Abstract: If a management server receives an invitation request, the management server acquires a requester's reference identification information corresponding to a requester's user identification information, a receiver's reference identification information corresponding to a receiver's user identification information, and an identification information, by referring to a user information table. The management server generates a record in which a status information is set to “pending”, and records the record in an invitation table. Assuming that the game to which a user A wants to invite another user B is a game b, the other user B who builds a friendship with the user A in a game c, the user A manages one terminal device, and the other user B manages another terminal device. In this case, the management server sends an invitation mail indicating that there is an invitation from the user A in the game b to the other terminal device.

Abstract: A management server is provided with an accepting unit for accepting identification information identifying an application, a specifying unit adapted for specifying a part or all of candidate users satisfying all of conditions out of one or more users with whom a request user's friendship is built in one or more utilized applications that the request user has utilized, a first condition in which the candidate user utilizes the application identified by the identification information, a second condition in which the request user's friendship with the candidate user has not been built in the identified application, a third condition in which a friend upper limit is not encountered, and a display controlling unit adapted for displaying the part or all of the candidate users specified by the specifying unit in the terminal device of the request user in order to select one or more users from the part or all of the candidate users.

Abstract: A management server is provided with an accepting unit for accepting identification information identifying an application, a specifying unit adapted for specifying a part or all of candidate users satisfying all of conditions out of one or more users with whom a request user's friendship is built in one or more utilized applications that the request user has utilized, a first condition in which the candidate user utilizes the application identified by the identification information, a second condition in which the request user's friendship with the candidate user has not been built in the identified application, a third condition in which a friend upper limit is not encountered, and a display controlling unit adapted for displaying the part or all of the candidate users specified by the specifying unit in the terminal device of the request user in order to select one or more users from the part or all of the candidate users.

Abstract: If a management server receives an invitation request, the management server acquires a requester's reference identification information corresponding to a requester's user identification information, a receiver's reference identification information corresponding to a receiver's user identification information, and an identification information, by referring to a user information table. The management server generates a record in which a status information is set to “pending”, and records the record in an invitation table. Assuming that the game to which a user A wants to invite another user B is a game b, the other user B who builds a friendship with the user A in a game c, the user A manages one terminal device, and the other user B manages another terminal device. In this case, the management server sends an invitation mail indicating that there is an invitation from the user A in the game b to the other terminal device.

Abstract: If a management server receives an access request, the management server performs a first ranking processing. A CPU extracts records satisfying a predetermined condition by referring to a relation table, and specifies one or plural user identification information included in the extracted records. The CPU accumulates the number of the specified user identification information for each of games, and specifies descending order of popularity of the games using the accumulated number. The CPU arranges information including explanations of the games in descending order of the number of users playing the games, and generates a first ranking page. The CPU sends an access response including the first ranking page back to a terminal device.

Abstract: A translating apparatus includes a speech recognition unit, a machine translation unit, a speech synthesizing unit, and a dialog management unit. The speech recognition unit recognizes input speech, and supplies the result of the speech recognition to the machine translation unit. The machine translation unit translates the result of the speech recognition. When a Japanese-speaking user and an English-speaking user speak to each other, the dialog management unit stores a history of dialogs, and determines based on the dialog history and prestored knowledge whether the result of the translation by the machine translation unit is unnatural compared with the flow of the dialog. When the result of the translation is unnatural, the dialog management unit outputs, to the machine translation unit, information representing the unnatural result. This controls the machine translation unit to perform translation again.

Abstract: In a waist expanding and contracting structure for pants or the like of a type having waist pockets, a waist part 1 consists of a front waist part 2, a back waist part 3, and a side waist part 4. The structure includes a first elastic member 14 which is positioned between a front waist surface cloth 6 and a front waist reverse cloth 8 with its one end sewn to the side waist part and with its other end sewn to both the front waist surface cloth and the front waist reverse cloth by sewing together, and a second elastic member 15 which is positioned at the rear of the side waist part 4 with its one end sewn to the back waist part 3 and with its other end sewn to the front waist reverse cloth 8. A side cloth 13 is folded back to be sewn to a hemmed edge P1 of the waist pocket, and a pocket bag 17 to be opened and closed by a fastener 16 is provided between the front body part 5 and a reverse cloth 7 of the front body part.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a driving unit for transmitting a driving force to the image carrier via a driving spline, and a plurality of members to be driven for driving the driving force transmitted from the driving unit via the image carrier. A shaft is disposed coaxially with a rotation shaft of the image carrier in one end of the image carrier. An involute spline-shaped follower spline to which the driving force is transmitted from the driving unit via the driving spline is formed on an inner peripheral surface of the flange, and a driving force transmitter for transmitting the driving force to at least one of the member to be driven is formed on an outer peripheral surface of the flange.

