Abstract: A continuously-fed flat tube is cut into sub tubes each having a given length. The flat tube has multiple ports therein. A pair of roller cutters are enabled to follow the flat tube at a zero relative speed between the roller cutters and the flat tube. The roller cutters are moved across portions of the flat tube respectively to cut the flat tube while the roller cutters are enabled to follow the flat tube at the zero relative speed. At least one of the roller cutters enters the flat tube by a depth equal to or greater than a half of a distance between outer flat surfaces of the flat tube while the roller cutters are moved across the portions of the flat tube.

Abstract: A water-injection foaming devolatilizing method includes the steps of: melting and kneading a polymer in a water-injection dispersing zone of an extruder having a screw; injecting water into a polymer melt so as to be dispersed into the polymer melt which is being kneaded; and vaporizing volatile components contained in the polymer melt together with water in a devolatilizing zone having a vent port and located on a downstream side of the water-injection dispersing zone, so that the volatile components are removed and discharged through the vent port. A pressure-reducing expansion zone is provided between the water-injection dispersing zone and the devolatilizing zone so as to be upstream of the vent port. The method further includes gradually reducing a pressure in the pressure-reducing expansion zone so that not only bubbles in the water which is dispersed into the polymer melt are made to grow up, but also the bubbles are broken down at a downstream end portion of the pressure-reducing expansion zone.

Abstract: A process for producing polylactic acid includes the steps of polycondensing lactic acid to a lactic acid prepolymer having a weight-average molecular weight of 10,000-50,000 in a batch-type polymerization reactor, and polycondensing the lactic acid prepolymer to lactic acid polymer having a weight-average molecular weight of at least 100,000 by means of a screw-type extruder.

Abstract: A method for manufacturing filter elements, in which sealant does not get onto the rolling claw and rolling of the roll filter paper is made easy.A long roll filter paper having laterally oriented filter parts for filtering, the filter parts being open on the inflow side of the roll filter paper and closed on the outflow side of the roll filter paper, is rolled. During rolling, a sealant is applied to the surface of the roll filter paper in a narrow longitudinal strip, in such a way that the sealant does not make contact with the rolling claw. The roll-start end of the roll filter paper is gripped with the rolling claw during rolling. The rolling claw is made up of 2 or 4 rolling bars having the shape of the parts produced when a cylinder is split into two halves along its axis.

Abstract: In an encryption apparatus, prior to encryption process, information indicating whether plain text blocks are to be encrypted or not is stored in a mask register, and the number of blocks of the plain text block sequence is stored in a count register. In the encryption process, the count register is sequentially decremented, and only the plain text blocks to be encrypted are read from an input buffer in an ascending order of addresses based on the information stored in the mask register. They are encrypted by an encryption circuit and the encrypted text blocks are stored in an output buffer at the corresponding addresses to the input buffer addresses at which the plain text blocks have been stored.

Abstract: The present memory control system fetches data blocks from memories, fetches data corresponding to the unit of processing in the execution unit from the data blocks, and transfers the data to the execution unit. Data blocks fetched from the memories are held in first hold device. The data blocks held in the first hold device are transferred to second hold device via gate. The gate selectively transfers all or a part of data in data blocks held by the first hold device to the second hold device. When a part of data held in the first hold device is transferred, the second hold device forms data blocks by using the data previously held and the data newly transferred from the first hold device. A data fetch device fetches the data corresponding to the unit length of data processing in the execution unit from the data blocks held in said second hold device and transfers the data to said execution unit.

Abstract: This storage system is designed to refer to a translation lookaside buffer, a buffer address array and a buffer storage in parallel. The translation lookaside buffer translates a logical address requesting memory access into a real address. The buffer storage retains part of the data retained in blocks by main storage and outputs data from M blocks in accordance with the logical address to M aligners. The buffer address array retains the addresses in MS of the data stored in each of the blocks in the buffer storage, and outputs M addresses in accordance with the logical address. A comparator compares the real addresses from the translation lookaside buffer with the addresses from the buffer address array, selects one of the outputs from the aligners, and transfers that output to a processor.

Abstract: A pulse train producing apparatus is arranged such that a plurality of first pulse trains are produced correspondingly to a plurality of second pulse trains to be produced so that the leading or trailing edges of the pulses of each first train are adjusted in phase according to the intended phases of corresponding edges of the pulses of a corresponding one of the second pulse trains and the pulses of each first train overlap at their leading or trailing edge portions with the trailing or leading edge portions of a different one of the first trains and two of the first pulse trains having the overlapping portions are applied for cutting away the overlapping portions of the pulses of one of the two pulse trains.