In a multistage process for producing a smooth polycrystalline silicon layer, in particular a layer with low arsenic doping, for very large scale integrated circuits, by thermal decomposition of gaseous compounds containing the elements, a doped layer and an undoped silicon layer above the doped layer are deposited directly one after the other in a two-stage process. Initially, a surface-covering arsenic layer being at most a few atoms thick, is deposited as a preliminary lining. Then an undoped amorphous silicon layer is deposited on the arsenic layer at a temperature of less than 580.degree. C. Subsequently, the silicon layer is uniformly doped with the arsenic layer serving as a diffusion source, by temperature treatment. Simultaneously, the amorphous silicon is made into a polycrystalline silicon layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a multistage process for producing a smooth polycrystalline silicon layer, in particular one with low arsenic doping, for very large scale integrated circuits, by the thermal decomposition of gaseous compounds containing the elements, in which a doped layer and an undoped silicon layer above the doped layer are deposited directly one after the other in a two-stage process.
The production and use of polysilicon layers in the production of VLSI semiconductor circuits is known, for example, from a book entitled "Technologie hochintegrierter Schaltungen" [Technology of Large Scale Integrated Circuits], 1988, by D. Widmann, H. Mader and H. Friedrich (see particularly section 3.8 and FIG. 5.3.2.). In that book, the use of a (doped) polysilicon layer as a second, upper capacitor electrode in the production of a trench memory cell is also described.
In the development of the very large scale integrated components, such as the 4-megabit DRAM (referred to as "4M"), since the planar cells of the capacitor memory cells require so much space, they are increasingly being replaced with trench cells having a high aspect ratio a (wherein a=the ratio between the cell depth and the cell diameter). For the 4M, the trenches are selected with an aspect ratio of greater than or equal to three. Above all, the use of such trench cells leads to a gain in surface area and thus to a larger scale of integration, if the cells are to be disposed as close as possible to one another. In order to ensure that the electrical properties are not impaired by dense packing of the trench cells, it is necessary for the 4M that the n.sup.+ doping (arsenic) of the first, lower capacitor electrode surround the trench with a high surface concentration but low penetration depth. Such a steep doping profile is necessary in order to avoid an electrical punch-through during operation in the later trench cell.
In the 4M, in order to produce a capacitor memory cell after etching of the trench, it was previously conventional (see FIG. 5.3.2. of the aforementioned book) to use the doped monocrystalline silicon substrate directly as the first, lower capacitor electrode. The doping can, for instance, be performed by a process known from Published European Application No. 0 271 072, in which an auxiliary layer of arsenosilicate glass is first deposited, then the arsenic dopant is diffused into the silicon substrate by tempering and the auxiliary layer is finally removed again. A thin SiO.sub.2 layer is typically then applied on the highly n.sup.+ doped monocrystalline silicon electrode. The second, upper capacitor electrode is finally formed by a polysilicon electrode that simultaneously serves to fill up the trench. Since undoped polysilicon layers have very high impedance, doping is necessary. In principle, either in-situ doping during the polysilicon deposition, for example by the admixture of arsine (AsH.sub.3) with the silane (SiH.sub.4) typically used for the deposition, or the application of an additional auxiliary layer and ensuing driving-in of the dopant are necessary and possible. However, with a view toward providing an even higher scale of integration than that for the 4M, in the further course of the process the trench is already partially filled enough to result in an increase of the scale being no longer possible.
In order to make the 16-megabit DRAM, a trench-to-trench spacing of approximately 0.8 .mu.m was specified. In order for there to be no overlapping of the space charge zones at that very close spacing, the diffusion regions of the trench had to either be separated from one another by an insulating layer, or the diffusion regions had to be kept quite flat. In both cases, the monocrystalline silicon substrate can no longer directly serve to form the lower capacitor electrode. A separate electrically conductive layer must instead be deposited for that purpose. It is only then that the ONO dielectric (triple layer of silicon oxide [O] and silicon nitride [N]) and the upper polysilicon electrode can be produced as in the 4M. On one hand, the new lower electrode must have the smoothest possible surface, so that the vulnerable dielectric will undergo no loss in quality, and on the other hand the entire doping must not be above 10.sup.20 atoms per cm.sup.3, so that the ensuing process steps are not impaired, for instance by overly high growth rates of the ONO bottom oxide.
The last-mentioned requirement could be met by doping by diffusion from an arsenic glass layer, but that would necessitate several additional process steps, or in other words it would lengthen the process time. Only arsenic is possible as a doping element, because phosphorus has a relatively high diffusion coefficient and would generate overly extended diffusion regions in the trench side walls. Regarding the necessary surface quality of the new capacitor electrode, because of its particular structure, polycrystalline silicon is known to have a rough surface, while amorphous silicon, which can be deposited at a temperature below 590.degree. C., has a completely smooth surface. It is also known that at temperatures above 1000.degree. C., silicon layers deposited onto silicon wafers assume the crystal orientation of the monocrystalline silicon substrate (epitaxia).
As already mentioned, in order to avoid additional process steps, it is recommended to use in-situ doping of silicon layers, in which the quantity of silane necessary for depositing the layer is introduced into the reactor simultaneously with the dopant gas. However, undesirable interactions arise in that case, which lead to a change in the deposition rates and a non-uniform incorporation of the dopant over the length of the reactor. An article by F. C. Eversteyn et al, in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Vol. 120, No. 1, 1973, also teaches that particularly when arsine is used as the dopant gas, a preferential adsorption of the arsine over silane occurs at the hot wafer surface. In that kind of process, the deposition rate also decreases sharply, but a relatively high quantity of arsenic (>>10.sup.20 atoms per cm.sup.3) is simultaneously incorporated. That process is therefore unsuitable for producing the novel capacitor electrodes, the demand for which is discussed above.
An article by K. Sawada, in the Symposium on VLSI Technology Digest of Technical papers, Kyoto 1989, pp. 41-42, introduced a dual-stage process, in which a phosphorus-doped polysilicon layer was combined with an undoped polysilicon layer deposited immediately after it, so that the decreased deposition rate has less bearing on the results. Tempering produces a virtually homogeneously doped total layer. However, in that process as well, when arsine is used, overly highly doped silicon layers are produced, as corresponding tests have shown. Other tests showed that even if a doped amorphous silicon layer is combined with an undoped amorphous silicon layer deposited immediately thereafter, the mean total concentration of the arsenic remains above 10.sup.20 atoms per cm.sup.3, or in other words it is too high for the intended application. Although in principle it is possible to reduce the arsenic concentration by increasing the thickness of the undoped silicon layer, that would not lead to industrially desirable layer thicknesses of approximately 100 nm and below. Moreover, after the tempering, the layer surface produced by the method of K. Sawada is markedly rougher than what is typical for normal amorphous silicon deposition.

Process for producing an arsenic-doped smooth polycrystalline silicon layer for very large scale integrated circuits


An electronic ballast for driving a gas discharge lamp having first and second electrodes comprises an inverter circuit and a symmetric resonant tank circuit for minimizing the RFI noise produced at the electrodes of the lamp. The inverter circuit receives a substantially DC bus voltage generates a high-frequency AC voltage. The symmetric resonant tank circuit comprises a split resonant inductor having first and second windings magnetically coupled together. The first and second windings electrically coupled between the respective electrodes of the lamp and the inverter circuit. The symmetric resonant tank further comprises first and second capacitors coupled in series electrical connection between the electrodes of the lamp with the junction of the first and second capacitors coupled to the DC bus voltage at the input of the inverter circuit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic ballasts for gas discharge lamps, such as fluorescent lamps. More specifically, the present invention relates to a two-wire electronic dimming ballast for powering and controlling the intensity of a fluorescent lamp in response to a phase-controlled voltage.
2. Description of the Related Art
The use of gas discharge lamps, such as fluorescent lamps, as replacements for conventional incandescent lamps, has increased greatly over the last several years. Fluorescent lamps typically are more efficient and provide a longer operational life when compared to incandescent lamps. In certain areas, such as California, for example, state law requires certain areas of new construction to be outfitted for the use of fluorescent lamps exclusively.
A gas discharge lamp must be driven by a ballast in order to illuminate properly. The ballast receives an alternating-current (AC) voltage from an AC power source and generates an appropriate high-frequency current for driving the fluorescent lamp. Dimming ballasts, which can control the intensity of a connected fluorescent lamp, typically have at least three connections: to a switched-hot voltage from the AC power source, to a neutral side of the AC power source, and to a desired-intensity control signal, such as a phase-controlled voltage from a standard three-wire dimming circuit. Some electronic dimming ballasts, such as a fluorescent Tu-Wire® dimmer circuit manufactured by Lutron Electronics Co., Inc., only require two connections, e.g., to the phase-controlled voltage from the dimmer circuit and to the neutral side of the AC power source.
Most prior art ballast circuits have typically been designed and intended for use in commercial applications. This has caused most prior art ballasts to be rather expensive and fairly difficult to install and service, and thus not suitable for residential installations. Thus, there is a need for a small, low-cost two-wire electronic dimming ballast, which can be used by the energy-conscious consumer in combination with a fluorescent lamp as a replacement for an incandescent lamp.

