Abstract: A data collecting apparatus is used in a survey system in which research data such as television audience ratings and market research data is collected by a data collecting device provided in each of a plurality of panelists' homes, the collected research data is sent to a data center through telephone links, and, at the data center, the data is processed with the aid of a large scale computer to calculate desired research data. The data collecting apparatus includes a channel detector for detecting a television channel being viewed, a market research data entry device, a personal data entry device, and a data processing device for storing and processing the entered data. The detected channel data and the entered personal data are transferred to the data processing device via domestic power supply lines. The market research data is efficiently entered with the aid of a bar-code reader and a keyboard in a sequence-non-ordered manner. The personal data is entered with an entry device using infrared light.

Abstract: A recorded sheet is turned from a face-up condition to a face-down condition by horizontal transport belts, a first guide member, vertical transport belts, and a second guide member. The recorded sheet is guided to a discharge device, and discharged to a tray by the discharge device. During a sorting action, the discharge device is transferred by a transfer device to the tray to which a sheet is to be discharged. In response to this transfer, a hold member is extended or shortened in a vertical direction and holds a sheet being transported between the hold member and the vertical transport belts in such a manner as to avoid interference with its transport, so that the sheet can be prevented from falling by gravity.

Abstract: A sorting machine has a plurality of trays arranged in a vertical array, a vertical transport belt for transporting a recorded sheet introduced through a feed opening, a discharge unit for discharging the sheet to one of the trays, and a guide member which guides the transported sheet to the discharge unit. The discharge unit is shifted to one of the trays. The recorded sheet transported by the transport belt is held between the transport belt and a spiral spring which is retractile in the transport direction, so that dropping of the sheet by gravity is prevented.

Abstract: An extremely compact sorting apparatus includes a plurality of trays, each tray having a pin on each side of an entry portion side where a recorded sheet is received. The tray pins are guided by a vertical guide groove disposed on a frame so as to form a tray entry portion, as cam wheels with slots shift trays one level upwardly or downwardly. A transport plate for guiding a recorded sheet pivotally supports a discharge roller shaft and a cam wheel shaft coaxially. Furthermore, a motor for driving the discharge rollers and a motor for driving the cam wheels are mounted on the transport plate to provide a transport unit. When a recorded sheet is inserted onto the transport plate, it is detected by a detector, so that the drive of the discharge rollers begins and the recorded sheet is discharged to the tray entry portion. When this discharge is completed, the drive of the cam wheels begins so that the trays are shifted by one level.

Abstract: An apparatus for effecting contour enhancement in a non-linear manner, in accordance with the amplitude of a contour signal, includes an upper limiter for clipping a portion of the contour signal exceeding an upper level and a lower limiter for clipping a portion of the contour signal below a lower level. The gain of the contour signal for a brightness signal having a large level difference is decreased relative to the gain of the contour enhancement signal for a brightness signal having a small level difference, and thus glare and cross-color noise can be reduced materially, while the contour for a brightness signal having a small level difference can be enhanced sufficiently.

Abstract: A sheet sorter delivers sheets introduced seriatim from a host unit such as a copier onto a plurality of removable stationary sheet receiving trays through its pivotable sheet guide and discharge mechanism having four pivotal axes. The sheet guide and discharge mechanism is pivotably supported at its one end on two fixed pivotal axes so that the mechanism can be pivotally swung up and down about the two fixed pivotal axes. At the other end of the sheet guide and discharge mechanism, which is unsupported, are disposed the other two pivotal axes and sheet discharge rollers. The swinging motion of the mechanism is achieved by a Geneva drive mechanism including a first driving motor so that the level of the sheet discharge roller is sequentially shifted to be aligned with each of the tray levels and the sheets are seriatim sorted onto the respective trays. The sorter has a second driving motor for driving the sheet discharge rollers.

Abstract: A compact sorting machine inverts recorded sheets into a face-down attitude and discharges them into individual trays. When a recorded sheet is sent from a feed opening, this sheet is transported on a transport path located below entrances of a plurality of trays. Guide members disposed in the vicinity of each tray entrance are driven according to a control signal so that the recorded sheet is discharged into individual trays. At this time, a guide member having an arc-shape simultaneously inverts the recorded sheet into a face-down attitude.

