The present invention provides a centrifugal separator comprising a top lid, a rotatable basket, a drive unit for the rotatable basket and an outer case, the rotatable basket and the drive unit being mounted on the top lid, the rotatable basket and the outer case having a cake outlet at the bottoms thereof, wherein the top lid is fixedly mounted on a stand via supporting legs, the outer case being supported by and attached to the top lid, the outer case being detachable from the top lid for cleaning and movable downward when detached, whereby the rotatable basket can be exposed to the outside, the centrifugal separator having excellent operability, cleanability, visual observability and antipollution property.

The present invention relates to a centrifugal separator, more specifically a centrifugal separator of cake bottom discharge type comprising a rotatable basket and a drive unit thereof on a top lid, wherein a cake is discharged from the bottom of an outer case.
In the production of medicines, chemicals, foods, etc., measures for preventing introduction of foreign substances into the products must be strictly carried out. Particularly, medicines and their raw materials, which need to be produced according to GNP (Good Manufacturing Practice), should be treated even more strictly to prevent introduction of foreign substances.
When producing medicines and the like, centrifugal separators are often used for separating a material slurry into solid and liquid components. When a material slurry is changed to another kind of material slurry, the centrifugal separator has to be thoroughly cleaned so that the residual raw materials are removed therefrom.
Thus, the centrifugal separators for such applications require consideration for its inner surface to be cleaned. In particular, it is desired for the centrifugal separators that cleaning operation is easy (operability); cleaning can be conducted entirely and thoroughly (cleanability); cleaned parts can be visually observed without difficulty after cleaning (visual observability); and the surroundings of the separator are prevented from contamination with a spent cleaning water (antipollution property), etc.
Heretofore, in the production of medicines and the like, the separation of slurries into solid and liquid components is often conducted using centrifugal separators which have a rotatable basket and a drive unit therefor attached to a top lid and discharge cakes from the bottom of an outer case, i.e., so-called bottom discharge type centrifugal separators. The following are typical examples of this type of centrifugal separators: (a) a centrifugal separator comprising an outer case fixedly mounted on a stand via supporting legs; a top lid equipped with a rotatable basket and a drive unit therefor and mounted on said outer case in a upwardly movable manner; a top lid lifting device which lifts said top lid together with said rotatable basket, when cleaning is operated, to bring said rotatable basket outside said outer case, thereby allowing cleaning the inside of said outer case and said rotatable basket separately (b) a centrifugal separator with the similar structure as that of the above (a) further comprising a cleaning hole in the side wall of the outer case, and a lid of the cleaning hole which is removed when cleaning is carried out so that the inside of the outer case and the rotatable basket can be cleaned through the cleaning hole with the top lid kept on the outer case.
The former centrifugal separator (a) has good cleanability and visual observability because the rotatable basket can be cleaned outside the outer case. However, when cleaning the rotatable basket, a cleaning liquid spreads outside the outer case, resulting in contamination of the surroundings of the apparatus. Thus, the former centrifugal separator has a poor antipollution property. In addition, the top lid, which is equipped with the rotatable basket, the drive unit therefor and many other auxiliary devices, is considerably heavy and troublesome to be lifted up. Moreover, a part of auxiliary devices such as a slurry feeding port, electric wires provided on the top lid have to be temporarily removed therefrom. The removing and resetting of the auxiliary devices are troublesome and pose a problem in operability of the centrifugal separator.
The latter centrifugal separator (b) is free from the problems of the former typo centrifugal separator since the latter does not require lifting the top lid or does not cause spread-out of the cleaning liquid. However, it is impossible to see the inside of the entire outer case and the rotatable basket through the cleaning hole, and therefore insufficiently cleaned parts may remain. Besides, it is difficult to visually check the result of cleaning, offering problems in cleanability and visual observability.
Thus, the conventional centrifugal separators (a) and (b) have both advantages and disadvantages and improvement thereon is being required.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide a centrifugal separator of cake bottom discharge type and has excellent operability, cleanability, visual observability and antipollution property.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a centrifugal separator of the above type, wherein a rotatable basket is detachably attached to a drive shaft, and therefore can be cleaned separately from the drive shafts, and the rotatable basket is easily attachable onto the drive shaft after cleaning.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a centrifugal separator of the above type, wherein screws of the drive shaft are replaceable when damaged, so that the drive shaft need not be wholly replaced.
Other features of the present invention will be apparent from the following description.
The present Invention provides a centrifugal separator, wherein a rotatable basket and a drive unit therefor are mounted on a top lid; a cake outlet is provided at the bottom of the rotatable basket and an outer case; the top lid is fixedly mounted on a stand via supporting legs; the outer case is supported by and mounted on the top lid; when cleaning is carried out the outer case can be detached from the top lid; the outer case is downwardly movable when detached form the top lid; the rotatable basket can be exposed to the outside by this downward movement.
In the present invention, the rotational basket is removably attached to its drive shaft. A fastening device is provided at the lower end of the drive shaft in order to fasten the rotatable basket on the drive shaft. The fastening device comprises a bolt member which is connectable coaxially in the axial direction to the lower end of the drive shaft by the operation from the radial direction and a nut member screwed onto the bolt member. The nut member may be selectively screwed at either a first position, a lower part of the bolt member, or a second position, an upper part of the bolt member. When the nut member is at the first position, the bolt member can be coaxially connected to the drive shaft; when the nut member is at the second position, the rotatable basket can be fastened to the drive shaft and the bolt member can be held in a coaxially connected state.
In a preferable fastening device, the drive shaft has a cutout extending upward in an axial direction thereof to occupy a part of the periphery of its lower end portion, and a cavity for engagement which extends radially inward from the surface of the cutout. The bolt member comprises an upright portion projecting upright in the radial direction from part of the periphery of its upper end, and an engaging projection projecting radially from the upright portion. The upright portion and the projection of the bolt member are engaged with the cutout and the cavity of the drive shaft toward the radial direction, whereby the bolt member can be connected to the lower end portion of the drive shaft in axial alignment and the nut member can be screwed on the bolt member. The nut member, when screwed in this manner, can be selectively positioned either at the first position In which the upright portion and the projection are exposed to the outside, or at the second position in which the upright portion and the projection are housed inside of the nut member so as to fasten the rotatable basket.

Centrifugal separator with vertically detachable casing


The present disclosure relates to methods of treating water to remove contaminants, including harmful metal ions, and water treatment plants for practicing such methods. In an embodiment, the process includes adding a sulfur-containing, metal-decreasing agent; an iron (III)-containing, metalloid-decreasing agent; forming a solid precipitate from the contaminated water, wherein the solid precipitate includes a solid metal sulfide, a solid iron metalloid, a solid calcium metalloid, or a combination thereof; and separating the contaminated water from the solid precipitate to form purified water.

Clean water is essential for life. As earth's population increases to over 7.5 billion, the need for water to sustain human life, animal life, and agriculture increases. As industrialization increases, the demand for clean water increases, and the pollution of clean water sources usually increases too.
Many methods have been developed to purify water by removing debris, salts, bacteria, harmful metal ions, harmful organic compounds, and more. However, many of the methods of treating water are impractical for providing large amounts of clean water. For example, distillation has high energy requirements. Similarly, evaporation requires tying up large volumes for the duration of the evaporation process. Reverse osmosis typically provides very clean water, but is impractical for large volumes of water and may not remove all harmful metal ions.
For example, in San Francisco the water usage per person ranges from about 130 to 232 gallons per day, and the population of San Francisco is over 800,000. Also, agriculture consumes from about 30 to about 50% of the water used in California.
Also, many of the water purification techniques discussed above purify most of the water by concentrating all of the salts, metal ions, and metalloids into a concentrated brine. All desalination plants regardless of technology produce a concentrated brine that must be collected and remediated with the "reject" salts and solids properly disposed. Treating and disposing of concentrated brines is one of the most pressing needs in the water industry today.
There is a dire need for a method of treating water that can remove harmful contaminants, especially harmful metal ions and metalloids from water. There is a need for a method of treating water that can be scaled up to process hundreds of gallons of water per minute. There is a need for a method of treating water that has low energy requirements and uses inexpensive, readily available starting materials. There is a need for the remediation of brines generated from desalination processes.

Methods of treating water to remove contaminants and water treatment plants for the practice thereof


A system and method for capturing data communicated between a computer system and a printer. The data capture system monitors data communicated between the computer system and printer, acquires pertinent portions of the data, and stores the acquired data for later use. This system and method may be used to acquire patient encounter data, including demographic and insurance data, entered into a medical provider's computer office management system when the patient visits the medical provider. Often, the medical provider will print patient encounter data at a printer connected to the office management system. The data capture system acquires and stores pertinent portions of the patient encounter data, such as the demographic data, communicated from the medical provider's office management system to the printer. The acquired patient demographic data stored in the data capture system is later transferred to a commercial laboratory that performs tests on patient specimens taken from a patient visiting the medical provider. The commercial laboratory uses the patient demographic data to properly process the patient specimens and bill the patient's insurance company.

