Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 7, 2026

An Unbiased Approach of Sampling TEM Sections in Neuroscience
Published on: April 13, 2019
Automatic segmentation of inorganic nanoparticles in BF TEM micrographs
1Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
Abstract:
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) represents a unique and powerful modality for capturing spatial features of nanoparticles, such as size and shape. However, poor statistics arise as a key obstacle, due to the challenge in accurately and automatically segmenting nanoparticles in TEM micrographs. Towards remedying this deficit, we introduce an automatic particle picking device that is based on the concept of variance hybridized mean local thresholding. Validation of this new segmentation model is accomplished by applying a program written in Matlab to a database of 150 bright field TEM micrographs containing approximately 2,000 nanoparticles. We compare the results to global thresholding, local thresholding, and manual segmentation. It is found that this novel automatic particle picking device reduces false positives and false negatives significantly, while increasing the number of individual particles picked on regions of particle overlap.
Related Concept Videos
Automatic Processing and Automatic Social Behavior
Gravimetry: Inorganic And Organic Precipitating Agents
Inorganic Nitrogen Assimilation
The Phosphorus Cycle
Chemistry of the Cell
Water
The polarity of the water molecule and its resulting hydrogen bonding makes water a unique substance with special properties that are intimately tied to the processes of life. Life originally evolved in an aqueous environment, and most of an organism’s cellular chemistry and metabolism occur inside the aqueous contents of the cell’s cytoplasm. Special properties of water are its high heat capacity...
The Soil Ecosystem

