June 11, 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. Mini Analysis Program version 4.1 is just released. For upgrade from v4.0 to v4.1, download a patch file from our upgrade home page at http://www.syanptosoft.com. Ever since the first release in Feb 1999, there have been over 100 copies of version 4.0 distributed throughout the world. We are hoping to revolutionize the field of spontaneous activities by providing this program with ease of use, fast and accurate detection, and easy manipulation of detected events. So far, the users of the program have been extremely enthusiastic, and we are quite confident that the program will allow more and more neuroscientists to do recordings of spontaneous activities and amperometry. One investigator in UCLA reported me that he has been successfully using the program to detect peaks from calcium imaging traces. Applications are limitless. If you haven't tried, please check out the demo of Mini Analysis Program version 4.1 at http://www.synaptosoft.com now! And don't forget to send us any of your suggestions! 1. WinTida users - ABF Utility now converts WinTida file v1! Plus other enhancements. 2. Save and open ATF (Axon Text File) format files - easy import and export. 3. Changes in Group Analysis functions. 4. Changes in Plot functions. 5. Other minor changes and bug fixes. 6. Wanted! Custom programming projects. 7. "Mini How Journal" 8. More references and more to come! 1. WinTida users - ABF Utility now converts WinTida file v1! Plus other enhancements. In version 4.1, the ABF Utility program added a data file format for another popular acquisition program, WinTida. Now you can directly convert WinTida files by simply highlighting one or multiple WinTida files and pressing one button. The program will know if you have more than one channel data. It will ask which channel you want to extract and convert to ABF. Simple as that. If you have your own proprietary file format, just give us a buzz. We will be happy to add your file to the growing list of files formats that ABF Utility converts. Another enhancement was made in conversion of ASCII files. Now you can concatenate multiple columns when you convert multi-column ASCII files. Before, you could only convert one column at a time. 2. Save and open ATF (Axon Text File) format files - easy import and export. ATF format is another Axon's file format specially developed for ASCII files. Now version 4.1 will copy and save any kind of data as an ATF file. This means that you can save any data in Mini Analysis Program and open the ATF file from any of Axon's program, including Clampfit 6, Axograph, Axoscope, Clampex 7, etc. Furthermore, you can now open an ATF file and import data into DataArray for further data manipulations. Many people asked about being able to import data into DataArray. This method can serve as a simple solution for data import. In the future, you will be able to import any ASCII file or even from the clipboard. Please be patient. 3. Changes in Group Analysis functions. In Group Analysis, now you can copy or save all the traces of grouped events. Before you could only copy and save the average trace. Each trace will be represented as a column. And of course the program will generate ATF file. You will be able to open this ATF file from say Clampfit and try their curve fittings. We would like to improve the curve fitting in Mini Analysis Program. Please send us any suggestions. In group analysis curve fitting, now you can clear the fitting results. The function is called, "Clear fitting results" and it is under "Fitting" menu in Group Analysis window. Before you could only calculate inter-event intervals of all the events, now you can calculate inter-event intervals within grouped events. In the Criteria Search window, a new option is added to" mark the rest as group number". An example of this feature is the following: Let say you want to group any events that has amplitude over 50 pA as group # 1 and the rest as group #2, then you check mark "Mark the rest as group #" and set the number of group as 2. Any events with an amplitude over 50 pA will be marked as group #1 and otherwise marked as group #2. Some investigators asked to add a random selection and grouping feature. Basically this feature picks events certain number of events randomly. This feature is useful when you would like to compare two populations with vastly different n's. You can select randomly from the population with much larger n in order to match the smaller population. In this way the sample size of the two populations will be matched. 