This page describes how to gain access to the magnetic probe database maintained by the NIH/NIBIB National Research Resource for Computer-Integrated Systems for Microscopy and Manipulation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The magnetic probe database is a MySQL database table with the following fields:
| Field name | Type | Description |
| Type | varchar(255) | Descriptive name of the probe |
| VendorIndex | int(11) | UNC-specific index into vendors |
| CatalogNumber | varchar(255) | Vendor's catalog number for the probe |
| LotNumber | varchar(255) | Vendor's lot-number description |
| DiameterUm | double | Diameter of beads in microns (or minimum diameter when it contains a range) |
| DiameterMaxUm | double | Maximum diameter when a range of values is present |
| Magnetism | varchar(255) | Description of type of magnetism |
| FluorescenceName | varchar(255) | Description of the color of fluorescence (Green, Red, ...) |
| FluorescenceLowNm | double | Wavelength in nanometers of low end of fluorescence (value is -1 if not present) |
| FluorescenceHighNm | double | Wavelength in nanometers of high end of fluorescence (value is -1 if not present) |
| SurfaceChemistry | varchar(255) | Surface Treatment (COOH, Plain, R-NH2, ...) |
| Consistency | varchar(255) | What the bead is (Polystyrene, Dextran, Silica, ...) |
| CongugationMethod | varchar(255) | Congugation method (carbodiimide, CNBr, ...) |
| Concentration | varchar(255) | Concentration (10 mg/ml, 0.5% w/v, ...) |
| Location | varchar(255) | UNC-specific storage location |
| ReceivedDate | date | UNC-specific date a batch was received |
| ExpirationDate | date | UNC-specific date a batch expires |
| AmountRemoved | varchar(255) | UNC-specific description of amount removed |
| LabeledForUseBy | varchar(100) | UNC-specific name of person who labeled them for use |
| PhotoFromSEM | longblob | Image of probes taken in SEM |
Each field allows NULL values.
This database is managed by a Mysql server running on the machine mydb.cs.unc.edu. It can be accessed by any Mysql client connecting to that machine. The guest account (no username, no password) has read access to the database beads, which contains the table beadtable, which contains all of the information about the magnetic probes.
This database server can be accessed using any Mysql client. It has been tested using version 0.9.2 (beta) of the MySQL Control Center, available from http://www.mysql.org/. This client has the ability to browse the database table, and can display the SEM images directly in its viewer.
The field of most interest to outside users is likely to be the PhotoFromSEM field, which contains SEM images of each type of probe, taken from the SEM used as part of the NIMS system by the UNC Nanoscale Science Research Group. Some of these images are JPEG images, some are BMP images, and some may be TIFF files. Images are not available for all of the probes in the database: the following SQL query will retrieve those that do have images: SELECT * FROM beadtable where PhotoFromSEM is not null; The following query will retrieve the fields that are most likely to be useful to an outside user: SELECT Type, CatalogNumber, DiameterUm, PhotoFromSEM, Magnetism, FluorescenceName, SurfaceChemistry, Consistency FROM beadtable where PhotoFromSEM is not null;
It is possible that a web-based database access sytem will be installed for this database. If so, this web page will be updated to describe how to get access to the database through a web client rather than a Mysql client.
The user nanowork has write access to the beadtable database. This enables this user to insert new rows, delete existing rows (not recommended), and edit entries within rows.
CISMM group members should contact Russell Taylor if any changes are needed to the database structure. This includes adding new columns to the table (specify suggested colum name, type, default value, and a description of what the column will hold), deleting existing columns (warning, we can't get them back later), or other changes.