The present invention provides a polymer, having a high sensitivity, a high degree of resolution, a good pattern configuration after exposure, and in addition an excellent etching resistance, suitable as a base resin for a positive resist composition, especially for a chemically amplified positive resist composition; a positive resist composition using the polymer; and a patterning process. In an embodiment, negotiation with other system management controllers is based at least in part on one of controller capability, user configured preference, module type, and geographical address. As a result, textual contents of different objects are output in different voices so the user can easily distinguish one object from another object. The embodiments of the disclosure are used in the design of controlling the PLC apparatus.