Abstract: A variable-gain amplifying device uses different gains for amplifying an input bias voltage signal, and an input composite signal produced by superposing an input bias voltage signal on an input signal, respectively.

Abstract: In a fault information notification system for notifying a manager unit of faults detected by a server unit on a network system in which a plurality of server units and the manager unit which manages the server units are connected in a network, each server unit comprises a fault information producing unit for producing fault information for various faults detected by the server unit to which sequence numbers are assigned, a fault recording unit for recording respective information in an extractable data structure for each fault information, and a fault history search unit for searching corresponding fault history information from the fault recording unit in response to a fault history search request including the reference numbers from the manager unit.

Abstract: An electrostatographic printing machine having an imaging system for projecting and developing images on an imaging member. A process control loop includes a sensor to measure developed mass per unit area on at least three test patches on the imaging member including high area coverage, low area coverage, and mid tone coverage. A comparator responds to the sensor measurements and to developed mass per unit area setpoints to provide error signals. A control unit responds to the error signals to adjust projecting, developing, and imaging member subsystems.

Abstract: Printing machines which incorporate a transfusing station having a transfusing member with a resistive heater layer, a substrate, and a release layer. The transfusing station is entrained between at least two electrically conductive contact members, such as rollers, which electrically contact the heater layer. An electrical source sends current through the conductive rollers and the heater layer, heating that layer, the substrate, the release layer, and any toner on the release layer. A backup roller adjacent the transfusing member and the conductive rollers induces pressure on marking substrates which pass between the backup roller and the transfusing member. The combination of heat from the heater layer and pressure induced by the backup roller causes any toner image on the transfusing member to fuse onto the marking substrate. The release layer assists in transferring the toner onto the marking substrate.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes a control unit for forming an adsorb-charging region having a length along a paper transporting direction from a rear end of an image region on the recording paper adsorbed on the recording paper carrying/transporting member toward a backward direction by controlling operation-OFF timing of the adsorb-transferring charging means in such a manner that this operation-OFF timing is delayed from operation-OFF timing of the latent image forming unit, and this length of the adsorb-charging region becomes longer than, or equal to 1.5 mm.

Abstract: A thermal ink-jet head of the present invention is so designed as to improve operating frequency by surely trapping foreign substances and reducing the influence of a cross stroke. In the thermal ink-jet head of the present invention, a channel wafer is provided with a nozzle channel, a coupling flow channel, and an ink reservoir. A protective layer and a polyamide layer are formed on a heater wafer. The polyamide layer is provided with pits extending from a heating element up to the coupling flow channel and a bypass pit for coupling the ink reservoir and the coupling flow channel. Foreign substances are trapped at the entry port of the bypass pit and the entry port of the coupling flow channel. The pit controls the growth of the bubble by eating away the front end of the heating element and reducing its rear end.

Abstract: A customer replaceable unit includes a cover and support structure for supporting a photoreceptor belt while it is packaged, shipped and inserted over drive and idler rolls in a machine. It prevents a machine operator from having to handle the belt itself and provides protection from extrinsic damage.

Abstract: A new polycrystalline silicon film which has been crystallized using a polycrystalline silicon-germanium (poly-Si.sub.1-x Ge.sub.x) capping film to "seed" crystallization of an amorphous silicon film on an upper surface of a substrate. The polycrystalline silicon film has no nucleation sites and a greater number of grain boundaries in the region near the polycrystalline silicon upper surface than in the region near the polycrystalline silicon and substrate upper surface interface. This indicates that crystallization and crystal growth occurred from the polycrystalline silicon upper surface and proceeded in a direction towards the substrate upper surface.

Abstract: An electrophotographic imaging member having includinga supporting substrate having an electrically conductive surface,a hole blocking layer, an optional adhesive layer,a charge generating layer,a charge transport layer,an optional anticurl back coating,a ground strip layer andan optional overcoating layer,at least one of the charge transport layer, anticurl back coating, ground strip layer and overcoating layer comprising a silica particle clusters homogeneously distributed in a film forming matrix.

Abstract: A compact sheet feeding and cutting apparatus is disclosed which is particularly suitable for retrofitting to an existing document reproduction machine. The sheet feeding and cutting components are located within a common housing which can be mechanically attached to an existing machine. In one embodiment, no electrical connections are required between the reproduction machine and the feeding and cutting apparatus. A sheet cutting length is entered into local memory and controls the operation of a dc stepper motor in a sheet cutting mode and a sheet feeding mode. The motor is reversed and operates in a sheet feeding mode to drive feed rollers causing the sheet to unroll from a supply roll. The motor is operatively connected to the drive feed rollers and to the sheet cutter through separate, one-way clutches. The sheet is fed from the roll at a faster speed than the speed of sheet travel within the reproduction machine as it advances to a transfer station.

Abstract: A data processing device making a plurality of desktops which can be used without switching and simultaneously is disclosed, comprising: a first processing portion which manages windows generated on a screen, as a processing portion managing an operation environment; a second processing portion which manages the screen other than the windows, as a processing portion managing operation environments; an event managing portion which determines whether an event caused by an operation applied to the screen is for a first operation environment or a second operation environment, and the second processing portion including means for outputting to the first processing portion a request for generating a window of the second operation environment as processing of the event which is determined to be for the second operation environment by the event managing portion, and the first processing portion including means for generating and controlling a window of the first operation environment as processing of the event which

Abstract: An electric motor including a housing defining an aperture therethrough is disclosed. The motor also includes an armature mounted in the housing and a brush mounted in the housing and slidably connected to the armature. The housing substantially encloses the armature and the brush. The aperture is positioned with respect to the brush so that the brush may be visible through the aperture and so that the remaining usable life of the brush may be visually determined while the electric motor is assembled.

