https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-024-00429-4
Regular Article - Soft Matter
Texture identification in liquid crystal-protein droplets using evaporative drying, generalized additive modeling, and K-means Clustering
1
Department of Physics, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 01609, Worcester, MA, USA
2
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Komaba 4-6-1, 153-8505, Meguro, Tokyo, Japan
3
Department of Linguistics and Language Technology, Tezpur University, 784028, Tezpur, Assam, India
Received:
8
January
2024
Accepted:
30
April
2024
Published online:
24
May
2024
Sessile drying droplets manifest distinct morphological patterns, encompassing diverse systems, viz., DNA, proteins, blood, and protein-liquid crystal (LC) complexes. This study employs an integrated methodology that combines drying droplet, image texture analysis (features from First Order Statistics, Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix, Gray Level Run Length Matrix, Gray Level Size Zone Matrix, and Gray Level Dependence Matrix), and statistical data analysis (Generalized Additive Modeling and K-means clustering). It provides a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative exploration by examining LC-protein droplets at varying initial phosphate buffered concentrations (0x, 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x, and 1x) during the drying process under optical microscopy with crossed polarizing configuration. Notably, it unveils distinct LC-protein textures across three drying stages: initial, middle, and final. The Generalized Additive Modeling (GAM) reveals that all the features significantly contribute to differentiating LC-protein droplets. Integrating the K-means clustering method with GAM analysis elucidates how textures evolve through the three drying stages compared to the entire drying process. Notably, the final drying stage stands out with well-defined, non-overlapping clusters, supporting the visual observations of unique LC textures. Furthermore, this paper contributes valuable insights, showcasing the efficacy of drying droplets as a rapid and straightforward tool for characterizing and classifying dynamic LC textures.
© The Author(s) 2024
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