Large Tiles Research Articles

Analyzing single-cell bisulfite sequencing data with MethSCAn

Single-cell bisulfite sequencing (scBS) is a technique that enables the assessment of DNA methylation at single-base pair and single-cell resolution. The analysis of large datasets obtained from scBS requires preprocessing to reduce the data size, improve the signal-to-noise ratio and provide interpretability. Typically, this is achieved by dividing the genome into large tiles and averaging the methylation signals within each tile. Here we demonstrate that this coarse-graining approach can lead to signal dilution. We propose improved strategies to identify more informative regions for methylation quantification and a more accurate quantitation method than simple averaging. Our approach enables better discrimination of cell types and other features of interest and reduces the need for large numbers of cells. We also present an approach to detect differentially methylated regions between groups of cells and demonstrate its ability to identify biologically meaningful regions that are associated with genes involved in the core functions of specific cell types. Finally, we present the software tool MethSCAn for scBS data analysis (https://anders-biostat.github.io/MethSCAn).

Large area tiles of position-sensitive silicon photomultipliers

Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are highly sensitive photodetectors emerging as the technology of choice for many applications. In FBK, we developed a position sensitive SiPM technology, called “linearly graded” (LG-SiPM), which is based on an avalanche-current position-weighted partitioning approach. In particular, we recently developed a new version of LG-SiPM with a larger chip area (10 × 10 mm2) and based on NUV-HD technology, having a peak photon detection efficiency at 420 nm. These SiPMs have been characterized in terms of noise, detection efficiency and position resolution.We also developed tiles of 2x2 and 3x3 elements with such SiPMs, reaching very large sensitive areas of about 20 × 20 mm2 and 30 × 30 mm2. In such large area tiles we implemented a “smart channel” configuration, being able to have just 6 output channels and 8 channels respectively, with a position resolution below 0.5 mm. These detectors provide great advantages in all application requiring position resolution but with a small number of readout channels and reduced system complexity.

Effect of Non-Plastic Raw Materials Particle Size on Technological Properties of the Single-Fired Wall Tile Bodies

This study has investigated the effect of particle size of non-plastic components of quartz and pegmatite on some technological properties of wall tile bodies. For this, quartz-pegmatite mixtures were further milled up to 90 min. before adding into the body composition unlike the standard body composition, where quartz and pegmatite were used as-received. The physical and mechanical properties of the bodies were investigated and compared with the standard values. Thermal expansion coefficient and moisture expansion values were determined by a dilatometer. Phase analyses were carried out by X-ray diffraction and microstructural characteristics were studied using a scanning electron microscope. Changes in various technological properties with reducing particle size of the non-plastic components were reported, particularly the increased green and fired strength. It was discussed that using finer particle size non-plastic raw materials of quartz and pegmatite would enable not only increased industrial productivity but also increased producibility of thinner large format wall tiles.

A deep learning-based histopathology classifier for Focal Cortical Dysplasia

A light microscopy-based histopathology diagnosis of human brain specimens obtained from epilepsy surgery remains the gold standard to confirm the underlying cause of a patient’s focal epilepsy and further inform postsurgical patient management. The differential diagnosis of neocortical specimens in the realm of epilepsy surgery remains, however, challenging. Herein, we developed an open access, deep learning-based classifier to histopathologically assess whole slide microscopy images (WSI) and to automatically recognize various subtypes of Focal Cortical Dysplasia (FCD), according to the ILAE consensus classification update of 2022. We trained a convolutional neuronal network (CNN) with fully digitalized WSI of hematoxylin–eosin stainings obtained from 125 patients covering the spectrum of mild malformation of cortical development (mMCD), mMCD with oligodendroglial hyperplasia in epilepsy (MOGHE), FCD ILAE Type 1a, 2a and 2b using 414 formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded archival tissue blocks. An additional series of 198 postmortem tissue blocks from 59 patients without neurological disorders served as control to train the CNN for homotypic frontal, temporal and occipital areas and heterotypic Brodmann areas 4 and 17, entorhinal cortex and dentate gyrus. Special stains and immunohistochemical reactions were used to comprehensively annotate the region of interest. We then programmed a novel tile extraction pipeline and graphical dashboard to visualize all areas on the WSI recognized by the CNN. Our deep learning-based classifier is able to compute 1000 × 1000 µm large tiles and recognizes 25 anatomical regions and FCD categories with an accuracy of 98.8% (F1 score = 0.82). Microscopic review of regions predicted by the network confirmed these results. This deep learning-based classifier will be made available as online web application to support the differential histopathology diagnosis in neocortical human brain specimens obtained from epilepsy surgery. It will also serve as blueprint to build a digital histopathology slide suite addressing all major brain diseases encountered in patients with surgically amenable focal epilepsy.

