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Cardiomyocytes (CMs) are heart cells responsible for heart contraction and relaxation. CMs can be derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) with high yield and purity. Mature CMs can potentially replace dead and dysfunctional cardiac tissue and be used for screening cardiac drugs and toxins. However, hiPSCs-derived CMs (hiPSC-CMs) are immature, which limits their utilization. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how experimental variables, especially tunable ones, of hiPSC expansion and differentiation phases affect the hiPSC-CM maturity stage. This study applied clustering algorithms to day 30 cardiac differentiation data to investigate if any maturity-related cell features could be related to the experimental variables. The best models were obtained using k-means and Gaussian mixture model clustering algorithms based on the evaluation metrics. They grouped the cells based on eccentricity and elongation. The cosine similarity between the clustering results and the experimental parameters revealed that the Gaussian mixture model results have strong similarities of 0.88, 0.94, and 0.93 with axial ratio, diameter, and cell concentration. 

Abstract Surveillance of animal movements using electronic tags (i.e., biotelemetry) has emerged as an essential tool for both basic and applied ecological research and monitoring. Advances in animal tracking are occurring simultaneously with changes to technology, in an evolving global scientific culture that increasingly promotes data sharing and transparency. However, there is a risk that misuse of biotelemetry data could increase the vulnerability of animals to human disturbance or exploitation. For the most part, telemetry data security is not a danger to animals or their ecosystems, but for some high-risk cases, as with species’ with high economic value or at-risk populations, available knowledge of their movements may promote active disturbance or worse, potential poaching. We suggest that when designing animal tracking studies it is incumbent on scientists to consider the vulnerability of their study animals to risks arising from the implementation of the proposed program, and to take preventative measures.