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Analysis of institutional authors

García-Cuesta, EstebanCorresponding AuthorManrique, DanielAuthor

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October 7, 2025
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Interpretable Deep Prototype-Based Neural Networks: Can a 1 Look like a 0?

Publicated to: Electronics. 14 (18): 3584- - 2025-09-10 14(18), DOI: 10.3390/electronics14183584

Authors:

Garcia-Cuesta, E; Manrique, D; Ionescu, RC
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Affiliations

Univ Politecn Madrid, Dept Inteligencia Artificial, ETSIINF, Madrid 28040, Spain - Author

Abstract

Prototype-Based Networks (PBNs) are inherently interpretable architectures that facilitate understanding of model outputs by analyzing the activation of specific neurons-referred to as prototypes-during the forward pass. The learned prototypes serve as transformations of the input space into a latent representation that more effectively encapsulates the main characteristics shared across data samples, thereby enhancing classification performance. Crucially, these prototypes can be decoded and projected back into the original input space, providing direct interpretability of the features learned by the network. While this characteristic marks a meaningful advancement toward the realization of fully interpretable artificial intelligence systems, our findings reveal that prototype representations can be deliberately or inadvertently manipulated without compromising the superficial appearance of explainability. In this study, we conduct a series of empirical investigations that demonstrate this phenomenon, framing it as a structural paradox potentially intrinsic to the architecture or its design, which may represent a significant robustness challenge for explainable AI methodologies.
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Keywords

Activation analysisArtificial intelligence systemsClassification (of information)Classification performanceData sampleInput spaceInterpretabilityInterpretable aiModel outputsNetwork architectureNeural networksNeural-networksPrototype-based networkPrototype-based networksRobustness of explanationRobustness of explanations

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Electronics due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2025, it was in position 174/368, thus managing to position itself as a Q2 (Segundo Cuartil), in the category Engineering, Electrical & Electronic. Notably, the journal is positioned en el Cuartil Q2 para la agencia Scopus (SJR) en la categoría Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-25:

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 1.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 1 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: https://oa.upm.es/95036/

As a result of the publication of the work in the institutional repository, statistical usage data has been obtained that reflects its impact. In terms of dissemination, we can state that, as of

  • Views: 14
  • Downloads: 4
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (GARCIA CUESTA, ESTEBAN) and Last Author (Ionescu, Radu Constantin).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been GARCIA CUESTA, ESTEBAN.

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