Spring/Summer 2003 Newsletter

• MSNO Administrivia
• Member Services and News
• MSNO Spring 2003 Technical Meeting
• CAPRI Meeting Summary
• M&M 2003 Preview – San Antonio, August 3-8- From the EXPO issue of Microscopy and Microanalysis
• MSNO Board Contact Information

I am still looking for member submissions to the newsletter.  As I noted in the Winter Newsletter, member submissions can consist of interesting photomicrographs (providing you are the owner and have your employer’s permission to publish), personal news such as promotions, awards, presentations, retirements, job changes or publications, and lab or facility upgrades or improvements (new instruments!), etc.  Also, anyone who would like to have his or her laboratory featured in the newsletter just needs to let me know (valerie.woodward@noveoninc.com).

The Board also welcomes suggestions for meeting topics, and offers of sites at which to hold them.  This is your society, and the Board is responsible to you, not vice versa.  Let us know what kinds of meetings you would like to see on the MSNO schedule!

The new MSNO officers (June 1, 2003 – May 31, 2004) are: Valerie Woodward, president; Judy Fulton, secretary; Dan Kremser, trustee 2003-2006; and Jay Mansbach, president-elect.  All officer contact information is on page 6 of the newsletter, as well as on the web site.

The next board meeting is August 12, 2003.  If you have any issues that you would like the Board to address, please contact any one of the members before that date.  One issue that will be discussed is the possibility of migrating the newsletter from print to electronic version.  I would be very interested in receiving member feedback about this subject prior to the board meeting.

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Mike Mallamaci has recently left The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. to start his own analytical services company, PolyInsight, LLC. PolyInsight will initially specialize in performing atomic force microscopy characterization of polymers, plastics, and nanocomposite systems, and has recently purchased a Nanoscope IV – Multimode AFM system from Veeco Metrology Group. In addition to performing analyses on a fee-for-service basis, PolyInsight also offers instrument access to qualified operators. PolyInsight is located at the Akron Industrial Incubator, 526 S. Main St., in Akron. Anyone interested in more information about PolyInsight can reach Mike at 330-777-0025, or via email: info@polyinsight.com

Dave Angle, JEOL USA Inc. Midwest Sales, has retired after a long (30 years!) and successful career.  Dave shares with us the following: if you can manage to do it, retire!  He also notes that his “honey do” list has grown, his long-time love of ham radio has been rekindled, his grandkids get to spend more time with him, and e-bay™ has listed him as a preferred customer!  Dave will still be a member of MSNO, and looks forward to hearing from his old friends – check out his new e-mail address in the membership list.

Bill Powell now covers Dave’s territory – see his card in the Corporate Member business card section.

Jay Mansbach, MSNO president-elect, has been invited to join an advisory group for the creation of a Scientific Imaging degree program at Cuyahoga Community College.  The program has received preliminary approval from the Ohio Board of Regents, and will expose students to the application of all types of imaging used in science, medicine and industry.  The invitation was extended to Jay based on his knowledge and experience in microscope-based scientific imaging in materials and biological sciences.  Congratulations, Jay! 

Two MSNO members will be running for Council positions in the Microbeam Analysis Society (MAS) in December.  Dan Kremser, newly elected MSNO trustee, is running for Director (2004-2006), and Valerie Woodward, MSNO president, is running for secretary (2004-2006). 

SITUATION WANTED: Materials Scientist seeks position in analytical services or product development.  Very experienced in electron microscopy, optical microscopy, optical testing, thermal analysis.  Familiar with many other analytical techniques.  Built, instrumented and managed an optical testing lab.  Worked closely with manufacturing in trouble-shooting process and product issues. Developed quality testing methods and established ISO 9001 compliance of lab and R&D.  Strong problem solving, analytical, communication, organizational and PC skills. Dedicated and focused in both collaborative efforts and independent work.  Willing to start in entry-level position.  Contact Laura Bonney at (440) 423-1779 or laura_bonney@yahoo.com.

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The Spring meeting was held on April 29, 2003 at Summa Health Systems – Akron City Hospital.  Our “host with the most” was Mark Kovacik, who has hosted a meeting at Summa for the past three years.  Despite the multiple detours from Route 8 construction, the meeting was very well attended, and the audience was not disappointed.  The speakers, food and drink, and member interaction made for an informative and entertaining evening for all, and wrapped up our “Imaging Year” in fine fashion.

