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At least 127 records · Page 7

Permeability Prediction Using Vision Transformers

Accurate permeability predictions remain pivotal for understanding fluid flow in porous media, influencing crucial operations across petroleum engineering, hydrogeology, and related fields. Traditional approaches, while robust, often grapple with the inherent heterogeneity of reservoir rocks. With the advent of deep learning, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have emerged as potent tools in image-based permeability estimation, capitalizing on micro-CT scans and digital rock imagery. This paper introduces a novel paradigm, employing vision transformers (ViTs)—a recent advancement in computer vision—for this crucial task. ViTs, which segment images into fixed-sized patches and process them through transformer architectures, present a promising alternative to CNNs. We present a methodology for implementing ViTs for permeability prediction, its results on diverse rock samples, and a comparison against conventional CNNs. The prediction results suggest that, with adequate training data, ViTs can match or surpass the predictive accuracy of CNNs, especially in rocks exhibiting significant heterogeneity. This study underscores the potential of ViTs as an innovative tool in permeability prediction, paving the way for further research and integration into mainstream reservoir characterization workflows.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Dataset for Leveraging CryoEM and AI-Driven Morphological Feature Analysis for Insights on Bacterial Structures

This repository hosts an AI-assisted image segmentation and analysis pipeline for Pantoea sp. YR343 cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) datasets. The workflow automates membrane thickness measurements, flagella detection, and field-of-view (FOV) screening from low-dose, high-resolution cryoEM micrographs eliminating the need for slow manual annotation. By integrating deep-learning based segmentation (YOLOv11) with quantitative post-processing, this toolkit provides a scalable and reproducible way to study bacterial morphology under hydrated, near-native conditions. The GitHub repository for AI-based tools for cryoEM bacteria ultrastructures can be found here: https://github.com/Sireesiru/Cryo-EM-Ultrastructures/tree/main

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Unpaired image translation to mitigate domain shift in liquid argon time projection chamber detector responses

Deep learning algorithms often are developed and trained on a training dataset and deployed on test datasets. Any systematic difference between the training and a test dataset may severely degrade the final algorithm performance on the test dataset—what is known as the domain shift problem . This issue is prevalent in many scientific domains where algorithms are trained on simulated data but applied to real-world datasets. Typically, the domain shift problem is solved through various domain adaptation (DA) methods. However, these methods are often tailored for a specific downstream task, such as classification or semantic segmentation, and may not easily generalize to different tasks. This work explores the feasibility of using an alternative way to solve the domain shift problem that is not specific to any downstream algorithm. The proposed approach relies on modern Unpaired Image-to-Image (UI2I) translation techniques, designed to find translations between different image domains in a fully unsupervised fashion. In this study, the approach is applied to a domain shift problem commonly encountered in Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) detector research when seeking a way to translate samples between two differently distributed LArTPC detector datasets deterministically. This translation allows for mapping real-world data into the simulated data domain where the downstream algorithms can be run with much less domain-shift-related performance degradation. Conversely, using the translation from the simulated data to a real-world domain can increase the realism of the simulated dataset and reduce the magnitude of any systematic uncertainties. To evaluate the quality of the translations, we use both pixel-wise metrics and a downstream task to measure the effectiveness of UI2I methods for mitigating the domain shift problem. We adapted several popular UI2I translation algorithms to work on scientific data and demonstrated the viability of these techniques for solving the domain shift problem with LArTPC detector data. To facilitate further development of DA techniques for scientific datasets, the ‘Simple Liquid-Argon Track Samples’ dataset used in this study is also published.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Understanding hadronic interactions using advanced reconstruction techniques

