# DCENWCNet: A Deep CNN Ensemble Network for White Blood Cell Classification with LIME-Based Explainability

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.05459 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.05459/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 65 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Feb 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- ["Why Should I Trust You?": Explaining the Predictions of Any Classifier](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.04938/) (2016)
- [Going Deeper with Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.4842/) (2014)
- [A Survey on Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.05747/) (2017)
- [DAFFNet: A Dual Attention Feature Fusion Network for Classification of White Blood Cells](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16220/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

White blood cells (WBC) are important parts of our immune system, and they protect our body against infections by eliminating viruses, bacteria, parasites and fungi. The number of WBC types and the total number of WBCs provide important information about our health status. A traditional method, convolutional neural networks (CNN), a deep learning architecture, can classify the blood cell from a part of an object and perform object recognition. Various CNN models exhibit potential; however, their development often involves ad-hoc processes that neglect unnecessary layers, leading to issues with unbalanced datasets and insufficient data augmentation. To address these challenges, we propose a novel ensemble approach that integrates three CNN architectures, each uniquely configured with different dropout and max-pooling layer settings to enhance feature learning. This ensemble model, named DCENWCNet, effectively balances the bias-variance trade-off. When evaluated on the widely recognized Rabbin-WBC dataset, our model outperforms existing state-of-the-art networks, achieving highest mean accuracy. Additionally, it demonstrates superior performance in precision, recall, F1-score, and Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) across all categories. To delve deeper into the interpretability of classifiers, we employ reliable post-hoc explanation techniques, including Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIME). These methods approximate the behavior of a black-box model by elucidating the relationships between feature values and predictions. Interpretable results enable users to comprehend and validate the model's predictions, thereby increasing their confidence in the automated diagnosis.