, it show that FPA algorithm can outperform FA and FA variants algorithm in most of the experiments.

This paper presents a critical assessment analysis on mental health detection in Online Social Networks (OSNs) based on the data sources, machine learning techniques, and feature extraction method. The appropriateness of the mental health detection was also investigated by identifying its data analysis method, comparison, challenges, and limitations. This study reviewed articles published in major databases between 2007 and 2018 through keyword searches. The articles were screened base on their titles and abstracts before the full texts were reviewed. The articles were coded in accordance with data set (e.g., data sources, keywords, and geographical locations), method of data analysis, machine learning or deep learning technique, classifier performance, and feature extraction method. 22 articles were selected for review from the total of 2770. As OSNs exhibit high potential as a data source in early detection of mental health problems, most researchers used text analysis on a new data set extracted from different OSNs sources. The extracted data were examined using a statistical analysis or machine learning techniques. Several studies also applied multimethod techniques, which included distributing questionnaires while requesting for the respondents' consent to later access and extract information from his/her OSNs account. Big data in OSNs contribute on mental health problem detection. The presented method is an alternative approach to the early detection of mental health problems rather than using traditional strategies, such as collecting data through questionnaires or devices and sensors, which are time-consuming and costly. However, mental health problem detection through OSNs necessitates a comprehensive adoption, innovative algorithms, and computational linguistics to describe its limitations and challenges. Moreover, referrals from mental health specialists as subject matter experts are also required to help obtain accurate and effective information.

The rapid increase in data volume and features dimensionality have a negative influence on machine learning and many other fields, such as decreasing classification accuracy and increasing computational cost. Feature selection technique has a critical role as a preprocessing step in reducing these issues. It works by eliminating the features that may negatively influence the classifiers' performance, such as irrelevant, redundant and less informative features. This paper aims to introduce an improved Harris hawks optimization (IHHO) by utilizing elite opposite-based learning and proposing a new search mechanism. Harris hawks optimization (HHO) is a novel metaheuristic general-purpose algorithm recently introduced to solve continuous search problems. Compared to conventional HHO, the proposed IHHO can avoid trapping in local optima and has an enhanced search mechanism, relying on mutation, mutation neighborhood search, and rollback strategies to raise the search capabilities. Moreover, it improves population diversity, computational accuracy, and accelerates convergence rate. To evaluate the performance of IHHO, we conducted a series of experiments on twenty benchmark datasets collected from the UCI repository and the scikit-feature project. The datasets represent different levels of feature dimensionality, such as low, moderate, and high. Further, four criteria were adopted to determine the superiority of IHHO: classification accuracy, fitness value, number of selected features, and statistical tests. Furthermore, a comparison between IHHO and other well-known algorithms such as Generic algorithm (GA), Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm (GOA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Ant Lion Optimizer (ALO), Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), Butterfly Optimization Algorithm (BOA) and Slime Mould Algorithm (SMA) was performed. The experimental results have confirmed the dominance of IHHO over the other optimization algorithms in different aspects, such as accuracy, fitness value, and feature selection.

Offline Character segmentation of text images is an important step in many document image analysis and recognition (DIAR) applications. However, the character segmentation of both writing styles (printed and handwritten) remains an open problem. Moreover, the manual segmentation is time-consuming and impractical for large numbers of documents. Based on the unconstraint-cursive handwritten perspective, the auto character segmentation is more challenging and complex. The Arabic script writing style suffers from many common problems, such as sub-words overlapping, characters overlapping, and missed characters. These challenging issues have attracted the attention of researchers in the field of DIAR for Arabic character segmentation. The proposed method combines a new advanced Stroke Labelling based on Direction Features (SLDF2) technique and a modified vertical projection histogram (MVPH) technique. This technique extracts the relationship between each text stroke pixel and its 8 neighboring foreground pixels and labels it with the proper value before identify the possible segmentation points. The text preparation for the segmentation process was achieved using multiple preprocessing steps and developing an advanced stroke labelling technique based on direction features. Several Arabic language structural-rules were made to detect the candidate segmentation points (CSP), detect many character overlapping cases, solve the missed characters problem that appears as a result of using the text skeleton in VPH, and validate the CSP. All techniques and methods are tested on the ACDAR benchmark database. The validation method used to measure segmentation accuracy was a quantitative analysis that includes Recall, Precision, and F-measurement tests. The average accuracy of the proposed segmentation method was 92.44%, which outperforms the state-of-the-art method.

