The importance of transepidermal water loss (TEWL) as a measure of the skin barrier is well recognized. Currently, the open-chamber method is dominant, but it is increasingly challenged by newer closed-chamber technologies. Whilst there is familiarity with open-chamber characteristics, there is uncertainty about the capabilities of the challengers. The main issues are related to how microclimate affects TEWL measurements. The aim of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding the effects of microclimate on TEWL measurement. Part of the problem is that TEWL measurement is indirect. TEWL is the diffusion of condensed water through the stratum corneum (SC), whereas TEWL methods measure water vapour flux in the air above the SC. This vapour flux depends on (i) the rate of supply of water to the skin surface and (ii) the rate of evaporation of water from the skin surface. Rate (i) is a skin property (TEWL), rate (ii) is a microclimate property. The controlling rate for the combined process is the lower of the above two rates. Therefore, TEWL instruments measure TEWL only when TEWL is the rate-limiting process. Another problem is that SC barrier property and SC hydration are affected by the microclimate adjacent to the skin surface. This is discussed insofar as it affects the measurement of TEWL. The conclusion is that such changes occur on a timescale that is long compared with TEWL measurement times. An important aspect of TEWL measurement is calibration. We present an analysis of the traditional wet-cup method and a new droplet method that is traceable and has been independently verified by a standards laboratory. Finally, we review performance indicators of commercial closed-chamber instruments with reference to open-chamber instruments. The main findings are that TEWL readings correlate well, but there are significant differences in the other aspects of performance.

12We present our latest work on in-vivo skin capacitive imaging analysis by using grey 13 level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM). The in-vivo skin capacitive images were taken 14 by a capacitance based fingerprint sensor, the skin capacitive images were then 15

In this paper, a neural network-based lip reading system is proposed. The system is lexiconfree and uses purely visual cues. With only a limited number of visemes as classes to recognise, the system is designed to lip read sentences covering a wide range of vocabulary and to recognise words that may not be included in system training. The system has been testified on the challenging BBC Lip Reading Sentences 2 (LRS2) benchmark dataset. Compared with the state-of-the-art works in lip reading sentences, the system has achieved a significantly improved performance with 15% lower word error rate. In addition, experiments with videos of varying illumination have shown that the proposed model has a good robustness to varying levels of lighting. The main contributions of this paper are: 1) The classification of visemes in continuous speech using a specially designed transformer with a unique topology; 2) The use of visemes as a classification schema for lip reading sentences; and 3) The conversion of visemes to words using perplexity analysis. All the contributions serve to enhance the accuracy of lip reading sentences. The paper also provides an essential survey of the research area. INDEX TERMS deep learning, lip reading, neural networks, perplexity analysis, speech recognition.

4OBJECTIVE: Skin imaging plays a key role in many clinical studies. We have used 5 many skin imaging techniques, including the recently developed capacitive contact 6 skin imaging based on fingerprint sensors. The aim of this study is to develop an 7 effective skin image retrieval technique using Gabor wavelet transform, which can 8 be used on different types of skin images, but with a special focus on skin 9 capacitive contact images. 10 11 METHODS: Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is a useful technology to retrieve 12 stored images from database by supplying query images. In a typical CBIR, images 13 are retrieved based on colour, shape, and texture, etc. In this paper, texture feature 14 is used for retrieving skin images, and Gabor wavelet transform is used for texture 15 feature description and extraction. 16 17 RESULTS:The results show that the Gabor wavelet texture features can work 18 efficiently on different types of skin images. Although Gabor wavelet transform is 19

The results suggest that the capacitance-based sensor is a suitable tool for skin integrity testing of porcine ear skin in vitro and for monitoring changes in skin barrier function.