ProtoDUNE-SP served as the prototype of the future Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). With a total liquid argon mass of 0.77 kt, it stood as the most extensive monolithic single-phase Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) ever constructed. Strategically located and operated at CERN, ProtoDUNE-SP benefited from a specialized charged-particle test beam, offering a momentum range of 0.3 - 7 GeV/c. This setup provided a unique opportunity to conduct in-depth studies on hadronic interactions within argon. Hadronic interactions play a fundamental role in neutrino physics, particularly in the intricacies of neutrino detection. We depend on analyzing the outcomes of these interactions to accurately determine both the flavor and energy of the interacting neutrinos. Pions, as one of the primary byproducts of neutrino interactions, are crucial for understanding the overall dynamics and kinematics of these processes. Accurately characterizing and understanding the interaction of pions with argon can significantly enhance the precision of neutrino simulations and measurements.Being a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC), ProtoDUNE-SP is distinguished by its ability to produce high-definition images of charged particles as they traverse through the detector's active volume. Yet, accurately reconstructing these particle interactions and determining their kinematic attributes remains a challenging task. The successes of deep learning in diverse domains, especially in image recognition, provide a promising approach for addressing this challenge in ProtoDUNE. This thesis discusses a measurement of the Piplus - argon inelastic cross section in the energy range of 2400 to 3000 MeV, using data taken by protoDUNE during the fall of 2018. Additionally, panoptic segmentation, a machine learning technique, is introduced and validated through its application in the reconstruction of the neutral pion rest mass. The aim is to showcase how these advanced methods can enhance the quality of event reconstruction.

Sarasty Segura, Carlos Eduardo↗

Combined Data and Deep Learning Model Uncertainties: An Application to the Measurement of Solid Fuel Regression Rate

In complex physical process characterization, such as the measurement of the regression rate for solid hybrid rocket fuels, where both the observation data and the model used have uncertainties originating from multiple sources, combining these in a systematic way for quantities of interest (QoI) remains a challenge. In this paper, we present a forward propagation uncertainty quantification (UQ) process to produce a probabilistic distribution for the observed regression rate r. We characterized two input data uncertainty sources from the experiment (the distortion from the camera U c and the non-zero-angle fuel placement U Y ), the prediction and model form uncertainty from the deep neural network (U m ), as well as the variability from the manually segmented images used for training it (U s ). Here, we conducted seven case studies on combinations of these uncertainty sources with the model form uncertainty. The main contribution of this paper is the investigation and inclusion of the experimental image data uncertainties involved, and how to include them in a workflow when the QoI is the result of multiple sequential processes.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Uncertainty-aware particle segmentation for electron microscopy at varied length scales

Electron microscopy is indispensable for examining the morphology and composition of solid materials at the sub-micron scale. To study the powder samples that are widely used in materials development, scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) are increasingly used at the laboratory scale to generate large datasets with hundreds of images. Parsing these images to identify distinct particles and determine their morphology requires careful analysis, and automating this process remains challenging. In this work, we enhance the Mask R-CNN architecture to develop a method for automated segmentation of particles in SEM images. We address several challenges inherent to measurements, such as image blur and particle agglomeration. Moreover, our method accounts for prediction uncertainty when such issues prevent accurate segmentation of a particle. Recognizing that disparate length scales are often present in large datasets, we use this framework to create two models that are separately trained to handle images obtained at low or high magnification. By testing these models on a variety of inorganic samples, our approach to particle segmentation surpasses an established automated segmentation method and yields comparable results to the predictions of three domain experts, revealing comparable accuracy while requiring a fraction of the time. These findings highlight the potential of deep learning in advancing autonomous workflows for materials characterization.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Predictive Data-driven Platform for Subsurface Energy Production