Electronic ballast having a symmetric topology


The present invention relates to a bio-catalytic oxidation reactor for remediation of organic wastes and more particularly to a bio-reactor for optimizing the process of oxidation reduction, or composting, of organic wastes or by-products. The reactor includes an elongated cylindrical vessel supported for rotation and includes loading and discharge chutes mounted on the ends of the vessel which include feed assemblies mounted to the vessel end plates such that the feed assemblies rotate when the vessel rotates.

The decomposition or decay of organic matter is a natural process which is accomplished by bacteria and fungi. The decay or oxidation-reduction process requires a food supply in the form of carbon, nitrogen and vitamins, plus an adequate supply of oxygen. An oxidation bioreactor must, therefore, breathe, i.e., oxygen must enter and carbon dioxide must be exhausted from the bio-reactor. If there is insufficient oxygen to sustain the aerobic bacteria they will be replaced by anaerobic, non-oxygen consuming bacteria, and the decomposition process will slow and become incomplete, i.e., a residue of sludge will be left which must be further processed.
In the aerobic decay process the bacterial decomposition of organic matter is carried out by successive strains of bacteria which are activated at different temperatures. In a batch operation the decay process is initiated by cool-temperature bacteria known as psychrophiles which function best at about 45-55.degree. F. They attack the organic matter and burn off or oxidize the carbon compounds, thus producing heat as a by-product. A rise in temperature, either from bacterial activity or higher atmospheric temperature, will activate strains of warm-temperature bacteria called mesophiles which are most active at 70-90.degree. F. The mesophiles feed with such intensity that they raise the ambient temperature to a point where the environment within the reactor is no longer compatible to them. This occurs at about 104.degree. F., where high-temperature bacteria called thermophiles are activated. The thermophiles then raise the ambient temperature until it stabilizes at approximately 158.degree. F. where they complete their work. The decaying material will then return to near normal atmospheric temperature and the mesophiles become active again until bacterial decomposition is nearly complete. While the bacterial decomposition is taking place, a wide variety of other micro-organisms are at work in the decaying material. For instance, psychrophilic, mesophilic and thermophilic fungi help break down cellulose and lignin during all of the temperature phases of the process. Actinomycetes, which are part bacteria and part fungi, clean up after the bacteria by consuming the tough cellulose, starches, proteins and lignin. In addition, enzymes, which are produced by bacteria, remain active in reducing the toughest constituents of the compost long after the parent bacteria have died.
In a typical garden composting effort, vegetation and food scraps are deposited in a pile which is aerated periodically by manually turning the material with a garden fork. This process is laborious, slow and annoying since it takes upward of six months to complete and the decaying material produces odors and attracts flies and other pests. Commercial batch composters have been proposed to contain or enclose the composting process within a cylindrical tank which has been mounted on rollers for rotation. The tank is typically loaded with organic material to approximately one-half of its volume. In such a composter the decaying material, and the associated odors, are confined within the tank where the material is protected from pests and then aerated or tumbled by periodic turning of the tank itself. Such devices are an improvement over the well known compost piles, since they limit the physical labor required while removing the annoyance of odors and pests and they reduce the time required to compost a batch of material to between two and four weeks.


A connector assembly includes a shielding cage, a center plate and an electromagnetic seal element. The shielding cage includes side walls with ports disposed between the side walls. The ports receive mating connectors through a mating interface of the shielding cage. The center plate includes transverse walls disposed between and coupling the side walls of the shielding cage to one another. The center plate separating the ports and defines a chamber between the transverse walls and the side walls of the shielding cage. The electromagnetic seal element is disposed in the chamber of the center plate and engages the transverse walls of the center plate to prevent electromagnetic interference within the center plate from radiating through the mating interface.

The subject matter herein generally relates to electrical connector assemblies and, more particularly, to electromagnetic seals for connector assemblies.
Some known connector assemblies are shaped to receive one or more mating connectors. These connector assemblies include ports through which the mating connectors are loaded. For example, some known connector assemblies include shielding connector cages that include several ports. The connector cages include side walls that define the ports. The side walls are electrically grounded to shield other components near the connector cage from electromagnetic interference. The connector cages have a mating interface through which the mating connectors are loaded into the ports. The ports are separated from one another by a center plate. The mating connectors are loaded into the ports to mate with electrical connectors located in the connector assemblies.
Some of the known center plates have an interior chamber that may contain electromagnetic interference in the center plate. Gaps in the center plates may permit the electromagnetic interference to radiate from the connector cage. For example, some known center plates are fabricated from multiple components and include gaps between the components. The electromagnetic interference within the interior chambers of the center plates may radiate out of the gaps in the center plates and interfere with the mating connectors and other electronic components located near the connector assembly.
Some known center plates include latches that engage and secure mating connectors when the connectors are loaded into the connector cage. The latches are depressed or biased toward the center plates when the mating connectors engage the latches. The center plates may include openings through which the latches are biased when the latches are depressed by the mating connector. These openings may permit electromagnetic interference to radiate from the center plate and the connector assembly.
Thus, a need exists to reduce the amount of electromagnetic interference that radiates from connector cages.

Connector assembly having an electromagnetic seal element


A semiconductor wafer chamfer polishing method for polishing chamfers formed on the edges of semiconductor wafers includes rotating a semiconductor wafer; pressing a polishing cloth against a chamfer of the semiconductor wafer with sufficient pressure to elastically deform the polishing cloth, while supplying polishing fluid to the chamfer; sliding the polishing cloth along an incline of the chamfer from an outer edge toward a center of the semiconductor wafer so as to form a bulge portion of the polishing cloth which contacts an outer surface of the semiconductor wafer, thereby polishing the outer surface along with the chamfer of the semiconductor wafer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for polishing chamfers of semiconductor wafers, for polishing chamfers formed on the edges of semiconductor wafers.
2. Background Art
As techniques for etching chamfers formed on the edges of semiconductor wafers such as silicon wafers, CCR (Chemical Corner Rounding) processes are known, but CCR leaves projections at the boundaries between the chamfers and the semiconductor wafer surface. Although these projections are tiny, when the semiconductor wafers are stored in resin cassettes, they can scratch the cassettes and leave small shavings. These shavings can result in degradation of the semiconductor performance.
Aside from CCR, a process of CMP (Chemical Mechanical Polishing) of the chamfers of semiconductor wafers is known. CMP is a technique of polishing using a polishing cloth while supplying polishing fluid to the chamfers of semiconductor wafers. In a conventional apparatus for performing CMP, a polishing drum wound with a polishing cloth is rotatably supported such that the axis thereof is inclined with respect to the rotational axis of the semiconductor wafer, and polishing is performed by pressing this polishing drum against the chamfers of semiconductor wafers while under rotation.
However, even if the above-mentioned CMP apparatus is used, as long as the polishing drum is rotated about an axis which is inclined with respect to the rotational axis of the semiconductor wafer, there is a possibility of ridges being formed on the chamfers of the semiconductor wafers due to polishing in the circumferential direction, thus forming chamfers which are not smooth.

