Hello everyone, I am hope and will be helping moderate today's webinar. I would like to welcome everyone to the streamlining sample analysis What's new in Apex Alpha Beta Software Version 2.2 webinar. Before we get started today, I'd like to go over some housekeeping. At the top left of your screen, you will see our Q&A chat box. Please ask questions throughout the presentation and we will answer as many as possible within our time constraints. On the left side of your screen is a resource list with more documentation on what we will discuss today. You will also see Contact us in there if you would like to talk to one of our representatives. If you don't want to miss any future webinars, please sign up for our mailing list. All of your windows are adjustable, so feel free to move them around for your best viewing. If you are having trouble viewing this webinar at any point, please refresh your browser. This webinar will be recorded and available at miriam.com/webinars for future viewing. Here you can also see all of our past webinars. Today's webinar will be presented by Lee Reagan. Lee is the product line manager for Alpha Beta Counting in Alpha Spectroscopy and has been with the company for over 30 years. I will now turn the presentation over to Lee. Hello everyone, Lee Reagan here happy to talk to you this morning. Going to cover some things on Apex Alpha Beta the, the new version and we'll and for for those who are uninitiated, we're going to talk about some of the old the old version items. Also just a few things about me as Hope said thank you Hope by the way, I've been with the company for almost 35 years I'm a product line manager. I've been doing that job since 2006. I have been in service, support and manufacturing, spent some time doing field service work, very happy as a product manager today. And I, I, I visit a lot of places. I see a lot of things. I've been very, very blessed to, to be part of this, this company as it has changed over the years. So, so the, the purpose of this webinar today is that we're going to talk about Apex Alpha beta version 2.2 being released. We released it a few weeks ago, too much fanfare. We've been distributing it out to around the world and being in installed in in various places that there there are are features of Apex version 2.2 that have been carried over. And then of course there's some new features. The main new features that that we would like to discuss are that we have upgraded the report editor so that. So I think since the beginning we had been using the same report editing background software and so we we've updated that now. So it has a much newer look and feel more capabilities in there. We've just added the ability to on the systems that support it to to save the environmental conditions when you're logging in environmental condition doesn't just mean the the weather as as you are it. It also includes things like the power supply voltages and the gas flow, gas flow rate, the gas pressure input. So that if you start seeing some things in the some variances in your QA and you you start looking for correlations that that information can be saved in there. We've also updated the SQL Server database. It's now a 2022 version, which is the the latest at the time that we had that we'd release this and we've also added compatibility with with Windows 11. That's that that's a very important feature. So just just to back up a little bit, we'll give you a little bit of history about Apex Alpha beta. We came out with version 1. The the first device that we connected to was the LB 4100 which is a tower based system, a drawer based up to 16 detectors and that and that had been traditionally been running under the OSM software. We were, we so, so version 1.0 was the replacement for OSIM on the LB 4100. And then we started adding, adding additional features. We added the French and German, we added the driver for the IN20 Mini 20, which was a, a legacy system that was carried over from new Malek and the inner technique prior to, prior to the Canberra acquisition. The and then and then eventually we added the software when we added the new LB 4200, which was the placement for the LB 4100. A few years, years went by, we learned some things. We got a lot of good feedback from people on how to improve the software. And so then in, in the version 2, we started looking at replacing Eclipse. So version 2.0 we replaced Eclipse from the series 5 XLB and the Series 5 LB 5500. And then version 2.1 we added the, the new series 6LB to that. That was replacing the obsolete Series 5 XLB. And so the Apex Alpha beta software is what we call control and analysis software. And that, that, that that's important because control is how you drive the hardware, how, how you do the things on the hardware like counting and, and such, where the analysis is, is more on the back end, the massaging of the data. And everyone uses the control just regardless when you're running Apex alpha beta software or Eclipse or OSAM or whatever software it was, everybody's using the control portion. And then the analysis is dependent upon on the user on on I, I don't want to use the term sophisticated, but on how, how, how, how much analysis or how much massaging of the data needs to be done by, by the software. Because some people just want raw counts out, some people want complete background correction, efficiency corrections, the the, the divide by the, the flow rate to get it activity per volume, so on and so forth. So, so as part of control and analysis, what are we doing? Control, we send the start commands, the end commands. What count mode, how long are we counting? How many times are we going to count? What bias voltage which has to do with the count mode? Is there a region of interest you use? Again, has to do with the count mode and and our and the monitoring of the hardware. Self diagnostics analysis, what we do, background subtraction, correct for efficiency, adjust for spill up and spill down, calculate detection limits, the method blanks, that sort of thing. Report units, the default units be counts per minute, counts per second, but of course you can also have activity units, disintegrations per minute, Becca rails, picocuries, etcetera. People want total or specific activity. What reports going to be used and approval requirements and how automatic are those things? Is is approval automatic? Is the report going to be automatically sent out to a printer or sent out to export device somewhere? So that's what they are. So, so First off, I want to to ask you what systems you're you guys are currently running series sixes, Series 5 XLBS, LB42 hundreds, LB 41 hundreds. If you guys would mind it to take a minute and take the poll that should be popping up. And I'll go on to the next slide as you guys are doing that just to give you some compatibility information. So, So what hardware is the, is Apex Alpha Beta version 2.2 compatible with the certainly the Series 6LB, the LB 4200, the Series 5, it'll be 5500 and and of course those are all, those are all three current current generation systems, whereas we have legacy systems that they are still compatible with, which is the includes the Series 5 XLB and they'll be 4100. So what is it not compatible with? So it it is not compatible with the I series systems, the imatic and I solo. It's not compatible obviously with the with the alpha analyst and it's not compatible with the really old legacy systems like the series 3, series 2, series ones, AB, CS Model 2400, Cambera systems. None of those legacy systems is it compatible with. There's also a potential incompatibility now with the IN20 Mini 20 I have, we did not do a formal testing on it. However, I did get some reports back from some of our colleagues in France who did some tests and, and my understanding is that it worked OK, but it's as is as is basis. So some of the cool things that it's always done or at least since since version 2. And that would be automatic automated calibration and QC sequences on the Series 5 and the Series 6 systems. And I'm going to I'm going to go back and forth between the slides and the software to show you some of this. So for example, here we have we have the main screen of the Apex Alpha Beta. And if I go into my setup, I can see that I have a sequence tab and under my sequences, I can show flow. For example, let me change to just show the the calibration sequences. So if I come in here and I look, I see that here is a plateau only calibration. So what you would do is you would take your Cal plate, you would put in your alpha plateau or your alpha standard and, and, and carrier 40, your beta standard in, in carrier 50 and you can start this plateau only calibration sequence and it goes off and it and it does your plateau. There's also another one here that, that, that, that we have set up that is just just set an ROI. Looks like we have another one here that is set up to do a, a background and some and some calibrations for, for various standards. Normally you would also have a, a, a, a full, you know, soup to nuts calibration. So it would do an alpha plateau, a beta plateau, an ROI, a background in simultaneous mode and an alpha standard and a beta standard for efficiency. And just just to do the, the, the full calibration. We also have the and this is this is for the series 5 and the and the Series 6. By the way, we also have the ability to do to do QA setup sequences. So for example, here they've got they have it set up for a QC for background QC and then an alpha standard, beta standard. Another one they've got set up to do a background, an alpha standard. That's an alpha only mode apparently. And then we have one here that is to do all the QA. So it does a background alpha only mode, it does a efficiency for alpha, it does a background in simultaneous mode, and then it does the alpha and a beta efficiency. So, all right, so we also have we also added many versions ago back in, back in the version one of of Apex Alpha beta, we got the feedback that it was too cumbersome as to how we were having you start account. Basically we had you go in and create a batch first and then assign the batch to the to the sample detectors. And we got the feedback that that was too much effort to do because sometimes you come in, you just want to do counts. So we added the ability to do what's called an express count. And I'll, I'll show you how that works. So basically to do an express count, you have to have a procedure set up specifically for it, but it's not anything that's very cumbersome. Basically I have AI have one here called filter sample and if if all three of these fields are filled in right so express counts. So if you could say I want this to be for a specific user which is set up elsewhere. I want this is going to be a filter geometry and then whatever the unit of measure is going to be. So it could be liters or or whatever. And by the way, this particular database started out as a French database. So my units are are are a little weird here, but but I mean, it could be any any of these these items. But so so basically this is each. So, so if I start a filter sample AB to to to show you what I'm what I'm talking about here. So on in the old days, I would have to have gone in and created a batch and I'll just, I'll just copy an existing batch and and save that. So just to start account, what I would have done is I would have had to have come in and dragged and dropped this onto a group plate. But with with express count, I simply have to choose the the choose the group plate, and then I just choose count. If this is the if this is the procedure that I wanted to use this, this should default to the last one that I want that I did use. If for some reason I wanted to change that, I can go to modify and I can choose the different procedure. So again, Group A, let's do Group B, Group B count and it's assigned. And you could probably hear my sample changer moving if you want to put a, put a, a video over on that hope. All right, so it's moving in and it's looking for Group B Look, still looking for group BI didn't put it early in the stack early enough in the stack. And, and so now it should insert Group B here on the front panel. You'll notice that that we have the check mark. So that indicates that every that all of our parameters are are correct and in their normal range. It noticed that the 123 check mark is on that mean that indicates that the system is counting. If I want the information, the actual accounting information, I can just hit the that button and it actually will go to the screen to show me what it's actually counting all right here back in the main. If I go back to the main view of the software, you can see that that it's counting over here. OK, all right, so anyway, notice here we also have some additional information that that we can see. We can see that what, what the current high voltage is. If I if I just hover over this 13, it's 1350. We can see that the guard detector is turned on. We can also tell that the pulser, there's also a test pulser in the system that's not turned on currently because it doesn't have the little, little mark showing it. In fact, if I want to turn that on just to show you, I can enable that. And there we go. It actually shows us that the pulser is enabled. OK, so back to our PowerPoint. So we again we have the integrated report editor carried forward and then cool feature here routine counts independent of PC through the front panel. So starting in version 2.1, the previous version. So in addition to starting the sample counts the way that we had done previously, which either which was either the drag and drop or the express count, we can now make it even easier, right? So if we go back to the to the view of the system itself, the hardware, Yep, there we go. So that count finished. OK, So what I can do is I can't rather than going to the software, I can just come over here, hit start count procedure. I have filter AB and I'm going to do it in Group A. So I hit count and functionally that is going to be just like starting account on the in the software. So you could have the, the software could be completely hidden, just it's just it's running on a PC connected and and it does it counts. OK, so what's new in version 2.2 that that's just a quick overview of of what was happening prior to 2.2. So Windows 10 and 11, Windows 7 is no longer supported. I don't know of anybody who really is hanging on to Windows 7 unless they've got got software that's not compatible with the newer operating systems. We have SQL Server Express 2022. There was there was a.net Framework issue that was a security risk in the previous versions. So we have we've replaced that and we've also done an explicit migration procedure. So you know this this this is this is this is the major versions of the software that we've seen over the years. And we have put in both written procedures. And there's, there's also little helpers like there's, there's conversion tools to take that the old database format to the new database and such. And again, all that's written up in the in the operation manual if you have, if you're currently running Apex Alpha, Beta or one of the later versions of Eclipse or the last version of OSIM. Then you shouldn't need a firmware update. If for some reason you do need a firmware update, it is a it is a integrated circuit that you have to pull out of the system and put put in put in a new a new chip. So you have to get that from our service department. The LB 4200 needs to be running version 2.03 of the firmware and the series 6LB needs to be updated to version 1.1. And I put a little a star on this because I wanted to. I want to point out that I that have come up with kind of a an odd an oddity that that I want to make you guys aware of if as you're doing these firmware updates. And so there there I did early on as, as we were doing the final testing kind kind of came up with a scenario where you you could get yourself into into a little bit of trouble. It's it's easy to work around, but I did want to mention it. So if you're start, if if you're, if you have a series 6LB and you're starting with a new PC with no database and it's in it currently has the old firmware. There's not a good way to update to the new firmware because to connect to version 2.2 of the software, it's expecting that the software has already been updated. So if if you are doing that again, you're not transferring the database over from the old PC to the new PC, what you would do is there's a, there's a, there's a file that gets installed on the new PC that you would need to to take over to the old PC to do. It's called a tar ball and you need to use that to update the the old update the series 6 on the old software before you bring it over to the new. But that's just a little snafu that probably will not happen to very, very many people it, but it did happen to me, so I did want to mention it. So functional improvements, we've updated the demo soft libraries, we've improved the French and German translations. We've prior we had had a single correction factor that was set up. So, so for let's let's say that you have a, a filter correction factor of .7, whatever the number happens to be that was used for both alpha and beta results. What we've done is that, which really doesn't make sense because if it is a, a self shielding factor, but we, we know that the alpha and beta would, would react differently. So we've, we've made a correction there. So there's now an alpha and a beta correction factor. What that's going to mean to you is if you have any custom reports that, that use the old correction factor, you're going to have to redo those for the new correction factor. The we're, we're now saving the environmental health and parameters. So that's on the series 6, the series 5 XLB, that Series 5 LB 5500 and the LB 4200. And then we've also added this seems like such a silly thing, but we added the detector name to the data review grid because it wasn't sometimes wasn't obvious as to which which detector that you were looking at. So, so bug fixes. There's a there was a an issue where that you could start account, but it would show as the date would show isn't as the date when it was when the account was initiated, not when the account actually started, which there can be a delay time obviously because of maybe you're, you're counting Group A and then Group B comes later. What there's several scenarios where that can happen. So, so that, that, that doesn't normally matter unless you're counting something that is very time specific. The, we've, we did a update to the ISO 11929 MDA calculation. It's a very, very, very, very subtle difference. Our, our German friends found, found this, this issue and we, it took us forever digging back through the, through the calculation to figure out why that was happening. But, but basically over here to the, to the, what was happening was these, these values were not being, we're not being squared. We have there, there, there used to be some device name combination rules that that really didn't make sense. So we've relaxed those rules. We've we've made an improvement to the firmware update on the LB 4200. Sometimes it wouldn't, it would not update the firmware and you had to go to a third party tool to do that. That that that's now been fixed. There was a problem with if you had more than one batch in a in one more than one batch iteration that sometimes it didn't work correctly. There was a problem with the Series 5 if you had two no reads in a row that it would basically crash the software. That was fixed. There was there's possible overlap on the count starts of the Series 6. It resolved saving the real time now on the LB 4200, whereas before you only had the, the, the actual counting time, but now we're actually saving how much so you can calculate the dead time if you need to. And then, and then there was an issue with the MDA calculation for alpha then beta mode where so in version 2.1, we added the ability to use different count time for alpha and beta when you're doing alpha then beta count mode. But but that that didn't fully take the MDA into account if, if maybe the beta count gets stopped early. So those are the bug fixes. All right, So specific additions to the series 6LB. And by the way, I say that I've had some questions come in and I'm going to, I'm going to get to those at the end of the of the presentation. So, so specific to the Series 6, we've we've added the barcode decoding so that you can put barcodes on there. That ability has been out there in, in patch form for a little while, but now it's, it's fully integrated into the release package and that is standard barcodes and, and even QR codes. I did get a little bit of feedback on there was a, there was an issue. I and I think I may talk about it here in a later slide where where some of the QR codes were not being handled exactly correctly. But but again, we'll talk about that. The, the QC checks are added, the procedure. This is, this is a, for some people, this is a huge deal. I'd like to, I will show you this in the software here. So if I go to setup and I choose one of my again, one of my sample counting procedures, OK. And of course, how long to count, how many times to count, do I need to approve it at the end? What calibration is this associated with filter AB? What, what report am I going to be using? Again, this, this was a French database, so that that just, that's just the French word for sample. But am I using background subtraction? Am I using activity calculation? All of these things. But in addition to all of these, all of this, we've also added the ability to, to link a QC sequence with this. So remember earlier we were looking at the at the sequences, right? So we can say I want to do a QC sequence every time that I run this batch. So, and what QC sequence do I want to do? I want to do my, we'll see. I want to do my QC, QC simultaneous. And so I hit save. And So what happens now whenever either I start from the front panel or I start from the sample assigner, right? Whenever I choose that particular procedure, then it's going to run. It's going to look for the QC group and it's going to look for whatever carriers it's going to be. It's going to look for carrier 3334 and 22. And it's going to count those as this is my daily background and my daily check or my QC background, my QC checks or source checks. And, and, and of course I can do that. I can do that before I can do that after all, right? So that's that that that's one of the that's one of the big features that that we've added that was requested. We've also added the ability to do a a start and iteration delay. So starting the iteration delay, the this is for people who are doing counts that are either time specific. In other words, they they need to be counted within a certain count window, like say the New Jersey method or or they're waiting for something to end grow. So it needs to count at a certain time after a certain delay or they're waiting for something to decay, say right on decay, and then so show you the next slide. So this was the QC thing if we talked about a minute ago, OK, before or after again, can be started from the front panel, can be used with or without delays. And the delays are so can't start delay. So I can start account now. And so the default is that there's no delay, but I can delay it until a point of time. So I can wait until tomorrow at 12:01 AM. All right, I've actually, I actually see where this is. This is used in some locations where they have a requirement that AQC count be done on the same calendar day as a sample count. So what they do is they will set it up so that it will that their sample counts and their and their first QC of the day are are counted at 12 O 1:00 AM. You can also then delay that. If you're going to do another count, you can delay it. So we did the first one at 12:00 AM. We could also do a second count at 6:00 AM or we could do it relative. We could do it three hours after the the first count is done. So I'll let you guys use your imagination. There's lots of different ways that that that can be used. Environmental logging by default is turned off right there. Our engineers have the have the concern that that's going to fill your database up full of stuff. That's not really my experience. I I see that it, it, it writes a the environmental parameters at the beginning and the end of the count. Maybe it writes it a little bit more frequently than that, but it's it. But you can choose which things you want to do right. And again, it is dependent upon the device that you're connected to as to whether or as to what things are available. So the 4200, the series 6LB and the, and the series 5 units have have different things there. There's some things in common, like say, for example, the series 6, there's two temperatures. There's the, there's the detector temperature and then there's the, the electronics temperature that you can, that you can save. Again, you can on the, on the series 5, you can, you, you can't measure what the flow out is. But on the series 6, you can measure the flow out and the gas pressure in and not all that is saved in the environmental parameters. And I would suggest that people start doing this because the the more data we get in databases and the more we can learn about how the environmental conditions correlate with the sample counting and the QA that that's going to help us in the future, help us collectively, not just Marian but, and not just you, but all of us understand better what's going on in these systems. Couple of early bugs that we've seen. Here's the one about the QQR codes. The last samples QR code replaces the first samples QR code when the batch completes. So you do 6 samples and, and whatever the last, the 6th one, it replaces the QR code that was on the first one. I actually saw this morning that we have a, we have a, a patch for this. So hopefully that'll be going out shortly. We're, we're putting that through our QA testing now And then that, that series 6 firmware, firmware install Paradox where you're trying, trying to install firmware on a system that's not been connected to a database yet that, that could be a problem. And then there's some, some known problems that are in the release notes. Nothing, you know, nothing major. They're just, they're just things that they have carried over. So we're making really good time here. The, a lot of the, a lot of the improvements that we've made over these, these last 3740 some odd years have have come from you as the things that you, that you like and you think would be good, good ideas. So, so one of the, one of the really good suggestions that I got, not this year's users group, but last year's users group was that someone asked for a, what, what we call a Tyndalek mode to, to simplify counting. So if you remember, we can start count from the software by by creating a batch. We can count a start account from the software by doing an express count start, or we could start account on a series 6 from the front panel just using the the the front panel pad. There's the what the title like mode would be is it would make it even simpler than that is on the front panel of a series 6. What you would do is you would come in and you would, you would just hit go and basically any, any group that was found on the sample changer would be counted. So if I if it finds a QC group, it's going to count a QC. If it finds a calibration group, I actually probably wouldn't count a calibration group, but Group A through J anything you, you would, you would assign. So Group A is always going to be your filters and Group B is always going to be this and Group C is always going to be that. And so if, as I talk about the rest of these things, I'm going to we're going to throw up a poll to if you think that would be useful in your lab or if you just like the throw a Group A played on, I'm going to count Group A and then I'm going to, you know, Group B is going to be the same thing and Group C is going to be something else. So if you but if you think the tend to like mode will be be something that worthwhile for me to to pursue, just if if you don't mind, let's do a poll and you can give me the feedback on that. Another another thing that people have suggested is that we add the QC sequences into the series 5 XLB. After all, the the series 5 XLB did have QC sequences in Eclipse, but there were some technical reasons that the the programmers had had really a hard had a difficult problem reintegrating that with Apex Alpha beta. So, so that those automated when we still do QC sequencing, but the IT, it, it, it's not as advanced on the Series 5 XLB as it is on the Series 6. Another, another suggestion is to add delay and recount functions on the LB 4200. So we can certainly recount you can do, you can do multiple iterations on the LB 4200, but basically when you start the count, close the drawer, the count starts. I had the suggestion that, well, maybe I want to start the count, close the drawer, but the count not actually start counting until 12:01 AM or whatever, whatever that time window is. And I think that's a, that they'll be a very, very worthwhile thing. We've also had the suggested to add a simulator to allow in the independent training operations. So since the beginning, there's been an LB 4100 simulator, which is very similar to an LB 4200. So you could actually use that same simulator for both. Just when you just add a new device and you choose LB41 SIM and then you can just set it up and and run it like it's like it's a regular device. However, people have suggested that we would it would be really nice to have a series 5 or a series 6 simulator. So I've, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we've developed simulator. Our programmers aren't completely happy with what I don't want to say, they don't really happy. They're not, they're not completely sold on, on its operation. So we're using it internally as a, as a training tool internally to, to, to kind of vet it out. Once we get if, if we come to the point where we're happy with that simulator, then we'll make that available to A to a wider audience. And then lastly, add I series support. So this has been a dream of mine forever is to get the I series, which is the iMac and the Isolo running into the same software as the the rest of the family. And this is, again, this is one of those things that, that, that there, there's just some, there's some paradigm differences between the I series and the other type units. And, and the, the main one being the, the, the, the sample centric, the, the count start centric of it. Whereas up until the series 6, all the sample counts were started on the, through the software. And then, and then once the series 6 came along, we've, we've added the ability to count the start the counts from the front panel, which is exactly what the I series does. And it's always done. And you don't even have the option through software to start counts in the I series. So, so at least we've opened the door to the same, the same method as you will so that they kind of operate the same. This is a in internally, I'm I'm I'm I'm really trying to to make this happen. But it it it is, it is a it may be a bridge too far, but that's not going to stop me from to trying to bring that those those products into the into the fold. All right, so, so that's the that's the the main part of the presentation, which we did good. So let me let me look at some of my questions here and go back and and let's just read through a few of these. Yeah. So, yeah, so, so the first question is can you include a swipe efficiency for dot shipments when converting to DPM? Certainly that is the point of so. So remember earlier I said that we had that, that one of the, one of the things when you're setting up a procedure is you need to fill in this Express account user sample identifier. So if I go over here to my sample type tab here we only have, we have one EDF. So I can say new and we can say dot filter, right? And we could come down here and we could put in the collection, collection factor of, of whatever, whatever it happens to be and, and save that and, and there's additional information we can add down here also. And so now I, I could set up a procedure for dot swipe systems, right, create a procedure and make that one of the express count functions. And yes, that, that very easy to do. OK. All right, so very good. OK, next question, does the, does Miriam still support the Series 5 XLB since they are legacy systems? If so, for how long? OK, there's a there's a couple of levels of this. Yes, we fully support the Series 5 XLB. What we're probably not going to do is do any additional firmware updates for the Series 5 XLB. So basically the firmware is what the firmware is the problem. The problem normally that you would have would be just from a full support standpoint is how long are parts going to be available. So when we stopped manufacturing the Series 5 XLB several years ago, we actually continued producing the Series 5 LB 5500. There's a lot of between the Series 5 LB 5500 and the Series 6LB. There's a lot of common parts between those. So that means that we'll be able to support the Series 5 from a hardware standpoint for, you know, quite a while into the future. The other side of that is the software side. So again, we're still we, we we've stopped formal support for the mini 20I and 20, which which not a lot of those systems are still out there anyway, but we're still supporting the LB 4100 and we're still supporting the Series 5 XLB. Now the reason that I bring the LB 4100 into this conversation is because both those systems use I triple E 488 adapter and that I triple E48 adapter, it's still fully supported. Still National instruments manufacturers, those couple other companies manufacture those. As long as those are still manufactured and there's not a big change to the protocols, there should be no problem with continuing to support those units. Now the LB 41 hundreds are getting I, I actually went into a lab last week and the, the, that I had not been in, in a while and the first thing it greeted me when I walked in the doors and they'll be 4100. And it, I was just taken aback by because it's just, you know, so, so far out of date. But but then again, there's still people who are running. They'll be 4000, which is the predecessor. They'll be 4100. But but anyway, so as as long as as that does that I triple E 48.2 GPIB protocol is still being supported in the operating systems, then it shouldn't be a problem for us to support it through the software. If Microsoft does something that that makes that that interface incompatible, then that could shut down that the Series 5 XLB, the Series 5 LB 5500 and the LB 4100 all three. But but, but, but as of now, I have no reason to believe that that's in the works or is happening or is going to happen. But that's just the caveat that we have out there. And then again, we should be good on the on the hardware side, at least for, you know, for for the next few years at least, we should have no problems on getting most of the hardware or all the hardware things that are done. OK, good. Another good question, So what software is used for creating editing reports and is it user friendly? So we use Stemelsoft reports and I will let you determine if you think it's user friendly or not. So I basically cut my teeth on the Crystal Reports back in the day and Crystal Reports kind of that this, this is not the opinion of Mirion Technologies Incorporated or any subsidiary there. This is only my opinion, But I think they sort of Crystal Report sort of fell off the rails and kind of forgot what they were doing. And so, so Eclipse and very and I link couple of other packages they use Crystal Report. I find Crystal Reports fairly easy to use, I guess because I've used it since, you know, basically since I was 2, but but I know many people have difficulties with with Crystal Reports. So this is Stemel reports that we're that we're currently using. So this is the the latest and you can go out and do it. Do a search on on the web for Stemelsoft and it's a Stemware reports.net. I think it's the is what you would look for and there's like 1000 page manual, right that you can download. You don't really need 1000 page manual, right, But but download that PDF. Don't try to read that that book, right. But you can do a search on, on on on specific terms. But it is it difficult to use? Not not it's not, not terribly difficult to use. So for example, this is this is what the report looks like, sort of looks like Crystal reports. We have things over here that we can drag and drop onto the onto the reports. Similar, right? It's kind of a kind of a similar thing if we come in here and actually look at some of the data like so I, I can right click here, choose design and you need for for some of this, like if you're going to do formatting, you need to know, you need to understand some things, right? Like so string dot format, it's going to be a, it's going to bring in a number and it's going to be like a general format, 3 decimals or three, three significant figures. And what what number is this? It was getting it from here, which is from, from a, what we call a VO. There's a whole training class you can take on this, but a virtual object, which then at the end, this is what matters right here. So it's taking the gross alpha cat rate, right? And it's converting it to a general string, right? So, and it, and it's base and it's actually what a cool thing that this could do that I, that I never, maybe you could do it in Crystal Reports, but I don't remember doing it is you can actually put 2 terms or multiple terms in the in, in the same, in the same expression. So, so this has the uncertainty and the, the rate both calculated here in the same place. And when I say calculated, there's no calculation here. But if you wanted to do a calculation, you put a time 60 on it *60 right? And, and, and there's little helpers over here to show you what the functions are available and such. Again, it's different, different than Crystal Reports, but it's kind of the kind of the same concept. You're you, you have different options as to what kind of formatting you want to or not formatting, what kind of language you want to use. And there's there's also sort of hidden sections that you can embed some like things to kick off other, other features. So maybe it does something out on your limbs or whatever. But anyway, this is this is the report too. So to answer your question, question Michael, directly, I don't think it is as user friendly as Crystal reports, but it may be because I am more familiar with the with the Crystal reports than I am with Stemmer reports, despite the fact that I've used it some here. All right, So no, it is. So if a so there was there's a cutoff between the series 5 systems and the pre series 5 systems in the software. So unless you were running a Series 5 or newer board in your system, then the software is not compatible. So, so if you have a, it'll be 5100 Series 4, which I'll just throw out there that we stopped manufacturing in 1994, yes, that would be 30 years ago. And then series three older than that, series two older than that, so on and so forth that that those just are not, are not compatible. Let's see. Ah, good question. So are calibrations and pass analysis transferred database or to new calibrations need to be performed? First part of the question that the calibrations, the pass analysis are not transferred. We've, we've, we've put together a couple of small projects to do that and, and we just, we haven't been entirely successful with doing that. I, I have a few routines that I've put together to pull the data out of the old data access tables. Now remember, those are Microsoft Access 1997 version, possibly as new as Access 2002 maybe, which you can't. Microsoft doesn't even support those files anymore. That's that, that, that's one of the reasons that we went away from Eclipse was because of the, the inflexibility of the of the Microsoft