Achieving biologically interpretable neural-biomarkers and features from neuroimaging datasets is a challenging task in an MRI-based dyslexia study. This challenge becomes more pronounced when the needed MRI datasets are collected from multiple heterogeneous sources with inconsistent scanner settings. This study presents a method of improving the biological interpretation of dyslexia's neural-biomarkers from MRI datasets sourced from publicly available open databases. The proposed system utilized a modified histogram normalization (MHN) method to improve dyslexia neural-biomarker interpretations by mapping the pixels' intensities of low-quality input neuroimages to range between the low-intensity region of interest (ROIlow) and high-intensity region of interest (ROIhigh) of the high-quality image. This was achieved after initial image smoothing using the Gaussian filter method with an isotropic kernel of size 4mm. The performance of the proposed smoothing and normalization methods was evaluated based on three image post-processing experiments: ROI segmentation, gray matter (GM) tissues volume estimations, and deep learning (DL) classifications using Computational Anatomy Toolbox (CAT12) and pre-trained models in a MATLAB working environment. The three experiments were preceded by some pre-processing tasks such as image resizing, labelling, patching, and non-rigid registration. Our results showed that the best smoothing was achieved at a scale value, σ = 1.25 with a 0.9% increment in the peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). Results from the three image post-processing experiments confirmed the efficacy of the proposed methods. Evidence emanating from our analysis showed that using the proposed MHN and Gaussian smoothing methods can improve comparability of image features and neural-biomarkers of dyslexia with a statistically significantly high disc similarity coefficient (DSC) index, low mean square error (MSE), and improved tissue volume estimations. After 10 repeated 10-fold cross-validation, the highest accuracy achieved by DL models is 94.7% at a 95% confidence interval (CI) level. Finally, our finding confirmed that the proposed MHN method significantly outperformed the normalization method of the state-of-the-art histogram matching.

Writer's identification from a handwritten text is one of the most challenging machines learning problems because of the variable handwritten sources, various languages, the similarity between writer's pattern, context variation, and implicit characteristics of handwriting styles. In this paper, a combination of the deep and hand-crafted descriptor is utilized to learn patterns from the handwritten images. First, to do so, the local patches are extracted from the handwritten images. Then, these patches are simultaneously fed to deep and hand-crafted descriptors to generate the local descriptions. The extracted local features are then assembled to make the whole description matrix. Finally, by applying the vector of locally aggregated descriptors (VLAD) encoding on the description matrix, a 1-D feature vector is extracted to represent the writer's pattern. It is worthwhile to mention that the generated description does not rely on any language model or context information. Thus, the proposed approach is language and content independent. In addition, the proposed method does not have any restriction on the input length, hence, the writer's sample can be a passage, paragraph, line, sentence, or even a word. The obtained results on three public benchmark datasets of IAM, CVL, and Khatt indicate that the proposed method has a high-accuracy rate in writing identification task. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed method on CVL dataset using both German and English samples demonstrates that the proposed approach has a high capability in learning a writer's pattern from both languages at the same time.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19), is an ongoing global pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome. Chest Computed Tomography (CT) is an effective method for detecting lung illnesses, including COVID-19. However, the CT scan is expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, this work focus on detecting COVID-19 using chest X-ray images because it is widely available, faster, and cheaper than CT scan. Many machine learning approaches such as Deep Learning, Neural Network, and Support Vector Machine; have used X-ray for detecting the COVID-19. Although the performance of those approaches is acceptable in terms of accuracy, however, they require high computational time and more memory space. Therefore, this work employs an Optimised Genetic Algorithm-Extreme Learning Machine (OGA-ELM) with three selection criteria (i.e., random, K-tournament, and roulette wheel) to detect COVID-19 using X-ray images. The most crucial strength factors of the Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) are: (i) high capability of the ELM in avoiding overfitting; (ii) its usability on binary and multi-type classifiers; and (iii) ELM could work as a kernel-based support vector machine with a structure of a neural network. These advantages make the ELM efficient in achieving an excellent learning performance. ELMs have successfully been applied in many domains, including medical domains such as breast cancer detection, pathological brain detection, and ductal carcinoma in situ detection, but not yet tested on detecting COVID-19. Hence, this work aims to identify the effectiveness of employing OGA-ELM in detecting COVID-19 using chest X-ray images. In order to reduce the dimensionality of a histogram oriented gradient features, we use principal component analysis. The performance of OGA-ELM is evaluated on a benchmark dataset containing 188 chest X-ray images with two classes: a healthy and a COVID-19 infected. The experimental result shows that the OGA-ELM achieves 100.00% accuracy with fast computation time. This demonstrates that OGA-ELM is an efficient method for COVID-19 detecting using chest X-ray images.

