Geometric attraction-driven flow for image segmentation and boundary detection

Novel forces in image segmentation based on active contours models are proposed for capturing objects in the image. Contemplating the common functionality of forces in previous active contours models, we propose the geometric attraction-driven flow (GADF), the binary edge function, and the binary balloon forces to detect objects in difficult cases such as varying illumination and complex shapes. The orientation of GADF is orthogonally aligned with the boundary of object and has the opposite direction across the boundary. It prevents the leakage through weak edges of objects, which occur due to illumination. To reduce the interference from other forces, we design the binary edge function using the property of the orientation in the GADF. We also design the binary balloon force based on the four-color theorem. Combining with initial dual level set functions, the proposed model captures holes in objects and multiple junctions from different colors. The result does not depend on positions of initial contours.     

Rational Design of Charge‐Neutral,Near‐Infrared‐Emitting Osmium(II) Complexes and OLED Fabrication

A new series of charge neutral Os(II) isoquinolyl triazolate complexes ( 1 – 4 ) with both trans and cis arrangement of phosphine donors are synthesized, and their structural, electrochemical and photophysical properties are established. In sharp contrast to the cis‐arranged complexes 2 – 4 , the trans derivative 1 , which shows a planar arrangement of chromophoric N‐substituted chelates, offers the most effective extended π‐delocalization and hence the lowest excited state energy gap. These complexes exhibit phosphorescence with peak wavelengths ranging from 692–805 nm in degassed CH₂Cl₂ at room temperature. Near‐infrared (NIR)‐emitting electroluminescent devices employing 6 wt % of 1 (or 4 ) doped in Alq₃ host material are successfully fabricated. The devices incorporating 1 as NIR phosphor exhibit fairly intense emission with a peak wavelength at 814 nm. Forward radiant emittance reaches as high as 65.02 µW cm^?2, and a peak EQE of ～1.5% with devices employing Alq₃, TPBi and/or TAZ as electron‐transporting/exciton‐blocking layers. Upon switching to phosphor 4 , the electroluminescence blue shifts to 718 nm, while the maximum EQE and radiance increase to 2.7% and 93.26 (μW cm^?2) respectively. Their performances are optimized upon using TAZ as the electron transporting and exciton‐blocking material. The OLEDs characterized represent the only NIR‐emitting devices fabricated using charge‐neutral and volatile Os(II) phosphors via thermal vacuum deposition.     

An Alternative Route Towards Metal–Polymer Hybrid Materials Prepared by Vapor‐Phase Processing

Transition metals incorporated into polymers lead to unusual or improved physical properties that significantly differ from those of purely organic polymers. A simple and practicable incorporation of diverse transition metals into any available polymer would make an important contribution to overcome some of the synthetic difficulties of metal‐polymer hybrid materials. Here, it is demonstrated that atomic layer deposition (ALD) can be a promising means to resolve some of those difficulties. It is found that even polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) with its great physical and chemical stability can be easily transformed into a transition metal–PTFE hybrid material simply by applying a metal‐oxide ALD process to PTFE. Upon metal incorporation into the PTFE, the molecular structure as well as mechanical properties (tensile behavior) of PTFE were observed to significantly change. For a better understanding of the changes to the material, experimental investigations using Raman spectroscopy, attenuated‐total‐reflection Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy, wide‐angle X‐ray diffraction, and energy‐dispersive X‐ray analysis were performed. In addition, with density functional theory calculations, potential bonding states of the incorporated metal into PTFE were modeled and predicted. The ALD‐based vapor‐phase approach for metal incorporation into a polymer could bring about rapid progress in the research area of metal–polymer hybrid materials.     

Synthesis and electroluminescent properties of blue emitting materials based on arylamine-substituted diphenylvinylbiphenyl derivatives for organic light-emitting diodes

This paper reports the synthesis and electroluminescent properties of a series of blue emitting materials with arylamine and diphenylvinylbiphenyl groups for applications to efficient blue organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). All devices exhibited blue electroluminescence with electroluminescent properties that were quite sensitive to the structural features of the dopants in the emitting layers. In particular, the device using dopant 4 exhibited sky-blue emission with a maximum luminance, luminance efficiency, power efficiency, external quantum efficiency and CIE coordinates of 39,000 cd/m², 12.3 cd/A, 7.45 lm/W, 7.71% at 20 mA/cm² and (x = 0.17, y = 0.31) at 8 V, respectively. In addition, a blue OLED using dopant 2 with CIE coordinates (x = 0.16, y = 0.18) at 8 V exhibited a luminous efficiency, power efficiency and external quantum efficiency of 4.39 cd/A, 2.46 lm/W and 2.97% at 20 mA/cm², respectively.     

