Note:  R&D's TNT business unit has moved to Biopar, LLC, in the business of biological pattern recognition.

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Research and Development
During 2003 DataFlow's R&D Division was focused on its TNT project, funded partly by Small Business Innovative Research grant funding from the National Science Foundation.

TNT – what and why:
The Natural Tag (Patent Pending), also known as TNT, is an automated image processing and pattern recognition-based tool used in population research and natural resource management. TNT’s primary users are resource managers and scientists that are responsible for research requiring them to determine population levels of free-ranging animals. The vast body of research-based knowledge about mark-recapture science is well documented regarding the statistical and behavioral limits imposed by traditional mutilation marking techniques. The lethal and sub-lethal effects are well established and are statistically significant. (See for example, Fish Marking Techniques, American Fisheries Society Symposium 7.) In most circumstances, TNT renders those methods unnecessary.

In addition to minimizing the ethical issues associated with mutilation tagging methods, TNT also provides economic and statistical advantages. Some advantages are:

• Larger number of animals 'tagged' per dollar spent, (which will likely increase sample size; one of the simple ways the confidence in the statistics is improved),
• More animals tagged per unit time,
• Facilitates a more comprehensive set of statistical data archived for each sample, (database design/build, maintenance and management are important elements of DataFlow’s broad based support of TNT),
• Variability due to tag reading error, tag loss, and tag recovery uncertainties is reduced or eliminated, substantially improving statistical rigor, and
• The number of ‘tags’ available is equal to the size of the population.

These, and other benefits, advance the state-of-the-art of population dynamics research, represent immediate cost/benefit improvements associated with mark recapture research and substantially reduce the need for using mutilation-marking techniques.

TNT – how:

TNT comprises hardware and software components. A high-end digital camera is mounted to a specimen-holding platform or platen, (in fish for example, it is a slightly modified measuring board) and connected to a PC. State-of-the-art image processing and analysis tools are used in acquiring the images. The digital information is sent via CD or e-mailed to DataFlow. Software developed by the company quantifies the pattern and compares it to a library of ‘knowns’ from the initial capture event. Depending on the species being studied, various morphometrics (such as length) are automatically recognized and stored along with sampling event data (such as date, time, locale, etc.) in a database custom-designed for the user.

Preliminary developmental research was conducted using fish as the organism of interest. It is known that spot patterns on fish are unique to individuals, and that the pattern of these spots can be mathematically described. Proprietary pattern recognition algorithms select spots automatically, quantify the pattern and compare the pattern of the unknown with all of the relevant 'knowns' in a user-specified library of 'knowns'.

In the first controlled experiments DataFlow used TNT with captive Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) with zero errors. While preliminary work has been on fish, DataFlow also is developing pattern recognition algorithms for other taxonomic groups such as insecta (dragonfly wings) and amphibia (salamander spots).

TNT – when:

Availability is dependent on species and other specific client requirements. Services range from service bureau-based initial and subsequent capture comparisons and reports, to project-based services in which DataFlow performs all of the field research and analysis, and provides data and reports.

Illustrations: image of a rainbow trout with spot vectors superimposed,
dragonfly wing, and California Tiger salamander.

For your copy of the TNT White Paper, please call or e-mail.

DataFlow/Alaska, Inc./R&D
2701 Fairbanks Street, Suite B
Anchorage, AK 99503
(907) 365-2700