A sheet stacking apparatus includes an intermediate process tray stacked with sheets, a trailing end lever movable upward from a pressing position in which to press the sheets on the intermediate process tray, a lever stopper regulating the upward movement of the trailing end lever, and an adjusting mechanism changing the regulating position of the trailing end lever by the lever stopper in accordance with a sheet stacking height of the sheets stacked on the intermediate process tray, wherein the adjusting mechanism keeps substantially constant a distance to the regulating position from the pressing position of the trailing end lever irrespective of the sheet stacking height of the sheets stacked on the intermediate process tray.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a sheet stacking apparatus in which sheets are sequentially delivered to and stacked on a sheet stacking tray, and more particularly to a sheet stacking apparatus capable of guiding the sheets to a alignment stopper surface on the sheet stacking tray and pressing the sheets against on the sheet stacking tray by substantially constant pressing force irrespective of a sheet stacking height, also to a sheet processing apparatus of which an apparatus main body includes the present sheet stacking apparatus, and further to an image forming apparatus.
2. Related Background Art
An image forming apparatus that forms an image on a sheet, a binding device that binds a sheet bundle and a sheet processing apparatus that processes the sheets such as a punching apparatus that punches the sheet bundle, have hitherto included a sheet stacking apparatus sequentially stacked with the sheets. In this case, the majority of these apparatuses have a sheet tacking apparatus in which the sheets are stacked on the sheet stacking tray in a way that reduces floating of the sheet in consideration of curling of the sheet. Note that the image forming apparatus is exemplified such as a copying machine a laser beam printer, a facsimile and a multifunction apparatus having functions of these apparatuses.
A sheet stacking apparatus 1302 shown in FIG. 45 is provided in a binding device 1300 for binding the sheets formed with images. This sheet stacking apparatus 1302 is constructed so that a sheet bundle is formed by sequentially stacking the sheets on an intermediate process tray 1330 defined as a sheet stacking tray provided within a binding device 1300, a stapler 1301 moving along an edge of the sheet bundle staples the sheet bundle at a plurality of points, and thereafter the stapled sheet bundle is delivered to a stack tray 1622 from the intermediate process tray 1330.
An operation of binding the unillustrated sheet bundle at two points, which is stacked on the intermediate process tray 1330, will be explained with reference to FIG. 46.
The sheets discharged out of the apparatus main body of the image forming apparatus are delivered sheet by sheet to the intermediate process tray 1330, and upstream-side ends (trailing ends) of the sheets in a sheet delivery direction are made to abut on an abutment support surface 1331a of a trailing end stopper 1331 by a pull-in paddle 1360 rotating in an arrow-headed direction and a knurled belt 1608 of a delivery roller 1320a configuring a first delivery roller pair 1320, thereby aligning the trailing ends of the sheets. Further, both sides of the sheets are widthwise aligned by first and second alignment members 1340, 1341 getting close to the sheets from the both sides of the sheets.
With a repetition of these operations, the plurality of sheets stacked on the intermediate process tray 1330 becomes a sheet bundle of which the trailing ends and the side ends are aligned. Thereafter, the on-standby stapler 1301 moves to first and second stapling positions along the trailing ends of the sheet bundle, and staples the sheet bundle in the respective stapling positions.
Thus, the sheet stacking apparatus 1302 including the intermediate process tray 1330 is configured in the way that alignment of the trailing end portions of the sheet involves pulling back the sheets toward the trailing end stopper 1331 by a pullback mechanism composed of the pull-in paddle 1360, the knurled belt 1608, etc and making the sheets abut on the trailing end stopper 1331. Normally, the sheet formed with a toner image might, however, change in its water content amount when the toner image is heated, pressurized and thus fixed by a fixing unit within the apparatus main body of the image forming apparatus, or depending on a using environment. Therefore, a buckling phenomenon occurs on the sheet. Namely, the sheet might be warped (curled).
The thus-curled sheet and a sheet that is small in thickness and low in rigidity are, when abutting on the trailing end stopper 1331 on the intermediate process tray 1330, buckled and disturb the alignment of the sheet bundle. Such being the case, the following configurations of the trailing end stopper are taken as measures against a failure of alignment of the sheets on the intermediate process tray 1330.
A trailing end stopper 1332 shown in FIG. 47 includes an abutting surface 1332a provided with a plurality of grooves 1332b and a plurality of protruded strip members 1332c, which prevent the sheet from being pushed up along the abutting surface 1332a.
A trailing end stopper 1333 shown in FIG. 48 includes a downwardly-inclined elastic film 1334 provided at an upper portion thereof, thereby invariably pressing the sheet trailing end portion against on the intermediate process tray 1330 (see FIG. 46).
A trailing end stopper 1335 shown in FIG. 49 includes a movable pressing member 1336 that presses the sheet in the vicinity of the trailing end stopper 1335. The pressing member 1336, after the sheets have abutted on the trailing end stopper 1335, presses the sheet bundle against on the intermediate process tray 1330, thereby flattening the sheets in a way that presses down the curled sheets (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H11-130338).
The trailing end stopper 1332 illustrated in FIG. 47 takes a low-cost/space-saving structure with a small number of components, however, is unable to positively flatten the sheet by pressing the curl, since the curled sheet is held in an as-curled state by the grooves 1332b and the protruded strip members 1332c.
Further, such poor alignment property arose that a deviation occurs in the aligning position of the trailing end of the sheet due to recessed and protruded portions of the plurality of grooves 1332b and the plurality-of protruded strip members 1332c.
Further, when the widthwise alignment of the sheet is done by the first and second alignment members 1340, 1341 (see FIG. 46), it follows that the sheet moves in the widthwise direction in a state where the trailing end of each sheet enters the recessed portion of the groove 1332b and the recessed portion between the protruded strip members 1332c. Consequently, frictional resistance occurs between the sheet railing end and the recessed portion and retards the widthwise movement of the sheet, and the sheet can not be aligned widthwise exactly. Moreover, when the number of stacked sheets increases, an excessive load is applied to a motor for moving the first and second alignment members 1340, 1341 due to the frictional resistance, which is a cause for deteriorating the widthwise alignment property.
The trailing end stopper 1333 shown in FIG. 48 has a simple structure including the elastic film 1334 and is capable of enhancing the alignment property of the trailing end of the sheet by pressing down the curled sheet. The elastic film 1334 has elasticity, and hence, when the number of the stacked sheets increases, the pressing force rises when the sheet enters. Conversely, if set so that the pressing force of the elastic film 1334 becomes proper when the number of the stacked sheets increases, the elastic film 1334 lacks the pressing force when the number of the stacked sheets decreases. Therefore, a relationship between the pressing force when the sheet enters and the pullback force of the knurled belt 1608 gets unstable.
For example, as shown in FIG. 50A, if the pressing force by the elastic film 1334 becomes larger than the pullback force of the knurled belt 1608 when the number of the stacked sheets rises, an upper sheet Pa is unable to reach the trailing end stopper 1333, and the alignment property of the sheet trailing end can not be enhanced. Further, as illustrated in FIG. 50B, when the number of the stacked sheets decreases, the pressing force by the elastic film 1334 becomes smaller than the pullback force of the knurled belt 1608, and almost no pressing force acts on the sheet. Hence, the sheet Pa might be pushed up and buckled along the abutting support surface 1333a. It is considered for preventing the buckling to increase the elastic force of the elastic film 1334. If the elastic force is increased, however, it follows that the phenomenon illustrated in FIG. 50A occurs also when the number of the stacked sheets decreases. Therefore, such a problem arises that a pullback optimal area depicted in a hatching portion in FIG. 51 is narrowed. Moreover, the buckling property and the pull back resistance change on a sheet-by-sheet basis depending on surface resistance based on a sheet material and on a difference in thickness, and hence it is highly difficult to have configurations flexible to various types of sheets.
Further, in the trailing end stopper 1335 shown in FIG. 49, the pressing member 1336 stands by in positions designated by Al, A2, A3 corresponding to a sheet stacking height in the vicinity of the trailing end stopper 1335 and descends, thus pressing the sheet P. Therefore, the pressing member 1336 stands by in any one of these positions, and, when a gap between the uppermost sheet and an undersurface 1336a of the pressing member 1336 gets narrowed due to the increase in the number of the stacked sheets, the largely curled sheet is hard to enter this gap and might be jammed therein.
Moreover, the pressing member 1336 is constructed to move up and down perpendicularly to the sheet in the vicinity of the trailing end stopper 1335. Hence, in a view of the trailing end stopper as viewed from the front surface thereof in FIG. 49, it is required that a position of the stapler 1301 (see FIG. 46) and a position of the pressing member 1336 be deviated in the right-and-left directions in FIG. 49. Accordingly, in order for the pressing member 1336 to press the most effective and closest portion to the trailing end stopper, the stapler 1301 must be retreated backward (on the right side in FIG. 49) not to interfere with the pressing member 1336 when the pressing member 1336 performs pressing or must be provided outside the stapling positions of the stapler in the direction perpendicular to the sheet surface in FIG. 49.
Moreover, the pressing member 1336 shown in FIG. 49, if scheming to press the entire sheet widthwise area, is upsized in the retreat configuration described above and is therefore often disposed at a central portion serving as a non-stapling area, wherein the pressing member 1336 is unable to press the both end portions of the sheet which correspond to the stapling positions, and there is a case of causing a decline of the alignment property about the both side ends of the trailing end of the sheet.
Further, when in a two-point stapling mode, the stapler passes through the central portion of the trailing end of the sheet and moves to the stapling positions on a deep side. Hence, if the pressing member 1336 is disposed at the central portion, after temporarily retreating backward (on the right side in FIG. 49), the stapler moves to a position that is not overlapped as viewed from the front surface and further moves on the deep side. Moreover, the operation is also the same when moving to an anterior side from the deep side. Therefore, the stapler moving mechanism is required to enable the stapler to move in biaxial (X-axis, Y-axis) directions, and consequently the structure gets complicated. Moreover, the stapler moves in the biaxial directions, so that staple processing time elongates. Still further, standby time of the image forming apparatus increases corresponding to this elongated processing time, and productivity for forming the images decreases. It should be noted that the sheet stacking apparatus illustrated in FIG. 49 configures, together with the stapler 1301, a sheet processing apparatus.
As discussed above, the conventional sheet stacking apparatus can not press the sheet bundle by the substantially constant pressing force irrespective of the sheet stacking height. The conventional sheet stacking apparatus can not restrain especially the curled sheet from floating.
Yet further, the sheet processing apparatus has such a problem that processing operation time is long in terms of a layout of the pressing member and the stapler of the sheet stacking apparatus.

