Abstract: A card game apparatus includes a large-size panel display, a main control unit that controls screens on the large-size panel display, and a plurality of terminal apparatuses that are communicably connected to the main control unit. A game player purchases an integrated circuit card and, for example, eleven player cards on each of which, a soccer player's photograph is printed. When the game player arranges the player cards on a player card arrangement panel of one of the terminal apparatuses, card data recorded on the back of the player card will be read by an internal image sensor. Then, a team is organized by the player cards, and a game starts. The game player can direct a player's position and formation by changing placement of the player card.

Abstract: An integrated circuit device having a send/receive macro for serially transferring addresses and data to or from an external device via a serial transfer bus, the integrated circuit device includes: a CPU for performing predetermined processing. The send/receive macro includes a send/receive buffer accessed by the CPU, for storing a plurality of units of data to be transmitted or received over the serial transfer bus; an acknowledge detection unit for detecting a data acknowledge signal transmitted from a receiving device in response to transmission of predetermined units of data; and a data send unit for transmitting data stored in the send/receive buffer, in response to detection of the data acknowledge signal by the acknowledge detection unit, without generating any interrupt to the CPU.

Abstract: A nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery in which the decomposition of an electrolyte solution is reduced exhibits high coulombic efficiency and excellent charge and discharge cycle performance, and has high energy density. This nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery includes a negative electrode that is formed by depositing a thin film of active material on a collector by a CVD method, sputtering, evaporation, thermal spraying, or plating, wherein the thin film of the active material can lithiate and delithiate and is divided into columns by cracks formed in the thickness direction, and the bottom of each column is adhered to the collector; a positive electrode that can lithiate and delithiate; and a nonaqueous electrolyte solution containing a lithium salt in a nonaqueous solvent. The electrolyte solution contains a compound expressed by a general formula (I).

Abstract: According to an aspect of this invention, dynamic bandwidth assignment (DBA) can be performed without interrupting communication of a regular cell and interfering with communication between child stations. In a passive optical network including a parent station and a plurality of child stations, a maintenance signal for a mini slot signal is provided. Each of the child stations sends a corresponding maintenance signal if necessary, and the parent station controls state transition by using the maintenance signal concerning on the mini slot signal for each of the child stations. By controlling the state transition, the dynamic bandwidth assignment can be performed.

Abstract: Dynamic up-link bandwidth allocation is realized in a optical communication system in which a plurality of subscriber devices with mutually different device configurations are connected to a station unit, by configuring the station unit to consider device configurations of the subscriber devices in performing up-link bandwidth allocation.

Abstract: A card game apparatus includes a game execution unit, a casing, a card arrangement panel, a luminous source that illuminates the panel with invisible light, an image sensor unit disposed such that it receives the invisible light from the panel and generates image data, and a data recognition unit configured to separate data of each card, as well as to detect positions of the cards on the panel. Each of the plurality of thinly formed cards is printed with a game character on one of its major surfaces and formed on the other of the major surfaces with a code pattern including data relating the game character. The sensor unit generates data of the image including the code patterns of the cards arranged on the panel. The data recognition unit separates data of each card, as well as detects position on play field of the cards arranged on the panel by the operator, from the data of the image and supply the information thus obtained to the game execution unit.

Abstract: An electrode for a rechargeable lithium battery characterized in that thin films of active material capable of lithium storage and release, i.e., microcrystalline or amorphous silicone thin films are deposited on opposite faces of a plate-form current collector.

Abstract: In a communications system in which a plurality of subscriber apparatuses and a station apparatus are connected to the same transmission channel for bidirectional communication, a bandwidth allocated in a direction from subscriber apparatuses to a station apparatus is dynamically updated. More specifically, a bandwidth usage rate is calculated from a bandwidth allocated in a updating period and a bandwidth actually used in the updating period. A bandwidth to be allocated in a subsequent period is determined based on the bandwidth usage rate thus calculated. With this construction, the station apparatus is capable of allocating the bandwidth required by the subscriber apparatuses or subscriber terminal apparatuses so that the bandwidth is efficiently used.