Commercial laboratories perform tests on organic specimens obtained from a patient by a physician, clinic, or a hospital (hereinafter referred to as "medical provider"). The commercial laboratory can often perform the tests more efficiently than the physician due to various economies of scale. Commercial laboratories may maintain high speed, highly-automated testing equipment that would be prohibitively expensive for most medical providers. The tests performed range from routine blood chemistry through more complicated DNA procedures on specimens. Typically, the commercial laboratory will arrange for the transportation of the specimens to the laboratory, perform tests thereon, and return the results to the medical provider. The medical provider usually receives the test results within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, depending, of course, on the complexity of the test.
Commercial laboratories often maintain a relationship with medical providers through a clinical laboratory representative. Typically, the representative manages situations that may arise and provides support to medical providers to facilitate their relationship with the commercial lab. The representative may provide computer equipment, phone lines, printers, and training. However, the commercial laboratory may need to make sure that any materials provided are not used for purposes unrelated to the gathering of specimens. In many cases, the commercial laboratory would violate various laws or regulations if the commercial laboratory provided financial incentives to induce a medical provider to direct patient specimens to its commercial laboratory. Therefore, the commercial laboratory often has to avoid providing equipment that could benefit the medical provider in matters unrelated to its business with the commercial laboratory.
Numerous laws and regulations govern how commercial laboratories may be reimbursed. In the "account bill" method, the medical provider pays the commercial laboratory and collects the payment from the patient. The medical provider may charge the patient more than the laboratory bills the medical provider, thereby realizing a profit from the transaction. Often, insurance billing methods, including Medicare and Medicaid, however, eliminate the medical provider from the billing procedure. Some laws may require that the commercial laboratory directly bill the insurance provider. The purpose of these laws is to reduce a medical provider's incentive to order unnecessary tests.
One unintended effect of these restrictions is that commercial laboratories often encounter difficulties obtaining patient billing information from medical providers. Each time a patient visits the medical provider, the medical provider updates the patient demographic data, including address, age, name, employment, and the patient insurance data. This updated demographic is part of the patient encounter data obtained from the patient when visiting the medical provider. The commercial laboratories need the demographic data to properly process the specimens and bill the patient's insurance provider.
Currently, many commercial laboratories obtain patient data on 81/2.times.11 forms known as "requisitions." The requisition form is typically divided into three sections. The first section may contain patient demographic data, such as date, time, name, sex, date of birth, identification number, and address. The second section may contain insurance billing formation. The third section likely includes the tests to be performed on the specimen. However, medical providers are often unwilling to commit resources to update the patient demographic data for the commercial laboratories when the medical providers receive no compensation for their effort. This reluctance on the part of the medical providers makes it difficult for the commercial laboratories to effectively bill the patient's insurance provider.
Often, the commercial laboratories have couriers who retrieve the patient specimen and associated requisition forms from the medical provider on a daily basis. In many cases, the specimens are sent to a branch facility where they are labeled. Employees at the branch facility may then enter the patient data from the requisition form into the commercial laboratory's computer system and then transfer the specimens to the central laboratory. The central laboratory then accesses the data entered in its computer system when processing the specimens. Absent quality control procedures for data entry, errors may result.
In prior art systems, the medical provider might have communication equipment to receive the test results from the commercial laboratory. The communication equipment would often be a teleprinter or other similar device having preprinted forms coupled to a custom modem. The commercial laboratory would transmit test results to the medical provider's office and the teleprinter would then print the results. As an alternative, the medical provider may have a personal computer, including a modem and software, which the medical provider uses to obtain test results from the commercial laboratory's computer via a modem.
As an alternative, it is also possible to couple the commercial laboratory and the medical provider's computer systems. The commercial laboratory typically has a mainframe or network computer system. The medical provider would generate the pertinent data for a specimen, then transmit that data to the commercial laboratory's computer system via a modem. The medical provider could then use its computer to obtain any test results from the commercial laboratory's system via a modem.
One particular problem in this alternative is developing a suitable interface to couple the medical provider's Office Management System ("OMS") and the commercial laboratory's system. Many OMS systems are proprietary or UNIX based and the developer of the OMS system is often unwilling to develop a suitable interface for commercial laboratories. Another problem is the additional hardware that may be needed to support a network interface between the commercial laboratory and the medical provider's OMS. Such an interface may require additional ports and hardware enhancements, including additional memory and disk drives. The medical provider may be unwilling to pay for such hardware. Furthermore, in some cases, in order to add a node to the OMS network the commercial laboratory may have to add eight ports just to obtain one interface to the OMS system.
Providing additional hardware that the medical provider could use for its own benefit unrelated to operations concerning the commercial laboratory may be considered an illegal inducement. Furthermore, the commercial laboratories are often required by law to maintain ownership of all equipment the provide to the medical provider. Ownership may create problems if the commercial laboratory provides hardware upgrades and memory to the medical provider's system. The commercial laboratory would likely have to remove such upgrades from the medical provider's system if the medical provider subsequently changed commercial laboratories. Consequently, in many cases, requisition forms including patient demographic information are usually retrieved by courier and taken to a branch facility wherein the requisition data is entered into the commercial laboratory's computer system.

Data capture system erases all information stored in flash memory if available storage in the flash memory is less than the maximum segment size


A method for realizing an Internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) disaster tolerance includes the steps as follows. An S-CSCF receives a user registration, and backs up necessary data which is required when a user service processing is restored on a storage entity in a network. An I-CSCF of user's home domain receives a service request of the user, and if it is found that the S-CSCF currently providing a service for the user fails, assigns a new S-CSCF to the user, and forwards the service request to the newly assigned S-CSCF. The newly assigned S-CSCF interrogates and acquires subscription data of the user and the necessary data backed up by the original S-CSCF from the storage entity, and then restores the user service processing according to the subscription data and the backup data. A device for realizing an IMS disaster tolerance is also provided.

An IMS occupies a pivot position in the service processing for a communication network, and the high reliability of the IMS is the basis of the high reliability of the whole communication network. A serving call session control function (S-CSCF) serving as a network element (NE) for controlling the user service processing in the IMS acts as a core of the whole network service processing, so that a disaster tolerance capability of the S-CSCF is quite important to the high reliability of the IMS.
FIG. 1 is a flow chart that a user who intends to get access to an IMS network subscribes and registers in the IMS network in the conventional art.
In FIG. 1, once the user initiates a registration (1. REGISTER) at a terminal, a register request message is sent to a proxy CSCF (P-CSCF) assigned to the terminal by an access domain so as to enter an IMS subsystem. The P-CSCF forwards the register request to an interrogating CSCF (I-CSCF) of user's home domain according to a domain identity of the user (2. REGISTER).
The I-CSCF interrogates from a home subscriber serve (HSS) of the user home domain (3. UAR˜4. UAA), and a UAR message carries attribute value pairs (AVPs) as follows: Public-Identity, i.e., IMPU, User-Name, i.e., IMPI, Visited-Network-Identifier, i.e., information acquired from the REGISTER message, and User-Authorization-Type, i.e., a user authorization type, which is valued as REGISTRATION so as to represent an initial registration or re-registration. During the interrogation of this time, the I-CSCF acquires a "capability set of the S-CSCF for providing a service for a user" from the HSS, and the capability set is a group of numbers, which identifies the service processing capability requirements on the S-CSCF. The I-CSCF assigns an S-CSCF capable of supporting the required relevant service processing to the user according to the capability set requirements, and forwards the register request to the assigned S-CSCF (5. REGISTER).
Since it is the initial registration of the user, the S-CSCF needs to perform an authentication on the user. Firstly, the S-CSCF acquires data required by the authentication from the HSS (6. MAR˜7. MAA), and then delivers an authentication challenge to the terminal (8. 401˜10. 401), and the terminal calculates an authentication response and then re-initiates the registration (11. REGISTER˜12. REGISTER), and the register request carries the authentication response calculated by the terminal and a duration of a registration cycle expected by the terminal.
The I-CSCF interrogates from the HSS again (13. UAR˜14. UAA), and through the interrogation of this time, it acquires an address name of the S-CSCF currently performing the authentication on the user. The HSS records the address of the S-CSCF of the user when the S-CSCF requests the data required by the authentication of the user from the HSS (6. MAR˜7. MAA). After acquiring the address name of the S-CSCF currently performing the authentication on the user, the I-CSCF forwards the register request carrying the authentication response to the S-CSCF (15. REGISTER). After receiving the register request carrying the authentication response, the S-CSCF performs a verification on the authentication response, and if the authentication response is successfully verified, the S-CSCF formally records on the HSS that the user registration is successful, and requests to download subscription data of the user (16. SAR˜17. SAA). The S-CSCF returns a response that the register is successful to the user terminal (18. 200 OK˜20. 200 OK). In the 200 OK response, the S-CSCF provides a routing address of the S-CSCF itself in a Service-Route header field, and instructs the terminal to generate a Route header field of a session setup request message by utilizing the routing address in the Service-Route when a service request is initiated so as to ensure that the service request can be routed to the registered S-CSCF for being processed. In addition, the 200 OK response further provides the duration of the registration cycle determined through a final negotiation.
After the user registration is successful, the situations of recording the user registration data by each IMS NE are listed as follows. The HSS records the address of the S-CSCF with which the user registers. The S-CSCF records the subscription service data of the user, the duration of the registration cycle, the address of the P-CSCF where the user passes through when getting access to the IMS network, and a contact address of the user terminal. The P-CSCF records the address (i.e., Service-Route) of the S-CSCF for providing the service for the user, and the duration of the registration cycle. The I-CSCF does not record any user information.
FIG. 2 is a flow chart of setting up a session between a calling party and a called party registered in the IMS in the conventional art.
When initiating a session, the calling party determines the Route header field in a session setup request according to the Service-Route header field acquired during registration. After the session setup request is sent to the P-CSCF by the calling party, the P-CSCF routes, according to the Route header field (1. INVITE˜2. INVITE), the request to the S-CSCF with which the calling party registers. The S-CSCF routes the request message to the I-CSCF of a home domain of the called user according to a domain identity of the called user (3. INVITE). The called I-CSCF interrogates from the HSS to acquire, according to an identity of the called user (4. LIR˜5. LIA), the address of the S-CSCF with which the called user registers, and then forwards the session setup request to the S-CSCF (6. INVITE). After receiving the session setup request, the called S-CSCF updates a target address of the session setup request INVITE message by utilizing a contact address of the called user according to saved local registration data of the called user, and forwards the session setup request to the P-CSCF where the called user passes through when getting access to the IMS network (7. INVITE). After receiving the session setup request, the called P-CSCF forwards the session setup request to the called user (8. INVITE), and thus, one initial setup process of the end-to-end session in the IMS network is finished.
If the S-CSCF for providing the service for the user fails, the conventional art adopts a mechanism of using a registration timer to trigger a re-registration so as to assign a new S-CSCF to the user. FIG. 3 is a flow chart of triggering re-registration by a registration timer in the conventional art.
After registering with the IMS network successfully, the terminal immediately starts the registration timer according to the registration cycle determined through negotiation, and the registration timer triggers the re-registration of the user terminal when the timeout occurs. After the terminal initiates the re-registration, the I-CSCF and the P-CSCF route, according to the records of the initial registration of the terminal (1. Re-REGISTER˜5. Re-REGISTER), the register request to the S-CSCF1 with which the terminal registers. If the registered S-CSCF1 fails, the I-CSCF cannot receive any response, and as a result, a timeout occurs to a session initiation protocol (SIP) transaction. Since it is a re-registration process, the I-CSCF returns 408 Request Timeout to the terminal (6. 408˜7. 408), and after receiving the response, the terminal immediately initiates an initial registration (8. Ini-REGISTER˜9. Ini-REGISTER). The user has ever registered in the IMS network, so that the register request is still routed to the registered but currently failed S-CSCF1, and similarly, the I-CSCF cannot receive any response, and as a result, the timeout occurs to the SIP transaction. Since it is the initial registration, the I-CSCF reselects a new S-CSCF for the user, but firstly it is necessary to acquire the S-CSCF capability set requirements corresponding to the user subscription information from the HSS (13. UAR˜14. UAA). Then, the I-CSCF reselects an S-CSCF according to the capability set requirements, and forwards the register request to the new S-CSCF (15. REGISTER), thereby the process of reselecting an S-CSCF for the user affected by the failure is finished. Subsequently, the user finishes registering in the newly assigned S-CSCF according to the initial registration flow. After the user is successfully registered in the new S-CSCF, the IMS network service of the user restores to a normal status.
As known from the above descriptions about the mechanism of using the registration timer to trigger the re-registration, if the S-CSCF for providing the service for the user fails, the network service of the user cannot be restored until the registration timer of the user triggers the re-registration and the S-CSCF is reselected. That is to say, the service interruption duration of the user depends on the duration of the registration cycle of the user. The longer the registration cycle, the longer is the service interruption duration of the user. In order to meet the reliability requirements of the telecommunication network, the registration cycle is as short as possible. Unfortunately, if the duration of the registration cycle is set to be too short, it may result in frequent re-registrations. As for a network side, the frequent re-registrations may increase the processing burden of the network. Especially for the wireless access network, the frequent re-registrations excessively occupy the precious air interface resources. As for a user side, the frequent re-registrations cost the limited energy of a wireless terminal, and thereby shorten a standby time of the terminal.

