Evaluating the robustness of a contact-less mHealth solution for personal and remote monitoring of blood oxygen saturation.

MHealth technologies play a fundamental role in epidemiological situations such as the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 because they allow people to self-monitor their health status (e.g. vital parameters) at any time and place, without necessarily having to physically go to a medical clinic. Among vital parameters, special care should be given to monitor blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), whose abnormal values are a warning sign for potential COVID-19 infection. SpO2 is commonly measured through the pulse oximeter that requires skin contact and hence could be a potential way of spreading contagious infections. To overcome this problem, we have recently developed a contact-less mHealth solution that can measure blood oxygen saturation without any contact device but simply processing short facial videos acquired by any common mobile device equipped with a camera. Facial video frames are processed in real-time to extract the remote photoplethysmographic signal useful to estimate the SpO2 value. Such a solution promises to be an easy-to-use tool for both personal and remote monitoring of SpO2. However, the use of mobile devices in daily situations holds some challenges in comparison to the controlled laboratory scenarios. One main issue is the frequent change of perspective viewpoint due to head movements, which makes it more difficult to identify the face and measure SpO2. The focus of this work is to assess the robustness of our mHealth solution to head movements. To this aim, we carry out a pilot study on the benchmark PURE dataset that takes into account different head movements during the measurement. Experimental results show that the SpO2 values obtained by our solution are not only reliable, since they are comparable with those obtained with a pulse oximeter, but are also insensitive to head motion, thus allowing a natural interaction with the mobile acquisition device.

Object detection and activity recognition in video surveillance using neural networks

Purpose: This paper aims to implement and extend the You Only Live Once (YOLO) algorithm for detection of objects and activities. The advantage of YOLO is that it only runs a neural network once to detect the objects in an image, which is why it is powerful and fast. Cameras are found at many different crossroads and locations, but video processing of the feed through an object detection algorithm allows determining and tracking what is captured. Video Surveillance has many applications such as Car Tracking and tracking of people related to crime prevention. This paper provides exhaustive comparison between the existing methods and proposed method. Proposed method is found to have highest object detection accuracy. Design/methodology/approach: The goal of this research is to develop a deep learning framework to automate the task of analyzing video footage through object detection in images. This framework processes video feed or image frames from CCTV, webcam or a DroidCam, which allows the camera in a mobile phone to be used as a webcam for a laptop. The object detection algorithm, with its model trained on a large data set of images, is able to load in each image given as an input, process the image and determine the categories of the matching objects that it finds. As a proof of concept, this research demonstrates the algorithm on images of several different objects. This research implements and extends the YOLO algorithm for detection of objects and activities. The advantage of YOLO is that it only runs a neural network once to detect the objects in an image, which is why it is powerful and fast. Cameras are found at many different crossroads and locations, but video processing of the feed through an object detection algorithm allows determining and tracking what is captured. For video surveillance of traffic cameras, this has many applications, such as car tracking and person tracking for crime prevention. In this research, the implemented algorithm with the proposed methodology is compared against several different prior existing methods in literature. The proposed method was found to have the highest object detection accuracy for object detection and activity recognition, better than other existing methods. Findings: The results indicate that the proposed deep learning–based model can be implemented in real-time for object detection and activity recognition. The added features of car crash detection, fall detection and social distancing detection can be used to implement a real-time video surveillance system that can help save lives and protect people. Such a real-time video surveillance system could be installed at street and traffic cameras and in CCTV systems. When this system would detect a car crash or a fatal human or pedestrian fall with injury, it can be programmed to send automatic messages to the nearest local police, emergency and fire stations. When this system would detect a social distancing violation, it can be programmed to inform the local authorities or sound an alarm with a warning message to alert the public to maintain their distance and avoid spreading their aerosol particles that may cause the spread of viruses, including the COVID-19 virus. Originality/value: This paper proposes an improved and augmented version of the YOLOv3 model that has been extended to perform activity recognition, such as car crash detection, human fall detection and social distancing detection. The proposed model is based on a deep learning convolutional neural network model used to detect objects in images. The model is trained using the widely used and publicly available Common Objects in Context data set. The proposed model, being an extension of YOLO, can be implemented for real-time object and activity recognition. The proposed model had higher accuracies for both large-scale and all-scale object detection. This proposed model also exceeded all the other previous methods that were compared in extending and augmenting the object detection to activity recognition. The proposed model resulted in the highest accuracy for car crash detection, fall detection and social distancing detection. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