The Holy Quran is the central religious verbal text of Islam. Muslims are expected to read, understand, and apply the teachings of the Holy Quran. The Holy Quran was translated to Braille code as a normal Arabic text without having its reciting rules included. It is obvious that the users of this transliteration will not be able to recite the Quran the right way. Through this work, Quran Braille Translator (QBT) presents a specific translator to translate Quran verses and their reciting rules into the Braille code. Quran Extended Finite State Machine (QEFSM) model is proposed through this study as it is able to detect the Quran reciting rules (QRR) from the Quran text. Basis path testing was used to evaluate the inner work for the model by checking all the test cases for the model. Markov Algorithm (MA) was used for translating the detected QRR and Quran text into the matched Braille code. The data entries for QBT are Arabic letters and diacritics. The outputs of this study are seen in the double lines of Braille symbols; the first line is the proposed Quran reciting rules and the second line is for the Quran scripts.

Text normalization is an important technique in document image analysis and recognition. It consists of many preprocessing stages, which include slope correction, text padding, skew correction, and straight the writing line. In this side, text normalization has an important role in many procedures such as text segmentation, feature extraction and characters recognition. In the present article, a new method for text baseline detection, straightening, and slant correction for Arabic handwritten texts is proposed. The method comprises a set of sequential steps: first components segmentation is done followed by components text thinning; then, the direction features of the skeletons are extracted, and the candidate baseline regions are determined. After that, selection of the correct baseline region is done, and finally, the baselines of all components are aligned with the writing line. The experiments are conducted on IFN/ENIT benchmark Arabic dataset. The results show that the proposed method has a promising and encouraging performance.

Skeletonization “also known as thinning” is an important step in the pre-processing phase in many of pattern recognition techniques. The output of Skeletonization process is the skeleton of the pattern in the images. Skeletonization is a crucial process for many applications such as OCR and writer identification. However, the improvements in this area are only a recent phenomenon and still require more researches. In this paper, a new skeletonization algorithm is proposed. This algorithm combines between parallel and sequential, which is categorized under an iterative approach. The suggested method is conducted by experiments of benchmark dataset for evaluation. The outcome is to obtain much better results compared to other thinning methods that are discussed in comparison part.

The need to detect malware before it harms computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices has caught the attention of researchers and the anti-malware industry for many years. To protect users from malware attacks, anti-virus software products are downloaded on the computer. The anti-virus mainly uses signature-based techniques to detect malware. However, this technique fails to detect malware that uses packing, encryption or obfuscation techniques. It also fails to detect unseen (new) ones. This paper proposes an integrated malware detection approach that applies memory forensics to extract malicious artifacts from memory and combines them to features extracted during the execution of malware in a dynamic analysis. Pre-modeling techniques were also applied for feature engineering before training and testing the data set on the machine learning models. The experimental results show a significant improvement in both detection accuracy rate and false positive rate, 98.5% and 1.7% respectively, by applying the support vector machine. The results verify that our integrated analysis approach outperforms other analysis methods. In addition, the proposed approach overcomes the limitation of single path file execution in dynamic analysis by adding more relevant memory artifacts that can reveal the real intention of malicious files.

In this era of digitization, most hardcopy documents are being transformed into digital formats. In the process of transformation, large quantities of documents are stored and preserved through electronic scanning. These documents are available from various sources such as ancient documentation, old legal records, medical reports, music scores, palm leaf, and reports on security-related issues. In particular, ancient and historical documents are hard to read due to their degradation in terms of low contrast and existence of corrupted artefacts. In recent times, degraded document binarization has been studied widely and several approaches were developed to deal with issues and challenges in document binarization. In this paper, a comprehensive review is conducted on the issues and challenges faced during the image binarization process, followed by insights on various methods used for image binarization. This paper also discusses the advanced methods used for the enhancement of degraded documents that improves the quality of documents during the binarization process. Further discussions are made on the effectiveness and robustness of existing methods, and there is still a scope to develop a hybrid approach that can deal with degraded document binarization more effectively.

This paper describes the design and creation of a monolingual parallel corpus for the Malay language written in Jawi. This paper proposes a new corpus called the National University of Malaysia Word Tokenization (NUWT) corpora To the best of our knowledge, currently, there is no sufficiently comprehensive, well-designed standard corpus that is annotated and made available for the public for the Jawi script corpora. This corpus contains the Jawi-specific Buckwalter character code and can be used to evaluate the performance of word tokenization tasks, as well as further language processing. The objective of this work is to conform and standardize the corpora between similar characters in Jawi. It consists of three subcorporas with documents from different genres. The gathering and processing steps, as well as the definition of several evaluation tasks regarding the use of these corpora, are included in this paper. One of the important roles and fundamental tasks of the corpus, which is the tokenization, is also presented in this paper. The development of the Malay language tokenizer is based on the syntactic data compatibility of Malay words written in Jawi. A series of experiments were performed to validate the corpus and to fulfill the requirement of the Jawi script tokenizer with an average error rate of 0.020255. Based on this promising result, the token will be used for the disambiguation and unknown word resolution, such as out-of-vocabulary (OOV) problem in the tagging process.