Proposition for analysis of elastic deformation in ceramic tiles using multilevel factorial design

The production of ceramic tiles requires specific technical properties to allow a wide application, including covering floors and walls, building furniture, and decorative items. Current methods of measuring the dimensions of large ceramic tiles seem inadequate for products that exhibit elastic deformation due to their weight affecting the accuracy and precision of measurements. This paper aims to analyze the influence of format, thickness, and typology variables on the elastic deformation of ceramic tiles. Additionally, this study provides an analysis about which products can be measured by the traditional measurement system without compromising the quality of the results. Tests to determine warpage under different support conditions were performed using a laser-equipped coordinate measuring machine. This technology provided typology, thickness and size, and elastic deformation outcomes. In addition, a multilevel factorial design was carried out using analysis of variance (ANOVA) to investigate the influence of the selected variables. The results suggest that all the studied variables affect the elastic deformation due to the weight of ceramic tiles. The effect of interactions between predictor variables is significant mainly for the largest tiles sizes. The results also show that the current measurement method is indicated for tiles smaller than 30 × 30 cm. Further studies will be conducted to develop a new compatible and reliable method to determine the dimensional characteristics of larger ceramic tiles.

Substrate size modifies stream grazer-biofilm interactions in the presence of invertivorous fish.

When herbivore abundance is controlled by predators there may be an indirect positive effect on primary producers due to reduced grazing pressure, but the potential of predation refuges to modify such trophic cascades has rarely been studied. By experimentally manipulating substrate particle size and fish predation regime, we assessed the outcome of invertebrate grazer-biofilm interactions in streams. Locations at the center of larger substrate particles were predicted to pose a higher predation risk, and therefore be subjected to a lower grazing pressure. In our 52-day experiment in a New Zealand stream, small-sized substrates (terracotta tiles) remained virtually free of periphyton across their entire upper surface, whereas a thick periphyton mat was formed across large tiles with only edges remaining free. In channels containing fish (either native Galaxias vulgaris or exotic Salmo trutta), grazing on tiles was lower than in the absence of fish. A preference for grazing near to the edge of tiles was clearest in fish channels but was also evident even in the absence of fish, probably reflecting fish presence and/or fish kairomones in the stream from where the colonizing invertebrates had been derived. Total grazer density was similar across treatments with or without fish, suggesting that our results can be explained mostly by changes in the behavior of grazers. We suggest that refuge availability, interacting with grazer predator-avoidance behavior, may produce a context-dependent patchwork of trophic cascades in streams and other ecosystems.

Application of Big Data Technology to Promote Agricultural Structure Adjustment and High-Quality Development of Modern Agriculture.

The implementation of the strategy of rural revitalization is a major ministerial work made by the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China and is the general grasp of contemporary agriculture, peasants, and rural work. In recent years, with the rapid development of remote sensing technology and deep learning technology, the demand for the technology for the classification of crops on satellite remote sensing images based on deep learning technology has increased in agricultural insurance and land survey. Therefore, this paper trains one, which is 85.9%–92.8%, the accuracy of corn classification is 77%–93%, and the accuracy of forest classification is 77%–87.6%. Subsequently, the overall accuracy of classifying all directories through the multi-temporal validation data set between May 2017 and October 2017 reached 92.6%. Such a multi-time combination method can be used for monthly, timely, and efficient iteration of agricultural insurance and crop yield estimation, which will be more accurate each time. These methods can also be further applied to the growth and change monitoring of large agricultural planting areas, adding bricks and tiles to China's agricultural remote sensing. If the countryside is to be revitalized, agriculture must develop rapidly at the same time, industries must flourish, ecology must be livable, rural customs must be civilized, and life must be prosperous. Modern agriculture is a comprehensive circulation system with high yield, high quality, low consumption, ecology, environmental protection, and high efficiency. The development of modern agriculture is inseparable from the industrialization of agriculture, the globalization of agriculture, the digitization of agriculture, the integration of agriculture, the adjustment of agricultural structure, and agricultural innovation. Only the continuous development of modern agriculture can make rural revitalization enter a new journey.