Method and apparatus for polishing chamfers of semiconductor wafers

Mitsubishi Materials Silicon Corporation


Systems and methods implement a high speed wireless network. The systems and methods include using multiple channels of a wireless network interface to send and receive data simultaneously. Aspects of the system and methods include load balancing, error correction, and link aggregation over the multiple wireless channels.

The computing landscape has also been changed by the increasing deployment of distributed computing and storage in scientific computing and enterprise information networks. Today's high performance scientific, load balancing and high availability clusters typically are comprised of heterogeneous collections of PCs and servers sharing hierarchical storage with caches, local and remote main memory, secondary and tertiary (for backups) storage configured as a storage area network (SAN). This distributed hardware configuration offers many benefits such as higher performance, scalability and resilience. While such configurations are cheaper to deploy than previously available supercomputing or RAID-based storage solutions, the cost of the Fiber Channel switches in the network fabric that ties the processors and storage puts them out of reach for many small enterprises and scientific research groups. Furthermore, larger clusters with several switches can be difficult to deploy, maintain and reconfigure.
The static nature of Fiber Channel topologies may also have a detrimental effect on system performance. Specifically, the mismatch between access times of secondary storage and processor speeds, coupled with widely different application I/O access patterns, adversely affect the performance of these systems. Researchers and designers have addressed these problems in the past by improving parallel I/O and storage and optimizing I/O requests. I/O optimization often produces dynamic connectivity requirements that depend on the tasks at hand. Static network topologies offer sub-optimal emulations of these changing connectivity patterns.
As a result, recent years have witnessed the emergence of wireless local area networks (WLANs). WLANs are convenient: they allow flexibility and roaming and support dynamic environments. Furthermore, they are easy to install. In some cases, e.g., older buildings, they may be cheaper to deploy: an entire network can be put together in a matter of hours rather than days with no need for wiring or rewiring. Several studies have shown that in many scenarios, WLAN have a lower cost of ownership than their wired counterparts despite the potentially cheaper cost of wired LAN cards.
However, current wireless interfaces do not typically provide the same bandwidth as that available in their wired counterparts. In addition, studies have shown that TCP performance is severely degraded when the wireless link experiences high bit error rates, e.g., when the receiver and transmitter are distant. This degradation is mainly due to the fact that TCP assumes that congestion, rather than unreliable communication at the physical layer, causes packet losses and delays. The mechanisms used by TCP to handle congestion (e.g. reducing the TCP window size) result in a reduction of end-to-end throughput in wireless networks that can dramatically impact the utilization of the precious bandwidth available.
As a result, there is a need in the art for the present invention.

High speed wireless sensor, server and storage networks


A granulator for separating the constituent parts of electrical cable containing relatively light-weight plastic covering relatively heavy electrically-conductive material. The granulator includes a first cutter for cutting the cable into short pieces and a second cutter for cutting the short pieces of cable into a still shorter length sufficient to detach the plastic from the electrically-conductive material to form a mixture of small pieces of plastic and electrically-conductive material. A vibratory sorter separates the mixture of plastic and electrically-conductive material, and includes an elongate, circular and spirally-extending track having a material inlet adjacent a bottom end thereof for receiving the mixture of plastic and electrically-conductive material for separation and a electrically-conductive material discharge slot adjacent a top end thereof for discharging electrically-conductive material. A vibrator impart vibratory motion to the mixture of plastic and electrically-conductive material sufficient to cause the mixture to move upwardly along the track and to vertically separate into a relatively heavy bottom layer of electrically conductive material and a top layer of relatively light-weight plastic pieces riding on top of the layer of electrically-conductive material. A plurality of vertically spaced-apart air jets apply respective radially-extending air blasts to the top layer of plastic pieces as the plastic pieces vibrate progressively up the track on top of the electrically-conductive material. The air blasts have sufficient energy to blow the plastic pieces off of the track but insufficient energy to blow the electrically-conductive material off of the track.

This invention relates to a cable granulator for the separating the constituent parts of many types of electrical cable into very small, compact, comminuted and separated material suitable for recycling. An enormous amount of electrical cable is disposed of as scrap each year. This amount of cable contains vast quantities of valuable copper wire, which is nevertheless often thrown away because of the cost of separating the copper from plastic sheathing within which it is encased, and from armoring and insulating materials formed around the copper wire and plastic sheathing.
Armored cable is particularly difficult to recycle, since by definition the armoring makes it much more difficult to get to the copper wire. Armored cable is generally formed of a bundle of plastic-sheathed copper wires wrapped by side-by-side spiral wrappings of heavy steel wire, which are then covered with a thick rubber or plastic dielectric outer coating.
Separation of the materials is not the only problem encountered in recycling this type of material. The materials must also be in very small pieces so that little air space is left in the mass of separated material. This permits a large amount of copper to be contained in a relatively small volume container, in order to be able to ship the material economically. Thus the term "granulator" has been selected as describing the function of the apparatus in reducing the pieces of material to very small size on the order of 3 mm. Uniformity of size is enhanced by requiring the cut pieces of cable to pass through a grill having 3 mm openings.
The granulator is compact, robust, simple to operate and easily adaptable to varying types of cable.

