Phlebotomy, the act of drawing blood through venepuncture, is one of the most common medical procedures in healthcare, as well as being a basis for diagnosis and treatment. A review of the available research has highlighted the dearth of information on the phlebotomy practice in Africa. Several studies elsewhere have shown that the pre-analytical phase (patient preparation, specimen collection ...

Here we describe a bench-top cryostat system to control the temperature of liquid ethane in a cryo-plunge apparatus designed for biological specimen preparation for electron cryomicroscopy. It comprises a foam insulated Dewar containing a copper cryostat cup, whose temperature is controlled via an active feedback system to within 0.1 K. The device can easily be incorporated into existing manual...

1 Department of Anatomy, Dalian Medical University. No.9 west section, Lushun South Road, Dalian 116044, China ABSTRACT: Objective: To explore the procedure of preparation of a whole plastinated equine specimen to be used in veterinary education. Methods: A formalin-preserved horse was dissected to display the brain, spinal cord and the superficial muscles complete with their innervation. The s...

The influence of specimen polishing, specimen configuration, and specimen size on the transverse tension strength of two glass epoxy materials loaded in three and four point bending was evaluated. Polishing machined edges, and/or tension side failure surfaces, was detrimental to specimen strength characterization instead of yielding a higher, more accurate, strength as a result of removing inhe...

Correlative analysis requires examination of a specimen from macro to nano scale as well as applicability of analytical methods ranging from morphological to molecular. Accomplishing this with one and the same sample is laborious at best, due to deformation and biodegradation during measurements or intermediary preparation steps. Furthermore, data alignment using differing imaging techniques tu...

This paper demonstrates preparation and plastination of local flaps, commonly used in fingertip injuries, for use as clinical models. Additionally, it reports on the introduction of plastination in Hungary and demonstrates an application of the plastination method in the clinical field. During the last two years, over 150 plastinated specimens were prepared and made available for student use in...

The fascinating liquid crystals (LCs) [1], uniquely combining order and mobility and having tremendous impacts (e.g., liquid crystal display, the so-called LCD), impose great challenges for direct TEM studies due to the difficulties in specimen preparation and the severe radiation damage. Recently, we demonstrated that a widely available cryo-TEM, a high sensitivity CCD camera and a modified lo...

We describe in detail, the design, construction, and testing of a specimen holder that allows for the nanoindentation of surfaces while viewing in cross-section in a high voltage transmission electron microscope (TEM). This nanoindentation specimen holder, having three-axis position control of a diamond indenter in combination with micromachined specimens, allows for the first time the dynamic ...

Specimen quality is vital to (scanning) transmission electron microscopy (TEM) investigations. In particular, thin specimens are required to obtain excellent high-resolution TEM images. Conventional focused ion beam (FIB) preparation methods cannot be employed to reliably create high quality specimens much thinner than 20 nm. We have developed a method for in situ target preparation of ultrathi...

Atom Probe (AP) tomography is maturing into a routine method for the atomic resolution compositional analysis of metals, semiconductors and some polymers. This is often combined with a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) analysis of the same region of interest. The Focused Ion Beam (FIB) microscope has evolved as an essential tool for site and orientation specific sample preparation for such...