A Parallelizable Integer Linear Programming Approach for Tiling Finite Regions of the Plane with Polyominoes

The general problem of tiling finite regions of the plane with polyominoes is NP-complete, and so the associated computational geometry problem rapidly becomes intractable for large instances. Thus, the need to reduce algorithm complexity for tiling is important and continues as a fruitful area of research. Traditional approaches to tiling with polyominoes use backtracking, which is a refinement of the ‘brute-force’ solution procedure for exhaustively finding all solutions to a combinatorial search problem. In this work, we combine checkerboard colouring techniques with a recently introduced integer linear programming (ILP) technique for tiling with polyominoes. The colouring arguments often split large tiling problems into smaller subproblems, each represented as a separate ILP problem. Problems that are amenable to this approach are embarrassingly parallel, and our work provides proof of concept of a parallelizable algorithm. The main goal is to analyze when this approach yields a potential parallel speedup. The novel colouring technique shows excellent promise in yielding a parallel speedup for finding large tiling solutions with ILP, particularly when we seek a single (optimal) solution. We also classify the tiling problems that result from applying our colouring technique according to different criteria and compute representative examples using a combination of MATLAB and CPLEX, a commercial optimization package that can solve ILP problems. The collections of MATLAB programs PARIOMINOES (v3.0.0) and POLYOMINOES (v2.1.4) used to construct the ILP problems are freely available for download.

A systematic approach for horizontal and vertical scale up of sintered Ultra-High Temperature Ceramic Matrix Composites for aerospace – Advances and perspectives

Ultra-High Temperature Ceramic Matrix Composites (UHTCMCs) are the next generation composites developed for application in the harsh environment of aerospace. Qualification of these materials requires the manufacturing of demonstrators for testing in relevant environments, which in turn, requires to scale them up. This paper illustrates the systematic approach adopted for the scale-up of UHTCMCs based on carbon fibre reinforced zirconium diboride plus silicon carbide from laboratory to industrial scale dimensions. The scale-up process covered a period of three years and concerned an increase in diameter of ∼10 times (from 40 to 400 mm), and in thickness of ∼30 times (from 5 to 160 mm). Small-scale products were consolidated by hot pressing at ISTEC whilst larger samples were consolidated by an industrial spark plasma sintering facility (NanokerResearch, Spain). After each scale-up step, reproducibility of composition, microstructure and properties was carefully checked. Thanks to the homogenous fibre distribution and sapient dosing of secondary phases, composites with different diameters and thickness were successfully consolidated by both techniques with little adjustment of sintering parameters up to the maximum size of available industrial furnaces . The large discs produced allowed production of 170 mm long bars for tensile testing and large tiles for hypersonic wind tunnel tests . Thick samples were useful to machine complex shapes such as screws and nuts, vertical bars for characterization of properties along the composite thickness and nozzle demonstrators. • ZrB 2 -Cf composites were scaled-up 10 times in diameter, 30 times in thickness. • A manufact of UHTCMC material weighting 11 kg was produced for the first time. • The same mechanisms were efficient for scale-up in diameter and thickness. • Reproducible microstructure-properties were assessed from lab to industrial scale. • Large components such as plates, nozzle inserts, screw and nuts were fabricated.

