Abstract: In an ink jet printing process, a desired vacuum is applied to the back side of a print substrate with proper feedback and control. The optimum vacuum exerts a suction force on ink dispersed on the front side of the print substrate to accelerate penetration of the ink into the print substrate and to reduce smear and intercolor bleeding. In addition, the vacuum may be applied in the ink jet printing process in combination with various other techniques including heating of the print substrate at any stage of printing process including before, during, after, and combinations thereof and delaying the time between ink dispersing of two different inks as in the checkerboard printing method. The employment of proper vacuum, inks, and printheads including partial-width or full-width array printheads allows a fast speed multi-color ink jet printing process to be carried out on a print substrate to give high resolution (e.g., 600 spi) multi-color images with good print quality.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus for developing an electrostatic latent image formed on an image carrier, which is rotatable around an central shaft thereof, with plural colors of toner comprises a developing unit assembly an outer peripheral portion of which retains a plurality of developing units each of which includes a developing roller being to be contacted with the image carrier to supply the associated color of the toner thereon, the developing unit assembly rotatable around a central shaft thereof, a first drive member for rotatively driving the developing roller positioned at a contact position of the developing roller and the image carrier, a second drive member for rotatively driving the developing unit assembly to subsequently position each of the developing roller at the contact position so a rotational direction of the developing unit assembly as to be opposed to a rotational direction of the developing unit assembly according to a reaction force derived from the driving of the first drive member.

Abstract: Disclosed is toner for developing an electrostatic image, which toner has a volume average particle size distribution index (GSDv) of 1.3 or less, and a ratio of the volume average particle size distribution index (GSDv) to a number average particle size distribution index (GSDp), i.e., (GSDv/GSDp), of 0.95 or more. A method suited for producing the toner for developing an electrostatic image comprises the steps of producing a dispersion liquid of flocculated particles by forming the flocculated particles in a dispersion liquid containing at least resin particles dispersed therein, forming adhered particles by admixing a liquid dispersion comprising fine particles dispersed therein with the dispersion liquid comprising the flocculated particles so that the fine particles adhere to the flocculated particles, and forming toner particles by fusing the adhered particles upon heating.

Abstract: An apparatus including: a conduit operably connected to a source and extending downwardly therefrom, the conduit being adapted to permit a flow of particulate material from the source through the conduit; a fluidizing nozzle operably connected to the conduit and extending downwardly therefrom, the nozzle defining an inlet for receiving material from the conduit and defining an outlet for dispensing material from the nozzle to a receiver, the inlet defining an inlet cross sectional area perpendicular to the flow of the material and outlet defining an outlet cross sectional area perpendicular to the flow of the material, the inlet cross sectional area being larger than the outlet cross sectional area; the nozzle being adapted with a plenum including an inlet port for receiving compressed gas and a chamber adapted to communicate the gas to the porous walls of the nozzle, and an outlet port for engaging a vacuum source to continuously evacuate the receiver while the nozzle is engaged with the receiver; a conveyor

Abstract: This technique for determining an optimal color space direction for a respective input color mathematically models the determination of the color space direction as an optimization problem and uses models of human perception and scanner response that produce quantitative measurements of color changes. A given input color and a direction in color space away from the givien input color define a color change away from the input color. An objective function simultaneously minimizes the quantitative color difference of the color change measured by a human perception model and maximizes the color response difference of a scanner response model to find an optimal color space direction for the respective input color.

Abstract: A method and structure are described for a monolithic roofshooter ink jet printhead which has nozzles and ink channels formed in a polyimide layer overlying a silicon substrate. Resistor heaters, addressing logic circuitry, and ink inlets are formed in a silicon substrate. A fabrication process, simple and monolithic, is performed at low temperatures resulting in a structure which has nozzle diameters of 30 .mu. separated by distances of 10 .mu. or less. This structure results in a printhead which has a printing resolution of 630 dpi.

Abstract: An apparatus for developing a latent image recorded on an imaging surface, including: a housing defining a reservoir storing a supply of developer material wherein the developer material having predefined triboelectric charge about 20 to 30 microCoulombs/gram. A donor member is mounted partially in the housing and spaced from the imaging surface, for transporting toner on an outer surface of the donor member to a region opposed from the imaging surface. An electrode member is disposed in between the donor member and the imaging surface. A system is provided for loading a region of the doner member with developer material. A charging device ion charges the toner loaded on the region of the donor member to a predefined charge level. A power supply electrically biases the electrode member positioned in close proximity to the imaging member to detach toner from the region of the donor member as to form a toner cloud for developing the latent image.

Abstract: Disclosed is an improved composition comprising a photopatternable polymer containing at least some monomer repeat units with photosensitivity-imparting substituents, said photopatternable polymer being of the general formula ##STR1## wherein x is an integer of 0 or 1, A is one of several specified groups, such as ##STR2## B is one of several specified groups, such as ##STR3## or mixtures thereof, and n is an integer representing the number of repeating monomer units. Also disclosed is a process for preparing a thermal ink jet printhead with the aforementioned polymer and a thermal ink jet printhead containing therein a layer of a crosslinked or chain extended polymer of the above formula.

Abstract: Correcting motion quality induced color banding problems resulting from photoreceptor motion defects in a color imaging device having a laser based multifaceted polygon and a rotating cylindrical mirror whose rotation is set by a controlled rotation inducing element. A motion sensor senses the motion of the photoreceptor. Based upon motion errors a controller either advances or delays the production of a latent image. The controller further controls the rotation inducing element, beneficially a piezoelectric element, such that a latent image is produced in a predetermined location. When multiple latent images are produced, the controller beneficially causes the latent images to be properly registered.

