Advancing Parkinson's Disease Progression Prediction: Comparing Long Short-Term Memory Networks and Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a degenerative neurological disorder that impairs motor and non-motor functions, significantly reducing quality of life and increasing mortality risk. Early and accurate detection of PD progression is vital for effective management and improved patient outcomes. Current diagnostic methods, however, are often costly, time-consuming, and require specialized equipment and expertise. This work proposes an innovative approach to predicting PD progression using regression methods, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, and Kolmogorov Arnold Networks (KAN). KAN, utilizing spline-parametrized univariate functions, allows for dynamic learning of activation patterns, unlike traditional linear models. The Movement Disorder Society-Sponsored Revision of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) is a comprehensive tool for evaluating PD symptoms and is commonly used to measure disease progression. Additionally, protein or peptide abnormalities are linked to PD onset and progression. Identifying these associations can aid in predicting disease progression and understanding molecular changes. Comparing multiple models, including LSTM and KAN, this study aims to identify the method that delivers the highest metrics. The analysis reveals that KAN, with its dynamic learning capabilities, outperforms other approaches in predicting PD progression. This research highlights the potential of AI and machine learning in healthcare, paving the way for advanced computational models to enhance clinical predictions and improve patient care and treatment strategies in PD management.

ProKAN: Progressive Stacking of Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks for Efficient Liver Segmentation

The growing need for accurate and efficient 3D identification of tumors, particularly in liver segmentation, has spurred considerable research into deep learning models. While many existing architectures offer strong performance, they often face challenges such as overfitting and excessive computational costs. An adjustable and flexible architecture that strikes a balance between time efficiency and model complexity remains an unmet requirement. In this paper, we introduce proKAN, a progressive stacking methodology for Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) designed to address these challenges. Unlike traditional architectures, proKAN dynamically adjusts its complexity by progressively adding KAN blocks during training, based on overfitting behavior. This approach allows the network to stop growing when overfitting is detected, preventing unnecessary computational overhead while maintaining high accuracy. Additionally, proKAN utilizes KAN's learnable activation functions modeled through B-splines, which provide enhanced flexibility in learning complex relationships in 3D medical data. Our proposed architecture achieves state-of-the-art performance in liver segmentation tasks, outperforming standard Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLPs) and fixed KAN architectures. The dynamic nature of proKAN ensures efficient training times and high accuracy without the risk of overfitting. Furthermore, proKAN provides better interpretability by allowing insight into the decision-making process through its learnable coefficients. The experimental results demonstrate a significant improvement in accuracy, Dice score, and time efficiency, making proKAN a compelling solution for 3D medical image segmentation tasks.