professional version of
Dr Jastrow's
electron microscopic atlas
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professional version of Dr Jastrow's electron microscopic atlas |
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Short description:
This electron microscopic atlas contains over 1.500 digital images
of very high quality and very high resolution acquired from organs, tissues
and cells of mammals and man. Interlinked texts and over 250 images labelled
in great detail as well as a vocabulary explain cellular structures in
a generally intelligible form and show interrelations as well as correlations
of structure and function.
Detailed description:
Anatomical basic (and special) knowledge is of major impact in basic
and further education. It is an important basis for understanding medicine,
physiology, common and molecular cell biology, pathology, biochemistry,
pharmacology and further disciplines of the biomedical instruction and
research field. In this context a profound knowledge of cell and tissue
ultrastructures (structures which are too small to be visible in the light
microscope) is an excellent key to understand life processes and the reason
of many diseases. In this context original images of splendid quality and
resolution showing real ultrastructures are essential. However there are
few text books or other sources of images available which offer sufficiently
detailed electron-micrographs in a number that allows to get a general
overview.
Dr. Jastrow's electron microscopic atlas gives realistic ideas of ultrastructures
by means of over 1,500 large, high-quality digital transmission electron
microscopic original images. The pretty complete image library of cells,
tissues and organs was taken from man and/or mammals (monkey, rat, pig,
mouse, guinea pig). The majority of pictures are multiple image aligned
digital micrographs acquired with a slow-scan CCD camera, others are high
quality scanned original micrographs or inversely scanned plate-film negatives.
Artefacts were thoroughly removed and unequal illumination was corrected
in most included images eventually additional sharpening was applied to
offer best possible quality in the digital images which are stored as maximum
quality (83%) encoded jpg files in the atlas. Choice of material is based
on quality and relevance for instruction on colleges, high-schools and
universities. Since the resolution of the images is mostly superior to
2.000 x 3.000 pixels very considerably more details are visible in comparison
to the internet version of the atlas. Every topic is covered by many different
images generally from overviews in lower magnification to very high resolution
detail pictures. More than 1,100 images were taken by Dr. Jastrow others
were kindly provided by colleagues (Prof. Wartenberg, Dr. Klinger, Dr.
Jackowiak). The professional version contains all the images of the internet
version but the 36 of the "Schiller" directory.
The index pages lists important key words which are ordered thematically.
It shows an overview table of organelles, nuclear, cellular and extracellular
structures, the 4 basic tissues, organs and organ systems (Fig.1).
Pages providing information and image overviews are linked to the key words.
Further links form the index page lead to the main page of the integrated
vocabulary of microscopic anatomy offering alphabetical choice of terms
(Fig.2), and to pages explaining specimen preparation,
to pages with images of transmission and scanning electron microscopes.
In addition the index pages of the images provided to the course of microscopic
anatomy of the university of Mainz (Germany) and a page listing the abbreviations
used for labelling are linked to appropriate texts on the main index page
of the atlas. By clicking on "The Cell" a page is called up which shows
a schematic drawing of an idealised cell showing all relevant ultrastructures
e.g., organelles and surface specialisations. The given names are linked
to further overview pages providing appropriate information and image overviews.
The German main page further offers a link to most instructive lecture
images of cell structures with short key words in German (samples).
Miniature images with key word-like legends (samples) allow quick retrieval of interesting material. When clicking on an image the appropriate original image is shown as high-resolution image file (samples) providing all available details. A click on the legend of one of the over 250 labelled images leads to a page explaining the image (samples). Such pages show the whole image scaled down to a height of 500 pixels for better overview. All relevant structures are labelled with uniform abbreviations which are explained in a legend in generally intelligible way (presently in German, English translation in progress, some English pages are already available; samples). Further the atlas contains a few animations of reconstructions of retinal ribbon synapses and synaptic ribbons (sample).
The atlas demonstrates and explains nearly all structures of cells tissues and organs. The detailed information is helpful for biology lessons in schools, colleges, high-schools and lectures, courses, seminars and other teaching events in universities. They are very use useful for basic and continued education not only in anatomy but also in all other disciplines of the biomedical research and teaching field, e.g., in pathology, molecular cell biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, physiology, clinical an biological instruction and research. The material is of value for public teaching as well as for individual learning or recapitulation. The atlas may be used as reference for "normal" ultrastructure and is a source of images and information for science, research and teaching. Selected images are used for demonstration and examination in histology courses at some places, e.g., the J. Gutenberg-University (Mainz, Germany). This choice of didactical valuable images is shown on special pages of the atlas. An intranet version installed on a password protected local network easily allows lecturers, employees, teachers and students or pupils of an institution to access the whole material as a source of images for inclusion in presentations, lectures, course or examination materials or as learning materials to understand interrelations of structure and function. Since anatomical terms and topics are explained in detail in a generally intelligible way the atlas is of value for specialist training, medical, dental and biological instruction, training in medicine associated professions, biology lessons and self-information of lay public. The labelling of structures follows the international nomenclature and a vast amount of (but not all) pages are available in English which allows an international use of this unique knowledge and image database. The atlas is internationally used since years by teachers of biology, high-school teachers, lecturers and medical professionals and intranet versions are used in several universities by lecturers, instructors and students. The atlas can also be used as reference of "normal" ultrastructures for comparison with own preparations.