4. Changes in Plot functions. In version 4.1, you will notice that there ware two ways to plot a cumulative histogram; with binning and without binning. This is an extension of the new way to do Kolmogorov-Smirnof test, introduced in version 4.0, namely comparing two cumulative histograms without binning. In cumulative histogram without binning, you don't have to enter a bin size, since the plot is generated by first sorting the events in ascending order, and then by plotting amplitude as x-axis versus the cumulative fraction as y-axis. This should generate much smoother curve with all the points included, compared to cumulative histogram with bins. Cumultaive histograms now have y-axis range from 0 to 1, instead of 0 to 100. This represents the cumulative fraction, which should range from 0 to 1. When you wanted to print multiple graphs in a page, you did not have option to rearrange the order of graphs. Now you can easily manipulate the order of graphs to be printed by highlighting a graph title in Select Graph to Print window and pressing either Move Up in the List or Move Down in the List button. This function should be very helpful if you have many graphs to organize and print. Since version 4.0, Kolmogorov-Smirnof test displays a helpful graph to show the two DataArrays, which are being compared. Now this graph added a legend text other titles to make the graph more user friendly. 5. Other minor changes and bug fixes. One minor but major change is the addition of another useful short cut key to detect a peak with a mouse click at 1/10th threshold. The actual key-stroke is the following; while Ctrl and Alt keys are both pressed, pressing the left mouse button at a peak. This shortcut key allows you to detect any peak at 1/10th of amplitude threshold and 1/10th of area threshold. If you see a visually identifiable peak that the automatic detection has missed, then simply press Ctrl-Alt-Left mouse button to add the peak. This shortcut key is very useful when you examine your automatically detected peaks. In Column Statistics window, you could only print the results. But now you can copy or save the column statistics results for easy export. You can also change the title of the window. Bug was fixed for JKLUI shortcut keys giving runtime errors. 6. Wanted! Custom program projects. As Mini Analysis Program and ABF Utility Program are getting more and more sophisticated, I have become quite proficient in most of data file formats. Now I feel I can really help out some of you who might have some inconveniences in data handling or analysis, and who might wish for a small program to make your life easier. If you have a small programming project, please feel free to consult with me. I will be glad to put my expertise at work and generate a program that will let you save lots of time. I can make a windows program that runs in win 95/98/NT with no problem, at a fraction of time, and at a fraction of cost. For example, one investigator from UCLA offered me to write a program that will convert Nicolet oscilloscope-generated binary files to ASCII file. As soon as I received the necessary information about the binary file format, I got to work and by next morning I was able to send her the final program. So, don't hesitate contact me for any of your custom program projects. 7. "Mini How Journal" Starting in July 1999, we will be sending on-line journal, "Mini How Journal" to all the users of Mini Analysis Program. As the name suggests, the journal will try to explain and answer some of popular questions on how to use the program. The journal will be issued every week or two and the past issues will be available at http://www.synaptosoft.com. We believe the journal will bring the users closer together and make the best out of the program. If you have any comments, please let us hear. Send us an e-mail. 8. More references and more to come! We welcome all your journal articles to be listed in our home page. We expect to see many more 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. Here are recent articles from major neuroscience journals. There might be more in other journals. Christian Essrich, Matthias Lorez, Jack A. Benson, Jean-Marc Fritschy & Bernhard Lüscher Postsynaptic clustering of major GABAA receptor subtypes requires the 2 subunit and gephyrin Nature Neuroscience November 1998 Volume 1 Number 7 pp 563-571 Matthew H. Higgs and Peter D. Lukasiewicz Glutamate Uptake Limits Synaptic Excitation of Retinal Ganglion Cells J. Neurosci. 1999 19: 3691-3700. Aaron DiAntonio, Sophie A. Petersen, Manfred Heckmann, and Corey S. Goodman Glutamate Receptor Expression Regulates Quantal Size and Quantal Content at the Drosophila Neuromuscular Junction J. Neurosci. 1999 19: 3023-3032. Karen Zito, Dorit Parnas, Richard D. Fetter, Ehud Y. Isacoff, and Corey S. Goodman Watching a Synapse Grow: Noninvasive Confocal Imaging of Synaptic Growth in Drosophila Neuron 1999 22: 719-729. 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. If you wish to be removed from this newsletter mailing list please mailto:Reply@www.synaptosoft.com. Synaptosoft Inc. 107 Irving Street Leonia, NJ 07605 phone: 201-592-7034 fax: 201-592-7034 http://www.synaptosoft.com ftp://ftp.synaptosoft.com mailto://Webmaster@synaptosoft.com