1. An illuminating apparatus comprising:
a light source, and
an optical member that controls light distribution of light emitted from the light source in a forward direction,
wherein a plurality of prisms extending in one direction are provided on at least one among two principal surfaces of the optical member in regions on both sides when divided at a virtual plane that includes a reference axis of the optical member,
the plurality of prisms include reflecting prisms that reflect light from a light source that is disposed virtually so as to include an optical axis on the virtual plane that includes the reference axis and emit the light from the optical member, and
the light source is disposed such that its optical axis is shifted relative to the reference axis to a region on one side when divided at the virtual plane that includes the reference axis.
2. The illuminating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of prisms disposed near the virtual plane that includes the reference axis are configured as refracting prisms that refract the light from the light source that is disposed virtually so as to include an optical axis on the virtual plane that includes the reference axis and emit the light from the optical member.
3. The illuminating apparatus according to claim 2, wherein a boundary between the reflecting prisms and the refracting prisms provided on a side on which the light source is disposed among the regions on both sides when divided at the virtual plane that includes the reference axis is located more toward the reference axis than the optical axis of the light source.
4. The illuminating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the light source is disposed more toward the optical member than a focal point of the plurality of reflecting prisms.
5. The illuminating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of prisms are divided into a plurality of small regions at at least one virtual plane parallel to the virtual plane that includes the reference axis, and one or more prisms disposed in each of the plurality of small regions are configured to have each different focal length than the focal length of the one or more prisms disposed in adjacent small regions.
6. The illuminating apparatus according to claim 5, wherein one or more of the reflecting prisms disposed in each of the plurality of small regions included on a side on which the light source is disposed among the regions on both sides when divided at the virtual plane that includes the reference axis are configured such that the focal length thereof decreases as the small regions are distanced from the reference axis.
7. The illuminating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of prisms is provided on a principal surface of the optical member that faces the light source, and each of the reflecting prisms includes a first surface that faces the reference axis and a second surface that reflects at least a portion of light that enters from the first surface to the side of the principal surface of the optical member on which the plurality of prisms are not provided.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method of managing a database system comprising:
at the database system having one or more nodes comprising one or more processors and memory, the memory of the one or more nodes storing one or more programs to be executed by the one or more processors;
receiving an N number of requests from one or more nodes of the database system;
combining the N number of requests before initiating operations to attend to the N number of requests;
reducing the number of operations to attend to the N number of requests; and
executing the reduced number of operations to attend to the N number of requests.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the database system includes a search engine.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the search engine includes a decentralized swarm system that utilizes one or more swarm algorithms.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein
the N number of requests include N number of add requests to add to a value in a row stored in the database system;
the combining the N number of requests before initiating operations to attend to the N number of requests includes combining the N number of add requests to the value in the row stored in the database system; and
the executing the reduced number of operations includes executing the operation of adding to the value in the row stored in the database system for the N number of add requests in less than N transactions.
5. A method of using one or more combinators in managing a database system comprising:
at the database system having one or more nodes comprising one or more processors and memory, the memory of the one or more nodes storing one or more programs to be executed by the one or more processors, wherein the one or more programs includes a set combinator;
receiving a set of values corresponding to an N number of processes from one or more nodes of the database system;
combining the N number of processes before initiating set operations to set the values into a table stored in a database storage of the database system;
reducing the number of set operations to set the values of the N number of processes; and
executing the reduced number of set operations.
6. A method of operating a search engine comprising:
at search engine that utilizes a swarm database system, wherein the search engine includes one or more processors and memory, storing one or more programs to be executed by the one or more processors, and the one or more programs including one or more combinators;
receiving an N number of service tasks;
combining the N number of service tasks before initiating operations to attend to the N number of service tasks;
reducing the number of operations to attend to the N number of service tasks; and
executing the reduced number of operations to attend to the N number of service tasks.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein receiving an N number of service tasks include receiving a search query from a search engine user.
8. The method of claim 6, wherein service tasks includes ranking data items by a ranking combinator, wherein the ranking combinator ranks a plurality of data items and maintains the top N number of the plurality of data items.
9. The method of claim 6, wherein service tasks include maintaining one or more log files by one or more combinators, the one or more log files including collecting data on number of webpage hits and generating summary information of webpages.
10. The method of claim 9, wherein maintaining one or more log files by one or more combinators include one or more append combinators, wherein the one or more append combinators append lines of text to an existing set of lines of text,
11. The method of claim 9, wherein maintaining one or more log files by one or more combinators include one or more comb_add combinators, wherein the one or more comb-add combinators is configured to count a number of items and combine the count to existing data.
12. The method of claim 6, wherein service tasks include detecting email spam using one or more spam combinators, wherein the one or more spam combinators compute a set of signatures based on email headers and content, and check whether the same signatures are present in a large number of emails to a large number of people.
13. The method of claim 12, further comprising utilizing a logcount combinator, wherein the logcount combinator counts how many of the large number of people have received the same signature, and determines the signature to be spam when a predetermined large count value is met.
14. The method of claim 6, wherein the N number of service tasks include crawling URLs in a webpage by one or more logcount combinators, wherein the logcount combinators count unique items of a plurality of categories of items.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein the plurality of categories of items include a subset of a group consisting of levels of geographic locations, GeoIP addresses, class C IP networks of referring domains, anchortext of incoming links, advertisements, shopping web pages, and facets.