Open Access
September 2019 Fast dynamic nonparametric distribution tracking in electron microscopic data
Yanjun Qian, Jianhua Z. Huang, Chiwoo Park, Yu Ding
Ann. Appl. Stat. 13(3): 1537-1563 (September 2019). DOI: 10.1214/19-AOAS1245
Abstract

In situ transmission electron microscope (TEM) adds a promising instrument to the exploration of the nanoscale world, allowing motion pictures to be taken while nano objects are initiating, crystalizing and morphing into different sizes and shapes. To enable in-process control of nanocrystal production, this technology innovation hinges upon a solution addressing a statistical problem, which is the capability of online tracking a dynamic, time-varying probability distribution reflecting the nanocrystal growth. Because no known parametric density functions can adequately describe the evolving distribution, a nonparametric approach is inevitable. Towards this objective, we propose to incorporate the dynamic evolution of the normalized particle size distribution into a state space model, in which the density function is represented by a linear combination of B-splines and the spline coefficients are treated as states. The closed-form algorithm runs online updates faster than the frame rate of the in situ TEM video, making it suitable for in-process control purpose. Imposing the constraints of curve smoothness and temporal continuity improves the accuracy and robustness while tracking the probability distribution. We test our method on three published TEM videos. For all of them, the proposed method is able to outperform several alternative approaches.

Copyright © 2019 Institute of Mathematical Statistics
Yanjun Qian, Jianhua Z. Huang, Chiwoo Park, and Yu Ding "Fast dynamic nonparametric distribution tracking in electron microscopic data," The Annals of Applied Statistics 13(3), 1537-1563, (September 2019). https://doi.org/10.1214/19-AOAS1245
Received: 1 April 2018; Published: September 2019
Vol.13 • No. 3 • September 2019
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