In extrusion-based fused deposit modeling (FDM) 3D printing, porosity weakens layer adhesion and compromises the mechanical reliability of printed parts, making it one of the most critical defects. While porosity in additive manufacturing has been studied extensively, the pixel-level segmentation of pores has received little attention. To address this gap, we collected a new dataset based on in-situ video of FDM 3D printing with biofiber-reinforced thermoplastic biopolymers. After manually annotating the frames with polygon-level pore masks, we used the dataset to benchmark four widely used segmentation models YOLOv8-seg, YOLOv11-seg, Mask R-CNN, and DeepLabV3+ under a consistent training and evaluation protocol. Our results show that YOLOv11-seg achieves the highest segmentation accuracy with a mask mAP@50 of 92.9%, while YOLOv8-seg delivers a comparable accuracy of 92.6% but with the fastest throughput at nearly 60 FPS, making it particularly suited for real-time monitoring. DeepLabV3+ and Mask R-CNN provide useful baselines but lag in either efficiency or stability. This work introduces the first annotated dataset and baseline comparison for segmentation of small, irregular defects in FDM, establishing a benchmark relevant both for additive manufacturing and for broader computer vision research on challenging low-contrast defect segmentation.

New de novo transcriptome assembly and annotation methods provide an incredible opportunity to study the transcriptome of organisms that lack an assembled and annotated genome. There are currently a number of de novo transcriptome assembly methods, but it has been difficult to evaluate the quality of these assemblies. In order to assess the quality of the transcriptome assemblies, we composed a workflow of multiple quality check measurements that in combination provide a clear evaluation of the assembly performance. We presented novel transcriptome assemblies and functional annotations for Pacific Whiteleg Shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei ), a mariculture species with great national and international interest, and no solid transcriptome/genome reference. We examined Pacific Whiteleg transcriptome assemblies via multiple metrics, and provide an improved gene annotation. Our investigations show that assessing the quality of an assembly purely based on the assembler's statistical measurements can be misleading; we propose a hybrid approach that consists of statistical quality checks and further biological-based evaluations.

BACKGROUND: A key goal of systems biology and translational genomics is to utilize high-throughput measurements of cellular states to develop expression-based classifiers for discriminating among different phenotypes. Recent developments of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies can facilitate classifier design by providing expression measurements for tens of thousands of genes simultaneously via the abundance of their mRNA transcripts. Because NGS technologies result in a nonlinear transformation of the actual expression distributions, their application can result in data that are less discriminative than would be the actual expression levels themselves, were they directly observable. RESULTS: Using state-of-the-art distributional modeling for the NGS processing pipeline, this paper studies how that pipeline, via the resulting nonlinear transformation, affects classification and feature selection. The effects of different factors are considered and NGS-based classification is compared to SAGE-based classification and classification directly on the raw expression data, which is represented by a very high-dimensional model previously developed for gene expression. As expected, the nonlinear transformation resulting from NGS processing diminishes classification accuracy; however, owing to a larger number of reads, NGS-based classification outperforms SAGE-based classification. CONCLUSIONS: Having high numbers of reads can mitigate the degradation in classification performance resulting from the effects of NGS technologies. Hence, when performing a RNA-Seq analysis, using the highest possible coverage of the genome is recommended for the purposes of classification.

BACKGROUND: One of the most important goals of the mathematical modeling of gene regulatory networks is to alter their behavior toward desirable phenotypes. Therapeutic techniques are derived for intervention in terms of stationary control policies. In large networks, it becomes computationally burdensome to derive an optimal control policy. To overcome this problem, greedy intervention approaches based on the concept of the Mean First Passage Time or the steady-state probability mass of the network states were previously proposed. Another possible approach is to use reduction mappings to compress the network and develop control policies on its reduced version. However, such mappings lead to loss of information and require an induction step when designing the control policy for the original network. RESULTS: In this paper, we propose a novel solution, CoD-CP, for designing intervention policies for large Boolean networks. The new method utilizes the Coefficient of Determination (CoD) and the Steady-State Distribution (SSD) of the model. The main advantage of CoD-CP in comparison with the previously proposed methods is that it does not require any compression of the original model, and thus can be directly designed on large networks. The simulation studies on small synthetic networks shows that CoD-CP performs comparable to previously proposed greedy policies that were induced from the compressed versions of the networks. Furthermore, on a large 17-gene gastrointestinal cancer network, CoD-CP outperforms other two available greedy techniques, which is precisely the kind of case for which CoD-CP has been developed. Finally, our experiments show that CoD-CP is robust with respect to the attractor structure of the model. CONCLUSIONS: The newly proposed CoD-CP provides an attractive alternative for intervening large networks where other available greedy methods require size reduction on the network and an extra induction step before designing a control policy.