Abstract: A multisegmented ball for an electrical twisting ball display device made up of spheroidal balls rotatably disposed in an elastomer substrate. The ball is composed of segments arrayed substantially parallel to one another. Each segment is adjacent to at least one other segment and to no more than two other segments, adjacent segments being adjoined to one another at substantially planar interfaces. Each segment has an optical modulation characteristic, the optical modulation characteristics of adjacent segments being different from one another. The segments of the ball include a first exterior segment, a second exterior segment, and a transparent interior segment.

Abstract: An electrostatographic liquid immersion development (LID) reproduction machine having an image bearing member and a multifunction image developer and conditioning apparatus that significantly reduces the number of components, size, costs, and shear-force related image defects of such machines. The multifunction apparatus includes a housing defining a sump portion, a recovery chamber, and an opening into the recovery chamber; liquid developer material contained in the sump portion for developing a latent image on the image bearing member; and a rotatable multifunction roller assembly for processing a developed image on the image bearing member. This roller assembly includes a rotatable roll having a porous metal core defining an inner surface, and a foam layer formed over the metal core defining a skin or outer surface. The rotatable roller is mounted partially within the recovery chamber and partially through the opening and into contact with the image bearing member to form an image processing nip therewith.

Abstract: A toner image fixing device which has a satisfactory self-stripping ability to suppress the formation of creases of an envelope, and to prevent the abrasion of the elastic layers of a pair of toner image fixing rollers. In the fixing device, surface strain .di-elect cons.h in the circumferential direction of the first elastic layer of a first toner image fixing roller which comes in contact with a non-fixed toner image on a recording medium, and surface strain .di-elect cons.p in the circumferential direction of the second elastic layer of a second toner image fixing roller are defined by:.di-elect cons.h.gtoreq.0.0583 (.DELTA..di-elect cons.).sup.4 -0.6 (.DELTA..di-elect cons.).sup.3 +2.1917(.DELTA..di-elect cons.).sup.2 -3.65(.DELTA..di-elect cons.)+6where .di-elect cons.h<6%, .DELTA..di-elect cons..ltoreq.3% and .DELTA..di-elect cons.=.di-elect cons.h-.di-elect cons.p.

Abstract: A drive apparatus is comprised of a driven shift of a rotary photosensitive drum, a drive motor and a gear mechanism for rotatably driving the driven shaft, and a flywheel rotated around a wheel rotary shaft, for stabilizing the rotations of the driven shaft. A pulley having a large diameter is mounted on a rotary shaft directly coupled to the driven shaft, whereas a pulley having a small diameter is mounted on the wheel rotary shaft. An endless belt is wound on these pulleys, so that drive force is transferred from the rotary shaft to the wheel rotary shaft, and an angular velocity of the flywheel is made higher than that of the driven shaft.

Abstract: A simplified automated process for printing duplex copy sheets with correct edge margins from first and second original documents having a different dimension than the copy sets so that the duplex copy sheets will have substantially equal margins from the image areas on both sides of the duplex copy sheets irrespective of these different sheet sizes, including measuring at least one dimension of an original document sheet and automatically subtracting the known size dimension of the selected copy sheets in the dimension which includes the margin from the corresponding dimension of the original document sheet to determine a desired duplex image shift dimension, and shifting the image printed on second side of the copy sheet from the second original document by a distance corresponding to the calculated shift to produce duplex copy sheets with substantially equal margins.

Abstract: A fabrication process and several structures for an index-guided laser diode formed by IILD or for a multiple wavelength laser array containing stacked semi-conductive active layers with quantum wells. The laser wavelength is varied laterally by effectively inactivating quantum wells which have transition wavelengths longer than that desired in the selected portion of the device. The quantum wells are inactivated by intermixing them with the surrounding high band gap semiconductor layers. To accomplish this intermixing without affecting the active layer in nearby regions, a finite source of impurity inducing or promoting intermixing is located in proximity to the quantum well to be intermixed, and the sample is annealed under conditions which allow for lateral patterning of the impurity-induced intermixing.

Abstract: A toner composition for electrophotography comprising toner particles comprising a binder and a colorant and an additive, wherein the additive is crystalline titanium dioxide fine particles which have been treated with a coupling agent and which have a specific surface area of 60 to 100 m.sup.2 /g and a Karl Fischer moisture content of not more than 5% by weight. Compounds represented by formulae (I), (II) or (III) are used as the coupling agent:R.sup.1 Si(X).sub.3 (I)R.sup.1' R.sup.2 Si(X).sub.2 (II)R.sup.1' R.sup.2 R.sup.3 SiX (III)wherein R.sup.1 represents an alkyl group having 9 to 20 carbon atoms; R.sup.1' represents an alkyl group having 1 to 20 carbon atoms; R.sup.2 and R.sup.3 each represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group having 1 to 20 carbon atoms or an aryl group having 6 to 30 carbon atoms; and X represents a chlorine atom, an alkoxy group having 1 to 10 carbon atoms or an acetoxy-group having 3 to 5 carbon atoms.

Abstract: There is provided an image data shifting system for a document processing system including a scanning device for reading a document including one or more hardcopy pages and converting the hardcopy pages to corresponding electronic pages with each electronic page being represented by image data. Each hardcopy page is scanned as a series of scanlines and the scanner generates a signal prior to scanning each scanline. Each scanline read by the scanner is stored in memory as image data representative of one of the electronic pages. The image shifting system includes a detector for detecting a first signal generated by the scanner and a second signal generated by the scanner.