Drafts

Introduction :

    The two main goals of this methods project was for us to practice creating the methods with our legend and to describe to our partner what you have done for them to try to replicate the work you have done. We had to take pictures of the plant and do some research to find where they were from. I have chosen the Camellia Japonica Jarvis Red because this plant really caught my eyes since it looked like the traditional flower of South Korea (Where I am originally from). In my methods, I wrote that it looked like the traditional Korean flower so if my partner researched how that looked like, it was very easy to find at the Durfee conservatory. This project was overall very interesting.

The location of the bottom bloom in part B is congruent in both figures, but the amount of blooms contained in the images were not.  The differences in distance from the flowers arose because ideal distance was not detailed in the methods.  In part C there were two different world maps used due to methods of finding the first world map not being detailed in the methods.  The world map originally used may not be available online anymore.  The color by which the countries were highlighted was included in the methods, but there are many different shades of turquoise on Inkscape which accounts for the difference in shade.  The caribbean was also highlighted in figure 2, but this could have been due to a misunderstanding of which countries constituted central america.  Overall, the methods did yield a congruent figure with minor discrepancies.

Today in class, we learned about the diels-alder reaction. It is when the two bonds combine together to form a ring with either aldehyde or ether. It can have more functional groups like alcohol, ester, and more. The concept was definitely pretty hard because the dienophile had to have the pi bond which is usually not present. It is also extremely difficult to draw the structure which is tough because on our owl homework we have to draw each single endo and exo cyclic systems.

    This project focused on the Methods section and the aim was to walk through the creation of a multipanel figure in such a way that it could be replicated. The three pictures that had to be included were a picture of a plant found on University of Massachusetts Amherst’s campus, an up close pictures of that plant’s flower or leaf, and a map depicted the plant’s origin. The findings of this project revealed the areas that this Methods section was lacking in and where it lacked clarity, such as in angle and distance from camera to plant. Other factors such as time and tamperability in the greenhouse were also found to cause differences in the two figures. These factors aside, these findings reveal that it is crucial to provide a clear and detailed Methods section in all scientific papers.

A study I recently analyzed for my sensory neurology course, aimed to find which mechanically-sensitive transducer channels allow hair cells to detect vibrations. The channels are believed to activate as a result of deflection towards the tallest stereociliary row. This is caused by a force applied by extracellular tip-links. Calcium signals in the first, second, and third stereociliar rows of a rat’s cochlear inner hair cells were visualized by using fast confocal imaging of fluorescence changes that reflect calcium entry during stereociliary bundle stimulation. Calcium was the ion of choice because hair cell channels have shown to be highly permeable to it. Individual stereocilia were imaged at the apical portion of the bundle and indicator dyes with a range of affinities were used. The results from these experiments indicated there are no channels in first row stereocilia therefore suggesting channels that detect vibrations of the stereociliary bundle are only present at the bottom of tip-links.

In order to become an author with this journal there are a few guidelines that must be followed. The first requirement is to register through their website and confirm said registration by email. The next step is to become acquainted with their “instructions for authors page” which includes a few different links. These links have information about things like conflicts of interest, and other norms associated with papers published in this journal.

In the “additional information for authors page” they specify that the title should include what drug was investigated, what type of people the drug was tested on, and the general design of the experiment.  

    The document also includes specifications, headings, key points, and acknowledgements. To aid new authors, examples of each section are also provided to increase the clarity of the guidelines.

The differences in image quality are due to the fact that the two photographers took the photos with different types of phones. The creator of Fig. 1 used an android phone, while the creator of Fig. 2 used an iPhone. The two styles each have their own type of camera, and as such the image comes out looking slightly different. The difference in card used to measure the flower is also a result of differences between the two photographers. The photographer for Fig. 1 chose to use a “Dunkin Donuts” gift card to provide scale, an object which the photographer for Fig. 2 did not have. Fig. 2 contains the back of a “Ucard”, which was chosen by the second photographer due to its similar shape and size to the gift card.

Due to the fact that the exact sizes of the images were specified in the Methods, the sizes of the images are in scale with one another. However, relative to Figure 1, Figure 2 appears to be stretched based on the width of the plant in Panel A. Panel C is also visibly out of proportion when compared to Panel C of Figure 1, and from this it can be inferred that there was difficulty with the lock feature that was explained in the Methods. The Methods did not specify what time of day the pictures were taken at, so there are far more shadows in Figure 2 than in Figure 1. The Methods also did not specify exactly how far away from the plant to take the pictures from, or at what angle, and this is why there are far more plants visible in Figure 1 in the background. The Methods also did not specify how to center the picture in relation to the white tag which may have been helpful. Panel B varied drastically between the pictures which means that the Methods may not have been clear enough in this area. Panel C does not have the same tone of pink to fill in the countries even though it was specified, however it may not have been clear enough as there were many different colors. The backgrounds of the maps are also different but this is because this was not specified in the Methods. The largest difference between the two figures is that there are no orange flowers in Figure 2, and this must be due to timing.

Once in Inkscape, I went to file > import and imported all three of my images. I used the lock feature to ensure that when I was resizing the images the proportions would stay the same and the pictures would not stretch. I decided that I wanted the full sized picture of the plant to be on the top and the up close picture and the map to be below it. The full sized picture would be “a”, the close up “b”, and the map “c”. To accomplish this, I resized the images so that they all fit together with no spaces in between them. The top picture ended up being 266.530 millimeters long and 199.898 millimeters  tall. The up close picture of the flower ended up being 128.298 millimeters long and 158.773 millimeters tall. The map picture, directly to the right of the up close flower picture, was 138.232 millimeters long and 158.773 millimeters tall. I used the text tool in the “Times” font to create letters a through c and the box tool to create a small white box which I then duplicated until there were three. I placed each square in the top left hand corners of the images and centered letters a through c in their respective boxes. I then selected the “Export PNG Image” option and named the file “mckenzie-original.png”.

- summarize experimental approach very briefly on your poster, you can talk more about it when you present
- maybe you could use a flowchart or schematic to display the experimental approach instead to make it more "visual" and easier to grasp than describing the approach in words
- the results section is the most important part of the poster
- most if not all of your findings should be presented in the form of figures and tables in a consistent order b/w your results and conclusion
- conclusions are usually brief, mention only 2-4 main points here
- if written as bullet points, these findings will be more visually pleasing than a whole paragraph of text!
- because all the figures and tables should be self-explanatory as well, make sure to include a legend and a title
- if possible, use graphics instead of tables
- if you need to emphasize things, use highlighting, circles, arrows, etc
- if you are going to present at a conference, you usually need to send in an abstract first that would be reviewed by a committee
- if your abstract is accepted, review THEIR poster guidelines before beginning the poster
- don't use the abstract that you sent them on your poster too, because the abstract that goes on your poster is much shorter
than the one you sent them
- when presenting, prepare a 5-10 minute talk, always be present at your poster, if you want, you can practice in front of other peers or professors
- use poster as a visual aid and not something to read off of!!!!!
- pg. 202 provides a sample poster that is well-designed and a checklist to follow on pg. 203