Provided is a production method for the particulate water-absorbing agent, which can collecting the fine powders generated during the producing process efficiently without worsening working environment, and also the particulate water-absorbing agent produced by the production method thereof. In this way a reduction of the exciter power required in a flatwise fatigue test of the blade is achieved. Additionally, a result diversification component can modify diversity of a set of search results obtained by a search engine in response to a query based at least in part upon one or more dimensions of diversity. A large number of exhaust pipes, each having an opening, are disposed on substantially the same plane as the plane on which the interface between a plasma glow region and a plasma sheath is located. In other cases, retiming is not performed and is transmitted to a driver while bypassing retiming components.