Author: claimsbot

1. A method of sequence-specific amplification of assay signals produced in the analysis of a target nucleic acid sequence, the method permitting real-time monitoring of amplified signal and comprising the following steps:
(a) providing a temperature-controlled sample containment device that permits real-time recording of optical assay signals produced within said device, and a temperature control means for controlling the temperature of said device;
(b) providing within said sample containment device a set of interrogation probes, said interrogation probes being capable of forming a hybridization complex with a target nucleic acid and being attached to beads, wherein said beads are associated with a chemically or physically distinguishable characteristic that identifies the interrogation probes attached thereto;
(c) contacting said interrogation probes with the target sequence to form a hybridization complex between the interrogation probes and the target sequence;
(d) contacting said hybridization complex with a second oligonucleotide probe, said second probe comprising a label and capable of being ligated to the interrogation probes contained within the hybridization complex;
(e) providing conditions suitable for ligating said second labeled oligonucleotide probe to the interrogation probe;
(f) detecting the optical signals from the second labeled probes; and
(g) performing one or more annealing-ligating-detecting-denaturing cycles, each cycle increasing the number of ligated probes in arithmetic progression and involving the following steps:
(i) providing a first temperature for the formation of the hybridization complex;
(ii) providing a second temperature for ligase-catalyzed ligation of the interrogation probe and the second labeled probe to occur to thereby generate a ligation product, wherein ligation is associated with a change in optical signature of beads associated with the ligation product;
(iii) imaging andor recording optical signals from the ligation product thereby permitting real-time monitoring of amplified signal emanating from the ligation product; and
(iv) providing a third temperature for denaturing all hybridization complexes.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein steps (c) to (g) are repeated one or more times.
3. The composition of claim 1 wherein the target nucleic acid sequences are derived from the patient genomic sample by amplification of one or more nucleic acid subsequences within the patient genomic sample.
4. The composition of claim 3 wherein the amplification is performed using the polymerase chain reaction.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the target nucleic acid sequence includes a mutation site or a polymorphic site and said set interrogation probes includes members designed to detect the different nucleotides at the mutation or polymorphic site.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the target sequence includes a mutation site or a polymorphic site and the set of interrogation probes includes members capable of annealing to subsequences in the target sequence including the mutation site or the polymorphic site, within a range of proximity to the mutation site or the polymorphic site.
7. The method of claims 5 or 6, wherein the polymorphic site is a single nucleotide polymorphism.
8. The method of claims 5 or 6, wherein the polymorphic site is a short term tandem repeat site.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein the label is an inorganic nanoparticle label, including semiconductor Quantum Dot particles and Resonant Light Scattering metal nanoparticles.

The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.

