The present invention is directed to a method of selecting a clone that binds to human platelet glycoprotein Ib alpha using a human variable heavy chain and variable light chain immunoglobulin library. The invention is further directed to isolated nucleic acid molecules encoding a variable heavy chain or variable light chain region of an antibody, wherein the antibody binds to human platelet glycoprotein Ib alpha and inhibits aggregation of platelets. Expression vectors and host cells comprising the nucleic acid molecules are also provided, as well as methods for producing the variable heavy chain or the variable light chain region. An isolated variable heavy chain or variable light chain region of an antibody, wherein the antibody binds to human platelet glycoprotein Ib alpha and inhibits aggregation of platelets, is also provided. An antibody comprising the variable heavy chain or variable light chain regions is provided, as is a composition comprising the antibody and a carrier. The subject invention further provides a method of inhibiting aggregation of platelets, as well as a method of binding human platelet glycoprotein Ib alpha. A method of selecting a variable heavy chain or variable light chain region of an antibody is also provided.

Throughout this application various publications are referenced, many in parenthesis. Full citations for each of these publications are provided at the end of the Detailed Description. The disclosures of each of these publications in their entireties are hereby incorporated by reference in this application.
The platelet glycoprotein Ib/IX (GPIb/IX) receptor for von Willebrand factor (vWf) is believed to consist of a 1:1 heterodimeric complex (Du et al. 1987) between GPIb (160 kDa) and GPIX (17 kDa) in a noncovalent association. GPIb in turn consists of a disulfide-linked 140 kDa alpha chain (GPIb alpha) and a 22 kDa beta chain (GPIb beta) (Fitzgerald and Phillips 1989).
The GPIb/IX complex comprises one of the major transmembrane receptor complexes on blood platelets (Roth 1991; Lopez 1994; Clemetson and Clemetson 1995), mediating von Willebrand factor (vWF)-dependent platelet adhesion. In the 1980's, Miller et al. developed a series of monoclonal antibodies (mab) directed against the GP Ib/IX complex receptor for vWf. In particular, monoclonal antibody C-34 was characterized in detail and it was determined that mab C-34 recognized an epitope within the platelet glycoprotein Ib/IX complex (Miller et al. 1990). In this and subsequent work, Miller et al. showed that monoclonal antibodies C-34, AS-2 and AS-7 were potent inhibitors of the ristocetin-induced aggregation of normal platelets that was dependent upon von Willebrand factor. Miller et al. also showed that the epitopes for all three monoclonal antibodies lay within the GPIb/IX complex.
Attempts to define the binding sites for various monoclonal antibodies have led to the development of epitope libraries. Parmley and Smith developed a bacteriophage expression vector that could display foreign epitopes on its surface (Parmley and Smith 1988). This vector could be used to construct large collections of bacteriophage which could include virtually all possible sequences of a short (e.g. six-amino-acid) peptide. They also developed biopanning, which is a method for affinity-purifying phage displaying foreign epitopes using a specific antibody (see Parmley and Smith 1988; Cwirla et al. 1990; Scott and Smith 1990; Christian et al. 1992; Smith and Scott 1993).
After the development of epitope libraries, Smith et al. then suggested that it should be possible to use the bacteriophage expression vector and biopanning technique of Parmley and Smith to identify epitopes from all possible sequences of a given length. This led to the idea of identifying peptide ligands for antibodies by biopanning epitope libraries, which could then be used in vaccine design, epitope mapping, the identification of genes, and many other applications (Parmley and Smith 1988; Scott 1992).
Antibody fragments have also been displayed on the surface of filamentous phage that encode the antibody genes (Hoogenboom and Winter 1992; McCafferty et al. 1990; Vaughan et al. 1996; Tomlinson et al. 1992; Nissim et al. 1994; Griffiths et al. 1994). Variable heavy chain (VH) and variable light chain (VL) immunoglobulin libraries have thus been developed in phage, and phage can be selected by panning with antibody. The encoded antibody fragments can then be secreted as soluble fragments from infected bacteria. This display of antibodies on phage and selection with antigen mimics immune selection and can be used to make antibodies without immunization from a single library of phage (see Hoogenboom and Winter 1992).
A human synthetic VH and VL ScFv library was made by recloning the heavy and light chain variable regions from the lox library vectors (Griffiths et al. 1994) into the phagemid vector pHEN2 (see FIG. 1). This "Griffin.1" library is a ScFv phagemid library made from synthetic V-gene segments.
A need continues to exist for the elucidation of the sequence of useful epitopes of antibodies that bind to glycoprotein Ib alpha.

Variable heavy chain and variable light chain regions of antibodies to human platelet glycoprotein Ib alpha

The Research Foundation of State University of New York


A vacuum power head is provided which has a bare floor feature. A vacuum cleaner head assembly defines a vacuum chamber which contains a power driven rotary brush. Located outside of the vacuum chamber adjacent the rotary brush is a generally U-shaped trailing brush. The trailing brush cooperates with a height adjustment mechanism which is movable between a deep carpet position and a bare floor position. As the height adjustment mechanism of the head assembly is moved toward the bare floor position, the trailing brush is automatically moved to an extended position into engagement with the floor. When the height adjustment mechanism is moved from the bare floor position, a spring biases the trailing brush toward a retracted position within the head assembly. An actuator cooperates with the height adjustment mechanism to automatically move the trailing brush between the retracted position and the extended position in response to movement of the height adjustment mechanism.

Traditionally, vacuum cleaners having power heads with a rotatable brush have been required to clean surfaces having both deep carpet and bare floors. Therefore it is necessary that this rotatable brush be capable of movement with the nozzle between various selected nozzle heights above the surface to be cleaned. For deep carpet surfaces, the nozzle is positioned at a high elevation relative to the surface to be cleaned and for bare floors, the nozzle is positioned at a low elevation relative the surface to be cleaned.
When cleaning bare floors the friction between the rotatable brush and the floor as a result the cleaning ability of the vacuum cleaner is diminished. The spacing of the base of the vacuum cleaner relative to the bare floor allows large particles of debris to be thrown backward by the rotatable brush at a speed which is too quick for the suction created by the nozzle to carry these particles into the nozzle.
Various attempts have been made to alleviate this problem. Initially, a flexible but fixed contact strip was utilized behind the rotatable brush to prevent the debris from travelling backward behind the nozzle. Examples of such an approach may be seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,288,028 and 1,288,029.
Thereafter, a trailing brush was introduced which was movable between a retracted position within the head assembly and an extended position adjacent the bare floor. This approach utilizes various methods of extending and retracting the trailing brush. In all these approaches, the trailing brush is movable between the extended and retracted positions independent of the height of the head assembly. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,014,068 to Payne et al., 4,073,031 to Schwartz, and 4,109,342 to Vermillion disclose approaches which rely on a foot or hand pedal to move the trailing brush between the retracted and extended positions.
The present invention is directed to improving known retractable trailing brush technology for use on bare floors by a vacuum cleaner. The present invention is directed to combining the operation of the height adjustment mechanism of a vacuum cleaner and the retractable trailing brush.

Vacuum power head with bare floor feature


A two-stage switched-capacitor CMOS Miller-compensated amplifier uses only n-channel transistors in its signal path to reduce the deleterious effects of parasitic capacitances in the signal path while still obtaining a high transconductance in both stages. A transistor inserted in series with the Miller capacitor between the output and input of the second stage of the amplifier introduces a feedforward zero in the left half of the S-plane of the circuit. By appropriately sizing the aspect ratio and properly biasing this transistor, the second pole of the amplifier is canceled with the introduced zero. Dummy transistors having their sources and drains connected (to serve as capacitors) are cross-connected between opposite polarity inputs and outputs of a differential pair of input transistors in the first stage to effectively cancel the gate-to-drain Miller-multiplied capacitance of the input transistors. A common-mode control current is generated based upon a voltage at a common-source node of a differential pair of input transistors in the second stage. This current is fed back to the first stage to control the common-mode of the first stage.

