pittsburgh
Orchestrator Multi-Agent Clinical Decision Support System for Secondary Headache Diagnosis in Primary Care
Wu, Xizhi, Garduno-Rapp, Nelly Estefanie, Rousseau, Justin F, Thakkallapally, Mounika, Zhang, Hang, Ji, Yuelyu, Visweswaran, Shyam, Peng, Yifan, Wang, Yanshan
Unlike most primary headaches, secondary headaches need specialized care and can have devastating consequences if not treated promptly. Clinical guidelines highlight several 'red flag' features, such as thunderclap onset, meningismus, papilledema, focal neurologic deficits, signs of temporal arteritis, systemic illness, and the 'worst headache of their life' presentation. Despite these guidelines, determining which patients require urgent evaluation remains challenging in primary care settings. Clinicians often work with limited time, incomplete information, and diverse symptom presentations, which can lead to under-recognition and inappropriate care. We present a large language model (LLM)-based multi-agent clinical decision support system built on an orchestrator-specialist architecture, designed to perform explicit and interpretable secondary headache diagnosis from free-text clinical vignettes. The multi-agent system decomposes diagnosis into seven domain-specialized agents, each producing a structured and evidence-grounded rationale, while a central orchestrator performs task decomposition and coordinates agent routing. We evaluated the multi-agent system using 90 expert-validated secondary headache cases and compared its performance with a single-LLM baseline across two prompting strategies: question-based prompting (QPrompt) and clinical practice guideline-based prompting (GPrompt). We tested five open-source LLMs (Qwen-30B, GPT-OSS-20B, Qwen-14B, Qwen-8B, and Llama-3.1-8B), and found that the orchestrated multi-agent system with GPrompt consistently achieved the highest F1 scores, with larger gains in smaller models. These findings demonstrate that structured multi-agent reasoning improves accuracy beyond prompt engineering alone and offers a transparent, clinically aligned approach for explainable decision support in secondary headache diagnosis.
- North America > United States > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh (0.05)
- North America > United States > New York > New York County > New York City (0.04)
- North America > United States > Utah (0.04)
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- Research Report > New Finding (0.66)
- Research Report > Experimental Study (0.46)
- Health & Medicine > Diagnostic Medicine (1.00)
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Neurology > Headaches (0.46)
LAYER: A Quantitative Explainable AI Framework for Decoding Tissue-Layer Drivers of Myofascial Low Back Pain
Zeng, Zixue, Perti, Anthony M., Yu, Tong, Kokenberger, Grant, Lu, Hao-En, Wang, Jing, Meng, Xin, Sheng, Zhiyu, Satarpour, Maryam, Cormack, John M., Bean, Allison C., Nussbaum, Ryan P., Landis-Walkenhorst, Emily, Kim, Kang, Wasan, Ajay D., Pu, Jiantao
Myofascial pain (MP) is a leading cause of chronic low back pain, yet its tissue-level drivers remain poorly defined and lack reliable image biomarkers. Existing studies focus predominantly on muscle while neglecting fascia, fat, and other soft tissues that play integral biomechanical roles. We developed an anatomically grounded explainable artificial intelligence (AI) framework, LAYER (Layer-wise Analysis for Yielding Explainable Relevance Tissue), that analyses six tissue layers in three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound and quantifies their contribution to MP prediction. By utilizing the largest multi-model 3D ultrasound cohort consisting of over 4,000 scans, LAYER reveals that non-muscle tissues contribute substantially to pain prediction. In B-mode imaging, the deep fascial membrane (DFM) showed the highest saliency (0.420), while in combined B-mode and shear-wave images, the collective saliency of non-muscle layers (0.316) nearly matches that of muscle (0.317), challenging the conventional muscle-centric paradigm in MP research and potentially affecting the therapy methods. LAYER establishes a quantitative, interpretable framework for linking layer-specific anatomy to pain physiology, uncovering new tissue targets and providing a generalizable approach for explainable analysis of soft-tissue imaging.
