Typical MEMS devices include the accelerometers found in automobile airbags and video game controllers, and piezoelectric mechanisms used in inkjet printers.

Mr. Pearman's system calls for the placement of inflatable bags - much like automobile airbags - at strategic points throughout the air ducts in a building.

Are automobile airbags, illustrated above, rather than seat belts, the safety wave of the future for American motoring?

Example commercial applications include DLP projectors, inkjet printers, and accelerometers used to deploy automobile airbags.

Last Thursday, Mr. Dodd, the president of Cartridge Actuated Devices in Fairfield, showed the same mechanism to a potential customer looking for a better way to inflate automobile airbags.

Other tetrazoles are used for their explosive or combustive properties, such as tetrazole itself and 5-aminotetrazole, which are sometimes used as a component of gas generators in automobile airbags.

Today, micromechanical devices are the key components in a wide range of products such as automobile airbags, ink-jet printers, blood pressure monitors, and projection display systems.

In Congress, Shuster was one of the opponents of the automobile airbag and ran for the position of Minority Whip in 1980, losing to Trent Lott.

Finally, American Pacific is poised to become a manufacturer of sodium azide, an ingredient used in making automobile airbags.

Examples include automobile airbags, thermal batteries and missiles.