BACKGROUND: RNA-Seq is the recently developed high-throughput sequencing technology for profiling the entire transcriptome in any organism. It has several major advantages over current hybridization-based approach such as microarrays. However, the cost per sample by RNA-Seq is still prohibitive for most laboratories. With continued improvement in sequence output, it would be cost-effective if multiple samples are multiplexed and sequenced in a single lane with sufficient transcriptome coverage. The objective of this analysis is to evaluate what sequencing depth might be sufficient to interrogate gene expression profiling in the chicken by RNA-Seq. RESULTS: Two cDNA libraries from chicken lungs were sequenced initially, and 4.9 million (M) and 1.6 M (60 bp) reads were generated, respectively. With significant improvements in sequencing technology, two technical replicate cDNA libraries were re-sequenced. Totals of 29.6 M and 28.7 M (75 bp) reads were obtained with the two samples. More than 90% of annotated genes were detected in the data sets with 28.7-29.6 M reads, while only 68% of genes were detected in the data set with 1.6 M reads. The correlation coefficients of gene expression between technical replicates within the same sample were 0.9458 and 0.8442. To evaluate the appropriate depth needed for mRNA profiling, a random sampling method was used to generate different number of reads from each sample. There was a significant increase in correlation coefficients from a sequencing depth of 1.6 M to 10 M for all genes except highly abundant genes. No significant improvement was observed from the depth of 10 M to 20 M (75 bp) reads. CONCLUSION: The analysis from the current study demonstrated that 30 M (75 bp) reads is sufficient to detect all annotated genes in chicken lungs. Ten million (75 bp) reads could detect about 80% of annotated chicken genes, and RNA-Seq at this depth can serve as a replacement of microarray technology. Furthermore, the depth of sequencing had a significant impact on measuring gene expression of low abundant genes. Finally, the combination of experimental and simulation approaches is a powerful approach to address the relationship between the depth of sequencing and transcriptome coverage.

MOTIVATION: Gene regulatory networks serve as models from which to derive therapeutic intervention strategies, in particular, stationary control policies over time that shift the probability mass of the steady state distribution (SSD) away from states associated with undesirable phenotypes. Derivation of control policies is hindered by the high-dimensional state spaces associated with gene regulatory networks. Hence, network reduction is a fundamental issue for intervention. RESULTS: The network model that has been most used for the study of intervention in gene regulatory networks is the probabilistic Boolean network (PBN), which is a collection of constituent Boolean networks (BNs) with perturbation. In this article, we propose an algorithm that reduces a BN with perturbation, designs a control policy on the reduced network and then induces that policy to the original network. The coefficient of determination (CoD) is used to choose a gene for deletion, and a reduction mapping is used to rewire the remaining genes. This CoD-reduction procedure is used to construct a reduced network, then either the previously proposed mean first-passage time (MFPT) or SSD stationary control policy is designed on the reduced network, and these policies are induced to the original network. The efficacy of the overall algorithm is demonstrated on networks of 10 genes or less, where it is possible to compare the steady state shifts of the induced and original policies (because the latter can be derived), and by applying it to a 17-gene gastrointestinal network where it is shown that there is substantial beneficial steady state shift. AVAILABILITY: The code for the algorithms is available at: http://gsp.tamu.edu/Publications/supplementary/ghaffari10a/ Please Contact Noushin Ghaffari at [email protected] for further questions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

MOTIVATION: A key goal of studying biological systems is to design therapeutic intervention strategies. Probabilistic Boolean networks (PBNs) constitute a mathematical model which enables modeling, predicting and intervening in their long-run behavior using Markov chain theory. The long-run dynamics of a PBN, as represented by its steady-state distribution (SSD), can guide the design of effective intervention strategies for the modeled systems. A major obstacle for its application is the large state space of the underlying Markov chain, which poses a serious computational challenge. Hence, it is critical to reduce the model complexity of PBNs for practical applications. RESULTS: We propose a strategy to reduce the state space of the underlying Markov chain of a PBN based on a criterion that the reduction least distorts the proportional change of stationary masses for critical states, for instance, the network attractors. In comparison to previous reduction methods, we reduce the state space directly, without deleting genes. We then derive stationary control policies on the reduced network that can be naturally induced back to the original network. Computational experiments study the effects of the reduction on model complexity and the performance of designed control policies which is measured by the shift of stationary mass away from undesirable states, those associated with undesirable phenotypes. We consider randomly generated networks as well as a 17-gene gastrointestinal cancer network, which, if not reduced, has a 2(17) × 2(17) transition probability matrix. Such a dimension is too large for direct application of many previously proposed PBN intervention strategies.