Method and device for realizing IP multimedia subsystem disaster tolerance


To provide a substrate with a conductive film for an EUV mask blank having an increased surface hardness, and a substrate with a reflective multilayer film and an EUV mask blank using such a substrate with a conductive film.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reflective mask blank for EUV (Extreme Ultra Violet) lithography (hereinbelow, referred to as "EUV mask blank" in this Description) to be used for semiconductor manufacturing or the like, and a substrate with a conductive film to be used for production of the mask blank.
2. Discussion of Background
In the semiconductor industry, a photolithography method using visible light or ultraviolet light has been employed as a technique for writing, on a Si substrate or the like, a fine pattern, which is required for writing an integrated circuit comprising such a fine pattern. However, the conventional exposure techniques using light exposure have been close to the exposure limit while semiconductor devices have had finer patterns at an accelerated pace. In the case of light exposure, it is said that the resolution limit of a pattern is about ½ of an exposure wavelength, and that even if an immersion method is employed, the resolution limit is about ¼ of an exposure wavelength. Even if an immersion method using an ArF laser (193 nm) is employed, it is estimated that the resolution limit is about 45 nm. From this point of view, EUV lithography, which is an exposure technique using EUV light having a shorter wavelength than ArF lasers, has been considered as being promising as the exposure technique for 45 nm or below. In this Description, it should be noted that the phrase "EUV light" means a ray having a wavelength in a soft X ray region or a vacuum ultraviolet ray region, specifically a ray having a wavelength of about 10 to 20 nm, in particular, of about 13.5 nm±0.3 nm.
It is impossible to use EUV light in conventional dioptric systems as in photolithography using visible light or ultraviolet light since EUV light is apt to be absorbed by any substances and since the refractive index is close to 1 when EUV light is absorbed. For this reason, a catoptric system, i.e., a combination of a reflective photomask and a mirror, is employed in EUV light lithography.
A mask blank is a stacked member for fabrication of a photomask, which has not been patterned yet. When a mask blank is used for a reflective photomask, the mask blank has a structure wherein a substrate made of glass or the like has a reflective layer for reflecting EUV light and an absorbing layer for absorbing EUV light, formed thereon in this order. The reflective layer normally comprises a reflective multilayer film, which comprises high-refractive layers and low-refractive layers alternately stacked to increase a light reflectance when irradiating a film surface with a ray, more specifically when irradiating a film surface with EUV light. The absorbing layer comprises a material having a high absorption coefficient in connection with EUV light, specifically, for example, a material containing Cr or Ta as the main component.
The reflective multilayer film and the absorbing layer are deposited by ion beam sputtering or magnetron sputtering. When the reflective multilayer film and the absorbing layer are deposited, the substrate is supported by a supporting means. Although there are a mechanical chuck and an electrostatic chuck as the supporting means, an electrostatic chuck is preferably used in view of the generation of dust. Further, an electrostatic chuck is used as a means to support the substrate also at the time of the mask patterning process or during mask handling at the time of light exposure. However, when the substrate has a low dielectric constant and a low conductivity as in a glass substrate, there is a risk that dielectric breakdown is caused since a high voltage is required to be applied in order to obtain a chucking force at the same level as, e.g., a silicon wafer.
In order to solve such a problem, Patent Document 1 discloses a mask substrate having back coating (conductive film) of a material other than conventional Cr, for example, a substance having a higher dielectric constant and a higher conductivity than those of a glass substrate, such as Si, Mo, chromium oxynitride (CrON) or TaSi, as a layer to accelerate electrostatic chucking of the substrate.
However, the mask substrate disclosed in Patent Document 1 has had such drawbacks that film peeling between the glass substrate and the CrON film is likely to occur, thus generating particles during deposition of a reflective multilayer film and an absorbing layer, since the adhesion of the CrON film to the glass substrate is weak. Particularly, in the vicinity of the boundary between the electrostatic chuck and the CrON film, film peeling is likely to occur caused by force applied to the vicinity of the boundary between the electrostatic chuck and the CrON film due to rotation of the substrate.
Further, the mask substrate disclosed in Patent Document 1 has a conductive film formed on the whole of one face including the chamfered face and the side face of the substrate, and accordingly, film peeling is likely to occur especially on the chamfered face and the side face of the substrate due to warpage of the substrate at the time of electrostatic chucking or the like in such a state that the film adhesion is particularly weak by formation of the conductive film on the chamfered face and the side face at a slant.
Further, in the mask substrate disclosed in Patent Document 1, oxygen (O) is contained in the surface of the CrON conductive film, and accordingly abnormal discharge may occur at the time of depositing the reflective multilayer film or the absorbing film depending upon the deposition conditions.
If such film peeling of a conductive film occurs at the time of electrostatic chucking (at the time of film deposition) or if particles are generated by abnormal discharge during film deposition, it is impossible to obtain a high quality product (a substrate with a reflective multilayer film, a reflective mask blank for exposure or a reflective mask for exposure) because of an increase in the formation of defects in the product. In a case where a pattern is written by using a conventional transmission mask for exposure, even when a defect of irregularities is caused on a mask surface, the presence of such a defect seldom have a significant adverse effect since exposure light has a relatively long wavelength, which is in an ultraviolet range (about 157 to about 248 nm). Accordingly, no special recognition has been given as a problem to be solved, to the generation of particles during film deposition. However, when light having a short wavelength such as EUV light is used as exposure light, it is impossible to ignore the generation of particles since even the presence of the defect of fine irregularities has a significant adverse effect to a printed image.
To solve the above problem, Patent Document 2 proposes a substrate with a reflective multilayer film which suppresses, at the time of electrostatic chucking of a substrate with a conductive film, film peeling of the conductive film and generation of particles due to abnormal discharge, a high quality reflective mask blank for exposure with reduced surface defects due to particles, and a high quality reflective mask for exposure without pattern defects due to particles.
The substrate with a reflective multilayer film disclosed in Patent Document 2 has a conductive film formed in a region excluding at least the peripheral portion of the substrate, in order to prevent generation of particles due to film peeling of the conductive film at the substrate peripheral portion. Further, in the substrate with a reflective multilayer film disclosed in Patent Document 2, the surface of the conductive film to be brought into contact with the electrostatic chuck at the time of electrostatic chucking comprises a metal nitride film containing substantially no oxygen (O) in order to prevent generation of abnormal discharge at the time of film deposition of the reflective multilayer film and the absorbing film. Further, in the substrate with a reflective multilayer film disclosed in Patent Document 2, the composition of the material forming the conductive film is changed in the conductive film thickness direction, in order to improve both the adhesion of the conductive film to the substrate and the adhesion between the electrostatic chuck and the substrate and to prevent generation of particles due to film peeling of the conductive film or generation of particles due to rubbing between the electrostatic chuck and the substrate caused by insufficient adhesion between the electrostatic chuck and the substrate. Namely, the conductive film has such a structure that it contains nitrogen (N) on the substrate side, and it contains at least one of oxygen (O) and carbon (C) on the surface side of the conductive film.
Namely, in the substrate with a reflective multilayer film disclosed in Patent Document 2, generation of particles at the time of film deposition is prevented by the following (1) to (4).
(1) Film peeling of the conductive film at the substrate peripheral portion is prevented by not forming the conductive film on the substrate peripheral portion.
(2) Generation of particles at the time of film deposition is prevented by preventing generation of abnormal discharge at the time of film deposition.
(3) Generation of particles due to film peeling of the conductive film at the time of film deposition is prevented by improving adhesion of the conductive film to the substrate.
(4) Generation of particles due to rubbing between the electrostatic chuck and the substrate caused by insufficient adhesion between the electrostatic chuck and the substrate is prevented by improving the adhesion between the electrostatic chuck and the substrate.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2003-501823
Patent Document 2: JP-A-2005-210093

