Abstract: A rocker arm configured to be supported by a support portion of an internal-combustion engine and to be driven in a swinging manner by a cam. The rocker arm includes a rocker arm body including a cam follower having a first slide-contact surface, wherein the first slide-contact surface is in sliding contact with the cam, a fulcrum portion including a second slide-contact surface, wherein the second slide-contact surface swingably is in sliding contact with respect to the support portion, and a lubricant discharging portion for biasing a lubricant supplied from the fulcrum portion in a direction toward the first slide-contact surface and discharging the lubricant. The fulcrum portion penetrates the rocker arm and is fastened to the rocker arm body. The fulcrum portion has a through hole supplying the lubricant to the lubricant discharging portion through the rocker arm body.

Abstract: A rocker arm supported by a support portion of an engine and to be driven by a cam includes a sheet-metal rocker arm body manufactured by plastic working and including a cam follower, a fulcrum portion manufactured by cutting and including a through hole supplying lubricant, and a lubricant discharging hole. The cam follower includes a first slide-contact surface being in sliding contact with the cam. The lubricant discharging hole is defined by an outer surface of the fulcrum portion and an outer surface of the sheet-metal rocker arm body and in communication with the through hole. The lubricant discharging hole biases the lubricant supplied from the through hole in a direction toward the first slide-contact surface.

Abstract: A rocker arm includes a roller brought into contact with a cam to be rotated and an arm body having a storage portion for the roller. The storage portion has an opening edge including a part receiving lubricant oil flowing along an upper surface of the arm body. The part is formed with a receiving opening edge jutting out so that both widthwise ends are located away from a circumferential surface of the roller and so that a widthwise central portion comes closer to the circumferential surface of the roller. The arm body has a lubricant guide path formed by recessing the upper surface thereof and guiding the lubricant oil into the storage portion. The lubricant guide path has a width that is gradually rendered larger as the lubricant guide path gets close to the widthwise central portion of the receiving opening edge.

Abstract: A rocker arm for an internal combustion engine includes a roller brought into contact with a cam thereby to be rotated, an arm body having a storage portion in which the roller is stored, the arm body being swung by rotation of the cam, thereby opening and closing a valve. The storage portion has an opening edge located on an upper surface of the arm body and opposed to a circumferential surface of the roller, and the opening edge includes a part receiving a lubricant flowing along the upper surface of the arm body, the part being formed with a receiving opening edge jutting out so that both widthwise ends thereof are located away from the circumferential surface of the roller and so that a widthwise central portion thereof comes close to the circumferential surface of the roller.

Abstract: A rocker arm configured to be supported by a support portion of an internal-combustion engine and to be driven in a swinging manner by a cam. The rocker arm includes a rocker arm body including a cam follower having a first slide-contact surface, wherein the first slide-contact surface is in sliding contact with the cam, a fulcrum portion including a second slide-contact surface, wherein the second slide-contact surface swingably is in sliding contact with respect to the support portion, and a lubricant discharging portion for biasing a lubricant supplied from the fulcrum portion in a direction toward the first slide-contact surface and discharging the lubricant. The fulcrum portion penetrates the rocker arm and is fastened to the rocker arm body. The fulcrum portion has a through hole supplying the lubricant to the lubricant discharging portion through the rocker arm body.

Abstract: A rocker arm supported by a support portion of an engine and to be driven by a cam includes a sheet-metal rocker arm body manufactured by plastic working and including a cam follower, a fulcrum portion manufactured by cutting and including a through hole supplying lubricant, and a lubricant discharging hole. The cam follower includes a first slide-contact surface being in sliding contact with the cam. The lubricant discharging hole is defined by an outer surface of the fulcrum portion and an outer surface of the sheet-metal rocker arm body and in communication with the through hole. The lubricant discharging hole biases the lubricant supplied from the through hole in a direction toward the first slide-contact surface.

Abstract: A hydraulic lash adjuster for an internal combustion engine is disclosed. The hydraulic lash adjuster includes a low-pressure chamber defined in the plunger and filled with a hydraulic fluid and a high-pressure chamber filled with hydraulic fluid defined in a lower interior of the cylinder and partitioned by the bottom wall of the plunger from the low-pressure chamber. A valve port is formed through the bottom wall of the plunger so as to communicate with both the low-pressure and high-pressure chambers. The valve port has at the high-pressure chamber side an opening edge formed with a valve seat face. A valve element is provided in the high-pressure chamber so as to abut and depart from the valve seat face, thereby closing and opening the valve port. The valve element is made of a material having a specific gravity smaller than steel.

Abstract: An order assembly production system and method comprises a vender managed inventory (VMI) system and a forecast presented to a component vender. A prospect production is performed until intermediate products are obtained, the intermediate products are stocked, and final assembly is performed after an order is accepted. The final assembly is performed from the intermediate product, resulting in a shorter lead time and preventing the loss of sales opportunities due to shortages. Since no final product is stocked, excess production is avoided. In addition, because the intermediate products may be designed to be general-purpose and may be used in a plurality of products, demand fluctuations for the intermediate products can be buffered.

