In a discharging state determination method and apparatus for detecting discharging state from each nozzle of a printhead which discharges droplets, each of the nozzles of the printhead is driven, and the discharging state from each driven nozzle is detected and stored as a physical amount in a memory. The distortion compensation circuit may be used in an optical transmitter, such as a laser transmitter used for forward path CATV applications. At least one transaction request from each of a plurality of responsible parties is received. , the endosome, using a reduced affinity enzyme complementation reporter system. The bollard is applicable to impact-absorbing barriers against all kinds of body, and particularly but not exclusively, against vehicles. The apparatus comprises means for reducing the coherence length of the reference beam to a second coherence length for reading out a hologram from the holographic storage medium, wherein the second coherence length is shorter than the first coherence length.