Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Akinori Hongu

Hideki Kobayashi

Hirokazu Niki

Kazuhito Haruki

Koji Asakawa

Nobukazu Suzuki

Masao Yamamoto

Shuji Yamada

Motoya Kanda

Ken Uchida

Shinji Tsuruta

Yuu Kondou

Kunihiko Sasaki

Norio Takeyama

Yoshiko Kanazawa

Seizo Doi

Koji Hashimoto

Naomi Shida

Hiroshi Yamada

Toru Ushirogouchi

Kenji Sano

Kenji Todori

Shigeru Machida

Makoto Nakase

Kouhei Suzuki

Nobuo Iwase

Miki Mori

Kouji Suzuki

Taeko I Urano

Masayuki Sekimura

Takuya Naito

Yutaka Majima

Hideki Shimada

Masayuki Ohuchi

Kazuhiko Nishimura

Miho Takahashi

Koji Hasimoto

An environmental impact estimation method comprising storing information related to reuse and recycle objects in a memory unit, performing life cycle modeling to make a life cycle model, the life cycle modeling including reading information related to the reuse and recycle objects, selecting some of the reuse and recycle objects which can be diverted to a new product, and combining the reuse and recycle objects selected together to assemble new product, predicting, as a superposition of two or more arbitrary shapes, recovery distribution of products by the life cycle modeling to predict a recovery quantity of the reuse and recycle objected, using the life cycle model, determining the arbitrary shapes as a peak of the product worth life or product useful life, and evaluating an environmental impact and a cost to bear in reuse or recycle based on prediction result.

Environmental impact estimation method and apparatus

Disclosed is a computer-aided product designing assistant apparatus and method for assisting designing of an environmentally conscious product by presenting at least one design guideline to be adopted in designing the environmental counscious product. The apparatus comprises: a database storing a plurality of design guidelines for each product and evaluation values assigned to each design guideline in relation to a plurality of environmental issues and a plurality of phases defining a life cycle of products, the evaluation values assigned to each design guideline being capable of indicating an effectiveness of each design guideline in resolving each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle, each environmental issue respectively representing an issue to be resolved in order to reduce environmental load due to each product; and a processing unit for determining a relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle for a product to be designed, selecting at least one design guideline for the product to be designed from said plurality of design guidelines stored in the database according to the evaluation values stored in the database and the relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle determined for the product to be designed, and presenting said at least one design guideline selected for the product to be designed.

Computer-aided designing assistant apparatus and method of assisting designing of environmentally conscious product

An apparatus comprising a storage device which stores information concerning first objects to be reused and second objects to be recycled, and a modeling device which performs life cycle modeling. The life cycle modeling includes reading information concerning the first objects and the second objects that configure a product from the storage device, selecting some of the first and second objects which are diverted to a new product from a recovery product using the information, and combining selected ones of the first and second objects to fabricate the new product to generate a life cycle model.

Apparatus for environmental impact estimation and method and program stored in a computer readable medium for executing the same

Supplier-specific data of material items are extracted from data of various material items used for the manufacture of a product. Tabular data having a structure that allows various pieces of environment consideration condition information about the extracted data to be input is created by using general-purpose spreadsheet software. The tabular data is laid out to locate an item whose contents are likely to change at an end of a table so as to minimize a change in data structure in the event of a change in contents of environment consideration condition items. The tabular data is provided to the supplier. Environment consideration condition information about each material item is acquired by using the tabular data containing the environment consideration condition information added to the tabular data on the supplier side.

Method of acquiring environment consideration condition information

Disclosed is a computer-aided product designing assistant apparatus and method for assisting designing of an environmentally conscious product by presenting at least one design guideline to be adopted in designing the environmental conscious product. The apparatus includes: a database storing a plurality of design guidelines for each product and evaluation values assigned to each design guideline in relation to a plurality of environmental issues and a plurality of phases defining a life cycle of products, the evaluation values assigned to each design guideline being capable of indicating an effectiveness of each design guideline in resolving each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle, each environmental issue respectively representing an issue to be resolved in order to reduce environmental load due to each product; and a processing unit for determining a relative importance level a, of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle for a product to be designed, selecting at least one design guideline for the product to be designed from said plurality of design guidelines stored in the database according to the evaluation values stored in the database and the relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle determined for the product to be designed, and presenting said at least one design guideline selected for the product to be designed.

A liquid crystal display device comprises two substrates opposed to each other, a comb-shaped wall electrode formed to correspond to each pixel of an array defined by vertical and horizontal wires formed on the substrate, the comb-shaped wall electrode having a plurality of elemental electrodes, major surfaces of each of the elemental electrodes being substantially perpendicular to the surfaces of the two substrates, and the major surfaces of adjacent ones of the elemental electrodes constituting counter electrodes to each other, and a liquid crystal filled in a gap of the comb-shaped wall electrode provided between the two substrates.

