900612 ESP -- SURF Center : Glossary
This page last changed on Dec 02, 2014 by kgomes.
This page lists some terminology and their definitions and context as they were used in the design work of the GUI application. This is to ensure that when discussions are occurring, we are all talking about the same thing.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Sample Volume | A volume of water that is drawn into the instrument that contains the organisms which the instrument is attempting to identify. The volume of water is never actually stored in the instrument, it is run directly through a puck and filter and then sent back out to the environment. |
| Probe Array | |
| Filter | Special paper that is used to filter out suspended material from a water sample. Sometimes the filter has probe arrays printed on it, but not always (for example, WCR has no probes as it just archives the organisms). |
| GAL File | File that is produced by the filter printer and contains the locations in X,Y coordinates and what probe arrays are at those X,Y coordinates. |
| Puck | Metal ring that holds filter paper which is used to capture and process organisms. There are three types of pucks:
|
| Collection Stage | The location where a puck is loaded during sample collection. |
| Carousel | Rotating set of tubes where pucks are stored. |
| Manipulator | The mechanism which is used to move pucks to the various locations in the ESP. |
| Lysate | A solution that is created by adding a solvent to the material that is filtered out of the sample water by the filter. This solution is then used as the source for analysis. Note the lysate can be split amongst many protocol runs (and other events). |
| Protocol | This is a sequence of steps that are taken to perform some biological analysis. This is sometimes called an Assay. |
| Protocol Run | This is the actual execution of a defined protocol. |
| Phase | Consists of a cycle of instrument power up, a sequence of one or more protocol runs, and a power down. Examples of phases are HAB, BAC, LARV, etc. The concept of a phase is important as a mission script is defined using phases. Phases can contain protocol run sequences that will take more than one sample of water. i.e. The relationship between phase and sample is one-to-many. Note also that the ESP normally goes into a low power, or quiescent, state. |
| Inital Purge | When a phase begins, the ESP powers up and initializes itself. If disinfectant solution was used in the previous phase, it will need to be purged by running a step called Initial Purge. |
| Mission | This is a logical span of time in which an ESP instrument is operating which has some start and end time. It is usually associated with a deployment and recovery of an ESP and consists of a sequence of phases separated by quiescent states. |
| Deployment | Is used synonymously with Mission |
| Mission Script | An ASCII file that contains Ruby commands that tell the ESP what actions to take at what times. |
| SHA | Acronym for Sandwich Hybridization Assay |
| Standard Curve | A curve that maps intensity to density of organisms. You use it to take the intensity of an image and calculate the density of organisms in the sample. |
| Consumable | Is any resource on the instrument that can be consumed. Examples are:
|
