Abstract: A positively charged liquid developer comprised of thermoplastic resin particles, pigment, a charge director, and an insoluble charge adjuvant comprised of a polymeric quaternary ammonium compound, and wherein the charge adjuvant is associated with or combined with said resin and said pigment.

Abstract: The present invention is an apparatus for eliminating differential scanline bow in a raster output scanner (ROS) printing system. The apparatus employs a field lens device at the output of a pre-scanning optical assembly in order to direct the laser beams toward the scanning surface, or facet, at a right angle to the scanning surface, thereby eliminating a source of scanline bow.

Abstract: An image editor stores color pixels for an image to be edited in an image pixel buffer and a lookup register bank. The stored image is displayed on a monitor. An operator uses a mouse to designate a screen path that identifies an object in the image, and pixel position data is detected for the screen path. A programmed computer determines in real time one or more criteria for a search controller on the basis of hue, saturation and luminance variables which are determined from the stored pixel color data for pixels along the screen path. The computer further searches the image pixels to identify the object and its boundaries in accordance with the search controller criteria, and applies color edit actions to the identified object within the image.

Abstract: A method is disclosed for heating a portion of an article comprised of nickel, formed by electrodeposition, and possessing an internal stress sufficient to shrink the outer cross-sectional dimension upon application of heat, thereby shrinking the outer cross-sectional dimension of the heated portion. The method may be used to couple the article to other members such as end flanges without the use of an adhesive.

Abstract: In a xerographic image, where a darker area is separated by a lighter area across a sharp boundary, there is an edge enhancement effect where there will be a black outline around the darker area and a white outline around the lighter area. In x-ray mammography, the effect is that the skin line will be darkened for a positive image and lightened for a negative image, and a loss of detail at the skin line will result. To increase visible detail at the skin line without increasing the radiation, a recharging scorotron can be used between the imaging and toner stations to recharge back to a low level of charge only those areas of the latent image that have been fully discharged. All other areas are allowed to remain unchanged. The result is a reduction of skin line deletions at a reduced x-ray exposure. Such a scorotron, in the shape of a box around the corona wires, can be constructed using a conductive top, insulative sides and a screen bottom.

Abstract: A liquid developer comprised of a liquid, thermoplastic resin particles, pigment, and a charge director containing an alcohol.

Abstract: A cleaning apparatus for cleaning a transport belt in a printing machine of the type in which liquid ink is deposited on a recording medium moved along a path by the transport belt. The cleaning apparatus located next to the transport belt cleans a first surface and a second surface of the transport belt when ink and/or other contaminants collect on the belt. A sensor senses when the belt needs cleaning. Interior side walls of apertures within the belt which enable vacuum transport of the recording medium through the printing machine are also cleaned. The cleaning apparatus includes a first cleaning device having a flexible web for cleaning the first surface of the transport belt and a second cleaning device having a flexible web for cleaning the second surface of the transport belt. The sensor includes a length sufficient to sense contaminants along the width of the transport belt.

Abstract: The present invention provides a general system and method for designing arbitrary lens systems with reduced chromatic aberration without the reliance on rigorous trial and error methods and/or approximations. The system and method selects optical materials for a color corrected optical system by generating both axial color terms and lateral color terms for a predetermined lens system. From the generated color terms, a plurality of glass terms are calculated from a plurality or linear algebraic formulas generated by a multiplication of two matrices using the generated axial and lateral color terms as coefficient values of one of the matrices or other computational method. From the calculations, the particular optical materials and the predetermined lens design for a color corrected optical system are identified. This information can be used to facilitate the manufacturing of a lens system. The present invention can also take into account the use of diffractive optical elements.

Abstract: The invention concerns a lens mounting structure which can reduce a displacement of the lens in the direction of mounting caused by the shrinkage of adhesive is reduced to enhance the lens mounting accuracy and to assure predetermined optical characteristics. The lens mounting structure in which an f.theta. lens (20) is supported by and adhered to a lens mount (22), includes support columns (30, 32), at the upper surface (30A) of which a protrusion (30B) is formed. The protrusion (30B) has a reference support point (30C) for supporting the f.theta. lens (20) on the mount (22). The f.theta. lens (20) comes into contact with this reference support point (30C), and a surface of the protrusion (30B), the upper surface (30A) of the support column (30) and a periphery of the f.theta. lens (20) surrounding a portion in which the f.theta. lens (20) comes into contact with the reference support point (30C), are adhered so as to mount the f.theta. lens (20).

Abstract: An intermediate transfer member includes a base layer and a top thermoplastic film forming polymer layer. The base layer can include carbon and the thermoplastic film forming polymer layer can include electrical property regulating materials. This intermediate transfer member shows improved mechanical as well as electrical properties. It can be employed in an electrophotographic imaging device having at least one photoreceptor and can print an image on a suitable substrate such as paper with improved toner image formation.

Abstract: There is disclosed a method for forming a photosensitive imaging member to be subjected to light of a specific wavelength comprising: depositing a charge generating layer on a substrate, depositing a charge transport layer on the charge generating layer, wherein there is variation in the thickness of the transport layer, and controlling during the deposition of the charge generating layer the thickness of the generating layer as a way to substantially suppress the optical interference effects at the wavelength of illumination due to the variation in the thickness of the transport layer, wherein the thickness of the generating layer is controlled to enable the imaging member to exhibit an optical absorption modulation which is effective for substantially suppressing the optical interference effects.

