A protection device includes a measurement device and a downstream evaluation device. In each mask pattern, a reduced region is created by removing an area of a predetermined width from the mask pattern along the edge of the mask pattern. Such heating devices are thus for instance already applied on a large scale as, or applied as component in, water kettles, dishwashers, washing machines, coffee-making machines, shower water heaters and the like. The pair of side portions each have a hole receiving corresponding one of the pair of shafts. The method includes performing exponent conversion of a predetermined number of exponent matrixes stored in advance in a memory so as to generate new exponent matrixes based on the exponent conversion, and generating new LDPC codes using the new exponent matrixes.