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Corrosive Space Gas Restores Artwork, Promises Myriad Applications

Atomic oxygen's unique characteristic of oxidizing primarily hydrogen, carbon, and hydrocarbon polymers at surface levels has been applied in the restoration of artwork, detection of document forgeries, and removal of bacterial contaminants from surgical implants. The Electro-Physics Branch at Glenn Research Center built on corrosion studies of long-duration coatings for use in space, and applied atomic oxygen's selectivity to instances where elements need to be removed from a surface. Atomic oxygen is able to remove organic compounds high in carbon (mostly soot) from fire-damaged artworks without causing a shift in the paint color. First successfully tested on oil paintings, the team then applied the restoration technique to acrylics, watercolors, and ink. The successful art restoration process was well-publicized, and soon a multinational, nonprofit professional organization dedicated to the art of forensic analysis of documents had successfully applied this process in the field of forgery detection. The gas has biomedical applications as well-Atomic Oxygen technology can be used to decontaminate orthopedic surgical hip and knee implants prior to surgery, and additional collaborative research between the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and the Glenn team shows that this gas's roughening of surfaces improves cell adhesion, which is important for the development of new drugs.

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Application of Nuclear Technology to Art Identification Problems: First Annual Report

Throughout the centuries, as man has become increasingly affluent, his interest in antiquities and objects of art, and the price he has been willing to pay for them, has increased. Inevitably, one result has been to attract the unscrupulous to the production and sale of counterfeit paintings, sculptures, and other works of art. The skill of forgers varies but often is highly sophisticated. However, dealers, museum curators, and other experts have also become more skillful in the detection of forgeries. Scientific tools of increasing sensitivity and sophistication have gradually been applied to the examination of the materials of art and archaeology. Such tools frequently support and render more reliable the judgment of the experts. The quality of forgeries may improve further as their makers become acquainted with the new methods of detection and in turn learn to circumvent or confound the methods. Therefore, the development of still more advanced methods of examination has great utility in the art world. This is particularly true if the ultimate effect is to make circumvention of the methods of examination so costly that the economic incentives for producing forgeries may be substantially reduced, if not eliminated.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Fast Local Spatial Verification for Feature-Agnostic Large-Scale Image Retrieval

Images from social media can reflect diverse viewpoints, heated arguments, and expressions of creativity, adding new complexity to retrieval tasks. Researchers working on Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) have traditionally tuned their algorithms to match filtered results with user search intent. However, we are now bombarded with composite images of unknown origin, authenticity, and even meaning. With such uncertainty, users may not have an initial idea of what the search query results should look like. For instance, hidden people, spliced objects, and subtly altered scenes can be difficult for a user to detect initially in a meme image, but may contribute significantly to its composition. It is pertinent to design systems that retrieve images with these nuanced relationships in addition to providing more traditional results, such as duplicates and near-duplicates — and to do so with enough efficiency at large scale. In this work, we propose a new approach for spatial verification that aims at modeling object-level regions using image keypoints retrieved from an image index, which is then used to accurately weight small contributing objects within the results, without the need for costly object detection steps. We call this method the Objects in Scene to Objects in Scene (OS2OS) score, and it is optimized for fast matrix operations, which can run quickly on either CPUs or GPUs. It performs comparably to state-of-the-art methods on classic CBIR problems (Oxford 5K, Paris 6K, and Google-Landmarks), and outperforms them in emerging retrieval tasks such as image composite matching in the NIST MFC2018 dataset and meme-style imagery from Reddit.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Finding a needle in a haystack: quantitative HERFD-XRF imaging and HERFD-XANES characterization of trace platinum in gold solidi from the Late Roman and Byzantine Empires

High-Energy Resolution Fluorescence Detection X-Ray Fluorescence (HERFD-XRF) imaging and HERFD X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) spectroscopy are used to quantify and characterize trace platinum (Pt) in gold solidi from the Late Roman and Byzantine Empires. Historically, the elemental analysis of coins has been pivotal in distinguishing authentic artifacts from forgeries, elucidating minting practices, and understanding economic shifts. Notably, a new gold source with high platinum content appeared in the fourth century CE, transforming the Roman economy. Traditional methods struggled to detect platinum due to the overwhelming gold matrix. Here, this study demonstrates the effectiveness of HERFD techniques in resolving this challenge. Three gold solidi, minted between 654 and 659 CE, were analyzed alongside reference gold materials with known Pt concentrations. The HERFD-XRF imaging revealed spatial distributions of platinum, highlighting non-uniformities within the coins. Additionally, HERFD-XANES spectroscopy identified the oxidation states and chemical speciation of platinum. Results demonstrate that platinum in the solidi primarily exists as metallic Pt, with some surface oxidation. The findings align with previous measurements but reveal higher Pt concentrations and significant inhomogeneities. This research confirms the reliability of HERFD methods for quantifying trace elements and provides new insights into the raw material sources and minting techniques of ancient gold coins. The non-destructive nature of this approach allows for extensive analyses, offering valuable data for historical, economic, and archaeological studies. This innovative application of HERFD-XRF imaging and XANES in cultural heritage research underscores the potential for detailed material characterization and conservation, enhancing our understanding of ancient economies and trade patterns.

Van Loon, Lisa L.↗