A pipelined ADC is shown generally at 20 in FIG. 1. A pipelined ADC typically includes an input sample and hold amplifier circuit (SHA) 22 and several pipeline stages 23, 25 and 27. Each pipeline stage generally comprises a flash analog-to-digital converter (flash ADC) such as 30, 32, 34 and 36 and a corresponding residue amplifier 24, 26 and 28. Each residue amplifier 24, 26 and 28, in turn, includes at least one amplifier stage, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), as well as a SHA. The interrelationship among these components is explained below.
The SHA 22 samples a signal at the input of the pipelined ADC 20, VIN, and holds this signal at its output long enough to allow a first stage 23 of the pipeline to operate on it. This first stage 23 includes a first-stage flash ADC 30 and a first-stage residue amplifier 24. The first-stage flash ADC 30 quantizes the sampled signal and provides an n-bit digital word. This word represents the amplitude of the sampled signal (relative to the flash ADC reference voltage), accurate to n-bits. The first-stage DAC (within residue amplifier 24) then accepts the n-bit word from the first-stage flash ADC 30 and converts the word back into analog format. The first-stage residue amplifier 24 measures the amplitude difference between the sampled signal and the n-bit approximation of the sample as supplied by the first-stage DAC (within residue amplifier 24). This difference is termed the first-stage "residue," as it represents the portion of the signal beyond the resolution of the first n-bit conversion. The first-stage residue amplifier 24 then amplifies the first-stage residue by a factor of 2.sup.n, and holds the amplified first-stage residue while it is processed in the second stage 25 of the pipeline.
In the second pipeline stage 25, a second-stage flash ADC 32 quantizes the amplified first-stage residue into an m-bit digital word, i.e., a word accurate to m-bits. A second-stage DAC (within residue amplifier 26) converts the m-bit digital word back into analog format, and the second-stage residue amplifier 26 measures the difference between the actual amplified residue from the first-stage residue amplifier 24 and the analog output of the second-stage DAC (within residue amplifier 26). This difference represents the residue from the second-stage flash ADC 32 and is further amplified by a factor of 2.sup.m to provide an amplified second-stage residue. This amplified second-stage residue then is held by the second-stage residue amplifier 26 while it is processed in the following stage of the pipeline. This process may be continued with additional pipeline stages as required to achieve the desired resolution. A digital adder 38 combines the outputs of flash ADCs 30, 32, 34 and 36 and provides a digital output to output bus 40.
Thus, after the first two pipeline stages, an (m+n) bit digital word (accurate to (m+n) bits) is obtained. In other words, the first stage provides a rough measurement of the sampled signal (accurate to a finite number of bits), and each successive stage fine-tunes that measurement. In many practical implementations, an amplification factor of less than 2.sup.n in the first stage and less than 2.sup.m in the second stage is implemented so that some form of digital correction can be used to correct errors in the flash ADCs. For example, many pipeline converters manufactured today are implemented with residue amplification factors of 2.sup.n-1 and 2.sup.m-1 respectively in the first and second stage residue amplifiers, and provide an m+n-1 bit digital word accurate to m+n-1 bits after the first two pipeline stages.
It is apparent from the foregoing that the proper design of the residue amplifiers 24, 26 and 28 is of particular relevance in maximizing the speed and accuracy of a pipelined ADC. Traditionally, pipelined ADCs have employed high-speed switched-capacitor circuits as residue amplifiers. Such switched-capacitor circuits normally use single-stage amplifier structures to achieve fast settling times. To attain high gain with these devices, cascode transistors commonly are used in their Outputs to increase the output impedance of the amplifiers, thereby increasing their gain. An example of a prior art single-stage cascode circuit, commonly referred to as a "telescopic" cascode amplifier, is shown at 41 in FIG. 2. In this example, the circuit of amplifier 41 is cascoded twice (with cascode transistors M4-M7) to achieve twice the cascode gain in the one stage than a single cascode transistor would provide. The open-loop bandwidth of such a single-stage device (OLBW.sub.(SINGLE-STAGE)) is defined by the transconductance (gm) of the single-stage amplifier divided by the capacitance loading the output (C.sub.L), i.e., OLBW.sub.(SINGLE-STAGE) =gm/C.sub.L. Such a single-stage amplifier circuit also has a non-dominant parasitic pole at a frequency dictated by the parasitic capacitances of the MOS transistors in the signal path of the amplifier. Since the frequency location of this parasitic pole can be optimized to be as large as one giga-hertz (GHz). the closed-loop bandwidth of a single-stage amplifier may be increased to nearly this value before the phase margin of the circuit degrades (due to the non-dominant pole) and causes the circuit to become unstable. Thus, by utilizing proper gain enhancement techniques (e.g., telescopic cascodes), a single-stage amplifier circuit can be made to settle quickly.
There, however, are several drawbacks associated with single-stage telescopic cascodes. First, telescopic cascode amplifiers are not well suited for use with large capacitive loads. Because the open-loop bandwidth of a single-stage amplifier (OLBW.sub.(SINGLE-STAGE)) is determined by dividing the input transconductance (gm) by the output load capacitance (C.sub.L), i.e., OLBW.sub.(SINGLE-STAGE) =gm/C.sub.L, to maintain a high bandwidth in a circuit with a large capacitive load, a large gm is required to counteract the large capacitance value of C.sub.L. One way to increase the transconductance of an amplifier is to use larger transistors in the amplifier's signal path. Normally, a single-stage amplifier will have a feedback capacitance (C.sub.F) connected between its output and its input, and will have an input capacitance (C.sub.IN) connected to its input to be charged by an input signal. There also may be a parasitic capacitance (C.sub.P) (from the intrinsic properties of the MOS input transistors) at the input of the amplifier. The feedback attenuation (ATTEN.sub.FB) of such a circuit is determined by the following equation: ATTEN.sub.FB =C.sub.F /(C.sub.F +C.sub.IN +C.sub.P). Therefore, the closed-loop bandwidth of the single-stage circuit (CLBW.sub.(SINGLE-STAGE)) is determined by multiplying the open-loop bandwidth (OLBW.sub.(SINGLE-STAGE)) by the feedback attenuation (ATTEN.sub.FB), i.e. CLBW.sub.(SINGLE-STAGE) =OLBW.sub.(SINGLE-STAGE) * ATTEN.sub.FB =(gm/C.sub.L) * C.sub.F /(C.sub.F +C.sub.IN +C.sub.P), where * indicates multiplication.
The transconductance may be raised (to counteract a large capacitance value of C.sub.L) by increasing the transistor sizes, but a large increase in the transistor sizes will result in a substantial increase in the parasitic capacitance (C.sub.P) at the input. This increase in the parasitic capacitance may, in turn, substantially decrease the closed-loop bandwidth of the amplifier circuit through feedback attenuation. Thus, an upper limit is placed on the amount the transconductance may be increased (by increasing the transistor size) without having the increased parasitic capacitance limit the bandwidth.
Another way to increase the input transconductance (gm) of a single-stage amplifier is to use mirror gain. This is accomplished by mirroring the current provided at the output of the input transistors (i.e., the input current multiplied by the value of gm) to the cascode output structure. By doing this, the effective transconductance of the amplifier is made equal to the transistor transconductance (gm) multiplied by the current gain of the current mirror. The drawback to using mirror gain, however, is that the current mirror adds parasitic capacitance in the signal path. Also, such a mirrored circuit has a unique noise disadvantage caused by using an inherently smaller gm in conjunction with an intentionally increased bandwidth.
The second problem with a telescopic cascode amplifier is that it imposes a severe headroom constraint on the output signal swing capability. Since each cascode transistor must have a drain-to-source voltage (V.sub.DS) of at least its gate-to-source voltage (V.sub.GS) minus its threshold voltage (V.sub.T), i.e., V.sub.DS >V.sub.GS -V.sub.T, multiple cascode devices arranged in series (when biased correctly) require a significant voltage drop across them, thereby substantially reducing the voltage swing headroom available at the output of the amplifier. This especially becomes a problem when the amplifier is operating from limited voltage rails (e.g.. three volts).
An alternative to using a single-stage amplifier is to use a two-stage amplifier with Miller compensation, i.e., a Miller capacitance (C.sub.C) coupled between the second-stage output and the second-stage input. By using such a structure, the overall gain requirement may be spread over the two-stages so that minimum channel length transistors may be used in each stage. Additionally, because all of the gain need not be achieved in a single stage (requiring multiple cascode transistors), the use of two stages alleviates the lack of output signal swing headroom that was encountered with the use of a single-stage amplifier circuit.
The bandwidth of a Miller-compensated two-stage amplifier (BW.sub.(TWO-STAGE)) is determined by dividing the transconductance of the first stage (gm1) by the Miller capacitance (C.sub.C), i.e., BW.sub.(TWO-STAGE) =gm1/C.sub.C. Thus, the bandwidth can be somewhat controlled by appropriately selecting the value of the Miller capacitance (C.sub.C). A two-stage structure also has a non-dominant pole (P2) at a frequency location determined by the following equation: P2.congruent.(gm2/C.sub.L) * C.sub.C /(C.sub.C +C.sub.P2), where gm2 is the transconductance of the second state and C.sub.P2 is the parasitic capacitance at the input of the second stage. Additionally, a two-stage amplifier has a third non-dominant pole (P3) with a location dictated by the parasitic capacitances of the MOS transistors in the signal path of the amplifier. The location of this parasitic pole may be optimized to be at a very large frequency, i.e., approximately one GHz. As the signal frequency approaches the frequency of the first non-dominant pole (P2), however, the phase margin will degrade rapidly and the circuit will become unstable. Thus, although the bandwidth of the two-stage circuit may be increased (by increasing gm1 or by decreasing C.sub.C), the presence of pole P2 severely restricts the extension of the bandwidth beyond the location of pole P2.
FIG. 3 shows a prior art two-stage amplifier circuit 42 with a p-channel differential pair of transistors M1 and M2 as an input stage and an n-channel (single-ended) output-stage transistor M3. It is known that n-channel MOS transistors provide significantly more transconductance in relation to their size than do p-channel transistors. Typically, an n-channel device will provide a transconductance value that is approximately a factor of three greater than that of an equivalently sized p-channel device. The parasitic capacitances of p-channel and n-channel transistors, however, are nearly equal for equivalently sized devices. In view of the equation stated above regarding the location of pole P2, it is advantageous, then, to have an n-channel second stage (so as to optimize the location of pole P2).
Since each of the amplifying transistors must be biased so that its drain-to-source voltage (V.sub.DS) is greater than its gate-to-source voltage (V.sub.GS) minus a transistor threshold voltage (V.sub.T), i.e., V.sub.DS >V.sub.GS -V.sub.T, it also makes sense that the input and output stages be transistors of opposite doping types, i.e., n-channel and p-channel. That is, given a limited supply voltage, it is much easier to bias the two stages of transistors when the input and output stages use oppositely doped transistors. This is especially true when the supply rails carry only about three volts.
In addition, the (larger) p-channel transistors are preferred in the first stage of a two-stage amplifier for a variety of reasons, including: (1) providing better matching between the transistors comprising a differential pair of input transistors, thereby reducing offset errors caused by mismatches between the pair, and (2) having lower "flicker noise," i.e., low frequency noise caused by trapped defects in the oxide layers or the substrates of the devices. Thus, the prior art teaches that in a limited headroom environment, although p-channel transistors have a larger parasitic capacitance (for an equivalent gain) than do n-channel transistors, it is a better design choice to use p-channel transistors in the first stage of a two-stage Miller-compensated amplifier.
Therefore, a need exists for an amplifier circuit suitable for use switched capacitor circuits that operate at very high frequencies.


