Evaluating model-agnostic post-hoc methods in explainable artificial intelligence: augmenting species distribution models.

Explainable artificial intelligence for predicting dengue outbreaks in Bangladesh using eco-climatic triggers.

XAI is critical for establishing trust and enabling the appropriate development of machine learning models. By offering transparency into how these models make judgements, XAI enables researchers and users to uncover potential biases, admit limits, and eventually enhance the fairness and dependability of AI systems. In this paper, we demonstrates two techniques, LIME and SHAP, used to improve the interpretability of machine learning models. Assessing Explainable AI (XAI) approaches is critical in searching for transparent and interpretable artificial intelligence (AI) models. Explainable AI (XAI) approaches are designed to provide insight into how complex models make decisions. This paper thoroughly analyzes two prominent XAI methods: Shapley Additive explanations (SHAP) and Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME). This study aims to understand the decision made by a machine learning model and how the model came to that decision. We discuss the approaches and framework of both LIME and SHAP and assess their behavior in predicting the model's outcome.

BackgroundTuberculosis spondylitis (TS), commonly known as Pott’s disease, is a severe type of skeletal tuberculosis that typically requires surgical treatment. However, this treatment option has led to an increase in healthcare costs due to prolonged hospital stays (PLOS). Therefore, identifying risk factors associated with extended PLOS is necessary. In this research, we intended to develop an interpretable machine learning model that could predict extended PLOS, which can provide valuable insights for treatments and a web-based application was implemented.MethodsWe obtained patient data from the spine surgery department at our hospital. Extended postoperative length of stay (PLOS) refers to a hospitalization duration equal to or exceeding the 75th percentile following spine surgery. To identify relevant variables, we employed several approaches, such as the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), recursive feature elimination (RFE) based on support vector machine classification (SVC), correlation analysis, and permutation importance value. Several models using implemented and some of them are ensembled using soft voting techniques. Models were constructed using grid search with nested cross-validation. The performance of each algorithm was assessed through various metrics, including the AUC value (area under the curve of receiver operating characteristics) and the Brier Score. Model interpretation involved utilizing methods such as Shapley additive explanations (SHAP), the Gini Impurity Index, permutation importance, and local interpretable model-agnostic explanations (LIME). Furthermore, to facilitate the practical application of the model, a web-based interface was developed and deployed.ResultsThe study included a cohort of 580 patients and 11 features include (CRP, transfusions, infusion volume, blood loss, X-ray bone bridge, X-ray osteophyte, CT-vertebral destruction, CT-paravertebral abscess, MRI-paravertebral abscess, MRI-epidural abscess, postoperative drainage) were selected. Most of the classifiers showed better performance, where the XGBoost model has a higher AUC value (0.86) and lower Brier Score (0.126). The XGBoost model was chosen as the optimal model. The results obtained from the calibration and decision curve analysis (DCA) plots demonstrate that XGBoost has achieved promising performance. After conducting tenfold cross-validation, the XGBoost model demonstrated a mean AUC of 0.85 ± 0.09. SHAP and LIME were used to display the variables’ contributions to the predicted value. The stacked bar plots indicated that infusion volume was the primary contributor, as determined by Gini, permutation importance (PFI), and the LIME algorithm.ConclusionsOur methods not only effectively predicted extended PLOS but also identified risk factors that can be utilized for future treatments. The XGBoost model developed in this study is easily accessible through the deployed web application and can aid in clinical research.

Electrocardiogram signal analysis can be time-consuming, tedious, and error-prone. Therefore, automated analysis is need of time that will assist clinicians in detecting cardiac abnormalities accurately and efficiently. Recently, deep learning models have shown unprecedented progress and strong arrhythmia classification capabilities, but their deployment in the medical sector is constrained due to their “black-box” nature. This paper proposes a robust explainability method to assist in explaining the underlying decision-making process in deep neural networks (DNN) and help provide feedback on biases that would benefit in improving DNN models. To achieve these objectives, initially, a deep learning model is trained on the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database and their classification performance is evaluated. The classification findings are then interpreted using the post-hoc explanation methods such as the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIME) and Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) that interpret the decision rationale. As these methods are initially proposed for image applications therefore a new masking approach is proposed to cater these post-hoc explainability methods for ECG time-series data. After evaluating these methods for ECG arrhythmia classification, several drawbacks are drawn such as they fail to locate a feature’s importance if there are multiple occurrences of the same feature in a signal and also, SHAP and LIME perform random perturbations that sometimes produce unreliable explanations. Therefore, to overcome the drawbacks associated with these post-hoc explainability methods on time-series data, a novel K-GradCam method is proposed. The proposed K-GradCam method ensemble the benefits of these gradient based and perturbation based approaches and has demonstrated advantages over SHAP, Grad-CAM and LIME in terms of interpreting the models’ decisions. To compare the the proposed technique with post-hoc explainability methods quantitatively, the confidence index of the proposed method is evaluated using dice loss. The proposed method shares 71% similarity with SHAP and 81% similarity with Grad-CAM methods; however, it shares the benefits of both methods and is computationally faster than SHAP and LIME.

