Abstract: A Nip Forming Fuser Roll (NFFR) fuser. The fuser is constructed to be self-stripping, that is, the roll contacted by the substrate carrying the toner images is fabricated from a relatively thick elastomeric material which under pressure exerted through contact of the nip forming members is sufficiently strained as the substrate passes in and out of the nip that the fuser roll is self-stripping. An external source of energy in addition to an internal source is used for elevating the surface temperature of the fuser roll member contacted by the toner image carrying substrate. A shield is provided for precluding contact of the external heat source by the substrate in the event of a misstrip. The shield which is fabricated from an infrared radiation transmissive polymer material is supported in intimate contact with the heated fuser member to minimize the presence of oxygen for minimizing the possibility of substrate combustion.

Abstract: An improved process is provided for aligning and bonding channel and heater substrates together to form a thermal ink jet printhead. A thick film polyimide layer is formed over the heater substrate and is patterned to provide a plurality of tacking pits. The channel substrate has alignment holes formed in peripheral edge areas. A UV curable adhesive is deposited into the alignment hole and UV irradiated to produce a cured tacking column in the underlying pits formed in the thick film layer. Due to the sloping walls of the etched alignment recess, some portion of the adhesive is not fully cured and, during a subsequent curing process, tends to initiate a capillary flow along the interface between channel substrate and the thin film layer. This flow, in prior art designs, sometimes proceeds to the point where the adhesive is squeezed out onto electrode connections formed on an adjacent heater substrate.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for reusing an image recording material wherein a releasing property is imparted to at least substrate surface of an image recording material on which an image has been formed of an image forming material containing a heat fusible ingredient, a heat fusible material is added or attached onto the image recording material, a stripping member is contacted under pressure with the heat fusible material while heating the heat fusible material together with the image recording materials to fuse, and the image recording material is peeled off from the stripping member to transfer the image forming material together with the heat fusible material to the stripping member, thereby reusing the image recording material. The materials for imparting a releasing property to the substrate surface include silicone compounds such as silane compounds, preferably those silane compounds containing fine particles such as silicone resins.

Abstract: A combination of a tape cassette and a tape drive motor wherein a shaft is connected to a tape reel. A tape reel support is mounted to the housing of the cassette and a tape reel shaft extends through the support. Bearings are carried by the support for rotatably supporting the tape reel shaft and thereby the tape reel on the cassette housing. The motor has a rotor rotatable about an axis with the rotor being loosely mounted in the motor when a cassette is not in the tape drive. In one embodiment of the invention, the rotor carries a magnet which in combination with magnetically attractive material carried by the shaft, operates to connect the rotor to the shaft to effect a driving relationship between the rotor and shaft when the cassette is in the tape drive. The bearings on the cassette for the tape reel shaft served as the sole bearings for the rotor for rotational support when the rotor rotates and drives the shaft and thereby the tape reel.

Abstract: A system for removing excess carrier liquid from an electrostatic image developed with liquid developing material made up of toner particles immersed in a liquid carrier medium on an image bearing member. The system includes an absorbent contact roller for absorbing at least a portion of the liquid carrier off of the liquid image, and vacuum source coupled to the contact roller for generating both negative pressure at the surface of the roller to draw the absorbed liquid through the contact roller, and positive air pressure for pushing contaminated liquid out of the roller.

Abstract: The present invention provides a program control system comprises plural programs each of which includes an instruction to execute a process corresponding to each of plural statuses of the system, a program memory for storing the plural programs, a program counter for outputting an address of the memory at which a part of the plural programs to be executed is stored, the address including a flag which indicates one of the plural statuses, and execution means for reading one of the programs from the program memory in accordance with the address output by the program counter and executing the read program.

Abstract: A novel cyclobutenedione derivative prepared in accordance with the following reaction formula, a process for the preparation thereof, and a nonlinear optical element comprising such a derivative are provided: ##STR1## wherein R.sup.1 and R.sup.2 each represents an alkyl group, an alkenyl group or an alkynyl group; R.sup.3 and R.sup.4 each represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an alkenyl group or an alkynyl group; and C* represents an asymmetric carbon atom, with the proviso that R.sup.1, R.sup.2 and the nitrogen atom to which they are connected may form a cyclic structure larger than 3-membered ring, R.sup.1 and R.sup.3, and R.sup.2 and R.sup.4 each may be connected to each other to form a methylene chain --(CH.sub.2).sub.2 --, and the hydrogen atoms in R.sup.1 and R.sup.2 may be substituted by halogen atom, alkyloxy group or cyano group.

Abstract: A PDL or other type of line drawing program mathematically generates an edge between white and black regions. For curved edges, the edge is transformed into a plurality of piecewise linear edge segments (20). Pixels (u,v) in the vicinity of the edge are identified (12). Each pixel is assigned a magnitude value in accordance with its distance from the mathematically defined edge relative to a width or gray span (22) of the selected vicinity. The magnitudes in each of a plurality of subregions of the selected vicinity define a sloping plane (42). The threshold (t), such as a value mid-way between the extremes of the selected vicinity, defines a plane (44) which intersects the sloping plane. The line (46) of intersection defines the edge. A hyperacuity printer receives slope of the plane relative to a scan and orthogonal directions of the printer, and a magnitude for each pixel.