Reflection type liquid crystal display device having comb-shaped wall

Disclosed are a safe slurry photosensitive composition superior in image formation capabilities such as resolution and sensitivity and containing no harmful compound, and a safe water-soluble photosensitive composition capable of being dissolved in water without using any organic solvent while maintaining a sufficient sensitivity as a resist and containing no harmful substance. The slurry photosensitive composition contains a compound which generates an acid when irradiated with light or ionizing radiation, at least one type of a resin with acid-crosslinkability or acid-decomposability, and a powder. Various devices can be manufactured by forming a layer of this photosensitive composition on a substrate, exposing the layer to light in accordance with a desired pattern, and heating the layer. The water-soluble photosensitive composition contains a compound which generates an acid when irradiated with light or ionizing radiation, and an acetal resin. This water-soluble photosensitive composition is coated on a substrate and irradiated with light or ionizing radiation in accordance with a desired pattern. The resultant substrate is chemically amplified by heating and developed with water. This makes it possible to safely form a pattern without using any ventilator.

Photosensitive composition

A highly-integrated semiconductor IC device includes a semiconductive substrate, on which an internal function circuit is arranged to have a first plurality of input terminals and a second plurality of output terminals. A logic circuit is arranged on the substrate and is connected to the internal circuit through the output terminals. The logic circuit has a third plurality of output terminals, which are less in number than the outputs of the internal circuit. These logic output terminals are coupled to the same number of inspection terminals, which are adapted to be coupled to a known electric inspection tool. The logic circuit processes the voltage signals appearing at the output terminals of the internal circuit so as to cause these signals to decrease in number. The output signals of the logic circuit are sent to the inspection terminals as monitor signals, based on which an inspection is carried out to determine whether the internal circuit operates normally.

Integrated circuit device with internal inspection circuitry

In a fuel cell comprising a stack having superposed a plurality of electromotive parts composed of a fuel electrode, an oxidizing electrode, and an electrolyte layer nipped by the two electrodes and using a liquid fuel as the fuel for the fuel cell, this invention contemplates forming a liquid fuel introducing path destined to be directly exposed to the liquid fuel on terminal surfaces of the component parts of the electromotive parts in a direction perpendicular to the flow of an oxidizing gas along at least one of the outer peripheral surfaces of the stack including the terminal surface of the fuel electrode and lying parallelly to the flow of the oxidizing gas and enabling the liquid fuel in the liquid fuel introducing path to be supplied to the fuel electrodes by a capillary attraction. A fuel cell provided with means for recovery of the water produced by the cell reaction in the oxidizing electrodes is also disclosed, which fuel cell effects the removal of the water produced in the oxidizing electrodes during the operation of the fuel cell by a capillary attraction generated by two porous members, i.e. a first porous member disposed in the oxidizing electrodes and a second porous member adjoined to the first porous member and possessed of a smaller average pore diameter than the first porous member.

Fuel cell

In a fuel cell comprising a stack having superposed a plurality of electromotive parts composed of a fuel electrode, an oxidizing electrode, and an electrolyte layer nipped by the two electrodes and using a liquid fuel as the fuel for the fuel cell, this invention contemplates forming a liquid fuel introducing path destined to be directly exposed to the liquid fuel on terminal surfaces of the component parts of the electromotive parts in a direction perpendicular to the flow of an oxidizing gas along at least one of the outer peripheral surfaces of the stack including the terminal surface of the fuel electrode and lying parallelly to the flow of the oxidizing gas and enabling the liquid fuel in the liquid fuel introducing path to be supplied to the fuel electrodes by a capillary attraction. A fuel cell provided with means for recovery of the water produced by the cell reaction in the oxidizing electrodes is also disclosed, which fuel cell effects the removal of the water produced in the oxidizing electrodes during the operation of the fuel cell by a capillary attraction generated by two porous members.

An IC card is disclosed which comprises a card-shaped main substrate having a surface on which recess portions are formed and an edge portion having a connector layer with an external connector terminal pattern formed thereon, circuit modules embedded in the recess portions in main substrate, each module having electronic components including IC chips, a chip capacitor and a thin D.C. battery unit, and a double-layered wiring structure for providing electric connection between the electronic components and the connector terminal pattern. The double-layered wiring structure comprises a first wiring layer formed on the main substrate to cover the circuit modules and a second wiring layer formed insulatively above the former wiring layer. The first wiring layer has a first wiring pattern that extends in a first direction of the main substrate to be coupled to the electronic components. The second wiring layer has a second wiring pattern that extends in a second direction of the main substrate to be coupled to the first wiring pattern and the connector terminal pattern.

IC card having circuit modules for mounting electronic components

Growing community of inventors

Fujisawa, Japan

Akinori Hongu