Abstract: A charging control system includes a lawn mower that includes a battery and performs a lawn mowing work while traveling autonomously, and a charging station for charging the battery. The lawn mower includes a superimposing unit for superimposing, on a charging current, a current indicating period information for defining a shutoff period of supply power to be supplied from the charging station. The charging station includes a current detector for detecting the charging current, an information acquisition unit for acquiring period information based on a detection result of the current detector, a switch for shutting off the supply power, and a shutoff controller for controlling the operation of the switch. The shutoff controller releases the shutoff of supply of power to the lawn mower based on the period information acquired by the information acquisition unit. Therefore, the power consumption of the lawn mower can be reduced.

Abstract: A semiconductor device includes a substrate, a semiconductor chip provided on the substrate, a plurality of terminals provided on a first side of the substrate, each electrically connected to the semiconductor chip and a plurality of test pads for performing electrical characteristic tests on the semiconductor chip, each test pad being electrically connected to a respective terminal in one-to-one correspondence.

Abstract: A machine tool is provided with a spindle clamping device for clamping a spindle assembly supported by a spindle head and composed of an outer spindle rotatably supported by the spindle head and an inner spindle disposed inside the outer spindle to be reciprocal along an axial direction thereof. The inner spindle is inserted into an inner hollow portion of the outer spindle so that a space is formed between an inner peripheral surface of the outer spindle and an outer peripheral surface of the inner spindle. The spindle clamping device comprises a pressure applying member such as a pair of pistons or oil ring disposed in the space between the outer and inner spindles for applying a pressure in an axial direction of the outer and inner spindles. The pressure applying member is provided with an oil chamber, and a pair of clamp rings are disposed in the space axially outside the pressure applying member.

Abstract: An IC mounting method and its resulting structure, such as an IC card is provided. An IC card includes a metal plate formed with at least one hole, and an IC chip is located fixed in position in the hole with a filler material filling the gap between the hole and the IC chip. An interconnect pattern is provided on the plate with an electrically insulating film sandwiched therebetween, and the interconnect pattern is in electrical contact with a contact pad of the IC chip. Preferably, the surface of the IC chip on which the contact pad is provided is substantially flush with one surface of the plate. When an electrically insulating film is fixedly attached to a substrate having a hole, in which an IC chip is fixedly provided, by an adhesive agent, the material of the film is selected to be similar to the material of the adhesive agent.

Abstract: A nuclear power plant using a structural material consisting of metal which comes into contact with a liquid in which radioactive substances are dissolved has a function to suppress the deposition of the radioactive substances. In this function, metal elements constituting the surface layer of the structural material which comes into contact with the liquid are oxidized by injecting oxidizing agents from outside, thereby preliminarily producing an oxide film. The oxidizing agents comprise at least one kind selected from the group consisting of oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, chromate, nitrite, molybdate, tungstate and ferrate. Particularly, by suppressing the deposition of radioactive substances on a stainless steel, the dose rate of exposure of workers is effectively reduced.

Abstract: A thermal print head driving system supplies a predetermined number of driving pulses to each of a plurality of heat-producing elements arranged in a line to record a single dot of desired tone. The pulse width of driving pulse is controlled in accordance with the temperature at or in the vicinity of the heat-producing elements thereby allowing to maintain the density level of desired tone at constant. In another aspect of the present invention, it is so structured that driving pulses may be applied to the heat-producing elements in a continuous manner without producing a cooling period during switching between tone levels. In a further aspect of the present invention, it is so structured that a predetermined number of driving pulses for each of predetermined number of tone levels is altered in consideration of the data in at least one of preceding recording lines, thereby allowing to carry out a high speed recording operation without causing fluctuations in predetermined tone density level.

Abstract: A tool magazine is divided into four regions respectively containing substantially the same number of tool pots. When a designated tool is contained in a first or fourth region the magazine is rotated in the clockwise direction to index the designated tool to a tool exchange position, whereas when the designated tool is contained in a second or third region the magazine is rotated in the counterclockwise direction. Designation of a desired tool, the direction of rotation of the magazine and number of steps of the magazine are controlled by a computer including a memory having a comparison table written with correspondences between tool numbers and absolute tool pot numbers. According to a modified embodiment, the tool magazine is provided with two tool exchange positions between adjacent regions and on one side thereof, and the tool exchanger is selectively moved to either one of the tool exchange positions.

Abstract: A boiler tube and a method for manufacturing the same are disclosed in which an inner surface of the boiler tube used in the center of a high-temperature, high-pressure boiler is formed with a spinel layer consisting of an oxide of iron, chromium and nickel, which is exposed. The specific method of the manufacture is that after the boiler tube is brought into contact with high temperature steam, a magnetic iron (Fe.sub.3 O.sub.4) layer produced on the inner surface is removed.