Sheet stacking apparatus, sheet processing apparatus and image forming apparatus


The disclosure provides a method and an apparatus for processing Device-to-Device (D2D) device identity. The method includes that: a D2D device transmits a temporary D2D identity request; the D2D device receives temporary D2D identity authorization information corresponding to the temporary D2D identity request, and acquires a temporary D2D identity; and the D2D device broadcasts the received temporary D2D identity, wherein the temporary D2D identity is configured to discover the D2D device by a discovering D2D device in a D2D discovery process. By the disclosure, the security of communication among the D2D devices is improved.

Cellular-based D2D communication is a novel technology for direct communication among multiple terminal devices which support D2D function under the control of a system. By virtue of the cellular-network-based D2D communication, system resource occupation can be reduced, the spectral efficiency of a cellular communication system can be improved, the transmission power consumption of a terminal can be lowered, and network operation expense can be lowered greatly. FIG. 1 is a diagram of a cellular-based D2D communication mode in a related art, and as shown in FIG. 1, data is transmitted between a D2D device 1 and a D2D device 2.
The D2D device needs a process to discover other adjacent D2D device(s) before performing D2D transmission. The discovery of the D2D device refers to that: the existence of a D2D device can be discovered by one or more other D2D device(s), and a characteristic such as an identity of the D2D device can be identified.
A method for discovering the D2D device in the related art is implemented as follows: the discovered D2D device broadcasts its own identity information, and one or more discovering D2D devices search for the corresponding D2D device identity information, and identify the found D2D device identity information, thereby finishing the discovery process of the D2D device.
In the discovery process of the D2D device, in order to conveniently mark and identify the identity information of the discovered device and ensure that the identity privacy of the discovered device will not be exposed, a method of encrypting the identity information of the discovered device and setting that an encryption key can be acquired by discovering device(s) selected by the discovered device only is adopted in the related art, then only the selected discovering device(s) which has known the key can identify the identity information of the discovered device when the discovered device broadcasts its encrypted identity information, and other discovering device(s) cannot acquire the privacy of the discovered device.
For the problem of higher security risk of a communication process in an identity processing process of the D2D device in the related art, there is yet no effective solution.

Method and apparatus for processing D2D device identity


A rotary encoder includes two component groups that are rotatably arranged relative to each other about an axis. The second component group includes a shaft having a central bore hole, a shoulder and a ridge having an outer surface, and a ring element having an inner surface and an actuation device. In addition, the rotary encoder has a component, which is arranged between the outer surface and the inner surface of the ring element. Both points on the inner surface of the ring element as well as points on the outer surface of the shaft have different distances with respect to the axis such that, via the actuation device, the ring element rests on the shoulder so that a radial force acts on the ridge via the component and a machine part is clampable.

Rotary encoders are frequently used to determine the angular position of two machine parts, which are rotatable relative to each other, and operate according to an inductive measuring principle, for example. In inductive rotary encoders, exciter coils and receiver coils are applied, for example, in the form of circuit traces, on a shared circuit board, which is permanently joined to a stator of the rotary encoder, for example. Arranged across from this circuit board at a defined axial distance and centered is another board, which takes the form of a code disk, on which alternating electrically conductive and nonconductive surfaces are mounted at periodic intervals as a scale-division region or scale-division structure, and which is joined to the rotor of the rotary encoder in a rotatably fixed manner. If an electric exciter field, which is alternating over time, is applied to the exciter coils, signals are generated in the receiver coils as a function of the angular position during the relative rotation between rotor and stator. These signals are processed further in an evaluation electronics.
Such rotary encoders are frequently used as measuring devices for electrical drives to determine the absolute angular position of respective drive shafts.
A clamping coupling described in German Published Utility Model No. 92 18 383, in which an actuating screw presses directly onto a ring such that clamping forces are producible via conical surfaces. Such a conventional system has the disadvantage that the clamping forces are comparatively small due to the geometric relationships prevailing within the system.


Portable communication equipment having a virtual display including display electronics and optics for providing a virtual image in the display, a virtual control panel image viewable in the virtual display as a portion of the virtual image and cursor electronics connected to the display electronics for producing a manually controllable cursor virtual image in the display. The virtual image control panel is connected to be operable with the cursor virtual image and further connected to operate the portable communication equipment. Manual controls, connected to the cursor electronics for controlling the position and function of the cursor virtual image, are mounted on the portable communication equipment and externally accessible by an operator.

Portable communications receivers, such as radios, cellular and cordless telephones, pagers and the like, are becoming increasingly popular. In many instances it is desirable to provide apparatus on the receiver to supply the operator with visual messages that include graphics and printed information. The problem is that prior art apparatus providing these functions require relatively high electrical power and require a great amount of area to be sufficiently large to produce useful and visually perceivable information.
In the prior art, for example, it is common to provide visual apparatus utilizing liquid crystals, directly viewed light emitting diodes, etc. These produce very large and cumbersome displays that greatly increase the size of the receiver and require relatively large amounts of power.
In one instance, the prior art includes a scanning mirror to produce a visually perceivable image but again this requires relatively large amounts of power and is very complicated and sensitive to shock. Also, the scanning mirror causes vibration in the unit which substantially reduces visual comfort and acceptability.
Apparatus incorporating a miniature virtual image display, which solves most of the problems mentioned above, is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,224,198, entitled "WAVEGUIDE VIRTUAL IMAGE DISPLAY", issued Jun. 29, 1993. Typically, the products in which the miniature virtual image display is incorporated are small hand-held devices. Many of the proposed applications would benefit from some interaction with the display.
Typically, in portable electronic receivers, such as radios, cellular and cordless telephones, pagers and the like, numbers to be dialed or functions to be programmed into the receiver are input by way of a manual keyboard sometimes accompanied by a small display which illustrates the number being dialed or the function being programmed. Because of finger size and visual perception, the keyboard and its display are often the limiting factor in determining the size of the receiver. Further, the keyboard and direct display require considerable volume for buttons (and space for movement), display module and associated electronics.
Accordingly, it is a purpose of the present invention to provide a new and improved manually controllable cursor in a virtual image.
It is a further purpose of the present invention to provide a new and improved manually controllable cursor in a virtual image for use in small hand held devices and which is controllable with the hand holding the device.
It is a still further purpose of the present invention to provide a new and improved manually controllable cursor in a virtual image including manual controls that are substantially smaller than any prior art and which do not impose a size limitation on associated equipment.

Manually controllable cursor and control panel in a virtual image


An image processing device which processes a portion of the decompression process including a lot of comparatively complex operations like an inverse discrete cosine transform by software with using a high-performance, general-purpose processor capable of parallel processing, and the other portion of the decompression process which is compara- tively simple but requires frequent access to a memory, e.g., when other frame data is to be read out for processing of encoded interframe predictive image data, or is compara- tively simple but substantially hard to process in parallel, e.g., when variable length coded pixel values are to be decoded, by hardware with the use of a specialized periph- eral circuit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing device for decompressing compressed image data. In the device, a general-purpose microprocessor and a specialized circuit cooperate to efficiently decompress the compressed image data, more specifically, the general-purpose microprocessor executes a portion of the data decompression process including a lot of arithmetical and logical operations by software, whereas the specialized circuit carries out a portion of the decompression process including a lot of operations to read out data from a memory.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since image data is considerably large in volume, the data is usually encoded to digital data and further compressed when stored or transmitted. Many studies have been already made especially in relation to encoding and compressing of moving picture data, which results in a standard format of image data for the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) or the like set by the International Organization for Stan- dardization.
Decompression of image data is necessary so as to reproduce an original image data from the compressed image data as represented by moving picture data meeting the MPEG standard. For this purpose, various LSIs for decompression of moving picture data, e.g., HDM8211M (Hyundai Electronics America), M65771FP and M65770FP (Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha), etc. have been devel- oped. The HDM8211M, for example, is described in "Single Chip Performs Both Audio and Video Decoding" (Dave Bursky: pp. 77-80; Electronic Design, Apr. 3, 1995).
Those conventional LSIs require an integrated structure of a lot of operation units, which increases a hardware scale and costs. Further, those LSIs are constructed for a specific purpose and unusable for other uses, therefore, making it necessary to develop LSIs of kinds proportional to the kinds of image data. Thus, the conventional LSIs lack flexibility.
To solve the above-mentioned problem, decompression of image data by software without employing specialized hard- ware has been tried, whereby some instructions exclusive for processing the MPEG image data are added to a general-purpose microprocessor. The idea is described in "Acceler- ating Multimedia with Enhanced Microprocessors" (Ruby B. Lee: pp. 22-32; IEEE Micro, April 1995). The decom- pression process for the MPEG standard image data by software applies an excessive load on the conventional image processing device in spite of a limited operational efficiency or a limited memory access speed of the general-purpose processor. Therefore, the conventional decompres- sion process by software actually achieves low-quality mov- ing picture data or decompresses image data in non-real time, and it is insufficient for decompressing moving picture data in real time with high quality.