Subsurface energy activities such as unconventional resource recovery, enhanced geothermal energy systems, and geologic carbon storage require fast and reliable methods to account for complex, multiphysical processes in heterogeneous fractured and porous media. Although reservoir simulation is considered the industry standard for simulating these subsurface systems with injection and/or extraction operations, reservoir simulation requires spatio-temporal “Big Data” into the simulation model, which is typically a major challenge during model development and computational phase. In this work, we developed and applied various deep neural network-based approaches to (1) process multiscale image segmentation, (2) generate ensemble members of drainage networks, flow channels, and porous media using deep convolutional generative adversarial network, (3) construct multiple hybrid neural networks such as convolutional LSTM and convolutional neural network-LSTM to develop fast and accurate reduced order models for shale gas extraction, and (4) physics-informed neural network and deep Q-learning for flow and energy production. We hypothesized that physicsbased machine learning/deep learning can overcome the shortcomings of traditional machine learning methods where data-driven models have faltered beyond the data and physical conditions used for training and validation. We improved and developed novel approaches to demonstrate that physics-based ML can allow us to incorporate physical constraints (e.g., scientific domain knowledge) into ML framework. Outcomes of this project will be readily applicable for many energy and national security problems that are particularly defined by multiscale features and network systems.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Cross-scale sensing of field-level crop residue cover: Integrating field photos, airborne hyperspectral imaging, and satellite data

Conservation tillage practices can bring benefits to agricultural sustainability. Accurate spatial and temporal resolved information of field-scale crop residue cover, which reflects tillage intensity, is highly valuable for evaluating the outcomes of government conservation programs and voluntary ecosystem service markets, as well as facilitating agroecosystem modeling to quantify cropland biogeochemical processes. Remote sensing has the potential to cost-effectively detect crop residue cover, however, existing regional-scale studies were limited by insufficient ground truth data, scale mismatch between coarse satellite pixels and ground data, and the lack of key spectral data for detecting crop residues. Therefore, this study developed an innovative cross-sensing framework to integrate proximal sensing, airborne hyperspectral imaging, and satellite Earth Observation through deep learning to quantify field-level crop residue cover fractions at the regional scale. Specifically, we have collected intensive ground orthographic photos and conducted airborne hyperspectral surveys at corn and soybean fields of Champaign and nearby counties in Illinois, the heartland of the U.S. Corn Belt. Through semi-automatic labeling aided by ResNet-50 and superpixel image segmentation, we obtained 6719 records of ground residue fractions. With these ground data, we developed the 1-dimensional convolution neural network (CNN) model using airborne hyperspectral reflectance, which has 0.5m spatial resolution and 3–5 nm spectral resolution from 400 to 2400 nm, to predict residue fractions. By applying the CNN model to airborne pixels, we augmented “ground truth” data of crop residues and further combined them with Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) satellite data to quantify regional residue fractions at 30 m resolution. Results show that airborne hyperspectral imagery with CNN can accurately detect residue fractions (R 2 = 0.82, relative RMSE = 11.73%) to effectively generate quasi “ground truth” data to support satellite upscaling to all fields. With independent ground data for testing, we found that the ground-airborne-satellite integrative framework achieved better predictions in estimating crop residue cover (R 2 = 0.67, relative RMSE = 17.53%) than the conventional ground-satellite upscaling (R 2 = 0.22, relative RMSE = 32.09%). Here we also found that the shortwave infrared wavelengths, particularly 2100–2300 nm, are vital for predicting crop residue cover. Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 data have a comparable capability to track residue fractions due to similar shortwave infrared wavelengths. This study highlights the high accuracy of hyperspectral imaging to detect agroecosystem tillage management practices and the advantages of cross-scale sensing to cost-effectively integrate multi-source data to quantify field-level agroecosystem variables across scales.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DLSIA: Deep Learning for Scientific Image Analysis

DLSIA (Deep Learning for Scientific Image Analysis) is a Python-based machine learning library that empowers scientists and researchers across diverse scientific domains with a range of customizable convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures for a wide variety of tasks in image analysis to be used in downstream data processing. DLSIA features easy-to-use architectures, such as autoencoders, tunable U-Nets and parameter-lean mixed-scale dense networks (MSDNets). Additionally, this article introduces sparse mixed-scale networks (SMSNets), generated using random graphs, sparse connections and dilated convolutions connecting different length scales. For verification, several DLSIA-instantiated networks and training scripts are employed in multiple applications, including inpainting for X-ray scattering data using U-Nets and MSDNets, segmenting 3D fibers in X-ray tomographic reconstructions of concrete using an ensemble of SMSNets, and leveraging autoencoder latent spaces for data compression and clustering. As experimental data continue to grow in scale and complexity, DLSIA provides accessible CNN construction and abstracts CNN complexities, allowing scientists to tailor their machine learning approaches, accelerate discoveries, foster interdisciplinary collaboration and advance research in scientific image analysis.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Deep Learning and Photogrammetric Reconstruction for Automated Crack Detection and Dimensional Measurement in Mining Operations

