Going Software in the Neural Network
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new on the market Going software in the neural network Feeling fuzzy about the logic being use on your data? This selection of software offers packages for database development, data acquisition coupled with statistical analysis and systems for scientific imaging. ACSL BioMed 3.1 Pro's 200 some analysis and processing rou- From MGA Software tines into a fully automated image capture, analysis and data collection process. Simulate clinical trials with Reader Enquiry No. 103 8 computer-assisted trial design software Working closely with several pharmaceutical Snapper development kit companies, MGA has incorporated new From Active Imaging functionality into its software for simulating A software development kit for this range of clinical drug trials. Pharmacologists can now modular image acquisition boards, which is simulate proposed clinical trials on specific now available for Macintosh system 7.0 patient populations, such as pediatrics, smokers and the elderly, and gain insight into C2 Diversity samples potential drug compounds. Snapper can acquire images in excess of 25 these designs before initiating the trials. frames per second, supporting standard or According to MGA, the program can now C2 Diversity non-standard analog video formats, com- predict how variations in trial populations, From Molecular Simulations posite-colour, s-video, RGB and 16-bit digi- such as having a significant number of elderly tal image acquisition. Triggered acquisition A program that analyses chemical diversity, persons, will influence the proposed study. and support for asynchronous reset cameras, or similarity, for use in the design and Complex populations can be described and such as Pulnix TM-6AS, Hitachi IM-C1, JAI evaluation of compound libraries and reagent incorporated into any number of trial designs 1550 Progressive Scan, three-chip colour and sets for combinatorial chemistry using an intuitive, point-and-click user inter- more, make Snapper well suited for a variety face. Once a complex population is defined Users can intelligently sample potential drug of both industrial and scientific applications. for one trial, it can be used again or modified candidates so that a reduced set can be In addition, the digital acquisition module for future trial designs. synthesized and screened. C2 Diversity helps offers specific camera support for an increas- Reader Enquiry No. 100 to design libraries for synthesis, both at the ing range of cameras, including Pulnix start of a combinatorial chemistry experi- TM9701, Dalsa CL-CX line-scan, Kodak Topkat 5.0 ment, and throughout the various iterations Megaplus 1.4 and Photometrics SenSys. The From Oxford Molecular Group of obtaining and using structure activity Mac SDK includes example applications, as relationship data to design new libraries. well as a Quicktime VDIG, supporting all of Computational toxicology software developed This program helps to reduce the final num- the acquisition modules. This allows it to be by Health Designs ber of compounds that need to be synthe- used immediately with any application sup- This Windows-based program assesses sized, and allows more rational judgement porting Quicktime VDIGs, such as AVID various toxicity metrics based solely on into the combinatorial chemistry process. Photoshop, Fusion video recorder, IP Lab their molecular structures. Because the Reader Enquiry No. 102 Spectrum, and others. program can evaluate the specific contribu- Reader Enquiry No. 104 tion to a toxicity metric of any user-defined Imaging substructural moiety, it can guide a scien- Scope-Pro Image tist in designing chemical structures having From Media Cybernetics From Zeiss minimal toxicity. By identifying toxic com- Software that automates the movement of A series of image analysis packages that pounds, this technology can also aid in microscopes, stages and accessories includes a package written specifically for use reducing the number of animals used in with Power Macintosh computers the toxicity testing of new chemical enti- This is the latest module for the ImagePro ties. It features a technology called opti- Plus scientific image analysis program. The This is a full range of counting, measure- mum prediction space (OPS) and inte- module is designed to control complex ment, image, image enhancement and grates a host of algorithms to generate and equipment in a simple, repeatable manner. image archiving applications. Users can test the acceptability of predictions and to It reduces the need to look through the ocu- employ grey-scale or colour acquisition, identify particular molecular substructures lar during image acquisition and to adjust processing and analysis. This package is said for hypothesizing possible molecular sites