Abstract: A survey is placed into an envelope containing an address label and a tracking indicia. The address label indicates an old address of a recipient. The envelope containing the survey is routed through a delivery system. The delivery system is configured to sense the tracking indicia as it passes through the elements of the delivery system thus tracking the movement of the envelope through the delivery system. The envelope containing the survey is sent through the delivery system to the plant supporting the old address. The recipient, however, no longer resides at the old address and now resides at a new address. The envelope containing the survey is forwarded through the delivery system to the plant supporting the new address. Once the recipient receives and completes the survey, survey is sent to the system operator for analysis.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a dampening device for a ball game racket, in particular a tennis, squash, racket ball or badminton racket, as well as to a ball game racket comprising a dampening device of this kind. The dampening device according to the invention comprises a base body made of foam material and a connecting means which is configured such that the dampening device can be fixed to at least one longitudinal string, preferably at least two longitudinal strings of a ball game racket without substantially coupling the embraced strings with each other.

Abstract: When a data write request is received from an application program, the received data write request is issued to a disk (primary) without waiting next check point, and the data write request is issued to a disk (shadow) after obtaining next check point. When restarting a process from obtained preceding check point, data in the disk (primary) is recovered by data in the disk (shadow). As a result, a delay of I/O request by a check point is decreased, thereby remarkably improving system performance in a normal operation.

Abstract: An X-ray CT scanner, having an X-ray tube for emitting X-rays to a subject under examination and an X-ray detector for detecting X-rays emitted by the X-ray tube and passed through the subject. The X-ray CT scanner photographs a scanogram of the subject first and then photographs slice images of the subject in slice positions set on the scanogram. The X-ray CT scanner includes a scan condition setter for determining optimum scan conditions including optimum X-ray tube current or the optimum X-ray tube voltage for each of slice position and optimum shifted positions of the X-ray tube and X-ray detector in the case of an X-ray CT scanner with a shift mechanism for photographing the slice images on the basis of photographic data of the scanogram and a scan controller for controlling the execution of photographing of the slice images in accordance with the scan conditions determined by the scan condition setter.