An equalizer provided in a digital transmitter compensates for attenuation in a signal channel to a digital receiver. The distal tip moves from a first, penetrating position to a second, retaining position when the body wall has been traversed. An assessment module enables analyzable assessment instruments to be custom-defined by the system user, e. An inode table stores an inumber, metadata, and a DSN address for each file stored in a corresponding storage unit. To use the ASIC for the purpose of communications, it is set to a second operation mode, wherein communications data is received from a remote device connected to a network chip via a network. In the case of instruction fetch, similar processing is carried out except that the calculation of a logical address is not performed.