- Europe > Switzerland > Zürich > Zürich (0.14)
- North America > United States > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh (0.05)
- Research Report > Experimental Study (1.00)
- Research Report > New Finding (0.94)
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Musculoskeletal (1.00)
- Health & Medicine > Diagnostic Medicine > Imaging (0.93)
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Neurology (0.71)
Dynamic Black-box Backdoor Attacks on IoT Sensory Data
Chathoth, Ajesh Koyatan, Lee, Stephen
Abstract--Sensor data-based recognition systems are widely used in various applications, such as gait-based authentication and human activity recognition (HAR). Modern wearable and smart devices feature various built-in Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors, and such sensor-based measurements can be fed to a machine learning-based model to train and classify human activities. While deep learning-based models have proven successful in classifying human activity and gestures, they pose various security risks. In our paper, we discuss a novel dynamic trigger-generation technique for performing black-box adversarial attacks on sensor data-based IoT systems. Our empirical analysis shows that the attack is successful on various datasets and classifier models with minimal perturbation on the input data. We also provide a detailed comparative analysis of performance and stealthiness to various other poisoning techniques found in backdoor attacks. We also discuss some adversarial defense mechanisms and their impact on the effectiveness of our trigger-generation technique. Smart devices, equipped with advanced sensors and connectivity, are enabling new and emerging applications in mobile sensing. From tracking physical activity to monitoring health conditions via gait analysis, these devices transform our interaction with our environments. For instance, by leveraging sensor data, these devices can recognize users or even diagnose health conditions [1], [2]. Meanwhile, recent advances in deep learning have significantly enhanced the accuracy and utility of smart device applications, driving increased research interest in their potential uses [3], [4]. As deep learning and sensor technologies continue to evolve, we expect more widespread use of deep learning in diverse smart device applications. Despite the popularity of deep learning, there is a growing security concern regarding its application [5], [6]. Deep neural network (DNN) models are particularly vulnerable to backdoor attacks, where attackers design specific triggers that cause the model to misclassify inputs containing those triggers.
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- North America > Canada > Newfoundland and Labrador > Labrador (0.04)
- Europe > Switzerland > Zürich > Zürich (0.14)
- North America > Canada (0.04)
- Europe > Belgium > Flanders > Flemish Brabant > Leuven (0.04)
- Information Technology > Sensing and Signal Processing > Image Processing (1.00)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Representation & Reasoning (1.00)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Machine Learning (1.00)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Vision (0.95)
Topic-aware Large Language Models for Summarizing the Lived Healthcare Experiences Described in Health Stories
Bilalpur, Maneesh, Hamm, Megan, Lee, Young Ji, Norman, Natasha, McTigue, Kathleen M., Wang, Yanshan
Storytelling is a powerful form of communication and may provide insights into factors contributing to gaps in healthcare outcomes. To determine whether Large Language Models (LLMs) can identify potential underlying factors and avenues for intervention, we performed topic-aware hierarchical summarization of narratives from African American (AA) storytellers. Fifty transcribed stories of AA experiences were used to identify topics in their experience using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) technique. Stories about a given topic were summarized using an open-source LLM-based hierarchical summarization approach. Topic summaries were generated by summarizing across story summaries for each story that addressed a given topic. Generated topic summaries were rated for fabrication, accuracy, comprehensiveness, and usefulness by the GPT4 model, and the model's reliability was validated against the original story summaries by two domain experts. 26 topics were identified in the fifty AA stories. The GPT4 ratings suggest that topic summaries were free from fabrication, highly accurate, comprehensive, and useful. The reliability of GPT ratings compared to expert assessments showed moderate to high agreement. Our approach identified AA experience-relevant topics such as health behaviors, interactions with medical team members, caregiving and symptom management, among others. Such insights could help researchers identify potential factors and interventions by learning from unstructured narratives in an efficient manner-leveraging the communicative power of storytelling. The use of LDA and LLMs to identify and summarize the experience of AA individuals suggests a variety of possible avenues for health research and possible clinical improvements to support patients and caregivers, thereby ultimately improving health outcomes.
- North America > United States > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh (0.04)
- Asia > China > Hong Kong (0.04)
- Asia > Middle East > Jordan (0.04)
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Psychiatry/Psychology (1.00)
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Oncology (1.00)
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Neurology (1.00)
- (10 more...)
Automated Extraction of Fluoropyrimidine Treatment and Treatment-Related Toxicities from Clinical Notes Using Natural Language Processing
Wu, Xizhi, Kreider, Madeline S., Empey, Philip E., Li, Chenyu, Wang, Yanshan
Objective: Fluoropyrimidines are widely prescribed for colorectal and breast cancers, but are associated with toxicities such as hand-foot syndrome and cardiotoxicity. Since toxicity documentation is often embedded in clinical notes, we aimed to develop and evaluate natural language processing (NLP) methods to extract treatment and toxicity information. Materials and Methods: We constructed a gold-standard dataset of 236 clinical notes from 204,165 adult oncology patients. Domain experts annotated categories related to treatment regimens and toxicities. We developed rule-based, machine learning-based (Random Forest, Support Vector Machine [SVM], Logistic Regression [LR]), deep learning-based (BERT, ClinicalBERT), and large language models (LLM)-based NLP approaches (zero-shot and error-analysis prompting). Models used an 80:20 train-test split. Results: Sufficient data existed to train and evaluate 5 annotated categories. Error-analysis prompting achieved optimal precision, recall, and F1 scores (F1=1.000) for treatment and toxicities extraction, whereas zero-shot prompting reached F1=1.000 for treatment and F1=0.876 for toxicities extraction.LR and SVM ranked second for toxicities (F1=0.937). Deep learning underperformed, with BERT (F1=0.873 treatment; F1= 0.839 toxicities) and ClinicalBERT (F1=0.873 treatment; F1 = 0.886 toxicities). Rule-based methods served as our baseline with F1 scores of 0.857 in treatment and 0.858 in toxicities. Discussion: LMM-based approaches outperformed all others, followed by machine learning methods. Machine and deep learning approaches were limited by small training data and showed limited generalizability, particularly for rare categories. Conclusion: LLM-based NLP most effectively extracted fluoropyrimidine treatment and toxicity information from clinical notes, and has strong potential to support oncology research and pharmacovigilance.