Abstract: An electrophotographic imaging member is prepared by forming a dispersion of a charge transport material in a solvent system including at least two non-chlorinated solvents selected from tetrahydrofuran, dioxane and toluene, and applying the dispersion to an electrophotographic imaging member layer by solution coating.

Abstract: A photoconductive imaging member comprised of a supporting substrate, a hole blocking layer thereover, a photogenerating layer and a charge transport layer, and wherein the hole blocking layer is comprised of a crosslinked polymer material schematically represented by structure (VII), and is derived from crosslinking a mixture of electron transport polymer (I) and organosilane (II).

Abstract: In an ink-jet printhead, the individual channels for ejecting ink onto a print medium are orientation dependently etched along the (111) planes perpendicular to the (110) surface orientation of a single crystal silicon wafer. The silicon wafer is bonded on a glass substrate to act as both a support and an etch stop in the etching process. The orientation of the channels within the silicon layer facilitates channels which are rectangular in cross section.

Abstract: Several parts of speech, including sentences, words and phrases, in multiple languages, Japanese and English, for instance, are stored in a ROM; and some of the parts of speech include an addition-permitting flag indicating that a word or phrase can be added to these parts of speech. Words and phrases that may be added to the stored syntactical structures are also stored in the ROM. In response to user input, a desired syntactical structure is read from the ROM and displayed. When the displayed syntactical structure has an addition-permitting flag, a predetermined symbol near the displayed syntactical structure is displayed, and a desired word or phrase is read from the ROM and added to the displayed syntactical structure in response to a user input. Upon depression of a key, the resulting syntactical structure is translated into another language.

Abstract: Ink-jet recording ink improved in releasability of bubbles and the like. The ink comprises water, a colorant and a water-soluble organic solvent. The surface tension of the ink at 20.degree. C. is higher than the surface tension of a composition which comprises the components for the ink except the colorant. Ink-jet recording is effected by making use of the ink and, for example, a heating system.

Abstract: A NFFR is disclosed which does not exhibit the phenomena of droop which can occur when the fuser switches from a standby to a run mode of operation. The elimination of droop is effected using an external heat source which together with an internal source of heat supplies heat to the surface of the heated fuser member to maintain its surface temperature at a preset standby value until such time as the fuser roll core reaches a temperature level sufficient to maintain the heated fuser member surface at a substantially constant temperature during standby and run modes of operation.

Abstract: In an image forming apparatus, three or more (four in this case) cylindrical photosensitive members 1 to 4 on which latent images are formed and developed through use of toner to thereby produce toner images, are arranged so as to share a tangential line in common, and a cylindrical intermediate transfer member 51 is provided. Alternatively, a first unit containing one or more image carriers is positioned next to a first transfer member and a second unit containing one or more image carriers is positioned next to a second transfer member such that there is reflectional symmetry between the first and second units and the transfer members.

Abstract: A process for the preparation of toner comprising blending an aqueous colorant dispersion and a latex emulsion containing resin; heating the resulting mixture at a temperature below about the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the latex resin to form toner sized aggregates; heating said resulting aggregates at a temperature above about the Tg of the latex resin to effect fusion or coalescence of the aggregates; redispersing said toner in water at a pH of above about 7; contacting the resulting mixture with a metal halide or salt, and then with a mixture of an alkaline base and a salicylic acid, a catechol, or mixtures thereof at a temperature of from about 25.degree. C. to about 80.degree. C.; and optionally isolating the toner product, washing, and drying.

Abstract: A facsimile system having a terminal and a main body. The terminal reads an image and sends the read image to the main body, and the main body transmits the image data received from the terminal through a communication line. The terminal includes a processing instructing unit for instructing processing of the read image at the main body; a first storage unit for storing an identification code specifically assigned to the terminal; and a sending unit for sending to the main body the image data, the instruction data instructed by the processing instructing unit, and the identification code stored in the first storage unit. The main body includes a receiving unit for receiving the data sent by the sending unit; a detecting unit for detecting the identification code from the data received by the receiving unit; and a processing unit for processing the image data received by the receiving unit based on a result of the detection made by the detecting unit.

Abstract: A code pattern such as a self-clocking glyph code pattern is parameterized in at least three dimensions by parallel propagating, unique numeric sequences.

Abstract: An image sensor includes a plurality of photosensitive pixel lines adjacent to each other in the sub-scanning direction, each of the photosensitive pixel lines having a number of photosensitive pixels arranged in the main scanning direction, and horizontal transfer registers disposed outside of the photosensitive pixel lines. A storage part for saving therein signal charges on a pixel-by-pixel basis is interposed between the photosensitive pixel lines and the horizontal transfer registers. Transfer of signal charges between the photosensitive pixel lines, storage part, and horizontal transfer registers are controlled by operating shift gates so that at a time point when exposure of the inside photosensitive pixel line has been finished, signal charges of the outside photosensitive pixel line is saved into the storage part to thereby secure a transfer passage for signal charges of the inside photosensitive pixel line.

Abstract: An information management device is provided which is capable of performing a flexible search of input information, without the need to attach user-specified keywords or search information and without the need of pre-processing of the input information such as character matching processing, natural language processing, statistical processing and recognition processing.