A photosensitive resin composition for forming column spacers for a liquid crystal display device is provided. The composition includes an alkali-soluble resin, a reactive unsaturated compound, a photoinitiator and a solvent. The alkali-soluble resin includes structural units represented by Formulae 1, 2 and 3, which are described in the specification. A pattern formed using the composition is also provided. The pattern shows improved thickness uniformity, good developability without leaving any residual image, superior solvent resistance and high recovery rate.

A liquid crystal display device can use spherical or cylindrical silica or plastic beads to maintain a constant interval between upper and lower panels. Since the beads are randomly applied to and distributed on a glass substrate, they may be located within active pixels. In this case, the contrast ratio of the liquid crystal display device is lowered due to decreased opening ratio of the liquid crystal display device and light leakage (a phenomenon in which light is emitted in directions other than the forward direction).
To solve these problems, spacers have been formed by photolithography. According to this method, a photosensitive resin composition is applied to a glass substrate, and the photosensitive resin composition is irradiated with UV light through a patterned mask. The exposed portions of the photosensitive resin composition are developed to form spacers according to the pattern of the mask on desired areas of the glass substrate other than within active pixels. However, the spacers have poor processing stability, low compressive displacement and low recovery rate. Thus a layer underlying R, G and B pixels of a color filter of a liquid crystal display device can be abnormally deformed to form gap defects between or within the respective pixels. This problem leads to color or contrast defects, which can deteriorate the quality of images.
Various attempts have been made to solve the above problems. For example, Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0268697 teaches a use of a copolymer comprising a conjugated unsaturated diolefinic compound as a binder resin to achieve high strength and recovery rate.
However, synthesis of copolymers including 1,3-butadiene as a structural unit, which is mainly used to achieve increased elastic recovery, requires the use of a high-pressure reactor and it can be difficult to control the content of 1,3-butadiene due to its low reactivity. Thus, there is an increasing demand to develop a binder that exhibits characteristics comparable to copolymers using 1,3-butadiene and can be easily synthesized.
On the other hand, recent trends towards the use of large substrates have brought about an increase in exposure time during the formation of column spacers using photo-curable resist compositions, resulting in a reduction in productivity. In view of the foregoing, there is a need in the art to develop a resist composition for column spacers for a liquid crystal display device with a high productivity.

Photosensitive resin composition for column spacers for liquid crystal display device, column spacers formed using the composition and display device comprising the column spacers


The present invention relates generally to methods and compositions employing the oncolytic activity of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) to treat cancer and other neoplastic disorders.

Oncolytic virotherapy is a bio-therapeutic platform for cancer treatment based on selective infection and killing of cancer cells by oncolytic viruses. Oncolytic viruses are replicating micro-organisms that show tissue tropism during infection of tumors and grow to increased levels in tumor cells relative to normal cells. Due to the enhanced viral burden in tumor cells (but not in normal cells) after infection, the cancer cells are subsequently killed by necrosis or apoptosis.
Some oncolytic viruses (both DNA and RNA viruses) have been identified to date, namely adenovirus, reovirus, herpes simplex virus (HSV), Newcastle disease virus (NDV), vaccinia virus, measles virus, coxsackievirus, and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV).
While oncolytic viruses have been shown to be useful for cancer treatment, there is still a need in the art for the availability of additional oncolytic viruses. Having a repertoire of numerous oncolytic viruses with different modes of action, properties, and strategies to kill tumor cells of various tissue origins is desirable to thoroughly and effectively treat cancer. Identification of new oncolytic viruses is therefore useful to ensure the ability to efficiently target and kill a variety of tumors originating from various tissues. In addition, the combined use of different classes of oncolytic viruses for cancer therapy (multi-virotherapy) is an alternate route that can be much more efficacious in some cases than the use of a single virus class. The present invention satisfies this need in the art by providing methods of utilizing the newly identified oncolytic properties of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in various methods and compositions to treat cancer and related conditions.

Methods and compositions for treatment of cancer using oncolytic RSV activity

Board of Regents, The University of Texas System


A first comb has a graduated scale attached near a first end of the scale so that the scale can be pivoted outwardly and inwardly from the first comb. A cutting guide first end is pivotably attached to the second end of the graduated scale. The graduated scale can be slidable lengthwise with respect to the first comb to position the cutting guide a select distance from the first comb. A swivel or hinge permits the graduated scale to extend in the plane of the first comb or to extend perpendicular to it or any angle in between. Clamping or friction provision permit the first comb and the graduated scale and the cutting guide to all be fixed in the plane of the first comb, either in a folded carrying configuration or in a ready-to-use configuration, or to fix the graduated scale perpendicular to the plane of the first comb and to fix the cutting guide parallel to the plane of the first comb at a fixed or at a select distance parallel to the plane of the first comb. A second comb first end is pivoted to a first end of the first comb, in essentially the same plane as the first comb, with the teeth of the two combs facing each other. Locking arrangements are provided on the second ends of the first and second combs to clamp and hold hair between the combs while cutting the hair using either one of the combs or the cutting guide to support or guide a hair cutting device.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to the art of cutting hair. A comb has a scale and cutting guide pivotally attached to it for gauging the length of the hair to be cut or to be retained.
2. Description of Related Art
The use of combs and cutting guides in combination, with and separate from cutting means, is common in the art. Combs that pivot relative to one another in essentially the same plane are common with J. P. Noyes, U.S. Pat. No. 55,349, issued 5 Jun. 1866 and J. F. Golubics, U.S. Pat. No. 2,659,122, issued 17 Nov. 1953, examples of combs that pivot together with the teeth lying adjacent each other, but being essentially coplanar. H. W. Johnson, U.S. Pat. No. 1,596,737, issued 17 Aug. 1926, and C. Mani, U.S. Pat. No. 1,853,828, issued 12 Apr. 1932, are examples of comb means that pivot together with the teeth intermeshing in the same plane. J. W. Erhard et al, U.S. Pat. No. 1,726,390, issued 27 Aug. 1929 teach a comb pivotally attached to scissors. A. M. Widdows, U.S. Pat. No. 1,662,373, issued 13 Mar. 1928, teaches two combs used together for cutting with a slotted pivoted strip used with a hair-clamping means. M. Klein, U.S. Pat. No. 395,444, issued 1 Jan. 1889, teaches spaced parallel comb means with adjustable spacing means between the combs for positioning scissors a select distance between the comb means. M. S. Barinas, U.S. Pat. No. 5,402,805, issued 4 Apr. 1995, is an example of two pivoted comb-like means in essentially the same plane with a pin-slot securing means for holding the two together. S. J. Furco, U.S. Pat. No. 4,517,998, issued 21 May 1985, teaches the use of scale graduations on a comb for geometric hair styling. L. D. Craig, U.S. Pat. No. 84,860, issue 15 Dec. 1868, teaches shears that have a slotted plate adjustably clamped perpendicular to the plane of the shears with a comb formed perpendicular to one end of the slotted plate so that the distance between the parallel planes of the comb and shears can be adjusted for gauging hair cutting.


A high-power amplifier having a current-adding array is provided for high-speed driving of an inductive element, e.g., a deflection coil of an electron beam gun. The amplifier includes a first voltage node (U1) and a second voltage node (UV), at least one of which is connected to a regulated power supply, and a plurality of first switchable bridges (B11, B12, B13, . . . , B1k) connected in parallel between the first and second voltage nodes. Each switchable bridge includes at least one resistor (R11, R12, R13, . . . , R1k) with a resistance value that is selected so that a first resistor (R11) has a first resistance value WR11 equal to Rmin, a second resistor (R12) has a second resistance value WR12 greater than or equal to WR11 and an n-th resistor has an n-th resistance value WR1n greater than or equal to WR1n−1.

In the state of the art of material processing using electron beams, it is known to drive the deflection coil of the electron beam gun using analog amplifiers that have a high-level signal control frequency of up to 100 kHz. Using known techniques, a precision of the electron beam of 1% (i.e. 1% per mil or 0.1%) can be achieved. However, known analog amplifiers tend to oscillate, over-shoot and level-out during signal level changes/transitions.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,989,614 discloses an electron beam system, which utilizes a current-adding array in order to convert a digital signal into an analog signal. This analog signal must then be amplified using a power analog amplifier before the amplified value is supplied to the deflection coil. Therefore, this known electron beam system suffers from the above-noted problems.
It is further known in the state of the art to display back-scattered electrons, which are back scattered by a work piece processed by the electron beam, on an indicator, such as a display, or to plot the back-scattered electrons using an appropriate recording apparatus, both in a chronologically synchronized manner.