Abstract: A polycrystalline silicon layer which serves as a heating resistor is laid on a Si substrate, whereby a heating area 25 and a low-resistance area 26 are formed. In this event, the area of the heating area 25 is set according to the physical properties of ink squirted from a corresponding nozzle. As a result, the amount of ink droplet to be squirted becomes an optimum value, and the quality of an image is improved. Further, the heating area 25 is formed such that the resistance of the heating area becomes larger as the area of the heating area becomes smaller. Eventually, the amounts of energy per unit area of the heating areas become equal to each other, and ink-jet nozzles can be actuated using the same drive pulse.

Abstract: A method for generating forms using halftones along with a set of low-complexity image processing steps to extract the characters for recognition. The method exploits texture differences between character strokes and halftoned boxes or text fields. Form frames are rendered as black and white halftones and characters are extracted by exploiting differences in texture between the frames and the character strokes. A sequence of simple image processing operations, easily done in hardware, eliminates the frames while leaving the characters intact. Halftones, giving the appearance of a light color as in the dropout-color method, are easily produced by page description languages; thus, blank and filled-in forms can be scanned, printed, stored and photocopied at low cost.

Abstract: In a developing device for visualizing an electrostatic latent image using two-component developer containing toner and magnetic carrier, excellent development will be performed and deterioration of the developer will be prevented. A developer carrier opposite to an image carrier having an electrostatic latent image formed thereon is prepared by forming a thin layer of aluminum with a thickness of 3 .mu.m or less on the peripheral surface of a roll-shaped member made of ferrite, and the surface roughness Rz of the peripheral surface of the foregoing ferrite roll is set to 50 .mu.m or less. N-poles and S-poles are alternately magnetized at a 50-to-250-.mu.m pitch along the peripheral surface of this ferrite roll. These magnetic poles can be magnetized to have uniform intensity because the peripheral surface of the roll has been smoothly finished, and a developer layer having only substantially one layer of the carrier uniformly attracted is formed on the peripheral surface.

Abstract: A method for use with a printing system of a type in which one or more clients communicate with a plurality of printers by way of a network and print server is provided. The print server includes a communications layer with a plurality of connectivity modules, and each of the connectivity modules communicates with at least one of the plurality of printers. The method includes the steps of generating a document processing function call in the print server, in response to a request from one of the one or more clients, and selecting one of the plurality of connectivity modules. In turn, the document processing function call is transmitted to the selected one of the plurality of connectivity modules; and, in response to analyzing the document processing function call with the communications interface, a set of information is obtained with the selected connectivity module.

Abstract: A method of verifying electronic payments generated using a key unknown to the verifier. In anticipation of accepting electronic payments, a seller requests and receives from a bank a conversation key and a first set of electronic verifiers for a first set of electronic payments from a customer. Each verifier allows authentication of an associated electronic payment without revealing the private key used by the customer to generate the electronic payments. Prior to initiating a transaction or series of transactions, the customer requests payment information from the seller for use, along with the master key, in generating electronic payments Afterward, when the customer pays with an electronic payment, the seller authenticates the electronic payment using one of the verifiers. The seller responds to the buyer's request if the electronic payment is authenticated.

Abstract: A method of encoding higher resolution edge information in lower resolution image information, so that the advantageous properties of both types of data can be used in binarization including the steps of receiving text/line art regions of the document image as binary pixels at a text/line art frequency selected to avoid aliasing effects at any edge pixels therein; receiving pictorial regions of the document image as continuous tone pixels, at a frequency lower than the text/line art frequency; applying an anti-aliasing filter to the text/line art regions, to replace some edge pixels with gray level pixels having M levels; converting the document image to a binary representation by converting each of the M levels in the text/line art regions to a binary representation reflecting correct edge position of the text/line art regions, and converting the contone pixels to a binary representation determined by a halftone pattern having N levels selected for the contone pixels.

Abstract: A toner comprised of a core comprised a first resin and colorant, and thereover a shell comprised of a second resin and wherein said first resin is an ion complexed sulfonated polyester resin, and said second resin is a transition metal ion complex sulfonated polyester resin.

Abstract: A charge transporting block and an insulating block are block copolymerized or graft copolymerized to form a charge transporting copolymer. The charge transporting polymers may be used in an electrophotographic photoreceptor and an electrophotographic device.

Abstract: To remove deposit on a protective film 6 of heating resistors 3, main pulse P3r of multi-pulse drive is set to the width narrower than main pulse width P3s at the normal recording time and wider than the main pulse width starting film boiling in a region on the protective film including heating regions of the heating resistors, and the heating resistors 3 are driven, whereby the deposit is peeled in a wide area including the heating region. After bubbles grow in an ink chamber 9, they shrink and disappear as the heating resistors 3 terminate heating. Liquid rapidly flows into the ink chamber 9 accordingly, and the deposit on the protective film can be removed by cavitation at the time.

Abstract: In a multi-bin printed sheets distribution system, a simple safety system solution is provided for protection from accidental dropping of the vertically moving sheet distribution carriage by failure of its movement system. A safety stop member connects with both the tension member providing the carriage movement and the carriage. The safety stop member automatically repositions into stopping engagement with an adjacent vertical guide member in response to breakage or other release of tension in the tension member, to prevent the sheet distribution carriage from accidentally dropping. Preferably the repositioning is by a spring normally overcome by the tension in the tension member. The safety stop member may be a pivotally mounted plate with an aperture though which the guide member normally passes unobstructedly, which plate is both pivoted and laterally moved by the spring to lock to the guide member.

Abstract: A process for the preparation of toner additive wax particles which comprises the micronization of said particles from a supercritical solution.