Abstract: A carrier includes carrier particles. Each of the carrier particles includes a carrier core and a coating layer covering the surface of the carrier core. The coating layer contains a silicone resin and conductive particles. Each of the conductive particles includes a transparent conductive substrate composed of a transparent conductive material and a film covering a surface of the transparent conductive substrate. The film contains silica.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes a casing, an upper cover, a lateral cover and a closing position holding mechanism which holds the lateral cover in a closing position. The closing position holding mechanism includes an engaging part provided in the upper cover and an engaged part provided in the lateral cover. When the upper cover is displaced from the opening position to the closing position in the state where the lateral cover is in the closing position, the engaging part is engaged with the engaged part from an outside on the lateral side of the casing. When the upper cover is displaced from the closing position to the opening position in the state where the lateral cover is in the closing position, the engagement of the engaging part with the engaged part is released as the upper cover is displaced.

Abstract: An electronic apparatus includes a drive unit having a drive roller, a driving motor, and a limited-life component, a sound collecting device that collects sound from the limited-life component, and outputs sound data, a storage device storing in advance a sound pressure level corresponding to a specific frequency of the limited-life component, with respect to each of different lengths of the remaining service life, and a controller that analyzes frequency of the sound data at predetermined time points; acquires the sound pressure level corresponding to the specific frequency of the limited-life component, on a basis of a result of the frequency analysis; compares the acquired sound pressure level with the sound pressure level of each of the lengths of the remaining service life; predicts the remaining service life of the limited-life component, on a basis of comparison result; and displays the predicted remaining service life on a display device.

Abstract: A schedule adjustment apparatus includes a storage portion, an acquisition portion, and an adjustment portion. The storage portion stores a schedule for giving an instruction to perform maintenance of the image forming apparatus. The acquisition portion acquires, from the image forming apparatus, state information indicating a state of an image formed on a sheet by the image forming apparatus. The adjustment portion adjusts the schedule based on the state information.

Abstract: Disclosed are a method for real-time dynamic web page display enhancement and a computing apparatus configured to implement said method. The method includes requesting at least one web page code file using a web browser, extracting the at least one style tag and the at least one variable attribute from the at least one web page code file using an extraction module, sending a request signal from the extraction module to an attribute database, returning from the attribute database to a user interface controller a response signal, sending a present user interface signal from the user interface controller to the web browser, accepting at least one selection signal from the web user through the at least one display control of the user interface to the web browser, and generating an enhanced web page.

Abstract: Provided is an industrial printing system that reduces the risk of delay due to proofreading in variable printing. This industrial printing system processes variable data for production printing. The status management unit manages the completion status of a plurality of records or a plurality of pages for the variable printing. A process control unit collectively acquires completed record(s) or completed page(s) managed by the status management unit and creates a job ticket. A process management unit performs a prepress process or a printing process by using a job ticket created by the process control unit. A post-processing unit performs post-processing according to the job ticket for a record or a page that has been performed prepress process or printing process by the process management unit.

Abstract: An estimation system provides consumable use estimations, such as for ink or toner, in printing operations. The estimation system uses a classification-based consumable use process to estimate the consumable use. A print job is assigned a classification category according to an arbitrary job category selected for the print job and a job property defined for the print job using job settings. An estimate is provided using the classification category and the distribution of the consumable use for print jobs in the category. The estimate is adjusted by a consumable use adjustment factor that reflects the amount of ink or toner disposed of during container replacement or wasted during printing operations. Estimation system also uses a size-agnostic consumable use estimation process based on the average consumable use for a specified imageable unit area.

Abstract: A method for troubleshooting and maintaining printing devices is provided. The method includes identifying, by a service bot in a print device, a maintenance condition to be resolved, wherein the service bot comprises a processor executing instructions stored on a computer-readable medium in the print device; notifying, by the service bot, a client terminal of the maintenance condition and a resolution attempt; analyzing, by the service bot, the maintenance condition using an anomaly detection technique; referencing, by the service bot, a knowledge database to identify a resolution for the analyzed maintenance condition; implementing, by the service bot, the identified resolution at the print device; notifying the client terminal of the identified resolution; and updating the knowledge database with the analyzed maintenance condition and the identified resolution. A non-transitory computer-readable medium and print device are also provided.

Abstract: A print control method includes a confidential print control step. The confidential print control step includes determining whether skip permission conditions set in advance for each of the plurality of pieces of user designation data are satisfied when the submission destination designation data of the confidential job data requested to be executed includes a plurality of pieces of user designation data assigned with prioritization orders, thereby specifying the user designation data falling within a print permission range according to the prioritization orders, and executing confidential print control for the user designation data within the print permission range. The confidential print control step includes causing to execute the print processing for the confidential job data on the condition that the input authentication data by which the user authentication process is successful matches the data corresponding to the user designation data among the plurality of pieces of registration authentication data.

Abstract: A recording apparatus includes a printing portion and a first conveying portion. The printing portion ejects liquid to print a medium having elasticity. The first conveying portion is disposed upstream of the printing portion in a conveying direction along which the medium is conveyed to the printing portion. The first conveying portion includes at least two conveying bodies disposed in the conveying direction and around which the medium is alternately wound. The conveying bodies each include a shaft extending in a width direction orthogonal to the conveying direction and a plurality of rollers rotatably supported by the shaft. The plurality of rollers are supported to be inclined outward with respect to the conveying direction from upstream to downstream in the conveying direction.