In the field of network security, botnet attacks pose a significant challenge, exploiting networks of infected devices to launch sophisticated threats. As these attacks evolve, the need for effective detection methods becomes increasingly critical. This study proposes an explainable Machine Learning (ML) model that aims to identify and categorize botnet attacks, and it investigates the efficiency of different Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) techniques for Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS). To train our models, we employed a subset of the NCC-2 dataset, which includes a mix of normal traffic and seven different types of botnet attacks across three sensors. The ML techniques selected for this research are Random Forest (RF), Extra Trees (ET), Decision Tree (DT), and K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), with a GridSearch cross-validation approach for optimal hyperparameter tuning. We also explored the effects of class balance through Synthetic Minority Oversampling (SMOTE) and Random Undersampling. The models’ performance was rigorously tested using the Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC) and Macro F1-score, with the ET model demonstrating superior results of 99% MCC and 97% F1-score, respectively. To enhance the interpretability of the ET model’s decision-making process, we integrated three XAI techniques: SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), Dalex, and Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME), and evaluated their efficiency. The LIME and Dalex techniques showed efficient construction times for IDS.

This study presents a comprehensive methodology for developing a Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD) system for an industrial distillation column using advanced machine learning algorithms. Steady state and dynamic simulations in Aspen Plus® generate extensive datasets under normal and faulty conditions. Feature engineering, using the Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance (MRMR) algorithm, selects the most relevant features for fault detection. Various machine learning models, including Decision Trees, Support Vector Machines, k-nearest Neighbours, and Neural Networks, were trained and evaluated based on performance metrics such as accuracy, recall, precision, and F1 score. The top models were integrated into a stacked classifier system with a voting mechanism to enhance fault detection reliability. Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) techniques, such as Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME) and Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP), were incorporated to improve model interpretability, allowing engineers to understand and validate the FDD system's decision-making process. Simulation results confirm that the proposed methodology accurately identifies and classifies faults. By integrating dynamic simulations, advanced machine learning, and XAI techniques, a robust and scalable solution is achieved for fault detection in distillation columns, improving operational reliability, safety, and reducing downtime. Future work could extend this approach to other industrial processes and explore additional machine learning algorithms to further enhance performance.

This work focuses on applying explainable artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to improve the interpretability and reliability of models in two crucial scenarios: detecting collusion in public procurement auctions and identifying corruption in public contracts in Mexico. While these challenges are specific, the need for transparency and explainability in AI systems is universal, especially when it comes to high-impact government issues. Our analysis is based on case studies of these particular applications, highlighting how interpretability techniques such as SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) and LIME (Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations) can be used to provide crucial insights into decisions of the algorithms involved. In doing so, our paper seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of how explainable AI can be applied in diverse government contexts. Additionally, we explore the ethical and practical implications of explainable AI in governance, highlighting its ability to promote greater transparency, accountability, and trust in automated decisions. By the end of this study, we hope to provide a more comprehensive view on how explainable AI can be a valuable tool in improving public governance, not only in relation to cases of collusion and corruption, but also in a wide range of critical government applications.