A system and method for close proximity vehicular data transmission may include detecting, by a processor onboard a vehicle, a predetermined condition for activating a short range radio frequency (RF) transceiver onboard the vehicle. The onboard short range RF transceiver is configured to transmit and receive signals within a limited distance from the onboard short range RF transceiver. The onboard short range RF transceiver is activated in response to at least detecting the predetermined condition. A communications link is established between the onboard short range RF transceiver and a predetermined mobile communications device assigned to a particular crew member. Vehicular data is transmitted from the onboard short range RF transceiver to the predetermined mobile communications device.

Currently methods and systems for moving data off of and onto vehicles in transit, such as commercial aircraft involve high cost infrastructure modifications to ground facilities and aircraft. Additionally, non-standard and varying frequencies are in use among different airports which further exacerbates data transmission from aircraft at terminal gates to airline databases and storage servers/warehouses. Further, the ability to transmit data securely using existing communications systems at various airports may be problematic. Accordingly, there currently is a need for a low cost solution for moving data off of and onto vehicles in transit, such as commercial aircraft and other common carriers, that securely transfers the data without any tampering, interception by unauthorized entities, or transfer to unauthorized recipients or devices, and also insures the validity and authenticity of the origin of the data and that the data is reliable.

Close proximity vehicular data transmission


According to one example of the present application, a phosphor has the following composition formula (1): [composition formula 1] Si(6-z)AlzOyN(8-z):Rex, where x, y and z are 0.018≦x≦0.3, 0.3≦y≦0.75, 0.42≦z≦1.0, respectively, and Re is a rare earth element. Therefore, even when the aluminum concentration is 0.42 mol to 1.0 mol, a sialon phosphor of the present application exhibits high luminance and has a particle size D50 varying between 5 to 20 μm. In addition, a method for preparing a phosphor according to one example of the present application involves adjusting the oxygen concentration to ensure the superior crystallinity of the phosphor and thus improve the luminance thereof.

A phosphor is used for a vacuum fluorescent display (VFD), a field emission display (FED), a plasma display panel (PDP), a light emitting display (LED), or the like. To make a phosphor emit light, energy for rendering the phosphor excited is supplied to the phosphor, and the phosphor is excited by an excitation source having high energy, for example, vacuum ultraviolet rays, ultraviolet rays, electron beams, and blue light. However, since the phosphor is deformed by these excitation sources and thus tends to involve a decrease in luminance and to deteriorate, a phosphor having less luminance degradation is required. Accordingly, sialon phosphors, which show a slow decay in luminance, are introduced instead of silicate phosphors, phosphate phosphors, aluminate phosphors, and sulfide phosphors, conventionally used.
A sialon phosphor is a kind of acid nitrides having Si, Al, O, and N and includes an α-sialon phosphor and a β-sialon phosphor which have different crystal structures. Non-patent Literature 1 discloses an α-sialon phosphor, while Patent Documents 1, 2, 3, and 4 disclose an α-sialon phosphor and a light emitting device using the same. Also, Patent Document 5 discloses a β-sialon phosphor, while Patent Document 6 discloses a β-sialon phosphor and a light emitting device using the same.    [Non-patent Literature 1] J. W. H. vankrebel "On new rare earth doped M-Si-Al-O—N materials," Tu Eindhoven The Netherland, P145-161(1998)    [Patent Document 1] JP Patent Publication No. 2002-363554    [Patent Document 2] JP Patent Publication No. 2003-336059    [Patent Document 3] JP Patent Publication No. 2004-238505    [Patent Document 4] JP Patent Publication No. 2007-31201    [Patent Document 5] JP Patent Publication No. S60-206889    [Patent Document 6] JP Patent Publication No. 2005-255895
α-sialon is a crystal structure having a unit structure represented by Si12-(m+n)Al(m+n)OnN8-n, in which two empty spheres are present. Metal ions having a relatively small radius, for example, Ca2+, may be engaged in the empty spheres of the crystal structure, and α-sialon engaging the metal ions may be represented by a general formula Mm/vSi12-(m+n)Al(m+n)OnN8-n:Eu, wherein M is a metal ion and V is a valence thereof. As stated in Non-patent Literature 1 and Patent Document 1, α-sialon engaging Ca and an active material Eu is known as a phosphor emitting light in a yellow region. Since this phosphor has a continuous excitation band from an ultraviolet region to a blue region and thus emits yellow light by irritation of ultraviolet rays or blue light, the phosphor may be used as a yellow phosphor for a white light emitting device.
This phosphor may be prepared by mixing proper amounts of precursor materials obtained from powders of silicon nitride, aluminum nitride, calcium carbonate (CaCO3), and europium oxide as starting materials and sintering the mixture at a high temperature in a nitrogen atmosphere. Further, a substrate of a high purity material with a limited amount of impurities disclosed in Patent Document 3 or metal silicone disclosed in Patent Document 4 are used so as to achieve high luminance.
Meanwhile, β-sialon is represented by a general formula Si6-xAlxOxN6-x. Patent Documents 5 and 6 disclose a β-sialon phosphor prepared by adding an active material to β-sialon. Patent Document 5 discloses a β-sialon phosphor obtained using μ-sialon and an active material, for example, Cu, Ag, or a rare-earth element such as Eu. However, it is reported that a Eu-activated β-sialon phosphor of Patent Document 5 emits light in a blue wavelength region from 410 nm to 440 nm, while a phosphor disclosed in Patent Document 6 is a green phosphor. Difference in emission color between the phosphors is probably due to a fact, as mentioned in Patent Document 6, that the active material Eu is not securely engaged in β-sialon since the Eu-activated β-sialon of Patent Document 5 has a low sintering temperature.
A Eu-activated β-sialon phosphor of Patent Document 6 emits green light and is excited by light in a blue wavelength region. Thus, the Eu-activated β-sialon phosphor attracts attention as a green light emitting phosphor for a white light emitting device, which is constituted by a blue light emitting device and a phosphor or by an ultraviolet light emitting device and a phosphor. In particular, the Eu-activated β-sialon phosphor has a narrow spectrum width of about 55 nm and good color purity and thus is expected to be used as a green phosphor for a white light emitting device requiring color reproducibility. However, since the Eu-activated β-sialon phosphor does not have sufficiently high luminance, enhancement of luminance is necessary.
A β-sialon phosphor is also prepared by mixing proper amounts of materials obtained from powders of silicon nitride, aluminum nitride, and an active material as starting materials and sintering the mixture at a high temperature in a nitrogen atmosphere. However, a β-sialon phosphor obtained by a currently known method using nitrides, such as silicon nitride or aluminum nitride, as a starting material does not have a sufficiently high luminance.
That is, in a conventional method of synthesizing a rare-earth element added β-sialon phosphor, raw materials including oxides and nitrides, such as Si3N4, SiO2, AIN, Al2O3, and Eu2O3, are mixed, and synthesized at 1,900° C. or higher in a nitrogen atmosphere. However, when β-sialon is synthesized by mixing a rare-earth element used as a bivalent cation activator in mixing the raw materials, other cations than Si and Al, which form sialon, may serve as impurities, degrading crystallinity of β-sialon, which may cause a decrease in luminance of the phosphor.
Further, as described above, although a yellow YAG phosphor is applied to a light emitting device to realize a white light emitting device for the first time, the white light emitting device shows a low color rendering index (CRI) as compared with a common lamp. Thus, a white light emitting device having an improved CRI by using green and red phosphors has been recently developed. As a green phosphor applied to the device, a silicate phosphor or a sulfide phosphor is used. However, such phosphors exhibit low high-temperature, thermal, and chemical stabilities, and thus a phosphor using nitrides is vigorously studied. Since a nitride phosphor is obtained by adding an activator to a host material, such as Si3N4 and sialon used for a high-temperature structure materials, the phosphor has superior color reproducibility and reliability for display and excellent high-temperature light emitting characteristics and thus is applied to a TV backlight and a lighting lamp. However, this phosphor has 70% or less of efficiency than the YAG phosphor, and thus improvement in efficiency is needed.


A display device comprises a data input unit configured to convert an image signal to a color signal. The display device also comprises a brightness control unit operationally coupled to the data input unit, configured to extract a brightness level associated with the color signal, to subdivide the brightness level associated with the color signal, and to apply different voltages according to brightness level subdivisions to control brightness of the color signal. The display device also comprises a display unit configured to display the color signal according to controlled brightness. The brightness level may comprise gray levels of a γ curve. The color signal may comprise one of YUV or RGB signals.