Surface crack detection and dimensional measurement at active mining sites present significant safety and operational challenges. Manual inspection methods are labor-intensive, spatially incomplete, and expose personnel to hazardous environments, while existing automated approaches have been developed primarily for concrete civil infrastructure and have not been validated on the complex, variable surfaces characteristic of mining environments. This dissertation presents an automated pipeline that integrates deep learning semantic segmentation with Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry to detect surface cracks and measure their aperture, length, and vertical displacement from standard RGB imagery acquired during routine Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) survey operations, without requiring additional sensor hardware or manual measurement. The pipeline combines a U-Net architecture with an EfficientNet-B0 encoder, pretrained on the SDNET2018 concrete crack dataset and fine-tuned on a mining-specific dataset spanning laboratory concrete specimens, coal refuse impoundment embankments, and post-blast limestone quarry benches. Photogrammetric reconstruction is performed using COLMAP Structure-from-Motion and Multi-View Stereo, with crack segmentation masks projected into the reconstructed point cloud to enable three-dimensional vertical displacement measurement through local plane fitting and bimodal surface detection. The pipeline was validated across 36 controlled laboratory specimens at three imaging distances and four vertical displacement levels, achieving aperture measurement RMSE of 0.047 cm and R² of 0.954, and vertical displacement RMSE of 0.140 cm and R² of 0.966, against independent caliper measurements. Field application at a coal refuse impoundment in southwestern Pennsylvania detected 71 crack components across the embankment crest, with a dominant longitudinal crack exhibiting aperture values reaching 28 cm and a 95th percentile vertical displacement of 35.53 cm, consistent in magnitude and spatial distribution with simultaneously acquired LiDAR-derived estimates. Application across four post-blast limestone quarry bench datasets in California successfully characterized blast-induced fracture networks at ground sampling distances ranging from 0.59 to 1.23 cm/pixel, with detected crack geometries physically consistent with observable surface conditions at each site. The results demonstrate that deep learning-based crack detection and photogrammetric measurement can be integrated into routine UAV inspection workflows at mining sites, providing repeatable, scalable, and quantitative crack characterization across surface types, crack scales, and displacement magnitudes not previously addressed in the literature. The pipeline requires no dedicated surveying equipment beyond the UAV platforms already deployed at mine sites for survey and monitoring purposes, supporting practical adoption within existing operational workflows.

Crack detection, Dimensional Measurement↗

A Weakly-Supervised, Multitask Deep Learning Framework for Shadow Mitigation in Remote Sensing Imagery

We propose a weakly-supervised, multitask framework for training a convolutional neural network to solve the problem of cloud shadow mitigation given only cloud and shadow masks as labels. The network minimizes the Wasserstein distance between shadows and their proximal sunlit neighborhoods, generating a supervisory signal directly from within the input image. We extract further utility from the shadow mask through multitask learning by introducing an auxiliary task of shadow segmentation. Our approach is advantageous since it performs mitigation in an end-to-end framework which requires only a shadowed image for inference. We apply this process to the Landsat 8 OLI SPARCS validation data set and demonstrate plausible results.

