Feb 8, 1999 Greetings to all the Mini Analysis Program supporters! This newsletter informs the users of Mini Analysis Program about the updates and changes in the Program. The long promised Mini Analysis Program version 4 is just released. The new version promises the new era of peak detection by adding multiple and complex peak detection algorithm. Along w ith the release of version 4, the website for Mini Analysis Program has been moved to a new internet address at http://www.synaptosoft.com. As its name indicates, we are committed to provide top quality analysis software to researchers in synaptic transmission and synaptic release field. Please check out the demo of Mini Analysis Program version 4 at http://www.synaptosoft.com! 1. Version 4 and many cool features - complex-peak detection! 2. ABF Utility now converts any computer file to an ABF file, even any Mac files! 3. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test revisited. 4. New professional quality graph and spreadsheet component. 5. Price increase in version 4. 6. New registration, and upgrade procedure. 7. Curve fitting enhancements - exponential fitting of individual, as well as average traces. 8. Reshuffled shortcut keys for smarter navigation. 9. Recent references for Mini Analysis Program. 10. Other changes. 1. Version 4 and many cool features - complex peak detection! You have waited for this moment. Version 4 allows detection of complex peaks, as in a burst of activities. There is no limit on how close the two adjacent peaks should be. As long as a neighboring peak shows a visual separation from the preceding peak, the program will detect it as a complex peak, and as baseline adjusted with exponential decay extrapolation. This is important because it most closely approximates the true peak amplitude, since complex peaks rides on the decay phase of preceding peak. The big assumption here is that it uses 1st order exponential decay function to extrapolate the baseline. (For illustrations, please click http://www.synaptosoft.com/Features.html). Since it goes into a loop to detect any more subsequent complex peaks, it can detect many sequential peaks at once. This new complex peak detection algorithm has been tested extensibly by beta testers. All of those who tested the algorithm were extremely pleased with the results(You can look at some snapshots of complex peak detection by clicking http://www.synaptosoft.com/Gallery.html). You have an option of turning this feature on or off by changing the setting in Preference Setting window. Please try it and let us know how you like it. 2. ABF Utility now converts any computer file to an ABF file, even Mac files! Many investigators have asked us about data file formats. Now, we are proud to say that we may have solved the data file incompatibility problem, permanently! ABF Utility program now boasts file conversion of close to 10 different data file formats, including HEKA Pulse files (Mac and PC), Igor binary files, John Dempster's CDR and WinCDR files, etc. Better news is that it can convert any data file with binary data array of 16 bit integers. This is done by simply adding ABF file header in front of a binary file. In fact, ABF Utility can make any file, any computer file, into an ABF by adding ABF file header in front. Mac users, don't you worry. ABF Utility can now convert any Mac binary data files to ABF file. Mac files are different from PC files in that their byte orders are reversed. The ABF Utility program now includes an option to swap the byte orders for proper conversion of Mac files. As of now, about one third of registered users rely on ABF Utility to convert their data to ABF, so that they can analyze their data with Mini Analysis Program. Many investigators also inquired us about ASCII file conversion, and recently this feature was added to ABF Utility program. I say, it's about time for us to be free from the problem of data file incompatibility. (To find out more about ABF Utility, click at http://www.synaptosoft.com/ABFUtility.html) 3. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test revisited. There has been a lot of confusion about how to use Kolmogorov-Smirnov(KS test) two sample test. I have spent some time to explore this test in detail, with useful help from Dr. Dave Sulzer at Columbia U, who is currently preparing a review article on this subject. Even though it was difficult to find any good source of information, at the end we were able to gather enough information to really make things clear on how the test should be done. KS test checks if two independent distributions are similar or different, by generating cumulative probability plots for two distributions and finding the distance along the y-axis for a given x values between the two curves. From all the distances calculated for each x value, the maximum distance is searched. This maximum distance or maximum difference is then plugged into KS probability function to calculate the probability value. The lower the probability value is the less likely the two distributions are similar. Conversely, the higher or more close to 1 the value is the more similar the two distributions are. The confusion was on how to generate cumulative probability plots. Originally, I suggested to make binned cumulative frequency histogram plot and use the y values of this plot to do the KS test. This method gave a problem, because depending on the bin size the KS statistics gave variable results. It turns out that you did not need to generate cumulative frequency histogram, because KS test itself generates cumulative probability distributions. Therefore, the correct way to do is to put actual amplitudes to DataArray #1 and DataArray #2, and then directly do the KS test. No more cumulative plots, no more binning. In version 4, KS test now includes cumulative probability plots for DataArray#1 and DataArray#2 to visualize the test statistics. For current version 3 users, please request us for the updated version. 