After registration, a lovely hors d’oeuvres and beverage reception was held, courtesy of Roger Teppert of Hitachi High Technologies America (corporate member).  There were a number of lively conversations at the reception, with old friends getting reacquainted, new acquaintances being made, job situations being discussed and plans visualized for future workshops and training in NEOhio.

The first speaker was Dr. Simon Watkins of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.  His talk was titled: Optical Opportunities and Biomedical Imaging in the 21^st Century.”  Many thanks go to Bill Landis for arranging Dr. Watkins’s presentation.  Simon opened the talk by asking the audience if the microscope were invented or discovered, and offered to us that a pair of brothers who looked down a telescope backward discovered the microscope!  That being said, the first microscopes were more like “coffee table” items than scientific instruments.  Leeuwenhoek, a grocer, was the first real scientific microscopist, and started his studies by slicing open his products and observing them.  Microscopy began to evolve by the use of staining to elucidate structures of interest, and has mushroomed since.  Now, it is necessary to have the ability to image “live” in order to observe active processes and the fate of medical treatments in vivo.  Simon used the examples of dendritic cells to substantiate that necessity.  Dendritic cells (DCs) are cells whose job is to scavenge and deliver antigens to the lymph nodes.  To observe their action in tumor immunization, they are coated onto Au beads along with ovalbumin, tagged with GFP and tracked into the lymph nodes.  These are tracked using time based assays (watching things while they happen) rather than static snapshots.  DC-to-DC interaction was also observed using the time based assay method.  Simon said one of the main questions on the “imaging wish list” is being able to look into the animal, not just into the culture dish.  There are two answers to that question – either make the animal fit into the microscope, or use a scope that fits the animal.  One possibility is a hand-held confocal microscope, used to track the GFP/DC/Au beads after subcutaneous injection.  There are limitations to that method though, the two main ones being reduced penetration due to Rayleigh scattering and phototoxicity of the dyes/stains.  The multiphoton setup at Pitt improves upon the penetration depth by allowing ~700um of observation without microtomy.  This method provides several orders of magnitude improvement over grinding up cells and culturing them.  The take home lesson from Simon’s talk was this: imaging has gone from traditional static methods to real time observation, characterization and recording of 3D space without any animal deaths.

After Simon’s presentation, the group adjourned for dinner.  As usual, Mark and the catering staff at Summa provided the members with a delightful selection of entrees and side dishes, and of course, the requisite rich desserts.  There were so many conversations going on that a person needed a scorecard to keep up.

The after dinner speaker was Dr. Brent Neal from Reindeer Graphics, whose talk was titled “Using PhotoShop™ for Real Science.”  Brent opened the talk by breaking down the process of going from an image to structural information as follows: (1) grayscale or color image (2) stored pixel array (3) binary image (4) object (5) data (6) structure.  Color images can also be broken down into there separate channels, RGB or better yet, HIS (hue, saturation and intensity).  Once images are broken down, all sorts of processing can be used to obtain information.  Noise reduction can be accomplished by temporal (time based) or spatial (pixel neighborhood) averaging, or background removal.  Background removal is especially helpful in reducing or eliminating vignetting and hot pots due to misalignment, uneven illumination, optics, etc.  The Image Processing Toolkit™ (Reindeer Graphics) plug-in for Adobe PhotoShop™ has a number of processes and filters that can achieve the noise reduction, as well as increase the uniformity of an image.  The Toolkit can be used to bring different focal plane images from light microscopy into one image all in focus by using a variance operator.  Brent noted that there are two general types of processing: global and selected region.  Global processing is that which we are all most familiar – histograms, image math and leveling.  Selected region is the type of processing that is used in surveillance camera images.  As with previous speakers on image processing, Brent warned of some of the perils of sharpening images; he noted that sharpening in RGB can add colors to an image that aren’t really there.  He provided a very graphic example of that phenomenon, and how it can be nearly eliminated by sharpening is HSI rather than RGB.  He discussed the Toolkit process of converting texture to brightness – this would be a real boon to those of us who examine reasonably flat surfaces and find only subtle texture differences using low voltage SEM or differential interference contrast optical.  Another helpful process for failure analysts would be the Toolkit’s Sobel and segment operators, which is used on fractography to yield texture and orientation information.  The Fourier transform operators in the program can be used for a number of improvements: removing pattern noise, locating specific features in images, deconvolution of fuzzy images into sharp ones, and motion and blur correction.  Finally, a most important process to image analysis was discussed – thresholding.  Thresholds are necessary for measurements, and can be done by the “magic wand” tool in PhotoShop™ (not always highly selective), watershed tool (Toolkit), skeletonization, and form factors.  Brent wrapped up the talk by saying that for many questions that have arisen about image enhancement and analysis, the advent of inexpensive computing power and the ability to breakdown an image into discrete picture elements and color spaces have given the microscopist the power to answer most of them, and provide more meaningful information to their customers and research partners.  On a personal note, Valerie Woodward attended Dr. John Russ’ (Reindeer Graphics founder) 3-day short course on Quantitative Image Analysis in 2002, and Brent’s talk was a very ambitious 1-hour capsule of that class.   There is so much information to be had regarding image processing and analysis, and Brent’s talk whetted the appetites of most of the audience to learn more.

