A reliable and manufacturable method to induce a stress of >1 GPa on a P-channel MOSFET in high volume manufacturing

This letter discusses a reliable and manufacturable integration technique to induce greater than 1 GPa of stress into a p-channel MOSFET, which will be required to increase the drive current beyond 1 mA//spl mu/m at the sub-90-nm process generation. Uniaxial compressive stress is introduced into the p-channel by both a selective deposition of SiGe in the source/drain and an engineered 2.5-GPa compressively stressed nitride. The highest to date compressively stressed SiN film is obtained by heavy ion bombardment during the deposition of the film.     

Synthesis and applications of heterobifunctional poly(ethylene oxide) oligomers

Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) oligomers are employed extensively in pharmaceutical and biomedical arenas mainly due to their excellent physical and biological properties, including solubility in water and organic solvents, lack of toxicity, and absence of immunogenicity. PEO can be chemically modified and reacted with, or adsorbed onto, other molecules and surfaces. Sophisticated applications for PEO have increased the demand for PEO oligomers with tailored functionalities, and heterobifunctional PEOs are often needed. This review discusses the synthesis and applications of heterobifunctional PEO oligomers possessing amine, carboxylate, thiol, and maleimide functional groups.     

Experimental treatment of brain tumor cells using CD suicide gene

Pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) is a polyhormone precursor produced predominantly in the pars distalis and pars intermedia of the pituitary gland where it undergoes tissue specific processing to produce a whole array of peptides. We have shown previously that peptides derived from the N-terminal region of POMC are involved in adrenal growth in rats. Using specific two site immunoradiometric assays we have found that the plasma of 17 week old fetal sheep contain a 50 fold excess of pro-gamma-MSH over ACTH. As term approached, the levels of pro-gamma-MSH fell and ACTH rose with evidence of fragmentation of pro-gamma-MSH, suggesting that these peptides act in concert in the development of the fetal adrenal cortex and also provide the necessary drive to bring about parturition. In an attempt to explore the pathophysiology of adrenal function we have cloned human POMC cDNA which led to the discovery of a 9bp addition/deletion mutation in the C-terminus of gamma 3-MSH between positions 67-73. Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO) cells stably transfected with constructs containing the variant POMC cDNAs have shown a degree of partial processing. Work is currently underway to further investigate the effects of these mutations on the processing by the prohormone converting enzymes PC1 and PC2.     

Multiple pathways are involved in the extracellular processing of MHC class I-restricted peptides

T cell stimulation by certain class I-restricted antigenic peptides, such as the HIV 1 gp160-derived peptide, P18, requires peptide processing by angiotensin-1 converting enzyme (ACE) in FCS. We observed that longer versions of P18 and the murine cytomegalovirus pp89-derived core peptide, pMCMV, which could stimulate T cell hybridomas in FCS, were not as sensitive to the ACE inhibitor captopril as P18. Using cell-free soluble murine class I MHC molecules and protease inhibitors, we found that there are pathways of differing efficiency that use enzymes other than ACE for the proteolytic processing of peptides in serum. The kinetics of the generation of T cell stimulatory activity among P18 variant peptides in serum differed with peptide length, and with the nature of amino and COOH-terminal extensions. Such processing occurs in human plasma as well as in FCS. The understanding of this processing, its kinetics, and its inhibitors can lead to better design of peptide-based therapies, including vaccines.     

A methodology for investigating effects of cell size on operational flexibility in flexible manufacturing systems

There are two aspects to cell formation in flexible manufacturing systems, cell sizing or deciding on the optimum number of machines to be allocated to each cell, and then allocation of specific machines to each cell. Although the latter problem has been investigated extensively there is a paucity of published work on the former. This paper discusses the effects of cell sizing on operational flexibility.Operational flexibility is that aspect of flexibility that enables manufacturing systems to respond with speed and efficiency to changes in the manufacturing environment while maintaining an effective level of control.