1. A method of cleaning a CVD apparatus, comprising the steps of: removing contaminants adhering to the interior of a CVD by activating a cleaning gas; detecting a removal state of contaminants adhering to an inner surface of said reactor by irradiating the inner surface of said reactor with light having monochromaticity through an optical window provided on an inner wall of said reactor at a bottom of said reactor and receiving its reflected light; and controlling the cleaning step based on the detection of results, wherein prior to removing contaminants a purge gas is supplied, Directed to the vicinity of the optical window and exhausted to protect the optical window from reaction products while inhibiting the purge gas from flowing into a reaction space of the CVD reactor and the vicinity of a semiconductor wafer placed in the reaction space, wherein the purge gas is exhausted though one of two openings of an exhaust balancer, said one of the two openings being closer to the optical window than is another of the two openings, wherein the one of the two openings of the balancer is provided along a bottom surface of the reactor, and the another of the two openings of the balancer is provided along an inner wall of a reactor, wherein purge gas flows along the bottom surface of the reactor and an upper surface of the optical window and is exhausted through one of the two openings.
2. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said light having monochromaticity is monochromatic light.
3. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said light having monochromaticity is laser light.
4. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 1, wherein both irradiation with said light having monochromaticity and receiving of its reflected light are performed through the same optical window.
5. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said inner surface is a surface of a showerhead introducing reaction gas into the reactor.
6. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 5, wherein said inner surface is a plane in the vicinity of a periphery of said showerhead facing a susceptor for placing and heating a substrate thereon.
7. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said optical window is provided on an inner wall of said CVD reactor, which is situated in a direction perpendicular to said inner surface.
8. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 5, wherein said inner surface is a side surface in the vicinity of a periphery of said showerhead.
9. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 8, wherein said optical window is provided on an inner wall of said CVD reactor, which is situated in a direction perpendicular to said inner surface.
10. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said optical window is composed of sapphire.
11. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 1, wherein removal of said contaminants is detected by converging interference signals of reflected lights of said light having monochromaticity from said inner surface and from a surface of said contaminants.
12. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the mass of said contaminants is detected by reflected light intensity of said light having monochromaticity from said inner surface.
13. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said detection process is performed through said optical window provided at a bottom of a bottomed hole provided in an inner wall of said reactor.
14. The method of cleaning a CVD apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said activated cleaning gas is a cleaning gas excited in a remote plasma discharge chamber.
15. A method of forming a film by CVD, in which the cleaning method according to claim 1 is incorporated, which comprises the steps of:
forming a film on a substrate inside said CVD reactor;
during the film formation, introducing a purge gas for protecting a surface of said optical window from a deposition atmosphere into the vicinity of said optical window; and
after completion of the film formation, performing the cleaning according to claim 1.
16. The method of forming a film according to claim 15, which further comprises exhausting a purge gas for protecting said optical window without allowing the purge gas to flow into the deposition atmosphere during said film formation.
17. The method according to claim 1, wherein the optical window is provided in a portion recessed from the inner wall, and the purge gas is provided into the recessed portion.

