Convolution Neural Networks for Point-of-Care Diagnostics of Bacterial Infections in Blood

ABSTRACTA droplet of blood, when evaporated on a surface, leaves dried residue—the fractal patterns formed on the dried residues can act as markers for infection present in the blood. Exploiting the unique patterns found in the residues of a naturally dried droplet of blood, we propose a Point-of-Care (POC) diagnostic tool for detecting broad-spectrum of bacterial infections (such as Enterobacter aerogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella Typhi) in blood. The diagnosis process we propose is straightforward and can be performed with the following steps: A droplet of blood (healthy or infected) of volume range 0.5 to 2 μl is allowed to dry on a clean glass surface and is imaged using a conventional optical microscope. A computer algorithm based on the framework of convolution neural network (CNN) is used to classify the captured images of dried blood droplets according to the bacterial infection. In total, our multiclass model reports an accuracy of 92% for detecting six bacterial species infections in the blood (with control being the uninfected or healthy blood). The high accuracy of detecting bacteria in the blood reported in this article is commensurate with the standard bacteriological tests. Thus, this article presents a proof-of-concept of a potential futuristic tool for a rapid and low-cost diagnosis of bacterial infection in the blood.

Stem Cell Basis for Fractal Patterns: Axillary Meristem Initiation

Whereas stem cell lineages are of enormous importance in animal development, their roles in plant development have only been appreciated in recent years. Several specialized lineages of stem cells have been identified in plants, such as meristemoid mother cells and vascular cambium, as well as those located in the apical meristems. The initiation of axillary meristems (AMs) has recently gained intensive attention. AMs derive from existing stem cell lineages that exit from SAMs and define new growth axes. AMs are in fact additional rounds of SAMs, and display the same expression patterns and functions as the embryonic SAM, creating a fractal branching pattern. Their formation takes place in leaf-meristem boundaries and mainly comprises two key stages. The first stage is the maintenance of the meristematic cell lineage in an undifferentiated state. The second stage is the activation, proliferation, and re-specification to form new stem cell niches in AMs, which become the new postembryonic “fountain of youth” for organogenesis. Both stages are tightly regulated by spatially and temporally interwound signaling networks. In this mini-review, I will summarize the most up-to-date understanding of AM establishment and mainly focus on how the leaf axil meristematic cell lineage is actively maintained and further activated to become CLV3-expressed stem cells, which involves phytohormonal cascades, transcriptional regulations, epigenetic modifications, as well as mechanical signals.

Processing visual ambiguity in fractal patterns: Pareidolia as a sign of creativity

Creativity is a complex, multifaceted and highly valued quality. Characterizing creativity experimentally is a challenging endeavor. While most studies to date have focused on divergent thinking, emerging work also points to an intricate link between creativity and perceptual abilities. Here, we hypothesized that differences in high- and low-creative individuals are already present at the level of sensory perception, specifically in the ability to perceive recognizable forms in noisy or ambiguous stimuli, a phenomenon called pareidolia. To test this, we designed a visual perception task in which 50 participants, with various levels of creativity, were presented with ambiguous stimuli and asked to identify as many recognizable forms as possible. A key manipulation consisted in generating cloud-like images where we manipulated the level of complexity by manipulating fractal dimension (FD) and contrast level. We found that pareidolic perceptions arise more often and more rapidly in creative individuals. Interestingly, less creative individuals have a narrower range of FD values that support the emergence of pareidolia. Our results show that FD and contrast are key visual properties to manipulate when investigating pareidolic perception and its putative link to creativity. They also suggest that pareidolia may be used as a perceptual proxy of idea generation abilities, a prerequisite for creative behavior. In sum, we extend the established body of work on divergent thinking, by introducing divergent perception as a complementary manifestation of the creative mind. Therefore, these findings expand our understanding of the perception-creation link and open new paths in studying creative behavior in humans.