Caverswall Common, Stoke-on-Trent ST11 9EX


A method of manufacturing an electrical connecting member having a holding member formed of an electrically insulative material, and a plurality of electrically conductive members provided in a mutually insulated state in the holding member, one end of each of the electrically conductive members being exposed on one surface of the holding member and the other end of each of the electrically conductive members being exposed on the other surface of the holding member, includes the steps of providing photosensitive resin which provides the holding member on a base body, applying light to the photosensitive resin through a photomask forming a predetermined pattern to thereby expose the photosensitive resin to the light, developing the photosensitive resin to form a plurality of apertures in the photosensitive resin, thereby exposing the base body, leaving the photosensitive resin through which the base body has been exposed in a heated atmosphere and/or a negative pressure atmosphere for a predetermined time, etching the exposed portions of the base body to thereby form recesses communicating with the apertures, filling the apertures and the recesses with an electrically conductive material which provides the electrically conductive members, and removing the remaining portions of the base body.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electrical connecting member for use when electric circuit parts are to be electrically connected together and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Related Background Art
As methods of electrically connecting electric circuit parts together, there are known the wire bonding method and the TAB (tape automated bonding) method. However, these methods have suffered from the difficulties that they cannot cope with an increase in the number of connection points between electric circuit parts and that they are costly. In order to overcome such difficulties, it is known to electrically connect electric circuit parts together by the use of an electrical connecting member of a construction having a plurality of electrically conductive members provided in a mutually insulated state in an insulative holding member (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 63-222437, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 63-224235, etc.).
FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings is a schematic view showing the electrical connection of electric circuit parts using such an electrical connecting member. In FIG. 1, the reference numeral 31 designates an electrical connecting member, and the reference numerals 32 and 33 denote electric circuit parts to be connected together. The electrical connecting member 31 comprises a plurality of electrically conductive members 34 formed of a metal or an alloy, electrically insulated from one another and provided in a holding member 35 formed of an electrically insulative material, and one end 38 of each electrically conductive member 34 is exposed on the side of one electric circuit part 32 and the other end 39 of each electrically conductive member 34 is exposed on the side of the other electric circuit part 33 (FIG. 1(a)). The connecting portion 36 of said one electric circuit part 32 and one end 38 of each electrically conductive member 34 exposed on the side of the electric circuit part 32 are made into an alloy to thereby join the two together, and the connecting portion 37 of said other electric circuit part 33 and the other end 39 of each electrically conductive member 34 exposed on the side of the electric circuit part 33 are made into an alloy to thereby join the two together and thus, the electric circuit parts 32 and 33 are electrically connected together (FIG. 1B).
Such an electrical connecting member has the following advantages:
(1) By making the size of the electrically conductive members minute, the connecting portions of electric circuit parts can be made small and therefore, the number of connection points can be increased and consequently, denser connection of the electric circuit parts is possible. PA1 (2) Even in the case of electric circuit parts differing in thickness from each other, it becomes possible to make the height of the electric circuit parts always constant by changing the thickness of the electrical connecting member and thus, multilayer connection can be easily accomplished and denser mounting is possible. PA1 (3) By making the height of protrusion of . electrically conductive members connected to the connecting portions of electric circuit parts great, it becomes possible to accomplish stable connection even if the connecting portions of the electric circuit parts are depressed from the surface thereof, and it is possible to easily connect even electric circuit parts of complicated shape together.
A method of manufacturing the above-described electrical connecting member for effecting the electric multipoint connection of electric circuit parts is proposed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2-49385. This method will hereinafter be briefly described with reference to FIG. 2 of the accompanying drawings which schematically shows the steps thereof.
A base body 51 comprising a metal sheet such a copper plate is first prepared, and negative-type photosensitive resin 52 is applied onto this base body 51 by a spin coater, and pre-baking is effected at a temperature of about 100.degree. C. (FIG. 2A). Light is applied to the photosensitive resin 52 through a photomask (not shown) forming a predetermined pattern, whereafter developing liquid is injected to the photosensitive resin or the photosensitive resin is immersed in developing liquid to thereby effect development. The photosensitive resin 52 remains on the portions exposed to light and the photosensitive resin 52 is removed from the portions not exposed to light by the developing process, whereby a plurality of apertures 53 are formed (FIG. 2B). Temperature is increased to 200.degree.-400.degree. C. to cure the photosensitive resin 52, whereafter etching is effected with the base body 51 immersed in etching liquid, whereby recesses 54 communicating with the apertures 53 are formed in the base body 51 (FIG. 2C). Gold plating is then applied with the base body 51 as a common electrode to thereby fill the apertures 53 and recesses 54 with gold 55, and gold plating is continued until bumps are formed (FIG. 2D). Finally the base body 51 is removed by etching, whereby there is manufacture an electrical connecting member 31 (FIG. 2E).
FIG. 3 of the accompanying drawings is a schematic view showing the state of the electroplating step in such a process. In FIG. 3, the reference numeral 61 designates a plating vessel. A mesh-like anode 62 is disposed in the lower portion of the plating vessel 61, and a cathode 63 is disposed in the upper portion of the plating vessel in opposed relationship with the anode 62. An intermediate member 64 as shown in FIG. 2C is placed on the cathode 63, and plating liquid 65 low in gold concentration is caused to flow at a low speed from below toward above to thereby apply so-called strike plating and coat the surfaces of the recesses 54 with gold, whereafter so-called thickening plating is applied by the use of plating liquid high in gold concentration to thereby fill the recesses 54 and apertures 53 with gold, thus forming electrically conductive members 34.
In the electrical connecting member 31 manufactured in this manner, the gold 55 constitutes the electrically conductive members 34 and the photosensitive resin 52 constitutes the holding member 35. As regards the dimensions of respective portions of the electrical connecting member 31, the thickness of the photosensitive resin 52 (the holding member 35) is about 10 .mu.m, the diameter and pitch of the apertures 53 (the electrically conductive members 34) are about 20 .mu.m and about 40 .mu.m, respectively, and the amounts of protrusion of the electrically conductive members 34 on the obverse and reverse are of the order of several .mu.m.
The reliability of the above-described electrical connecting member is achieved by bumps of a uniform shape and uniform height of protrusion being provided.
However, the conventional developing step and the subsequent gold electroplating step have suffered from the following problems.
First, in the developing step, due to the developing liquid infiltrated in the photosensitive resin 52, the photosensitive resin 52 becomes liable to flow with the developing liquid or dissolve in the process of leaving the photosensitive resin 52 as it is after the developing step or in the process of curing the photosensitive resin 52 after the developing step. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 4 of the accompanying drawings which shows the state before the formation of the recesses 54 on an enlarged scale, the formed apertures 53 are tapered at 53a or the pattern thereof gets out of shape, and the shape of the apertures 53 becomes irregular. This leads to the problem that in the manufactured electrical connecting member 31, the shape of the electrically conductive members is not stable.
There is further a problem of resin-like residue. As shown in FIG. 2B, the photosensitive resin 52 is exposed to light and developed to thereby form at the bottom the apertures 53 through which the surface of the metal sheet 51 is exposed, but as shown in FIG. 5 of the accompanying drawings, undeveloped portions 56 may remain at the bottom of the apertures 53 in the photosensitive resin 52 and resin-like residue may remain in some cases. The presence of the undeveloped portions 56 is considered to be attributable to a case where the stagnancy of the developing liquid occurs and the development at the bottom becomes insufficient, or a case where the force of intimate contact between the photosensitive resin 52 and the metal sheet 51 is great and therefore it is difficult for development to take place, or a case where these two cases are compounded.
On the other hand, the occurrence of the resin-like residue becomes remarkable when the aspect ratio (film thickness/diameter of opening) of the apertures 53 is great, or when the exposure and developing conditions are inappropriate, or when diffracted light and/or reflected light irradiates the portions of the photosensitive resin which should not be exposed to the light. The presence of such resin-like residue has led to the problem that it hampers the exposure of the surface of the metal sheet 51 at the bottom of the apertures 53 and as shown in FIG. 5B, the shape of the recesses 54 is made irregular in the process of etching the surface of the metal sheet 51 and as shown in FIG. 5C, the shape of bumps is not constant and the electrical characteristic is not stable.
Also, in the gold plating step, there is the problem that the shape (e.g. diameter and amount of protrusion) of the gold bumps becomes non-uniform depending on the gold electroplating conditions, for example, the Reynolds number of liquid flow imparted to the plating liquid, the current density, the amount of a plating liquid additive etc.
Taking the current density distribution as an example, the amount of plating deposition is greater in the central portion than in the marginal portion under the influence of the current density distribution and therefore, in an electrical connecting member, the amount of protrusion of electrically conductive members present in the central portion becomes greater than the amount of protrusion of electrically conductive members present in the marginal portion and thus, it is not easy to make the diameter of protrusion and the height of protrusion of the electrically conductive members uniform. FIG. 6 of the accompanying drawings is a plan view of an electrical connecting member having four electrically conductive members 34, and FIG. 7 of the accompanying drawings is a plan view of an electrical connecting member having seven electrically conductive members 34. In the example shown in FIG. 6 wherein four electrically conductive members 34 are located at the verteces of a lozenge, the amount of protrusion of the two electrically conductive members 34 at the vertices the diagonal of which is shorter is greater than that of the other two electrically conductive members 34. Also, in the example shown in FIG. 7 wherein six electrically conductive members 34 are disposed so as to surround an electrically conductive member 34, the central one is greater in the amount of protrusion than the other six ones. Further, FIG. 8 of the accompanying drawings is a fragmentary plan view of an electrical connecting member 31 forming a pattern in which a number of rows of seven electrically conductive members 34 each are disposed. In each row, the amount of protrusion is smaller in the marginal portion than in the central portion. This is considered to be because the combined effect of the density of electric current is higher in the central portion than in the marginal portion. This leads to the problem that the bump deformation during the pressure joining of the electrical connecting member becomes great in a case where the amount of protrusion is great and this causes short-circuiting.
Also, it is necessary to make the shape of the formed gold protrusions constant so that bad connection may not occur in the above-described TAB, and various methods of forming gold protrusions of stable shape by gold plating have heretofore been proposed. These methods include, for example, a method of removing the ground metal layer just beneath the gold protrusions (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 61-141157), a method of leaving resist at the center of the opening portion (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 62-252951), a method of repeating the photolithography step and the gold plating step (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 63-175446), etc.
However, the forming methods as described above suffer from such problems as will be described below. In the method of removing the ground metal layer just beneath the gold protrusions, the removing step is cumbersome, and when the ground metal layer is removed in its liquid phase, etching liquid remains and this remaining liquid is liable to be mixed with the gold plating liquid to cause a bad shape. Also, in the method of leaving resist at the center of the opening portion, the area of contact with the ground metal layer is small and therefore the intimate contact property is deficient and thus, this method is liable to cause a reduction in the strength of the protrusions during boding. Further, the method of repeating the photolithography step and the gold plating method generally requires a long time as the steps, and the alignment in the photolithography step is difficult, and this leads to the problem that the control of the height of the gold plating in each step is difficult.