A new YOLO-based method for social distancing from real-time videos.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is primarily disseminated through physical contact. As a precaution, it is recommended that indoor spaces have a limited number of people and at least one meter apart. This study proposes a real-time method for monitoring physical distancing compliance in indoor spaces using computer vision and deep learning techniques. The proposed method utilizes YOLO (You Only Look Once), a popular convolutional neural network-based object detection model, pre-trained on the Microsoft COCO (Common Objects in Context) dataset to detect persons and estimate their physical distance in real time. The effectiveness of the proposed method was assessed using metrics including accuracy rate, frame per second (FPS), and mean average precision (mAP). The results show that the YOLO v3 model had the most remarkable accuracy (87.07%) and mAP (89.91%). On the other hand, the highest fps rate of up to 18.71 was achieved by the YOLO v5s model. The results demonstrate the potential of the proposed method for effectively monitoring physical distancing compliance in indoor spaces, providing valuable insights for future use in other public health scenarios.

A new YOLO-based method for real-time crowd detection from video and performance analysis of YOLO models.

As seen in the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most important measures is physical distance in viruses transmitted from person to person. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is mandatory to have a limited number of people in indoor spaces. Depending on the size of the indoors, the number of persons that can fit in that area varies. Then, the size of the indoor area should be measured and the maximum number of people should be calculated accordingly. Computers can be used to ensure the correct application of the capacity rule in indoors monitored by cameras. In this study, a method is proposed to measure the size of a prespecified region in the video and count the people there in real time. According to this method: (1) predetermining the borders of a region on the video, (2) identification and counting of people in this specified region, (3) it is aimed to estimate the size of the specified area and to find the maximum number of people it can take. For this purpose, the You Only Look Once (YOLO) object detection model was used. In addition, Microsoft COCO dataset pre-trained weights were used to identify and label persons. YOLO models were tested separately in the proposed method and their performances were analyzed. Mean average precision (mAP), frame per second (fps), and accuracy rate metrics were found for the detection of persons in the specified region. While the YOLO v3 model achieved the highest value in accuracy rate and mAP (both 0.50 and 0.75) metrics, the YOLO v5s model achieved the highest fps rate among non-Tiny models.

A Deep Learning-Based Tool for Face Mask Detection and Body Temperature Measurement

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, wearing a mask and ensuring normal body temperature in overcrowded areas such as workplaces have become obligatory. In this paper, a deep learning-based tool for automatic mask detection and temperature measurement at the entrance of workplaces was developed to save costs of manual supervision and reduce human contact for safety concerns. Using Python, image/video processing techniques related to face and object detection are used to process image input from a webcam. A deep learning algorithm called MobileNetV2 was used to build the face mask detector model. Moreover, a non-contact thermal sensor, the MLX90614, along with Arduino, was employed to measure body temperature. The mask detection and temperature measurements are displayed correctly on a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Besides, an additional function related to the Internet of Things (IoT) was implemented, which sends high-temperature alerts to smartphones. It has been verified that the model can achieve an accuracy of about 98%. The developed system experiences a limitation when other objects are used to cover the mouth and nose in that they may still be classified as masks. However, compared to the mask detection systems available commercially, it can provide correct detection results when using the hand to pretend to be wearing a mask. © 2022 IEEE.