Shannon (Information) Measures of Symmetry for 1D and 2D Shapes and Patterns

Informational (Shannon) measures of symmetry are introduced and analyzed for the patterns built of 1D and 2D shapes. The informational measure of symmetry Hsym (G) characterizes the an averaged uncertainty in the presence of symmetry elements from the group G in a given pattern; whereas the Shannon-like measure of symmetry Ωsym (G) quantifies averaged uncertainty of appearance of shapes possessing in total n elements of symmetry belonging to group G in a given pattern. Hsym(G1)=Ωsym(G1)=0 for the patterns built of irregular, non-symmetric shapes. Both of informational measures of symmetry are intensive parameters of the pattern and do not depend on the number of shapes, their size and area of the pattern. They are also insensitive to the long-range order inherent for the pattern. Informational measures of symmetry of fractal patterns are addressed. The mixed patterns including curves and shapes are considered. Time evolution of the Shannon measures of symmetry is treated. The close-packed and dispersed 2D patterns are analyzed.

Aesthetics and Psychological Effects of Fractal Based Design

Highly prevalent in nature, fractal patterns possess self-similar components that repeat at varying size scales. The perceptual experience of human-made environments can be impacted with inclusion of these natural patterns. Previous work has demonstrated consistent trends in preference for and complexity estimates of fractal patterns. However, limited information has been gathered on the impact of other visual judgments. Here we examine the aesthetic and perceptual experience of fractal ‘global-forest’ designs already installed in humanmade spaces and demonstrate how fractal pattern components are associated with positive psychological experiences that can be utilized to promote occupant wellbeing. These designs are composite fractal patterns consisting of individual fractal ‘tree-seeds’ which combine to create a ‘global fractal forest.’ The local ‘tree-seed’ patterns, global configuration of tree-seed locations, and overall resulting ‘global-forest’ patterns have fractal qualities. These designs span multiple mediums yet are all intended to lower occupant stress without detracting from the function and overall design of the space. In this series of studies, we first establish divergent relationships between various visual attributes, with pattern complexity, preference, and engagement ratings increasing with fractal complexity compared to ratings of refreshment and relaxation which stay the same or decrease with complexity. Subsequently, we determine that the local constituent fractal (‘tree-seed’) patterns contribute to the perception of the overall fractal design, and address how to balance aesthetic and psychological effects (such as individual experiences of perceived engagement and relaxation) in fractal design installations. This set of studies demonstrates that fractal preference is driven by a balance between increased arousal (desire for engagement and complexity) and decreased tension (desire for relaxation or refreshment). Installations of these composite mid-high complexity ‘global-forest’ patterns consisting of ‘tree-seed’ components balance these contrasting needs, and can serve as a practical implementation of biophilic patterns in human-made environments to promote occupant wellbeing.

Investigation of Stereometric and Fractal Patterns of Spin-Coated LuMnO3 Thin Films

In this paper, we have performed qualitative and quantitative analysis of LuMnO3 thin films surfaces, deposited by spin coating over Pt(111)/TiO2/SiO2/Si substrates, to evaluate their spatial patterns as a function of the film’s sintering temperature. Atomic force microscopy was employed to obtain topographic maps that were extensively analyzed via image processing techniques and mathematical tools. 3D (three-dimensional) topographical images revealed that films sintered at 650°C and 750°C presented the formation of smoother surfaces, while the film sintered at 850°C displayed a rougher surface with a root mean square roughness of ∼2.5 nm. On the other direction, the height distribution of the surface for all films has similar asymmetries and shape, although the film sintered using the highest temperature showed the lower density of rough peaks and a sharper peak shape. The advanced fractal parameters revealed that the film sintered at 850°C is dominated by low spatial frequencies, showing less spatial complexity, higher microtexture homogeneity, and uniform height distribution. These results suggest that the combination of stereometric and fractal parameters can be especially useful for identification of unique topographic spatial patterns in LuMnO3 thin films, helping in their implementation in technological applications, such as photovoltaic solar cells and information magnetic date storage and spintronic devices.

A derivative free globally convergent method and its deformations

The motive of the present work is to introduce and investigate the quadratically convergent Newton’s like method for solving the non-linear equations. We have studied some new properties of a Newton’s like method with examples and obtained a derivative-free globally convergent Newton’s like method using forward difference operator and bisection method. Finally, we have used various numerical test functions along with their fractal patterns to show the utility of the proposed method. These patterns support the numerical results and explain the compactness regarding the convergence, divergence and stability of the methods to different roots.