Automatic diatom identification using contour analysis by morphological curvature scale spaces

A method for automatic identification of diatoms (single-celled algae with silica shells) based on extraction of features on the contour of the cells by multi-scale mathematical morphology is presented. After extracting the contour of the cell, it is smoothed adaptively, encoded using Freeman chain code, and converted into a curvature representation which is invariant under translation and scale change. A curvature scale space is built from these data, and the most important features are extracted from it by unsupervised cluster analysis. The resulting pattern vectors, which are also rotation-invariant, provide the input for automatic identification of diatoms by decision trees and k-nearest neighbor classifiers. The method is tested on two large sets of diatom images. The techniques used are applicable to other shapes besides diatoms. Andrei C. Jalba received his B.Sc. (1998) and M.Sc. (1999) in Applied Electronics and Information Engineering from “Politehnica” University of Bucharest, Romania. He recently obtained a Ph.D. degree at the Institute for Mathematics and Computing Science of the University of Groningen, where he now is a postdoctoral researcher. His research interests include computer vision, pattern recognition, image processing, and parallel computing. Michael Wilkinson obtained an M.Sc. in astronomy from the Kapteyn Laboratory, University of Groningen (RuG) in 1993, after which he worked on image analysis of intestinal bacteria at the Department of Medical Microbiology, RuG. This work formed the basis of his Ph.D. at the Institute of Mathematics and Computing Science (IWI), RuG, in 1995. He was appointed as researcher at the Centre for High Performance Computing (also RuG) working on simulating the intestinal microbial ecosystem on parallel computers. During that time he edited the book “Digital Image Analysis of Microbes” (John Wiley, UK, 1998) together with Frits Schut. After this he worked as a researcher at the IWI on image analysis of diatoms. He is currently assistant professor at the IWI. Jos B.T.M. Roerdink received his M.Sc. (1979) in theoretical physics from the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Following his Ph.D. (1983) from the University of Utrecht and a 2-year position (1983--1985) as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Diego, both in the area of stochastic processes, he joined the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam. There he worked from 1986-1992 on image processing and tomographic reconstruction. He was appointed associate professor (1992) and full professor (2003), respectively, at the Institute for Mathematics and Computing Science of the University of Groningen, where he currently holds a chair in Scientific Visualization and Computer Graphics. His current research interests include biomedical visualization, neuroimaging and bioinformatics. Micha Bayer graduated from St. Andrews University, Scotland, with an M.Sc. in Marine Biology in 1994. He obtained his Ph.D. in Marine Biology from there in 1998, and then followed this up with two postdoctoral positions at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Scotland, first on the ADIAC and then on the DIADIST project. In both of these projects he was responsible for establishing the collections of diatom training data to be used for the pattern recognition systems. From 2002–2003 he was enrolled for an M.Sc. in information technology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and is now working as a grid developer at the National e-Science Centre at Glasgow University. Stephen Juggins is a senior lecturer at the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle. His research focuses on the use of diatoms for monitoring environmental change and on the analysis of ecological and palaeoecological data. He has worked in Europe, North America and Central Asia on problems of river water quality, historical lake acidification, coastal eutrophication and Quaternary climate change.     

A model of non‐isothermal degradation of nutrients,pigments and enzymes

Published isothermal degradation curves for chlorophyll A and thiamine in the range 100–150 °C and the inactivation curves of polyphenol oxidase (PPO) in the range 50–80 °C could be described by the model C(t)/C₀ = exp[?b(T)tⁿ] where C(t) and C₀ are the momentary and initial concentrations, respectively, b(T) a temperature dependent ‘rate parameter’ and n, a constant. This suggested that the temporal degradation/inactivation events of all three had a Weibull distribution with a practically constant shape factor. The temperature dependence of the ‘rate parameter’ could be described by the log logistic model, b(T) = log_e[1 + exp[k(T ? T_c)], where T_c is a marker of the temperature level where the degradation/inactivation occurs at a significant rate and k the steepness of the b(T) increase once this temperature range has been exceeded. These two models were combined to produce a non‐isothermal degradation/inactivation model, similar to one recently developed for microbial inactivation. It is based on the assumption that the local slope of the non‐isothermal decay curve, ie the momentary decay rate, is the slope of the isothermal curve at the momentary temperature at a time that corresponds to the momentary concentration of the still intact or active molecules. This model, in the form of a differential equation, was solved numerically to produce degradation/inactivation curves under temperature profiles that included heating and cooling and oscillating temperatures. Such simulations can be used to assess the impact of planned commercial heat processes on the stability of compounds of nutritional and quality concerns and the efficacy of methods to inactivate enzymes. Simulated decay curves on which a random noise was superimposed were used to demonstrate that the degradation/inactivation parameters, k and T_c, can be calculated directly from non‐isothermal decay curves, provided that the validity of the Weibullian and log logistic models and the constancy of the shape factor n could be assumed. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

The Activation of a Pd/γ-alumina Catalyst During Methane Combustion: Investigation of the Phenomenon and of Potential Causes

Activation phenomena of a Pd/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst under methane combustion reaction conditions were studied. The activation of the catalyst with time-on-stream is not due to Cl removal from the surface but seems to be related to sintering of the palladium particles. This could induce structural changes in the palladium particle, which would favor the activation of O₂ on the surface of PdO.     

