Image segmentation, as a key step of microarray image processing, is crucial for obtaining the spot expressions simultaneously. However, state-of-art clustering-based segmentation algorithms are sensitive to noises. To solve this problem and improve the segmentation accuracy, in this article, several improvements are introduced into the fast and simple clustering methods (K-means and Fuzzy C means). Firstly, a contrast enhancement algorithm is implemented in image preprocessing to improve the gridding precision. Secondly, the data-driven means are proposed for cluster center initialization, instead of usual random setting. The third improvement is that the multi features, including intensity features, spatial features, and shape features, are implemented in feature selection to replace the sole pixel intensity feature used in the traditional clustering-based methods to avoid taking noises as spot pixels. Moreover, the principal component analysis is adopted for various feature extraction. Finally, an adaptive adjustment algorithm is proposed based on data mining and learning for further dealing with the missing spots or low contrast spots. Experiments on real and simulation data sets indicate that the proposed improvements made our proposed method obtains higher segmented precision than the traditional K-means and Fuzzy C means clustering methods.
Due to the dependence of the chemical and physical properties of the bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) on their structures, a fundamental understanding of their structural characteristics is crucial for their syntheses and wide applications. In this article, a systematical atomic-level investigation of Au-Pd bimetallic NPs is conducted by using the improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) with quantum correction Sutton-Chen potentials (Q-SC) at different Au/Pd ratios and different sizes. In the IPSO, the simulated annealing is introduced into the classical particle swarm optimization (PSO) to improve the effectiveness and reliability. In addition, the influences of initial structure, particle size and composition on structural stability and structural features are also studied. The simulation results reveal that the initial structures have little effects on the stable structures, but influence the converging rate greatly, and the convergence rate of the mixing initial structure is clearly faster than those of the core-shell and phase structures. We find that the Au-Pd NPs prefer the structures with Au-rich in the outer layers while Pd-rich in the inner ones. Especially, when the Au/Pd ratio is 6:4, the structure of the nanoparticle (NP) presents a standardized Pd core Au shell structure.
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