Retraction to: Neural Computing and Applications (2019) 31:1353–1363 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-018-3610-2


The Editor-in-Chief and the publisher have retracted this article. The article was submitted to be part of a guest-edited issue. An investigation by the publisher found a number of articles, including this one, with a number of concerns, including but not limited to compromised editorial handling and peer review process, inappropriate or irrelevant references or not being in scope of the journal or guest-edited issue. Based on the investigation's findings the Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions of this article.


The authors Mohammed Amoon and Nirmeen El-Bahnasawy disagree with this retraction. The author Mai ElKazaz has not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction.