A Few Terms and Definitions

Some Cytobank terms and concepts may be unfamiliar.  In part, this is because Cytobank is designed to create

interactive figures by organizing experiment details.

1. ‘Banking’ your data is another way of saying that you are uploading a folder of

   flow cytometry files (representing one experiment) to Cytobank.

2. In Cytobank analysis, you explain what makes each file and population of cells unique using experiment variables.  Common variables include different stimulation conditions, timepoints, and doses of a stimulus.

3. The staining panel is a type of experiment variable that describes what was measured

   on every cytometer channel.  Every flow cytometry file must be tagged with just one staining panel.

4. Dimensions allow you to reorganize experiment variables when creating a figure. Each experiment variable type is its own dimension.

5.  Illustrations are different views of the data within your experiment. They are similar to panels of a figure you would put together to convey your results.

6. An md5sum (also known as md5 hash or checksum) is a digital "fingerprint"of a file.  It is a way to verify that the FCS file uploaded from your computer and the FCS file on Cytobank is the same, and it helps ensure data integrity.

7. The QR code is a black-and-white box that appears on a printed illustration. If you hover over the QR code, you'll see identifying information appear, including: the title of the experiment, the name of the illustration (that was given when the illustration was saved), and the URL of the page that generated the illustration.  You can take the picture of a QR code with your iphone or blackberry to get the URL of the illustration.  The quickmark iphone app has worked well for doing this.

8. A globally recognized avatar (gravatar) is an image that you can use to identify yourself on Cytobank and other sites on the internet.  To set your gravatar through the Profile section or by going directly to www.gravatar.com.