Couwenhoven, Scott↗

Deep learning-enabled probing of irradiation-induced defects in time-series micrographs

Modeling time-series data with convolutional neural networks (CNNs) requires building a model to learn in batches as opposed to training sequentially. Coupling CNNs with in situ or operando techniques opens the possibility of accurately segmenting dynamic reactions and mass transport phenomena to understand how materials behave under the conditions in which they are used. In this article, in situ ion irradiation transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images are used as inputs into the CNN to assess the defect generation rate, defect cluster density, and saturation of defects. We then use the output segmentation maps to correlate with conventional TEM micrographs to assess the model’s ability to detail nanoscale interactions. Next, we discuss the implications of preprocessing and hyperparameters on model variability, accuracy when expanded to other datasets, and the role of regularization when controlling model variance. Ultimately, we eliminate human bias when extrapolating physical metrics, speed up analysis time, decouple reactions that happen at 100 ms intervals, and deploy models that are both accurate and transferable to similar experiments.

Burns, Kory (ORCID:0000000158019909)↗

Deep learning for Alzheimer's disease: Mapping large-scale histological tau protein for neuroimaging biomarker validation

Abnormal tau inclusions are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease and predictors of clinical decline. Several tau PET tracers are available for neurodegenerative disease research, opening avenues for molecular diagnosis in vivo. However, few have been approved for clinical use. Understanding the neurobiological basis of PET signal validation remains problematic because it requires a large-scale, voxel-to-voxel correlation between PET and (immuno) histological signals. Large dimensionality of whole human brains, tissue deformation impacting co-registration, and computing requirements to process terabytes of information preclude proper validation. We developed a computational pipeline to identify and segment particles of interest in billion-pixel digital pathology images to generate quantitative, 3D density maps. The proposed convolutional neural network for immunohistochemistry samples, IHCNet, is at the pipeline's core. We have successfully processed and immunostained over 500 slides from two whole human brains with three phospho-tau antibodies (AT100, AT8, and MC1), spanning several terabytes of images. Our artificial neural network estimated tau inclusion from brain images, which performs with ROC AUC of 0.87, 0.85, and 0.91 for AT100, AT8, and MC1, respectively. Introspection studies further assessed the ability of our trained model to learn tau-related features. We present an end-to-end pipeline to create terabytes-large 3D tau inclusion density maps co-registered to MRI as a means to facilitate validation of PET tracers.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Semi-automatic image annotation using 3D LiDAR projections and depth camera data

Efficient image annotation is necessary to utilize deep learning object recognition neural networks in nuclear safeguards, such as for the detection and localization of target objects like nuclear material containers (NMCs). This capability can help automate the inventory accounting of different types of NMCs within nuclear storage facilities. The conventional manual annotation process is labor-intensive and time-consuming, hindering the rapid deployment of deep learning models for NMC identifications. This paper introduces a novel semi-automatic method for annotating 2D images of nuclear material containers (NMCs) by combining 3D light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data with color and depth camera images collected from a handheld scan system. The annotation pipeline involves an operator manually marking new target objects on a LiDAR-generated map, and projecting these 3D locations to images, thereby automatically creating annotations from the projections. The semi-automatic approach significantly reduces manual efforts and the expertise in image annotation that is required to perform the task, allowing deep learning models to be trained on-site within a few hours. The paper compares the performance of models trained on datasets annotated through various methods, including semi-automatic, manual, and commercial annotation services. The evaluation demonstrates that the semi-automatic annotation method achieves comparable or superior results, with a mean average precision (mAP) above 0.9, showcasing its efficiency in training object recognition models. Additionally, the paper explores the application of the proposed method to instance segmentation, achieving promising results in detecting multiple types of NMCs in various formations.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

A fine pore-preserved deep neural network for porosity analytics of a high burnup U-10Zr metallic fuel

