A Data Driven Approach to Assess Complex Colour Profiles in Plant Tissues

BackgroundThe ability to quantify the colour of fruit is extremely important for a number of applied fields including plant breeding, postharvest assessment, and consumer quality assessment. Fruit and other plant organs display highly complex colour patterning. This complexity makes it challenging to compare and contrast colours in an accurate and time efficient manner. Multiple methodologies exist that attempt to digitally quantify colour in complex images but these either require a priori knowledge to assign colours to a particular bin, or average the colours present within an assayed region into a single colour value. As such, to date there are no published methodologies that assess colour patterning using a data driven approach. Results In this study we present a methodology to acquire and process digital images of biological samples that contain complex colour gradients. The CIE (Commission internationale de l'éclairage / International Commission on Illumination) ΔE2000 formula was used to determine the perceptually unique colours (PUC) within images of fruit containing complex colour gradients. This process, on average, resulted in a 98% reduction in colour values from the number of unique colours (UC) in the original image. This data driven procedure summarised the colour data values while maintaining a linear relationship with the normalised colour complexity contained in the total image. A weighted ΔE2000 distance metric was used to generate a distance matrix and facilitated clustering of summarised colour data.ConclusionsClustering showed that our data driven methodology has the ability to group these complex images into their respective binomial families while maintaining the ability to detect subtle colour differences. This methodology was also able to differentiate closely related images. We provide a high quality set of complex biological images that span the visual spectrum that can be used in future colorimetric research to benchmark method development.

Parallelized label-free monitoring of cell adhesion on extracellular matrix proteins measured by single colour reflectometry

The understanding of the initial cell adhesion to biomaterials is crucial for the survival of implants. The manifold possibilities to tailor an implant surface and the diverse requirements for different implant applications necessitate a timesaving and highly parallelized analytical methodology. Due to its intrinsic advantages (label-free, time-resolved, robust against temperature fluctuations, and particularly the multiplexing possibilities), single colour reflectometry (SCORE) is used for the first time to investigate cell adhesion to different extracellular matrix protein–coated surfaces. The excellent correlation between the novel SCORE technology and well-established reference methods proves that the results obtained by using this direct optical method are able to reflect the cell binding processes at the transducer surface. Additionally, the high time resolution of SCORE revealed the differences in the adhesion behaviour of the cells on the different extracellular matrix protein–coated glass slides during the initial adsorption phase and during the spreading of the cells on the surfaces. Therefore, we conclude that SCORE is a perfectly suited methodology for studying the entire cell adsorption process, including morphological changes, and shows great potential for other cell-based sensing applications. Graphical abstract

Colour court: the communicative value of single-colour trademark

While corporations regularly use trademarked logos and slogans, the use of colour trademarks to solidify and separate a brand from its marketplace is a recent development. This MRP explores legal conceptualizations of the communicative functions of colour in the judicial opinions of three influential colour trademark lawsuits: Norwich Pharmacal Company v. Sterling Drug, Inc. (1959), Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co. (1995), and Christian Louboutin S.A. v. Yves Saint Laurent Am. Holding, Inc. (2012). The following questions guide my analysis of the court decisions: How do judges determine the communicative value of colour in single-colour trademark cases? How do the different levels of meaning present in colour, as described by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen (2002), affect the way judges assess the communicative value of colours in single-colour trademark cases? Which levels of meaning in colour, as described by Kress and van Leeuwen (2002), are most important in judges’ assessments of single-colour trademark claims? The communicative value of colour, for the purposes of this research project proposal, is defined as colour acting in one or more of the three functions defined by Kress and van Leeuwen (2002). Through qualitative content analysis of three legal documents involving single-colour trademarks, this MRP seeks to explore the challenges of claiming and maintaining legal ownership of a colour. This paper suggests that courts play a major role in developing single-colour trademarks as communicative and organizational branding tools.

Colour court: the communicative value of single-colour trademark

While corporations regularly use trademarked logos and slogans, the use of colour trademarks to solidify and separate a brand from its marketplace is a recent development. This MRP explores legal conceptualizations of the communicative functions of colour in the judicial opinions of three influential colour trademark lawsuits: Norwich Pharmacal Company v. Sterling Drug, Inc. (1959), Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co. (1995), and Christian Louboutin S.A. v. Yves Saint Laurent Am. Holding, Inc. (2012). The following questions guide my analysis of the court decisions: How do judges determine the communicative value of colour in single-colour trademark cases? How do the different levels of meaning present in colour, as described by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen (2002), affect the way judges assess the communicative value of colours in single-colour trademark cases? Which levels of meaning in colour, as described by Kress and van Leeuwen (2002), are most important in judges’ assessments of single-colour trademark claims? The communicative value of colour, for the purposes of this research project proposal, is defined as colour acting in one or more of the three functions defined by Kress and van Leeuwen (2002). Through qualitative content analysis of three legal documents involving single-colour trademarks, this MRP seeks to explore the challenges of claiming and maintaining legal ownership of a colour. This paper suggests that courts play a major role in developing single-colour trademarks as communicative and organizational branding tools.