A regenerating device for an optical recording medium which includes a detector preferably consisting of a charge modulation device and cell groups disposed in a matrix configuration, readout switches, a column selecting device for selecting the readout switches provided at every column on the basis of inputted column-address information, and a row selecting device for selecting cells in a specific row on the basis of inputted row-address information. The regenerating device further includes a readout device for defining, by time sharing, a cell region in a predetermined position of all of the cells disposed in the detector so as to read out detecting signals by time-sharing from these cells. The regenerating device controls a servo-control device controlling an optical head by using the detected signal in the detector, and furthermore, reads information recorded in a medium by using a reading device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a regenerating device for an optical recording medium, and more particularly, to a regenerating device using a two-dimensional image sensor as a detector for detecting signals.
2. Description of the Related Art Statement
Related art will be described with specific reference to FIGS. 1 to 5.
In a regenerating device for an optical recording medium which reads out information from an optical recording medium such as an optical disk, a photomagnetic disk, an optical card, a light source irradiates the optical recording medium (hereinafter defined as a medium) to obtain a reflected light beam; a photoelectric conversion of the reflected light beam obtained from the surface of the recording medium by means of non-stack-type detector such as a silicon photo-diode is performed; and signal processing is applied to the converted electric signal to enable the readout of data. Maintaining the focus of the optical beam for reading out the data and following-up a track can be performed by creating an error signal from the detected signal of the detector and by conducting feed-back to the optical head. FIG. 1 shows an example of a format of the medium. In the example, both a data pit 51 and a clock pit 52 are recorded, and the format of the medium is configured by sixteen data lines which are divided by a clock line 53 into two groups each consisting of eight lines, and these two groups are disposed in a upper and lower region as viewed in FIG. 1. In a reading process, sixteen data in each column are confirmed by one clock edge. Reference numeral 54 indicates a light spot of the beam for reading out.
FIG. 2 shows a detector for detecting under the condition in which the surface of the recording medium is projected as shown in FIG. 1. In the data pit 51, the high and low levels of a reflection factor is represented by "1" and "0", respectively. The data is detected by data cells 55, sixteen of which are vertically disposed as viewed in FIG. 2. Four clock-cell groups 56 perform to detect a clock. Each edge of the clock signal regenerated by the cell group 56 is a confirmed timing for the data cell. The clock-cell group 56 configures a pair by two cells.
FIG. 3 shows an optical head 60 and a detecting system.
In the optical head 60 shown in FIG. 3, a light beam emitted from a light source 61, which is a light-emitting diode (LED), is made to be a parallel light by means of a collimator lens 62. The light beam emitted from the light source 61 through the collimator lens 62 passes through a beam splitter 63 and then, through an objective lens 64, is irradiated onto a recording medium 65. The reflected light from the recording medium 65 passes through the objective lens 64 and reflected by the beam splitter 63, and then passes through an image-forming lens 66 to be led to a detector 67. As a result, the image-forming lens 66 projects an image of the medium on the detector 67. The detector 67 comprises sixteen data cells 55, four clock-cell groups 56, and servo cells C1 through C4 and D1 through D4 as shown in FIG. 2. A tracking actuator 68 is employed to control the light spot 54 on the surface of the detector 67 so that the light spot 54 does not move perpendicularly to the track of the medium by allowing the objective lens 64 to travel perpendicularly to the track of the medium. A focusing actuator 69 is employed to focus the light spot 54 by allowing the objective lens 64 to travel perpendicularly to the surface of the recording medium 65.
As shown in FIG. 2, in the focussed condition, the cells C1 through C4 are situated outside of a foot (edge) of the light spot 54, and the cells D1 through D4 are situated inside of the foot of the light spot 54.
As shown in FIG. 3, the detecting system of the device comprises: a servo cell I/V converting circuit 70 which converts the output currents of the cells C1 through C4 and the cells D1 through D4 to their voltages; a tracking error (TE) signal-generating circuit 71 to which the voltage signals from the servo cell I/V converting circuit 70 are inputted; a track (Tr) drive circuit 72; a focus error signal-generating circuit 73 to which the voltage signals from the servo cell I/V converting circuit 70 are inputted; and a focus (Of) drive circuit 74. The detecting system comprises: a read I/V conversion circuit 75 which converts the output currents (read signals) of the read cell groups 55 to their voltages; a binary circuit 76 which converts the read signal, which is converted into voltage, into a binary value; and a reading circuit 77 which executes data reading by binary valued read signals and clock signals (not illustrated).
The operation of the device is described as follows.
The detection of the focus location is enabled by detecting a variation of the diameter of a light beam on the surface of the detector. Therefore, the focus location is maintained by applying feed-back to the focus-error signal generating circuit 73 in the focussed condition so as to make the difference of the cells disposed in the foot of the beam shown in FIG. 2 zero. More specifically, maintaining the focus is achieved by applying a feed-back error signal to the focus drive actuator, wherein the error signal is calculated as the difference (.SIGMA. C-.SIGMA. D) between the sum of signals of the cells C1 to C4, which is represented as .SIGMA. C, and the sum of the signals of the cells D1 to D4, which is represented as .SIGMA. D. FIG. 4 is a practical example of a focus-error signal-generating circuit 73.
When the control is performed precisely in the tracking direction, the clock pit 52 is equally shared both by D1 and D2. The same situation can be applied to the cells D3 and D4. Accordingly, tracking servo is performed by making an error signal, which is represented by the equation of (D1+D3)-(D2+D4), and by feed-back of the error signal into the tracking drive actuator 68. FIG. 5 shows a practical example of the tracking error signal-generating circuit 71.
To perform data reading, the clock signal must be generated. The generation of the clock signal can be obtained by converting the difference between the sum of the clock cells 56 disposed in the consecutive even order and the sum of these cells 56 disposed in the consecutive odd order into a binary value. Then, each of the sixteen data is converted into a binary value and sampled at each edge of the leading and trailing of the clock to become confirmed data. At this time, the data has been modulated after the interleaving by being added by the correction bit, thus a demodulation, de-interleaving, and the error correction can be performed to the data and the reading is completed.
However, in the detector of the above described related art, there exists a restriction in that an overlapping of each cell was not allowed when conducting the tracking servo, the focus servo, the data reading, and in conducting clock generation respectively. Therefore, there was a restriction in the shape and the disposition of these cells. For instance, when the detecting region of the cell groups D1 through D4, as shown in FIG. 2, were to be extended, it was impossible due to the interference of the clock cell groups 56, and the region which may be shared in the view point of effectiveness could not be shared. There has been a problem that the required sensitivity of the respective output signals, such as focus servo, could not be sufficiently obtained because the detecting region could not be extended. Furthermore, because the shape and the disposition of each cell group is fixed for the recording medium having a different format, one device, or one optical head and the detecting system, could not function with a plurality of recording media having different formats.

Regenerating device for optical recording medium in which overlapping regions are read out by a light beam in a time sharing manner to provide servo control of the positional relationship between the light beam and the medium


An improved technique involves sending a user's authentication information to a local authentication device that computes a risk score and sends the risk score to a remote authentication server that determines whether the user is able to be authenticated. When the user makes an authentication or transaction request from an electronic device such as a computer or smartphone, the electronic device sends predictor values such as geo location and wireless signal strength to the local authentication device. The local authentication device then computes a risk score based on the received predictor values and historical predictor values. The local authentication device sends this risk score to a remote authentication server which determines from this risk score and other factors whether the user is able to be authenticated.

Electronic service providers receive login attempts from users wishing to gain access to sensitive information such as bank accounts. Some users attempt to gain access to such information with credentials obtained fraudulently from a legitimate account holder.
Most basic authentication techniques are designed to control access to such sensitive information. For example, some basic authentication techniques involve presenting a username and password or answering a set of questions to which only a legitimate account holder should know the answers. More secure authentication techniques may involve presenting a one-time password (OTP) from a token in addition to the username and password.
More advanced authentication techniques, on the other hand, involve comparing transaction data with historical transaction data using rule-based computation, statistical analysis, or machine learning techniques. Conventional techniques involve sending the transaction data to a remote authentication server that is configured to access such historical data. When comparing this data to the historical data, the authentication server may then determine the likelihood that the user is the authorized user. For example, a user attempts to make a credit card purchase at 3 AM in Philadelphia. Upon receiving this information, the authentication server finds that this user has been making credit card purchases between the hours of 7 PM and 9 PM from Boston. In such a case, the authentication server may determine that there is a high risk of the user being fraudulent and will take further action.