Prediction of Human Movement in Open Public Spaces: Case Study of Sarajevo

Imposed changes in social conduct and the dynamics of living in cities, during COVID-19 pandemic, triggered an increase in the demand, availability, and accessibility of open public spaces. This has put forward questions of the relationship between open public spaces and disease transmission, as well as how planning and design strategies might be used to improve resilience in the face of future pandemics. Within this academic framework, this study focuses on object detection and human movement prediction in open public spaces, using the city of Sarajevo as a case study. Video recordings of parks and squares in morning, afternoon and evening are utilized to detect humans and predict their movements. Frame differentiation method proved to be the best for object detection and their motion. Linear regression is used on a dataset collected using the space syntax observation technique gate method. The best R-2 values, 0.97 and 0.61, are achieved for weekdays, for both parks and squares. Authors associated it with the dynamics of space use and frequency of space occupancy, which can be related to physical conditions and activity content of selected locations. The results of study provide an insight into analysis and prediction of direction, as well as density of pedestrian movement, which could be used in decision making directed towards more efficient and health oriented urban planning.

State of art on object detection solution applied to COVID 19's spreading prevention

In order to effectively prevent the spread of COVID19, people from different parts of the world were supposed to be wearing face masks after the WHO put it as a primordial instruction to stop its propagation. Researchers from different backgrounds gathered their efforts to ensure the respect of wearing face mask, namely AI field researchers. In this research, we are interested on the AI applications that were done from the beginning of the pandemic to prevent the COVID 19 contamination, especially those related to the mask wearing detection. The detection of wearing mask is classified as a computer vision problem, more specifically, an object detection one. Besides, with the evolution of the computational power and the availability of huge number of datasets, deep learning models using image and video processing techniques were proposed in order to detect people transgressing the wearing mask rule. In this paper we introduce a literature review of object detection, a case study of this problem which consists in the wearing mask detection, the related works as well as the different proposed solutions, and the suggested general pipeline for the treatment of this problem. © 2021 IEEE.

PER-COVID (PEople pRoximity based on Certified and coOperative VIDeo-intelligence): A Software Tool for Physical Distancing and PPE Monitoring

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has led to a growing interest in IT tools for monitoring social distance and for checking the presence of personal protective equipment and whether it is worn properly. Correct monitoring in outdoor and indoor areas is essential to limit the spread of the virus and the risk of being infected. This paper presents PER-COVID, a software platform capable of monitoring crowds of people and the correct use of personal protective equipment in real time using innovative computer vision algorithms. The proposed system architecture and functional characteristics are illustrated, as well as some user interface screens are provided for simple interpretation and monitoring of critical events. © 2021 IEEE.

Sparse Crowd Flow Analysis of Tawaaf of Kaaba During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the entire world and has put forth high demand for techniques that remotely manage crowd-related tasks. Video surveillance and crowd management using video analysis techniques have significantly impacted today's research, and numerous applications have been developed in this domain. This research proposed an anomaly detection technique applied to Umrah videos in Kaaba during the COVID-19 pandemic through sparse crowd analysis. Managing the Kaaba rituals is crucial since the crowd gathers from around the world and requires proper analysis during these days of the pandemic. The Umrah videos are analyzed, and a system is devised that can track and monitor the crowd flow in Kaaba. The crowd in these videos is sparse due to the pandemic, and we have developed a technique to track the maximum crowd flow and detect any object (person) moving in the direction unlikely of the major flow. We have detected abnormal movement by creating the histograms for the vertical and horizontal flows and applying thresholds to identify the non-majority flow. Our algorithm aims to analyze the crowd through video surveillance and timely detect any abnormal activity to maintain a smooth crowd flow in Kaaba during the pandemic. © 2022 Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.

A Survey on Detection of Face Mask and Social Distancing Using Deep Learning

COVID-19, also known as the Corona Virus, caused drastic changes in civilization, eventually leading to a pandemic. Many businesses were affected by the rapidly spreading Corona virus. The focus of this research is on finding a solution to avoid the transit rate. The current research focuses on the many fundamental causes of illness propagation and the technological systems' contributions to disease control. Wearing a facemask and maintaining social distance are two frequent ways to avoid the rapid spread of the disease. To determine whether or not social distancing and face mask protection are being employed, image and video processing are used. In this proposed system, we will see how we may monitor social distancing and implement face mask detection in public areas and workplaces using Python, Computer Vision and Deep Learning.