An essential part of efficient herd reproduction management is the prompt insemination of fertile cows after successfully noticing bovine heat. Signs of heat demonstrate that an animal is in estrus, ready to be inseminated. An affordable technique for heat detection is photoplethysmography (PPG, pulse oximetry), which can quantify changes in vulvar blood circulation (swelling and erythema). Previously, only experienced operators applied PPG devices. In this study, an inexperienced user clinically tested PPG for heat detection in nine cows. The analysis focused on the signal baseline (DC component), power, and kurtosis between 0.7 and 3 Hz. Compared to the experienced, inexperienced operator's PPG signal variability significantly increased. The green PPG signal baseline's range (a difference between the 25th and 75th percentile) almost tripled. Furthermore, variability in signal power increased between 6.9 and 13.1 times, indicating several operator-introduced oscillations. The results showed that inexperienced PPG operator retrieves more variable PPG signals than professionals, indicating a need for consistent device handling. The potential changes could include a pressure sensor or a clamp, guaranteeing constant pressure between the PPG sensor and the vaginal wall.
Companion and farm animals can be an important source of antimicrobial-resistance microorganisms. In pets like dogs and cats, urinary tract infections (UTI) are a common reason for using antibiotics, often prescribed empirically due to the high costs and long duration of the official laboratory tests. Therefore, chromogenic agars for in-clinic use have recently appeared, which offer bacteria species identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). In our work, we employed machine vision for colony color and diameter determination of some prevalent companion animal bacteria, which grew after 24 or 48 hours of incubation on the commercially available chromogenic agar Uriselect. We analyzed 26 samples, including Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (10), Staphylococcus felis (4), Escherichia coli (4), Enterococcus faecalis (4), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (4). Results showed that E. coli and Ent. faecalis exhibited unique colony colors (red, blue) and diameter (larger or smaller). Furthermore, the colony size did not change significantly during the entire incubation time. On the other hand, both staphylococcus colonies were small initially, but their size almost tripled in the following 24 hours, when colonies finally exhibited a pink color. P. aeruginosa proved to be orange-green. This study showed that our optical system could detect uniquely colored and sized canine and feline bacteria colonies, which grew on Uriselect chromogenic agar.
Measuring body temperature in cats is an essential part of every clinical examination. Typically, rectal temperature measurement is conducted, but the procedure is poorly tolerated, and it often triggers stress-related changes in physiological parameters like pulse rate and blood pressure. Therefore, non-contact infrared thermometers have been studied on a few body surface measurement sites. However, existing studies included only commercial thermometers, which do not guarantee the correct temperature readings. In this study, we applied a custom-made and calibrated infrared thermometer for measuring feline body surface temperature on easily-accessible measurement sites of the eye, gum, and inguinal region. Results showed that body surface temperature was correlated poorly with rectal temperature, achieving the Spearman correlation coefficient of up to 0.25. Furthermore, the differences between body surface and rectal temperate were high (± 4°C). However, the infrared thermometer-based measurements provoked significantly lower stress response, achieving an average stress score of 2.8 (5 being maximum). On the other hand, rectal measurements resulted in a mean stress score of 3.7. Although the non-contact body surface temperature measurements with an infrared thermometer were tolerated significantly better, the poor agreement with rectal temperature prevents the approach to be endorsed for clinical body temperature measurements in cats.
Canine atopic dermatitis (CAD) is a common inflammatory and pruritic skin disease associated with allergy to exogenous allergens. The regular monitoring of skin lesions is essential to execute the anti-allergic therapy successfully. Erythema is one of the most important CAD-related lesions since it represents acute skin inflammation. Previously, we studied two optical systems (i.e., multispectral and dermatoscopic devices), which could objectively estimate erythema severity. However, we did not investigate, which image sampling method for selecting erythema-representing pixels and erythema index (EI) are correlated with the visual erythema assessment the most. In this paper, we tested three image sampling methods and four EIs for erythema severity estimation in 43 dogs. We discovered that all studied sampling methods and EIs were strongly correlated (r> 0.58) with the visual CADESI-4-based erythema severity assessment. However, the highest average Spearman’s correlations coefficient r of 0.77 was achieved when the average pixel value from the two small squared image sections without the hair and pigment was considered. On the other hand, EI, which was calculated from all three RGB values, achieved the highest r of 0.78. In this study, we identified a reliable image sampling method and erythema index (EI), which are well correlated with the visual erythema estimation.
In this study, we applied photoplethysmography (PPG) as an alternative, convenient, and affordable method for bovine heat detection. Heat detection is an essential part of effective herd reproduction management. Currently, there are many different heat detection techniques, but they can be ineffective or impractical to use. Since heat affects local vulvar blood circulation (resulting in swelling and erythema), photoplethysmography could represent an affordable alternative to detect this bovine phenomenon. In this study, we enrolled 20 animals in heat and other stages of the bovine reproduction cycle. We analyzed the PPG signal in terms of baseline (DC component), power, kurtosis, and erythema index. One vaginal measurement site, approximately 8 cm from the vulva, exhibited significant differences in mucous color (PPG green and red baseline, both erythema indices). What is more, cows in heat displayed higher PPG signal power and kurtosis, but differences were not significant. Photoplethysmography exhibited the potential to detect bovine heat.
In this study, we clinically evaluated a pulse oximeter-based device for automated capillary refill time (CRT) estimation in dogs and cats. CRT can reveal conditions like shock or anemia in dogs and cats. However, visual CRT estimation has low repeatability, and the available optical systems for automated estimation are not suitable for pets. We evaluated a custom-made portable CRT measuring device on various measurement sites of 12 dogs and 11 cats with parallel visual CRT estimation on the gum by treating veterinarian. The capillary refill was also recorded by a video camera for reference. The visual and video procedures were moderately correlated with the coefficient of 0.61; visual CRT values were on average for 0.18 s longer than the reference. On average, ~32% of measurements with the proposed device were successful. The rest failed due to excessive pigmentation, motion artifacts, and other pressure-induced effects. The measurement sites of the metacarpal pad, digit, and tail were moderately correlated with the reference values with coefficients of 0.53, 0.58, and 0.42, respectively.
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