Effect of Temperature on the Ink Transfer of sublimation Printing Process

The effect of temperature on the ink transfer of sublimation printing technology was investigated. The ink transfer was conducted by the colour density of single solid inks and the ink trapping of overprinted solid inks. The experimental results indicate that the amount of ink transferred from the colour ribbon to the substrate is determined by the thermal characterization of dye materials. The densities of single colour inks as well as the ink trapping coefficients obtain the highest values at the temperature corresponding to the endothermic peaks of the dye materials. This is the optimum operating processing temperature.

Circadian tuning with metameric white light: Visual and non-visual aspects

The growing awareness of the biological effects of electric light on humans has stimulated ample research. New research has been devoted to lighting solutions that dynamically change their colour to mimic spectral changes of daylight. However, in some situations, the visual properties of light must be preserved, such as when working under standardised lighting conditions to do colour correction in post-production. We have investigated the possibility to tune circadian effects using white lights that are spectrally different but nonetheless appear as a similar white tone. Our simulation results, for example, sets of light-emitting diodes, indicate that it is possible to modulate circadian light effects from 0.20 to 0.41 circadian stimulus by combining light-emitting diodes to create neutral white (4000 K) light. However, the results also show that the solutions combining single-colour light-emitting diodes leading to similar range between maximum and minimum circadian stimulus (ΔCS > 0.20) have a CRI below 80. Combining narrowband light-emitting diodes with a broadband white light-emitting diode improves the colour-rendering quality, and we show how far circadian light effects can be tuned according to common theoretical models. The aim is to maintain the natural cycle of melatonin levels as much as possible with high light stimulus in the morning and low light stimulus in the evening. Therefore, we show what maximum and minimum circadian effects are possible with a given set of light-emitting diodes.

Trademark protection of single-colour trademarks: a study of the Chinese Louboutin case

In December 2018, Beijing Higher Court released the final decision associated with Christian Louboutin's trademark registration of the famous Red Sole Mark, holding that the mark should be categorized as a single-colour mark applied to a specific portion of the good and it could be registered as a trademark in China. This decision is the first Chinese judicial opinion associated with trademark registrability of a single-colour mark applied to a specific portion of the good, and therefore it plays a significant role in future trademark protection of single-colour trademarks.

Single blood pressure chart for children up to 13 years to improve the recognition of hypertension based on existing normative data

ObjectiveTo produce a single ‘growth-chart-style’ blood pressure (BP) chart with clear diagnostic thresholds to assist paediatricians to make prompt and accurate diagnoses of hypertension.DesignThe well-established but complex published data on normal BP ranges in prepubertal children were identified and analysed to determine if it was possible to produce a single, user-friendly, colour-coded chart, showing diagnostic hypertension thresholds for systolic and diastolic BP without losing clinically important information.ResultsThere were sufficient published normative childhood BP data available to define systolic and diastolic BP centiles from term onwards but only sufficient to determine systolic BP centiles from 28 weeks of gestation to term. Up to 13 years of age, it was possible to combine boys’ and girls’ data without loss of precision and to define the threshold between stage 1 and stage 2 (severe) hypertension as the 95th centile +12 mm Hg. This allowed the production of single colour-coded charts for systolic and diastolic BP and to advise on making simple adjustments for the impact of stature on individual children’s results.ConclusionsA simplified, integrated BP chart with colour-coded diagnostic thresholds was produced to assist the prompt diagnosis of hypertension in prepubertal children. This information could be included into a Paediatric Early Warning System score.

Design of small humanoid fighting robot based on target recognition algorithm

In the past, robots can only do simple walking, but now robots can perform complex actions such as running, attacking and automatically standing up after falling to the ground. The humanoid robot competition is very interesting and has great significance for the study. The speed and accuracy of robots in domestic competitions still need to be improved. In this article, a design scheme of a small humanoid fighting robot based on the target recognition algorithm is proposed. In this article, a design scheme of a small humanoid fighting robot based on the target recognition algorithm is proposed, for the case where the mobile robot has a low recognition rate in a complicated working environment. In this article, based on the matching of single colour features, the matching of shapes is added to more accurately identify the target. In addition, visual information added to achieve information fusion, the algorithm is simpler and can achieve positioning more quickly and effectively. The humanoid robot is to detect different states of the target, and needs to measure the target, trajectory of the target and analyse the target motion. In the era of popular 5G networks, it is hoped that in the future, robots that use 5G networks for communication can be designed, so that robots can be remotely controlled anytime and anywhere. There will be more kinds of robots entering our lives, which will promote the construction and application of smart homes and smart cities.