Abstract: A process for producing an electrophotographic roller member comprising a roller base member having a conductive mandrel and an elastic layer, and a film on the elastic layer. The process comprises the step of forming the film by plasma CVD. The step comprises the steps of: placing the roller base member in a chamber in such a way that the distance between the surface of the elastic layer and flat-plate electrodes is 20 mm or more to 100 mm or less; feeding a source gas into the chamber so as to have a pressure of from 13.3 Pa or more to 666.6 Pa or less; and applying to an electrode an electric power of from 0.3 W/cm2 or more to 2.0 W/cm2 or less while rotating the roller base member so that the peripheral speed of from 6 mm/s or more to 170 mm/s or less.

Abstract: A developing roller is provided which is soft enough to enable toners to be kept from deteriorating with time and cannot easily cause permanent set. The developing roller includes a mandrel, an elastic-material layer and a cover layer as a surface layer which covers the elastic-material layer. Asker-C hardness at the surface of the cover layer is from 40° to 85°. The cover layer has a thickness of from 15 nm to 5,000 nm. Martens hardness H1 (N/mm2) at the surface of the developing roller, Martens hardness H2 (N/mm2) of the elastic-material layer and the thickness d (mm) of the cover layer satisfy the relationship of the following expression (1): 400?(H1?H2)/d?2,000??(1).

Abstract: A developing roller is provided having a surface that has excellent effect of suppressing exudation of low molecular weight substances from an elastic body, excellent toner release properties, and sufficient flexibility in which cracks do not easily occur even by repeated image formation. The developing roller carries and conveys toner to develop electrostatic latent images on a photosensitive drum with the toner and includes in this order a mandrel, an elastic layer, and a surface layer. The surface layer includes a silicon oxide film containing carbon atoms chemically bonded to silicon atoms. The silicon oxide film has an abundance ratio of oxygen atoms forming chemical bonds with silicon atoms to silicon atoms (O/Si) of 0.65 or more and 1.95 or less, and an abundance ratio of carbon atoms forming chemical bonds with silicon atoms to silicon atoms (C/Si) of 0.05 or more and 1.65 or less.

Abstract: An electrophotographic endless belt is disclosed having a layer formed of a resin composition containing (i) at least one resin selected from the group consisting of a polyether ester amide, a polyolefin ether and a polyether amide; (ii) polyvinylidene fluoride; and (iii) carbon. In the resin composition, the ratio of the mass of the component (iii) to the mass of the component (i) is in a specific range.

Abstract: A musical content utilizing apparatus has a data input portion B11, transformation process portion B13 and utilization process portion B15 implemented via programmed processes. The data input portion B11 inputs musical content data comprising different kinds of content material data about music and content definition data defining the handling of the content material data. The transformation process portion B13 transforms the content definition data in accordance with stylesheets stored in a stylesheet storage portion B14 in order to enable the utilization process portion B15 to utilize the content material data. The utilization process portion B15 generates musical tones or displays images in accordance with the input content material, providing a user with musical content. As a result, a piece of musical content is able to be shared among various different types of musical content utilizing apparatuses, i.e., various platforms.

Abstract: The body of content, such as audio or AV content, is provided in encrypted form free of charge. User of a content reproduction apparatus can obtain the content body free at any time, and thus a need to back up the content body can be eliminated. Content key data for decrypting the content is, on the other hand, chargeable and provided for payment, and the user only has to back up this content key data. To prevent the backed-up content key data from being unfairly used by any other apparatus, an apparatus-specific code imparted to the user's content reproduction apparatus is backed up to a backup storage medium along with the content key data, and the backed-up content key data is allowed to be restored from the storage medium only to an apparatus having the same apparatus-specific code as the user's content reproduction apparatus. In this way, the user's content reproduction apparatus can perform an efficient backup of chargeable content.

Abstract: A vector quantizer and a vector quantization method are provided, which do not allow the embedding position of the watermark information to be identified easily, and thus enable unfair use of the vector quantized information to be accurately found out. Waveform extraction is performed on input signal data to output extracted waveform data. Index data are generated based on the output extracted waveform data. As index data to be generated based on predetermined extracted waveform data in which no watermark information is to be embedded, out of the output extracted waveform data, index data is randomly selected, which corresponds to the predetermined extracted waveform data from a plurality of index data which, when decoded, have amounts of errors falling within a predetermined range with respect to the predetermined extracted waveform data before decoding.

Abstract: A pair of connector elements, one connector element having a locking arm, the other connector element having a hood for receiving the one connector element and a locking protrusion provided within the hood are locked in engagement by the locking arm and the locking protrusion when they are completely coupled with each other. When the connector elements are not used or before they are coupled with each other, a body for preventing the one connector element from being fit into the other connector element is inserted in the hood of the other connector element. The body has a locking arm to be engaged with the locking protrusion and a locking portion into which a dedicated jig for pulling out the body from the hood is to be inserted. Thus, in electric wiring (e.g., an air bag for motor vehicles), a connection of the connector elements is prevented with a false current is flowing through one of the connector elements, thus preventing error (e.g., an explosion in an inflator).

Abstract: A pair of connector elements, one connector element having a locking arm, the other connector element having a hood for receiving the one connector element and a locking protrusion provided within the hood are locked in engagement of the locking arm with the locking protrusion when they are completely coupled with each other. When the connector elements are not used or before they are coupled with each other, a body for preventing the one connector element from being fit into the other connector element is inserted in the hood of the other connector element. The body has a locking arm to be engaged with the locking protrusion and a locking portion into which a dedicated jig for pulling out the body from the hood is to be inserted. Thus, in electrical wiring for e.g. an air bag for motor vehicles, it is prevented that when the pair of connector elements are to be coupled with each other, they are connected with a false current flowing through the one connector element and explosion happens in an inflator.