Research Papers

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) and diffusion models have dramatically advanced deepfake technology, and its threats to digital security, media integrity, and public trust have increased rapidly. This research explored zero-shot deepfake detection, an emerging method even when the models have never seen a particular deepfake variation. In this work, we studied self-supervised learning, transformer-based zero-shot classifier, generative model fingerprinting, and meta-learning techniques that better adapt to the ever-evolving deepfake threat. In addition, we suggested AI-driven prevention strategies that mitigated the underlying generation pipeline of the deepfakes before they occurred. They consisted of adversarial perturbations for creating deepfake generators, digital watermarking for content authenticity verification, real-time AI monitoring for content creation pipelines, and blockchain-based content verification frameworks. Despite these advancements, zero-shot detection and prevention faced critical challenges such as adversarial attacks, scalability constraints, ethical dilemmas, and the absence of standardized evaluation benchmarks. These limitations were addressed by discussing future research directions on explainable AI for deepfake detection, multimodal fusion based on image, audio, and text analysis, quantum AI for enhanced security, and federated learning for privacy-preserving deepfake detection. This further highlighted the need for an integrated defense framework for digital authenticity that utilized zero-shot learning in combination with preventive deepfake mechanisms. Finally, we highlighted the important role of interdisciplinary collaboration between AI researchers, cybersecurity experts, and policymakers to create resilient defenses against the rising tide of deepfake attacks.

CRISPR-based genome editing has revolutionized biotechnology, yet optimizing guide RNA (gRNA) design for efficiency and safety remains a critical challenge. Recent advances (2020--2025, updated to reflect current year if needed) demonstrate that artificial intelligence (AI), especially deep learning, can markedly improve the prediction of gRNA on-target activity and identify off-target risks. In parallel, emerging explainable AI (XAI) techniques are beginning to illuminate the black-box nature of these models, offering insights into sequence features and genomic contexts that drive Cas enzyme performance. Here we review how state-of-the-art machine learning models are enhancing gRNA design for CRISPR systems, highlight strategies for interpreting model predictions, and discuss new developments in off-target prediction and safety assessment. We emphasize breakthroughs from top-tier journals that underscore an interdisciplinary convergence of AI and genome editing to enable more efficient, specific, and clinically viable CRISPR applications.

Explainable Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Image Analysis: A Comprehensive Survey

Getamesay Haile Dagnaw, Yanming Zhu, Muhammad Hassan Maqsood +4

Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) has become increasingly important in biomedical image analysis to promote transparency, trust, and clinical adoption of DL models. While several surveys have reviewed XAI techniques, they often lack a modality-aware perspective, overlook recent advances in multimodal and vision-language paradigms, and provide limited practical guidance. This survey addresses this gap through a comprehensive and structured synthesis of XAI methods tailored to biomedical image analysis.We systematically categorize XAI methods, analyzing their underlying principles, strengths, and limitations within biomedical contexts. A modality-centered taxonomy is proposed to align XAI methods with specific imaging types, highlighting the distinct interpretability challenges across modalities. We further examine the emerging role of multimodal learning and vision-language models in explainable biomedical AI, a topic largely underexplored in previous work. Our contributions also include a summary of widely used evaluation metrics and open-source frameworks, along with a critical discussion of persistent challenges and future directions. This survey offers a timely and in-depth foundation for advancing interpretable DL in biomedical image analysis.

Graph learning has rapidly evolved into a critical subfield of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Its development began with early graph-theoretic methods, gaining significant momentum with the advent of graph neural networks (GNNs). Over the past decade, progress in scalable architectures, dynamic graph modeling, multimodal learning, generative AI, explainable AI (XAI), and responsible AI has broadened the applicability of graph learning to various challenging environments. Graph learning is significant due to its ability to model complex, non-Euclidean relationships that traditional machine learning struggles to capture, thus better supporting real-world applications ranging from drug discovery and fraud detection to recommender systems and scientific reasoning. However, challenges like scalability, generalization, heterogeneity, interpretability, and trustworthiness must be addressed to unlock its full potential. This survey provides a comprehensive introduction to graph learning, focusing on key dimensions including scalable, temporal, multimodal, generative, explainable, and responsible graph learning. We review state-of-the-art techniques for efficiently handling large-scale graphs, capturing dynamic temporal dependencies, integrating heterogeneous data modalities, generating novel graph samples, and enhancing interpretability to foster trust and transparency. We also explore ethical considerations, such as privacy and fairness, to ensure responsible deployment of graph learning models. Additionally, we identify and discuss emerging topics, highlighting recent integration of graph learning and other AI paradigms and offering insights into future directions. This survey serves as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners seeking to navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of graph learning.