Abstract: A lithium secondary battery employing as its negative electrode active material a material that increases in volume by alloying with lithium during charge achieves high discharge capacity and good cycle performance. The lithium secondary battery includes a negative electrode having a negative electrode active material (2) and a negative electrode current collector, a positive electrode having a positive electrode active material (1) and a positive electrode current collector (3), and a non-aqueous electrolyte. The negative electrode active material (2) is a material that increases in volume by alloying with lithium during charge. The negative electrode active material (1) is arranged so as to be on, and in contact with, the negative electrode current collector. The negative electrode active material (2) contains, when in an end-of-discharge condition, 8% or more of lithium with respect to the total capacity of the negative electrode active material (2) as measured when it does not contain lithium.

Abstract: An optical distribution network system includes an OLT; a plurality of ONUs; a first optical network and a second optical network, one of which connects the OLT with the plurality of ONUs; and a bandwidth controller. The bandwidth controller apportions the plurality of ONUs between the first optical network and the second optical network, assigns a predetermined transmission bandwidth to each of the plurality of ONUs, and accepts a bandwidth change of the transmission bandwidth. It solves a problem of a conventional optical distribution network system in that the maximum bandwidth available by DBA (dynamic bandwidth assignment) is equal to the total transmission bandwidth of working side minus the sum total of the minimum cell rates of the ONUs, and hence it cannot secure a large usable bandwidth for DBA, when congestion of bandwidth increase takes place among the plurality of ONUs.

Abstract: A nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery in which the decomposition of an electrolyte solution is reduced exhibits high coulombic efficiency and excellent charge and discharge cycle performance, and has high energy density. This nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery includes a negative electrode that is formed by depositing a thin film of active material on a collector by a CVD method, sputtering, evaporation, thermal spraying, or plating, wherein the thin film of the active material can lithiate and delithiate and is divided into columns by cracks formed in the thickness direction, and the bottom of each column is adhered to the collector; a positive electrode that can lithiate and delithiate; and a nonaqueous electrolyte solution containing a lithium salt in a nonaqueous solvent. The electrolyte solution contains a compound expressed by a general formula (I).

Abstract: A nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery in which the decomposition of an electrolyte solution is reduced exhibits high coulombic efficiency and excellent charge and discharge cycle performance, and has high energy density. This nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery includes a negative electrode that is formed by depositing a thin film of active material on a collector by a CVD method, sputtering, evaporation, thermal spraying, or plating, wherein the thin film of the active material can lithiate and delithiate and is divided into columns by cracks formed in the thickness direction, and the bottom of each column is adhered to the collector; a positive electrode that can lithiate and delithiate; and a nonaqueous electrolyte solution containing a lithium salt in a nonaqueous solvent. The electrolyte solution contains a compound expressed by a general formula (I).

Abstract: A nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery in which the decomposition of an electrolyte solution is reduced exhibits high coulombic efficiency and excellent charge and discharge cycle performance, and has high energy density. This nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery includes a negative electrode that is formed by depositing a thin film of active material on a collector by a CVD method, sputtering, evaporation, thermal spraying, or plating, wherein the thin film of the active material can lithiate and delithiate and is divided into columns by cracks formed in the thickness direction, and the bottom of each column is adhered to the collector; a positive electrode that can lithiate and delithiate; and a nonaqueous electrolyte solution containing a lithium salt in a nonaqueous solvent. The electrolyte solution contains a compound expressed by a general formula (I).

Abstract: The present invention relates to a card stack reader, a card thereof, a card case, a method for manufacturing the card, a game machine using the same, and a computer-readable storage medium on which a game program is recorded. The card stack reader comprises an imaging unit which reads an image from a peripheral side portion of a stack of cards, each card having a read code along a peripheral side edge thereof, the read code identifying the card, and a code recognizing unit which recognizes the read code of each card from the image read by the imaging unit.

