Abstract: A draw forming method for drawing a blank material (15). In this method, a restraint region (98) that is an outer peripheral section (21) of the blank material is held by a first holder means (22), and then a tension region (97) inside the outer peripheral section is displaced upward by a second holder means (23) relative to the restraint region. The displacement applies tensile force to a drawing region (96) that is the central section of the blank material.

Abstract: Disclosed is a sheet discharging apparatus including a charge eliminating member which is provided downstream a pair of swinging rollers for discharging a sheet, and is directed along a sheet discharging direction from its upstream side toward its downstream side. In the sheet discharging apparatus, the charge eliminating member is directed along the sheet discharging direction from its upstream side toward its downstream side, so that an area of the charge eliminating member facing a sheet is made larger than that of a conventional one, and static electricity of the sheet can be surely removed. Particularly, even when the sheet is a color sheet on which a color image charged with more static electricity than a monochromatic sheet is formed, the static electricity of the color sheet can be surely removed.

Abstract: Disclosed is a sheet discharging apparatus including a charge eliminating member which is provided downstream a pair of swinging rollers for discharging a sheet, and is directed along a sheet discharging direction from its upstream side toward its downstream side. In the sheet discharging apparatus, the charge eliminating member is directed along the sheet discharging direction from its upstream side toward its downstream side, so that an area of the charge eliminating member facing a sheet is made larger than that of a conventional one, and static electricity of the sheet can be surely removed. Particularly, even when the sheet is a color sheet on which a color image charged with more static electricity than a monochromatic sheet is formed, the static electricity of the color sheet can be surely removed.

Abstract: The transaction processing throughput of a system in which a plurality of servers cooperatively perform distributed processing of transactions is improved. The servers (1a, 1b, 1c, . . .) are connected to each other through a communication network (2), and a resources (16) and a log 18 are distributed over these servers. When one of the servers, e.g., the server (1a) receives a transaction, the server (1a) instructs the servers (1b, 1c, . . . ) over which the resource 16 relating to this transaction are distributed to update their resources, acquires the log data representing the updating contents and stores the log data in its log (18)The servers (1b, 1c, . . .) update the resources in accordance with the instruction. Even when a fault occurs in one of the servers (1b, 1c, . . .) during the transaction processing so that the updating of the resources has not been executed, the system assumes that all the resource has been updated and proceeds to processing the following transaction.