Effective resource management and network slicing are essential to meet the diverse service demands of vehicular networks, including Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) and Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communications (URLLC). This paper introduces an Explainable Deep Reinforcement Learning (XRL) framework for dynamic network slicing and resource allocation in vehicular networks, built upon a near-real-time RAN intelligent controller. By integrating a feature-based approach that leverages Shapley values and an attention mechanism, we interpret and refine the decisions of our reinforcementlearning agents, addressing key reliability challenges in vehicular communication systems. Simulation results demonstrate that our approach provides clear, real-time insights into the resource allocation process and achieves higher interpretability precision than a pure attention mechanism. Furthermore, the Quality of Service (QoS) satisfaction for URLLC services increased from 78.0% to 80.13%, while that for eMBB services improved from 71.44% to 73.21%.

The growing application of artificial intelligence in sensitive domains has intensified the demand for systems that are not only accurate but also explainable and trustworthy. Although explainable AI (XAI) methods have proliferated, many do not consider the diverse audiences that interact with AI systems: from developers and domain experts to end-users and society. This paper addresses how trust in AI is influenced by the design and delivery of explanations and proposes a multilevel framework that aligns explanations with the epistemic, contextual, and ethical expectations of different stakeholders. The framework consists of three layers: algorithmic and domain-based, human-centered, and social explainability, with Large Language Models serving as crucial mediators that transform technical outputs of AI explanations into accessible, contextual narratives across all levels. We show how LLMs enable dynamic, conversational explanations that bridge the gap between complex model behavior and human understanding, facilitating interactive dialogue and enhancing societal transparency. Through comprehensive case studies, we show how this LLM-enhanced approach achieves technical fidelity, user engagement, and societal accountability, reframing XAI as a dynamic, trust-building process that leverages natural language capabilities to democratize AI explainability.

Explainable Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Software Development Lifecycle: A Phase-specific Survey

Lakshit Arora, Sanjay Surendranath Girija, Shashank Kapoor +3

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly expanding and integrating more into daily life to automate tasks, guide decision making, and enhance efficiency. However, complex AI models, which make decisions without providing clear explanations (known as the "black-box problem"), currently restrict trust and widespread adoption of AI. Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) has emerged to address the black-box problem of making AI systems more interpretable and transparent so stakeholders can trust, verify, and act upon AI-based outcomes. Researchers have developed various techniques to foster XAI in the Software Development Lifecycle. However, there are gaps in applying XAI techniques in the Software Engineering phases. Literature review shows that 68% of XAI in Software Engineering research is focused on maintenance as opposed to 8% on software management and requirements. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of the applications of XAI methods such as concept-based explanations, Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME), SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), rule extraction, attention mechanisms, counterfactual explanations, and example-based explanations to the different phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), including requirements elicitation, design and development, testing and deployment, and evolution. To the best of our knowledge, this paper presents the first comprehensive survey of XAI techniques for every phase of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). This survey aims to promote explainable AI in Software Engineering and facilitate the practical application of complex AI models in AI-driven software development.

If a product deviates from its desired properties in the injection moulding process, its root cause analysis can be aided by models that relate the input machine settings with the output quality characteristics. The machine learning models tested in the quality prediction are mostly black boxes; therefore, no direct explanation of their prognosis is given, which restricts their applicability in the quality control. The previously attempted explainability methods are either restricted to tree-based algorithms only or do not emphasize on the fact that some explainability methods can lead to wrong root cause identification of a product's deviation from its desired properties. This study first shows that the interactions among the multiple input machine settings do exist in real experimental data collected as per a central composite design. Then, the model-agnostic explainable AI methods are compared for the first time to show that different explainability methods indeed lead to different feature impact analysis in injection moulding. Moreover, it is shown that the better feature attribution translates to the correct cause identification and actionable insights for the injection moulding process. Being model agnostic, explanations on both random forest and multilayer perceptron are performed for the cause analysis, as both models have the mean absolute percentage error of less than 0.05% on the experimental dataset.

