Flow Core Newsletter

September - October 1997

This is what's new in the HSS Flow Core...

Thanks for your MAC grant submissions! Thanks to everyone who submitted material to the flow section of the HSS MAC grant. We are particularly grateful to outside users who submitted material in support of our application. This grant is a critical source of facility support and allows us to maitain our outside rates at a relatively low level. We appreciate your support!

Our new WWW home page. Our new web page is operational! It can be reached from OUTSIDE HSS at http://www.hss.edu/research/flow/index.htm. From within HSS, it can be accessed at http://hss.hss.edu/research/flow/index.htm. The page contains information about our facility, including contact info, rates, instrumentation and resources, sample data from our instruments, descriptions of internal research projects and an extensive links section. We are planning to add a protocols section in the near future. Let us know what you think.

New CD-ROM data backup system. All data is now being permanently backed up to PC-based writeable CD-ROM system (instead of the tape drive we were previously using). This system will allow archived flow data to be accessed from any computer system (PC or Mac) with a CD-ROM drive, and is both more stable and cheaper than tape backup. We can also help you prepare a CD-ROM backup of your own data. In addition, HSS researchers are welcome to use this system for archiving applications other than flow (such as image data, for example). Let us know.

230 Mbyte magneto-optical drive on the PC. In addition, we have installed a 230 Mbyte magneto-optical drive on our PC. This drive can directly access data off of your Mac magneto-optical disks, allowing easier transfer of files to the PC for subsequent data analysis. Ask us if you want to use this system.

Instrument upgrades. Our FACSCalibur has FINALLY received an EPROM upgrade, which should eliminate the connection problems we have been having with the instrument. Over the next month the Vantage will be retrofitted with a nitrogen air supply (which should reduce bubble accumulation in the sort nozzle and make sorting smoother), as well as a cross-beam compensation unit. This unit will allow color compensation between the argon and helium-neon beams, improving our ability to carry out five-color analysis.

Sorting on the Vantage. The sorting schedule on the Vantage has become heavier in recent months. It is important to make your appointments at least two weeks in advance (more, if possible). It is also CRITICAL that you inform us as early as possible if you wish to cancel an appointment. Users will NOT be billed for unused sort time if they call to cancel (even last-minute, if your experiment has bombed!). Users who fail to contact us in the event of a cancellation WILL be billed for one hour setup time, not to mention inducing extreme irritation in the operator! Setting up the Vantage to sort is expensive and time-consuming - please keep us informed!

That’s it. Cheers!

Bill

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