Access database. But, but I mean, there are routines that you that, that, that we could individually talk about one-on-one of pulling the data out of Eclipse and putting it into Apex alpha beta database. But you can't necessarily do like a calibration for calibration. Part of that's because we've kind of changed how that paradigm works. Before there, there, there was a, there wasn't an explicit calibration, but it was a calibration was a combination of a, of a number of things, which included the count mode, the device type and the, the geometry. So basically you would put all those together and you would you had you had a count mode or a calibration, though we didn't necessarily call it that. Whereas in apex alpha beta, if we go here to set up and I have calibration. So if I have a calibration called planchet AAB, here's what I know about it. It is a simultaneous, it counts in simultaneous mode. It's an active calibration. I'm using a background from that that that is generated from this procedure. I do AI do a alpha efficiency that's based on this particular and it's a constant efficiency, not a fitted efficiency and and a beta the same. And then I have my my check routines that that I'm doing right. So this is, this is an explicit calibration. Now we, we offer the, if you have a well documented system, well, and it's calibrated, we, we give you the ability to do a manual calibration, if you will. So under manual calibration. So here under the series 6, I have a calibration, I have a number of calibrations, but in any of these calibrations I can come in and I can manually pulls it. So if I, if I know what my background values are, alpha background, beta background, or I can it's to either come enter it manually or I can put it in actually automatically pull it in from my calibration right where this might be useful. Notice we have an alpha and a beta background where this might be useful. Let's say you're doing one minute counts, your alpha background is .1 minute for your system background or point O 5 or something. You probably don't want to subtract background if your if your alpha background is really that low and you're only and you're doing short count times, right? So, so this is an instance where you could put the the the value as just as something else or put it, put it in as zero. But you can, you can enter the, the alpha efficiencies, beta efficiencies at whatever, whatever you want to to do. You can do the coefficients for the fitted efficiencies if, if you'd like and all that. So, so you don't necessarily you would not necessarily have to perform calibrations. You'd have to do some manual entry. You'd have to put in your ROI's and your and your plateaus and but then all the rest of the stuff like if you spent days doing attenuation corrected deficiencies, then certainly you could, could do that. OK, so no, no. OK, so next the QC sequence is available on the Series 5, the Series 5 systems and the Series 6 systems. So no, not just the Series 6. Let's see what's the next got a lot of questions here. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm thrilled with this. Actually, you guys are are great about this. So but but I mean again, the series 5 you need the Cal plate and the QC plate clips left starting. OK, so, so so this is the next question has to do with it with a bug where that you could in Eclipse, you could you could count a background. You can start a background and then start sample counting. And when the background finishes the sample count, the sample count will use the background that was just counted. Whereas Apex alpha beta, it would do it wouldn't use the background that that was just counted. It would use the background that that had that was current as the time when the sample was counted. I don't remember Michael, I'll need to follow up with you on that because I don't I I remember seeing that in the list, but I don't remember if it was on the we're going to fix this in the future list or if this was on the we fixed this one already list. So I will I will make myself a note to come back to you. All right. Is there a way to annotate Can't be. So let's see so so if if we do a if we do a count and I don't know yes. So if, if we do, if we do counting data review and and by the way, I'll stay on here as long as we're that we're about to go over on our time and anybody that that that wants to stay on is welcome to stay on. I'll stay with you for as long as they let me. If I anyway, if I go to data review and regardless of what kind of sample it is or standard there, we can do things with this, right? So if I go to this is for samples, different types of things that I can't, I have different options, right? So I can go to configure and this was I think this was a filter so I can enter detector. I guess really we we need to do there. So, so if I wanted to annotate something, I could come here and I could say edit for this, this this entire batch, which takes me back to the batch screen. And again, I'll, I will do a configure here. Sample comment. OK, so now there's a sample comment field. So I can, I can do whatever I need to do to the samples here. And then I save that. And then as you're reporting, what you would do is you would be looking for those comments if you needed to do any sort of annotation. Gosh, you guys are great. I am greatly, I greatly appreciate the effort you guys are putting forth of these questions. Yes, yes, yes, you, yes. So, so you can take your database, it's 2.1, you can write it over to 2.2 no problem. If you're on the same PC, it happens automatically. You put in the new CD, put in the new installation media, excuse me, and just run the installation. It will automatically update everything to the, to the, to the, to the new version. So all of your procedures, all of your QCs, all of your standards, all the things that you previously set up will will come in automatically. So in an instance where a carrier is not, it's not recognized, so it, it reads it or it reads it wrong or it gets it as a no read, what happens? So, So what happens is you end up with a, with a extra sample in your batch, basically. And what you would need to do is you would need to go in and correct that. And, and you would do it just like what I, what I showed a minute ago. And so you, you, you come into the batch where the extra one that that that didn't have the sample information associated with it. And you'd come back here to edit and it would it, would it bring up the batches screen and you can correct whatever needs to be corrected there. Good question. Are there any plans for a program similar to Apex Guard to improve data integrity? Well, certainly one of the things in one of the