Abstract: The learning history memory 9 controls, based on the accumulated learning history, the word dictionary memory 6, semantic/syntactic analysis grammar memory 7, and a correction information memory 13 to limit the syntactic/semantic language structure and range of vocabulary, which are not used frequently. Then, the speech recognition collator 4 collates the feature vector with information, having high priority within the limited range, in the word dictionary memory 6 and semantic/syntactic analysis grammar memory 7 to recognize the speech.

Abstract: In a waist expanding and contracting structure for pants or the like of a type having waist pockets, a waist part 1 consists of a front waist part 2, a back waist part 3, and a side waist part 4. The structure includes a first elastic member 14 which is positioned between a front waist surface cloth 6 and a front waist reverse cloth 8 with its one end sewn to the side waist part and with its other end sewn to both the front waist surface cloth and the front waist reverse cloth by sewing together, and a second elastic member 15 which is positioned at the rear of the side waist part 4 with its one end sewn to the back waist part 3 and with its other end sewn to the front waist reverse cloth 8. A side cloth 13 is folded back to be sewn to a hemmed edge P1 of the waist pocket, and a pocket bag 17 to be opened and closed by a fastener 16 is provided between the front body part 5 and a reverse cloth 7 of the front body part.

Abstract: There is disclosed an image forming apparatus in which looseness in peripheral and radius directions of an involute spline shaft and an involute spline hole is canceled without using a load unit and a driving force transmitted to a photoconductor drum is transmitted to another member to be driven with low cost, saved space and high precision. For this, the image forming apparatus is constituted to have the involute spline shaft to which the driving force generated by the driving unit is transmitted, and the involute spline hole, attached onto a rotation shaft of a photoconductor and positioned and connected to the involute spline shaft so as to contact the involute spline shaft by tooth surfaces on opposite sides and form a gap between the involute spline shaft and the involute spline hole in a tooth tip and tooth root, for transmitting the driving force transmitted from the involute spline shaft to the photoconductor so as to rotate the photoconductor.

Abstract: A highly reliable speech dialog apparatus is provided. A plurality of speech recognition results are input into a language processor. Among the plurality of recognition results, the language processor outputs only the grammatically correct recognition results to a dialog controller. The dialog controller selects a recognition result which matches a corresponding frame. A response sentence generator then generates a response sentence in such a manner that slots within the frame are filled in.

Abstract: A printer for forming a toner image to be transferred onto a work piece, includes a latent image roller with an outer peripheral image surface adapted to be electrified in such a manner that an electrostatic latent image is formed thereon, an image developing roller with an outer peripheral toner surface adapted to hold thereon toner to be supplied onto the outer peripheral image surface so that the electrostatic latent image is developed by the toner to form the toner image, an electrifier for electrifying the outer peripheral image surface, and a discharger for partially electrically discharging the electrified outer peripheral image surface to form the electrostatic latent image. A motor drives both the latent image roller and the image developing roller.

Abstract: In a sportwear, especially ski wear of the type that pants are suspended with suspenders, length of the leg portions of the pants are formed extendably and contractably. Front ends of the suspenders are fixed to the front face of the waist portion W of the pants, while rear ends of the suspenders are fixed in a narrow width to a back support piece attached to the back face of the waist portion and having a length from the waist portion up to the neck portion. Thus the suspenders are prevented from slipping off from the shoulders.

Abstract: A ski pants cover comprising a ski pant provided at the upper portion of the knee with a first retaining piece adapted to mount a cover at the ankle portion with likewise a second retaining piece for mounting the cover, said first retaining piece being hidden by a fly-front and the cover formed in such a manner as that a knee abutting portion, a shin abutting portion and a calf abutting portion are integrally connected each other and extendable, and characterized in that at the upper end of said knee abutting portion of said cover is provided with a third retaining piece adapted to engage the first retaining piece provided on the upper portion of the knee, and at the external ends of said shin abutting portion and said calf abutting portion of said cover are provided with fourth and fifth engaging pieces for engagement at a time when the cover is wound around the ski pant respectively and furthermore, at the ankle portion of said cover is provided with a sixth retaining piece adapted to engage the second reta