Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Osamu Yamada

Shusaku Okamoto

Tomonobu Naruoka

Yoshihiko Matsukawa

Satoshi Sato

Katsuhiro Kanamori

Toru Tanigawa

Hisashi Minemoto

Takeshi Hatakeyama

Norihisa Mino

Hideto Motomura

Katsuji Aoki

Yumi Wakita

Teruo Fumoto

Kouichi Hiranaka

Tomohiro Kimura

Kunio Nobori

Yasuo Kitaoka

Fumio Kawamura

Takatomo Sasaki

Masamichi Nakagawa

Yusuke Mori

Mikiya Nakata

Atsushi Ono

Kazuo Yokoyama

Toshiharu Kurosawa

Sachio Nagamitsu

Hiroaki Kotera

Akira Taomoto

Takehisa Tanaka

Shohroh Mochida

Mutsuko Nichogi

Eiji Okuda

Yuji Ono

Kenichi Kaida

Hidenori Nagata

Yasunori Tokunou

Rika Hashimoto

Yasuhiro Morinaka

Hiroaki Hoshikawa

Jisashi Minemoto

An artificial soil structure includes a water shield layer provided on a soil layer, the water shield layer includes water repellent sand processed by water repellent treatment. A water retentive layer is provided on the water shield layer, and the water retentive layer includes water retentive sand with no water repellent treatment. A water repellent soil body is provided in part of the water shield layer so as to penetrate the water shield layer and be in contact with the soil layer and the water retentive layer. The soil body includes sand processed by water repellent treatment, and the water shield layer has a water infiltration pressure higher than that of the water repellent soil body.

Artificial soil structure and method of forming the same

A water storage structure includes an impermeable layer including a plurality of hydrophobic particles, a water retentive layer provided on the impermeable layer and capable of holding a predetermined volume of liquid, and a pavement layer provided on the water retentive layer and including a tube penetrating from a first surface to a second surface.

Water storage structure

A group III element nitride single crystal is grown on a template immersed in a raw material liquid retained in a crucible and containing a group III material and one of an alkali metal and an alkali earth metal. The raw material liquid remaining after the growth of the single crystal is cooled and solidified, and by feeding a hydroxyl group-containing solution into the crucible, the solidified raw material is removed from around the template, and thus the group III element nitride single crystal is taken out from inside the solidified raw material. The template is disposed at a position away from the bottom of the crucible.

Process for producing group III element nitride crystal and apparatus for producing group III element nitride crystal

When a group III nitride crystal is grown in a pressurized atmosphere of a nitrogen-containing gas from a meltincluding at least a group III element, nitrogen and an alkali metal or an alkali earth metal, a melt-holding vesselthat holds the above-described meltis swung about two axes different in direction from each other such as an X-axis and a Y-axis.

Group III nitride crystal, method for growing the group III nitride crystal, and apparatus for growing the same

A method for producing a high-quality group-III element nitride crystal at a high crystal growth rate, and a group-III element nitride crystal are provided. The method includes the steps of placing a group-III element, an alkali metal, and a seed crystal of group-III element nitride in a crystal growth vessel, pressurizing and heating the crystal growth vessel in an atmosphere of nitrogen-containing gas, and causing the group-III element and nitrogen to react with each other in a melt of the group-III element, the alkali metal and the nitrogen so that a group-III element nitride crystal is grown using the seed crystal as a nucleus. A hydrocarbon having a boiling point higher than the melting point of the alkali metal is added before the pressurization and heating of the crystal growth vessel.

Group-III element nitride crystal producing method and group-III element nitride crystal

A search article estimation apparatus is provided that is capable of estimating an article that a user is trying to search for, even when the user cannot accurately provide information on the article that the user wants to search for. The state of access to a storage equipment by the user and a change in articles in the storage equipment during the access are checked by a sensing apparatus. If there is no change in articles, then a search state detection means determines that the user has performed an article search but has been unable to find the article. Furthermore, a search article estimation means refers to a storage location database and estimates an article that should originally be stored in the storage equipment, to be the article that the user is searching for.

Search article estimation apparatus and method and server for search article estimation apparatus

There are provided a lens holder being capable of holding a lens and having flange portions at opposite end portions thereof along an optical axis, a planary-driven actuator including driving arm portions having lens holder support points for holding the outer surface of the lens holder at a plurality of opposing positions and having free-end side contact portions, a lens-holder retaining plate having spring-characteristic portions, and fixing frames which form the outer surfaces of a lens holder driving device and fix the respective components.

Lens holder driving device and image pickup unit employing planary-driven polymer actuator

A state recognition tag is configured to include a tag main body, and a tag fragment separable from the tag main body, and each of the tag main body and the tag fragment is provided with an information holding unit storing therein information to be transmitted, a separation-state recognizing unit which recognizes a separation state between the tag main body and the tag fragment, a control unit which exercises transmission control for transmitting the information from the information holding unit based on the separation state, and an electric power supplying unit which supplies electric power to the information holding unit, the separation-state recognizing unit, and the control unit. Regardless of whether the tag main body and the tag fragment are connected to each other or separated from each other, both the tag main body and the tag fragment can function as tags as needed. Furthermore, different information can be provided to a user according to the separation state between the tag main body and the tag fragment.

State recognition tag

An article present region estimating means references information on location and time of an article detected in an article detecting device and stored in an article management database and information on location and time of a person detected in a person detecting device and stored in a person management database to estimate a location where the article is most likely to be present. An article position candidate weighting means may be perform weighting based on information such as movement of the person, location where the article is normally placed.

Article position estimating apparatus, method of estimating article position, article search system, and article position estimating program

The system includes a sensor for detecting a state of a space; a robot for executing a handling job for an article; an article identifying part for identifying, when an article is handled by a movable body, the article in response to a detection result obtained by the sensor; and an article handling subject identifying part for identifying an article handling subject that handles the article. When the movable body that handles the article is the robot, the article handling subject identifying part identifies a subject having issued a job instruction to the robot as the article handling subject.

Article control system, article control server, article control method

In a robot operation terminal, a storage unit has a group-belonging article table that indicates articles belonging to each of groups. Upon receipt of operation information indicating an operation to be instructed to the robot through an input unit, when this operation information specifies a group as its operation subject, a conversion unit converts this group to articles belonging to the group in the operation information by reference to the group-belonging article table. Thus, the instruction of an operation is made simpler, thereby reducing the occurrence of a human error.

Living assistance system

An article transporting robot or an article transporting system includes a state recognizing means for recognizing the state of the article, a transportation method specifying means for specifying the transportation method according to the state recognized by the state recognizing means, and a transporting device for transporting the article according to the transportation method specified by the transportation method specifying means.

Article transporting robot

A camera or other sensing unit senses the conditions of articles and mobile entities, including humans within a living space. An article management/operation server manages, within an article database, attribute information about the articles, including operators, according to the information from the sensing unit. The server receives a user's instruction, input through a console unit, and refers to the article database to convert this instruction into a control command, which is then transmitted to a life-support robot.

Article handling system and method and article management system and method

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Nara, Japan

Osamu Yamada