The present invention provides for the screening of candidate substances to identify active compounds that inhibit multidrug resistance (MDR). The expression of glucosylceramides has been determined to be a marker of MDR. By measuring glucosylceramide expression in cells exhibiting MDR, and the reduction in glucosylceramide levels in the presence of a candidate substance, the present invention provides for the identification of MDR inhibitory compounds.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the fields of detection and treatment of cancer. More particularly, it concerns the detection and treatment of multidrug resistant cancers by screening for phingoglycolipids, including glycosylceramides, cerebrosides and gangliosides.
2. Description of Related Art
Clinical resistance to anticancer agents is the principal reason for treatment failure in patients with cancer (Gottesman, 1993). The best-characterized type of drug resistance is classic multidrug resistance (MDR), exhibiting intrinsic resistance to multiple drugs upon primary exposure to a single drug (i.e., vinblastine, adriamycin, taxol, actinomycin D) (Bradley et al., 1988).
Among the multiple biochemical and molecular mechanisms associated with MDR, overexpression of P-glycoprotein (P-gp), a plasma-membrane protein proposed to act as an ATP-driven drug efflux pump, is best studied (Volm et al., 1993; Bradley and Ling, 1994). However, the physiologic function and mechanisms of action of P-gp are largely unknown. Moreover, widespread occurrence of drug resistance in human lung tumors (Cole et al., 1992), which is unrelated to overexpression of P-gp, indicates the existence of additional resistance mechanisms.
The multifactorial nature of MDR is exemplified by a wide array of other biochemical changes including alterations in membrane fluidity and structure (Bradley and Ling, 1994), elevated glutathione S-transferase activity (Bradley and Ling, 1994; Volm et al., 1993), down-regulation of topoisomerase II (Volm et al., 1993), increased phospholipase D activity (Welsh et al., 1994), and elevated transcription of c-fos, c-myc and c-H-ras (Chin et al., 1992; Volm et al., 1993, Sabbatini et al., 1994).
Several associations have been made regarding the role of lipids in drug partitioning, drug transport and drug retention. Reports have shown that P-gp ATPase-activity is dependent on the lipid environment (Doige et al., 1993), and that lipids interact with P-gp substrates (Wadkins and Houghton, 1993; Wright et al., 1985; May et al., 1988; Peterson et al., 1983). Early studies investigated lipid composition of MDR cells as a general feature that may be influential (Holleran et al., 1986; Ramu et al., 1984; May et al., 1988). Differences in lipid composition of drug-sensitive and -resistant cells have been reported, but these were mainly confined to triglycerides, fatty alcohols, and ether lipids, with minor changes in sphingomyelin and phosphatidylcholine (Ramu et al., 1984; Welsh et al., 1994; Wright et al., 1985).
The ganglioside composition of daunorubicin-resistant, vincristine-resistant, and drug-sensitive cells has been examined. Whereas diversity in ganglioside composition was revealed, no definitive correlation to drug resistance was demonstrated (Biedler et al., 1986; Peterson et al., 1983). In other studies, the levels of four major lipid classes, including gangliosides, in doxorubicin-sensitive and -resistant P388 cells, were examined, and no differences in lipid composition were noted (Holleran et al., 1986).
Circumvention of MDR, via re-sensitizing of cells to drug insult, carries major clinical importance (Bradley et al., 1988; Gottesman, 1993). Tsuruo and coworkers showed that a battery of different agents inhibit MDR, rendering cells sensitive to chemotherapy (Tsuruo et al., 1981). Included in this category are the calcium channel blockers verapamil and SR33557 (Tsuruo et al., 1981; Jaffrezou et al., 1991), antiarrhythmic agents like quinidine (Solary et al., 1991), the immunosuppressant cyclosporin A (Slater et al., 1986; Solary et al., 1991), and the anticancer drug tamoxifen (Nayfield, 1995; Kirk et al., 1994).
The mechanism by which these drugs promote influence on MDR cells is thought to be via direct binding of the drug to P-gp with subsequent inhibition of pump activity (Yusa and Tsuruo, 1989; Callaghan and Higgins, 1995). In addition, drugs may exercise effects by modulating other cellular components that subsequently regulate P-gp. For example, selective expression of protein kinase C (PKC) isozymes was correlated with MDR (Blobe et al., 1993), and studies have suggested that P-gp activity can be regulated by PKC (Blobe et al., 1993; Gupta et al., 1996).
Recently, a correlation was demonstrated between inhibition of PKC activity by safingol, and reversal of MDR in MCF-7-doxorubicin resistant cells (Sachs et al., 1995). Also, the calcium channel blocker, SR33557, elicits inhibition of acid sphingomyelinase, and an increase in cellular sphingosine levels which may be correlated with its ability to reverse MDR in P388-adriamycin resistant cells (Jaffrezou et al., 1991). Other work examined a multitude of MDR-circumventing drugs revealing a correlation between inhibition of cellular acid sphingomyelinase activity and tempering of MDR (Jaffrezou et al., 1995).

