Contactless Measurement of Vital Signs Using Thermal and RGB Cameras: A Study of COVID 19-Related Health Monitoring.

In this study, a contactless vital signs monitoring system was proposed, which can measure body temperature (BT), heart rate (HR) and respiration rate (RR) for people with and without face masks using a thermal and an RGB camera. The convolution neural network (CNN) based face detector was applied and three regions of interest (ROIs) were located based on facial landmarks for vital sign estimation. Ten healthy subjects from a variety of ethnic backgrounds with skin colors from pale white to darker brown participated in several different experiments. The absolute error (AE) between the estimated HR using the proposed method and the reference HR from all experiments is 2.70±2.28 beats/min (mean ± std), and the AE between the estimated RR and the reference RR from all experiments is 1.47±1.33 breaths/min (mean ± std) at a distance of 0.6-1.2 m.

Effect of PSC 833, an inhibitor of P-glycoprotein on N-methyl-N-nitrosourea induced mammary carcinogenesis in rats.

Studies in our laboratory on the role of P-glycoprotein (Pgp, coded by mdr1 gene) have led to the hypothesis that over-expression of Pgp is closely associated with the development of cancer. It was conceived therefore that inhibitors of Pgp should inhibit the development of cancer. We have reported that PSC833 (PSC), a potent inhibitor of Pgp, inhibits the development of liver cancer in rats. Similarly, based on the intrinsic over-expression of Pgp in experimental mammary carcinogenesis, we studied the effect of PSC on N-methyl-N-nitrosourea induced mammary cancer in female Sprague-Dawley rats. The study indicates that PSC at daily dietary doses of 15 (PSC15) and 30 mg/kg (PSC30) body wt resulted in dose-dependent inhibition of the incidence as well as the growth of mammary tumors. Compared with controls, PSC15 and PSC30 inhibited: (i) mean tumor multiplicity by 32 and 67%, (ii) median tumor burden by 46 and 93% and (iii) incidence of ulcerated tumors by 40 and 82%, respectively. Most remarkably, PSC delayed median tumor incidence by 8 weeks, and exerted a 100% inhibitory effect on the incidence of large tumors, 4 cm(3) and greater. In all the cases, although the inhibitory effect of PSC was evident at both doses, only PSC30 exhibited statistical significance. A possible compounding effect that was also observed in PSC30-treated rats was a decrease in body weight gain not attributed to diminished food consumption. All in all, consistent with recent reports, which have demonstrated inhibition of cancer development by compromising Pgp function, this study introduces a novel role for Pgp in breast cancer and potentially an unexplored therapeutic approach in treating the disease.

Effect of PSC 833, an inhibitor of P-glycoprotein, on 1,2-dimethylhydrazine-induced liver carcinogenesis in rats.

The present study explores the hypothesis that over-expression of P-glycoprotein (Pgp, product of mdr1) is intimately associated with liver cancer development and therefore inhibitors of Pgp should inhibit the development of liver cancer. Accordingly, we determined the effect of PSC833 (PSC), a potent inhibitor of Pgp, on experimental liver carcinogenesis in rats. To study the effects of PSC on liver cancer development, a daily dose of 30 mg PSC/kg body wt (PSC30) was chosen based on an initial dose-response experiment. Accordingly in experiment 1, PSC30 was fed to rats initiated by 1,2-dimethylhydrazine coupled with two-thirds partial hepatectomy and promoted for 22 weeks with 1% dietary orotic acid. Surprisingly, in contrast to our earlier observations in rats without hepatic nodules, in rats bearing hepatic nodules, PSC30 was found to be toxic. Because of this, PSC30 diet was discontinued after 5 weeks and the rats were transferred to basal diet (BD). The rats were killed 10 and 25 weeks thereafter. Cumulative results indicate that PSC30 exhibited a 40% decrease in the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC; 15 of 18 in the BD group compared with eight of 17 in the PSC30 group; P = 0.08) coupled with significant reduction of tumor multiplicity (54%; P < 0.05) and tumor burden (61%; P < 0.005) compared with controls. In experiment 2, 15 mg PSC/kg body wt (PSC15) was fed for 20 weeks to rats similarly initiated and promoted for 35 weeks. PSC15 inhibited the incidence of HCC by 75% (four of four in the BD group compared to one of four in the PSC30 group; P = 0.15) and significantly reduced tumor burden by 55% (P < 0.05). The lack of statistical significance of inhibition on tumor incidence reflects the small sample size. Taken together the results indicate a possible intrinsic role for Pgp in liver cancer development and introduce another promising unexplored therapeutic approach in liver cancer treatment.