YOLO Based Thermal Screening Using Artificial Intelligence (Al) for Instinctive Human Facial Detection

Covid19 remains the world's greatest public health emergency. It has become indispensable to measure the temperature of people entering or leaving croweded places to ease the identification of potentially infected and to isolate them from spreading and preventing the spread of the ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease. This research work is focusing on thermal screening for an automated scanner using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for instinctive temperature measurement on human faces. The framework used for facial detection is known as YOLOv5 which is a family of compound-scaled object detection models trained on the COCO, a large-scale object detection, segmentation, and captioning dataset. YOLOv5 is able to detect several different objects simultaneously by using its available pre-trained models and robustness of detecting faces even at the vicinity of face masks. The research presents the application, training procedure and capability of the Yolov5. This system is not only used for the human face detection, but also for the detection of some commonly-used objects as an extension to its overall application and performance. Yolov5 is readily available to be implemented in Python, the core programming language working under an Ubuntu-based Operating System providing users the best experience. One of the important outcomes of this research work is the development of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to work alongside the main programme flow. © 2022 IEEE.

Types and Sources of Social Support Accessible to University Students with Disabilities in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

University students with disabilities face an increased risk of experiencing negative implications in educational, psychological, and social spheres during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed at assessing various dimensions of social support and its sources during the COVID-19 pandemic that availed university students with disabilities. This cross-sectional descriptive study collected data from 53 university students with disabilities. We administered the Social Support Scale (SSC) to assess five dimensions: informational, emotional, esteem, social integration and tangible support, and access to social support from four sources: family, friends, teachers, and colleagues. Multiple regression analysis showed that university students with disabilities mainly relied upon their friends for informational support (ß = 0.64; p < 0.001), emotional support (ß = 0.52; p < 0.001), and social integration support (ß = 0.57; p < 0.001). Family members (ß = 0.406; p < 0.01) and colleagues (ß = 0.36; p < 0.01) provided esteem support to students with disabilities. Support from teachers demonstrated an association with informational support (ß = 0.24; p < 0.05). The findings from the current study suggest that students with disabilities primarily sought informational, emotional, and social integration support from their peers. Although teachers were the primary source of informational support, emotional and esteem support were not found to be significantly associated with them. These findings necessitate exploring the underlying factors and how to enhance them during unusual circumstances such as online distance education and social distancing.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation during the COVID-19 pandemic: a scientific statement on CPR management protocol of Kasr Al-Ainy University Hospital is presented.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic poses a major burden to the healthcare system in Egypt, and in the face of a highly infective disease which can prove fatal, healthcare systems need to change their management protocols to meet these new challenges. MAIN BODY: This scientific statement, developed by the cardiology department at Cairo University, emphasized 6 different aspects that are intended to guide healthcare providers during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlighted the importance of dealing with all cardiac arrest victims, during the pandemic, as potential COVID-19 cases, and the use of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) by health care providers during the procedure. It also stated that the CPR procedure should be done in a separate room with the door closed and that the number of providers present during the procedure should be limited to only those who are essential for patient resuscitation. It also stressed that family members and accompanying personnel of patients with possible COVID-19 should not be in the vicinity of CPR site. The statement also pointed out that CPR procedure should be done in the standard manner with precautions to minimize spread of infection to the staff and accompanying people. Early intubation was prioritized, and the use of rapid sequence intubation with appropriate PPE was recommended. For delivery of CPR for the prone ventilated patient, delivery of chest compressions by pressing the patient's back, while a team prepares to turn the patient supine, was recommended. During intra-hospital transport, it was emphasized that the receiving intensive care unit (ICU) should be notified about the possibility of the patient being COVID-19 positive, so that appropriate infection control precautions are taken. CONCLUSION: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation of cardiac arrest patients in the COVID-19 era poses a significant challenge, and all health care providers should deal with any cardiac arrest victim presenting to the emergency department as potential COVID-19 suspects and should use the appropriate PPE.