Electrical connecting member and method of manufacturing the same


A connector in which a housing and a retainer are coupled with sufficient strength when the connector is reduced in scale. In this connector, provisional anchoring pieces and main anchoring pieces are provided at two end portions of an inner peripheral wall of an insertion hole formed in the housing, with lengths along a direction that intersects a direction of insertion of the retainer into the insertion hole. At outer sides of two end portions of the retainer, anchorage pawls, which are formed to be engageable with the main anchoring pieces and the provisional anchoring pieces, are provided with lengths along the intersecting direction. With this structure, when the retainer is inserted into the insertion hole of the housing, the anchorage pawls engage, at two end portions of the connector, with the provisional anchoring pieces and with the main anchoring pieces.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector suitable for, for example, connections of wire harnesses used in vehicles and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Connectors are employed for connections of, for example, wire harnesses used in vehicles and suchlike. More specifically, among such connectors, there are connectors which are provided with housings and retainers, one example of which has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 9-17484.
In this type of connector, a housing is formed in, for example, a substantially rectangular box shape, at one face of which (for example, a rear face) terminal insertion holes are plurally formed in an array, for insertion of terminals into that face.
An insertion hole is also formed in the housing, for insertion and fitting of a retainer thereinto. The insertion hole is formed to open at, for example, any face apart from the aforementioned one face and an opposing face which is opposite from the one face (for example, at a bottom face). Provisional anchoring pieces and main anchoring pieces, for engaging with the retainer, are respectively provided protruding from an inner peripheral wall of the insertion hole. Of the inner peripheral wall of the insertion hole, the peripheral anchoring pieces and the main anchoring pieces are provided at, for example, two end portions in a terminal arrangement direction, at inner peripheral walls of each of two end portions in a terminal insertion direction.
The retainer is formed to correspond with the insertion hole of the housing. The retainer is provided with provisional anchorage pawls, which correspond with the provisional anchoring pieces formed at the inner peripheral wall of the insertion hole of the housing. The retainer is also provided with main anchorage pawls, which correspond with the main anchoring pieces formed at the inner peripheral wall of the insertion hole of the housing. The provisional anchorage pawls and the main anchorage pawls are respectively protrudingly provided at two end portions of the retainer.
With a connector as described above, when the housing and the retainer are to be fitted together to be joined with one another, first, the retainer is inserted into the insertion hole of the housing and the provisional anchoring pieces of the housing are engaged with the provisional anchorage pawls of the retainer, putting the housing and the retainer into a provisional coupled state (a temporary joined state). Next, terminals are inserted into the terminal insertion holes of the housing, putting the terminals into a state of passing through the housing. Thereafter, the retainer is inserted further into the insertion hole of the housing, and the main anchoring pieces of the housing are engaged with the main anchorage pawls of the retainer. Hence, the terminals are held in place by the retainer, and are in a locked state. Moreover, the housing and the retainer are coupled with a precise positional relationship (a joined state).
However, in such a connector, the main anchoring pieces of the housing and the main anchorage pawls of the retainer, due to shapes thereof, are engaged with extremely small contact areas, similar to point contact. Consequently, when a reduction in size of the connector has been tried, these contact areas become even smaller and an engagement force between the housing and the retainer is reduced. Accordingly, there has been a disadvantage in that the housing and the retainer could not be joined with sufficient strength.
Furthermore, this problem has similarly arisen with the provisional anchoring pieces of the housing and the provisional anchorage pawls of the retainer.


An economical convenient coupling and process are provided to more safely secure screw conveyor sections together to enhance the longevity and wear of the screw conveyor, prevent accidents, and minimize downtime and repair. In the user-friendly coupling and process, internally threaded bushings are plug welded to the hollow core of the shafts and a double ended thread stud are screwed into the bushings along the axis of the shafts. The studs and bushings are hidden from view in the interior of the shafts and securely lock the screw conveyor sections together without the use of exterior, transverse or vertical bolts, nuts and locking pins, which can shear and damage downstream processing equipment and injure consumers and operating personnel.

This invention relates to screw conveyors, and more particularly, to couplings which connect screw conveyor sections.
Screw conveyors or auger conveyors are used to convey rice, grain and other raw food products and bulk material. Auger conveyors are used extensively to move grain horizontally. In a milling facility, auger conveyors can be used to unload raw product from incoming trucks and railcars, to unload and load storage silos, to feed milling and separation equipment, and to load processed and finished product.
Screw conveyors typically include a helical screw within a housing or trough. In operation, screw conveyors rotate about their longitudinal axis to convey material along the length of the helical screw. Screw conveyors are usually fabricated of metal and can be of fixed length and size. Screw conveyors have also been constructed of modular or segmented sections which can be assembled into a complete conveyor of a preferred length. Modular sections are useful to lengthen or shorten a conveyor so as to better fit the distance between pickup and delivery of the material being conveyed.
In the past, couplings for connecting together sections of a screw conveyor included a single, solid cylindrical shaft. The ends of the couplings were secured at each end by bolts that extend through the shafts and the couplings. In order to replace a worn coupling, the sections extending from that coupling to one of the ends of the conveyor had to be loosened and moved axially. This is very awkward and cumbersome. In a further effort to solve the problems, shafts and the couplings have both been modified in various ways to permit removal of the couplings without moving the shafts of the conveyor sections. This technique is very expensive.
The present widely used method of coupling and assembling sections of auger conveyors utilizes bolts and nuts. This causes many problems. The coupling bolts are constantly in shear and often split, chip, shear, wear through or otherwise fail from torsion, torque, tension, compression, shear or other dynamic forces causing pieces of the bolts or nuts to be conveyed and carried forward with grain or other conveyed food products. Metal chips, slivers and pieces of bolts and nuts contaminate food products making it unsafe for human consumption. Furthermore, pieces of coupling bolts and nuts which are conveyed into processing equipment can cause costly damage and extensive repair. In the event, all the bolts in a coupling fail, the coupling will open, the conveyor sections will separate, and production will cease as product can no longer be conveyed by a separated conveyor.
Even if coupling bolts are consistently maintained, i.e., changed prior to failure, wear becomes a factor of failure in the coupling shaft and/or the hollow pipe shaft of the auger itself. Constant torquing of the coupling bolt against the coupling bolt hole can cause the bolt hole to become increasingly enlarged and weaken the coupling shaft to cause absolute failure, i.e., shearing off of the bolted pieces. The auger conveyor then fails to transport product, causing immediate product backup upstream. If the coupling hole wear is seen at the hollow auger shaft, the section of auger in question should be replaced.
Besides bolts, other techniques and fastener arrangements have been suggested to connect screw conveyor sections, such as locking pins and tension springs, but they have not been generally successful.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide an improved coupling and process to connect screw conveyor sections, which overcome most, if not all of the preceding problems.

Coupling and process for screw conveyors


A system-on-a-chip (SoC) comprises a power supply circuit coupled to an energy harvesting transducer and configured to operate using energy from the energy harvesting transducer; a microcontroller coupled to a system bus of the SoC; an interface configured to communicate with the microcontroller via the system bus of the SoC, the interface configured to generate data upon occurrence of an event; and a computation accelerator configured to establish, based on an energy consumption level of the SoC, a data path between the interface and the computation accelerator that at least partially bypasses the system bus such that the data is transmitted to the computation accelerator via the data path.

For internet-of-things (IoT) applications, there is a need for ultra low power (ULP) devices that are capable of providing monitoring, sensing, control, and/or security functions. The use of battery-powered systems, however, can be a challenge in IoT applications due to the limited number of battery recharge cycles and the huge scale and cost of battery replacement. Further, there may be severe constraints on size, power consumption, or environmental survivability of devices being used in such applications. As such, battery-less self-powered integrated ULP systems and devices are expected to play larger roles in IoT applications.

