Surface reconstruction from microscopic images in optical lithography.

This paper presents a method to reconstruct 3D surfaces of silicon wafers from 2D images of printed circuits taken with a scanning electron microscope. Our reconstruction method combines the physical model of the optical acquisition system with prior knowledge about the shapes of the patterns in the circuit; the result is a shape-from-shading technique with a shape prior. The reconstruction of the surface is formulated as an optimization problem with an objective functional that combines a data-fidelity term on the microscopic image with two prior terms on the surface. The data term models the acquisition system through the irradiance equation characteristic of the microscope; the first prior is a smoothness penalty on the reconstructed surface, and the second prior constrains the shape of the surface to agree with the expected shape of the pattern in the circuit. In order to account for the variability of the manufacturing process, this second prior includes a deformation field that allows a nonlinear elastic deformation between the expected pattern and the reconstructed surface. As a result, the minimization problem has two unknowns, and the reconstruction method provides two outputs: 1) a reconstructed surface and 2) a deformation field. The reconstructed surface is derived from the shading observed in the image and the prior knowledge about the pattern in the circuit, while the deformation field produces a mapping between the expected shape and the reconstructed surface that provides a measure of deviation between the circuit design models and the real manufacturing process.

Quantitative optical coherence tomography for characterization of microscopic structures with varying refractive index

In this paper we have done back to back comparison of quantitive phase and refractive index from a microscopic image of waveguide previously obtained by Allsop et al. Paper also shows microscopic image of the first 3 waveguides from the sample. Tomlins et al. have demonstrated use of femtosecond fabricated artefacts as OCT calibration samples. Here we present the use of femtosecond waveguides, inscribed with optimized parameters, to test and calibrate the sensitivity of the OCT systems.

Quantitative optical coherence tomography for characterization of microscopic structures with varying refractive index

In this paper we have done back to back comparison of quantitive phase and refractive index from a microscopic image of waveguide previously obtained by Allsop et al. Paper also shows microscopic image of the first 3 waveguides from the sample. Tomlins et al. have demonstrated use of femtosecond fabricated artefacts as OCT calibration samples. Here we present the use of femtosecond waveguides, inscribed with optimized parameters, to test and calibrate the sensitivity of the OCT systems.

Fractal analysis of flocs formed in edible oil -water emulsions by image analysis techniques

Edible oil is an important contaminant in water and wastewater. Oil droplets smaller than 40 μm may remain in effluent as an emulsion and combine with other contaminants in water. Coagulation/flocculation processes are used to remove oil droplets from water and wastewater. By adding a polymer at proper dose, small oil droplets can be flocculated and separated from water. The purpose of this study was to characterize and analyze the morphology of flocs and floc formation in edible oil-water emulsions by using microscopic image analysis techniques. The fractal dimension, concentration of polymer, effect of pH and temperature are investigated and analyzed to develop a fractal model of the flocs. Three types of edible oil (corn, olive, and sunflower oil) at concentrations of 600 ppm (by volume) were used to determine the optimum polymer dosage and effect of pH and temperature. To find the optimum polymer dose, polymer was added to the oil-water emulsions at concentration of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 ppm (by volume). The clearest supernatants obtained from flocculation of corn, olive, and sunflower oil were achieved at polymer dosage of 3.0 ppm producing turbidities of 4.52, 12.90, and 13.10 NTU, respectively. This concentration of polymer was subsequently used to study the effect of pH and temperature on flocculation. The effect of pH was studied at pH 5, 7, 9, and 11 at 30°C. Microscopic image analysis was used to investigate the morphology of flocs in terms of fractal dimension, radius of oil droplets trapped in floc, floc size, and histograms of oil droplet distribution. Fractal dimension indicates the density of oil droplets captured in flocs. By comparison of fractal dimensions, pH was found to be one of the most important factors controlling droplet flocculation. Neutral pH or pH 7 showed the highest degree of flocculation, while acidic (pH 5) and basic pH (pH 9 and pH 11) showed low efficiency of flocculation. The fractal dimensions achieved from flocculation of corn, olive, and sunflower oil at pH 7 and temperature 30°C were 1.2763, 1.3592, and 1.4413, respectively. The effect of temperature was explored at temperatures 20°, 30°, and 40°C and pH 7. The results of flocculation of oil at pH 7 and different temperatures revealed that temperature significantly affected flocculation. The fractal dimension of flocs formed in corn, olive and sunflower oil emulsion at pH 7 and temperature 20°, 30°, and 40°C were 1.82, 1.28, 1.29, 1.62, 1.36, 1.42, 1.36, 1.44, and 1.28, respectively. After comparison of fractal dimension, radius of oil droplets captured, and floc length in each oil type, the optimal flocculation temperature was determined to be 30°C. ^

Segmentation of overlapping convex objects

This thesis presents a framework for segmentation of clustered overlapping convex objects. The proposed approach is based on a three-step framework in which the tasks of seed point extraction, contour evidence extraction, and contour estimation are addressed. The state-of-art techniques for each step were studied and evaluated using synthetic and real microscopic image data. According to obtained evaluation results, a method combining the best performers in each step was presented. In the proposed method, Fast Radial Symmetry transform, edge-to-marker association algorithm and ellipse fitting are employed for seed point extraction, contour evidence extraction and contour estimation respectively. Using synthetic and real image data, the proposed method was evaluated and compared with two competing methods and the results showed a promising improvement over the competing methods, with high segmentation and size distribution estimation accuracy.

