Analysis of breathing patterns from thermal images using an automated segmentation method

Breathing is one of the important vital signs in diagnosing and monitoring for patients' treatment and disease. Few modalities have been used to evaluate breathing activity such as respiratory belt, thermistor and capacitive sensor. However, these requires external attachments such as electrode or sensor which might be inconvenience over long period of time. Hence, we proposed the use of thermography as a contactless monitoring device. In this study, inspiration time and expiration time of three different breathing patterns such as normal, prolonged and rapid breathing patterns were measured by using the thermography. Thermal images obtained from the subjects were processed and analysed by using an automated segmentation method which integrate the knowledge of edge-based and region-based segmentation methods into the algorithm developed. The algorithm developed in this study has shown that the tracker was able to segment the region of interest of the thermal images automatically and it provides a more accurate and stable results than manual calculation method. Thus, three different types of breathing patterns could be identified based on the inspiration time to expiration time ratio. Results shows that there was less than 5% of relative error which suggest the benefit of this algorithm

Rapid fabrication of oxygen defective α-Fe2O3(110) for enhanced photoelectrochemical activities.

Defect engineering is increasingly recognized as a viable strategy for boosting the performance of photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting using metal oxide-based photoelectrodes. However, previously developed methods for generating point defects associated with oxygen vacancies are rather time-consuming. Herein, high density oxygen deficient α-Fe2O3 with the dominant (110) crystal plane is developed in a very short timescale of 10 minutes by employing aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition and pure nitrogen as a gas carrier. The oxygen-defective film exhibits almost 8 times higher photocurrent density compared to a hematite photoanode with a low concentration of oxygen vacancies which is prepared in purified air. The existence of oxygen vacancies improves light absorption ability, accelerates charge transport in the bulk of films, and promotes charge separation at the electrolyte/semiconductor interface. DFT simulations verify that oxygen-defective hematite has a narrow bandgap, electron-hole trapped centre, and strong adsorption energy of water molecules compared to pristine hematite. This strategy might bring PEC technology another step further towards large-scale fabrication for future commercialization