Reflective mask blank for EUV lithography and substrate with a conductive film for the mask blank

Abstract: A substrate with a conductive film to be used for production of a reflective mask blank for EUV lithography, characterized in that the chief material of the conductive film is at least one member selected from the group consisting of Cr, Ti, Zr, Nb, Ni and V, and the conductive film contains B (boron) at an average concentration of from 1 to 70 at %.


A goods fastening apparatus is disclosed which comprises a pipe fixedly connected to a body and a gear rack passing through the body and partly muff-coupled with the inside of the pipe. A hand grip and a positioning claw are hinged to the body through a primary pivot. A driving claw is hinged to the hand grip through a secondary pivot. A plate spring is positioned between the driving claw and the positioning claw. A mobile stopper sheet pressed against the plate spring is provided at the upper portion of the body. A stopper pin is fixed at the hand grip. The stopper pin is positioned at the edge of one side of the positioning claw facing the gear rack while the front end of the positioning claw is embedded into the gear teeth of the gear rack.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to mechanical technical field, and more particularly, to a goods fastening apparatus for fixing goods in a boxcar or container.
2. Related Art
The goods on automotive vehicles should be fixed during transportation to prevent dislodging. Cords can be directly used to bind the goods for common open cars. However, ordinary cords can not be used for boxcars or containers. Therefore, in order to achieve the goal of fixing goods, it is necessary to employ special fixing device, such as goods fastening apparatus.
The conventional goods fastening apparatus includes a body, a gear rack, a pipe, a driving claw and a positioning claw. The driving claw and the positioning claw can move alternately by pressing and pulling the hand grip, so that the gear rack is brought to move forward, and the gear rack and the pipe are drawn out, finally the gear rack and the pipe are pressed against the sidewalls of the packing box respectively. This way, the goods will not be dislodged during transportation. For purpose of safety, the gear rack should be slowly disengaged to zero load one gear tooth by one gear tooth during unloading after use. In such a case, the operation can not be conducted quickly, thus it is troublesome and waste of time.
In order to address the above problems, the designer of the present invention has applied for a patent CN99252919.0 for a goods fastening apparatus with improved structures which could disengage the gear rack quickly. In the apparatus mentioned in the above patent, a small wrench is hinged to the hand grip, the front end of which is located at the plate spring side. The gear rack could be disengaged quickly with the small wrench after use of the goods fastening apparatus, thus the working efficiency is improved. However, it is discovered that the plate spring is driven by the front end of the small wrench to raise the positions of the driving claw and the positioning claw during use, where the claws do not contact with the gear rack. Therefore, the plate spring will certainly be damaged after long-term use, causing the working life thereof reduced. Furthermore, it is hard to control the small wrench during operation, so it should be pressed firmly during disengagement of the gear rack, causing the whole operation laboursome.

Goods fastening apparatus with improved structures


In a sheet processing device, a sheet feeder feeds a sheet fed thereinto, by switching to any one of a first direction same as a feed-in direction of a sheet and a second direction orthogonal to the first direction. A second sheet processor is arranged in the second direction and performs a process including a center-folding process on the sheet. A first sheet processor is arranged in the first direction and performs a process other than the center-folding process on the sheet.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet processing device performing a process such as a sheet center-folding process and an image forming system including the sheet processing device.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, devices have been proposed to perform a sheet processing including the sheet center-folding process.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-96913 discloses technology that changes the posture of a sheet, and then performs a center-folding process and a saddle-stitching process. In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-96913, a manner of changing the sheet posture so as to achieve rapid and reliable changes in sheet posture with respect to various sheet sizes has been proposed.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-111243 discloses a device that forms a fold along a direction orthogonal to a sheet feed-in direction, and that feeds a sheet along the direction of the fold (i.e., the direction orthogonal to the feed-in direction).
On the other hand, the device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-96913 changes the posture of a sheet three times. Accordingly, because a mechanism for changing the posture of the sheet is complicated and extra space is required to change the posture of the sheet, it is thought that the device is more susceptible to increase in size.
In contrast, a device for forming a fold in a sheet along a direction orthogonal to the feed-in direction of the sheet and feeding the sheet along the direction of the fold, such as that disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open 2001-111243, is not required to change the posture of the sheet much at all, and therefore is preferable because its configuration can be miniaturized.
However, the sheet processing device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open 2011-111243 is a device which is specialized to fold sheets. Thus, it is thought that the device may be practically insufficient as a finisher for an image forming device such as a copy machine and a laser beam printer. In other words, when the device is employed as the finisher for the image forming device, it is convenient if a mode for saddle-stitching or a mode for ejecting the sheet as it is can be selected in addition to a mode for center-folding the sheet.
However, with respect to conventional sheet processing devices which include the one disclose in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open 2011-111243, a configuration which is capable of combining both a sheet center-folding process and a process other than center-folding (e.g., the type of arrangement of a part performing the center-folding and a part performing a process other than the center-folding within the device, and the manner in which sheets are fed) has not been sufficiently considered. Depending on an arrangement and feeding path, a problem may arise where the feeding path becomes complicated, thereby complicating and increasing the size of the overall configuration of the apparatus, and also the fractional sound of a sheet at the time of feeding.

Sheet processing device and image forming system

KONICA MINOLTA BUSINESS TECHNOLOGIES, INC.


A measuring spout for installation on a container that dispenses particulate material. One embodiment of the spout measures and dispenses variable amounts of particulate material. Another embodiment of the spout measures and dispenses a fixed amount of particulate material. The spout comprises a wedge-shaped spout member that pivots through an opening formed in a wall of the container. The opening in the container has a gate which, in the preferred embodiment, acts as the back wall to the spout, separating the particulate material in the spout from the particulate material remaining in the container. Thus, as the spout opens, the front wall moves further away from the back wall, thereby, providing a variably sized chamber depending on how far the spout is opened from the container wall. The particulate material is measured by tilting the container so as to let the contents fill the spout. The particulate material is dispensed by returning the container to its upright position so the particulate material in the spout flows through an opening formed in the spout.