Mobile terminals typically include a display device, such as a liquid crystal display (LCD). When a user attempts to view an image stored in the mobile terminal or image data inputted from a camera, the mobile terminal converts the input image data into a RGB (Red-Green-Blue) or YUV (e.g., PAL system) signal, adjusts the converted signal according to a gray level of brightness, and differentially applies a voltage corresponding to the RGB or YUV signal by the gray level, thereby displaying the image data on the LCD. Normally, the YUV signal has 16 bits, 18 bits or 24 bits. When the converted YUV signal has 18 bits, the gray level number of the YUV signal is 512.
FIG. 1 is a graph showing a relationship between gray levels and input voltages.
Referring to FIG. 1, when an YUV signal inputted to an LCD having a predetermined γ value has 18 bits, the voltages inputted by the gray levels increase by the rise of the gray levels. In a typical display device, a γ curve may be represented by 'y=xγ', and in the case of a cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor, a γ curve has a γ value of '2.2'.
Generally, the γ curve is used to display externally-inputted image data on the LCD, and is provided by the manufacturer of the display device. In addition, the γ curve, which is based on the γ value, is used to vary the input voltage according to the brightness level of the input image data.
FIG. 2 is a graph showing a relationship between gray levels and input voltages in each gray level.
Referring to FIG. 2, the input voltages linearly increase according to the number of the gray levels. For example, FIG. 2 shows gray levels 256 and 257, out of a maximum 512 gray levels. A voltage of V1 is inputted in gray 256 and a voltage of V2 is inputted in gray 257.
However, the voltages inputted by the gray levels are restricted regardless of the brightness values of the image signal. Moreover, since the input voltages are restricted due to the linear increase of the γ curve, the brightness of the real image does not completely match the γ curve. As a result, the image displayed on the LCD is different from the real image.


A SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor including at least an emitter formed on a SiGe base region wherein the sidewalls of the emitter are protected by a conformal passivation layer. The conformal passivation layer is formed on the exposed sidewalls of said emitter prior to siliciding the structure. The presence of the passivation layer in the structure prevents silicide shorts from occurring by eliminating bridging between adjacent silicide regions; therefore improved SiGe bipolar yield is obtained. A method for forming such a structure is also provided.

Significant growth in both high-frequency wired and wireless markets has introduced new opportunities where compound semiconductors such as SiGe have unique advantages over bulk complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. With the rapid advancement of epitaxial-layer pseudomorphic SiGe deposition processes, epitaxial-base SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors have been integrated with mainstream advanced CMOS development for wide market acceptance, providing the advantages of SiGe technology for analog and RF circuitry while maintaining the full utilization of the advanced CMOS technology base for digital logic circuitry.
A typical prior art SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor is shown, for example, in FIG. 1. Specifically, the SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor shown in FIG. 1 comprises semiconductor substrate 10 of a first conductivity type having sub-collector 14 and collector 16 formed therein. Isolation regions 12, which are also present in the substrate, define the outer boundaries of the bipolar transistor. The bipolar transistor of FIG. 1 further includes SiGe layer 20 formed on a surface of substrate 10 as well as isolation regions 12. The SiGe layer includes polycrystalline Si regions 24 that are formed over the isolation regions and SiGe base region 22 that is formed over the collector and subcollector regions. The prior art bipolar transistor also includes patterned insulator layer 26 formed on the base region and emitter 28 formed on the patterned insulator layer as well as a surface of SiGe base region 22. Silicide regions 30 are also present in the structure shown in FIG. 1.
A major problem with the prior art SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors of the type illustrated in FIG. 1 is that the SiGe bipolar yield is significantly reduced because of the presence of shorts which are introduced into the structure during the silicide process. The shorts are caused by the presence of silicide bridges that exist in the structure. As such, a 20–30% yield loss is typically associated with prior art SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors. The SiGe bipolar yield loss is more pronounced when cobalt disilicide regions are formed in the structure.
In view of the above mentioned problem with prior art heterojunction bipolar transistors, there is still a continued need for developing a new and improved method which is capable of fabricating a heterojunction bipolar transistor in which the SiGe bipolar yield loss due to silicide shorts has been substantially eliminated.

International Business Machines Corporation


A fluid storage tank includes a plurality of tank sub-units disposed in an array. Each tank sub-unit of the plurality of tank sub-units has an aperture defined in at least one wall overlapping with another aperture defined in at least one adjacent tank sub-unit of the plurality of tank sub-units. Each tank sub-unit of the plurality of tank sub-units is in fluid communication with a single outlet port for selectively extracting a stored fluid from the tank. Each of the plurality of tank sub-units is in fluid communication with a single fluid fill port. The array of tank sub-units is tessellated into a three-dimensional volume. A shell is disposed in contact with a plurality of the tank sub-units to envelop the array. The single outlet port and the single fluid fill port pass through the shell.

Fluid storage tanks are used to contain a fluid for a period of time. A fluid may include a gas, a liquid or combinations thereof. Some fluid storage tanks are pressure vessels. Pressure vessels, such as, e.g., gas storage containers and hydraulic accumulators may be used to contain fluids under pressure. It may be desirable to have a pressure vessel with relatively thin walls and low weight. For example, in a vehicle fuel tank, relatively thin walls allow for more efficient use of available space, and relatively low weight allows for movement of the vehicle with greater energy efficiency.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A skateboard-like rolling device with a frame, wheels on the front and back of the frame, the wheels being freely rotatable around two wheel axles and at least one standing area provided between the two wheel axles. The device has a rear wheel arrangement formed by at least two wheels that are offset to one another in a direction along their axles.

The invention relates to a skateboard-like rolling device. The rolling device includes: a frame; wheels provided on the front and back of the frame and freely rotatable around two wheel axles; and at least one standing area that is provided between the two wheel axles. The front wheel axle is designed as a steerable axle with a wheel suspension that is formed by a wheel suspension that is formed by a wheel fork that has two fork arms.
Such a device is, for example, an object of U.S. Pat. No. 5,160,155. Prior devices have many disadvantages including having low stability when getting onto the device at the beginning of a ride.
The object of the invention is to provide an improved device.
To achieve this object, a rolling device is designed, embodying the present invention, with a rear wheel arrangement formed by at least two wheels that are offset relative to one another in a direction along their axle.

Maneuverable skateboard-like rolling device


A tennis ball container is disclosed. This container has a top barrier rod (110) having a closed rectangular profile and forming the top structure of a barrier body (100), a bottom barrier rod (120) having a closed rectangular profile and forming the bottom structure of the body. A plurality of side barrier rods (140) extend in a vertical direction between the top and bottom barrier rods to connect them into a single structure, and form two inclined opposite sidewalls of the barrier body. A plurality of elastic barrier rods (150) are vertically arranged inside the side barrier rods while being mounted to the top barrier rod at their top ends such that the rods (150) are elastically displaceable in opposite directions at their bottom portions. Two first handle rods (210) are rotatably attached to the side barrier rods at the opposite sidewalls of the barrier body. Each of the first handle rods includes a U-shaped rod part, with a linear rod part integrated with the ends of the U-shaped rod part. A second handle rod (220), having hinge shafts at its opposite ends, is hinged to each first handle rod at the hinge shafts. Two hinge brackets (400) are mounted to each first handle rod to form hinged joints of the second handle rod, and allow the second handle rod to be rotatable relative to the first handle rod while being elastically compressed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to containers for tennis balls and, more particularly, to a tennis ball container with a body designed to easily load and reliably contain tennis balls, and a folding handle designed to form a variety of shapes, thus being more conveniently usable while carrying the container or practicing tennis, in addition to being easily stored within a limited space when the container is not used.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Tennis ball containers are used for containing a plurality of tennis balls to allow a user to conveniently pick up the balls while practicing tennis. That is, it is desirable for a user, practicing tennis, to continuously hit a plurality of balls without repeated pauses for gathering or picking up the balls from the ground, and so the balls are required to be contained in a container to allow the user to conveniently use the balls.
Such ball containers may be usable independently or set in a tennis-practicing machine to form a ball container part of the machine.
The tennis ball containers are necessarily designed to easily load and reliably contain tennis balls, in addition to allowing users to conveniently pick up the balls from the containers while practicing tennis. When the structure of the ball containers is designed to be usable for a variety of applications as desired, the operational function of the containers will be enhanced.
In the prior art, a tennis ball container having a body fabricated using a plurality of barrier rods has been proposed and used. This ball container has a rectangular basket structure, with barriers forming the upper, left, right and bottom walls of the structure, and may be usable independently or set in a tennis-practicing machine to form a ball container part of the machine.
When the conventional ball container is used independently without being set in a tennis-practicing machine, it is necessary for a user to feed balls into the container one by one, and so the container is inconvenient to the user. When the ball container is used as a part of a tennis-practicing machine, it is necessary to design the structure of the container to precisely agree with the machine. It is therefore impossible to change the shape of the container.
Therefore, a tennis ball container having a structure capable of being usable independently or as a part of a tennis-practicing machine has been required in the prior art.
In addition, it is preferred to design the tennis ball container such that the top opening of the container is positioned at a height allowing a user""s hand to reach the interior of the container and pick up a ball without forcing the user to inconveniently bend his body while practicing tennis on the court.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made keeping in mind the above problems occurring in the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a tennis ball container, in which the bottom and sidewalls of the barrier body are partially fabricated using a plurality of elastic barrier rods, with the intervals between the elastic barrier rods being elastically enlargeable to allow tennis balls to be loaded into the barrier body through the bottom of the body.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a tennis ball container, of which the handle is foldable upward and downward to be selectively usable as a handle or support legs for the barrier body, the handle thus selectively holding the barrier body at a height above the ground when it is in a fully downward folded position to allow a user""s hand to reach the interior of the body and easily pick up a ball without excessively bending his body.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a tennis ball container, of which the handle consists of first and second handle rods having a folding structure, thus being overlapped together and fully laid on the top of the barrier body to form a compact volume of the container when it is desired to store the container within a limited space.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a tennis ball container, which uses a hinge bracket designed to have a rounded edge allowing a user to easily fold the handle by simply compressing and rotating the handle relative to the bracket with less power.
In order to accomplish the above object, the present invention provides a tennis ball container, comprising: a top barrier rod bent to form a closed rectangular profile, the top barrier rod forming a top structure of a barrier body of the container; a bottom barrier rod bent to form a closed rectangular profile, the bottom barrier rod forming a bottom structure of the barrier body; a plurality of side barrier rods extending in a vertical direction between the top and bottom barrier rods to connect the top and bottom barrier rods into a single structure, and form two inclined opposite sidewalls of the barrier body; a plurality of elastic barrier rods vertically arranged inside the side barrier rods while being mounted to the top barrier rod at their top ends such that the elastic barrier rods are elastically displaceable in opposite directions at their bottom portions; two first handle rods rotatably attached to the side barrier rods at the opposite sidewalls of the barrier body, each of the first handle rods including a U-shaped rod part, with opposite ends of the U-shaped rod part bent inwardly to form two stop ends, and a linear rod part integrated with the two stop ends at its opposite ends; a second handle rod having hinge shafts at its opposite ends, and hinged to the stop ends of each of the first handle rods at the hinge shafts; two hinge brackets mounted to each of the first handle rods at positions around the stop ends to form hinged joints of the second handle rod, and allowing the second handle rod to be rotatable relative to the first handle rod while being elastically compressed.
Each of the hinge brackets surrounds the first handle rod at a position inside each stop end, the hinge bracket also having both a rod holding slit for holding the second handle rod, and a rounded edge for guiding an elastic folding action of the second handle rod relative to the first handle rod.
The two hinge brackets may be mounted to each of the first handle rods such that the rounded edges of the hinge brackets face each other or are opposite to each other.
The tennis ball container also comprises two spacer rods, each of the spacer rods having a plurality of rounded spacer portions, and mounted to the bottom barrier rod at two side surfaces of the barrier body around the bottom portions of the elastic barrier rods.


