Abstract: Cooling of an enclosed space is effected by a cooling system including a plurality of cooling units forming ducts having an internal surface on which a layer of liquid is developed, e.g. by a wicking material, and through which air from the enclosed space is passed in contact with the liquid layer whereby the liquid is exposed to and evaporates into the air-flow with consequent cooling of the duct wall on which the liquid layer is developed.

Abstract: There are disclosed method and apparatus for blending rubber or plastics in a system with particulate filler material and liquid such as oils and plasticizers, characterized in that the particulate filler material is impregnated with the liquid by a liquid spray arrangement while the filler material is being conveyed, in a manner in which the particles are generally accessible, to a mixing chamber to which other components of the rubber or plastics system have already been added or will be added before mixing.

Abstract: There is disclosed a method for measuring the shape of objects which might have surface discontinuities using projected fringes, in which method the pitch of the fringes is varied over time and a sequence of phase-stepped images is recorded from which a three-dimensional complex intensity is calculated and either the phase of the distribution is unwrapped along the time axis or the Fourier transform of the distribution is calculated along the time axis.

Abstract: Method and Apparatus for guiding an operation effector such as a laser cutter to effect an operation along a path on a patterned material using machine vision. The machine vision is used to make a map of a repeat of the pattern, a path is defined on the map by drawing a line on an area image map of the repeat of the pattern, the material and operation effector are moved relatively along the direction of pattern repeat, a line scan camera scans the material during a relative movement between the camera and the patterned material and a scanning image is compared with the map to determine the relative positions of the material and the operation effector, and the operation effector is guided to effect the operation at a position on the material corresponding to the path defined on the map.