Abstract: In a steering wheel with an air bag device, a horn pad is provided above the air bag device. The air bag device is arranged above a boss plate provided at the center of the steering wheel. Further, a horn switch mechanism operated by depressing the horn pad is provided. In the steering wheel, the horn pad is integral with a core covering portion of a steering wheel body, and a depressing plate is provided immediately below the horn pad. The air bag device is fixedly secured to the boss plate. The depressing plate is preferably substantially rigid, and is so shaped as to straddle the air bag. Resilient members resist the depression of the depressing plate, and pairs of contacts of the horn switch mechanism are provided between the depressing plate and the boss plate to actuate the horn.

Abstract: A steering wheel main body comprises cover members for covering a metal ring core and metal spoke cores, respectively, and a pad which is formed integrally with such cover members. A boss is connected through a connecting part with the metal spoke cores, which are arranged on opposite sides of the steering wheel and formed into a united body. The boss is situated below the metal ring core and the metal spoke cores are connected to the boss and to the other metal spoke core through sub-connecting parts to thereby form an opening, and the air bag device is mounted through the opening. This permits completion of the assembling operation of the steering wheel with ease. After completion of the assembling of the steering wheel, the boss is united together with the steering wheel main body and that completed assembly is mounted onto the top end portion of a steering shaft.

Abstract: A steering wheel is provided with a steering wheel body, a boss core and an air bag device held by the boss core. The steering wheel body includes a core portion having a ring core and spoke cores and a cover portion covering the core portion. The cover portion includes a core cover layer covering the ring core and the spoke cores and a ceiling cover layer continuously formed with the core cover layer covering the center of the steering wheel. The boss core holds an air bag device between the boss core and the ceiling cover layer. The boss core also has a connection part that allows a steering shaft to be connected from underneath the steering wheel.

Abstract: A steering wheel equipped with an air bag device. A steering wheel body consists of a core member and a cover member which comprises a core covering portion and a top covering portion which has a door portion which, when an air bag inflates, will open by tearing the tearing portion. The steering wheel body has an insert buried, that comprises a top portion which is located in the door portion and a stem portion which is located in the covering layer and which is connected to the top portion by means of a flexible coupling portion. A bottom member which is located in the lower part of the boss portion combines with cover layer to hold an air bag device between these two members and has a connecting portion located in such a way that the upper end of the steering shaft can be connected from below to the bottom member, which is coupled to spoke cores by means of bolts.

Abstract: A remote control apparatus for recording/playback equipment capable of remotely controlling complicated recording playback equipment while placing little burden on the control side. Schedule data is transmitted from an uplink system 100 to a downlink system 200 via a communications satellite. The schedule data includes operation data for recording and playback operations and their related operations, start data which displays at least the operation start time, and position data which indicates the recording/playback position on the recording medium. The received schedule data is stored in a non-volatile RAM in the control area of the VCR 203. The VCR then uses this schedule data as a basis for automatically carrying out recording or playback operations and their related operations.

Abstract: An impact energy absorber includes: an interaction member and a plurality of energy absorbing members disposed radially around the interaction member, each of the energy absorbing members having a contact portion disposed on the interaction member side for being contactable with the interaction member, a ceiling portion disposed in the radially outside of the interaction member for receiving an impact force, and a shrinkable portion disposed between the contact portion and the ceiling portion so that the shrinkable portion is plastically deformable so as to shrink in the radial direction of the interaction member. The impact energy absorber can make the quantity of absorbed energy constant even if the acting angle of an impact force varies, so that it is possible to improve the degrees of freedom of the installation for the impact energy absorber.

Abstract: An air bag device is arranged at an upper portion of a steering wheel body, and horn switch mechanisms are arranged between a mandrel of the steering wheel body and a bag holder of the air bag device. The mandrel comprises a plurality of brackets each having an engaging member which is opened at a lower portion thereof and which extends horizontally. Upward movement of the bag holder is restricted by mounting screws threadedly engaged with mounting holes in the bag holder, the screws extend from below the engaging members of the brackets. The bag holder is retained by the mandrel in a manner to be movable downwardly.

Abstract: Disclosed is a corrosion-free connector-structure of a fuel pump used in a vehicle fuel supply system. An electrical connector portion of a fuel pump is shaped into a square tube and its tubular wall is formed with a lock window for engagement with an engagement nail of a female connector and a fluid discharge port at an upper and lower portion thereof, respectively. As gasoline fuel level in the fuel tank lowers, the connector portion is exposed to air in the fuel tank and gasoline in the upper space within the connector portion or tubular wall pushes down and discharges water and degraded gasoline remaining in the lower space within the connector portion through the discharge port. Since water and degraded gasoline will not remain within the connector portion, electrical connector members or electrodes may be prevented from corrosion.

Abstract: A steering wheel core is provided including a boss, a ring and a spoke. The spoke is composed of a cover member having predetermined rigidity, and a flexible insert embedded in the cover member. The insert is formed with a bent portion. The cover member has a reduced thickness portion near the bent portion of the insert. Due to the reduced thickness portion, the cover member has a lower strength near the bent portion than that of remaining portions thereof. As a result, the cover member ruptures near the bent portion if an impact is applied to the steering wheel, so that the spoke is deformed to absorb the impact. However, the spoke will not rupture completely due to the insert flexing at its bent portion.

Abstract: In high efficiency coding of a motion image signal in transmission or recording of the motion image signal, plural prediction signals are determined by independently compensating a motion of reproduction signals of plural frames positioned before a frame to be coded. A linear combination of these prediction signals is used as derived a prediction signal. An error of the frame to be coded and the derived prediction signal is coded. As a result, the distortion of the prediction signal, that is, the prediction error is reduced, and the coding efficiency is enhanced.