- Asia > Middle East > UAE > Abu Dhabi Emirate > Abu Dhabi (0.14)
- North America > United States > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh (0.05)
- Europe > Switzerland > Basel-City > Basel (0.04)
- Research Report > New Finding (1.00)
- Research Report > Experimental Study (1.00)
Towards Understanding Ambiguity Resolution in Multimodal Inference of Meaning
Wang, Yufei, Kovashka, Adriana, Fernández, Loretta, Coutanche, Marc N., Wiener, Seth
We investigate a new setting for foreign language learning, where learners infer the meaning of unfamiliar words in a multimodal context of a sentence describing a paired image. We conduct studies with human participants using different image-text pairs. We analyze the features of the data (i.e., images and texts) that make it easier for participants to infer the meaning of a masked or unfamiliar word, and what language backgrounds of the participants correlate with success. We find only some intuitive features have strong correlations with participant performance, prompting the need for further investigating of predictive features for success in these tasks. We also analyze the ability of AI systems to reason about participant performance, and discover promising future directions for improving this reasoning ability.
- South America > Argentina (0.04)
- North America > United States > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh (0.04)
- Europe > United Kingdom > England > Oxfordshire > Oxford (0.04)
- (2 more...)
- Information Technology > Sensing and Signal Processing > Image Processing (1.00)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Representation & Reasoning (1.00)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Machine Learning (1.00)
- Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Vision (0.95)
Democratizing Agentic AI with Fast Test-Time Scaling on the Edge
Chen, Hao Mark, Mo, Zhiwen, Lu, Guanxi, Liang, Shuang, Ma, Lingxiao, Luk, Wayne, Fan, Hongxiang
Deploying agentic AI on edge devices is crucial for privacy and responsiveness, but memory constraints typically relegate these systems to smaller Large Language Models (LLMs) with inferior reasoning capabilities. Test-Time Scaling (TTS) can bridge this reasoning gap by dedicating more compute during inference, but existing methods incur prohibitive overhead on edge hardware. To overcome this, we introduce FlashTTS, a serving system that makes TTS practical for memory-constrained LLM reasoning. FlashTTS introduces three synergistic optimizations: (i) Speculative Beam Extension to mitigate system stragglers from irregular reasoning paths; (ii) Asymmetric Multi-Model Memory Allocation to dynamically balance memory between generation and verification; and (iii) Dynamic Prefix-Aware Scheduling to maximize KV-cache reuse. Built as a plug-and-play library for vLLM, FlashTTS enables edge LLMs on a single consumer GPU (24 GB) to match the accuracy and latency of large cloud models. Our evaluation demonstrates that FlashTTS achieves an average 2.2x higher goodput and reduces latency by 38%-68% compared to a vLLM baseline, paving the way for democratized, high-performance agentic AI on edge devices.
- Europe > United Kingdom > England > Greater London > London (0.40)
- North America > United States > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh (0.05)
- North America > United States > New York > New York County > New York City (0.04)
- (2 more...)
- Information Technology (1.00)
- Education > Educational Setting > Higher Education (0.40)
AGS: Accelerating 3D Gaussian Splatting SLAM via CODEC-Assisted Frame Covisibility Detection
He, Houshu, Jing, Naifeng, Jiang, Li, Liang, Xiaoyao, Song, Zhuoran
Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is a critical task that enables autonomous vehicles to construct maps and localize themselves in unknown environments. Recent breakthroughs combine SLAM with 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) to achieve exceptional reconstruction fidelity. However, existing 3DGS-SLAM systems provide insufficient throughput due to the need for multiple training iterations per frame and the vast number of Gaussians. In this paper, we propose AGS, an algorithm-hardware co-design framework to boost the efficiency of 3DGS-SLAM based on the intuition that SLAM systems process frames in a streaming manner, where adjacent frames exhibit high similarity that can be utilized for acceleration. On the software level: 1) We propose a coarse-then-fine-grained pose tracking method with respect to the robot's movement. 2) We avoid redundant computations of Gaussians by sharing their contribution information across frames. On the hardware level, we propose a frame covisibility detection engine to extract intermediate data from the video CODEC. We also implement a pose tracking engine and a mapping engine with workload schedulers to efficiently deploy the AGS algorithm. Our evaluation shows that AGS achieves up to $17.12\times$, $6.71\times$, and $5.41\times$ speedups against the mobile and high-end GPUs, and a state-of-the-art 3DGS accelerator, GSCore.
- North America > United States > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh (0.05)
- Asia > China > Shanghai > Shanghai (0.05)
- North America > United States > New York > New York County > New York City (0.04)