Rules & Fees

Rules for using the equipment of the UMCG Microscopy and Imaging Center (UMIC)

[[General

Rules are established and approved by the user committee of the confocal facilities. The current committee consists of Prof. H.C. van der Mei, Dr. B.N.G. Giepmans, Ing. K.A. Sjollema, Prof. Dr. O.C.M. Sibon, Dr. J.W. Kok, Ing. M. Meijer, Dr. T.G. van Kooten.

Always follow the instructions of the managers (6^th floor: Klaas Sjollema; 13^th floor: Theo van Kooten ).

If you have ideas about new/improved techniques, improvements of the facilities, or complaints, please contact the manager or the user committee.]]

[[Acknowledgement

Acknowledge UMIC as follows:

“Part of the work has been performed in the UMCG Microscopy and Imaging Center (UMIC), sponsored by …

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[[Admission and reservation

Before you can work independently on any of the microscopes, you have to register and follow an individual training. Please contact the manager for an appointment. The training will be provided by assigned instructors. Training by other parties does not count!! After training the manager will provide you access to the facilities, to the reservation system and the corresponding locations. Every microscope needs a separate training.

Reservations can be made up till 2 weeks ahead (up to 3 hours per workday for the Tissuefaxs, SP8 and Zeiss 780 between 9.00 and 18.00 hr ). Exceptions are reservations made for educational purposes or guests. Weekends, evening hours and holidays can also be reserved by experienced users. Reservations further ahead in time have to be discussed with the manager. It is not allowed to book more than one slot for the same instrument or computer during working hours without permission of the manager.

For the users on the 13^th floor additional rules for making reservations have been established.

Microscope service always has priority, but the managers take into account the user interest.

Users will be charged with an hourly fee for using a microscope. The fees are determined by the user committee. The managers can tell you the actual fees. Bills will be sent to your department on a quarterly basis. Only the actually used hours are charged, with the kind request to make realistic estimates of the reservation time you think you will need.

If reservations need to be cancelled due to e.g. illness or failed experiments, you have to undo your reservation in the electronic reservation system. If you are 30 minutes ore more too late without notification, your reservation can be cancelled by the manager. No-shows may be charged the hourly fee! Also when you somehow used  less- or more time than you booked, please change your time slot in Quartzy. This helps other users and in the future we will use the booked times for fee calculations.

It is not permitted to use equipment without booking.

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[[Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)

Users have to indicate the use of GMOs, the number(s) of their GMO permit(s) should be known by the manager.  The rooms of the Leica AOBS, Till iMic, TissueFaxs and Solamere (rooms 605,626, 624 and 628) are MLI approved. GMOs are not allowed in other areas.

Users have to obey the regulations for ML-1 activities.

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[[Computers and data

Users are not allowed to store data on the microscope computers for more than two weeks. Data has to be stored in the USERS folder (usually on the D: drive). Unindentified data in other directories will be deleted.  Data can be stored on DVD’s, CD’s, external hard drives or USB sticks, to be provided by the users themselves. If necessary, data can be stored temporarily on the network drives of the Imaging Centre, ask one of the managers for an account. It is also possible to hire space on the network drive for prolonged storage of data.

All users are responsible for the data they produce, data is not backupped!!

Users are not allowed to install software on any of the computers on the center without permission of the managers.

The primary purpose of our computers is image processing, do not use them for pure text processing.

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[[Responsible use of equipment

Training provides you with the basic knowledge to operate a microscope. Always follow the instructions you were taught during training. In case of malfunctioning please contact the manager.

Each microscope has a start-up / shut-down / stand-by instruction lying next to the microscope. Please read this instruction and follow its steps.

Pay attention to the use of immersion liquids such as oil. Not all objectives can be used with oil-immersion. In order to avoid complete condensors or objective revolvers bathing in oil, please be careful with using oil immersion and clean the spills immediately. The 63x lens on the Solamere and one at the Zeiss780 is a glycerol lens and shouldnot be used with oil.

Oil spills can be cleaned using 70% ethanol on a tissue. Please note that the oil itself is known/suspected to be toxic, another reason to clean oil spills immediately. Do not! clean the lens itself with tissues, use special lens paper for this or ask the manager.

Klaas Sjollema Is in principle available on the center for questions and assistance regarding the microscopes and the software.

If you want to make an appointment, no problem: e-mail Klaas:

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[[Fees

See prices overview

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