The present invention provides a method for measuring an end portion shape of a threaded pipe or tube P, the method including: a thread axis detection step; a laser light positioning step; a laser light image capture step; and a shape calculation step. In the laser light positioning step, the light source 1 and the image capture device 2 are moved together so that: the optical axis LA of the light source is located so as to pass through a measurement point D (X1, Y1, Z1) on the thread axis A, the measurement point being located in the measurement target region within a plane NP including the thread axis; and the laser light L extends in a slit-like form within the plane.

Conventionally, as a method for connecting end portions of pipes such as oil well pipes to each other, a conventional method has been to form a thread part (external thread part) at each of outer peripheral surfaces of the end portions of the pipes to provide threaded pipes and fasten each of the respective thread parts (external thread parts) of a pair of the threaded pipes to a joint (box joint) with a thread part (internal thread part) formed at an inner peripheral surface thereof to connect the end portions of the pipes.
A low dimensional accuracy of the thread parts formed at the end portions of the pipes may loosen a fastened state to the joints, resulting in the pipes being disconnected and coming off or a fluid flowing inside the pipes leaking to the outside. In particular, requirements for dimensional accuracies or quality assurance levels of thread parts of oil well pipes are becoming strict year by year along with an increase in harshness of the oil well environments in recent years.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are cross-sectional diagrams schematically illustrating an example of an end portion shape of an oil well pipe. FIG. 1A is a cross-sectional view of the entire end portion, and FIG. 1B is an enlarged view of the circular region indicated by symbol X in FIG. 1A.
As illustrated in FIGS. 1A and 1B, an end portion of an oil well pipe P includes a thread part P3 provided with a thread ridge P1 and a thread groove P2, a parallel part P5 adjacent to the thread part P3, the parallel part P5 being provided on the pipe end face E side relative to the thread part P3, and a seal part P4 adjacent to the parallel part P5, the seal part P4 being provided on the pipe end face E side relative to the parallel part P5.
Along with an increase in harshness of the oil well environments in recent years, pipes including a thread part P3 formed therein are often used for oil well pipes P. The thread part P3 includes a pair of flank faces P6 defining a thread ridge P1 of the thread part P3 (surfaces connecting a top part P11 of the thread ridge P1 and bottom parts P21 of the thread groove P2), and from among the pair of flank faces P6, a flank face P6 facing away from the pipe end face E side (flank face P6 on the side on which a load against a tensile force in a thread axis (center axis of the thread part P3) "A" direction is imposed when connecting pipe end portions) is a flank face inclined so as to be closer to the pipe end face E side from the top part P11 of the thread ridge P1 toward the bottom part P21 of the thread groove P2 (hereinafter referred to as "hook-like flank face P6h").
Conventionally, for evaluation of an angle (angle formed with a line N perpendicular to the thread axis A) α of a flank face P6 or a curvature of a thread root R part (part in which a flank face P6 and a bottom part P21 of a thread groove P2 cross) P7, a mold is taken of the thread part P3 using, e.g., silicon rubber. Subsequently, the mold is cut into cross-sections such that the angle of the flank face P6 or the curvature of the thread root R part P7 can be evaluated, and an enlarged shadow of the cross-section is projected onto a transparent film using a projector. On the transparent film, a tolerance for the cross-section according to a tolerance of the angle of the flank face P6 or a tolerance of the curvature of the thread root R part P7 is outlined, and whether or not an edge of the shadow falls within the tolerance for the cross-section is checked visually to determine the acceptability of the angle of the flank face P6 or the curvature of the thread root R part P7.
Also, an inspection similar to that of the aforementioned thread part P case may be conducted for a curvature of a front edge R part (part where a shoulder face P41 and a seal face P42 of a seal part P4 cross) P43 of the seal part P4.
The inspection such as mentioned above requires a great deal of time and effort in, e.g., taking a mold of the thread part P3 or the seal part P4 and cutting the mold into cross-sections. Thus, a sampling inspection, such as an inspection being performed only for first and last oil well pipes P in a same production lot, is inevitable because of difficulty to conduct a total inspection.
Furthermore, the acceptability is determined merely based on a comparison with the tolerance, and thus, a quantitative evaluation in shape of the thread part P3 or the seal part P4 is difficult.
In order to solve such problems, Patent Literatures 1 and 2 each propose a method in which light is radiated in parallel to a thread groove P2 to detect light passing through a thread part P3 to measure an external shape of the thread part P3 (which is a recessed and projecting shape of a surface of the thread part P3 and is referred to as "thread profile") (light projection method). If the thread profile of the thread part P3 can be measured with good accuracy using the light projection method, an angle of a flank face P6 and a curvature of a thread root R part P7 could be calculated with good accuracy.
However, since the thread profile has a curved line, a flank face P6 may fall in the shadow of a ridge line of the thread ridge P1, in which case it is impossible to accurately detect the flank face P6 using the aforementioned light projection method in which parallel light is detected. In particular, if the flank face P6 is a hook-like flank face P6h, an error caused as a result of the hook-like flank face P6h falling in the shadow of the ridge line of the thread ridge P1 cannot be ignored.
Therefore, as described in Patent Literature 3, the present applicants propose a method of measuring a shape of a flank face P6 of a thread part P3 using a contact probe.
However, in the method described in Patent Literature 3, a contact probe is sequentially moved and a spherical contactor attached to a front edge thereof is brought into contact with the flank face P6 to perform measurement, inevitably resulting in long measurement time and an insufficient number of measurement points. Thus, an angle of the flank face P6 may not be measured accurately.
Also, since the contactor has predetermined dimensions, it is also difficult to measure a curvature of a thread root R part P7 with good accuracy.
Also, Patent Literature 3 described above and Patent Literature 4 propose a method of detecting a thread axis.

