Pre-fabricated ligature with variable friction, which comprises a ligature made of nitinol that describes a rectangular outline similar to an \u201cO\u201d format, which is noteworthy in that the free ends can be deflected to meet the need for affixing of the arch wire to the bracket, resulting in variable friction force. The method enables integrated circuit stress analysis that takes into account stresses contributed by multiple stress generation mechanisms, stresses having vector components other than along the length of the channel, and stress contributions due to the presence of other structures in the neighborhood of the channel region under study, other than the nearest STI interfaces. Moreover, the protocol indicator circuitry comprises a plurality of memory elements, each memory element associated with a protocol header field in the plurality of protocol header fields. The host or the guest enters a wait state. The system may include a single set of storage elements connected to the inputs of multiple decoders, and the storage elements may be concurrently accessed by the decoders to provide simultaneous multiple outputs thereto. An important aspect of the invention is that the nose and aft sections are non-integral and very dissimilar in cross section, in a suspended-binding snowshoe.