The organization of the atlas allows the user to retrieve the personally relevant information interactively. Links from key words or short descriptions lead to image overviews, original images and detailed information about cell organelles in a way that a comprehensive understanding of ultrastructural interrelations is enabled. The splendid high resolution original images give a realistic picture of cell and tissue ultrastructures and in case of labelled images allow to check the own skill of knowledge. Compared to conventional often unwieldy, expensive and difficult to get comprehensive textbooks this atlas allows to see a great number of images and to get information on a topic easily using interactive link technology. Updates of this atlas which is under constant development and extension can be easily integrated and realise suggestions for improvements by users. The atlas is a detailed, extensive and easily accessible addition to other instructive material particularly since at present no comparable products are available neither in the internet nor as commercial software.
Perspective:
The atlas and the attached vocabulary of microscopic anatomy are constantly
extended and reviewed, this includes new images and texts/text additions/corrections/updates.
It is planned to label all images in detail and to provide a virtually
complete atlas of human and mammalian ultrastructure including all kinds
of cells, organs and structures as an international reference base in English
and German perhaps in other languages as well. All items, topics and structures
shall be explained according to actual knowledge and shall be demonstrated
by a variety of different splendid high-resolution original images.
References:
The professional version of Dr. Jastrow's EM-Atlas is a further development
of the internet atlas of electron microscopy which was first presented
in the "Deutsches Ärzteblatt" (DÄB 98, issue 41B: 2290-2292 [12.10.2001],
as well as supplement Praxis Computer 5/2001: 17-20. Article
in PDF format). A former version was presented on the 96th meeting
of the Anatomical society at Münster on 25 March 2001 (Presentation
No. 83; Abstract published in Annals of Anatomy 183 (Suppl.), p. 50-51.
Internet
version of this presentation). A considerable number of e-mails and
server statistics of the internet version prove a very high interest in
this offer. Feedback from lecturers, teachers, students and pupils indicate
that the atlas is a very useful and suitable aid for lecture course and
exam preparation. The publication "On the use and value of new media and
how medical students assess their effectiveness in learning anatomy" (Anatomical
Record B Volume 280B, Issue 1: 20-29 [Sept. 2004]; Abstract
& link to pdf) clearly demonstrates student's demand for
high quality original image material, comprehensive explaining texts focused
on the essentials offering exam relevant knowledge and additional electronic
teaching material which is easy to handle.
Technical information and system requirements:
The atlas send on a DVD and contains about 4 GB of data. After
installation on a hard disk drive it may be used with help of any
common internet browser software (which is not provided on the media) on
IBM® compatible PCs. It was tested with Netscape® from Version
4.6, Internet Explorer® from Version 3, Mozilla® from Version 1.
Since the atlas aims to present essentials as fast and easy as possible
no complicated java script operations or decorative animations are applied.
The atlas consists of .html pages, jpg images and a few mp4 coded .avi
animations. Thus it is running under Windows® as well as Linux systems.
It was tested on a minimal system with an Intel® 486DX2-66 processor,
128 MB RAM and 20 GB HDD. A higher resolution monitor with suitable graphic
card offering a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 pixels is recommended since
otherwise only very small parts of the large original images are visible.
Demo version on the internet:
The atlas is published in the WWW in a reduced manner (image resolution
and quality are considerably lower).
To examine the www-version use this link, please: http://www.uni-mainz.de/FB/Medizin/Anatomie/workshop/EM/EMAtlas.html
Demo pages in high resolution:
Selection of pages that demonstrate the resolution
and quality of the professional Version
(Clicking any miniaturized image calls up the original
sized image. The file size is given in MB)
| 1. Overview pages providing miniatures of original pictures (page from the www demo version with active links is loaded when text is clicked) |
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| 4. Labelled images (page with active links from the www demo version is loaded when the text is clicked) | 5. Lecture image (in German) | 6. Page of the vocabulary (part) | |||
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I am happy to answer your further
questions:
E-mail: info@drjastrow.de,
address,
homepage