Abstract: A lithium secondary battery includes a negative electrode, a positive electrode, and a non-aqueous electrolyte. The negative electrode includes a negative electrode current collector (3b) having an irregular surface and a negative electrode active material layer (3a) formed on the surface. In the lithium secondary battery, the negative electrode active material layer (3a) is composed of a material that alloys with Li; thickness of the negative electrode active material layer (3a) (?m)/10-point mean surface roughness Rz of the negative electrode current collector (3b) (?m) is in the range of from 0.5 to 4; and tensile strength of the negative electrode current collector (3b) (N/mm2) at 25° C.×the negative electrode current collector base thickness (mm)/thickness of the negative electrode active material layer (3a) (?m) on one side of current collector is 2 or greater.

Abstract: Charge-discharge cycle performance is improved in a lithium secondary battery that uses a material that occludes lithium by alloying with lithium as its negative electrode active material. A lithium secondary battery comprises a negative electrode having a negative electrode active material thin film provided on a negative electrode current collector, a positive electrode including a positive electrode active material, and a non-aqueous electrolyte, in which the negative electrode active material is a material that occludes lithium by alloying with lithium, the ratio of the discharge capacity per unit area of the negative electrode to the discharge capacity per unit area of the positive electrode is from 1.5 to 3, and the ratio of the thickness (?m) of the negative electrode active material to the arithmetical mean roughness Ra (?m) of the surface of the negative electrode current collector is 50 or less.

Abstract: An integrated circuit device having a send/receive macro for serially transferring addresses and data to or from an external device via a serial transfer bus, the integrated circuit device includes: a CPU for performing predetermined processing. The send/receive macro includes a send/receive buffer accessed by the CPU, for storing a plurality of units of data to be transmitted or received over the serial transfer bus; an acknowledge detection unit for detecting a data acknowledge signal transmitted from a receiving device in response to transmission of predetermined units of data; and a data send unit for transmitting data stored in the send/receive buffer, in response to detection of the data acknowledge signal by the acknowledge detection unit, without generating any interrupt to the CPU.

Abstract: A card game apparatus includes a large-size panel display, a main control unit that controls screens on the large-size panel display, and a plurality of terminal apparatuses that are communicably connected to the main control unit. A game player purchases an integrated circuit card and, for example, eleven player cards on each of which, a soccer player's photograph is printed. When the game player arranges the player cards on a player card arrangement panel of one of the terminal apparatuses, card data recorded on the back of the player card will be read by an internal image sensor. Then, a team is organized by the player cards, and a game starts. The game player can direct a player's position and formation by changing placement of the player card.

Abstract: In a communications system in which a plurality of subscriber apparatuses and a station apparatus are connected to the same transmission channel for bidirectional communication, a bandwidth allocated in a direction from subscriber apparatuses to a station apparatus is dynamically updated. More specifically, a bandwidth usage rate is calculated from a bandwidth allocated in a updating period and a bandwidth actually used in the updating period. A bandwidth to be allocated in a subsequent period is determined based on the bandwidth usage rate thus calculated. With this construction, the station apparatus is capable of allocating the bandwidth required by the subscriber apparatuses or subscriber terminal apparatuses so that the bandwidth is efficiently used.

Abstract: In a system having a plurality of CPUs connected to a plurality of corresponding bus bridges which are connected in tandem, one of the plurality of bus bridges is associated with a memory storing boot programs for activating the plurality of CPUs. The CPU connected to the bus bridge associated with the memory gains access to the memory by accessing a predetermined address of the bus bridge. The remaining CPUs gain accesses to the same address as the predetermined address, of the bus bridges to which are connected respective CPUs. The thus accessed bus bridges have accesses to the memory by accessing the same address as the predetermined address, of the other bus bridges adjacent toward the bus bridge associated with the memory.