Leveraging Large Language Models for Explainable Activity Recognition in Smart Homes: A Critical Evaluation

Michele Fiori, Gabriele Civitarese, Priyankar Choudhary +1

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) aims to uncover the inner reasoning of machine learning models. In IoT systems, XAI improves the transparency of models processing sensor data from multiple heterogeneous devices, ensuring end-users understand and trust their outputs. Among the many applications, XAI has also been applied to sensor-based Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) recognition in smart homes. Existing approaches highlight which sensor events are most important for each predicted activity, using simple rules to convert these events into natural language explanations for non-expert users. However, these methods produce rigid explanations lacking natural language flexibility and are not scalable. With the recent rise of Large Language Models (LLMs), it is worth exploring whether they can enhance explanation generation, considering their proven knowledge of human activities. This paper investigates potential approaches to combine XAI and LLMs for sensor-based ADL recognition. We evaluate if LLMs can be used: a) as explainable zero-shot ADL recognition models, avoiding costly labeled data collection, and b) to automate the generation of explanations for existing data-driven XAI approaches when training data is available and the goal is higher recognition rates. Our critical evaluation provides insights into the benefits and challenges of using LLMs for explainable ADL recognition.

The rapid aging of the global population has highlighted the need for technologies to support elderly, particularly in healthcare and emotional well-being. Facial expression recognition (FER) systems offer a non-invasive means of monitoring emotional states, with applications in assisted living, mental health support, and personalized care. This study presents a systematic review of deep learning-based FER systems, focusing on their applications for the elderly population. Following a rigorous methodology, we analyzed 31 studies published over the last decade, addressing challenges such as the scarcity of elderly-specific datasets, class imbalances, and the impact of age-related facial expression differences. Our findings show that convolutional neural networks remain dominant in FER, and especially lightweight versions for resource-constrained environments. However, existing datasets often lack diversity in age representation, and real-world deployment remains limited. Additionally, privacy concerns and the need for explainable artificial intelligence emerged as key barriers to adoption. This review underscores the importance of developing age-inclusive datasets, integrating multimodal solutions, and adopting XAI techniques to enhance system usability, reliability, and trustworthiness. We conclude by offering recommendations for future research to bridge the gap between academic progress and real-world implementation in elderly care.

Suicidal ideation detection is crucial for preventing suicides, a leading cause of death worldwide. Many individuals express suicidal thoughts on social media, offering a vital opportunity for early detection through advanced machine learning techniques. The identification of suicidal ideation in social media text is improved by utilising a hybrid framework that integrates Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM), enhanced with an attention mechanism. To enhance the interpretability of the model's predictions, Explainable AI (XAI) methods are applied, with a particular focus on SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), are incorporated. At first, the model managed to reach an accuracy of 92.81%. By applying fine-tuning and early stopping techniques, the accuracy improved to 94.29%. The SHAP analysis revealed key features influencing the model's predictions, such as terms related to mental health struggles. This level of transparency boosts the model's credibility while helping mental health professionals understand and trust the predictions. This work highlights the potential for improving the accuracy and interpretability of detecting suicidal tendencies, making a valuable contribution to the progress of mental health monitoring systems. It emphasizes the significance of blending powerful machine learning methods with explainability to develop reliable and impactful mental health solutions.

This study examines the expressed ethical logic of eight prominent large language models from OpenAI, Meta, Perplexity, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, DeepSeek, and xAI. Each model answered direct questions about its ethical principles and responded to five classic moral dilemmas. Responses were analyzed using the consequentialist/deontological distinction, Moral Foundations Theory, and Kohlbergs stages of moral development. Across models, ethical judgments were broadly convergent and typically emphasized harm minimization, fairness, and contextual qualification. The models nevertheless differed in their willingness to decide, the rationales used to defend choices, and the relative weight assigned to rules, outcomes, role obligations, and interpersonal considerations. Their self-descriptions were erudite, cautious, and strongly shaped by a conversational persona. The analysis of self-reports has been central to the study of human psychology and communication. We propose, with appropriate cautions, it can enhance our understanding of how artificial intelligence works and how it may be able to augment human ethical behavior