Solvent-Assisted Formation of Vesicles by a Self-Assembling Ni-3-Schiff Base Complex

A linear trinuclear Ni-Schiff base complex [Ni-3(salpen)(2)(PhCH2COO)(2)(EtOH)] has been synthesized by combining Ni(ClO4)(2)center dot 6H(2)O, phenyl acetic acid (C6H5CH2COOH), and the Schiff base ligand, N,N'-bis(salicylidene)-1,3-pentanediamine (H(2)salpen). This complex is self-assembled through hydrogen bonding and C-H-g interaction in the solid state to generate a sheet-like architecture, while in organic solvent (CH2Cl2), it forms vesicles with a mean diameter of 290 nm and fused vesicles, depending upon the concentration of the solution. These vesicles act as an excellent carrier of dye molecules in CH2Cl2. The morphology of the complex has been determined by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy experiments, and the encapsulation of dye has been examined by confocal microscopic image and electronic absorption spectra.

Fast automatic microstructural segmentation of ferrous alloy samples using optimum-path forest

In this work we propose a novel automatic cast iron segmentation approach based on the Optimum-Path Forest classifier (OPF). Microscopic images from nodular, gray and malleable cast irons are segmented using OPF, and Support Vector Machines (SVM) with Radial Basis Function and SVM without kernel mapping. Results show accurate and fast segmented images, in which OPF outperformed SVMs. Our work is the first into applying OPF for automatic cast iron segmentation. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.

Desenvolvimento de pino intra-radicular, resistência à fratura e análise da distribuição de tensões através do método dos elementos finitos

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Fabricação e caracterização de material compósito de resina poliéster reforçada por tecido de fibra de tururi extraído da palmeira de ubuçu (Manicaria saccifera)

Neste trabalho é apresentada a fabricação e caracterização de um material compósito de matriz polimérica reforçada por fibras naturais. A matriz é um poliéster teraftélica insaturada préacelerada obtida comercialmente como Denverpoly 754 e o agente de cura utilizado foi o peróxido de Mek (Butanox M- 50), na proporção de 0,33 % , em volume. A fibra natural usada foi o tururi, obtida da região do Marajó, município de Muaná. O tecido de fibra de tururi foi submetido a dois tipos de abertura no sentido transversal, de [50 e 100]%, em relação a uma largura original. A fabricação do material compósito foi através do método da laminação manual (hand lay up), seguido de uma pressão controlada através de pesos previamente quantificados. Características físicas, mecânicas e microscópicas foram obtidas para a fibra e o material compósito, obtendo-se resistência a tração, massa específica, gramatura do tecido, fração mássica e imagens microscópicas antes e depois do ensaio de tração para o tecido da fibra e ensaio de tração depois do ensaio de tração para o material compósito. O tecido de tururi apresentou resistência a tração de 29,95 MPa (sem abertura), 12,27 MPa (abertura de 50 %) e 9,38 MPa (abertura de 100 %). A abertura provoca a diminuição da resistência à tração do tecido de tururi. A gramatura do tecido diminuiu com a abertura do tecido. A fração mássica do tecido do compósito foi de 14,39 % (sem abertura), 9,35 % (abertura de 50 %) e 7,19 % (abertura de 100 %). A resistência a tração do compósito foi de 35,76 MPa (sem abertura), 19,01 MPa (50 % de abertura) e 16,8 MPa (100 % de abertura). A resistência mecânica apresentou valores aproximados aos encontrados na literatura para materiais compósitos reforçados por fibras naturais. As imagens obtidas em microscopia eletrônica de varredura corroboraram com as propriedades mecânicas obtidas para cada situação do material e fibras.

Study of feeding competition between invasion ctenophore (M. leidyi) and anchovy (C. engrauliformis) in the Southern Caspian Sea (Mazandran Coast)