Localized risk analytics for user authentication


The method and the apparatus which correct white balance estimate, by using at least gray and/or skin color information contained in an input color image, a color temperature of a photographing light source with which the color image has been formed and correct an image signal of the color image on the basis of the estimated color temperature. The density correcting method multiplies image signals of each pixel in the input color image by set coefficients to detect pixels having the multiplied image signals in the vicinity of a blackbody locus curve of skin color as skin color candidate pixels and assigns an average obtained for a predetermined color signal from the skin color candidate pixels detected to a predetermined density of a color corresponding to the color signal on a print. These methods and the apparatus are effective in properly correcting white balance and density upon forming a print from an input image.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for correcting white balance and density of a color image when digital image processing is performed on an input image signal to form a print, more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for correcting white balance, a method for correcting density and a recording medium on which a program for carrying out these methods is recorded.
2. Description of the Related Art
The conventional silver salt photography generally uses an analog exposure (area exposure or direct exposure) system to obtain a print. That is, a developed negative film is positioned at a predetermined printing position and irradiated with light from a white light source (halogen lamp or the like), and light transmitted through the negative film is imaged on photographic paper, thus making an exposure.
In recent years, printing apparatuses using digital exposure, i.e., digital photoprinters, have been put to practical use. Digital photoprinters perform a process in which an image recorded on a photographic film such as a negative film or a color reversal film is photoelectrically read to obtain a digital signal representing the read image, various kinds of image processing is performed on the digital signal to obtain image data, scanning exposure using recording light modulated according to this image data is performed on a photosensitive material to form an image (latent image) on the photosensitive material to obtain a (finished) print.
Such digital photoprinters process images as digital image data and can therefore perform image processing not only on photographed images on photographic films but also on photographed images obtained with digital still cameras (DSC) or the like, image data recording in the form of digital data on various kinds of recording media, e.g., magnetic recording media, such as CD-R (compact disk recordable), floppy disks, and removable hard disks (Zip, Jaz, etc.), and MO disks (magneto-optical recording media) to output prints.
Color negative films have been commonly used by typical users. The conditions of photography of original images on negative films are not always uniform. For example, subjects are photographed in light from various light sources, e.g., daylight and fluorescent lamp. Therefore, in case of forming prints from a developed negative film when images in the developed negative film is printed without changing the characteristics of light from a printing light source, color tints of light from photographing light sources in which subjects have been photographed are directly reflected in the prints, which leads to forming undesirable prints in some cases.
Various systems have therefore been contrived to adjust white balance on the prints. A typical example of such systems is a large area transmission density (LATD) method based on the Evans' theorem (hypothesis) stating that the average of all colors in the world is gray. The LATD is the average transmission density through an entire frame on a photographic film. In the LATD method, the LATD of each frame on a color negative film is measured and the characteristics of a printing light source are changed according to the red, green and blue density levels so that the average color on the print is close to gray.
On the other hand, digital still cameras (DSCs) have recently come into widespread use. An image forming process in a DSC and an image forming process using a color negative film can be regarded as the same with respect to photographing a scene but differ essentially in that a DSC image itself is an object of appreciation while an image on a color negative film is not directly viewed as an object of appreciation. DSC images themselves, therefore, must be fine, well-white-balanced images when viewed before being output as prints. DSCs are also used for photography with various light sources like cameras using color negative films and are unable to reliably obtain a satisfactory image without a function for correcting white balance. Therefore almost all the recent DSCs have an auto white balance (AWB) function for automatically correcting white balance.
The above-described LATD method has been practiced with some measure of success but it is responsible for production of undesirable prints. One of the printing failures due to the LATD method is color failure that imbalance of a color occurs in a print. For example, in a case where white balance correction based on the LATD method is made on an image obtained by photographing a woman in red dress, a cyan color, which is a complementary color to red, is added throughout the entire frame to make the entire frame close to gray, thereby reducing the vividness of the red of the dress and making the woman's face pale.
In a case where the entire frame area of a photographed scene is reddish, it is impossible to ascertain whether the reddishness is ascribable to the light source or the subject. In this case, the LATD method achieves success in correction if the light source is the cause, but it causes such a color failure described above if the subject is the cause.
The above-mentioned AWB function of DSCs is essentially based on the Evans' theorem like the negative film/printing system and entails the same problem as that of white balance correction based on the LATD in the negative film/printing system.
That is, while about 60 to 70% of DSC images after AWB are obtained as well-color-balanced good images as average performance of the Evans' theorem, the remaining 30 to 40% of the DSC images need some additional color balance correction because of AWB function failure. If white balancing is not performed at the time of printing from the DSC images, about 30 to 40% of resulting prints are unsatisfactory, unacceptable prints.
As described above, the conventional art LATD method based on the Evans' theorem makes white balance correction by assuming that the average of colors through the entire frame of an image is gray, but it is not sufficiently effective in correcting white balance because of its inability to find true gray in an image, and often produces a contrary correction effect.
Further, when printing, if LATD method as above is employed to perform density correction through the entire image the density of a main subject or a principal subject in the image will be influenced by scene configurations and a print may be formed with an improper density. In order to overcome such a problem, it has been proposed to detect a main subject (a human face in many cases) in an image and determine the print density in accordance with the density of the detected subject. The judgment on whether or not the print density is proper is made based on the density of a main subject rather than the density through an entire frame. Consequently, it is important to detect a human face as a main subject and correct the density of the entire image so that the density of the face may be proper.
Detection of a human face as a main subject is generally performed employing shape recognition. However, it is very difficult at present to detect human faces with high accuracy by employing such measures. It has also been attempted to detect human faces using color information, where difficulties may again occur, if the type of a light source is unknown.

Method and apparatus for correcting white balance, method for correcting density and a recording medium on which a program for carrying out the methods is recorded


An image processing apparatus which is capable of satisfactorily developing photographed data by making up a difference in saturation level between color signals through replacement of a color signal. Saturation levels of respective color signals in photographed data are calculated, and an upper limit of a dynamic range in the photographed data is determined. Based on the upper limit, replacement ratios for the color signals, which change toward the saturation levels of the color signals, are obtained. Each of the color signals is adjusted according to the upper limit. Based on the replacement ratios, a replacement process is carried out in which a color signal of which the saturation level is low is replaced with a color signal of which the saturation level is high. The photographed data on which the replacement process has been carried out is subjected to a predetermined process to obtain developed data.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method which develop photographed data, as well as a recording medium, and in particular to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method which are capable of reflecting a dynamic range in photographed data on developed image data, as well as a recording medium.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, to develop photographed data, so-called white balance adjustments are made in which color signals are adjusted with consideration given to characteristics and photographing conditions of an image pickup apparatus which has obtained the photographed data. As a result of the white balance adjustments, for example, a gray subject is developed in gray with saturation levels of respective color signals being uniform.
However, when saturation levels of respective color signals are different even after white balance adjustments are made, no additional white balance adjustments can be performed, and hence so-called coloring may occur in a high-luminance region of an image.
For this reason, there is a method in which a clip level is set according to a saturation level of an R color signal before or after white balance adjustments, and G and B color signals after white balance adjustments are subjected to clipping at that clip level (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2000-13808).
Also, there is a method in which whether or not each color signal has become saturated is determined after white balance adjustments, and a color signal determined to be in saturation is corrected according to saturation levels of color signals other than the color signal (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-328564).
Further, there is a method in which among color signals after white balance corrections, pixels which will have blown out highlights unless they are corrected to be underexposed (desensitizing process) are detected and corrected so that their pixel values can be increased, and thereafter, a desensitizing process is carried out using a maximum exposure correction value at which information is restorable (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2012-85360). Here, a maximum interpolation value is obtained from peripheral pixel values, and according to a pixel value of a pixel to be interpolated, this pixel value and the maximum interpolation value are mixed to obtain an interpolation value.
According to the method described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2000-13808, however, information on color signals exceeding the clip level is lost, and as a result, the gradation of a high-luminance region cannot be expressed in a developing result.
Also, according to the method described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-328564, corrections suited to saturation levels of color signals are insufficient. Namely, when a gradation in which color and luminance gradually change is developed, a tone jump in which a color signal greatly changes at a boundary between an unsaturated state and a saturated state may occur. As a result of correction using color signals with different saturation levels, coloring remains in a high-luminance region.
FIG. 14 is a diagram showing results obtained when corrections are made for a subject whose color ratio of color signals is greater than 1 in a conventional developing device.
FIG. 14 shows results obtained by correcting color signals using the method described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-328564 above. In FIG. 14, the axis of abscissa indicates the signal value of a color signal to be corrected, and the axis of ordinate indicates output after correction (corrected output). The maximum value of the signal level of a color signal 40 is small, and a color signal value 41 represents an input maximum value of the color signal 40. An input maximum value of a color signal 42 is greater than that of the color signal 40. In the example shown in FIG. 14, the color ratio between the color signal 40 and the color signal 42 is 1:2, and the output of the color signal 42 after correction is twice as large as that of the color signal 40.
When the color signal 40 reaches the input maximum value 41, the color signal 40 is replaced with the color signal 42 to obtain a replacement result 43. On this occasion, in a subject whose color ratio is greater than 1, there is a difference between the color signal 40 and the color signal 42, and hence a tone jump occurs at a boundary between a pixel subjected to correction and a pixel not subjected to correction.
According to the method described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2012-85360 above, interpolation is performed with no consideration given to an upper limit of a dynamic range. For this reason, when a color signal of which an input value is smaller than an input maximum value is interpolated at a maximum interpolation value greater than an upper limit of a dynamic range, an interpolation value may exceed the upper limit of the dynamic range. Namely, even if the upper limit is increased in an attempt to widen the dynamic range, a reverse phenomenon in which the dynamic range is narrowed may occur.
On the other hand, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2012-85360 describes that although reversal of saturation in adjustment of a dynamic range is avoided by changing the shape of a gamma curve to a non-linear shape, the change of the gamma curve affects pixels and other color signals of which a maximum correction value is smaller than an input value (signal value) and which are not required to be interpolated, and as a result, distortion due to a non-linear change in output occurs.