A New Algorithm Based on Colouring Arguments for Identifying Impossible Polyomino Tiling Problems

Checkerboard colouring arguments for proving that a given collection of polyominoes cannot tile a finite target region of the plane are well-known and typically applied on a case-by-case basis. In this article, we give a systematic mathematical treatment of such colouring arguments, based on the concept of a parity violation, which arises from the mismatch between the colouring of the tiles and the colouring of the target region. Identifying parity violations is a combinatorial problem related to the subset sum problem. We convert the combinatorial problem into linear Diophantine equations and give necessary and sufficient conditions for a parity violation. The linear Diophantine equation approach leads to an algorithm implemented in MATLAB for finding all possible parity violations of large tiling problems, and is the main contribution of this article. Numerical examples illustrate the effectiveness of our algorithm. The collection of MATLAB programs, POLYOMINO_PARITY (v2.0.0) is freely available for download.

Water transport pathways influence the propagation of field‐scale NO3−‐N reductions to the watershed scale

AbstractDiffuse nutrient runoff from agricultural fields can result in the eutrophication of downstream water bodies, highlighting a need for conservation efforts to reduce dissolved nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) loading to adjacent waterways. However, few studies explore how the impacts of field‐scale conservation manifest at the watershed scale. We explored how sources of streamflow and nutrients may influence the magnitude of the impact of conservation practices at a field versus watershed scale at the Shatto ditch watershed (SDW), where the planting of winter cover crops reduced field‐scale nitrate‐N (NO3−‐N) losses from subsurface tile drains by 69%–90%; yet watershed NO3−‐N export only decreased by 13%. To resolve this discrepancy, we used a water budget approach paired with water stable isotope (18O and 2H) analysis to determine the composition of streamflow across seasons, sampling five times from November 2018 to September 2019. While we hypothesized that watershed‐scale patterns in nutrient export were driven by direct groundwater upwelling, we found that this pathway only accounted for 43% of streamflow on average. We also developed a NO3−‐N mass balance for the watershed during our November 2018 sampling; results indicated groundwater upwelling contributed only ~1% of NO3−‐N export at the watershed outlet, while subsurface tile drains contributed the remaining 99%. Specifically, three large county tile drains (with an unknown drainage area and extent of conservation practice implementation) contributed ~69% of the watershed NO3−‐N export, obscuring the impacts of field‐scale conservation in SDW. Our study highlights the importance of cross‐scale analyses to accurately evaluate the effect of conservation given the interactions between sources of streamflow and nutrient loss at the watershed scale.

Development of analog signal transmission in LAr for DUNE

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is currently investigating a new prototype design for its second far detector module. The new concept proposes a vertical drift liquid argon time projection chamber, with a cathode at mid-height in the detector and anodes made of printed circuit boards, located at the top and bottom of the detector. In this context, the design of the photo-detection system needs to be revisited, opening a window of opportunity for further optimization and new developments. It is envisaged to distribute the photo-sensors (x-ARAPUCA) on the cathode surface. Such a system is required to operate within high-voltage surfaces, with both power supply and signal delivered using non-conductive materials. This article describes the on-going work to collect and read-out the signal of the photo-sensors, which are re-shaped into large tiles containing 160 SiPMs each. A new ganging scheme for the SiPMs is introduced. In particular, this article will focus on the proposed option to read out the sensors using an analog optical transmitter, that should ensure the transmission of the signals — with a wide dynamic range — to the outside of the cryostat to be digitized.

Performance of scintillating tiles with direct silicon-photomultiplier (SiPM) readout for application to large area detectors

The light yield, the time resolution and the efficiency of different types of scintillating tiles with direct Silicon Photomultiplier readout and instrumented with a customised front-end electronics have been measured at the Beam Test Facility of Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati and several test stands. The results obtained on minimum ionising particles with different detector configurations are presented. A time resolution of the order of 300 ps, a light yield of more than 230 photo-electrons, and an efficiency better than 99.8% are obtained with ∼ 225 cm2 large area tiles. This technology is suitable for a wide range of applications in high-energy physics, in particular for large area muon and timing detectors.