Many particulate materials such as powdered detergent, powdered bleach, and other industrial products are used in measured amounts. For example, a measured quantity of powdered detergent is often used when washing clothing. To access the powdered detergent, a user opens a powdered detergent box and digs his hands through the caustic detergent to locate a scoop for dispensing the detergent. This approach has several drawbacks. First, the user's skin is exposed to the caustic detergent. Second, a powdered detergent box typically can't be resealed after it is opened. As a result, clumps of detergent may begin to form due to the detergent's exposure to the surrounding environment. Therefore, there is a continuing need for a dispenser that permits a particulate material container to be resealed after use and prevents a user from being exposed to the particulate material while the particulate material is being measured and dispensed.
Another drawback encountered in the prior art is that some particulate materials that should be used in measured amounts are not accompanied by a precise measuring device. For example, different sized pets require different quantities of pet food. However, conventional pet food containers either have no measuring and dispensing device (the food being dispensed from an opening in the food container) or a generic "one size" dispensing device (such as a scoop). This leads to a number of drawbacks. First, the pet food is exposed to the surrounding environment if the food is being dispensed through an aperture torn, cut, or otherwise permanently made in a surface of the container. Second, the pet may be overfed or underfed depending on the relationship between the size of the pet and the size of the generic scoop.
A few inventions have attempted to overcome the drawbacks encountered in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 3,921,862 to Holmstrom is directed to a measuring pour spout for installation on a detergent carton or box. Although the Holmstrom spout reduces the likelihood that a user will be exposed to the material within the carton or box, the Holmstrom spout has a number of limitations. First, the Holmstrom spout relies on a plastic frame and more than one moving part to allow a user to adjust the quantity of the detergent that is measured and dispensed. These features make the Holmstrom spout far too expensive to replace the current laundry detergent scoops now included in detergent cartons or boxes. Second, the Holmstrom spout is filled with detergent while the spout is positioned within the detergent carton or box. Therefore, a user cannot see when the Holmstrom spout is filled with a measured quantity of detergent. As a result, a user may dispense detergent using the Holmstrom spout before the spout is completely filled with the correct amount of detergent. Third, there are at least five steps required for measuring and dispensing detergent using the Holmstrom spout. This represents no significant reduction in time or work over the conventional measuring and dispensing processes discussed above. Therefore, a user is unlikely to use the Holmstrom spout for the few benefits it provides.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,529 to Knight is directed to a measuring dispenser for particulate material. Although the Knight dispenser is simpler and cheaper to mass produce than the Holmstrom spout, the Knight dispenser also has a number of limitations. First, the Knight dispenser does not permit a user to adjust the measured amount of detergent to be dispensed. This is a significant limitation since a user will often desire to adjust the amount of detergent being dispensed. For example, a user will want to measure and dispense a smaller amount of detergent for a light load of laundry than the user would want to measure and dispense for a heavy load of laundry. Second, the Knight dispenser, like the Holmstrom spout, also fills with detergent while the dispenser is positioned within the detergent carton or box. Therefore, a user cannot see when the Knight dispenser is filled with a measured quantity of detergent. As a result, a user may dispense detergent using the Knight dispenser before the dispenser is completely filled with the correct amount of detergent. Third, a closure panel or gate is used in the Knight dispenser to stop the dispenser from overfilling after the dispenser has been filled with a measured quantity of detergent. However, the closure gate may not always close properly since the gate is designed to close while the detergent is filling the dispenser. In other words, the flow of the particulate detergent may impede the closure of the gate after the dispenser has been filled with a selected quantity of detergent.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,144,989 to Joy, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,002,208 to Towery, are directed to dispensers for measuring and dispensing particulate material. However, these dispensers suffer from the limitations discussed above and are complex devices that are not cost effective. More particularly, the dispensers cannot be incorporated into a particulate container production line inexpensively enough to compete with the conventional scoops provided in the particulate containers of the prior art.


A semiconductor process and yield analysis integrated real-time management method comprises inspecting a plurality of semiconductor products with a plurality of items to generate and record a plurality of inspecting results during semiconductor process, classifying the semiconductor products as a plurality of groups with a default rule to generate and record an initial data in a database, indexing a plurality of semiconductor product groups and the corresponding initial data from the database by a default product rule and parameter to calculate a corresponding analysis result, and displaying the analysis result according to the indexed semiconductor product groups and the initial data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management method, and more particularly, to an integrated real-time management method which provides semiconductor process and yield analysis for a plurality of management classes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A lot of data are used in the semiconductor process to monitor, control and improve all kinds of manufacturing processes. Please refer to FIG. 1; FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a semiconductor process 10 according to the prior art. The semiconductor process 10 processes a plurality of wafers 12 through seven steps, including a step of thin film 14, a step of diffusion 16, a step of photo 18, a step of etch 20, a sample test 22, a wafer test 24, and a final test 26. A plurality of inspecting results are generated in each step to control and improve the semiconductor process 10. However, the inspecting results are merely raw data. In the prior art, there are no effective ways to integrate these raw data generated in each steps, therefore it is difficult to monitor the performance of the semiconductor process 10. For different management classes, it is also hard to select the effective data from the large amount of the raw data.

Semiconductor process and yield analysis integrated real-time management method


A trimmer device for animals and the like, particularly cats, comprises an outer enclosure, preferably including a back as well as a front cover member, with a fixed internal blade. The front cover member has a plurality of slots to receive the extended claws of animals, to trim them as the claws are raked over the device or the latter is moved with respect to the claws. The slots affording access to the cutting edge of the internal blade may be made with varying width and length configurations to accommodate various animals, and the internal blade may be made adjustable and/or replaceable. Preferably, the novel cutting device is used in combination with a scratching post or the like, and mounted directly on the latter so as to be automatically engaged by the claws of animals using the scratching post in the normal manner.

This invention relates to pet animal maintenance and care equipment and apparatus, and more particularly to combined activated exercise and hygienic or physical care equipment for pets, particularly feline pets. Still more particularly, the invention relates to a combined cat activity or exercise device (e.g., scratching post) and claw-trimmer.
Numerous devices have been proposed and offered in the past for providing entertainment or activities for pets and for exercising them, providing various appearance care, etc., and some such devices have attempted various combinations of these characteristics. For example, in previous U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,666,907 and 5,730,084, a device for cats was proposed which provided an abrasive at the bottom of a cat litter pan, on the assumption that the animal""s natural scratching tendencies in using a litter pan would thus automatically work to smooth and shorten or at least dull its claws. A small number of other similar such efforts have also been proposed in the past, as shown, for example in U.S. Pat. No. 2,997,019, wherein an abrasive sheet is attached to a scratching post; however, it seems clear that such devices would have a minimal effect at best and would not actually shorten the claws very much, or take the place of trimming, if indeed actually operative for either intended purpose at all.
Nonetheless, the need for an effective such device continues unabated, and to an ever-increasing degree as the pet population steadily increases.
The present invention provides a unique and effective solution for the above problem in the area of pet felines, particularly house cats, by providing a novel and unobvious claw-trimming device and in addition providing a unique way of utilizing such a device by mounting it upon an exercise apparatus, e.g., a cat scratching post, which cats naturally tend to use.
As a result, the invention provides a highly novel and unique combination apparatus which the animals naturally tend to use, enjoy, and which automatically trims their claws to a desired length. Further, in the broader aspects of the invention the novel trimming device can be used in other ways for achieving the same basic result, and its cutting member may be made variable or adjustable in nature so that the length of the resulting trimmed claw conforms to a predetermined size.
The foregoing major attributes and advantages of the invention will be better understood and appreciated after considering the following specification and drawings disclosing a preferred embodiment thereof.

Cat scratch post with claw trimming device


A white light source has a substrate with a blue light-emitting diode placed thereon and a cap layer enclosing the blue light-emitting diode. The cap layer includes a mixture of silicon and phosphor blend at ratio of 1:0.2-0.5. The phosphor blend includes a red phosphor, a green phosphor and a yellow phosphor.

A white light source is generally provided by mixing light sources of different wavelengths. For example, a conventional white light source can be realized by mixing red light, green light and blue light with a suitable intensity ratio. Alternatively, the white light source can be realized by mixing yellow light and blue light with a suitable intensity ratio. The conventional method for manufacturing white light source is summarized in the following.
In a first prior art of white light source, three lED dies based on AlInGaP, InGaN and Gap are packaged into a lamp and emit red light, blue light and green light, respectively. The light emitted from the lamp can be mixed by a lens to provide white light. FIG. 1A shows a top view of a prior art white light-emitting device. The prior art white light-emitting device comprises a substrate 10, a red light-emitting diode lR, a green light-emitting diode lG and a blue light-emitting diode lB. FIG. 1B shows the emission spectrum of the prior art white light-emitting device shown in FIG. 1A. As shown in this figure, the spectrum of each light-emitting diodes is relatively narrow. However, the white light produced in this way lacks the uniform spectral distribution (especially in the 400 nm-700 nm range) of natural white light, such as sunlight. The white light thus produced has a relative chroma, which is, although indistinguishable to human eyes, differentiable to an instrument such as a camera. Therefore, the color-rendering property and reproducing ability are not satisfactory and this white light source is used mainly for lighting. Moreover, the driving voltages for lEDs of different colors are also different; this complicates the design of the driving circuit.
A second prior art of white light source was proposed by Nichia Chemical Co. in 1996, in which an InGaN based blue lED and a yellow YAG phosphor are used to provide the white light source. This white light source requires a monochrome lED to provide white light with low cost. FIG. 2 shows a top view of the second prior art white light source proposed by Nichia Chemical Co., which comprises a substrate 10, a blue light-emitting diode lB and a yellow phosphor PY coated on the blue light-emitting diode lB. The light emitted from the blue light-emitting diode lB is converted into yellow light by the yellow phosphor PY. The yellow light is mixed with the blue light to form a white light. However, the second prior art white light source proposed by Nichia Chemical Co. has a poor color-rendering property.

White light-emitting device having a cap layer formed from a mixture of silicon and a phosphor blend


An example includes a method including forming a battery electrode by disposing an active material coating onto a silicon substrate, assembling the battery electrode into a stack of battery electrodes, the battery electrode separated from other battery electrodes by a separator, disposing the stack in a housing, filling the interior space with electrolyte, and sealing the housing to resist the flow of electrolyte from the interior space.

Battery technology, such as for electric vehicles and renewable energy applications, is an area of intense research and development. Work has focused on a number of technologies, with the most mature and successful ones being lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries. Despite this work, cost remains a central concern. Lithium ion, with its energy density, is attractive, but car-makers can pay $1,000/kW·hr or more for a lithium-ion power source. Costs remain high due to complex control and cooling systems in addition to electronics used to improve safety. This cost is at least six times the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) year 2020 target of $150/kW·hr. Contrast this with contemporary lead-acid batteries (lead-acid batteries), which can have a cost of around $150/kW·hr for renewable energy storage, but their limited energy density, cycle life, and efficiency in many cases discourages their use.


