Abstract: An inner stripe laser diode structure for GaN laser diodes is disclosed. Inner stripe laser diode structures provide a convenient means of achieving low threshold, single mode laser diodes. The structure of an inner stripe laser diode is modified to produce lateral index guiding.

Abstract: Provided is a semiconductor device that has pseudo lattice matched layers with good crystallinity, formed with lattice mismatched materials. Tensile-strained n-type Al0.5Ga0.5N layers (lower side) and compressive-strained n-type Ga0.9In0.1N layers (upper side) are grown on a GaN crystal layer substrate in 16.5 periods to form an n-type DBR mirror; an undoped GaN spacer layer and an active region are grown on the n-type DBR mirror; and an undoped a GaN spacer layer is grown on the active region. Further, tensile-strained p-type Al0.5Ga0.5N layers (lower side) and compressive-strained p-type Ga0.9In0.1N layers (upper side) are grown on the spacer layer in 12 periods to form a p-type DBR mirror and eventually complete a surface emitting semiconductor laser.

Abstract: Several methods and structures for improving the yield of out-of-plane micro-device structures including springs and coils are described. In one method the springs used to form out-of-plane structures are constrained via a tether to avoid bunching and entanglement. The high yield structure may be used in numerous electronic applications such as filter circuits.

Abstract: 12 Methods of forming features in polymeric materials by laser ablation techniques alone, or by the combined use of laser ablation techniques and photolithography, are disclosed. The methods can be used to pattern non-photosensitized materials, as well as photosensitized materials. The patterned features can have different shapes, dimensions and aspect ratios in the same polymer layer. Structures including the patterned features can include multiple layers formed of photosensitized and/or non-photosensitized polymer materials.

Abstract: The present invention provides a semiconductor laser, an optical head, an optical disk apparatus and the manufacturing method of the semiconductor laser wherein the recording density of a recording medium can be enhanced by increasing the intensity of a laser beam output from a small aperture and the miniaturization and the enhancement of a data transfer rate are enabled. For the semiconductor laser, a low-reflective multilayer film is buried in the small aperture and further, a TiO2 film having a high refractive index is arranged on the side of the surface of an opening. The wavelength of a laser beam is reduced in the TiO2 film and near-field light easily leaks out from the aperture provided to a metallic shade.

Abstract: A system and method for browsing, retrieving, and recommending information from a collection uses multi-modal features of the documents in the collection, as well as an analysis of users' prior browsing and retrieval behavior. The system and method are premised on various disclosed methods for quantitatively representing documents in a document collection as vectors in multi-dimensional vector spaces, quantitatively determining similarity between documents, and clustering documents according to those similarities. The system and method also rely on methods for quantitatively representing users in a user population, quantitatively determining similarity between users, clustering users according to those similarities, and visually representing clusters of users by analogy to clusters of documents.

Abstract: The invention is directed to a method and apparatus utilizing a capping element having a sealing element or gasket which is pushed against the orifice plate of an acoustic ink printhead when capping and filling. This traps a small volume of air around an array of orifices in the orifice plate which prevents ink from exiting the orifices while the printhead is being filled with ink.

Abstract: A document creating apparatus, comprising an image transfer system and a feeder. The feeder has a frame, housing and a roll for individually feeding sheets of material within the image transfer system. The housing is pivotally connected to the frame on a pivot axis. The roll is pivotally connected to the housing on a roll axis that is offset from the pivot axis. A spring is connected to the housing and the frame at an offset distance from the pivot axis. When the offset distance decreases, the force exerted by the spring increases. When the offset distance increases, the force exerted by the spring decreases. The force exerted by the spring between the first roll and the second roll as a result is maintained substantially constant.

Abstract: The invention is an automatic way to create background images from custom images, enabling cost efficient generation of highly customized products; such as advertisements, checks, greeting cards, stationary, clothing, passports, licenses, identification badges legal documents and legal tender; by generating intermediate image data by over-enhancing the sharpness of the custom image data and subsequently generating modified image data by reducing the sharpness, color and contrast of the intermediate image, whereby the resulting modified image is pleasing to the average consumer without interfering with the application of the product on which the background image is applied.

Abstract: The invention describes a method for preventing the loss of portions of a copied image when output media having edge disturbances, or virtual edge disturbances, are used. Such media can include hole-punched paper, transparencies with non-imaging stripes, or paper that will be hole punched at a later time. Image loss may be minimized or prevented by reducing or offsetting the image. When output media with an edge disturbance is detected, an image forming apparatus can adjust the images to compensate for the disturbances.