Image processing apparatus that develops photographed data, image processing method, and recording medium


A method of forming a liquid crystal display device with a pixel TFT, a bottom electrode of pixel capacitor CL, and a storage capacitor Cs in a pixel region, and an n-type TFT and a p-type TFT in a driving circuit region is disclosed. Firstly, a metal layer and an n-type silicon layer are formed on a transparent substrate. Thereafter, a patterning step is performed to define some predefined regions for above devices. After an active layer and a gate oxide layer are formed in order on all patterned surfaces, another patterning step is done to form a first, a second, and a third preserved region, respectively, for a LDD region of the n type TFT, source/drain regions for the p type TFT and a LDD region for pixel TFT and Cs. Thereafter, a photosensitive layer is deposited and patterned to form a reflective bumps region. A metal layer is formed and patterned to form a cover over the reflective bumps region and gate electrodes for aforementioned TFT as well as an upper electrode for Cs. Subsequently, a blanket nLDD implant is performed. Thereafter, a p type source/drain implant is carried out using a photoresist pattern as a mask. After removing the photoresist pattern, a passivation layer is formed on all areas. Next an annealing is performed to active the implant impurities. Another patterning process is then performed to expose the metal reflective layer over the bumps region and to form contact by patterning the passivation layer.

A liquid crystal display (LCD) is a flat display with property of low power consumption, and decreased significantly in either occupied space or weight in comparison with a conventional cathode ray tube (CRT) and without curve surface as a CRT display has. Hence, the liquid crystal display has widely been applied in all sorts of merchandises, including consumptive electronic products, such as pocket calculators, electronic dictionaries, watches, mobile phones, portable notebooks, communication terminals, display panels, desk-top personal computers, and even high dpi (dots per inch) television (HDTV) and so on. The most popular display is an active-type thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) due to the fact that the viewing angle and the contrast performance are much better than those of a super-twisted nematic liquid crystal display (STN-LCD) of passive matrix type and the TFT-LCD shows more rapid response (such as several tens of milliseconds) than the STN-LCD does (such as several hundred milliseconds).
The primary elements of a TFT-LCD device include a fluorescent light tube, a light-guiding plate, a polarized film, a color filter, two glass substrates, a rubbing film, liquid crystal materials, and thin film transistors. The principle is as follows: At first, a ray is projected from a backlight source, i.e. a fluorescent light tube to a polarized film as well as liquid crystal molecules and cause the ray to changes proceeding direction thereof in accordance with the arrangement of the liquid crystal molecules. Afterward, the light passes through a color filter and another polarized film in order. Then as we vary the voltage actuating the liquid crystal, the intensity and color of the light can be adjusted in accordance with the voltage. Consequently, the liquid crystal panel can then present modes of diverse intensity and colors in response to the data retrieved.
A fluorescent light tube is employed as a backlight source and a diffuser, otherwise at least a side light source and a light-guiding plate are required as an alternative. As a result, more power is consumed and larger space is occupied. To reduce the power consumption and to fabricate a thinner liquid crystal display will be our aim and the reflective type LCD can meet our need. As to the reflective type LCD, since the light primarily comes from outside, the inbuilt lighting device can be simplified such that less space is occupied. Therefore, the reflective LCD can be applied under any environment unless the light is too dim.
Referring to the aforementioned TFT-LCD, in tradition the amorphous silicon has been the primary material in fabricating thin film transistor (TFT). However, for the current polysilicon is used to substitute the amorphous silicon and may become the mainstream in the future. This is because the polysilicon has carrier (either electron or hole) mobility higher than that of the amorphous silicon. Additionally, the polysilicon TFT-LCD has another advantage of being able to form the driving circuit (including nMOS transistor or pMOS transistor and even CMOS transistor) on the LCD panel and the pixels at the same time. As a result of the aforementioned reasons, the polysilicon-type TFT-LCD can be switched at higher speed than the amorphous-type silicon TFT-LCD and thus can catch the most attention. However, the foregoing mentioned polysilicon-type TFT-LCD is restricted to the transparent type TFT-LCD only. The U.S. Pat. No. 5,940,151 invented by Yong-Min Ha is one example.
Therefore, this invention discloses a manufacturing technique for LCD combining the polysilicon type and the reflective type.

Method of fabricating reflective liquid crystal display integrated with driving circuit


A reaction liquid destabilizing the dissolved state or dispersed state of a coloring material by being in contact with an ink containing the coloring material on a recording medium, wherein the reaction liquid contains at least calcium ions, glycerin and polyethylene glycols, and wherein the content and ratio of these components are specified.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reaction liquid, a set of an ink and the reaction liquid, and an ink jet recording apparatus and an image recording method using the reaction liquid. Particularly, the present invention relates to a reaction liquid used when performing recording on a recording medium using the reaction liquid and an ink in combination, a set of an ink and the reaction liquid, and an ink jet recording apparatus and an image recording method using the reaction liquid.
2. Description of the Related Art
As ink jet recording methods, various methods of recording images are proposed in which apart from a common ink for ink jet recording, a liquid for improving image quality is applied to a recording medium, prior to the application of the ink. For example, a method is proposed in which a liquid having a basic polymer is applied to a recording medium, and then, recording is performed with an ink containing an anionic dye (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. S63-060783). Also, a recording method is proposed in which a first liquid containing a reactive chemical species and a liquid containing a compound reactive with the reactive chemical species are mixed on a recording medium (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. S63-022681). Also, a method is proposed in which a liquid containing an organic compound having two or more cationic groups per molecule is applied to a recording medium, and then, recording is performed with an ink containing an anionic dye (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. S63-299971). Also, a method is proposed in which an acid liquid containing succinic acid and the like is applied to a recording medium, and then, recording is performed with an ink containing an anionic dye (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. S64-009279). Also, a method is proposed in which a liquid insolubilizing a dye is applied to a recording medium prior to the application of an ink (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. S64-063185).
Any of the above-described methods intend to suppress the blurring of an image and improve the water resistance of the image by precipitating a dye on a recording medium. However, in those methods, the effect of suppressing bleeding between a plurality of color inks is insufficient, and also, the precipitated dye is easily made nonuniformly distributed on the recording medium, so that the uniformity of image quality may decrease. Particularly, when plain paper or the like is used as the recording medium, this tendency may become remarkable because the precipitated dye only has low properties of covering the pulp fiber.
On the other hand, for a case where a pigment is used as the coloring material of the ink, an ink set in which an ink containing a pigment dispersion and another ink containing a polyvalent metal are used in combination for alleviating blurring in a multicolor recorded material is proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H09-118850). However, in this case, there is such a constraint for the ink containing a polyvalent metal that a polyvalent metal should be selected and used having regard to the compatibility between the polyvalent metal and the coloring material, in other words, the stability of the ink, so that sufficient image density may not be obtained, which is another problem.
Various methods that solve these problems and intend to achieve image uniformity and an improvement in image density are proposed. Specifically, recording methods in which a liquid composition containing polyvalent metal ions is previously applied to a recording medium, and then, an ink reactive with the liquid composition is applied for recording are proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. S63-299970, Japanese Patent Publication No. H06-086142, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H09-207424, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H11-349873 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-094825). However, with any of these methods, high image density that satisfies demands for higher image quality in recent years may not be achieved, and image qualities obtained at the initial stage and after a lapse of time may become different.
Also, there is another problem that the recording medium to which the ink is applied causes the so-called curling, for example, curving or rolling due to water or a water-soluble organic solvent contained in the ink. As methods for suppressing this curling, several methods have conventionally been proposed. For example, an ink for ink jet recording containing a solid substance having four or more hydroxyl groups in the molecular structure and being soluble in water or an aqueous organic solvent is proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H04-332775). Also, as a curl-preventing agent, an ink containing saccharides, sugar alcohols, and a specific amide compound is proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H06-157955). Also, an ink containing specific polyalcohol and glycerin in combination is proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H10-130550). Also, an ink containing a solvent, a polymer binder, a mordant, a water-soluble curl preventing compound, a water-soluble desizing compound, a light resistant compound, an antifoaming agent and the like is proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-019826).
As a result of the examination of the present inventors, it has become clear that a wet feeling of the surface of the recording medium (hereinafter referred to as "damp feeling") due to insufficient evaporation of the components of the reaction liquid on the recording medium and insufficient fixability of the reaction liquid occurs, so that the texture of the recorded material may be impaired. Also, it has become clear that a curling of the recording medium is due to the water or the water-soluble organic solvent contained in the reaction liquid. Further, it has also been found that with any of the conventional techniques as mentioned above, the occurrence of this damp feeling cannot be suppressed, and the texture of the recorded material deteriorates. Further, it has also been found that, for example, when the reaction liquid is applied to the entire surface of the recording medium by a coating roller or the like, a damp feeling occurs more remarkably also in a portion where the ink is not applied (a paper white portion).
Also, according to the examination of the present inventors, it has been found that when the content of the surfactant in the reaction liquid is increased to improve the penetrability of the reaction liquid in contact with the ink, both in a liquid state, into the recording medium, blurring of the recorded image, that is, feathering occurs easily in the recorded image.
Further, for the reaction liquid, it is also important that no precipitates are produced even when the components in the reaction liquid and the like evaporate. When the reaction liquid is applied to the recording medium by an ink jet system, it is important that the production of precipitates is suppressed also for suppressing clogging in the nozzles of the recording head. Also, when the reaction liquid is applied to the recording medium by a coating roller, it is important that the production of precipitates is suppressed also for preventing the precipitates from scratching the surface of the roller and for reducing motor load applied, for example, when the roller is operated again after recording pause.

