Computerized detection and segmentation of mitochondria on electron microscope images

Mitochondrial function plays an important role in the regulation of cellular life and death, including disease states. Disturbance in mitochondrial function and distribution can be accompanied by significant morphological alterations. Electron microscopy tomography (EMT) is a powerful technique to study the 3D structure of mitochondria, but the automatic detection and segmentation of mitochondria in EMT volumes has been challenging due to the presence of subcellular structures and imaging artifacts. Therefore, the interpretation, measurement and analysis of mitochondrial distribution and features have been time consuming, and development of specialized software tools is very important for high-throughput analyses needed to expedite the myriad studies on cellular events. Typically, mitochondrial EMT volumes are segmented manually using special software tools. Automatic contour extraction on large images with multiple mitochondria and many other subcellular structures is still an unaddressed problem. The purpose of this work is to develop computer algorithms to detect and segment both fully and partially seen mitochondria on electron microscopy images. The detection method relies on mitochondria's approximately elliptical shape and double membrane boundary. Initial detection results are first refined using active contours. Then, our seed point selection method automatically selects reliable seed points along the contour, and segmentation is finalized by automatically incorporating a live-wire graph search algorithm between these seed points. In our evaluations on four images containing multiple mitochondria, 52 ellipses are detected among which 42 are true and 10 are false detections. After false ellipses are eliminated manually, 14 out of 15 fully seen mitochondria and 4 out of 7 partially seen mitochondria are successfully detected. When compared with the segmentation of a trained reader, 91% Dice similarity coefficient was achieved with an average 4.9 nm boundary error.     

A linear model of elasto-plastic and adhesive contact deformation

Rigorous non-linear models of elasto-plastic contact deformation are time-consuming in numerical calculations for the distinct element method (DEM) and quite often unnecessary to represent the actual contact deformation of common particulate systems. In this work a simple linear elasto-plastic and adhesive contact model for spherical particles is proposed. Plastic deformation of contacts during loading and elastic unloading, accompanied by adhesion are considered, for which the pull-off force increases with plastic deformation. Considering the collision of a spherical cohesive body with a rigid flat target, the critical sticking velocity and coefficient of restitution in the proposed model are found to be very similar to those of Thornton and Ning’s model. Sensitivity analyses of the model parameters such as plastic, elastic, plastic-adhesive stiffnesses and pull-off force on work of compaction are carried out. It is found that by increasing the ratio of elastic to plastic stiffness, the plastic component of the total work increases and the elastic component decreases. By increasing the interface energy, the plastic work increases, but the elastic work does not change. The model can be used to efficiently represent the force-displacement of a wide range of particles, thus enabling fast numerical simulations of particle assemblies by the DEM.     

A regional-scale engineering geological study for selecting suitable rock masses for constructing unlined oil storage caverns in Southern Zagros,Iran

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment - The southern section of the Zagros zone in southwestern Iran, a well-known sedimentary basin, was investigated to address two key questions:...     

Designing an adaptive approach for segmenting non-stationary signals

Signal analysis tools such as Fourier transform are often applicable on data with a limited length. Segmentation is an important pre-processing step in many signal processing applications. Statistical characteristics of the signal in a segment are often preferred to be similar. This characteristic, stationarity, improves performance of signal analysis technique. This article develops an adaptive segmentation method based on wavelet transform and fractal dimension from two aspects. One is to use discrete stationary wavelet transform in pre-processing step instead of using classical wavelet transform. The other is to choose the optimal parameters. Two parameters are needed to calculate the fractal dimension of a decomposed signal, window length and percentage overlapping of the successive windows, which affect the performance of the proposed approach. These parameters are optimally set using the particle swarm optimisation algorithm. Performance of the proposed method is compared with three other existing segmentation methods using both synthetic signal and real data. The results indicate the superiority of the proposed technique in terms of accuracy compared to existing methods.     

Synthesis,characterization and thermal behaviors of polymers containing organosilicon groups

Various bis(silyl)ethenyl groups were attached to the aromatic ring of poly(α-methylstyrene) via Peterson olefination reaction of (RMe₂Si)₃CLi (R = H, Me and Ph) with formylated poly(α-methylstyrene) (Pα-MS-CHO) to give poly(α-methylstyrene)-co-[2,2-bis(silyl)ethenyl(α-methylstyrene)] as functionalized poly(α-methylstyrene) (Pα-MS-SiMe₂H, Pα-MS-SiMe₃ and Pα-MS-SiMe₂Ph). The trimethylsilyl groups of Pα-MS-SiMe₃ have been converted to 2,2-dibromoethenyl and epoxybis(silanes) groups via NBS-based bromodesilylation and MCPBA-based epoxidation respectively. The thermal degradation behaviors of the polymers were studied using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).     

Prediction of H2 Content and Inert Gas Circulation Rate Effects on Batch Annealing Process

Steel strip coils need to be annealed after they leave the cold-rolling process. The purpose of annealing is to improve steel strip formability and to remove residual internal stresses imparted during rolling. Simultaneous increase of circulation rate and inert gas hydrogen content may have considerable effects on reducing the annealing process time. A mathematical model was developed to obtain a more accurate evaluation of the effects of these two parameters on heating and cooling cycles in the annealing process. The results from the simulation of an ordinary annealing process by the proposed model were compared with values measured at site and the accuracy of the model was confirmed. Finally, the effects of increasing hydrogen content and circulation rate were investigated, first independently from each other and then simultaneously. The predictions by the model showed that reduction of annealing time would be considerable when both parameters were simultaneously increased.     

Introduction of an empirical classification system for evaluating tunneling impact on the discharge of springs (TIS) in the surrounding areas

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment - Water inflow caused by tunneling can have severe impacts on the springs’ discharge rate. If these impacts have not been predicted...