Mental health plays a crucial role in shaping students’ academic performance and practical outcomes, yet traditional analytical methods often fall short in capturing the complex, multifactorial nature of psychological well-being. In recent years, the latest techniques are increasingly exploring eXplainable AI (XAI) to enhance model transparency and interpretability in mental health research. In this study, we introduce a transformer-based model, Tabular BERT (TaBERT), designed to comprehensively integrate and analyze contextual, psychological, personal, and social features for mental health prediction. By integrating deep contextual embeddings, bidirectional attention, and a novel memorization mechanism, TaBERT excels in capturing intricate feature interactions that conventional machine learning and ensemble learning methods may overlook. Comparative experiments confirm the superiority of the proposed model with highest accuracy of 96%. Empirical analyses were further strengthened through advanced feature ranking techniques, including information gain, gain ratio, and entropy, revealing that mental health-related features provide the most significant information value of 0.129 for prediction. To enhance interpretability and trust, we applied explainable AI techniques, including Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME) and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) offering detailed global and local explanations of feature contributions. Finally, comprehensive statistical tests based on p-values provided additional support for the robustness and significance of the findings.

Heart disease remains a major global health challenge, underscoring the need for predictive models that are both accurate and interpretable to support early diagnosis and clinical decision-making. Using Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) and Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIME) in this study allowed for a deeper level of understanding of model predictions as well as provided viable alternative ways to overcome the challenges associated with black-box classifiers. Using a soft-voting ensemble technique that combined representations for Random Forest (RF), Decision Tree (DT), and Support Vector Machines (SVM) was applied to evaluate a publicly available heart disease dataset, containing 5110 records with each record containing 76 attributes. A total of 14 clinically relevant features were identified and evaluated using an 80/20 train-test split for the experimental setup, with results further validated by 5-fold cross-validation. The proposed soft-voting ensemble model achieved an accuracy of 89.10%, precision of 83.90%, recall of 95.20%, and F1-score of 89.90%, out-performing all individual baseline models and many of the recent XAI-enhanced deep learning models. The combination of SHAP and LIME allowed for both global and local interpretations of the model’s outputs, providing interpretable insights as to features like cp, thal, ca, and oldpeak contributed to the predictions and aligning these features with known cardiovascular risk factors. The results of this research demonstrate how interpretable (or explainable) ensemble-learning mechanisms can confer highly reliable, clinically useful heart disease risk predictions.

Introduction: The connection between green innovation and firm performance on the industrial sector of Pakistan is explored by this study, which implements the versatile explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) approaches to reveal the knowledge path with transparent explanations of complex decisions. Objective: It adopts a comparative approach to SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) and LIME (Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations) model in explaining green innovation endeavors into an elucidation of practical business gains guaranteed. Method: On a large scale, study access a comprehensive dataset of 284 manufacturing companies of diverse industries within Pakistan and develop a machine learning model to forecast the firm indicators of performance whilst being interpretable using XAI methods. Results: Research has found that green innovation has a positive impact that is statistically significant on firm performance and the drivers which have been identified are described as environmental compliance, resource efficiency and sustainable product development. The above comparative analysis of SHAP and LIME shows that both methods, in their turn, yield good insights, but SHAP shows more consistent global explanations whereas LIME is better at explaining individual instances. Conclusions: By having the contribution in the growing literature on sustainable business practices in emerging markets, this research is practical in giving the right directions to policymakers and business leaders in Pakistan. Suggestions are given to the policy makers and the firms in Pakistan indicating that strategic investments need to be made in process innovation and regulatory frameworks. This study highlights the promise of XAI to help in de-mystifying the complex nature of relationships in sustainability-related performance.

Blood pressure abnormality detection and Interpretation utilizing Explainable Artificial Intelligence

Competitor analysis is a fundamental requirement in both strategic and operational management, and the competitive attributes of reviewer comments are a crucial determinant of competitor analysis approaches. Most studies have focused on identifying competitors or detecting comparative sentences, not competitive attributes. Thus, the authors propose a method based on explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) that can detect competitive attributes from consumers’ perspectives. They construct a model to classify the reviewer comments for each competitive product and calculate the importance of each keyword in the reviewer comments during the classification process. This is based on the assumption that keywords significantly influence product classification. The authors also propose an additional novel methodology that combines various XAI techniques such as local interpretable model-agnostic explanations, Shapley additive explanations, logistic regression, gradient-based class activation map, and layer-wise relevance propagation to build a robust model for calculating the importance of competitive attributes for various data sources.