A method and a device for estimating parameter variations of transistors that belong to the same circuit. The method includes: providing the first circuit; providing a test circuit adapted to perform a first function and a stacked test circuit adapted to perform a second function that substantially equals the first function; wherein the test circuit, the stacked test circuit and the first circuit are processed under substantially the same processing conditions; determining a relationship between a parameter of the test circuit and a parameter of the stacked test circuit; and estimating parameter variations of transistors that belong to the first circuit in response to the determined relationship.

Mobile devices, such as but not limited to personal data appliances, cellular phones, radios, pagers, lap top computers, and the like are required to operate for relatively long periods before being recharged. These mobile devices usually include one or more processors as well as multiple memory modules and other peripheral devices.
Modern integrated circuits are manufactured by applying highly complex manufacturing process. These manufacturing processes are characterized by deviations in impurity concentration densities, oxide thickness, diffusion depths, difference in transistors dimensions and the like.
An integrated circuit includes a die. Multiple dies (also known as dices) are included in a single wafer. Wafers are usually manufactured in lots. Transistor parameters (such as delay and leakage current) can differ from one lot of wafers to another, from one wafer to another and even from one die to another.
An integrated circuit is regarded as operational if it was manufactured by a manufacturing process that is within a process window. The process window is delimited by a best case scenario and by a worst case scenario.
Differences in the delay of transistors that belong to the same integrated circuit can cause timing violations such as setup violations and hold violations.
These timing differences are more noticeable in high threshold voltage low leakage transistors that are usually used in mobile devices.
The delay difference between transistors that belong to the same integrated circuit increases as the supply voltage level (supplied to these transistors) decreases. The delay difference between different transistors of a certain integrated circuit is not known in advance and is also responsive to variables such as ambient temperature. In order to guarantee the proper functionality of the integrated circuit the supply level is not lowered (when the integrated circuit is active and not idle) below a supply voltage lower threshold.
This supply voltage lower threshold is defined in response to a possible existence of best case scenario transistors and worst case scenario transistors within the integrated circuit.
Each integrated circuit is manufactured by an instance of the manufacturing process. In most cases the transistors within the integrated circuit belong to a small subset out of all the possible transistors that can be manufactured within the relatively wide process window. Accordingly, the difference between the parameters of different transistors that belong to the same integrated circuit is smaller than the possible difference between the parameters of worst case scenario transistors and best case scenario transistors.
This supply voltage lower threshold causes a waste of power, as it is usually above the supply voltage level that can actually be supplied to the integrated circuit, without resulting in timing violations.
Silicone on Insulator (SOI) circuits are characterized by reduced transistors parameter variation but they have their own drawbacks. U.S. Pat. No. 6,624,663 of illustrates a prior art SOI circuit.
There is a need to estimate parameter variations of transistors that belong to an integrated circuit.

Device and a method for estimating transistor parameter variations


A semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing the same, in which a leak current generated in a pn junction formed between a silicon substrate and an epitaxial layer can be reduced. A silicon oxide film is formed on a silicon substrate having a (100) crystal plane. The silicon oxide film is patterned to form an opened portion and an inclined surface on a pattern edge of the silicon oxide film. The inclined surface forms an angle of 54.74.+-.5.degree. with the silicon substrate. An epitaxial layer is formed in the opened portion by selective epitaxial growth.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method for Manufacturing the same, in which a semiconductor layer is formed using selective epitaxial growth on a semiconductor substrate, and more particularly to a semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing the same in which the shape of an oxide film used as a mask for performing selective epitaxial growth is optimized.
FIG. 1 shows a structure of an example of a semiconductor device formed by means of element isolation using selective epitaxial growth.
According to the conventional art, when an N-type silicon substrate 50 having the (100) plane is subjected to selective epitaxial growth using a silicon oxide film (SiO.sub.2) 52 as a mask at a high temperature (1000.degree. C.), a pattern edge of the silicon oxide film 52 as shown in FIG. 1 is formed. At this time, a P-type epitaxial layer 54 is grown upward along a silicon monocrystal (100). In other words, the P-type epitaxial layer 54 is grown in the same orientation as that of the silicon substrate 50. Further, a complex layer comprising an epitaxial layer 56 and a polysilicon layer 58, having different orientations, is formed in a boundary portion between the silicon oxide film 52 serving as a mask and the epitaxial layer 54.
It is assumed that the semiconductor device as shown in FIG. 1 constitutes a diode and that a reverse bias is applied to a junction between the N-type silicon substrate 50 and the epitaxial layer 54. In this case, since the complex layer comprising the epitaxial layer 56 and the polysilicon layer 58 is formed in the boundary portion between the silicon oxide film 52 and the epitaxial layer 54 as described above, a great junction leakage current is generated near the pattern edge of the silicon oxide film 52, i.e., in an end portion of the junction. This is because carriers are recombined in that part of the polysilicon layer 58 which is formed near the pattern edge of the silicon oxide film 52.

Semiconductor device and method for manufacturing the same


Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to auto-entry of addresses in an electronic message and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for cautious auto-entry for messaging systems. In one embodiment of the invention, a cautious auto-completion method can be provided. The method include auto-completing a messaging address provided in a messaging client; computing a similar name set (SNS) value for the auto-completed messaging address; and, posting a warning if the SNS value exceeds an SNS threshold. As used herein, an SNS includes a list of similar messaging addresses having similarities likely to result in an unintended auto-completed messaging address in a messaging system.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of electronic messaging and more particularly to the auto-complete feature for message addresses in an electronic messaging system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic messaging represents the single most useful task accomplished over wide-scale computer communications networks. Some argue that in the absence of electronic messaging, the Internet would have amounted to little more than a science experiment. Today, electronic messaging seems to have replaced the ubiquitous telephone and fax machine for the most routine of interpersonal communications. As such, a variety of electronic messaging systems have arisen which range from real-time instant messaging systems and wireless text pagers to asynchronous electronic mail systems.
Electronic mail, a form of electronic messaging referred to in the art as e-mail, has proven to be the most widely used computing application globally. Though e-mail has been a commercial staple for several decades, due to the explosive popularity and global connectivity of the Internet, e-mail has become the preferred mode of communications, regardless of the geographic separation of communicating parties. Today, more e-mails are processed in a single hour than phone calls. Clearly, e-mail as a mode of communications has been postured to replace all other modes of communications, save for voice telephony.
In the conventional e-mail client, an end user can create an e-mail with a body of text and the end user optionally can attach one or more files to be transmitted along with the message in the body of text. Before transmitting the e-mail, the end user further can address the e-mail by providing one or more e-mail addresses and designating those addresses as primary recipients (To:) of the e-mail, secondary recipients (CC:) of the e-mail, or stealth recipients (BCC:) of the e-mail. For the casual e-mail user, remembering e-mail addresses can be of no consequence. For the dedicated e-mail user, however, remembering a vast number of different e-mail addresses can present a challenge.
Many successful commercial implementations of e-mail clients provide for an auto-completion feature. An auto-completion feature generally refers to the automated recollection by the e-mail client (or the e-mail server) of past used or previously stored e-mail addresses based upon the provision of just one or more characters of the desired e-mail address. In this way, the end user need only key a few keystrokes followed by a mouse click in order to accept the proposed e-mail address. The convenience of auto-completion is not without consequence, however.
Specifically, the speed at which an end user accepts a proposed e-mail address as part of the auto-completion operation often can result in the end user accepting the wrong e-mail address. As a result, in many circumstances, the end user can transmit an e-mail message to an un-intended recipient. In the worst case scenario, the content of the e-mail message can be private and confidential giving rise to an unintended breach of privacy.

Cautious auto-entry for messaging systems

International Business Machines Corporation


Systems, methods, and apparatus are described that employ specially designed interference patterns to build an in-band side channel without degrading the effective throughput of the main channel. A first device (100) includes a control component (130) that generates control information and an interference component (140) that transmits the control information (450) through emission of patterned interference data concurrently while other users are transmitting other data (420). A second device (300) receives the patterned interference data and the other data via a single antenna (350) and decodes the patterned interference data to extract the control data (450). The first device (100) transmits the other data (420) on a side channel (440) that resides in the same spectrum as the main channel (410) in which the other data (420) is emitted. The first device (100) encodes the interference patterns such that the control data (450) can be safely transmitted and extracted without effecting other data transmission. In one aspect, devices (100, 200, 300) can employ a dynamic cooperation multi-access channel (DC-MAC) protocol (1510) to schedule transmission of the other data (420) on the main channel (410), and to employ the side channel (440) for control and coordination.