Abstract: A tray assembly for a sorting machine having a pair of tray pins disposed on both edges of a sheet entry side tray, a supporting member disposed at each tray end of a plurality of trays for forming a gap between each two trays of the plurality of trays in a stacked condition, and a hook for increasing the gap between tray ends in response to a movement of one of the trays while a tray entry forming member forms a tray entry successively each time that a sheet is fed to the tray assembly. A compact tray assembly can accommodate increased storage volume of sheets with reduced noise and jamming.

Abstract: A color image pickup apparatus has one line sensor which sequentially reads a document through different color filters to generate different color signals. Either the line sensor or the document is mechanically moved in a sub-scanning direction by a mechanical device. A rotary encoder coupled to the mechanical device generates pickup pulses which drive the line sensor each time the line sensor or document is moved a predetermined distance. In an alternate embodiment, two or more line sensors having different color filters each read a different line on the document to generate different color signals having shifted timings. Frame memories, shift registers, memories with a capacity of a plurality of lines, or buffer registers may be used to correct for the shifted timings of the color signals.

Abstract: An outer appearance quality inspection system comprising a mechanism for aligning objects to be inspected, a mechanism for transporting the aligned objects, light projectors for illuminating a light within a predetermined wavelength range against the objects being transported, light receiving devices for receiving the light reflected from each of the objects so as to convert the light into an electrical signal, an electronic circuit for obtaining the data representative of the conditions of the surfaces of the object in response to the electrical signal derived from the light receiving devices, and a mechanism for sorting the objects being transported in response to the data derived from the electronic circuit. The system can inspect the size, visible surface damages and coloring of an object such as orange automatically and reliably.

Abstract: An automatic frequency pulling circuit produces a signal in synchronism with a horizontal synchronizing signal from a video signal processing device or the like. The automatic frequency pulling circuit comprises an equalizing pulse remover responsive to a synchronizing signal separated from a composite video signal for alternately removing equalizing pulses therefrom, and a PLL circuit composed of at least a phase comparator and a voltage-controlled oscillator. The phase comparator is arranged to compare the phases of an output from the equalizing pulse remover and an output from the voltage-controlled oscillator, for thereby producing the signal in synchronism with the horizontal synchronizing signal. The signal thus generated is utilized in a video monitor, for example, to display accurate images thereon.

Abstract: A scanning line control system shifts the timing at which a vertical synchronizing signal is generated, by h/N, to insert (N-1) scanning lines, in appearance, during one line-to-line interval for producing accurate hard copies of images displayed on a video monitor. The scanning line control system generates a signal of a frequency Nfh in synchronism with a horizontal synchronizing signal where (N-1) is the maximum number of scanning lines inserted during one line-to-line interval and fh is the frequency of the horizontal synchronizing signal. The signal of the frequency Nfh is decoded by a logic circuit in which there is preset a value corresponding to the vertical synchronizing signal as it is frequency-divided by N. The logic circuit is decoded by a train of N pulses produced by dividing the frequency Nfh synchronous with the horizontal synchronizing signal. A vertical deflection circuit is triggered by an output from the logic circuit.

Abstract: A sorting apparatus includes a plurality of trays, each having a pair of tray pins on the both sides of the sheet inlet of the tray and being held in a stacked condition; tray inlet holding members interposed between the tray pins of the vertically adjacent trays to define an inlet for a sheet and being vertically movable and rotatable; member which, upon rotation of the tray inlet holding member, moves the tray pins which are in contact with the holding members vertically while the holding member moves in the opposite vertical dirction, thereby shifting the sheet inlet defined between the tray pins; and supporting members disposed not to interfere with the vertical movement of the holding member and made into contact with the respective pairs of the tray pins in such a manner that the supporting members bear the bearing load produced from each tray and permit the tray pins to override the supporting members when the bearing load is greater than a predetermined value.

Abstract: A three-dimensional image display system comprising a video information memory, storing video information in the form of a perspective view, a reading circuit for reading out the video information stored in the video information memory while scrolling the stored video information in an oblique direction with respect to the perspective view, and a display for displaying in perspective the read out video information in such a way that the displayed picture is obliquely scrolled as time elapses.