Abstract: An image sensor is reduced in size by combining a photoelectric conversion element with a transfer element thin film transistor (TFT). The photoelectric conversion element comprises a lamination including a metal electrode, a photoconductive layer and a transparent electrode. The TFT transfer element comprises a gate electrode, a drain electrode and a source electrode. In the image sensor, the metal electrode of the photoelectric conversion element also serves as the drain electrode of the TFT. In addition, the gate electrode is formed around the photoelectric conversion element, and the source electrode is formed around the gate electrode.

Abstract: A liquid developer comprised of a nonpolar liquid, thermoplastic resin particles, a charge adjuvant, pigment, and a charge director selected from the group consisting of the triblock polymers BAA', BA'A, and ABA' wherein A, A' and B represent polymer segments or blocks, the polar A block repeat units contain an alkylated or protonated ammonium charged site and the polar A' block repeat units contain an acid group of a pKa equal to or less than about 7.0, and wherein the nonpolar B block repeat units contain aliphatic hydrocarbon solubilizing groups; and wherein the A and A' block number average molecular weights range from about 200 to 120,000, and the B block number average molecular weights range from about 2,000 to 190,000; and the total number average molecular weight of said charge director is from about 2,400 to about 300,000, and the ratio of M.sub.w to M.sub.n for said charge director is 1 to 5.

Abstract: An image decoding and recognition system and method comprising a fast heuristic algorithm using hidden Markov models (HMM). The new search algorithm, called an "iterative complete path" (ICP) algorithm, patterned after well-known branch-and-bound (B&B) methods, significantly reduces the complexity and improves the speed of HMM image decoding without sacrificing the optimality of the straightforward procedure. An advantageous form of the heuristic functions which is useful in applying the ICP algorithm to text-like images is described. The ICP algorithm is directly applicable to the separable type of finite-state source models. Also disclosed is a technique for transforming more general source models into such a separable form.

Abstract: A system for operatively connecting a source of a quantity of digital data having an image data format associated therewith, and an output device to create a print of the original image based on the digital data. A library includes a plurality of selectable format variable sets, each format variable set corresponding to an image data format. A portion of the quantity of digital data is polled for evidence relating to the presence of one image data format. A format structure operates the output device to print an image based on the digital data according to the format variables entered therein. One of the format variable sets is entered into the format structure, based on evidence in the portion of the quantity of digital data.

Abstract: A method of diagnosing an image processing system. In the method, predetermined diagnosis data of a compressed form is stored into a first page of a page buffer capable of storing image data of at least two pages. The diagnosis data of the compressed form read out of a memory area of the first page is expanded into restored diagnosis image data. The restored diagnosis image data is stored into a second page of the page buffer. The restored diagnosis image data is subjected to rotation processing by a rotation processor and the processed diagnosis image data is stored into the memory area of the first page. The processed diagnosis image data read out of the first page memory area is compressed by a compressor and the compressed image data is stored into the second page memory area. The result of the rotation processing is diagnosed by comparing the diagnosis data of the compressed form read out of the second page memory area with test data of the compressed form that is previously prepared.

Abstract: An optical element uniformly distributes radiant energy on a target surface, such as for discharging an area of a photoreceptor in a xerographic printer, or for applying infrared energy to dry an ink-jet image. A cylinder lens collimates light beams from a light source and directs the collimated light beams to a preselected area on the target surface. First and second refractive portions, each attached to and extending parallel to the cylinder lens, totally internally reflect light beams from the light source and direct the light beams reflected therein to the target surface.

Abstract: Highlighting and categorization of documents is carried out by using word tokens which represent words appearing in a document. Elimination of certain unimportant word tokens is first completed, after which the remaining words of the document are ranked according to their word token appearance rates. These rates are then used to highlight frequently appearing words in the document which indicate the document's topic. The document can also be categorized using document profiles developed from the word tokens.

Abstract: A process for the preparation of toner compositions comprising (i) preparing a pigment dispersion in water, which dispersion is comprised of a pigment, an ionic surfactant, and optionally a charge control agent;(ii) shearing said pigment dispersion with an aqueous latex or emulsion blend comprised of a nonionic surfactant, resin, and a counterionic surfactant with a charge polarity of opposite sign to that of said ionic surfactant;(iii) heating the above sheared blend below about the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the resin to form electrostatically bound toner size aggregates with a narrow particle size distribution;(iv) heating the electrostatically bound aggregates above about the Tg of the resin, which heating is accomplished at a pH of from about 4.0 to about 6.0 while continuously stirring the electrostatically bound aggregates to form toner particles;(v) washing the toner particles with a basic aqueous solution, which solution is of a pH of from between about 10.0 and about 12.

Abstract: An image processing device including a blocking section for dividing an input image into a plurality of blocks each consisting of N1.times.N2 (N1, N2: positive integers) picture elements; a block attribute determining section for determining an attribute of each block, the attribute being defined as one of a flat portion having substantially no density variation in each block, a semi-flat portion having a binary density distribution in each block, and an edge portion having a steep density variation in each block; a first coding section for coding each block of the flat portion; a second coding section for coding each block of the semi-flat portion; a third coding section for predictively coding the picture elements in each block of the edge portion; a fourth coding section for coding the attribute determined by the block attribute determining section; and a code assembling section for assembling codes obtained by the first to fourth coding sections.