Abstract: Initial setup of image to sheet (IOS) or image to paper (IOP) registration in a printing device such as, for example, an electrographic printer, is accomplished in a single step that uses an initial set of measurements to determine and correct each of the independent registration errors, including image squareness/ROS skew, image skew/paper skew, lateral magnification, process magnification, lateral direction IOS or IOP position, and process direction IOS or IOP position simultaneously. A set of algorithms is used to perform a series of geometrical transformations to determine each of the six errors affecting IOS or IOP registration.

Abstract: The present invention provides a paperless billing process for enabling expedited and simplified payments of print volume bills by customers of printing systems. A method of performing a billing process for the copies or prints produced by customer of a printing system is provided where the printing system comprises a memory that stores product usage data indicating a measurement of the actual use of the printing system. The printing system first accesses the memory to retrieve the product usage data. Then, the printing system calculates billing data using the retrieved product usage data. A bill is presented to the customer based on billing data, and the printing system receives user input from the customer indicating whether the customer authorizes the billing data. If so, a message is sent from the printing system to a billing service, wherein the message includes information indicating the authorized billing data.

Abstract: The present invention relates to providing supplemental counts or “clicks” to account for recovery conditions in a document processing system. Furthermore, these recovery condition “clicks” will be further modified depending upon the type of recovery condition encountered. The application of recovery counts thus modified when combined with the system cycle count and suitably summed will provide superior measure of the wear for a replaceable element as well as improved indication for the determination of the end of life of a replaceable element in that system. In this manner, the more timely service or substitution for that replaceable element in the system can be provided, thereby allowing costs and service down-time to be minimized.

Abstract: A paper sensor uses two sample and hold circuits which are fired by the phase and antiphase of an oscillator that also drives an infrared light emitting diode (LED). These circuits sample the output from a phototransistor. If the outputs from the phototransistor are different when the LED is lit and unlit, then a comparator will give an output, thus synchronously filtering out unwanted infrared light that may cause a false paper reading.

Abstract: An electroluminescent device containing a number of layers with a mixed region of a hole transport compound, and an electron transport compound, and hole and electron transport regions.

Abstract: Systems and methods that shift the halftone screen relative to the image data in the low-addressability direction to compensate for misregistration would be useful. In various exemplary embodiments of the systems and methods of this invention, each pixel of the halftone cell is first divided into high-addressability pixels at the high-addressability factor. The high-addressability factor is the ratio between the base resolution and the high-addressability resolution. The high-addressability pixels are then divided into subrows using the same high-addressability factor. Each high-addressability pixel in each subrow is then assigned its own threshold value. By shifting the threshold values between adjacent subrows based on the subrow, a particular halftone pattern in the low-addressability direction is implemented.

Abstract: To reduce the load on a management server in a load distributed system, a server list manager 16 of a management server 10 selects servers 4, 6, 20, and 30 to be accessed by a client terminal management server 43 by referencing an operation status or a load status of the servers 4, 6, 20, and 30, generates a server list, and sends the generated server list to the client terminal management server 43. An inquiry unit 47 of the client terminal management server 43 regularly sends an inquiry to the network monitoring server 30, which is included in the server list 45, to ascertain whether or not information has been updated. If the information has been updated, an information collection unit 48 acquires a corresponding latest module and a rule base from the information providing server 20 included in the server list 45 based on information from the network monitoring server 30.

Abstract: An intermediate platen cover is provided between the platen and the platen cover of a photocopying machine to prevent displacement of a document on the platen. The intermediate platen cover is transparent to allow the user to see placement of the document and to not interfere with the background lower surface of the platen cover during photocopying.

Abstract: An improved and lower cost color spectrophotometer, especially suitable for on-line color printer color control systems, incorporating a low cost commercial imaging chip, which normally only forms part of a three row, three color, document imaging bar used for imaging documents in scanners, digital copiers, or multifunction products, having multiple photo-sites with at least three different color filters in three rows. This multiple photo-sites chip may be modified to also provide unfiltered photo-sites. This spectrophotometer may have a substantially reduced number of different LED or other spectral illumination sources, one of which may be for white light, yet provide multiple spectral data outputs from the differently filtered photo-sites being simultaneous illuminated by the light reflected from a color test target area which is being sequentially illuminated by the respective limited number of LEDs, enabling broad spectrum information and color control.

Abstract: The invention provides a system and method for reducing or eliminating kinks in ink limit conversion processes. In particular, an adjusted ink limit conversion process is provided which approaches the limit in a smooth fashion. Moreover, extrapolated values in the input, values that are outside of a predetermined range, are handled in a smooth fashion. The extrapolated values are used to avoid kinks in the conversion process at the end bounds of the range. Ink limiting is performed gradually as the system approaches the ink limit, avoiding sudden changes in the slope of the system response characteristics. If one of a plurality of colors reaches zero ink, the remaining colors are decreased by multiplying them by a factor less than one. Accordingly, the colorant ratio is maintained, and hue shifts are reduced.