Abstract U-10 wt.% Zr (U-10Zr) metallic fuel is the leading candidate for next-generation sodium-cooled fast reactors. Porosity is one of the most important factors that impacts the performance of U-10Zr metallic fuel. The pores generated by the fission gas accumulation can lead to changes in thermal conductivity, fuel swelling, Fuel-Cladding Chemical Interaction (FCCI) and Fuel-Cladding Mechanical Interaction (FCMI). Therefore, it is crucial to accurately segment and analyze porosity to understand the U-10Zr fuel system to design future fast reactors. To address the above issues, we introduce a workflow to process and analyze multi-source Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image data. Moreover, an encoder-decoder-based, deep fully convolutional network is proposed to segment pores accurately by integrating the residual unit and the densely-connected units. Two SEM 250 × field of view image datasets with different formats are utilized to evaluate the new proposed model’s performance. Sufficient comparison results demonstrate that our method quantitatively outperforms two popular deep fully convolutional networks. Furthermore, we conducted experiments on the third SEM 2500 × field of view image dataset, and the transfer learning results show the potential capability to transfer the knowledge from low-magnification images to high-magnification images. Finally, we use a pre-trained network to predict the pores of SEM images in the whole cross-sectional image and obtain quantitative porosity analysis. Our findings will guide the SEM microscopy data collection efficiently, provide a mechanistic understanding of the U-10Zr fuel system and bridge the gap between advanced characterization to fuel system design.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Patch-Based Convolutional Neural Networks for Multiple Microstructural Features Detection in FIB-SEM Micrographs of Irradiated Nuclear Fuel

Focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) tomography has increasingly been utilized for acquiring three-dimensional (3D) microstructure features at the sub-micron scale in irradiated nuclear materials. This technique involves sequential ion beam slicing followed by electron beam imaging and compositional mapping using energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Despite its growing use, several challenges persist. These include the time-intensive nature of data collection of EDS data, difficulties in distinguishing between various microstructures, and issues with image alignment. These challenges currently limit the broader application of FIB-SEM tomography in the field. To overcome these limitations, we propose using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to automate microstructure identification in SEM images. Our study introduces a new framework for identifying microstructures in irradiated U-10Zr (wt. %) metallic fuel with limited annotated data. The framework includes the creation of a reliable annotated dataset with paired SEM and ground truth data from EDS maps, the applications of CNNs for microstructure identification, and the validation of model performance. Specifically, we employed the Segment Anything Model (SAM) to align SEM images with corresponding EDS maps and focused ion beam (FIB) tomography SEM data. We evaluate several models, including Patch-based U-Net, Attention U-Net, and Residual U-Net, finding that patch-based U-Net exhibits superior segmentation performance and consistency. This approach reduces reliance on EDS detectors and aids in accelerating nuclear material analysis process, highlighting the potential of advanced deep learning techniques to improve microstructural understanding in nuclear material. This is the first framework to integrate SAM and Patch-based CNN models for semantic segmentation of irradiated nuclear materials, with potential applicability to other tomography datasets.

36 - MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Toward Large-Scale Image Segmentation on Summit

Semantic segmentation of images is an important computer vision task that emerges in a variety of application domains such as medical imaging, robotic vision and autonomous vehicles to name a few. While these domain-specific image analysis tasks involve relatively small image sizes (~ 10 2 × 10 2 ), there are many applications that need to train machine learning models on image data with extents that are orders of magnitude larger (~10 4 × 10 4 ). Training deep neural network (DNN) models on large extent images is extremely memory-intensive and often exceeds the memory limitations of a single graphical processing unit, a hardware accelerator of choice for computer vision workloads. Here, an efficient, sample parallel approach to train U-Net models on large extent image data sets is presented. Its advantages and limitations are analyzed and near-linear strong-scaling speedup demonstrated on 256 nodes (1536 GPUs) of the Summit supercomputer. Using a single node of the Summit supercomputer, an early evaluation of a recently released model parallel framework called GPipe is demonstrated to deliver ~ 2X speedup in executing a U-Net model with an order of magnitude larger number of trainable parameters than reported before. Performance bottlenecks for pipelined training of U-Net models are identified and mitigation strategies to improve the speedups are discussed. Together, these results open up the possibility of combining both approaches into a unified scalable pipelined and data parallel algorithm to efficiently train U-Net models with very large receptive fields on data sets of ultra-large extent images.

Seal, Sudip↗