Implicit induction in conditional theories

We propose a new procedure for proof by induction in conditional theories where case analysis is simulated by term rewriting. This technique reduces considerably the number of variables of a conjecture to be considered for applying induction schemes. Our procedure is presented as a set of inference rules whose correctness has been formally proved. Moreover, when the axioms are ground convergent and the functions are completely defined, it is possible to apply the system for refuting conjectures. The procedure is even refutationally complete for conditional equations with Boolean preconditions over free constructors. The method is entirely implemented in the proverSPIKE. This system has solved interesting problems in a completely automatic way, that is, without interaction with the user and without ad hoc heuristics. It has also proved the challenging Gilbreath card trick, with only two easy lemmas.Preliminary versions of the results have been presented at the 13th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Chambéry (France), 1993 (Bouhoula and Rusinowith, 1993).     

Biofunctionalized upconverting CaF<Subscript>2</Subscript>:Yb,Tm nanoparticles for <Emphasis Type="Italic">Candida albicans</Emphasis> detection and imaging

Versatile optimization of the synthesis method and composition of Yb3+ and Tm3+ co-doped CaF2 nanoparticles as well as a novel biofunctionalization method were developed and evaluated.Through multistep synthesis,the luminescence intensity of the Tm3+ activator was enhanced by more than 10-fold compared to standard one-step synthesis.The proposed methods were used to homogenously distribute the doping ions within the nanoparticle's volume and thus reduce luminescence quenching.Optimization of dopant ions concentration led to the selection of the most efficient visible and near-infrared up-converting nanoparticles,which were CaF2 doped with 10％ Yb3+ 0.05％ Tm3+ and 20％ Yb3+ 0.5％ Tm3+,respectively.To illustrate the suitability of the synthesized nanoparticles as bio-labels,a dedicated biofunctionalization method was used,and the nanoparticles were applied for labeling and imaging of Candida albicans cells.This method shows great promise because of extremely low background and high specificity because of the presence of the attached molecules.     

Quantum dots as versatile probes in medical sciences: Synthesis,modification and properties

Quantum dots (QDs) are semiconductor inorganic fluorescent nanocrystals in the size range between 1 and 20 nm. Due to their very small size, they possess unique properties and behave in different way than crystals in macro scale. The specificity of QDs makes them widespread in many branches of human life. The disciplines that took recently huge advantage from the development of nanotechnology are medicine and pharmacy. The creation of particles of very tiny sizes allowed these two sciences to develop or revolutionize the techniques of diagnosis or drug delivery. The most important feature for application of fluorescent nanocrystals in medical and pharmaceutical sciences is their high surface to volume ratio enabling QDs' conjugation to multiple ligands. Other properties of great importance are dispersibility and water stability, high and not easy quenched fluorescence, biocompatibility, and small and uniform sizes. In this review with ca. 200 references the recent developments in QD synthesis, surface modification, QD-based bioimaging, biotracking of drug molecules, biosensing and photodynamic therapy are summarized.     

Non-minimum-phase property of N-trailer kinematics resulting from off-axle interconnections

Off-axle interconnections between segments of N-trailer vehicles may imply specific oscillatory behaviour of trailers during vehicle manoeuvres. The paper reveals that this kind of oscillations is a direct consequence of the non-minimum-phase property of vehicle kinematics resulting from application of off-axle interconnections between vehicle segments. First we show the non-minimum-phase property for dynamics of a single pair of interconnected segments, and then how it propagates along the N-trailers equipped with arbitrary number of off-axle interconnections. By referring to available results for linear systems, we locally analyse linearly approximated vehicle kinematics around selected steady-motion conditions. We focus on the time-response effects like undershooting, zero-crossing, and overshooting caused by off-axle interconnections. We show how the number and type of interconnections influence the non-minimum-phase effects. Numerical results obtained for three-trailer kinematics validate theoretical considerations providing some quantitative view of the problem. Short discussion has been provided on the possible control-level consequences resulting from the non-minimum-phase property of N-trailers.     

Discrimination of Korean beef from beef of other origin by stable isotope measurements

Beef samples from Korea and from some of the main beef exporting countries (USA, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand) were analysed for carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen isotope ratios of the defatted dried matter. Results showed that the samples from each country investigated could be assigned to a typical isotope signature and can be separated from each other. The main discriminating factors were δ¹³C and δ²H, which mainly reflect feeding of C₃ and C₄-plants and the isotopic composition of the water, respectively, consumed by the cattle. Australian beef showed the largest variation in its isotopic signature, suggesting heterogeneous rearing conditions. By contrast, for beef from New Zealand, Mexico, USA and Korea, each batch had typical signatures with a smaller variability.     

Drying of Herbal Product in Closed System

A new product from a low temperature drying method that reduces the loss of highly volatile essential oils is presented. The proposed drying method consists of evaporation/sublimation of water and aromatic substances in a dryer with a closed drying agent cycle. In parallel, the evaporated compounds are continuously condensed in a heat exchanger. As a result of the drying process, high-quality dried plants and Fluidolat as liquid phase containing water and volatile organic compounds are obtained. The aim of presented investigations was to optimize the developed technology for the herb lavender.