The perineal glands of the porcupine, Erethizon dorsatum (L., 1758), are sexually dimorphic, paired pockets sprouting osmetrichial hairs. They lie between the anus and urethra, lateral to the midline, amid a sebaceous glandular expanse. In their active state, the glandular pockets secrete an amber substance with a terpenoid odor. When inactive, the glands produce no stain or odor. In males, activation of the glands is associated with fully descended testes. The glandular pockets yield a microbiota (“microflora”) in both their active and inactive states. We hypothesize that the active-state microflora transforms a sebaceous secretion into a pheromonally active product that is disseminated by anal dragging. The glandular microflora was characterized by gas chromatography of bacterial fatty acid methyl esters (GC-FAME) and polymerase chain reaction – denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) of 16S ribosomal RNA gene fragments of bacteria. PCR-DGGE results showed the resulting bacteria profiles were the same in both sexes, but differed between the active and inactive states. Active-state microfloras were dominated by members of the Actinobacteria and showed greater coefficients of similarity than inactive-state microfloras. The microflora of individual animals changed with time and with secretory state. We argue for a reproductive role for the activated perineal glands.

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Specimens of this langur species were available from juvenile, adult and lactating animals. The endometrial sections of non-pregnant adults were dated from the ovarian appearances. During the cycle the endometrium underwent changes similar to those decribed for women, baboons and macaques, except that stromal oedema was pronounced and diffuse in the langur, occurring before ovulation and throughout the secretory phase.

This paper introduces new techniques for the elimination of the infamous bird's head and bird's beak which result from the recessed Isoplanar technology. The first technique to be described is intended only for "scalping" the bird's head. The process utilizes a phosphogermanosilicate glass as a planarizing medium and a novel wet etching process for transferring the planarized surface into the protruding bird's head. The second technique to be described precludes the formation of a bird's beak in addition to removing the birds head structure. In this method, a polysilicon spacer is formed along the sidewall of the silicon island by LPCVD of poly and plasma etchback. The sidewall poly layer prevents oxygen penetration to the pad oxide during field oxidation, thereby eliminating the formation of a bird's beak. BIRD'S HEAD PLANARIZATION PROCESSIn the recessed Isoplanar process, the bird's head structure presents difficult problems in the definition of fine-line features. Previously reported techniques of planarization have employed dry etching of resist (1,2,3,4), phosphosilicate glass (5), or CVD oxide (6). These techniques require expensive machines and, in the event of overetch, will damage the underlying silicon surface.A new technique has been developed whereby the bird's head may be completely removed without the application of dry etch processing.The process sequence is illustrated in Fig. 1 .A thermal oxide (1000 A) is first grown on the exposed silicon surface, followed by deposition of a phosphogermanosilicate glass referred to as PVXII ( 7 ) . The thickness of the film is targeted for 5000 A. PVXII consists of 52% Si02, 43% Ge02, and 5% P205 which is CVD deposited at 43OoC under atmospheric pressure. The material readily reflows at temperatures above 85OoC (7). Following deposition, the wafer is heat treated at 1000°C for 30 minutes in nitrogen. The heat cycle initiates reflow of the glass to such an extent that the surface becomes essentially planar above the bird's head. The glass layers are then etched in a specific HF mixture which attacks the PVXII and thermal oxide at the same rate. The etch is terminated when the silicon surface of the island becomes exposed. Since the PVXII and Si02 are etched with equal rate, the surface after etchback is a translation of the original reflow surface.The etch rates of PVXII and Si02 in various mixtures of buffered HF and 1O:l HF are shown in Fig. 2. As can be observed, the two glasses display opposite trends with regard to the etchant composition, intersecting when the solution consists of 53% BHF (identified by dotted line 1). This solution will result in a surface of near perfect planarity, as shown in Fig. 4. However, it is often desirable to leave a remnant of the bird's head at the wafer surface. The mixture identified by dotted line 2 in Fig. 2 (44% BHF) etches PVXII at a rate 3/2's faster than Si02 and will, therefore, leave one-third of the original bird's head height upon completion of the wet etch. The bird's head remnant, shown in Fig. 3, reduces the ris...