Chair Professor of National Tsing Hua University Dr. Tsong P. Perng: Learning How to Learn is the Basic Ability to Face Real World Challenges [ 下載 PDF ]

Claire Lin, Chi-Chung Kei

Frontier Instrument for 3D Imaging

Dynamic 3D Cardiac Imaging of Zebrafish for the Quantification of Cardiac Function and Calcium Imaging [ 下載 PDF ]

Ian Liau, Yu-Cheng Chuang

Quantification of the contractile function and the calcium dynamics of the heart of model organisms is important for research areas ranging from the pathophysiology of heart diseases, the cardiotoxicity of drugs, to the developmental and regenerative biology of the heart. The zebrafish heart develops rapidly and has high genomic and electrophysiological conservation relative to its human counterpart, and hence the zebrafish has long been a popular model animal for cardiac research. While optical imaging of the small and translucent larval zebrafish is straightforward, precise determination of the cardiac function and the calcium dynamic on a rapidly beating heart remains challenging. Here we introduce dynamic three-dimensional (3D) cardiac imaging of larval zebrafish through image reconstruction and demonstrate the simultaneous determination of the cardiac contractile function, the local calcium transient and the electrophysiological conduction on a living zebrafish. In view of the growing interest of using zebrafish in cardiac research, we envisage that our approach should benefit not only contemporary pharmaceutical development but also exploratory research targeting heart diseases.

Optical Microscopy for Brain Science [ 下載 PDF ]

Shi-Wei Chu

To understand how brain functions is the grand scientific challenge of 21st century. Brain is composed of millions of neurons, whose interconnection, i.e. connectome, determines its function. Although the interaction of neurons in vitro has been well studied in the past century, the major bottleneck is that no existing tool can capture whole-brain in vivo emergent properties at single neuron or even synapse resolution. To understand functional connectome, an imaging system that can cover a whole living brain with spatial resolution of micrometers (neuron) to nanometers (synapse) as well as temporal resolution in sub-seconds (calcium) to milliseconds (action potential) is highly desirable. In this review article, I introduce our recent efforts to improve optical microscopy in terms of speed and resolution, toward the goal of understanding the brain of Drosophila, which offers a small brain with sophisticated functions and genetic control capabilities. By pushing the limits of optical microscopy, these novel techniques will benefit not only brain science, but also studies in other biomedical researches.

Recent Developments in Light Sheet Fluorescence Microscopy and Its Biological Applications [ 下載 PDF ]

Chieh Tsao, Bi-Chang Chen

Light sheet fluorescence microscopy provides high three-dimensional spatial resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio, fast imaging acquisition rate, and low phototoxicity and photodamage effects. The characteristics are important in the biomedical field from the dynamics of single cells to developmental dynamics in large organisms. In this article, we provide a discussion on the historical development of light sheet fluorescence microscopy, the latest technological advances, and its applications in cells, single molecule detection and large tissues.

Applications of Light Sheet Microscopy in Small Animal Model System [ 下載 PDF ]

Li-An Chu, Wei-Kun Chang

There are two major advantage of applying light sheet microscopy onto biological sample: high-speed and low photo toxicity. Recently, due to the higher optical sectioning ability of new light sheet design and high-performance computing, light sheet microscopy has become a major player in the bio-optical imaging field, including live imaging or structural imaging in various transgenic animal models. Light sheet microscopy is particularly good at long-term tracking of 3D cell movements, high-speed activity changes, or imaging huge cleared specimen such as whole mice or whole human brain. These new findings are becoming the most important foundations in the biology field.

---

3D Surface Profiling Measurement Based on PZT Using Binning Method in Microscopy [ 下載 PDF ]

Po-Hsun Wu, Yen-Chung Wang, Jing-Feng Weng, Guo-Hao Lu, Chun-Jen Weng, Pi-Ying Cheng

In the non-contact optical measurement techniques, the depth of field limits the range of the measurement. In this study, by integrating PZT stage and multiple-height image fusion, that can precisely define the height discontinuity of the step height sample. The system setup is composed of the PZT, the microscope, and the CCD camera. The CCD camera periodically captures one image when the PZT stage moves a fixed distance. After a lot of the images of the step height sample are captured, the multiple-height image fusion is used to reconstruct the 3D image surface profile, and the image filter is used to process image noise. In order to improve the speed of the capturing image process, the binning function is used.

---

PET Plastic Chemical Recycling Technology [ 下載 PDF ]

Chia-Wei Jui

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is one of the famous disposable plastics, and its waste has accumulated in the environment causing global pollution problems. Using the concept of circular economy, the sustainable PET plastics can be recycled and reused involves a chemical recycling method. The three main traditional PET chemical recycling technologies can be categorized as hydrolysis, glycolysis and aminolysis. In order to grasp the current status and development of the latest PET chemical recycling industry technology, this article also shares the technical characteristics and application potential of its chemical depolymerization process on the competitive PET new chemical recycling technology recently developed by several manufacturers.

---

Hyperspectral Imager Helps to Identify Object Characteristics [ 下載 PDF ]

Claire Lin, Long-Jeng Lee

---

First Prize of 2020 NARLabs i-ONE Instrument Technology Innovation Competition: Intelligent Online Level Accuracy Measurement System for Machine Tools [ 下載 PDF ]

Jia-Xin Tsao, Rui-Ke Jian, Yu-Yu Lin, Ming-Jie Zhang, Tzu-Hao Liao, Shao-Hsien Chen