Reaction liquid, set of ink and reaction liquid, ink jet recording apparatus and image recording method


An optical communication system according to the invention comprises: a transmitting station 11; an optical transmission line 12 for transmitting an optical signal sent from the transmitting station 11; a receiving station 13 for receiving the optical signal outputted from the optical transmission line 12; a repeater station 14 provided at one point or more in the optical transmission line 12; and pump light sources 21 provided in at least two of the stations 11, 13, 14, for supplying pump light to the optical transmission line 12, wherein the pump light has two types or more of wavelength. It is possible to obtain a substantially flat gain as a function of wavelength in the whole optical communication system since the pump lights with different wavelengths are supplied from a plurality of points in the optical transmission line 12 and an optical signal is amplified with various Raman gain coefficients.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an optical communication system, a pump light supplying method and a distributed Raman amplifying apparatus which supply pump light in such a manner to secure flatness of gain as a function of wavelength, safety of an operator and avoidance of optical damage, in the optical communication system where Raman amplification is performed in an optical transmission line.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, with the objective of constructing a future multimedia network, optical communication apparatus with ultra-long distance and large capacity is required. Research and development on wavelength-division multiplexing (hereinafter abbreviated to "WDM") is carried on in order to realize the large capacity, because it has the advantages of utilizing efficiently the properties of broadband/large-capacity of an optical fiber and the like.
Especially in an ultra-long distance optical communication system, the WDM optical signal needs to be amplified since the WDM optical signal is attenuated while transmitting in the ultra-long distance.
A conventional optical communication system includes a transmitting station in which the WDM optical signal is generated by multiplexing/demultiplexing a plurality of optical signals with different wavelengths from each other, an optical communication line which transmits the WDM optical signal sent out from the transmitting station, and a receiving station which receives the transmitted WDM optical signal, and further, one or more repeater station which has a function of amplifying the WDM optical signal is provided at some midpoint in the optical transmission line, as necessary.
In the optical communication system like the above, waveforms of the respective optical signals are equalized due to nonlinear optical effect in the optical transmission line. In order to avoid the waveform equalization, it is effective to reduce optical power (optical intensity) of the WDM optical signal which is made incident on the optical transmission line. Meanwhile, when the optical power is reduced, an optical signal-to-noise ratio becomes worse. As the nonlinear optical effects, for example, self-phase modulation, cross-phase modulation, four-wave mixing, stimulated Raman scattering (hereinafter abbreviated to "SRS"), stimulated Brillouin scattering (hereinafter abbreviated to "SBS") and the like are known.
For this reason, it is proposed using a distributed optical amplifying apparatus which uses the optical transmission line also as an optical amplifying medium, together with a concentrated optical amplifying apparatus which is provided in the repeater station. For example, effectiveness of the Raman amplification is reported in P. B. Hansen, A. Stentz, T. N. Nielsen, R. Espinodola, L. E. Nelson, A. A. Abramov, uDense wavelength-division multiplexed transmission in "zero-dispersion" DSF by means of hybrid Raman/erubium-doped fiber amplifier" (OFC/100C '99), PD8, 1999, and N. Takachio, H. Suzuki, H. Masuda, and M. Koga, "32*10 Gb/s distributed Raman amplification transmission with 50-GHz channel spacing in the zero-dispersion region over 640 km of 1.55-μm dispersion-shifted fiber" (OFC/100C '99), PD9, 1999.
Moreover, in the Official Gazette of the Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 03-013836, a method for Raman amplification is disclosed, in which test light is made incident on an optical transmission line and backward scattering is detected to obtain its loss in the optical transmission line, thereby performing the Raman amplification.
In the Official Gazette of the Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei 10-073852, Raman amplification which broaden a wavelength band by using a plurality of pump lights with different wavelengths is disclosed.
Further, in the Official Gazette of the Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei 10-022931, it is disclosed that a pump light source for Raman amplification is provided in a repeater station.
It should be mentioned that the optical amplifying apparatus can be classified into the concentrated optical amplifying apparatus and the distributed optical amplifying apparatus. The concentrated amplifying apparatus is an optical amplifying apparatus in which the optical amplifying medium and the pump light source are provided in a concentrated manner at one spot. For example, a laser diode amplifier and an optical fiber amplifier in which an optical fiber as the optical amplifying medium is wound around a bobbin or the like are well known. Meanwhile, the distributed optical amplifying apparatus is an optical amplifying apparatus in which the optical amplifying medium is laid over a fixed distance and the pump light source is provided at one side or both sides thereof. For example, there is an optical fiber amplifying apparatus. As the optical fiber amplifying apparatus, there are an optical fiber amplifier added with a rare earth element, an optical fiber amplifier using nonlinear scattering in the optical fiber and the like.
Physical process of amplifying the light is the same between the concentrated optical amplifying apparatus and the distributed optical amplifying apparatus, and the main difference is whether the optical amplifying medium is put together at one spot or distributed over the fixed distance. Further, the distributed optical amplifying apparatus has a characteristic that its optical amplifying medium also functions as the optical transmission line between the stations for transmitting the optical signals.
Moreover, as the nonlinear scattering, the SRS, the SBS and the like are known.
The SRS is a scattering occurring by an interaction with optical phonon of lattice vibration, which has a wide gain width and a large frequency shift. The SBS is a scattering occurring by an interaction with acoustic phonon of the lattice vibration, which has the narrower gain width and the smaller frequency shift than the SRS, but its gain coefficient is larger by more than two digits.
Characteristics of the optical fiber amplifier using the nonlinear scattering are that the common optical fiber such as an NZ-DSF and an SMF can be used, that a pump wavelength can be set to any amplification wavelengths, that the gain agrees with a polarization direction of the pump light, and so on. As the common optical fibers, for example, there are a dispersion-shifted optical fiber, a non-zero dispersion-shifted optical fiber (hereinafter abbreviated to "NZ-DSF"), a dispersion flat optical fiber, a single-mode optical fiber (hereinafter abbreviated to "SMF") and the like.
It should be noted that all the above Official Gazettes disclose the Raman amplification, but do not specifically disclose how to control the pump light used for the Raman amplification. When it is disclosed, a complicated circuit is needed for the control.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an optical communication system, a method for supplying pump light, and a distributed Raman amplifying apparatus in which the Raman amplification with substantially flat gain as a function of wavelength can be realized.
It is another object of the present invention to provide the optical communication system, the method for supplying pump light, and the distributed Raman amplifying apparatus which are preferable for securing the safety of operators who work with the optical communication system.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide the optical communication system, the method for supplying pump light, and the distributed Raman amplifying apparatus where occurrence of optical damage in the optical communication system is preferably prevented.

Optical communication system, method for supplying pump light, and distributed Raman amplifying apparatus


The present invention generally relates to sets of iron golf clubs, and more particularly, to sets of iron golf clubs that are comprised of significant tungsten weighting to maximize the MOI about an axis through the CG that is parallel to the shaft axis.