System on a chip with customized data flow architecture

University of Virginia Patent Foundation


An apparatus for filtering and/or purifying water preferably comprises a canister having filtration chamber formed therein and a matrix mounted in the filtration chamber for filtering and/or purifying water that passes through it. Shock absorbers preferably are provided for guarding against damage to the matrix if the apparatus is dropped. Preferably, the apparatus is provided with an inlet port to the filtration chamber, a first outlet port from the filtration chamber, and a second outlet port from the filtration chamber. Water may be pumped into the filtration chamber from the inlet port to wash away dirt and debris that may build up in the filtration chamber and then exit the filtration chamber with the dirt and debris via the second outlet port when open, thereby accomplishing removal of dirt and debris from the filtration chamber without having to backwash the apparatus for filtering and/or purifying water.

Apparatuses for filtering and/or purifying water, which have a housing or canister having a filtration chamber formed therein and a filtration device, such as a filtration matrix or a microfiltration matrix, mounted in the filtration chamber for filtering and/or purifying the water passing through it, are known. Water to be filtered and/or purified may be pumped into the filtration chamber of such apparatuses where the water may pass through the filtration device mounted in the filtration chamber to filter and/or purify the water. After passing through the filtration device, which results in filtering and/or purifying the water, the water which has been filtered and/or purified may exit the apparatus through an outlet port. Typically, in such apparatuses, the filtration device divides the filtration chamber into two zones, a first zone for receiving water to be filtered and/or purified and a second zone for receiving water that has been filtered and/or purified by moving from the first zone into the second zone by passing through the filtration device. The second zone is in fluid communication with the outlet port from the housing or canister from which the water that has been filtered and/or purified exits the apparatus for filtering and/or purifying water. An example of one such apparatus is manufactured and sold by General Ecology, Inc., of Exton, Pa., under the trademark FIRST NEED, which has been well received in the marketplace as being very effective in providing potable water.
Due to the nature of the filtration device in such apparatuses, appropriate care should be taken to avoid dropping such apparatuses. If such apparatuses are dropped from too high of a height onto a hard surface, the filtration device may be damaged, thereby creating a pathway through the filtration device for untreated water to pass without being filtered and/or purified.
During use of apparatuses like General Ecology's FIRST NEED apparatus for filtering and/or purifying water, dirt and debris contained in the water to be filtered and/or purified tends to build up in the first zone of the filtration chamber on the surface of the filtration device facing the first zone of the filtration chamber, as well as in the first zone of the filtration chamber between the wall of the filtration chamber in the first zone and the filtration device. Currently, to remove such dirt and debris that builds up on the filtration device in the first zone of the filtration chamber and that builds up in the first zone of the filtration chamber between the walls of the filtration chamber and the filtration device, such apparatuses are hackwashed. That is, purified water is pumped in a reversed direction through the apparatus for filtering and/or purifying water to remove dirt and debris built up on the surface of the filtration device in the first zone of the filtration chamber and built up in the first zone of the filtration chamber between the wall of the filtration chamber and the filtration device. Specifically, when backwashing, water is pumped into and through the outlet port into the second zone of the filtration chamber, then from the second zone of the filtration chamber through the filtration device into the first zone of the filtration chamber that receives the water to be filtered and/or purified when the apparatus is being used to filter and/or purify water, and then from the first zone of the filtration chamber through the inlet port of the apparatus to exit the apparatus taking with it the dirt and debris that had built up in the apparatus. A drawback with such backwashing is that it creates a risk of damaging the filtration device since pumping water too hard in a reverse direction of flow through the filtration device (e.g., through the filtration device from the second zone of the filtration chamber into the first zone of the filtration chamber) may damage the filtration device. Moreover, if water that has not been filtered and purified is used to backwash the apparatus for filtering and/or purifying water, the backwash procedure places water that has not been filtered and/or purified in the second zone of the filtration chamber and outlet port of the apparatus, which is undesirable.

Drinking water filtration and/or purification apparatus


The present invention relates to anti-human PD-L2 antibodies, or the antigen binding parts thereof, which specifically bind human PD-L2 such that PD-L2 binding to PD-1 is blocked, wherein preferably said antibodies or antigen binding parts do not bind to mouse PD-L2 and human PD-L1 but bind to cyno PD-L2, preferably as determined by FACS analysis. The present invention also relates to nucleotide sequences encoding the anti-human PD-L2 antibodies, vectors and cells containing the nucleotide sequences. The antibodies and/or compositions of the invention are useful in human therapy, e.g., cancer therapy, and/or in cell-line based bioassays for determining T cell signalling.

