Acquisition of a white light confocal microscope for quantitative characterization of dental microwear surfaces.

购买白光共焦显微镜，用于定量表征牙齿微磨损表面。

• 批准号: 0215830
• 负责人: Peter Ungar
• 金额: $ 21.86万
• 依托单位: University of Arkansas
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-08-01 至 2003-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0215830&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Acquisition; white; light; confocal; microscope

A National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation award will allow the purchase a NanoSurf II Pro (NanoFocus Corp) white light confocal microscope for use in dental microwear analysis and other research activities at the University of Arkansas. Dental microwear analysis is the study of microscopic use-wear patterns in teeth to infer diet. The ability to reconstruct diet from dental microwear is important to both bioarcheologists and paleontologists because food preferences provide a key to understanding the biology and ecology of past peoples and fossil species.While dental microwear has been studied for many living and fossil groups, current techniques are stretched to their limits. Microwear feature measurement error is high, and repeatability is low. This both reduces the power to resolve diet-related differences within studies and limits the ability to compare results among studies. Measurement errors stem from two problems. 1) The scanning electron microscope (SEM) used in most such studies is not ideal for microwear analysis. Because the SEM forms an image by a complex interaction between a surface and an electron beam, different instrument settings can produce different images for a single surface. 2) Because a surface can have hundreds of microscopic scratches and pits with irregular and overlapping boundaries, it can be difficult to identify and measure those features.Drs. Ungar, Brown and Walker will use the Nanosurf II Pro instrument to solve both problems. This instrument creates a true rendering of a wear surface in 3-D to provide a repeatable, automated procedure to quantify patterns of wear. The microscope measures z-values at fixed x,y intervals and calculates a series of attributes, such as roughness and anisotropy for a microwear surface. This work is important because it will give researchers a new, more repeatable way to characterize dental microwear that should lead to new insights into the diets of past peoples and fossil species. This NanoSurf II Pro will also be used by researchers and students in other disciplines on the campus of the University of Arkansas. The combination of high resolution, long depth of field and large field of view of this instrument will allow new research in: 1) plant pathology (study of damaged leaves following insect predation); 2) mechanical engineering (study of impact of cutting tools and electronic packaging systems); 3) chemistry (measurement of patterned materials for lab-on-a-chip devices); 4) biological engineering (measurement and analysis of microorganisms for development of biosensors); 5) food science (assessment of effects of processing on food surface structure); and 6) geosciences (measurement and analysis of bedrock surface modifications due to weathering). Limited research infrastructure at Arkansas' universities contributes to a limited science and technology environment in the state. Many students leave Arkansas for their education and employment, contributing to the fact that the state is last in the nation in percentage of its population with a college degree. Access to state-of-the-art major research instrumentation, such as the NanoSurf II Pro, will contribute toward recruiting and training students from geographically underrepresented groups in a broad range of science and technology disciplines.

国家科学基金会重大研究仪器奖将允许购买纳米尔夫II Pro（Nanofocus Corp）白光共聚焦显微镜，用于在阿肯色大学的牙科微粒分析和其他研究活动中使用。 牙科微粒分析是对牙齿中微观使用磨损图案的研究，以推断饮食。 从牙科微生物中重建饮食的能力对生物结构医生和古生物学家都很重要，因为食物偏好为了解过去人民和化石物种的生物学和生态学的关键提供了关键。在许多生物和化石群体中研究了牙科微型，但当前的技术是将当前技术扩展到其限制的。 微型特征测量误差很高，可重复性较低。 这两者都降低了解决研究中与饮食相关的差异的能力，并限制了比较研究结果的能力。 测量错误源于两个问题。 1）在大多数此类研究中使用的扫描电子显微镜（SEM）并不是微型分析的理想选择。 由于SEM通过表面和电子束之间的复杂相互作用形成图像，因此不同的仪器设置可以为单个表面产生不同的图像。 2）由于表面可以具有数百个具有不规则和重叠边界的微观划痕和凹坑，因此很难识别和测量这些特征。 Ungar，Brown和Walker将使用Nanosurf II Pro仪器解决这两个问题。 该仪器在3D中创建了磨损表面的真实渲染，以提供可重复的自动化程序以量化磨损模式。 显微镜在固定x，y间隔下测量z值，并计算一系列属性，例如微粒表面的粗糙度和各向异性。 这项工作很重要，因为它将为研究人员提供一种表征牙齿微粒的新方法，这应该导致对过去人民和化石物种饮食的新见解。 该纳米二II Pro还将被阿肯色大学校园的其他学科的研究人员和学生使用。 高分辨率，较长的景深和该仪器的较大视野的结合将允许新的研究：1）植物病理学（昆虫捕食后损坏的叶片的研究）； 2）机械工程（研究切割工具和电子包装系统的影响）； 3）化学（用于实验室芯片设备实验室的图案材料的测量）； 4）生物工程（测量和分析生物传感器开发的微生物）； 5）食品科学（评估加工对食物表面结构的影响）； 6）地球科学（由于风化而导致的基岩表面修饰的测量和分析）。 阿肯色大学的有限研究基础设施为该州的科学技术环境有限。 许多学生离开阿肯色州的教育和就业，这是一个事实，即该州在全国范围内以其大学学位的百分比在全国范围内。 获得最先进的主要研究工具，例如Nanosurf II Pro，将有助于在广泛的科学和技术学科中招募和培训来自地理位置不足的群体的学生。