departments that we've added in Miriam is a is a security, a software security group that that is looking at things like that. If there are specific, for example, one of that, we, we rather than just having passwords written openly in the registry. Clearly that doesn't make sense, right? Because anybody that can open a registry can, can, could see what your passwords are. They, you have to go in and, and make those that are some sort of a binary file or, or something. So there's, there's some work around for that. If you have specific questions on that on on that, on what things you're looking at for your data integrity, send me a, send me a private message or an e-mail or a text message, whatever. And we can, we can see that because I'm again, you know, I have, I have my list of things that I, that I need to get done on the software. How I get that is sometimes it's, it's, it's something I observe and but very often it's, it's you guys will come back and tell me, say, oh, you really need to have a, you know, blah, blah, blah feel here. No, if the if you're connected to a system and the and the system crashes or goes down overnight, no, the system will will retain, will continue counting and should reconnect when you when you reconnect the the the PCI don't know what I don't know how many samples it will count, but probably more than you're going to count in a couple of days. Yeah, OK. Yeah, so good, good, good, good question. So if you're doing a Windows 11 upgrade, as long as you're using the same database it won't be a problem. As long as the system is already registered in the database that's going to be used, then it either way is going to you'll be able to connect to the system. The problem is, is if you've not previously connected to that, it can't add that into the list until it has the the latest firmware on it. And again and again. Yeah, you can definitely install the latest version and then back up the database, restore the database. This is all in the appendix of the manual. Run the orphan script and then run. There's a HTML utility that you run or XML utility that you run that will that will get the database up to the to the to the current schema. So, but so, yeah, certainly you could do it that way. What I would normally do is while, while I'm on, I would, I would, I would load the new software, bring the database over. If for some reason I can't bring the database over, then I would go back, take install the software on the new system anyway, locate the tar ball file, copy it onto a flash drive, put it on the old computer, update the database or update the the firmware and then and then then bring the system over. But you could do it there again. There's there's different different different ways that you can do that. Yeah, yeah. So that, so the next question is yeah, if if now so. So this is the first version that runs on Windows 11 version 2.2. However, I will tell you that if you if you had Windows, Windows 10 and we're running version 2.1 and you upgraded to Windows 11, which I actually did on one of my personal PCs, Abex Alpha Beta would version 2.1 would run on Windows 11 with no problem. It was it's actually an installation issue that that I had, which is why it wasn't compatible. It wasn't, it wasn't that there was something about the software that it wouldn't run under Windows 11. It was just that it wouldn't install under Windows 11. So if if you if, if you're if you're updating the Windows 11 on your on your in place PC, if it were me, I would install Apex, Apex 2.2 first and then install the the Windows 11 update. But you could conceivably you should be able to do that in in the reverse order also. Yeah, so so this next this next one is is fun because there there is a little bit of a shortcoming here. So like let's play pretend that this is this is pre entry. This is not something that's already counted. If if I wanted to delete a sample, I could just hit the delete key. What I can't do, in fact, let's just do a new one. Just do a new one. So OK, so I'm gonna go to sample helper. I'm gonna say I want 4 samples in my batch. I don't want any of the extras, say 4 samples. OK, So what I can do is I can have four, these four samples I can delete #3 I just hit the delete button. What I can't do is OK, I want to, I want to put a new #3 in here, all right? I can't hit the insert button. There's no right click, There's nothing here. So, so the, the, the people that I've talked to say, you know, it would be really nice if this was just sort of like Excel, right? So you could just you could take an Excel spreadsheet, You could you could take these parameters, you could copy, you could paste in here, or you could just, or you could even take even if you could copy this one, copy, insert, paste. But it doesn't allow us to do that. That is very, very high on my list for version 2.3, just so you know, And OK, any all right, that seems to be the last question. So let's go back over here. And so if you send me an e-mail and I don't respond, it's because I have 700 unread emails and I'm I'm doing everything I can to keep up. But when I, I got 60 emails during the time I was doing this presentation. So I probably, I promise I'm not ignoring you. If it's something urgent, send me a text message. Some of you guys are, have been really great about that. And I hope most of you feel like I'm able to respond much better than that. I won't respond to your emails also, But it's, it's just, it's just overwhelming that the number of emails that I'm that I'm getting. But I do want to help you. If, for if for some reason, you, you need me for anything. If you need, you need me to visit, you need to whatever, I, I couldn't tell you how many times I'll, I'll somebody else hold. If you're in the neighborhood, why don't you, you know, come by and I'll go in and, you know, the plan is to spend an hour, hour and a half there and end up spending spending all day, you know, helping people get their, their procedures set up or, or, or whatever, work out whatever problems. And, and I enjoy doing that. And I, I feel like we're good, good partners in that. So if so, there's my contact information. You can use the QR code and put me in your save me in your phone. That's my, that's, that's my phone number. That's my only work phone number. It's not like I have a desk phone and a, and a mobile phone and a, you know, Skype phone. This, that, that is my number. You can send me emails. There's my mailing address, whatever. Appreciate everybody. You guys are great. I, I, I have enjoyed working with you guys the last 35 years. I look forward to working for you for another decade. So appreciate you and and take care everybody. _1734840527619