Abstract: An automatic insertor for inserting pins of ICs into holes formed in a printed circuit board includes a cassette holding section for holding a number of cassettes, each of which contains a plurality of ICs of the same kind, an IC discharging section for selectively discharging desired ICs successively from given cassettes, an IC carrier section for carrying the ICs successively supplied from the cassettes into an inlet of an IC rail arranged in inclined fashion, an inferior IC rejecting section for removing inferior ICs when the pins of the IC are deformed beyond an acceptable range, a first gate for stopping the ICs supplied from the inferior IC rejecting section and supplying the stopped ICs at a given timing, a pin correcting and cutting section for correcting the position and posture of IC pins and cutting the tips of the IC pins into V-shape, a second gate for temporarily retaining the ICs supplied from the pin correcting and cutting section, a polarity detecting and inverting section for detecting the p

Abstract: An automatic surface inspection system includes a surface scanner for scanning the inner surface of a paper cup rotated about its own axis and a preprocessing section receiving a picture element signal from the surface scanner for outputting a digital picture element signal to a reference axis setting circuit for detecting a reference axis in the sub-scanning direction. A first and a second discriminating circuit receives the digital picture element signal for conducting a surface inspection. The first circuit handles the main scanning direction while making necessary masking treatment in the main scanning direction and the second discriminating circuit handles the sub-scanning direction while making necessary masking treatment in the sub-scanning direction. A mask pattern circuit has a reference memory adapted to supply the discriminating circuit with pattern information.

Abstract: A video printing apparatus for forming color separation films and a color film recording an image of a video signal of a desired frame is disclosed. The video signal is once recorded on a 1" video tape together with time codes denoting respective frames. The video signal of the extracted frame is processed by time error corrector, a noise reducer and a detail corrector and then the thus corrected video signal is converted into R, G, B signals which are then stored in frame memories. The color signals stored in the frame memories are successively read out and are supplied to an interpolator composed of a hard logic circuit to produce interpolated color signals composed of a great number of scanning lines. The interpolation can be effected by one of cubic convolution, bilinear and nearest neighbor methods in dependence upon a kind of the image to be interpolated. The interpolated color signals are supplied to an electronic color scanner for forming cyan, magenta, yellow and black color separation films.

Abstract: In a television camera having an image pickup tube and an iris for controlling an amount of incident light upon the pickup tube both in an automatic control mode and in a manual control mode by selectively actualing a mode selection switch, an additional switch is connected in parallel with the mode selection switch and when a main power switch is made off, said additional switch is closed for a given time period during which the iris is driven into its minimum aperture state.

Abstract: An apparatus for simulating a color printing process comprises a scanning unit including a table on which four color separation films formed from a color original are placed side by side, a pair of flying spot scanner tubes, four lens systems for projecting raster images of the scanner tubes onto the four color separation films and four photomultipliers for converting light rays passing through the respective films into subtractive primary color signals of cyan, magenta, yellow and black; a control unit for effecting various adjustments and correction upon the color signals and including a zero adjuster, an after image corrector, a continuous tone gamma corrector, a screen gamma corrector, a soft/hard corrector, a negative/positive corrector, a flat etching device, a contrast adjuster, a light adjuster, a shadow adjuster and a partial adjuster; a color reproduction process unit for converting the adjusted and corrected subtractive primary color signals into additive primary color image signals of red, green a

Abstract: A flying spot scanner for use in a color printing process simulating apparatus for scanning yellow, magenta, cyan and black separation films formed from a color original a color image of which is to be displayed on a color monitor. The flying spot scanner comprises a flat stage having rectangular transparent sections arranged side by side with their long sides adjacent to each other for receiving the color separation films; first and second cathode ray tubes for producing first and second scanning rasters, respectively arranged above the middle point of the first and second films and the middle point of the third and fourth films, respectively; first and second lens systems for projecting images of the first scanning raster produced on the first cathode ray tube onto the first and second color separation films, respectively; and third and fourth lens systems for projecting images of the second scanning raster of the second cathode ray tube onto the third and fourth color separation films, respectively.