In conventional sets of iron golf clubs, each club includes a shaft with a club head attached to one end and a grip attached to the other end. The club head includes a face for striking a golf ball. The angle between the face and a vertical plane is called the loft. In general, the greater the loft of the golf club is in a set, the greater the launch angle and the less distance the golf ball will travel when hit.
A set of irons generally includes individual irons that are designated as number 3 through number 9, and a pitching wedge. The iron set is generally complimented by a series of wedges, such as a lob wedge, a gap wedge, and/or a sand wedge. Sets can also include a 1 iron and a 2 iron, but these clubs are generally sold separately from the set. Each iron has a shaft length that usually decreases through the set as the loft for each club head increases, from the long irons to the short irons. The length of the club, along with the club head loft and center of gravity impart various performance characteristics to the ball's launch conditions upon impact. The initial trajectory of the ball generally extends between the impact point and the apex or peak of the trajectory. In general, the ball's trajectory for long irons, like the 3 iron, is a more penetrating, lower trajectory due to the lower launch angle and the increased ball speed off of the club. Short irons, like the 8 iron or pitching wedge, produce a trajectory that is substantially steeper and less penetrating than the trajectory of balls struck by long irons. The mid irons, such as the 5 iron, produce an initial trajectory that is between those exhibited by balls hit with the long and short irons.
Iron club heads are categorized into several different types: including muscle back, cavity back and hollow irons. In general, muscle back irons have an evenly distributed weight through the length of the iron from heel to toe. Thus, they have a very solid feel, but low Moment of Inertia, MOI, about the vertical axis extending through the face center. Cavity back irons generally have a thinner section in the center of the back of the club and more mass around the perimeter, thus they are cavity back. The cavity back irons, in general, have a greater MOI about the vertical axis extending through the face center. Finally, hollow irons generally have thinner faces and have mass that is located further back from the face and on the perimeter, creating an even larger MOI than cavity back irons.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


The present invention discloses a method of removing sulfur oxides and/or nitrogen oxides in a regeneration flue gas emitted from a regenerator of a catalytic cracking plant and recovering the elemental sulfur and an apparatus therefor.

A catalytic cracking catalyst is recycled between a reactor and a regenerator. Generally, upon leaving the reactor, the catalyst contains about 3-10 wt % of coke. The catalyst should be burned with oxygen in air in the regenerator to remove the deposited coke to recover its catalytic activity. The coke deposited in/on the catalyst is mainly a condensation reaction product, which is substantially composed of carbon and hydrogen. In case that the cracking feedstock contains sulfur and nitrogen, the coke also contains sulfur and nitrogen. The coked catalyst is regenerated with oxygen to produce CO2, CO and H2O, and the regeneration flue gas further contains SOx (SO2, SO3) and NOx (NO, NO2). The regeneration reaction is an exothermal reaction and has a large thermal effect that is sufficient to provide a heat quantity required by the heat balance of the catalytic cracking plant. The flue gas leaving the regenerator of the catalytic cracking plant has a temperature of 620-690° C. and a pressure of 0.1-0.25 MPa, and therefore has a higher energy grade. Generally, in order to facilitate recovering and reusing the energy of the flue gas, a flue gas turbine expander is used to produce electricity, then a waste heat boiler is used to produce steam, and finally the blowdown gas has a temperature of 170-250° C. and a pressure of a very small positive pressure or even a negative pressure. If the regenerator is operated in an oxygen-deficient manner, the content of carbon monoxide will be relatively higher, in order to avoid the tail gas combustion, a carbon monoxide combustion aid is needed and an additional oxygen is supplied so that carbon monoxide can be converted to carbon dioxide.
In the other hand, the hydrocarbon feedstock for the catalytic cracking plant is subjected to a cracking reaction and a fractionation to produce a variety of fractions, wherein the gaseous fractions include a dry gas fraction. The dry gas contains H1, small molecule hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon compounds, H2S and the like. Generally, the dry gas should be subjected to an H2S removal step before it is utilized. The removed H2S is further passed through a means such as Claus to be converted to an elemental sulfur (the elemental sulfur has a boiling point of 445° C. and a melting point of 113° C.) and the recovery is eventually completed.
The sulfur carried from the feedstock into the catalytic cracking plant is present in an oxidation state in the flue gas and in a reduction state in the dry gas. According to the existing technologies, the removal of sulfur oxides in the flue gas and the removal of H2S in the dry gas are separately conducted. The technology of simultaneously treating the flue gas and the dry gas is seldom, if not never, reported up to now.

Method of removing sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides in the flue gas


A system and method include performing digital block-out of one or more digital preparation teeth.

Specialized dental laboratories typically use computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) milling systems to manufacture dental prostheses based on patient-specific instructions provided by dentists.
In a typical work flow, the dental laboratories receive information about a patient's oral situation from a dentist. Using this information, the dental laboratory designs a digital dental prosthesis such as a dental restoration on the CAD system and manufactures the dental restoration on the CAM system with a mill or other fabrication system. To use the CAD/CAM system, a digital model of the patient's dentition can be used as an input to the process. In the case of a dental restoration such as a crown, for example, the digital preparation tooth for the dental crown can have concavities on its surface. The dental restoration typically generated from a digital preparation tooth has an inner side (cavity) whose surface mirrors the preparation tooth surface and can therefore have bumps in regions of concavities of the preparation tooth surface. This can make manufacturing of the dental restoration more difficult and time consuming. For example, milling of the dental restoration can be more time consuming since the mill will reproduce each concavity on the preparation tooth as a bump on the inner side of the dental restoration. In some cases, undercut regions on the preparation tooth can also complicate crown fabrication and placement.

Digital block out of digital preparation

James R. Glidewell Dental Ceramics, Inc.


In an optical disc in which an information signal is recorded/reproduced by irradiating a laser beam to a disc substrate 1 in which an information signal portion 1c has been provided on one principal plane from the side where the information signal portion 1c exists, a clamp reference surface 3a is set to the information signal portion 1c side of a replica substrate 1a constructing the optical disc. The clamp reference surface 3a is set to a flat surface and a thickness of the replica substrate 1a in a clamping area 3 is set to be larger than that of the convex-shaped replica substrate 1a in an information recording area 4. The replica substrate 1a in which a periphery of a center hole 1b is thicker than the information recording area 4 is used.

The invention relates to an optical recording medium, its manufacturing method, and an injection molding apparatus. More particularly, the invention is suitable when it is applied to an optical recording medium onto/from which an information signal is recorded and reproduced by irradiating light from the side of a substrate where an information signal portion has been formed.

Optical recording medium its manufacturing method and injection molding apparatus


A display rack for a bicycle having an elongated supporting base, a front wheel stop mounted to the front end of the supporting base for maintaining the front wheel of the bicycle in a stable vertical position and a carriage which is freely movable longitudinally on the supporting base for supporting and retaining the rear wheel of the bicycle. The display rack is inclined from front to back so that the carriage is biased forwardly by gravity and the front wheel of the bicycle rests against the front wheel stop.

The present invention is generally directed to a rack for supporting and displaying a bicycle in a retail establishment.
In retail outlets, it is important, in terms of sales, to display merchandise being sold. It is also important that the merchandise be accessible for close examination and self-service if a decision is made by the customer to purchase the item. For relatively large and difficult to handle items, such as bicycles, proper display and accessibility is difficult to achieve without committing a great deal of floor space for the item. In order to maximize the use of floor space, racks are employed to support and stack the bicycles at different levels. This enables the bicycles to be well displayed, but the bicycles are not necessarily accessible. Since there are so many makes, sizes, and styles of bicycles, it is important for a customer to be able to handle and examine the bicycle. It is difficult and awkward for a customer or a sales clerk to remove a bicycle from its support, particularly if the bicycle is at a high level. The stacked bicycles also represent a potential hazard, unless great care is used by the customer in removing the bicycle from its support. The customer can be injured when removing a single bicycle. If the entire bicycle supporting structure is unstable, an attempt by the customer to remove one bicycle from the structure could cause several bicycles to fall from their supports, thus creating a serious hazard to customers, sales persons and anyone else in the immediate vicinity of the bicycle display area. Even if the bicycle supporting structure is relatively stable, a customer may be reluctant to remove a bicycle from its support if it appears that the removal of the bicycle would be difficult, or inconvenient. As a result, a customer is unlikely to purchase a bicycle without being able to examine the bicycle closely. These and other difficulties experienced with the prior art coating systems have been obviated by the present invention.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide a bicycle display rack which enables a plurality of bicycles to be well displayed in a relatively small area.
Another object of the invention is to provide a bicycle display rack which supports a bicycle in a very secure and stable manner.
A further object of the invention is to provide a bicycle display rack which enables the bicycle to be removed easily and conveniently from the rack for close inspection by a customer, and easily and conveniently replaced in the rack.


The present invention offers a laser oscillator device having sufficient cooling ability to maintain a lasing medium which generates high-density thermal energy at a temperature appropriate for use, while being capable of being made compact. The laser oscillator device comprises an excitation beam source for generating an excitation beam, a laser medium for receiving the excitation beam and performing optical amplification, a laser oscillator device for causing resonance of light emitted by the laser medium for laser oscillation, and a cooling system for cooling said laser medium, wherein the cooling system uses a gas as the heat-carrying medium.