The development of immune checkpoint pathway inhibitors has become the subject of intense research and drug development efforts towards the treatment of cancer. The programmed death-1 receptor (PD-1) with its ligands PD-L1 and PD-L2 represents one such inhibitory pathway. Binding of PD-1 to either of its ligands results in delivery of an inhibitory stimulus to the T cell. Immunotherapies targeting the PD-1 axis have been developed and include monoclonal antibodies directed to the PD-1 receptor (OPDIVO (nivolumab), Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, N.J. and KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab), Merck and Co., Inc. Kenilworth, N.J.) and antibodies that bind to the PD-L1 ligand (MPDL3280A; TECENTR1Q (atezolizumab), Genentech, San Francisco, Calif., MEDI4736; IMFINZI (durvalumab), AstraZeneca, London, UK and BAVENCIO (avelumab), Pfizer, New York, N.Y./Merck, Darmstadt, Germany). Anti-tumor effects in several cancer types have been demonstrated with both approaches (Brahmer et al., N Engl J Med 2012, 366: 2455-65; Garon et al. N Engl J Med 2015, 372: 2018-28; Hamid et al., N Engl J Med 2013, 369: 134-44; Robert el al, Lancet 2014, 384: 1109-17; Robert et al., N Engl J Med 2015, 372: 2521-32; Robert et al., N Engl J Med 2015, 3 72: 320-30; Topalian et al., N Engl J Med 2012, 366: 2443-54; Topalian et al., J Clin Oncol 2014, 32: 1020-30; Wolchok et al, N Engl J Med 2013, 369: 122-33).
Targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 interaction has gained particular interest as PD-L1 has been found to be upregulated in many human cancers (Dong et al., Nat Med 2002, 8 8: 793-800). Similar to PD-L1, binding of PD-L2 to PD-1 inhibits T cell proliferation, cytokine production, and T-cell cytolysis (Latchman et al., Nat Immunol 2001, 2: 261-8; Rodig et al., Eur J Immunol 2003, 33: 3117-26). However, PD-L1 and PD-L2 exhibit significant distinctions in protein sequence, tissue distribution, expression pattern, receptor-ligand binding specificity and affinity and biological regulations. Although both genes encoding human PD-L1 and PD-L2 are located in the same region on chromosome 9p24.1 (Latchman, et al., Nat Immunol 2001, 2: 261-8), human PD-L1 and PD-L2 share only 38% amino acid identity (Lin et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2008, 105(8): 3011-3016; Lazar-Molnar et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2008, 105(30): 10483-10488). Such sequence discrepancy accounts for distinct binding patterns to PD-1 characterized by nearly 3-6-fold of higher affinity for PD-L2 than PD-L1 (Youngnak, et al., Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2003, 307(3):672-7. Cheng et al., J. Bio. Chem. 288: 11771-11785, Li et al., J Biol Chem. 2017, 292(16):6799-6809). It has been shown that anti-PD-L1 antibodies blocking PD-1 and PD-L1 interaction do not interfere with PD-1 and PD-L2 interaction (Inman et al., Clin Cancer Res. 2017, 23(8):1886-1890, Mezquita and Planchard, Future Oncol. 2017, fon-2017-0373, Gil-Bazo, Transl Lung Cancer Res. 2017, 6(Suppl 1): S35-S38.), indicating a structure-directed differential molecular mechanisms of interaction with PD-1. This pattern is also reflected by the distinct specificities to other receptors, such as CD80, the second receptor for PD-L1 which does not bind to PD-L2 (Butte et al., Immunity 2007, 27(1): 111-122). On the other hand, PD-L2 but not PD-L1 was shown to interact with repulsive guidance molecule b (RGMb) (Xiao et al., J Exp Med. 2014, 211(5):943-59), a bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) co-receptor of the repulsive guidance molecule family. Similar to PD-1, binding of PD-L1 to CD80 suppresses T cell proliferation and cytokine release, whereas PD-L2 binding to RGMb was previously reported to potentially play an immune stimulatory role in mice (Tseng et al., J Exp Med. 2001, 193(7):839-46, Liu et al., J Exp Med. 2003, 197(12):1721-30, Shin et al., J Exp Med. 2003, 198(1):31-8.). However, these studies were performed either with mouse cell lines or mouse tissues, similar effects were not confirmed in human in a number of independent studies using human cell lines or tissues (Saunders et al., Eur J Immunol. 2005, 35(12):3561-9, Pfistershammer et al., Eur J Immunol. 2006, 36(5):1104-13, Zhang et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2006, 103(31):11695-700, Nie et al., Cell Mol Immunol. 2017, cmi.2017.17). It is possible that mouse PD-L2 may functionally differ from human PD-L2 in a context-dependent manner. In contrast to PD-L1 that exhibits universal and constitutive expression manner on antigen presenting cells (APCs), T cells and a variety of non-hematopoietic cell types, PD-L2 expression has been identified as more restricted to antigen-presenting cells at low baseline level under physiological conditions during development, although expression has been shown to be inducible in other immune and non-immune cells by various microenvironmental stimuli (Latchman et al., 2001, supra, Lesterhuis et al., Mol Immunol 2011, 49: 1-3; Lesterhuis et al., J Clin Invest 2011, 121: 3100-8; Messal et al., Mol Immunol 2011, 48: 2214-9). Biologically and pathologically, PD-L1 and PD-L2 associate with distinct regulatory signalling pathways. Besides the fact that both can be stimulated by IFN-gamma (Garcia-Diaz, et al., Cell Rep. 2017, 19(6):1189-1201), PD-L1 has been shown to be in favor of stimulation of Th1 cells and M1-macrophage-promoting stimuli such as LPS, whearas PD-L2 is stimulated by Th2 and inclines to associate with M2-macrophage activation (Loke and Allison, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2003, 100(9):5336-41). These biological discrepancies between PD-L1 and PD-L2 have led to less attention on the important roles of PD-L2 in cancer immunology till recently when a patent on the first mouse-anti-human PD-L2 antibody potentially for diagnosis was published (WO2017053250 A1). Emerging studies using such optimized antibodies show that PD-L2 is significantly overexpressed across many types of cancer (Derks et al., Cancer Immunol Res. 2015, 3(10):1123-1129, Sridharan et al., Cancer Immunol Res. 2016, 4(8):679-87, Yearley et al., Clin Cancer Res. 2017, 23(12):3158-3167), is capable of predicting response to PD-1 therapies and associates with patient survival (Yang et al., Leukemia. 2014, 28(6):1280-8). In summary, the two ligands may have distinct functions within the PD-1 axis, with PD-L1 mediating a more generalized anti-inflammatory effect and PD-L2 playing a role in T-cell priming (Cheah et al., Curr Opin Oncol 2015, 27: 384-91). Importantly, PD-L2 expression has been demonstrated in several human tumors, in some samples in the absence of PD-L1 expression (Herbst et al, 2014, supra, Taube et al., Clin Cancer Res 2014, 20: 5064-74; Schirnd et al., Journal of Clinical Oncology 2016, 34 Suppl 15, 11506.; Liu et al., J Exp Med 2003, 197(12):1721-30; Radhakrishnan et al., Cancer Res 2004, 64(14):4965-72).
Upon resistance to commercialized targeted small molecules such as BRAF or MEK inhibitors (mekinist, vemurafenib, dabrafenib) an upregulation of PD-L2 surface expression on tumour cells and immune cells in the tumor microenvironment has been demonstrated. This, together with the oncogenic role of PD-L2 in promoting tumor-cell intrinsic resistance to BRAFi and/or MEKi (Song et al., Cancer Discov. 2017, 7(11):1248-1265.), indicates that PD-L2 has an important role in mediating acquired resistance to BRAFi and/or MEKi. Moreover, current retrospective analysis of cancer patient tissue revealed patients with high PD-L2 expression and low PD-L1 expression (Yearley et al., Clin Cancer Res. 2017, 23(12):3158-3167), which indicate that there may be cancer and patient subgroups that would benefit from anti-PD-L2 therapeutics.
Antibodies that bind to human PD-L2 were provided for immunohistochemical detection of human PD-L2 expression in tissue sample useful for diagnosing cancer (WO 2017/053250 A1). Further, US 2015/0197571 A1 discloses antibodies which bind to both PD-L1 and PD-L2.
Yet, there is no therapeutic antibody known that binds to PD-L2. As an optimal therapeutic directed to PD-L2 has yet to be found, a significant unmet medical need exists.
The above technical problem is solved by the embodiments as defined in the claims.


Impure aqueous media, e.g., contaminated white wines or sugar-containing liquors, are purified by (i) immersing therein a package which comprises a unit purifying amount of a characteristically chemical active charcoal powder enveloped within a film of a water-soluble, notably PVA polymer, (ii) permitting such package to dissolve and intimately contacting the active charcoal powder with the impure aqueous medium for such period of time as to sorb the impurities therein onto the active charcoal powder, and (iii) thence recovering and optionally filtering the aqueous medium thus purified, and whereby essentially none of the water-soluble polymer is present therein.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the purification/treatment of impure liquid media by adsorbing objectionable contaminants therein onto an activated charcoal; such active charcoal is introduced into such media in the form of a unit dosage purifying amount thereof sealedly packaged within a film of a water dispersible/soluble polymer, notably polyvinyl alcohol.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known to this art that active charcoals are materials produced by carbonization of various carbonaceous substrates, e.g., wood, coal or polymers, and which have been subjected to an activation treatment which confers upon such substrates a high porosity and a high adsorbing power or capacity. Such properties have long been exploited for the separation or purification of gases and for the decoloration, purification or deodorization of liquids.
Industrial applications; of active charcoals for the treatment of liquids are very numerous and also well known to this art, both in the food sector (refining of sugarbeet sugar or cane sugar, production of glucose or lactose, treatment of white wines, ciders or fruit juices, production of glutamic acid or of pectin, and the like), and in the chemical sector (production of tartaric acid, glycerol, and the like) or in various industrial treatments (recovery of solvents, spent plating baths, degassing of drilling muds, and the like).
For all of the above applications, a problem is presented regarding the handling and use of such charcoals. When the treatment can be carried out by percolation, charcoals are used that have been obtained directly in the form of rods or granules obtained from powder. But it is the powder, because it permits intimate contact between the charcoal and the liquid to be purified, which constitutes both the simplest and the most efficient form thereof.
The amounts of charcoal employed, on the order of one kilogram per cubic meter, do not substantially alter the rheology of the liquids treated, the contact time can be as prolonged as desired, and the separation of the charcoal from the purified liquid is easily carried out by settling or by filtration. All of the sequences where the charcoal is introduced wet, or dispersed in the liquid, are conducted with the greatest of ease; on the other hand, the preliminary operations suffer from the difficulties inherent in the handling of any dry powder, in particular those which relate to the low apparent density of the uncompacted charcoal, and also to a certain heterogeneity when wetted. These disadvantages have been partially remedied by using charcoals packaged in the form of fragmentable granules which disintegrate when immersed in a liquid. This, however, is but a partially satisfactory solution in the sense that a perfectly fragmentable granule is an impossible compromise between a rapid spontaneous dispersion of the charcoal in the liquid and the absence of dusting on storing and handling.