4. New professional quality graph and spreadsheet component. Version 4 includes several new components that will allow us to do more sophisticated analysis. The new graph control is a fully customizable, feature rich graph control. It comes with its own property window, which can be invoked with a right mouse click from any graph. Then a user can change most of basic properties, such as graph title, graph style, color of line or symbol, etc. In the initial version of 4, not all the potential features of this graph control are implemented, and we are open to any suggestions on how to make plotting easy but yet sophisticated. Version 4 also incorporates a new spreadsheet control. This control gives much more flexibility, and most of all it allows detection of virtually infinite number of peaks. In previous versions, the total number of events that user could detect per data file was limited to 16000 events, was due to the Microsoft's clunky grid control. Furthermore, the new spreadsheet control allows faster loading and closing of event files, alternating row color for easier view of data, and much more. In order to make the program installation and upgrades easier, we also purchased a new installation program called, Wise InstallMaker. This program makes installation much easier than before, by making the setup related files into one big file. Now user just has to download one file and double click on it to start the installation. And it is supposed to eliminate many installation-related errors. 5. Price increase in version 4. With the purchase and addition of new graph control and spreadsheet control, plus Wise InstallMaker, we were forced to increase the price of the program to $250.00 for full version of 4.0. The current owners of version 3 and version 2 will have to pay only $100.00 for the upgrade. There will be no more version 3 sold starting from February 2, 1999. For the owners of version 3, if you like to upgrade, you will have to download the demo of version 4 and install it on your machine. It is recommended that you uninstall the previous version by going into Start->Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs and by removing "Mini Analysis". Then install the version 4. 6. New registration, and upgrade procedure. There will be a brand new way of registering for the program. Instead of sending you a registered copy of the main program, we will send you a small file called, MiniRegi.key, which contains the necessary hard drive serial number information encoded. All you will have to do is to put the file in the program directory of the demo program, in order to make the program fully functional. No more e-mail attachment of 1 Mb file. For future upgrades, which will be posted at http://www.synaptosoft.com/UpgradeOnly.html, all you have to do is to download a necessary patch file. The downloaded patch file will automatically upgrade your program for you. No need to download the whole demo for future upgrades. 7. Curve fitting enhancements - exponential fitting of individual, as well as average traces. As I promised, the group analysis and curve fitting added a function of fitting all the traces in a group. The program will fit with single or double exponential function and display the results in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet will make displaying and exporting of results much easier. I also added calculation of half-width parameter with each curve fitting. In the future updates, users will be able to plot the results displayed in the spreadsheet as well. 8. Reshuffled shortcut keys for smarter navigation. The shortcut keys are reorganized to make the navigation more intuitive. In general, left-hand keys are used for "jumping" to an event, whereas right-hand keys are used for manipulations of a selected event. The "ZXCVB" keys are used for jumping to a next or previous events that are in time sequence, regardless of their event number. In the contrary, "QWER" keys are used for jumping to a next or previous event according to the event number. "QWER" keys are useful when you want to examine the events after sorting by amplitude. In this way, you will be able to move from the smallest event to the next larger event. After automatic detection, you might want to examine the small events first. The "ASDF" keys have the same functions as before, namely moving the display window forward or backward. in the display window. You can set the fraction of the vertical scale to lock the baseline. It ranges from zero (top of window) to 1 (bottom of window). 9. Recent references for Mini Analysis Program. In our new internet home at http://www.synaptosoft.com/References.html, we added a reference page to list the research journal articles, which referenced Mini Analysis Program. Please visit this site and take a look at what other people are doing and how they are using Mini Analysis Program. We welcome all your journal articles to be listed in our home page. We expect to see many new articles to be published in 1999, with Mini Analysis Program referenced. When you refer to Mini Analysis Program, please refer as "Mini Analysis Program (Synaptosoft Inc., www.synaptosoft.com)". If journal editors won't let you use internet address for the address of company, then just use "(Synaptosoft Inc., Leonia, NJ, USA)" as the company info. 10. Other changes. - Save analysis parameters: You can now save parameter settings in a separate file and load them when you need. - Home, End, Page Up, Page Down keys used for gain & # display blocks. - Bugs fixed for JKLUI shortcut keys giving runtime errors. - If you haven't try the demo, please visit us at http://www.synaptosoft.com download the demo and try! *****Mini Analysis Program is a product of joint effort by all the users. If you have any suggestions, please let us know, we will incorporate your ideas.****** For more information, visit our website at http://www.synaptosoft.com. If you want to receive the upgrade, please download the demo at http://www.synaptosoft.com/DownloadDemo.html. 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