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The Twenty-Second Anniversary Symposium of the Center for Applied Polymer Research (CAPRI) was held on Wednesday, May 28^th, 2003 at the Kent Hale Smith building on the Case Western Reserve University Campus.  More than twenty industry representatives were in attendance to view presentations (and posters) of research conducted by students of the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering.  The event was hosted by Professors Anne Hiltner (Director of CAPRI) and Professor Eric Baer.

Of note were five student presentations on (1) crystallization within biodegradable polymer blends, (2) structure-property relationships of foam microlayers, (3) nanostructured polymers as tunable optical filters, (4) new solid state structures found within polymer blends, and (5) strain conditioning of polymer blends to yield novel microstructures.

New this year (and very well received) was an overview from Professor Baer on the status of CAPRI. In his presentation he introduced the concept of "Polymer-Plus".   This is a concept that will focus the future of CAPRI not only on the synthesis, properties, processing, structure and characterization of polymers, but also on applications.  As a result of this approach he predicts growth areas for CAPRI over the next ten years in (1) electron optics, (2) transport systems (barriers, etc.), (3) mechanical behavior, and (4) complex polymer systems.

The use of microscopy was evident in all student presentations and some twenty-three posters.  Specific examples are given to show the breath of techniques employed:

Optical microscopy

Scanning Electron Microscopy

Atomic Force Microscopy

A single vote was cast for the best poster by each of the industry representatives.  Monetary awards were given at dinner for the first-place poster and an unprecedented three posters that tied for second place!  Winner names and the titles of their posters are provided below:

First place

"Deformation Mechanisms of New Elastomeric Propylene-Ethylene Copolymers" by Ben Poon.

Second Place

"Stability of High Density Polyethylene Nanolayers" by Yi Jin and Teresa Bernal

"Probing Nanoscale Polymer Interactions by Forced-Assembly" by Richard Liu

"Photopatternable Nanomaterials" by Ravisubhash Tangirala

Overall, the day was quite enjoyable and rich with examples of applied microscopy.  I encourage all of those interested to attend next year’s symposium.

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M&M 2003 is being held in San Antonio, Texas, a center of cultural history for Mexico and the US.  Not only will this serve as the annual meeting for MSA, MAS, International Metallographic Society (IMS) and the Organization of Latin American Societies of Electron Microscopy (CIASEM), but also the VII Interamerican Congress on Electron Microscopy.  The meeting attendance will be diverse, and the entertainment and social programs will be steeped in culture.  There are numerous symposia, highlighted by Tuesday afternoon session of the IR-Raman Symposium dedicated to Walter McCrone.  The meeting consists of a pre-meeting congress on Biophotonics (there you go, Jay), a number of short courses, physical sciences, biological sciences, instrumental methods and Technologists’ Forum symposia, and several joint society social events.  A number of symposia will be presented in both Spanish and English.  MSNO members Bill Landis and Valerie Woodward will be presenting talks at the Tuesday morning Tech Forum Symposium on Diverse Techniques for Complete Specimen Analysis and Characterization.  Bill will reprise his October 2002 MSNO talk on Laser Capture Microdissection, and Valerie will speak about A Multidisciplinary Approach to Problem Solving in Failure Analysis, or What to Do When Microscopy Isn’t Enough.  Of note, one of MSNO’s spring meeting speakers, Simon Watkins of Pitt, will be teaching a short course in Live Cell Imaging.  The MAS Presidential Happenings presentation on Tuesday is by Phil Russell, North Carolina State University, who was an MSNO speaker on physical sciences AFM in 1997. 

Of course, no trip to San Antonio would be complete without a visit to The Alamo and a stroll down the Riverwalk.  The technical, cultural and social components of this meeting should combine to make it unforgettable.

For complete meeting details, visit the MAS and MSA websites: www.microbeamanalysis.org and www.msa.microscopy.com.  You can also use the society links from the MSNO web site, www.msneo.org. 

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