The DUNE vertical drift photon detection system

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a long-baseline neutrino experiment designed to mainly investigate oscillation parameters, supernova physics and proton decay. Its far detector will be composed of four liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) underground modules, in South Dakota-USA, which will detect a neutrino beam produced at Fermilab, 1300 km away, where a near detector will be in place. The second DUNE far detector module, vertical drift, will be a single phase LArTPC with electron drift along the vertical axis with two volumes of 13.5 m × 6.5 m × 60 m dimensions separated by a cathode plane. The charge collection will be performed by two anode planes placed at the top and bottom of the module, each composed by stacked layers of a perforated PCB technology with electrode strips. The photon detection system (PDS) will make use of large size X-Arapuca tiles distributed over three detection planes. One plane will consist of a horizontal arrangement of double sided tiles installed on the high voltage cathode plane and two vertical planes, each placed on the longest cryostat membrane walls. A light active coverage of 14.8% over the cathode and 7.4% over the laterals should allow improvements in the low energy physics range that can be probed in DUNE, especially regarding supernova neutrinos (∼10 MeV). We present the initial characterization of the vertical drift PDS using a Monte Carlo simulation and preliminary studies on its reconstruction capabilities at the MeV scale. The information obtained with the PDS alone should allow determination of a neutrino interaction region with a precision of at least 65 cm for events with deposited energy above 5 MeV and the deposited energy can be reconstructed with precision better than 10%, both at the center of the volume.

Highly Integrated Multiplexing and Buffering Electronics for Large Aperture Ultrasonic Arrays.

Large aperture ultrasonic arrays can be implemented by tiling together multiple pretested modules of high-density acoustic arrays with closely integrated multiplexing and buffering electronics to form a larger aperture with high yield. These modular arrays can be used to implement large 1.75D array apertures capable of focusing in elevation for uniform slice thickness along the axial direction which can improve image contrast. An important goal for large array tiling is obtaining high yield and sensitivity while reducing extraneous image artifacts. We have been developing tileable acoustic-electric modules for the implementation of large array apertures utilizing Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) implemented using 0.35 μm high voltage (50 V) CMOS. Multiple generations of ASICs have been designed and tested. The ASICs were integrated with high-density transducer arrays for acoustic testing and imaging. The modules were further interfaced to a Verasonics Vantage imaging system and were used to image industry standard ultrasound phantoms. The first-generation modules comprise ASICs with both multiplexing and buffering electronics on-chip and have demonstrated a switching artifact which was visible in the images. A second-generation ASIC design incorporates low switching injection circuits which effectively mitigate the artifacts observed with the first-generation devices. Here, we present the architecture of the two ASIC designs and module types as well imaging results that demonstrate reduction in switching artifacts for the second-generation devices.

Multi-Scale Input Strategies for Medulloblastoma Tumor Classification using Deep Transfer Learning

Abstract Medulloblastoma (MB) is a primary central nervous system tumor and the most common malignant brain cancer among children. Neuropathologists perform microscopic inspection of histopathological tissue slides under a microscope to assess the severity of the tumor. This is a timeconsuming task and often infused with observer variability. Recently, pre-trained convolutional neural networks (CNN) have shown promising results for MB subtype classification. Typically, high-resolution images are divided into smaller tiles for classification, while the size of the tiles has not been systematically evaluated. We study the impact of tile size and input strategy and classify the two major histopathological subtypes-Classic and Desmoplastic/Nodular. To this end, we use recently proposed EfficientNets and evaluate tiles with increasing size combined with various downsampling scales. Our results demonstrate using large input tiles pixels followed by intermediate downsampling and patch cropping significantly improves MB classification performance. Our top-performing method achieves the AUC-ROC value of 90.90% compared to 84.53% using the previous approach with smaller input tiles.

Adhesion Strength Change Analysis Based on the Application Surface Area Ratio of Spot-Bonded Tiles on Vertical Walls of High Humidity Facilities