Abstract: An ink-jet ink includes pigment particles; a binder resin; and a penetrant. The binder resin includes a self-emulsification specific resin. The specific resin includes a first repeating unit derived from specific alkyl ester (meth)acrylate including a straight-chain alkyl group having 9 or more and 15 or less carbon atoms. In the specific resin, a content ratio of the first repeating unit is 6.0% by mass or more and 20.0% by mass or less. The penetrant includes specific alkanediol having 6 or more and 8 or less carbon atoms.

Abstract: A schedule coordination system includes a multifunction peripheral and an information processing apparatus. The multifunction peripheral includes a first communication I/F, a storage device in which schedule information indicating a task and a date and time of execution is stored, and a first control device that acts as a task scheduler that decides whether a current date and time has reached a predetermined date and time of startup, on a basis of the schedule information, and performs, upon deciding that the current date and time has reached the date and time of startup, a predetermined process necessary for executing the task indicated by the schedule information, and a controller that executes the task. The information processing apparatus includes a second communication I/F and a second control device that acts as an executor that executes an operation according to a command transmitted from the task scheduler.

Abstract: A method performed by a computing system comprises receiving, by a hierarchical document classification system (HDCS), a document that includes image data and textual data, wherein the document is associated with a document type. The HDCS determines a first machine learning (ML) classifier of the HDCS associated with the document type. The first ML classifier corresponds to one of an image-based ML classifier of the HDCS and a text-based ML classifier of the HDCS. The determined first ML classifier classifies the document as being associated with a particular class of document of a plurality of classes of documents. A second ML classifier associated with the class of document classifies the document as being associated with a particular subclass of a plurality of subclasses of the class of document. The HDCS communicates information that specifies the class and the subclass associated with the document to a terminal.

Abstract: Relative calibration is used to generate tone reproduction curves (TRCs) at multiple printing devices. A first calibration is performed for a first paper at a first printing device to generate a first TRC. A second calibration is performed for the first paper at a second printing device to generate a second TRC. A third calibration is performed for a second paper at the first printing device to generate a third TRC. A device difference dataset is determined using the first TRC and the second TRC. A paper difference dataset is determined using the first TRC and the third TRC. The device difference dataset and the paper difference dataset are used to determine a fourth TRC for the second paper at the second printing device, thereby eliminating the need for further calibration operations.

Abstract: A toner conveying device includes a toner conveying passage through which toner is conveyed, a conveying screw, and a brush member. The conveying screw includes a rotary shaft rotatably arranged inside the toner conveying passage and a helical blade formed on the outer circumferential face of the rotary shaft. The brush member has a number of brush bristles that swing while in contact with the outer circumferential face of the conveying screw and that are planted at a predetermined interval along the axial direction of the conveying screw. On the brush member, the blush bristles planted at one place are composed of one to three fibers, and the blush bristles are planted parallel to each other at a predetermined interval of 0.5- to 3 mm.

Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes an input device, an operation device, and a control device. The control device functions as a controller. The controller accepts an input of a plurality of topic words through the operation device, recognizes, upon acceptance of input of images of a plurality of pages of the original document through the operation device, a character string in the image of each of the plurality of pages of the original document, makes a determination of whether or not the character string contains at least one of the plurality of input topic words, and classifies the respective images of the plurality of pages of the original document on basis of the individual topic word based on results of the determination for the individual pages of the original document by collecting the images of the pages of the original document containing the same topic word into one group.

Abstract: A recording apparatus includes a printing portion, a first conveying portion, and a second conveying portion. The printing portion ejects liquid to print a medium having elasticity. The first conveying portion is disposed upstream of the printing portion in a conveying direction along which the medium is conveyed to the printing portion, and conveys the medium while stretching the medium in the conveying direction and in a width direction orthogonal to the conveying direction. The second conveying portion conveys the medium conveyed by the first conveying portion while keeping the medium facing the printing portion.

Abstract: A guide unit holding portion is formed at a position between two struts in a longitudinal direction of a fixing unit. When a main cover portion rotates from an open position to a closed position, a supported portion of a swing guide unit moves from a position where the supported portion is separated from the guide unit holding portion to a position where the supported portion is in contact with the guide unit holding portion. Further, the supported portion slides on the guide unit holding portion. When the supported portion slides on the guide unit holding portion, the swing guide unit is swung upward, and then held at a target position by the guide unit holding portion.

Abstract: A fixing device includes a fixing member, a pressurizing member, a charging portion, and a control portion. The fixing member rotates while being heated. The pressurizing member forms a nip portion between itself and a surface of the fixing member in such a way as to hold a sheet therebetween and conveys the sheet by rotating together with the fixing member, wherein an image of toner has been formed on the sheet. The charging portion electrically charges the surface of the fixing member to a polarity that is same as a charging polarity of the toner by supplying a charging current to a pair of electrodes that is disposed to face the surface of the fixing member. The control portion derives an index value of a charge amount of the toner on the sheet, and adjusts the charging current based on the index value.

Abstract: Systems and methods relate generally to driverless printing. In a method, time expired files are hidden in a hot folder. The hot folder is configured to push a print job entry for the driverless printing for the time expired files. The hiding includes: renaming a first data file name to a second data file name; marking the second data file name as processing in association with operation of the hot folder; mapping a relationship between the first data file name and the second data file name; renaming a first reference file name to a second reference file name; marking the second reference file name as processing in association with operation of the hot folder; and mapping a relationship between the first reference file name and the second reference file name. The print job entry is created for the print job and is pushed for the time expired files.