The present invention relates to a laser oscillator device, in particular to a laser oscillator device with improved cooling ability and cooling efficiency in the lasing medium.
The basic principle of laser oscillator devices is to illuminate solids such as ruby or gases such as carbon dioxide with an excitation beam to cause a high-energy inversion in their atoms, such that a resonator can be used to amplify the light emitted when their energy states return to their normal level, enabling the light to be extracted in the form of a phase-matched beam of a single color.
FIG. 1 shows the basic idea behind a laser oscillator device. For example, a lasing medium 110 such as ruby receives an excitation beam 120 from a xenon lamp, arc lamp or the like, with light amplification being performed on an optical axis 130 perpendicular to the excitation beam 120. The coherent laser beam 140 amplified and emitted from the lasing medium 110 propagates along the optical axis, is reflected by the mirror 150 on the right side of the drawing, passes in the opposite direction through the lasing medium 110 where it is further amplified, then reaches the mirror 155 on the left side of the drawing where it is reflected back toward the lasing medium 110. The laser beam 140 which is amplified by repeated reflections through the lasing medium 110 in this way can be directed outside the resonator by a combination of a polarized beam splitter 170 and a Pockels cell 160 for selectively rotating the polarization of the laser beam according to a control voltage, or a simple output coupling mirror.
In the drawings, the reference number 180 indicates a cooling device. Since the lasing medium 110 receives an excitation beam 120 and emits a laser beam 140, it can also generate intense heat during operation, so that in order to maintain the temperature of the lasing medium 11 to within an operable temperature, the heat usually must be removed by a cooling device.
While the directions of the excitation beam and the laser beam are perpendicular in the drawing, they may alternatively be provided on the same axis. Many different types of lasing media are known, including ruby, titanium sapphire, alexandrite, Nd-YAG, Er-YAG, dyes, diodes and carbon dioxide, these being potentially in solid, liquid or gaseous form.
The laser beam which is extracted on the above-described principles is highly monotone, coherent, highly directional, and high in energy density, so that it can be used in a very broad range of fields by taking advantage of the various properties. The anticipated types of application can be largely separated into four fields. The first field is microprocessing of optical communication parts. The second field is boring of holes into steel such as in the microinjectors of automobile engines or the like. The third field is medicine, such as treatment of portions where nerves or brain cells are concentrated around the illuminated areas such as in the brain or spine. The fourth field is new semiconductor devices, where they can be used to form fine periodic structures on silicon.
In particular, in most of the above fields, it would be desirable for the output of laser devices to become higher in the future from a variety of practical standpoints. This is because higher power would greatly improve the processing speed.
When performing laser oscillation, the laser oscillator device, including the lasing medium, must naturally be maintained within a predetermined operational temperature range, but if the output power of the laser device is made higher, particularly if the power density of the lasing medium is made higher, the lasing medium can become an extremely strong heat source, thus requiring a method and device capable of adequately and efficiently removing heat generated from the lasing media.
Furthermore, as the output power of the laser device becomes greater, the increase in temperature of the lasing medium is accompanied by a reduction in the thermal conductivity, thus reducing the cooling effect. Consequently, the temperature gradient in the lasing medium becomes very pronounced, generating high-temperature areas, and this effect is one of the factors restricting the power of the laser. There are two reasons for this. First, thermal lensing occurs. Thermal lensing refers to the effect wherein heat which is absorbed by the lasing medium and not eliminated heats up the laser crystal, resulting in a temperature distribution that gives rise to a corresponding refractive index distribution, causing the lasing medium to act as a lens. While thermal lensing due to an excitation laser of up to about 20 W can be handled by modifying the laser resonator, if the power is greater than this, the focal distance of the thermal lens becomes shorter than the laser crystal, thus making such measures useless. The second reason is the occurrence of birefringence due to thermal expansion. For example, birefringence will occur in a crystal which is not naturally birefringent such as a YAG base, given enough heat. This causes the polarization of the beam to be greatly disturbed on each pass through the crystal, resulting in a considerable loss at the polarizers in the resonator.
FIG. 2 is a drawing schematically illustrating a conventional device used for cooling a lasing medium. The lasing medium 210 is housed in a jacket 220 of copper or the like which functions as a heat sink, and one of the outer surfaces 230 of the jacket 220 is cooled by supplying with liquid nitrogen 250 that is stored in a tank 240. If the thermal density of the laser medium is less than or equal to a certain level, then even cooling devices as shown in FIG. 2 based on the conventional art will be able to perform cooling without any functional obstacles, apart from the fact that the equipment becomes quite bulky. However, if the power becomes greater, the following problem can occur.
That is, when the jacket is cooled by contact with liquid nitrogen, the liquid nitrogen will vaporize and form bubbles if the thermal density becomes very large, but the bubbles will reduce the area of effective contact with the liquid nitrogen and consequently result in reduced cooling ability. More specifically, as long as the heat-carrying medium is liquid, the cooling efficiency will be high because the heat capacity per unit volume is higher than that of a gas, but if the heat-carrying medium is vaporized by the heat from the lasing medium, a flow consisting of a liquid and a gaseous phase will be generated. This results in non-linearities between the heat capacity and amount of heat removed, as well as making it difficult to control the temperature of the lasing medium due to a drop in the cooling ability as described above.
Furthermore, the increased heat capacity from the laser medium will require the liquid nitrogen tank to be made larger, and when considering the need to provide liquid nitrogen replenishing equipment and equipment to vent off the vaporized nitrogen, the equipment will need to be made even larger.
Although it is effective to cool the laser medium to a lower temperature than is conventional in order to reduce the temperature gradient occurring in the laser medium to raise the output power, the liquid nitrogen that is conventionally used has an evaporation temperature of about 77.3 K at 1 atmosphere, so that it is theoretically impossible to cool it to a temperature lower than this. While lower temperatures can be achieved by using liquid helium which has an evaporation temperature of 4.2 K as the medium, the problem of the reduced cooling ability due to vaporization of the liquid nitrogen at the thermal exchange interface is still not resolved as in the case where liquid nitrogen is used. Furthermore, the equipment required for insulated containers and the like must be made even larger than in the case of liquid nitrogen when using helium which has a lower evaporation temperature.


The concentration of an aromatic azole corrosion inhibitor in the water of an aqueous system is monitored by a fluorometric method which is based upon the measurement of the fluorescence intensity of the aromatic azole corrosion inhibitor itself, and the precise determination of concentration permits control of the dosage of such aromatic azole corrosion inhibitor.

Corrosion of processed metals, such as steel, copper, and zinc, is a process whereby elemental metals, in the presence of water and oxygen, are converted to oxides. Although corrosion is a complicated process, it may be considered an electrochemical reaction involving three steps which occur at the anodic and cathodic sites of a metal surface, as follows:
1. Loss of metal to the water solution in oxidized cationic form at an anodic site, with concomitant release of electrons ("anodic reaction");
2. The flow of the released electrons to a cathodic site; and
3. Oxygen at a cathodic site uses the electrons to form hydroxyl ions ("cathodic" reaction), which flow to an anodic site.
These three basic steps are necessary for corrosion to proceed, and the slowest of the three steps determines the rate of the overall corrosion process. The cathodic reaction is often the slowest of the three steps because the diffusion rate of oxygen through water is slow.
A corrosion control program usually depends on specific inhibitors to minimize the anodic or cathodic reaction, or both. Among the various types of corrosion inhibitors are organic compounds, which act by adsorbing or chemisorbing as thin layers on metal surfaces to separate the water and metal. These materials form and maintain a dynamic barrier between the water and metal phases to prevent corrosion. One series of compounds applied to reduce copper and copper-alloy corrosion are aromatic organic corrosion inhibitors. This series of organic compounds, which includes mercaptobenzothiazole ("MBT"), benzotriazole ("BT"), butylbenzotriazole ("BBT"), tolytriazole ("TT"), naphthotriazole ("NTA") and related compounds, react with the metal surface and form protective films on copper and copper alloys. These compounds are active corrosion inhibition treatment components and are referred to generally herein as copper corrosion inhibitors or corrosion inhibitors, or as aromatic azoles, and at times as triazoles or aromatic (thio)(tri) azoles.
Active components may be lost due to deposit, corrosion, chemical and microbiological degradation processes and physical losses (blowdown, drift, incorrect feed rates, and the like) and combinations of such phenomena, which are discussed in more detail below. Monitoring the loss of an active treatment component, particularly if such monitoring permits the extent of loss to be quantified and if the monitoring is continuous, is an indicator of treatment program performance. Moreover, if such monitoring is continuous and the active component loss clearly determined, automatic control permits the corrosion inhibitor losses to be compensated for an dosage to be precisely controlled.
The conventional analytical procedure for analysis of copper corrosion inhibitors is a UV(ultraviolet light)-photolysis/photometric method, and is well known to persons of ordinary skill in the art. This method, however, has a number of limitations. It is not well suited for continuous monitoring and/or control. It provides results that are strongly dependent upon the operator's laboratory technique. It cannot distinguish the chemical structure of the aromatic azole that is present. Its observed response is non-linear with respect to aromatic azole dosage. It requires that the aromatic azole be degraded with an ultraviolet lamp in the presence of a color-forming reagent. The UV-photolysis/photometric method and its limitations are discussed in more detail below.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for monitoring and/or controlling copper corrosion inhibitor losses and/or dosages on a continuous basis. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for monitoring and/or controlling copper corrosion inhibitor concentrations that is substantially independent of an operator's laboratory technique. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for monitoring and/or controlling copper corrosion inhibitor concentrations that can distinguish the chemical structure of the aromatic azole that is present. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for monitoring and/or controlling copper corrosion inhibitor concentrations that provides a response that is substantially linear to aromatic azole concentration. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for monitoring and/or controlling copper corrosion inhibitor concentrations that does not require UV digestion of the aromatic azole. These and other objects of the present invention are described in more detail below.

Method of monitoring and controlling corrosion inhibitor dosage in aqueous systems