Training supervised machine learning models like deep learning requires high-quality labelled datasets that contain enough samples from various categories and specific cases. The Data as a Service (DaaS) can provide this high-quality data for training efficient machine learning models. However, the issue of privacy can minimize the participation of the data owners in DaaS provision. In this paper, a blockchain-based decentralized federated learning framework for secure, scalable, and privacy-preserving computational intelligence, called Decentralized Computational Intelligence as a Service (DCIaaS), is proposed. The proposed framework is able to improve data quality, computational intelligence quality, data equality, and computational intelligence equality for complex machine learning tasks. The proposed framework uses the blockchain network for secure decentralized transfer and sharing of data and machine learning models on the cloud. As a case study for multimedia applications, the performance of DCIaaS framework for biomedical image classification and hazardous litter management is analysed. Experimental results show an increase in the accuracy of the models trained using the proposed framework compared to decentralized training. The proposed framework addresses the issue of privacy-preserving in DaaS using the distributed ledger technology and acts as a platform for crowdsourcing the training process of machine learning models.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a significant increase in the workload for the emergency systems and healthcare providers all around the world. The emergency systems are dealing with large number of patients in various stages of deteriorating conditions which require significant medical expertise for accurate and rapid diagnosis and treatment. This issue will become more prominent in places with lack of medical experts and state-of-the-art clinical equipment, especially in developing countries. The machine intelligence aided medical diagnosis systems can provide rapid, dependable, autonomous, and low-cost solutions for medical diagnosis in emergency conditions. In this paper, a privacy-preserving computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) framework, called Decentralized deep Emergency response Intelligence (D-EI), which provides secure machine learning based medical diagnosis on the cloud is proposed. The proposed framework provides a blockchain based decentralized machine learning solution to aid the health providers with medical diagnosis in emergency conditions. The D-EI uses blockchain smart contracts to train the CAD machine learning models using all the data on the medical cloud while preserving the privacy of patients’ records. Using the proposed framework, the data of each patient helps to increase the overall accuracy of the CAD model by balancing the diagnosis datasets with minority classes and special cases. As a case study, the D-EI is demonstrated as a solution for COVID-19 diagnosis. The D-EI framework can help in pandemic management by providing rapid and accurate diagnosis in overwhelming medical workload conditions.

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Smart city management is facing a new challenge from littered face masks during COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing the issues of detection and collection of this hazardous waste that is littered in public spaces and outside the controlled environments, usually associated with biomedical waste, is urgent for the safety of the communities around the world. Manual management of this waste is beyond the capabilities of governments worldwide as the geospatial scale of littering is very high and also because this contaminated litter is a health and safety issue for the waste collectors. In this paper, an autonomous biomedical waste management framework that uses edge surveillance and location intelligence for detection of the littered face masks and predictive modelling for emergency response to this problem is proposed. In this research a novel dataset of littered face masks in various conditions and environments is collected. Then, a new deep neural network architecture for rapid detection of discarded face masks on the video surveillance edge nodes is proposed. Furthermore, a location intelligence model for prediction of the areas with higher probability of hazardous litter in the smart city is presented. Experimental results show that the accuracy of the proposed model for detection of littered face masks in various environments is 96%, while the speed of processing is ten times faster than comparable models. The proposed framework can help authorities to plan for timely emergency response to scattering of hazardous material in residential environments.

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