RGB camera-based simultaneous measurements of percutaneous arterial oxygen saturation, tissue oxygen saturation, pulse rate, and respiratory rate.

We propose a method to perform simultaneous measurements of percutaneous arterial oxygen saturation (SpO 2), tissue oxygen saturation (StO 2), pulse rate (PR), and respiratory rate (RR) in real-time, using a digital red-green-blue (RGB) camera. Concentrations of oxygenated hemoglobin (C HbO), deoxygenated hemoglobin (C HbR), total hemoglobin (C HbT), and StO 2 were estimated from videos of the human face using a method based on a tissue-like light transport model of the skin. The photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals are extracted from the temporal fluctuations in C HbO, C HbR, and C HbT using a finite impulse response (FIR) filter (low and high cut-off frequencies of 0.7 and 3 Hz, respectively). The PR is calculated from the PPG signal for C HbT. The ratio of pulse wave amplitude for C HbO and that for C HbR are associated with the reference value of SpO 2 measured by a commercially available pulse oximeter, which provides an empirical formula to estimate SpO 2 from videos. The respiration-dependent oscillation in C HbT was extracted from another FIR filter (low and high cut-off frequencies of 0.05 and 0.5 Hz, respectively) and used to calculate the RR. In vivo experiments with human volunteers while varying the fraction of inspired oxygen were performed to evaluate the comparability of the proposed method with commercially available devices. The Bland-Altman analysis showed that the mean bias for PR, RR, SpO 2, and StO 2 were -1.4 (bpm), -1.2(rpm), 0.5 (%), and -3.0 (%), respectively. The precisions for PR, RR, Sp O 2, and StO 2 were ±3.1 (bpm), ±3.5 (rpm), ±4.3 (%), and ±4.8 (%), respectively. The resulting precision and RMSE for StO 2 were pretty close to the clinical accuracy requirement. The accuracy of the RR is considered a little less accurate than clinical requirements. This is the first demonstration of a low-cost RGB camera-based method for contactless simultaneous measurements of the heart rate, percutaneous arterial oxygen saturation, and tissue oxygen saturation in real-time.

Transcriptome and hyperspectral profiling allows assessment of phosphorus nutrient status in rice under field conditions.

Phosphorus (P) is one of the macronutrients indispensable for crop production, and therefore it is important to understand the potential of plants to adapt to low P conditions. We compared growth and leaf genome-wide transcriptome of four rice cultivars during growth between two fields with different amount of available phosphate and further analysed the acceptable range of P levels for normal growth from the view of both appearance traits and internal P nutrient status, which was measured by profiling the expression of the P indicator gene. This demonstrated that rice plants have a robustness to moderate P-deficient conditions expressing a system for P acquisition and usage without any effects on yield potential and that P indicator gene expression could be a useful index for early diagnosis of P status in plants. To develop a simple method for assessment of P status, we tried to predict the expression level using reflectance spectroscopy and hyperspectral imaging, thereby providing models with good performance. Our findings suggest that rice plants have the potential to adapt to moderate low P conditions in the field and showed that the hyperspectral technique is one of the useful tools for simple measurement of molecular-level dynamics reflecting internal nutrient conditions.

Visualizing spatial distribution of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide by means of hyperspectral imaging.

We have developed a method to monitor the slant column density of nitrogen dioxide in the lower troposphere using a compact hyperspectral camera with a high spectral resolution of 1 nm at the full width half-maximum. Measurements of skylight spectra were conducted in wavelength regions of 460-490 nm and 550-610 nm to retrieve the slant column densities of nitrogen dioxide, in addition to water vapor and oxygen dimer. The results of ground-based measurements are shown for the cases of urban air pollution and aircraft emission near an airport runway.