1. An in-line valve device comprising:
a housing that includes a proximal portion, a distal portion and a chamber therein extending between the proximal and distal portions, the proximal portion including a proximal opening that is fluidly coupled to the chamber;
a tubular member that is coupled to the housing distal portion such that a lumen thereof is fluidly coupled to the chamber;
a seal member that is disposed within the chamber to seal the proximal opening from the chamber, the proximal opening being selectively fluidly coupled to the chamber by moving a sealing portion of the seal member out of engagement with the proximal portion of the housing; and
a securing member positioned to secure a distal end of the seal member to the housing proximal portion such that the seal member is compressibly retained between a proximal end of the chamber and the securing member.
2. The in-line device of claim 1, wherein the securing member is an annular ring.
3. The in-line device of claim 2, further including a groove formed in the housing proximal portion dimensioned to receive and axially retain the annular ring.
4. The in-line device of claim 1, wherein the securing member includes a raised rib formed about an inner circumference of the proximal portion of the housing.
5. The in-line device of claim 1, wherein:
the seal member includes one or more through apertures extending between an inner cavity and an outside surface of the seal member; and
the seal member is arranged in the housing proximal portion so that the seal member inner cavity is fluidly coupled to a portion of the chamber disposed in the housing distal portion.
6. The in-line device of claim 1, wherein the seal member includes a septum in which an introducer needle is removably received.
7. The in-line device of claim 6, wherein:
the seal member includes a proximal end;
a portion of the seal member proximal end includes a sealing portion for sealing engagement with at least a portion of the chamber proximal end; and
the seal member septum is arranged so the septum lies in the same general axial plane as the sealing portion.
8. The in-line device of claim 6, wherein:
the seal member includes a proximal end; and
the seal member is configured so that the septum is spaced distally from the sealing portion.
9. The in-line device of claim 1, wherein the housing distal portion includes at least one axially extending fin extending from an inner surface of a portion of the inner chamber disposed within the housing distal portion.
10. The in-line device of claim 9, wherein the at least one axially extending fin is arranged so as to only contact the seal member during a high pressure fluid flow condition.
11. A vascular access device comprising:
a housing that includes a proximal portion, a distal portion and a chamber therein extending between the proximal and distal portions, the proximal portion including a proximal opening that is fluidly coupled to the chamber;
a tubular member that is coupled to the housing distal portion such that a lumen thereof is fluidly coupled to the chamber;
a seal member that is disposed within the chamber to seal the proximal opening from the chamber, the proximal opening being selectively fluidly coupled to the chamber by moving a sealing portion of the seal member out of engagement with the proximal portion of the housing; and
wherein the housing distal portion includes at least one axially extending fin extending from an inner surface of a portion of the inner chamber disposed within the housing distal portion.
12. The vascular access device of claim 11, wherein the at least one axially extending fin is arranged so as to only contact the seal member during a high pressure fluid flow condition.
13. A method for assembling an in-line IV catheter device comprising the steps of:
providing a proximal housing portion defining an internal cavity, the proximal housing portion having a proximal end and a distal end;
providing a distal housing portion defining an internal cavity, the distal housing portion having a proximal end and a distal end;
providing a seal member having a proximal end, a distal end, and including a septum;
positioning the seal member in the internal cavity of the proximal housing portion;
providing a needle having a sharpened distal end and a proximal end;
inserting the proximal end of the needle through the septum of the seal member such that the proximal end of the needle projects from the proximal end of the seal member; and
securing the proximal housing portion to the distal housing portion such that the internal cavities of the proximal and distal housing portions define a chamber.
14. The method of claim 13, wherein the step of positioning the seal member in the internal cavity of the proximal housing portion further includes the step of securing the seal member distal end to the proximal housing portion such that the seal member is sealingly and compressibly retained against the proximal end of the proximal housing portion inner cavity.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of securing includes:
positioning a ring member on the proximal housing portion a predetermined distance from the proximal end of the proximal housing portion inner cavity; and
compressibly retaining the seal member between the proximal end of the proximal housing portion inner cavity and a surface of the ring member.
16. The method of claim 15, wherein the ring member is an annular plate like member.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the step of positioning the ring member includes positioning the ring member in a groove formed in the proximal housing portion.
18. The method of claim 15, wherein the ring member is formed as a raised rib which extends at least partially about the circumference of the internal cavity of the proximal housing portion.
19. The method of claim 13, wherein the step of providing a seal member includes forming a resealable opening through the septum, and
the step of inserting the proximal end of the needle through the septum includes inserting the proximal end of the needle through the resealable opening.
20. The method of claim 13, wherein the seal member includes an inner cavity and at least one through aperture extending between the inner cavity and an outside surface of the seal member.
21. The method of claim 20, wherein the step of positioning the seal member includes the step of disposing the seal member in the proximal housing portion internal cavity such that the at least one through aperture is proximal the proximal end of the proximal housing portion inner cavity and such that the seal member inner cavity is fluidly coupled to the distal housing portion internal cavity after the proximal and distal housing portions are secured to each other.
22. The method of claim 13, further including the step of providing one or more radially extending fins within the distal housing portion, the one or more radially extending fins being positioned to limit axial travel of the seal member when the seal member is exposed to a high pressure fluid flow condition.

The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.

1. In a photocatalytically active polysiloxane composition for coating a substrate comprising:
(a) from 0.5% to 20% by weight, based on the total weight of the composition, of photocatalytic titanium dioxide particles having a mean particle size between 2 nm and 100 nm;
(b) from 0.05% to 40% by weight of calcium carbonate particles, wherein the ratio of calcium carbonate particles to photocatalytic titanium dioxide particles is from 0.01 to 50; and
(c) a solvent selected from water, an organic solvent or a mixed solvent consisting of water and an organic solvent, the improvement comprising incorporating into said polysiloxane composition from 0.1% to 20% by weight (expressed in dry matter), based on the total weight of the composition, of hollow styrene resin microspheres having an outside diameter of from 0.1 \u03bcm to 10 \u03bcm whereby
(i) the opacity of a dry film coating formed from said polysiloxane composition is greater than the opacity of a dry film coating formed from the same polysiloxane composition that does not include said hollow styrene resin microspheres, and
(ii) percent weight loss of said dry film coating over a defined time period is less than percent weight loss of the same polysiloxane dry film coating over the same defined time period, but without having said hollow styrene resin microspheres present in the polysiloxane composition.
2. The coating composition of claim 1 wherein the styrene resin hollow microspheres are selected from the group consisting of polystyrene, poly-a-methylstyrene, and styrene-acrylic copolymer resins.
3. The coating composition of claim 2 wherein the styrene resin hollow microspheres are selected from styrene-acrylic copolymer resins.