COVID-19 Vaccine Intention among Healthcare Workers in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Survey.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused largescale morbidity and mortality and a tremendous burden on the healthcare system. Healthcare workers (HCWs) require adequate protection to avoid onward transmission and minimize burden on the healthcare system. Moreover, HCWs can also influence the general public into accepting the COVID-19 vaccine. Therefore, determining COVID-19 vaccine intention among HCWs is of paramount importance to plan tailor-made public health strategies to maximize vaccine coverage. A structured questionnaire was administered in February and March 2021 among HCWs in Saudi Arabia using convenience sampling, proceeding the launch of the vaccination campaign. HCWs from all administrative regions of Saudi Arabia were included in the study. In total, 674 out of 1124 HCWs responded and completed the survey (response rate 59.9%). About 65 percent of the HCWs intended to get vaccinated. The intention to vaccinate was significantly higher among HCWs 50 years of age or older, Saudi nationals and those who followed the updates about COVID-19 vaccines (p < 0.05). The high percentage (26 percent) of those who were undecided in getting vaccinated is a positive sign. As the vaccination campaign gathers pace, the attitude is expected to change over time. Emphasis should be on planning healthcare strategies to convince the undecided HCWs into accepting the vaccine in order to achieve the coverage required to achieve herd immunity.

Correlation of echocardiographic parameters in prone and supine positions in normal adults using a novel approach.

BACKGROUND: Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) in prone position is challenging. Innovative use of transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) probe to perform TTE for such patients has been described; but reproducibility and correlation of the TTE measurements by this technique with those obtained by the standard supine TTE study are still unknown. METHODS: We enrolled 30 non-COVID-19 individuals, with a mean (SD) age 35 (10.9) years and 11 females, to study the agreement between the transthoracic measurements of the left ventricular (LV), left atrial (LA), aortic dimensions, and ejection fraction (EF) obtained in prone position using an external TEE probe versus the standard supine position using the conventional TTE probe. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between LV end-diastolic and end-systolic diameters, septal wall thickness, posterior wall thickness, and aortic root dimensions in the prone versus the supine positions, while the mean EF (60.3% vs 63.1%, P = .014) and mean LA dimensions (1.8 vs 1.9 cm/m2 , P < .001) were significantly lower in the prone position. The mean time of scans was significantly longer in the prone as compared to the supine position (12.5 vs 4.5 minutes, P < .001). All supine studies had good quality while in the prone position four studies were of poor quality, and one was nondiagnostic. CONCLUSIONS: Assessment of cardiac dimensions and systolic function in the prone position using transthoracic TEE probe was feasible. LV and aortic dimensions agreed well with the standard TTE in supine position; however, LA dimensions and EF were lower in the prone position.

Evaluating the potency of Sulawesi propolis compounds as ACE-2 inhibitors through molecular docking for COVID-19 drug discovery preliminary study.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a global pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Up to date, there has been no specific cure to treat the disease. Indonesia is one of the countries that is still fighting to control virus transmission. Yet, at the same time, Indonesia has a rich biodiversity of natural medicinal products that potentially become an alternative cure. Thus, this study examined the potency of a natural medicinal product, Sulawesi propolis compounds produced by Tetragonula sapiens, inhibiting angiotensin-converting activity enzyme-2 (ACE-2), a receptor of SARS-CoV-2 in the human body. In this study, molecular docking was done to analyze the docking scores as the representation of binding affinity and the interaction profiles of propolis compounds toward ACE-2. The results illustrated that by considering the docking score and the presence of interaction with targeted sites, five compounds, namely glyasperin A, broussoflavonol F, sulabiroins A, (2S)-5,7-dihydroxy-4'-methoxy-8-prenylflavanone and isorhamnetin are potential to inhibit the binding of ACE-2 and SARS-CoV-2, with the docking score of -10.8, -9.9, -9.5, -9.3 and -9.2 kcal/mol respectively. The docking scores are considered to be more favorable compared to MLN-4760 as a potent inhibitor.