Radio interference is an issue in wireless communications. For instance, capacity of a wireless channel depends on a ratio between signal power of a desired transmission to combined interference plus noise. Because of the broadcast nature of wireless communications, when two or more transmissions are conducted in vicinity, mutual interference is generated and collisions often occur. In a typical multiple-user environment, different users can sometimes interfere with each other.
In recent years, many research efforts have been devoted to interference management. For instance, various techniques center on interference avoidance. Interference avoidance attempts to scatter multiple transmissions along temporal, spatial and frequency dimensions to mitigate interference, e.g., where severe interference occurs. Other techniques employ interference cancellation, which attempts to recover transmission errors that are due to interference. Interference alignment and cancellation was developed to overcome the antennas-per-access point (AP) throughput by coordinating multiple APs.
In a typical multi-user environment, coordination among different users helps to avoid severe mutual interference and properly utilize shared media. However, such coordination can cost precious communication resources, and can lead to reduced network performance, even significantly degraded network performance. In traditional approaches, coordination is addressed in an either in-band or out-of-band manner. For in-band approaches, coordination traffic stays in a same communication channel as data traffic, bringing a large amount of communication overhead such as the Distributed Coordination Function Interframe Space (DIFS), Short Interframe Space (SIFS) and random back-offs in Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA). Out-of-band approaches are typically designed for multiple radio systems. These approaches have conventionally dedicated one complete radio (and its associated channel resource) for coordination, and thus generate extra costs. In view of existing coordination techniques, effective coordination among multiple nodes without significantly wasting system resources has not yet been achieved.
The above-described deficiencies of conventional interference management techniques are merely intended to provide an overview of some of problems of current technology, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art, and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments described herein, may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.

Transmitting and/or receiving data in a side channel

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology


This disclosure provides dimeric, pentameric, and hexameric Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) superfamily receptor protein binding molecules and methods of using such binding molecules to direct apoptosis-mediated killing of TNF receptor-expressing cells.

Since the advent of humanized antibodies, the therapeutic use of antibodies such as Rituxan® (rituximab), Herceptin® (trastuzumab) and Avastin® (bevacizumab), has revolutionized the fields of medicine, including oncology, the treatment of inflammatory disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, and many other indications. In the United States, more than 30 human or humanized antibodies have been approved for clinical use, and more than 600 new antibodies or antibody-like molecules are in various stages of development. Some antibodies have antagonistic function on soluble target molecules such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or tumor necrosis factor (TNF), whose actions are part of the pathologic process of a disease. Alternatively, antibodies can bind, block and/or induce destruction of pathologic cells in certain diseases, such as cancer. The main functions of these therapeutic antibodies are binding through the Fab region, and recruitment of effector function via the Fc domain (which also mediates the long circulating half-life of antibodies). One of the major advantages of antibodies compared to small molecule drugs can be their exquisite specificity. Antibodies can very accurately target selected protein antigens, such as oncogenes, to the exclusion of very similar homologs, allowing for benign safety profiles. Hence, antibodies are well characterized for specific single targeting function.
As the field has progressed, antibody function has been enhanced through creative means of protein engineering, such as to provide higher affinity, longer half-life, and/or better tissue distribution, as well as combination of small and large molecule technologies for increased focus of cell destruction via toxic payload delivery (e.g. antibody-drug conjugates). Another approach to improving antibody function takes advantage of the multivalent binding capabilities of the immunoglobulin A (IgA) or immunoglobulin M (IgM) structure which allows one IgA or IgM molecule to bind multiple antigens. Heavy and light chain variable domains of interest can be expressed as an IgA or IgM isotype antibody, thereby creating a multimeric binding molecule with the same specificity as a monomeric antibody, e.g., an IgG antibody.
The multivalent nature of IgA or IgM molecules presents a useful tool for application to specific biological systems in which multiple components necessarily must be bound simultaneously to transmit biological signals. For instance, many receptor proteins on the surface of eukaryotic cells require the simultaneous activation of multiple monomers or subunits to achieve activation and transmission of a biological signal across a cell membrane, to the cytoplasm of the cell.
One such system of cell surface protein receptors requiring multimerization prior to, or commensurate with, activation is found in the Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) superfamily of receptor proteins. Within this superfamily of receptor proteins are members which, upon activation, transmit a signal to the nucleus of the cell causing apoptosis. Other family members of this superfamily cause activation of NF-κB, apoptosis pathways, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38 MAPK), and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). Examples of TNF superfamily receptor members which regulate apoptosis of the cell when activated are the following: TNFR1 (DR1), TNFR2, TNFR1/2, CD40 (p50), Fas (CD95, Apo1, DR2), CD30, 4-1BB (CD137, ILA), TRAILR1 (DR4, Apo2), DR5 (TRAILR2), TRAILR3 (DcR1), TRAILR4 (DcR2), OPG (OCIF), TWEAKR (FN14), LIGHTR (HVEM), DcR3, DR3, EDAR, and XEDAR. (See, Aggarwal et al., Blood, 119:651-665, 2012).
More particularly, it is postulated that activation of the TNF superfamily receptor protein members mentioned above requires that at least three non-interacting receptor monomers be cross-linked, e.g., by a ligand, to form a stabilized receptor trimer, resulting in signal transduction across the cell membrane. Clustering of these TNF superfamily receptor protein trimers into "rafts" of trimers has been observed and has been postulated to lead to more effective activation of this TNF superfamily receptor protein-dependent signaling cascade. (See, Valley et al., J. Biol. Chem., 287(25):21265-21278, 2012). Additional modes of activation have been discussed. (See, for instance, Lewis et al., Biophys. J., 106(6):L21-L24, 2014).
Signaling through certain of the TNF superfamily receptor proteins noted above can lead to cell apoptosis. In the treatment of cancer, one therapeutic strategy is to activate an apoptotic signaling cascade in cancer cells, thereby halting progression. One manner in which this can be accomplished is by the binding of TNF superfamily receptor proteins expressed (or over-expressed) in cancer cells with a multivalent or multimeric agonist binding molecule, which can promote receptor trimerization and activation, leading to apoptosis. One TNF superfamily receptor protein that is activated upon cross-linking resulting in apoptosis is DR5 (TRAILR2).
Interest—in DR5 is heightened due to the finding that it is expressed at a higher level in various cancers than in normal tissue, such as bladder cancer (Y et al., Urology, 79(4):968.e7-15, 2012), gastric cancer (Lim et al., Carcinogen., 32(5):723-732, 2011), ovarian cancer (Jiang et al., Mol. Med. Rep., 6(2):316-320, 2012), pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (Rajeshkumar et al., Mol. Cancer Ther., 9(9):2583-92, 2010), oral squamous cell carcinoma (Chen et al. Oncotarget 4:206-217, 2013) and non-small cell lung cancer (Reck et al., Lung Canc., 82(3):441-448, 2013). It is of additional importance to the medical community that the observed higher level of expression of this family of receptor proteins, especially family member DR5, occurs in some of the most difficult to detect and treat cancers, such as pancreatic and gastric cancer.
While certain monoclonal antibodies, such as Tigatuzumab (CS-1008, Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd., disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,244,429, VH and VL presented herein as SEQ ID NO: 7 and SEQ ID NO: 8, respectively), have been found to be effective in vitro and in vivo even without additional cross-linkers added, these antibodies have not resulted in significant clinical efficacy. (See, Reck et al., 2013). Examples of such anti-DR5 agonistic monoclonal IgG antibodies are Conatumumab (Amgen, described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,521,048, VH and VL presented herein as SEQ ID NO: 5 and SEQ ID NO: 6, respectively), Drozitumab (Genentech, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,029,783, VH and VL presented herein as SEQ ID NO: 3 and SEQ ID NO: 4, respectively), and Lexatumumab (Human Genome Sciences, as disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0269555, VH and VL presented herein as SEQ ID NO: 1 and SEQ ID NO: 2, respectively).
Better binding molecules are needed to achieve the benefits of the basic research performed which provided a critical understanding of this subset of the TNF superfamily receptor proteins. Additional binding molecules are disclosed herein which, based on the understanding of the underlying biochemical mechanism of the TNF superfamily of receptor proteins, are capable of addressing this need.

Polynucleotides encoding death domain-containing receptor-5 (DR5) binding molecules


A process of manufacturing a silica glass article comprising the steps of: (1) irradiating a silica glass article with electromagnetic waves to generate defects therein; and (2) immersing the thus irradiated silica glass article in an atmosphere comprising a hydrogen gas, thereby providing the resulting silica glass article with a characteristic that is effective for preventing it substantially from increasing its absorption within an ultraviolet region due to ultraviolet ray irradiation. Also disclosed are a silica glass article or a glass fiber produced according to the manufacturing process.

