Abstract: The present invention provides a method and an equipment for plasma treatment under the atmospheric pressure for treating an article to be treated comprising: providing a solid dielectric on at least one opposing face of a pair of opposing electrodes under a pressure near the atmospheric pressure; introducing a treatment gas between said a pair of opposing electrodes; generating plasma by applying an electric field between said electrodes; and contacting said plasma with said article to be treated, wherein an used gas is exhausted from the vicinity of treatment section where said plasma and said article to be treated are in contact, and said vicinity of treatment section is maintained under a specified gas atmosphere by a gas atmosphere control mechanism.

Abstract: A multiplexed-information receiving apparatus and a navigation system for converting character information as received into speech information for presentation of the information in a voice. The multiplexed-information receiving apparatus includes a receiver-unit for receiving character-multiplexed information, a demultiplexing unit for demultiplexing the character-multiplexed information received by the receiver unit, a speech synthesizing unit for converting character information outputted from the demultiplexing unit into speech information, and a speech output unit for outputting the speech information in a voice signal.