Active charcoal packets for purification of impure aqueous media


Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for user defined preferred DNS routing that include mapping for a user in a data communications application a domain name of a network host to a network address for a preferred DNS server, wherein the preferred DNS server has a network address for the domain name; receiving from the user a request for access to a resource accessible through the network host; and routing to the preferred DNS server a DNS request for the network address of the network host, the DNS request including the domain name of the network host. In typical embodiments, mapping a domain name to a network address for a preferred DNS server is carried out by storing, through the data communication application, the domain name in association with the network address for a preferred DNS server in a data structure in computer memory.

1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, systems, and products for user defined preferred DNS routing.
2. Description of Related Art
The Domain Name System ("DNS") is a name service typically associated with the Internet. The DNS translates domain names in network addresses. The domain names are names of computer hosts providing network service such as web servers, email servers, and others. The network addresses are the network addresses of the network host computers. In the example of the Internet, the network addresses are often internet protocol ("IP") addresses. Domain names are expressed in alphabetic text, easier for humans to work with than numeric network addresses. Networks, however, operate on numeric network addresses. Every time a user requests a resource by use of a domain name, therefore, a DNS service somewhere translates the domain name into a corresponding network address. The domain name "ibm.com," for example, might translate into the IP network address 184.108.40.206. The DNS is actually a network in its own right, a network of DNS servers. If one DNS server is unable to translate a particular domain name, that server can obtain additional information from other DNS servers in the network.
The goal of domain names is to provide a mechanism for naming resources in such a way that the names are usable in different hosts, networks, protocol families, internets, and administrative organizations. From the user's point of view, domain names are useful as arguments to a function, called a resolver, which retrieves information associated with the domain name. Thus a user might ask for the host address or mail information associated with a particular domain name. To enable the user to request a particular type of information, an appropriate query type is passed to the resolver with the domain name. To the user, the domain tree is a single information space; the resolver is responsible for hiding the distribution of data among name servers from the user.
Resolvers are programs that extract information from name servers in response to client requests. Resolvers must be able to access at least one name server and use that name server's information to answer a query directly, or pursue the query using referrals to other name servers. A resolver will typically be a system routine that is directly accessible to user programs, so that no protocol usually is needed between the resolver and the user program. Both the name server and resolver are software processes executing on one or more computers. Essentially, the resolver submits a query to a name server about a domain name. The name server "resolves" the mapping of the domain name to a machine address and sends the machine address back to the resolver as the "answer" to the query.
In many network hosts, a resolver is part of the operating system. More particularly, in the case of TCP/IP, the resolver is often part of the TCP/IP client accessible from the application level through a C or C++ call through an Application Programming Interface ("API") such as the sockets API. The Microsoft Windows™ Sockets API, for example, provides functions named gethostbyname( ) and WSAAsyncGetHostByName( ) that respectively work synchronously and asynchronously to obtain network addresses for network hosts given the hosts' domain names as inputs. Similarly, the Java method InetAddress.getByName(string host) is a static Java method that instantiates an object of class InetAddress representing the internet protocol address of a network host.
DNS includes a request/response data communications protocol with standard message types. Gethostbyname( ) and InetAddress.getByName( ) are examples of API calls to a TCP/IP client in an operating system such as Unix or Windows. Such a TCP/IP client typically bears one or more predesignated DNS server addresses, designations of a primary DNS server for a computer and possibly one or more secondary DNS servers. In response to a call to a resolver function such as gethostbyname( ) and InetAddress.getByName( ), a TCP/IP client sends a DNS request message containing the domain name in a standard format to a predesignated primary DNS server requesting a corresponding network address, and, upon receiving a response message, provides the network address in return to the calling program.
When a calling application receives the network address from the operating system, it can use the network address to access resources on the network host identified by the domain name associated with the network address. The network host can be any computer connected to the network. In the example where the calling application is a web browser executing on a user's computer, after the user types in a domain name and the browser (via the resolver process) receives the network address for the domain name, the next action is to transfer a request to the network host's address for a specific web page to be displayed on the user's web browser.
It is useful to distinguish domain names and URLs. URLs identify resources available through network hosts having domain names that form a portion of the URL. In the browser example, when a user requests access to a resource by entering a URL or selecting a URL by mouse-clicking a hyperlink, the browser extracts from the URL the domain name of the host on which the resource is located and submits the domain name to a resolver. The browser then uses the returned network address to establish a data communications connection to the host containing the resource and uses the entire URL to request the resource from the host.
As discussed above, conventional TCP/IP clients typically bear one or more predesignated DNS server addresses, designations of a primary DNS server for a computer and possibly one or more secondary DNS servers. These conventional TCP/IP clients have a number of drawbacks. Often the DNS server addresses must be predesignated by a system administrator or user having administrator privileges and therefore many users do not have sufficient privileges to predesignate DNS server addresses. Furthermore, such conventional TCP/IP clients often have the same predesignated DNS server addresses and therefore, all domain names are resolved through the same predesignated DNS server addresses. If a predesignated DNS server address is unavailable, a particular domain name may not be resolved. Even further, these conventional TCP/IP clients do not provide a mechanism to designate different DNS server address for different domain names. If a predesignated DNS server has no immediate capability of resolving a domain name, that server is faced with a laborious procedure of, for example, querying a top level DNS server to try to locate another DNS server that is in fact capable of resolving the domain name. There is ongoing need for improvement in users' ability to designate preferred DNS servers for particular domains.

International Business Machines Corporation


A golf driving range for use with floating balls including a water reservoir having a front edge, a rear edge, and two side edges; a plurality of practice tees along the front edge; a plurality of island greens in the reservoir; a pump system adjacent an edge of the reservoir to pump water onto the surface of water in the reservoir, the pump system including a pump, a water inlet conduit extending into the reservoir, and at least one water outlet conduit extending toward the reservoir; and a ball retriever adjacent an edge of the reservoir on the opposite side of the reservoir from the pump system, the water outlet conduit being positioned to project water substantially parallel to the surface of water in the conduit and generally in the direction of the ball retriever, whereby balls floating in the reservoir float toward, and are retrieved by, the ball retriever.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a golf practice range or driving range, and in particular to a golf practice range in which floating golf balls are hit towards island-type greens spaced within a body of water.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Golf practice or driving ranges are frequently used by both amateur and advanced golfers to improve their golfing skills, as well as a convenient form of recreation. Generally such ranges are comprised of a land area or earthen fairway onto which golf balls are hit that extends outwardly from a front side edge for 300 yards or more. The width of the land area will differ from facility to facility, depending upon the number of players accommodated by the facility at a given time, and limitations imposed by adjacent properties.
The range includes a plurality of practice stations or tees aligned along the front side of the land area for use by the golfers. Each station includes a tee or mat upon which ball are placed. In more sophisticated ranges, each station may also include a device for feeding balls to each practice tee. The range may also include netting or other type of screens along one or more of the edges of the land surface to prevent incorrectly hit balls from escaping from the driving range.
The land area will normally include signs positioned at given distances from the practice stations, e.g., every 50 yards, to enable the golfer to determine the distance a ball is hit. In addition, the area may include flags positioned at various locations to simulate the greens of a regular golf course, so that the golfer can practice hitting toward a green. In order to retrieve golf balls hit into the area, a cart that includes a collection device is periodically driven over the area to collect balls from the surface. The collection device may be, for example, a rotary brush that brushes the balls into a container. After collection, the balls are returned to the play station area for reuse by the golfers.
Variations on this broad theme have been suggested by the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,649,025 to Garland and U.S. Pat. No. 3,797,827 to Child, describe golf driving ranges that use a body of water instead of the above-described land area at the area into which balls are hit. In the ranges described in these patents, balls are hit into the water from play stations located along an edge of the lake or other body of water. The balls then sink to the bottom of the body of water, and are collected by a net or conveyor system that conveys the balls back to the play station area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,163,677 to Foley describes a golf driving range that includes a man-made pond with a green positioned in the pond. Balls hit into the pond roll down an inclined surface at the bottom of the pond to a collection area where the balls are ejected into a collection basket.
Despite the number of driving range designs that now exist, there is still a need for a golf practice or driving range that offers the golfer the opportunity to hit balls toward green-type areas in an aesthetically pleasing environment. From the ease of operation, a facility providing for the ease of ball retrieval would be highly useful.