Silica glass articles have been used as light transmitting mediums, such as optical fibers and various optical elements. In particular, use of the optical fibers having advantages of light weight, small diameter and no induction, has recently been widened in various industrial fields including communication, image transmission and energy transmission. As one of the fields, use of the optical fiber to transmit ultraviolet rays has been expected in the medical and precise processing fields. However, when glass is irradiated with ultraviolet rays, it deteriorates and its transmission loss increases. That is, there arises a problem in that deterioration takes place because of ultraviolet ray irradiation. Since the transmission loss of a silica optical fiber having the silica glass as the core thereof is smaller than that of an optical fiber made of multicomponent type glass, the silica optical fiber is a preferred element to transmit ultraviolet rays. However, the problem of the deterioration which takes place because of ultraviolet ray irradiation remain unsolved.
There may be a case where a light transmission in silica glass is superior to that in air if the wavelength is not longer than 200 nm. The reason for this lies in that dissociation of an oxygen gas takes place because of ultraviolet ray irradiation in air. Therefore, a high transmission can be expected if the deterioration which takes place because of ultraviolet ray irradiation can be reduced in the wavelength region not longer than 200 nm.
It has been considered that the deterioration which takes place because of ultraviolet ray irradiation is mainly attributed to a defect in glass. In the present invention, the "defect in glass" means a broken portion of the glass network structure or a portion of the glass network structure that is stretched due to a distortion of the glass and is apt to break easily. FIG. 4 shows a plurality of examples of reported defects in glass of silica glass. As representative defects in glass, defects related to E' center (.tbd.Si.) and oxygen-deficient type defects (.tbd.Si--Si .tbd.) are exemplified. The above-mentioned defects in glass absorb ultraviolet rays at wavelengths of 163 nm, 215 nm and 245 nm. It has been considered that the foregoing defects in glass occur in a glass synthesized in an atmosphere somewhat lacking in oxygen, or in a glass having a low concentration of OH groups.
As a technique for reducing deterioration due to ultraviolet ray irradiation of silica glass, a technique has been disclosed in JP-A-5-147966 (hereinafter referred to as Document (1)) (The term "JP-A" used herein means an unexamined published Japanese patent application), in which the content of OH groups in a pure silica core is adjusted to from 10 ppm to 1000 ppm, the contents of F (fluorine) is adjusted to from 50 ppm to 5000 ppm and the contents of Cl (chlorine) is adjusted to substantially zero. An optical fiber thus obtained has an excellent initial characteristic of transmitting ultraviolet rays and is capable of reducing deterioration due to ultraviolet ray irradiation because fluorine is contained in a specific amount.
There are several known techniques that are not aimed to improve deterioration due to ultraviolet ray irradiation but are related to an improvement in radiation resistance of a fiber for transmitting visible rays or near infrared rays. For example, JP-A-60-90853 (hereinafter referred to as "Document (2)), has suggested a process in which any one of a glass soot body, a transparent glass preform and an optical fiber is processed in a hydrogen atmosphere to delete defects in the glass so as to improve the radiation resistance of the optical fiber. In the foregoing document, only a result of measurement of an increase in the loss experienced with respect to a near infrared rays having a wavelength of 1.3 .mu.m is described. In addition, the effect of improving the ultraviolet ray resistance obtained by the above-mentioned process disappears within about two months.
In "Improvement in Radiation Resistance of Optical Fiber by Hydrogen Treatment and .gamma.-Ray Irradiation", Tomon, Nagasawa, et al. pp. 1-213, Vol. 1, papers for lectures in National Conference of Semiconductor and Its Material Section of Electronic Communication Society, 1985, issued in 1985 by Electronic Communication Society (hereinafter referred to as "Document (3)"), a process has been reported for the purpose of preventing increase in light absorption of a pure silica-core optical fiber at a wavelength of 630 nm (visible ray) occurring due to .gamma.-ray irradiation. In this document, two-step treatment for an optical fiber is performed. In the first step, an optical fiber is doped with hydrogen molecules and then, in the second step, is irradiated with .gamma.-rays. Thus, seeds (precursors) of defects in the glass are converted into defects that absorb photon energy of a 2 eV band. Then, hydrogen previously dispersed in the fiber in the previous step and the defects in glass are chemically bonded to each other so as to improve the radiation resistance in the visible ray region. Also in the Document (3), there is no description about the characteristic of the fiber against ultraviolet rays.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,574,820 (hereinafter referred to as "Document (4)"), suggests an optical fiber and its manufacturing process that serves as a means for preventing increase in a loss in a visible ray region when a pure silica core fiber is used as an image fiber for transmitting visible rays in a radiation field. The proposed optical fiber is manufactured by previously irradiating pure silica core fiber with radiation in a large dose of 10.sup.5 Gy or greater, so that increase in the loss in a visible ray region having a wavelength of from 400 nm to 700 nm does not exceed 30 dB/km. Moreover, a process for manufacturing the optical fiber has been suggested, but the characteristic in the ultraviolet ray region has not been described.
JP-A-5-288942 (hereinafter referred to as "Document (5)"), as in Document (4), has suggested a process for improving radiation resistance of an image fiber for transmitting visible rays. In the process, an image fiber is irradiated with g-ryas in a large dose of 10.sup.7 Roentgen to 10.sup.9 Roentgen (10.sup.5 Gy to 10.sup.7 Gy) and then is heated in a hydrogen atmosphere. Also no description about the characteristic in the ultraviolet ray region has been made in the above-mentioned document.
In the Document (2), hydrogen is added so that the radioactive resistance of the optical fiber in the near infrared rays is improved. Recently there have been disclosed several processes in which hydrogen molecules are added to silica glass in an attempt to improve ultraviolet ray resistance. For example, JP-A-3-23236 (hereinafter referred to as "Document (6)") suggests silica glass in which OH groups are contained in an amount of 100 ppm or higher, substantially no oxygen defect exists and hydrogen gas is contained, so that ultraviolet ray resistance is improved. JP-A-5-32432 (hereinafter referred to as "Document (7)") suggests a process, in which deterioration due to ultraviolet ray irradiation is prevented by controlling the concentration of hydrogen in silica glass is to 1.5.times.10.sup.17 molecules/cm.sup.3 or higher. Moreover, the concentration of chlorine is made to be 100 ppm or lower to reduce hydrogen consumption in glass when ultraviolet ray irradiation is performed so as to maintain ultraviolet ray resistance. JP-A-6-16449 (hereinafter referred to as "Document (8)") suggests silica glass which has improved ultraviolet ray resistance by designing to contain OH group in an amount of 100 ppm or lower and chlorine in an amount of 200 ppm or lower, and to have a hydrogen concentration of 10.sup.16 molecules/cm.sup.3 or lower, a refractive index fluctuation of 5.times.10.sup.-6 or lower and a birefringence of 5 nm/cm or lower. U.S. Pat. No. 5,668,067 (hereinafter referred to as "Document (9)") suggests silica glass in which the amount of OH groups is 50 ppm or smaller and hydrogen is contained by at least 10.sup.18 molecules/cm.sup.3 and which is free from optical damage if the silica glass is irradiated with 10.sup.7 pulses of KrF laser, the output of which is 350 mJ/cm.sup.2. U.S. Pat. No. 5,679,125 (hereinafter referred to "Document (10)") suggests silica glass which has improved ultraviolet ray resistance because hydrogen molecules are added to silica glass to which fluorine has been added.
JP-A-7-300325 (hereinafter referred to as "Document (11)") suggests a process which is able to improve ultraviolet ray resistance by means similar to that suggested in Document (5) in such a manner that hydrogen-molecule-contained silica glass is irradiated with .gamma.-rays so as to make the concentration of hydrogen in the irradiated silica glass to be 5.times.10.sup.16 molecules/cm.sup.3 or higher so that the ultraviolet ray resistance is improved. JP-A-9-124337 (hereinafter referred to as "Document (12)") suggests a process with which the ultraviolet ray resistance is improved by irradiating glass containing hydrogen molecules at a concentration of from 2.times.10.sup.17 molecules/cm.sup.3 to 5.times.10.sup.19 molecules/cm.sup.3 with ultraviolet rays of 150 nm to 300 nm for 20 hours or longer.
The Document (1) discloses an optical fiber having an excellent initial transmission characteristic of ultraviolet rays. However, a satisfactory effect cannot be obtained to prevent the deterioration due to ultraviolet ray irradiation. On the contrary, absorption caused at the absorption edge of ultraviolet rays is enlarged undesirably. Therefore, adjustment of an optimum amount of addition cannot easily be achieved.
No description has been made about the deterioration due to ultraviolet ray irradiation in each of the Documents (2) to (5) relating to improvement in the radiation resistance required for transmitting near infrared rays. As described later, the processes adapted to a fiber for transmitting visible rays or a fiber for transmitting near infrared rays cannot maintain the effect to prevent deterioration due to ultraviolet ray irradiation for a required period of time. Moreover, unsuitable means for an optical fiber for transmitting ultraviolet rays have been employed.
The processes disclosed in the Documents (6) to (11) are arranged in such a manner that the contents of OH groups, F or Cl are adjusted. Although the above-mentioned adjustment of the components attains an effect of initial defects in glass, a satisfactory effect cannot be attained to reduce defects induced by ultraviolet rays.
The hydrogen treatment employed in the processes disclosed in Documents (6) to (12) is such that the defects in glass caused by ultraviolet ray irradiation and the hydrogen molecules dispersed in the glass by the hydrogen treatment are bonded to each other so that increase in absorption of light is restrained. The restraining period, however, is limited to a period of time in which hydrogen molecules remain in the glass. Since the processes disclosed in the Documents (6) to (12) are mainly adapted to a bulk-form glass member, the volume of the glass member is sufficiently large with respect to the velocity at which hydrogen in the glass is dispersed. It is considered that hydrogen molecules remain in the member for a long time and thus ultraviolet ray resistance can be maintained.
If the techniques in the Documents (6) to (12) are adapted to an optical fiber, hydrogen is undesirably dispersed out the outside in a short time. Thus, there arises a problem in that the ultraviolet ray resistance cannot be maintained. That is, hydrogen molecules in an optical fiber (having an outer diameter of 125 mm) are generally gradually discharged to the outside of the optical fiber at a room temperature and the concentration is lowered to about 1/10000 in about two months as shown in FIG. 6. That is, the above-mentioned restraining effect is effective in only about two months after the hydrogen treatment has been performed. Therefore, increase in the absorption cannot be restrained for a long time with the conventional techniques.

Silica glass article and manufacturing process therefor