This research proposes a novel strategy for accurate breast lesion classification that combines explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), machine learning (ML) classifiers, and customized weakly dependent features from ultrasound (BU) images. Two new weakly dependent feature classes are proposed to improve the diagnostic accuracy and diversify the training data. These are based on image intensity variations and the area of bounded partitions and provide complementary rather than overlapping information. ML classifiers such as Random Forest (RF), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB), Gradient Boosting Classifiers (GBC), and LASSO regression were trained with both customized feature classes. To validate the reliability of our study and the results obtained, we conducted a statistical analysis using the McNemar test. Later, an XAI model was combined with ML to tackle the influence of certain features, the constraints of feature selection, and the interpretability capabilities across various ML models. LIME (Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations) and SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) models were used in the XAI process to enhance the transparency and interpretation in clinical decision-making. The results revealed common relevant features for the malignant class, consistently identified by all of the classifiers, and for the benign class. However, we observed variations in the feature importance rankings across the different classifiers. Furthermore, our study demonstrates that the correlation between dependent features does not impact explainability.

The increasing sophistication and frequency of cyberattacks necessitate advanced and transparent decision-making frameworks for threat intelligence and risk assessment. While artificial intelligence (AI) has demonstrated significant potential in automating threat detection, predicting attack patterns, and prioritizing incident response, the opaque nature of many AI models particularly deep learning poses challenges in trust, interpretability, and regulatory compliance. This paper presents an Explainable AI (XAI)-driven framework for enhancing Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) and risk assessment, enabling security analysts to understand, validate, and act upon AI-generated insights with confidence. The proposed approach integrates state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms with model-agnostic and model-specific interpretability techniques, such as SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME), Layer-wise Relevance Propagation (LRP), and attention-based visualization. The framework processes diverse CTI data sources including network traffic logs, vulnerability feeds, malware signatures, and open-source intelligence (OSINT) to identify malicious patterns, quantify risks, and generate actionable intelligence. By coupling predictive accuracy with transparency, the system not only improves detection and classification of advanced persistent threats (APTs), phishing campaigns, and zero-day exploits, but also facilitates compliance with emerging AI governance frameworks, such as the EU AI Act and NIST AI Risk Management Framework. Experimental evaluations on benchmark cybersecurity datasets demonstrate that the XAI-enabled models maintain high precision and recall while offering interpretable outputs that significantly reduce analyst decision latency and improve collaborative threat response. The paper further discusses the role of XAI in mitigating bias, enhancing accountability, and fostering human–machine teaming in security operations centers (SOCs). Practical implementation considerations including scalability, computational efficiency, and integration with existing Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms are addressed, along with recommendations for future research in multi-modal XAI for cybersecurity. This research underscores the critical value of explainability in AI-driven CTI, ensuring that automated systems are not only effective but also transparent, trustworthy, and aligned with organizational and regulatory requirements for responsible AI deployment in cyber defense.

Introduction: The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into personalized banking has enhanced service delivery in areas such as loan processing, credit assessment, and fraud detection. Despite these advancements, ethical concerns, especially algorithmic bias and lack of fairness, pose significant challenges. This study addresses the need for equitable AI systems that promote transparency, fairness, and regulatory compliance in the banking sector. Objective: This study aims to develop and implement a comprehensive framework for integrating ethical principles into AI-driven banking systems, with a focus on mitigating algorithmic bias, enhancing fairness, and improving transparency in personalized banking services. Methods: A comprehensive methodology is proposed that integrates bias-aware data collection, fairness-constrained machine-learning models, and explainable AI (XAI) techniques. Tools such as Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAPs) and Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIMEs) are applied to interpret model outputs. Adversarial debiasing and fairness-aware learning algorithms were employed to identify and mitigate systemic biases in financial data. Alternative data sources, including utility and rental payment histories, were incorporated to enhance inclusivity. Results: The implementation of the proposed framework demonstrates improved fairness in decision-making without significantly compromising model accuracy. Bias metrics show measurable reductions in disparate impacts across the demographic groups. Explainability tools enhance transparency, enabling a more transparent communication of AI decisions to both users and regulators. Conclusions: Embedding ethical principles into AI-driven banking systems is critical to ensuring fairness, regulatory alignment, and public trust. The structured framework presented in this study supports the development of responsible AI systems to mitigate bias, enhance explainability, and foster financial inclusion. This approach serves as the foundation for building equitable and accountable AI applications in modern banking.