microscope controls manually. The soft- to work seamlessly with other Macintosh- of toxicity. Topkat is now operating in ware also automatically controls magnifica- based applications, such as Microsoft Excel Windows 3.1 and Windows95 and incor- tion, focus, motorized filter wheels, shut- and Word, and should be well suited for bio- porates an easily-learned interface, exten- ters, filter sliders and lamps settings, logical and industrial research applications. sive on-line help and modules for assessing automating repetitive routines for increased Reader Enquiry No. 105 rodent carcinogenicity, Ames mutagenicity, efficiency. It supports brands of micro- developmental toxicity potential, rat oral scopes and stages that include Zeiss BioBench LD50, rat oral chronic LOAEL, skin sensiti- AxioPlan, Olympus Provis, Ludl MAC From National Instruments zation (GPMT), fathead minnow LC , 2000, Prior H128 series, Sutter Lambda 10- 50 This is the Virtual Instrumentation daphnia magna EC and LogP. Additional 2 filter wheels and shutters and Vincent 50 Company's software for physiological data modules are to be released soon for eye and Associates’ shutters. Repetitive functions acquisition and analysis skin irritancy (rabbit), mouse inhalation can be programmed using the Auto-Pro LC50, rat maximum tolerated dose and aer- macro or Visual Basic program. By integrat- This program is offered as a low-cost obic biodegradability. ing control of the stage into a macro pro- turnkey package for Windows95/NT and Reader Enquiry No. 101 gram, users can incorporate any of Image- requires no programming to get users up NATURE | VOL 391 | 12 FEBRUARY 1998 Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1998 719 new on the market and running. It can automatically configure backlogged data files graphically, allowing such as the universal, high-performance and acquire data from many physiological the user to scroll through data files looking Rockwell/Datamyte InterGage card. The kit instruments from a variety of manufactur- for significant events. Users can fast forward also includes options to facilitate connecting ers, as well as acquire data directly from through uneventful stretches and pause for a Statistica to specialized databases that store sensors, via the company's plug-in data more detailed look when something catches the relevant information. This integrated sys- acquisition hardware. This system interfaces their eye. Alarm Logger has been improved tem should find use in a variety of environ- to instruments through a generic BNC con- with user-specified help messages that can ments from simple workstations or small nector. Analysis functions include his- now be shown when an alarm occurs and production facilities to large enterprise-wide togram, fast Fourier transform and peak give instructions on the corrective action to computing environments. Simple set-up dia- detection. Users can set alarms to trigger take. Auto-dialing alerts engineers to alarms logues help with configuration, beginning8 when data reaches certain levels. For exam- by telephone, and users can insist on a delay with how to specify the hardware settings for ple, an application monitoring a laboratory before being alerted to an alarm. This can be the source of data and the variables to be subject can trigger an alarm once blood useful when monitoring temperatures in a used to receive the stream of raw data. Data pressure, temperature or respiration reaches refrigerator where briefly opening and clos- files that have been configured to receive data a predetermined point. ing a door should not trigger an alarm. There from a database or measurement device and Reader Enquiry No. 106 is also password protection to prevent unau- can be updated with a single click or key- thorized users from acknowledging alarms. stroke (when data are not imported but Proc-StatXact Test-Seq is a program that interprets an received in run time, options are provided to From Cytel ASCII file of commands and controls mea- update data continuously or only when surement and control equipment appropri- requested, to append data or replace them). A new version of StatXact software that comes ately. It allows a digital pulse to be output for These updated data files can then be analysed as a seamless extension of SAS software a specified time period. Other commands let interactively using any part of Statistica or This SAS add-on product allows users of SAS users ramp the values sent to an output previously created custom scripts. releases 6.11 and 6.12 to perform exact tests channel, monitor and act on alarms, imple- Reader Enquiry No. 110 on small, sparse or unbalanced data sets with ment control loops, send sequences of key- no interruption to processing within the SAS strokes to other applications, and so on. These notes are compiled by