Method for measuring end portion shape of threaded pipe or tube

NIPPON STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL CORPORATION


A multi-media geography game show allows real time participation of contestants, live show audience participants and remote TV viewers having Internet connections. Answers to questions related to geography provided within an allotted time period qualify participants for monetary or material rewards, together with learning credits. The learning credits may be converted to college credits by taking appropriate validation tests from accredited educational institutions that have made arrangements with the geography game show. The responses of contestants, live show audience participants and remote TV viewers, as well as the rewards and the leaning credits, are electronically processed and appropriate credits are issued using print outs or magnetic media.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a geography game show; and more particularly to a game show wherein questions concern geography with emphasis on learning, the geography show including contestants, a live show audience, and remote TV viewers that interact with the game show, thereby acquiring monetary consideration and learning credits.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A number of game show themes are known in the prior art; the principle emphasis of these themes is entertainment. Even shows which have educational value do not provide for live audience participation or remote TV viewers in the game show in a manner that fosters learning. The more conventional aspects of game shows are described in greater detail hereinafter.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,739 to Mitchell discloses a game having an environmental theme. The players work together to solve environmental crisis problems selected from crisis cards. Players use a pie shaped game board, wherein an area of the world is represented using three symbolic tokens. The board has four pathways, three of which have 32 spaces, which are traveled by the players. Spaces represent land, water and sky. The fourth pathway has seven spaces. Movement is based on the rotation of a central globe with indicators pointing to different colors and eco-lottery cards. Sets of instructional cards from which the eco-lottery cards are selected consist of mother earth solution cards, grandfather sun cards and grandmother moon cards. Player movement is guided using eco-currency. A player that completes the game requirements uses the fourth pathway to reach the center of the board and win the game. Adaptation of the game for a television video game with identical features is contemplated. No disclosure is contained by the '739 patent concerning a geography-based, multimedia game show. The game provides no learning tools, since no new information is provided by the board game, other than information printed on the cards. Further, the board game provides no monetary reward or learning credit. Only active players are permitted to participate in the game, with the result that game show live audiences or remote TV viewer audience are excluded from game participation.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,115 to Berman et al. discloses an interactive game show and method for achieving interactive communication. Participants are able to electronically select a future outcome from a number of possibilities. The selection is made from a series of sets having two possible outcomes. Contests are won by selecting correct outcomes. A prize is shared when that outcome is realized. Home audience viewers can participate in a televised version of the game show, using telephones to communicate a series of random numbers. These random numbers effect the selection, which can lead to award of a prize. No disclosure is contained by the patent concerning a geography game show that provides an educational learning experience
U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,818 to Leeson discloses an entertainment game, suitable for a parlor game, a video game or a television game. The game comprises a plurality of distinct arbitrarily selectable information units with two independently viewable sub-units. The first sub-unit is a representation of a recognizable object and the second sub-unit comprises questions and answers concerning the object represented in the first sub-unit. At first the player needs to identify the recognizable object in the front of the card to be able to roll a dice. If he is successful, he gains 5 points. The rolled dice provides a number and the question on the second sub-unit corresponding to the rolled dice number is read. If the player answers that question correctly, he gains additional points and rolls the dice again. Dice rolling terminates when a player answers the question incorrectly, rolls a previously rolled number or runs out of all the questions. The game is adaptable for a video game or a television game show with the master of ceremonies asking the questions. No disclosure is contained therein concerning a geography game show that provides an educational learning experience.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,513,852 to Robinson discloses a time-to-win game. This intellectual challenge game requires at least two players. A first player is selected on the basis of a card draw, by selecting highest value card. The selected player is asked to pick a number from 1 to 12, thereby selecting a numbered disk that reveals a question category. Three questions are projected on a screen sequentially. If the selected player answers these questions correctly, his display clock will be advanced by 15 minutes and he will receive $50 for each correct answer. Next the host asks each of the players to provide an element common to these three questions. The contestant that buzzes first is permitted to answer the question. If he answers the question correctly, his clock is advanced by five minutes, and the player receives $50. Each incorrect answer results in loss of 5 minutes on the clock. The first player to advance his clock to the 12 o'clock position wins the game round, and advances to a bonus round where he is presented with 16 questions. If a player answers 12 questions correctly during a 2.5-minute time period, he wins a jackpot prize of $12,000. If the bonus round player does not answer 12 questions correctly during the 2.5-minute time period, he is paid $25 times the number of correct answers. The game disclosed by the '852 patent is not a geography game show that provides an educational learning experience.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,088 to Kravitz et al. discloses a television game interactively played by telephone with a television viewing home audience. A master board has numbers, which are selected by chance at random and represent a specified portion, for example, of the last two digits of telephone numbers for members of a home viewing audience. Each time a question is correctly answered by the game player, one of these numbers from the master board is validated by a square. This validated number is also placed on a five by five-game board with randomly selected numbers. When a line is filled in on the five by five-game card by correctly answered questions, it becomes part of a filled line which is horizontal, vertical or diagonal. The viewing audience can then call the television station or be pre-registered to win a prize. A game player and studio audience that are assigned to the game board also win prizes. The '088 patent does not disclose a geography game show that provides an educational learning experience
U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,460 to Price discloses a visual educational aid. A tool is thereby provided to relate similarities and differences between different topics and relationships between subtopics and topics in a logical, orderly manner similar to continents, countries, states and features like rivers in a map. This logical ordering has similarities in appearance to a geographical map, but has no connection with a real geographical map. A map is merely used to display and order similarities and contrast dissimilarities. The patent discloses a logical ordering visualization tool which uses map like elements to group similar concepts within a region and contrast dissimilar groups as separate elements. The '460 patent does not disclose a geography game show that provides an educational learning experience.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,743,745 to Reintes discloses a device for playing back short films and/or advertising spots and/or quizzes. The device allows insertion of short films between questions and answers according to regional and supra-regional requirements. Answers provided by the contestant are stored and treated correctly in spite of the insertion of the short advertising film clip and sequences modified at will. A mechanism is thereby provided for inserting advertising clips. The stored responses from the contestants maintain the continuity of the game show, but do not provide a geography game show that provides educational learning experience
U.S. Pat. No. 5,916,024 to Von Kohom discloses a system and method of playing games and rewarding successful players. Two signals are broadcast simultaneously from a TV or radio station, the first signal has a first group that broadcasts the program. A second group provides a signal transmission setting forth a task, such as answering one or more questions broadcast in the first group. The second signal is an instructional group identifying the time allocated for responding to the question, proper content and form of answer, as well as the mode for scoring. Remote program recipients use a television set and circuitry to receive the second signal to obtain instruction. The response equipment includes a keyboard and timing circuitry. Each response provided is stored and compared with acceptance criteria and correctness of response, and scored using circuits and print outs or magnetic records containing redeemable prize data. This interactive system requires specialized equipment and does not allow the user to interact with the system over the Internet. It is not a geography game show that affords an educational learning experience.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,171,188 to Elstner discloses a game device for an entertainment show for providing more dynamic image layout. A monitor wall composed of several monitors, signal sources for graphical and or textual display. A group of monitors comprising a portion of the monitor wall may be assigned to a player and may be activated to provide an optical signal when the player pushes a mechanical switch or a buzzer. The studio camera does not have to swivel back and forth between the monitor wall and the candidates since the monitor wall is right behind the candidates. No disclosure is contained by the '188 patent concerning a geography game show or means for providing an educational learning experience. Rather, the '188 patent discloses a display device within a game show.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,174,237 to Stephenson discloses a method for a game of skill tournament. This interactive computer-based system evaluates the skill level of a player. In the qualifying round the player competes against the computer. Scoring the highest number of points qualifies the player for the highest performance level, whereupon the player is given a reward. In the play off round, players reaching the same level of performance compete against the host computer. A local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN) provides a set time period for the competition. The player with highest score is rewarded. No disclosure is contained by the '237 patent concerning a geography game show or means for providing an educational learning experience. Instead, the '237 patent discloses a computer device that determines a player's skill level.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,379 to Forrest et al. discloses an electronically interactive location-based multimedia game system and a method of interaction. The game is played in rounds with a team of players participating to come up with one or more answers for a given multimedia multiple choice question involving identification, matching, oddball element recognition, linking or poling of factual data within a preset time period. The player teams may be collocated in a location-based facility or may play via the Internet. When the teams select correct answers, an indication is provided and score is maintained to determine the winning team. Such a multimedia interactive game provides no disclosure concerning a geography game show that affords an educational learning experience
U.S. Pat. No. 6,340,159 to Giangrante discloses a "Double Cross" puzzle game show played by two or more players. The video game board consists of grid of squares for example, 15×15, with locations for letters and locations which are blocked out. The central square may provide video or verbal clues. The game begins with a spin to a vowel-wheel to select a vowel, which is filled in the puzzle board in its proper location. A player, selected as a controlling player, picks a clue number from a list of clues. The controlling player may answer the clue or "double cross" an opponent by challenging him to answer the clue provided. If the controlling player decides to answer the clue and does it correctly, a word is revealed. In this event, the controlling player controls the board and receives $25 times the number of letters in the word. Failure of the controlling player to answer the clue results in a loss of $25 times the number of letters in the answer. Other players may then ring in to answer the clue. If the ringing player's answer is correct, that player becomes the controlling player and receives $25 times the number of letters in the word. If no one rings, the next consecutive player becomes the controlling player. When the controlling player "double crosses" by challenging another player, the controlling player obtains an opportunity to answer the clue. A correct answer from the controlling player results in an award of three times $25 times the number of letters and the opportunity to remain as the controlling player. Failure of the controlling player answer correctly results in loss of $25 times the number of letters. In that event, the next consecutive player becomes the controlling player. The game is continued until the puzzle is complete. In the final phase, the leading player or all of the players must solve a word puzzle consisting of only two interlocking words. The game may be played on a television game show using a telephone having an Internet connection. The game may additionally be played as a board game or a video game. No disclosure is provided concerning a geography game show that affords an educational learning experience.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,384,868 to Oguma discloses a multi-screen display apparatus and video switching processing apparatus. The image screen consists of a main image, a sub image A and a sub image B. The main image is combined with sub images A and B by determining if sub images are in even field or odd field to eliminate flicker. The combined image is written into a video-storing device and read to produce a stationary or smoothly moving sub images without flicker. One of the sub images can be turned off or switched on smoothly without flicker. This multi screen display apparatus and video switching processing is not a geographic game show.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,439,997 to Brasseur et al. discloses a television/Internet game show. Internet users register and answer a questionnaire to create user profiles that are randomly selected and posted on the TV game show web page. Internet users get to vote on these profiles to select a winner. The winner receives a large monetary award during a live TV show provided by the advertisers. The winner must spend the award during a preset time period or forgo unspent portions thereof. No disclosure is provided concerning a geography game show that creates an educational learning experience. Instead, the Brasseur et al. patent discloses a lottery game having a televised award ceremony.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2002/0016196 to Orak discloses an Internet game show in which a visual clue is progressively exposed to contestants, providing visual clues. The contestants log onto the game show at the same time and are allowed to see the questions progressively. Questions are viewed as a stream of data from the game show host server computer. The questions may also be loaded into the contestant's computer and revealed progressively using special software. Each of the contestants fills in a blank area to provide a textual response and returns it to the game show host by activating a send button. The software returns this response with a computer-generated time stamp to account for the Internet transmission time delay. The contestant that provides the earliest correct response is the winner. Each of the contestant's computer clocks must be set to the same time, which is oftentimes not feasible. No disclosure is provided concerning a geography game show that affords an educational learning experience. Instead, the patent discloses an interactive Internet game.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2002/0083436 to Fidler discloses a method for a network-televised commercial-free game show in which revenue generating advertisements and entertainment are integrated. A predetermined number of contestants is selected and provided with a square game board connected and integrated with an Internet advertising support system link to the show. The square game board comprises many unlighted squares having randomly generated numbers, and a blank center square. A segment of an advertiser's commercial is shown to the contestants and to the public. Contestants must provide a response relating to the advertised product. If a correct response is provided, a light is turned on in the square game board; otherwise no light is turned on. The advertiser's commercial is displayed in its entirety. When complete array of lights in the contestant's game board is lit along a horizontal, vertical or a diagonal line, that contestant is a winner. The game show uses advertising commercials as an integral part of the show. No commercial breaks are needed. Revenue is generated from commercials as well as an Internet system link. No disclosure is provided concerning a geographic game show. The Fidler application tests the skills of contestants regarding the knowledge of advertised products.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2002/0125637 to Leis discloses a word game and methods for conducting the same. This word game is playable by one or more players. It comprises a plurality of syllables in text boxes with value options. When a value option is selected, a clue is provided. The player that made the selection must then come up with a word that comprises the syllables provided in the text box. Correct answers are rewarded while incorrect answers are penalized. This word game can be played as a television game. No disclosure is provided concerning a geography game show that creates an educational learning experience. The Leis application discloses a video game; not a TV game show.
Foreign Patent No. FR 2689413 to Gaston discloses an educational geographical game. Towns are noted on a map having a rectangular frame. A removable map is held by the rectangular frame. A graduated ruler pivots on the frame to show positions of towns. The removable plastic frame allows placement of maps within the frame, while the pivoted graduated ruler sweeps across the map, allowing players to note the exact positions of towns. The Gaston patent discloses recording the positions of towns within a map. However, it does not disclose a geography game show that provides an educational learning experience.
Game shows are varied in nature and provide mostly entertainment with monetary rewards primarily to the contestants. Some of the games, which use telephone connection or Internet to communicate remote participants' answers, require additional equipment or software and do not provide feedback as to the correctness of the answers. There remains a need in the art for a geography game show in which the contestants, live show audience and remote TV viewers can participate in real time and obtain monetary or material rewards and learning credits providing validation of the learning experience.