Mnemiopsis leidyi one species of phylum Ctenophora, is a native species in America. It has most likely moved across the Atlantic in the ballast water of cargo ships to the Black sea in 1982, and then to the Caspian Sea thought the Volga-Don Channel, in Nov 1999. The population of M. leidyi rows rapidly and by end of 2000, the entire sea was teeming with them. This survey was arranged In order to study the relationship between the invasion of M. leidyi and sharp decline in main stocks pelagic fish such as Kilka. Dietary analysis was conducted on Anchovy Killka (Clupeonella engrauliformis) and M. leidyi from August 2001 to October 2002 in two stations, located at the costal water near Babolsar (52.38° E ,36.42° N ) and Noshahar (51.33° E,36.39° N) in the Caspian Sea province of Mazandaran, Iran. M. leidyi was caught by plankton net, at three vertical strata of both station at surface 5 in, 10m, and 15 m the Kilka was caught by fisheries boat at Babolasar fishery harbour. Samples of M. leidyi were not fixed in its common fixative, we used 96% Ethanol In order to study of M. leidyi digestion system some alive samples, directly, were studied by the fluorescence microscope which was connected to a computer prepared specially for this process. In many cases, the light was directly reflected on the sample and microscopic image was prepared in dark background. We found that there were some common organisms in diet of both species. The Schoener index analysis reflected these similarities, as values more than critical level of overlap (>89 in Babolsar samples and >84 in Noshahar samples) were found. Results from this study suggests that M. leidyi and Anchovy have a similar feeding niche and computation between them is one of the reasons to decline in anchovy stocks. Economical effects of M. leidyi s invasion in research area were studied by data on kilka caught before and after introducing M. leidyi.

Analysis of Pancreas Histological Images for Glucose Intolerance Identification using Wavelet Decomposition

Subtle structural differencescan be observed in the islets of Langer-hans region of microscopic image of pancreas cell of the rats having normal glucose tolerance and the rats having pre-diabetic(glucose intolerant)situa-tions. This paper proposes a way to automatically segment the islets of Langer-hans region fromthe histological image of rat's pancreas cell and on the basis of some morphological feature extracted from the segmented region the images are classified as normal and pre-diabetic.The experiment is done on a set of 134 images of which 56 are of normal type and the rests 78 are of pre-diabetictype. The work has two stages: primarily,segmentationof theregion of interest (roi)i.e. islets of Langerhansfrom the pancreatic cell and secondly, the extrac-tion of the morphological featuresfrom the region of interest for classification. Wavelet analysis and connected component analysis method have been used for automatic segmentationof the images. A few classifiers like OneRule, Naïve Bayes, MLP, J48 Tree, SVM etc.are used for evaluation among which MLP performed the best.

Automated image analysis of lung branching morphogenesis from microscopic images of fetal rat explants

Background: Regulating mechanisms of branching morphogenesis of fetal lung rat explants have been an essential tool for molecular research. This work presents a new methodology to accurately quantify the epithelial, outer contour and peripheral airway buds of lung explants during cellular development from microscopic images. Methods: The outer contour was defined using an adaptive and multi-scale threshold algorithm whose level was automatically calculated based on an entropy maximization criterion. The inner lung epithelial was defined by a clustering procedure that groups small image regions according to the minimum description length principle and local statistical properties. Finally, the number of peripheral buds were counted as the skeleton branched ends from a skeletonized image of the lung inner epithelial. Results: The time for lung branching morphometric analysis was reduced in 98% in contrast to the manual method. Best results were obtained in the first two days of cellular development, with lesser standard deviations. Non-significant differences were found between the automatic and manual results in all culture days. Conclusions: The proposed method introduces a series of advantages related to its intuitive use and accuracy, making the technique suitable to images with different lightning characteristics and allowing a reliable comparison between different researchers.

Retrospective correction of involuntary microscopic head movement using highly accelerated fat image navigators (3D FatNavs) at 7T.

PURPOSE: The goal of the present study was to use a three-dimensional (3D) gradient echo volume in combination with a fat-selective excitation as a 3D motion navigator (3D FatNav) for retrospective correction of microscopic head motion during high-resolution 3D structural scans of extended duration. The fat excitation leads to a 3D image that is itself sparse, allowing high parallel imaging acceleration factors - with the additional advantage of a minimal disturbance of the water signal used for the host sequence. METHODS: A 3D FatNav was inserted into two structural protocols: an inversion-prepared gradient echo at 0.33 × 0.33 × 1.00 mm resolution and a turbo spin echo at 600 μm isotropic resolution. RESULTS: Motion estimation was possible with high precision, allowing retrospective motion correction to yield clear improvements in image quality, especially in the conspicuity of very small blood vessels. CONCLUSION: The highly accelerated 3D FatNav allowed motion correction with noticeable improvements in image quality, even for head motion which was small compared with the voxel dimensions of the host sequence. Magn Reson Med 75:1030-1039, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Multiphase flow in the vascular system of wood: From microscopic exploration to 3-D Lattice Boltzmann experiments

This paper provides insights into liquid free water dynamics in wood vessels based on Lattice Boltzmann experiments. The anatomy of real wood samples was reconstructed from systematic 3-D analyses of the vessel contours derived from successive microscopic images. This virtual vascular system was then used to supply fluid-solid boundary conditions to a two-phase Lattice Boltzmann scheme and investigate capillary invasion of this hydrophilic porous medium. Behavior of the liquid phase was strongly dependent on anatomical features, especially vessel bifurcations and reconnections. Various parameters were examined in numerical experiments with ideal vessel bifurcations, to clarify our interpretation of these features. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.