Know your Garden Microbes : Nostoc As gardeners, we often focus on the macro aspects of our garden such as the plants, trees, and shrubs. But, what about the tiny microbes that play a vital role in the health of our gardens? Today, we are going to focus on a particular type of bacteria that is often overlooked: Nostoc. What is Nostoc? N ostoc is a jelly-like microorganism commonly found growing on soggy lawns. While the discovery of the creature might be frightening for some gardeners, it poses no threat to plants or animals in the environment. Because the Nostoc grows in places where grass does not, it is likely to fill in any gaps left by the grass. Evidence of an imbalance in the ratio of fungus to bacteria can be easily identified. Figure 1: Nostoc Growing in the Garden. It was once believed that these strange-looking masses of matter came from the dust of shooting stars, which gave rise to the nicknames star jelly, star shot, and star slime beca...
What to do When You Don't Have Gold Standard Images to Compare Your Processed Images How to Measure the Quality of Images When You Don't Have Gold Standard Images to Compare In the realm of image analysis and processing, quantifying image quality forms a crucial cornerstone of various methodologies. This is especially true when there's a lack of gold standard images or ground truth to set the benchmark. In such scenarios, we're often left asking: how can we measure image quality objectively or subjectively? Let's delve into this topic with an emphasis on establishing robust and reliable metrics for image quality analysis. Objective Measurement of Image Quality Without Ground Truth Objective quality metrics quantify the difference between two images based on numerical methods. But, how do we assess image quality objectivel...