Abstract: A hopper for feeding documents also serves as a stacker for stacking therein documents in a generally upright position. When the fed documents or the once-stacked documents are to be fed to a singulation mechanism, the hopper or stacker is put into a feeding mode, and when the documents are to be stacked or sorted, the hopper or stacker is switched to a stacking mode. Such hoppers or stackers are arranged in a plurality of stages, and when each sorting is to be effected, addresses are read while changing the mode of each hopper or stacker to repeat the sorting, so that the documents are sequenced by a radix sort method.

Abstract: An automatic code recognizing apparatus includes an arithmetic operation unit for calculating the distance from a barcode scanner to the upper surface center of an article to be detected and the distances from barcode scanners to the side surface centers of the article to be detected based on detection signals from a height sensor and a TV camera. A mirror is controlled to focus the focal positions of the barcode scanners on the upper surface center and side surface centers of the article based on the result of calculation of the arithmetic operation unit. With this arrangement, there can be provided the automatic barcode recognizing apparatus capable of recognizing a barcode with a pinpoint accuracy and excellent responsiveness.

Abstract: A damped bearing for damping the vibration generated in a bearing supporting a rotary shaft and shaft system, by a fluid film damper and by a resilient bearing support. The damped bearing is characterized by having a means in the fluid film damper for adjusting the damping coefficient of the fluid film damper.