A method of constructing a lined closure in which a liner having a circular base, a liner membrane and a thermoplastic adhesive securing the liner membrane to the base, is press fitted into a closure having a skirt with internal threads such that the liner engages and rides over the threads and is positioned against the internal base of the closure. Heat is applied to the liner at least around the periphery of the liner so as to melt the thermoplastic adhesive and resecure the liner membrane to the liner base. In this way, the liner membrane is resecured to the liner base so as to correct any separation between the membrane and base that might have occurred as the liner was press fitted into the closure.

Plastic closures for containers typically comprise a circular base having an integral peripheral skirt with internal threads for engaging external threads on the container finish. A liner is assembled to the closure at the closure base for sealing engagement with the annular top surface of the container surrounding the container mouth. The liner may be adhesively secured to the base of the closure, or may be press fitted into the closure and retained against the closure base by a bead or other suitable means on the inside diameter of the skirt adjacent to the base. For some products such as vitamins or instant coffee, a glassine liner seal is incorporated as part of the liner. This glassine inner seal may be used as a tamper-evident feature. The liner preferably has a base of vinyl-impregnated laminated pulp construction, a liner membrane of glassine paper construction, and a thermoplastic adhesive such as wax or butyl rubber securing the liner membrane to the base. These liners are typically made in long strips and then die cut to the appropriate diameter for assembly to the closure. In applications in which the liner is press fitted into the closure over the closure internal threads and/or liner-retaining bead, the periphery of the liner membrane can become separated from the liner base. This separation can be exacerbated to the point that the liner membrane curls and peals from the base, particularly when the lined closure is subjected to humidity cycles (such as during shipment) before the closure is applied to a container. Such curling and pealing is unsightly, and can ultimately result in the glassine membrane falling out of the closure.
It is therefore a general object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for assembling a liner to a closure in which the liner membrane is resecured to the liner base during or after the assembly operation to ensure proper sealing with the container finish during use. Another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus of the described character that can be readily implemented in an otherwise conventional assembly operation with minimum additional tooling investment, and with little or no reduction in assembly productivity.

Method and apparatus for assembling a sealing liner to a plastic closure


An automatic oil additive injector is disposed over the drain opening in a bottom wall of an engine oil pan and extends into the oil pan. A side port is provided in a housing of the injector for allowing oil to drain therethrough when the oil drain plug is removed. Primary and secondary valve assemblies and a pump operator provided in the housing are activated upon removal of the drain plug to allow a chamber therebetween to fill with a predefined volume of additive, preferably silicone fluid, from a reservoir of the injector and which, upon engagement of the drain plug, dispense the fluid into the oil pan at each oil change to decrease aeration of the oil. In a second embodiment, the additive injector and reservoir are incorporated in the lubricating oil filter header.

The present invention pertains to an internal combustion engine having an additive injector for dispensing a predetermined amount of additive into the engine lubricating oil during the periodic replacement thereof during the life of the engine, the additive preferably being silicone fluid which is known to decrease aeration of the oil. In a preferred embodiment, the injector is activated by engagement of an oil pan drain plug therewith to cause a predefined volume of silicone fluid to be transferred from a reservoir of the injector to the oil pan when the drain plug is reinserted during each oil change. In a second embodiment, the injector is incorporated in the oil filter header and releases the predetermined volume when the filter element is changed.

Navistar International Transportation Corp.


The present invention relates to a method of forming an isolating trench of a semiconductor device with a dielectric material, and to a method of forming an isolating trench in a memory device.

As ground rule dimensions shrink in integrated circuits, the problem of filling high aspect ratio trenches increases, in particular for isolation trenches used in shallow trench isolation processes, STI, which is commonly used in advanced processing.
Furthermore, with higher aspect ratios it becomes increasingly difficult to fill trenches with dielectric material free of voids and gaps. A possibility to overcome this problem is to use spin-on dielectric materials in order to fill the trenches. However, spin-on dielectric materials or spin-on glass have to subjected to a densification and/or curing process. The densification process is necessary in order to obtain e.g. a low wet etch rate for further wet etch processes. Unfortunately, the densification process is accompanied by a shrinkage of the material, which is not homogeneous in depth for high aspect ratio trenches. This is caused by the material sticking to the walls of the trenches and strongly depends on the shape of the filled structure. Particularly, for integration schemes for three-dimensional devices chemicals attack the dielectric filler material of the isolation trench whereby the insufficient curing and/or densification results in a high etching rate which is unfavourable.
The proposed invention describes a method which uses a sacrificial material in order to provide a reservoir of the filler material which will be consumed by a subsequent densification process. Additionally, the removal of the sacrificial material prior to the densification ensures a densification process with increased homogeneity.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,869,860 describes a filling of high aspect ratio isolation structures with polysilazane-based materials. In this document, spin-on glass or spin-on dielectric material for filling trenches of semiconductor devices, e.g. shallow trench isolation (STI), is described.
An integrated circuit containing a set of thermally sensitive circuit elements having a thermal budget associated therewith and comprising a set of isolation trenches is processed by means of the following steps: providing a silicon substrate; forming at least one circuit element having a thermal budget prior to forming the isolation structure; etching said set of trenches in said silicon substrate; filling said set of trenches with a spin-on trench dielectric material containing silazane; heating said substrate at a temperature of less than about 450° C. converting the stress in said trench dielectric material from tensile stress to compressive stress by heating in an ambient containing H2O at a temperature between approximately 450° C. and about 900° C.; annealing said substrate by heating in an ambient containing oxygen at a temperature above 800° C.; and completing said integrated circuit. Additionally, the trench dielectric material is planarized by CMP after the step of annealing in an oxygen ambient; and an anneal in an ambient containing water vapour is performed after the step of planarizing for a time sufficient to convert silicon nitrogen bonds to silicon oxygen bonds in trench dielectric material at the bottom of the trench.
Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 6,699,799 B2 discloses a method for forming a semiconductor device. The method of forming a semiconductor device includes a liner which is conformably stacked on a semiconductor substrate before depositing a spin-on glass layer thereon. Thereafter, the spin-on glass layer is cured, preferably in an ambient of oxygen radicals formed at a temperature of 1000° C. or higher when oxygen or hydrogen are supplied. The oxygen radicals are preferably formed by irradiating ultra-violet rays to ozone or forming oxygen plasma. The spin-on glass layer is preferably made of polysilazane-based materials which may promote a conversion of the spin-on glass layer into a silicon oxide layer. During the high temperature annealing process, the silicon layer arranged beneath the spin-on glass layer is converted into a silicon oxide layer by diffused oxygen.

Method for forming an isolating trench with a dielectric material