Abstract: A needle-like ultrasonic probe includes an inner needle received in a hollow, tubular outer needle for rotation about an axis thereof. The inner needle has a pointed distal end, and a notch is formed in an outer peripheral surface of that portion of the inner needle which is located adjacent to the distal end thereof. At least one ultrasonic transducer, as well as an acoustic lens for converging an ultrasonic wave, produced by the ultrasonic transducer, onto a point near to the outer peripheral surface of the inner needle, is provided in the notch. A filler, having an outer surface conforming to the outer peripheral surface of the inner needle, is fitted in the notch. With this construction, after the inner needle is smoothly stuck into a living tissue, even if it is rotated and axially moved, the living tissue is less affected or damaged by the inner needle.

Abstract: An ultrasound signal processor has a receiving signal digitizing circuit, waveform conversion circuit for mixing a produced digital signal by a reference signal, a cumulation circuit for performing a cumulation processing of a series of converted signals, a delay circuit subject to the cumulation processing, and a circuit for adding delayed signals, whereby the frequency of the receiving signal is shifted to a lower frequency and thereafter subjected to a cumulation processing which perform over-sampling technique so that the accuracy of an analog to digital conversion can be improved drastically. The ultrasound signal processor further has a circuit for converting a receiving signal into a low frequency signal by analog-mixing and a circuit for passing a low frequency component of the analog-converted signal, whereby a higher frequency receiving signal can be digitized even if the digitizing circuit has a insufficient sampling rate.

Abstract: An ultrasonic flow mapping apparatus transmits and reflects waves from sampling points on a two-dimensional cross-section. The waves are detected while transmitting repeatedly ultrasonic pulses. The phase shifts of different reflected waves are calculated, and displayed in color to show a distribution of blood flow velocity. Artifact due to reflected waves from body organs, which remain even by using MTI filters, is detected from phase signals, which have not passed through the MTI filters, and the artifact is removed by lowering display brightness for a sampling point corresponding to a relevant detection output.

Abstract: A pulse doppler apparatus transmits a ultrasonic sound wave at transmission intervals T and T+Ts alternately and iteratively, detects the phase difference attributable to the doppler shift in the reflected sound wave signal at the interval T and the phase difference in the reflected signal at the interval T+Ts sequentially, detects the difference between both phase differences, and transforms the difference into a doppler frequency. The apparatus includes an MTI filter which exerts the same filtering characteristics on the reflected sound signals at both intervals T and T+Ts.

Abstract: A flow meter, in which pulsed continuous ultrasonic wave is transmitted towards an object at predetermined intervals T to obtain a phase vector from a reception signal of wave reflected by the object and which calculates a Doppler frequency from the average value of phase differences between phase vectors at the sampling interval T to obtain a signal indicating the speed of the object, comprising a phase difference calculator by the auto-correlation method, by which a plurality of phase difference vectors indicating phase differences between phase vectors are added, the argument of the sum vector thus obtained representing the average phase difference, or a phase difference calculator by the 2-axial-component method, by which a phase difference is divided into 2 axial components, a cosine value and a sine value, and the average phase difference is obtained by using the average value for each of the components, and a phase difference calculator by the phase difference averaging calculator, by which a plurality

Abstract: A ultrasonic Doppler meter for measuring the speed of a moving body by measuring the phase shift due to the Doppler effect on received signals, comprising a transmitting/receiving unit transmitting ultrasonic bursts with a constant time interval towards the moving body and receiving reflected waves; a unit for measuring a phase difference vector representing a difference between phases of received signals corresponding to two successive transmitted pulses; a unit for calculating a difference between phase differences on the basis of two successive phase difference vectors stated above; and an accumulation unit for adding the difference between phase differences to a preceeding phase difference vector so as to obtain the speed of the moving object.

Abstract: An ultrasonic Doppler blood flow meter comprises a transmit-receive transducer transmitting ultrasonic wave toward and into a living body and receiving an echo signal, quadrature detectors detecting a real (R) component and an imaginary (I) component of the receiving echo signal respectively, A/D converters converting analog output signals of the quadrature detectors into digital signals respectively, a converter subjecting the R and I components to quadrature transformation to generate output signals representing the absolute value and phase angle (.theta.) respectively of the received echo signal, and a signal processing circuit calculating the mean value of the differences (.DELTA..theta..sub.i =.theta..sub.i -.theta..sub.i-1) between the phase angles (.theta..sub.i) and their preceding ones (.theta..sub.i-1) detected when the ultrasonic wave is transmitted and the echo signal is received a predetermined number of times. In the signal processing circuit, the phase angle differences (.DELTA..theta.

Abstract: An ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus includes a circuit unit for obtaining an envelope signal of a received ultrasonic signal, an A/D converter for A/D converting the envelope signal, and a circuit unit responsive to the output from the A/D converter for emphasizing the high frequency components of the envelope signal through a digital signal processing.

Abstract: A probe which is inserted into a lumen to obtain an ultrasonic tomogram using mechanical scanning is disclosed. A cylindrical acoustic case is filled with a liquid medium which transmits sound waves, and an elliptical ultrasonic transducer is immersed therein in such a manner that it can be rotated by a motor. The diameter of the transducer parallel to its axis of rotation is greater than that perpendicular to the axis of rotation, so that the lateral resolution parallel to the axis of rotation is improved, as well as the sensitivity.