Facility walls with high relative humidity, such as bathrooms or kitchens installed with tiles by spot-bonding methods, become far more prone to defect or adhesion failure when using large or heavy tiles and insufficient application area of adhesive but is still continued to be practiced due to their low costs in the material. Most importantly, if this practice is to be continued, the changes in adhesion strength of the tiles based on different adhesive application areas of adhesives must be clarified such that the very least secure application can be achieved even by using spot-bonding methods. In this regard, an experiment was conducted in this study where tile-adhered specimens with different adhesive-applied area ratios (AR) of 60 ± 2%, 80 ± 2%, and 100% were prepared. Tile adhesion strength was subsequently measured, after sectioning the entire surface of the tile into 40 pieces. Experimental results showed that the adhesion strength above the standard criteria could be achieved for about 75% of the entire tile with AR 100% conditioning, followed by 30% of the entire tile with AR 80 ± 2% conditioning, and 20% of the entire tile for AR 60 ± 2% conditioning. Further analysis showed that with AR 80 ± 2% and AR 60 ± 2% conditions, the overall adhesion strength decreased by the range of about 59–67% compared to the AR 100% application conditions. The results of the study intended to provide an analytical basis of guidelines and risks with the potential usage of spot-bonding and should only be used if AR 100% application is planned.

Data fusion approach for eucalyptus trees identification

ABSTRACT Remote sensing is based on the extraction of data, acquired by satellites or aircrafts, through multispectral images, that allow their remote analysis and classification. Analysing those images with data fusion techniques is a promising approach for identification and classification of forest types. Fusion techniques can aggregate various sources of heterogeneous information to generate value-added maps, facilitating forest-type classification. This work applies a data fusion algorithm, denoted FIF (Fuzzy Information Fusion), which combines computational intelligence techniques with multicriteria concepts and techniques, to automatically distinguish Eucalyptus trees from satellite images. The algorithm customization was performed with a Portuguese area planted with Eucalyptus. After customizing and validating the approach with several representative scenarios to assess its suitability for automatic classification of Eucalyptus, we tested on a large tile obtaining a sensitivity of 69.61%, with a specificity of 99.43%, and an overall accuracy of 98.19%. This work demonstrates the potential of our approach to automatically classify specific forest types from satellite images, since this is a novel approach dedicated to the identification of eucalyptus trees.

Improving the sustainability of ceramic tile-making by mixing spray-dried and dry-granulated powders

Current trends in the ceramic industry see an increasing interest on porcelain stoneware, by which is possible to produce large tiles and slabs. These products are manufactured by spray-dried powders, which have excellent technological properties but require high energy and water consumption. Dry-processed granulates allow to reduce such a consumption, but suffer from a different technological behavior. A solution to improve the environmental sustainability of ceramic tile-making is mixing powders prepared by the wet and the dry routes. The technological features of industrially manufactured mixed powders was investigated (rheological properties, compaction response and firing behavior) in order to point out advantages and possible pitfalls. Dry-processed and spray-dried granulates exhibit different distributions of size, shape and moisture that reflect on distinct rheological and compaction behaviors. Mixed powders show a more or less accentuated deviation from linearity between the end terms. This fact makes possible to add up to ∼50% dry granulates by keeping the technological properties close to current industrial bodies. Sparings of water, energy and CO2 emission for the milling and granulation stages are estimated for a mix 50% spray-dried and 50% dry-processed powders.

Effect of Injecting Epoxy Resin Adhesive into Cement Mortar on Tile Adhesion Performance

Large porcelain tiles have attracted increased demand owing to their cost-effectiveness and superior esthetics. Here, an epoxy resin adhesive was injected into cement mortar, which was then applied to tiles. The adhesion performance of the tiles was subsequently evaluated in terms of the permeability and drying shrinkage under various curing conditions. The epoxy resin adhesive not only penetrated the tile–mortar and mortar–concrete interfaces, but also directly penetrated the mortar, thus enhancing the mechanical adhesion at each interface. In addition to the mechanical adhesion between the tiles and mortar, the epoxy resin adhesive prevents the degradation of adhesion due to shear stress by minimizing the moisture evaporation and shrinkage of the mortar. Evaluation of the adhesion characteristics under water and freeze–thaw curing conditions revealed the vulnerability of the epoxy resin to moisture; however, adequate adhesion performance was observed when the epoxy resin was air-cured prior to being exposed to harsh environments. Moreover, the injection method did not prolong the construction period, but could potentially reduce it during actual application. Nevertheless, further research on the adhesion performance of tiles with injected epoxy resin adhesive is required to evaluate the long-term durability.