Abstract: A steering wheel having an air bag device which includes a ring portion, a boss portion, a bracket, a spoke and an air bag device. The boss portion has a boss and a boss plate extending laterally from the boss periphery. A bracket made of plastically deformable metal has a supporting portion inclined outwardly in opposite directions toward the ring portion. The air bag device is held at a predetermined distance from the boss plate by the bracket and includes a bag holder made of plastically deformable metal and having connecting portions inclined at the same angle as the supporting portions of the bracket. By providing supporting portions inclined in opposite directions, the steering wheel of the present invention can absorb impact energy not only by inflation of the air bag device but also by deformation of the supporting portions due to rotation of the air bag device during impact.

Abstract: A thermal printer in which a sheet of recording paper is held by and between a thermal print head includes a plurality of heat generating elements and a platen drum, the amounts of heat of the heat generating elements are selectively changed, and an image is printed onto the recording paper. In the thermal printer, a printing position is set just behind a clamp position at which a clamp clamps the leading end of the recording paper onto the platen drum. Therefore, the image printing can be started immediately after the clamp position passes through the thermal head, with the recording paper being in part wound around the platen drum by the thermal printer. As a result, the time taken from paper feeding to printing starting can be reduced.

Abstract: A magnetic recording and reproducing apparatus which has a loading ring used to draw out a magnetic tape from a cassette mounted at a predetermined position and wind the magnetic tape around a rotary head drum. In the magnetic recording and reproducing apparatus, the loading ring is disposed in a plane intersecting perpendicularly with the drum axis of the rotary head drum, and a plane in which the head of the rotary head drum is rotated is parallel to a plane in which the loading ring is moved.

Abstract: A direct color thermal recording method records full-color images on a thermosensitive color recording medium having at least three laminated thermosensitive recording layers which are developed in three colors. The optical recording is performed in at least the uppermost thermosensitive recording layer by being exposed to ultraviolet rays of a wavelength range specific to the individual recording layer to be recorded while controlling the intensity of rays according to desired color densities of pixels to be recorded in the corresponding layer. Thereafter, thermal recording is performed in a lower recording layer by applying heat energy to the color recording medium. The amount of heat energy is controlled so as to record pixels at the desired color densities in the lower recording layer, and also the heat energy is used to develop colors in at least an upper recording layer after having been subjected to optical recording.

Abstract: A motion compensated prediction interframe coding system which first measures characteristics regarding the fineness of a pattern or texture of a picture, which is represented by an input television signal and is divided into a group of continuous blocks each quantized by using a quantization step size, and changes the quantization step size into a smaller one if quantizes a block having a picture pattern or texture finer than patterns of the other blocks. Thereby, an amount of generated codes can be limited but a motion compensated prediction frame coding operation can be performed without degrading the fineness of the texture of the original input picture.

Abstract: A steering wheel having a ring portion, a boss portion arranged at the center of the ring portion, and a spoke portion connecting the boss portion with the ring portion, and in which the boss portion includes a boss and a boss plate, the boss having non-circular surfaces formed on the outer peripheral surface of the boss, the boss plate being connected with the spoke portion and with the upper surface of the boss by resistance welding and having flexible portions and restricting projections located around the center of the boss. The flexible portions provide an energy absorbing function and non-circular surfaces of the boss and the restricting projections of the boss plate prevent rotation of the boss plate relative to the boss when the welding portion happens to break.

Abstract: A motion compensated prediction interframe coding system which includes a first checking portion for judging whether a motion compensation of a coding block is effective and outputting a motion compensation control signal representing the result of the judgement, a storage portion for storing motion vectors of the coding block and adjacent blocks and the motion compensation control signal, a second checking portion for comparing the motion vector of the coding block, of which the motion compensation should be effected, with each of the motion vectors of the adjacent blocks, of which the motion compensation should be effected, and judging that the intra-loop filtering processing to be performed after the motion compensation is ineffective if the number of the adjacent blocks, of which the motion vectors are identical with that of the coding block, is equal to or more than a predetermined number and that the filtering processing performed after the motion compensation is effective in another case, a motion-comp

Abstract: A moving image signal encoding apparatus includes: a frame decimating circuit for extracting encoded frames from an input moving image signal at specified intervals; a frame interpolating circuit for obtaining an interpolated frame between the encoded frames, and a circuit for obtaining an error formed by frame interpolation. A moving image signal decoding apparatus includes: a receiving circuit for extracting a frame code from an inputted signal; a frame decoding circuit for decoding the frame code to obtain a reproduced frame, and a frame interpolating circuit for obtaining an interpolated frame between the reproduced frames. By transmitting an error of the interpolated frame from the encoding apparatus to the decoding apparatus and correcting the error of the interpolated frame with the decoding apparatus, the error of the interpolated frame is eliminated.

Abstract: A zoom lens system in which an angle of view is automatically varied according to camera-to-subject distances so as to be able to provide on a photographing screen a subject which is always constant in size. In the zoom lens system, a focus lens is stopped at a given position and, in this condition, a magnification varying lens and a compensator lens are driven to thereby achieve a focusing operation. In this operation, the angle of view is automatically varied according to the camera-to-subject distances, so that the size of the subject can be always constant with respect to the photographing screen regardless of the camera-to-subject distances. As a result of this, according to the invention, there is eliminated the need for provision of a data table memory for performing an automatic zooming operation, and exclusive and complicated control device and position detection device.

Abstract: An apparatus for the protection of signal copy for preventing unauthorized copying of music software such as records, compact discs and music tape by recording is arranged such that when recording audio signals on a medium, certain supplemental information is added to the audio signal to be recorded, and in the process of copying by reproducing this medium, when the supplemental signal is detected in the reproduced signal, the copying action is stopped to protect it from being copied.