Discrimination of breast cancer by measuring prostate-specific antigen levels in women's serum

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) has been reported to be a potential biomarker of breast cancer. Serum PSA of normal women is around 1 pg/mL, which is usually undetectable by current assay methods; thus an ultrasensitive measurement of PSA expression in women's serum is necessary to distinguish normal from malignant breast diseases. To enhance the sensitivity of conventional immunoassay technology for the detection of PSA in sera, we adopted a localized surface plasmon coupled fluorescence fiber-optic biosensor, which combines a sandwich immunoassay with the localized surface plasmon technique. The concentration of total PSA (t-PSA) (from 0.1 to 1000 pg/mL) in phosphate-buffered saline solution and the normalized fluorescence signal exhibit a linear relationship where the correlation coefficient is 0.9574. In addition, the concentration of additional t-PSA in 10-fold-diluted healthly women's serum across a similar range was measured. The correlation coefficient for this measurement is 0.9142. In clinical serum samples, moreover, the experimental results of t-PSA detection show that both the mean value and median of normalized fluorescence signals in the breast cancer group (155.2 and 145.7, respectively) are higher than those in the noncancer group (46.6 and 37.1, respectively). We also examined the receiver operating characteristic curve for t-PSA, and the area under the curve (AUC) is estimated to be 0.9063, the AUC being used to measure the performance of a test to correctly identify diseased and nondiseased subjects.     

Synthesis of BiFeO3/ZnO core-shell hetero-structures using ZnO nanorod positive templates

We report the synthesis, morphology, and magnetization characteristics of BiFeO(3) (BFO)-covered ZnO nanorod arrays (ZNAs). High quality and well-aligned ZNAs were grown by a hydrothermal method. BFO shells were deposited by sputtering at ambient temperature and then annealing in an oxygen atmosphere. The BFO shells crystallized to form a perovskite structure at 450?°C. Scanning electron microscopy and high resolution transmission electron microscopy demonstrated that the BFO shell was polycrystalline and randomly oriented, covering the ZnO nanorods well. The magnetization-magnetic field loops measured at 5 and 300 K indicate that the BFO/ZNA hetero-structure exhibits ferromagnetic order. The BFO/ZNA displays enhanced coercivity and saturated magnetization as compared with BFO thin films.     

Wavelet transform coding for MCP error images using quadtree decomposition and ECVQ

This paper proposes a new wavelet transform video coder which employs motion compensation, wavelet decomposition, and entropy-constrained vector quantization (ECVQ), in sequence. Each of layered subimages obtained from wavelet decomposition is segmented into basic blocks, and then the blocks are selectively encoded by ECVQ according to the energy of the samples. We introduce an efficient method to encode the map representing which blocks are encoded, based on inter-band prediction followed by a quadtree encoding. The proposed coder uses a simple forward analyzer in order to optimize the encoding parameters and introduces a preprocessing of signals which normalizes the input vectors of ECVQ in order to reduce the image-dependency of ECVQ codebooks. Simulation results show that our video coder provides good PSNR (peak-to-peak signal-to-noise ratio) performance and efficient rate control.     

RII: Renovating the irregular illumination of digital image archives

Digitization is critical for preserving valuable culture archives such as texts and images. Considering the physical characters of digital cameras or scanners and the artificial negligence, some distortions such as under-exposure or over-exposure often appear in the digital form of archives. These distortions decrease the quality of the digital pieces and lead to disputation in some circumstances. Several methods have been used to deal with these illumination problems. These existing methods mainly focus on how to mitigate the under-exposure phenomenon in text-only or text-photo images. Over-exposure cases in which brightness comes from different orientations are not considered. Hence, we propose a novel system for renovating irregular illumination (RII) to handle the over-exposure problem as well as under-exposure distortion. Experimental results show that the processing outcomes of RII can guarantee accurate restoration of the transformed digital pieces. In particular, RII can be extended to improve the uneven light distribution problem for complicated and colorful images.     

Encapsulation of Nanoparticles Using Nitrilotriacetic Acid End‐Functionalized Polystyrenes and Their Application for the Separation of Proteins

The use of nitrilotriacetic acid end‐functionalized polystyrenes (NTA‐PS) as a multifunctional nanocarrier for the aqueous dispersion of CdSe, γ‐Fe₂O₃ and gold nanoparticles (NPs) is described. When the amphiphilic end‐ functionalized polystyrenes and NPs are dissolved together in tetrahydrofuran, the addition of water causes the spontaneous formation of micellar aggregates, resulting in the successful encapsulation and aqueous dispersion of NPs. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) are used to characterize the structure and properties of the NPs‐containing micellar aggregates (nanocarrier). After complexation of Ni²⁺ with NTA on the surface of the nanocarrier containing γ‐Fe₂O₃, specific binding between Ni‐NTA complex and histidine‐tagged (His‐tagged) proteins enables selective separation of His‐tagged proteins using a magnet.