Methods for screening of substances for inhibition of multidrug resistance


A nanoelectromechanical (NEM) switch is formed on a substrate with a source electrode containing a suspended electrically-conductive beam which is anchored to the substrate at each end. This beam, which can be formed of ruthenium, bows laterally in response to a voltage applied between a pair of gate electrodes and the source electrode to form an electrical connection between the source electrode and a drain electrode located near a midpoint of the beam. Another pair of gate electrodes and another drain electrode can be located on an opposite side of the beam to allow for switching in an opposite direction. The NEM switch can be used to form digital logic circuits including NAND gates, NOR gates, programmable logic gates, and SRAM and DRAM memory cells which can be used in place of conventional CMOS circuits, or in combination therewith.

As CMOS transistors continue to be scaled down in size with each new generation, the sub-threshold leakage power (also referred to as the stand-by power) in these transistors becomes an increasing fraction of the total power dissipation. This has lead researchers to explore potential alternatives to CMOS technology. NEM switching devices, when used as a replacement for CMOS transistors or used in combination with CMOS transistors promise to substantially reduce or eliminate the sub-threshold leakage power which is present with CMOS transistors. NEM switching devices also promise advantages in terms of increased radiation hardness and higher temperature operation as compared to CMOS transistors.
In NEM switching devices, a flow of electrical current between source and drain electrodes is controlled electrically and mechanically using a cantilever arm which moves in response to an applied gate voltage to make or break an electrical connection between the source and drain electrodes. Removing the gate voltage from the NEM switching device interrupts the electrical connection between the source and drain electrodes, thereby resulting in an extremely low leakage current which is due to Brownian motion of the cantilever arm and tunneling.
Over the past decade, numerous designs for NEM switching devices have been proposed (see e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,638,946; 6,548,841; 7,256,063 and 7,355,258) which have been primarily based on the use of cantilever arms which are electrostatically actuated to move into contact with an underlying drain electrode. Carbon nanotubes are also being explored for use in NEM switching devices (see e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 7,256,063).
The present invention provides a NEM switching device in which the source electrode comprises an electrically-conductive beam which is suspended above a substrate and anchored at each end thereof to the substrate. This arrangement provides a higher restoring force and a higher resonant frequency than devices which utilize cantilever arms, thereby promising faster turn-on and turn-off times, and also being less susceptible to stiction (i.e. adhesion of the beam to a drain electrode). This arrangement also avoids problems of curl-up of cantilever arms due to internal stress, and stiction of the cantilever arms to the drain electrode upon release of the cantilever arms.
The NEM switching device of the present invention utilizes an electrically-conductive beam which can be formed of ruthenium metal with a ruthenium oxide coating thereon. The ruthenium oxide coating, which can be optionally provided on the NEM switching device of the present invention, is useful to prevent carbon fouling of contacting surfaces of the NEM switch to improve device reliability.
The NEM switching device of the present invention can also be formed with gate and drain electrodes located on both sides of the electrically-conductive beam. This can be advantageous to provide a single pole double throw (SPDT) switching of the device. This can also be advantageous when forming logic circuits from a plurality of NEM switching devices. In such logic circuits, logic state inputs can be provided to the gate electrodes on one side of the electrically-conductive beam while the gate electrodes on the other side of the electrically-conductive beam can be used as disable inputs to disable that logic circuit, as needed, and to provide an output which is either electrically floating (i.e. electrically disconnected from the inputs or any power supply voltage) or tied to a power supply voltage (either Vdd or Vss). The use of disable inputs to the logic circuit when it is in a stand-by mode reduces the power consumption for that logic circuit and for any other logic circuits which are connected to it. These disable inputs also provide an ability to reconfigure a logic circuit by removing one or more NEM switching devices from the logic function.
The NEM switching device of the present invention can also be used to form programmable logic circuits which can be programmed, as needed, to change from being NAND gates to being NOR gates.
Additionally, the NEM switching device of the present invention can be used to form memory cells including SRAM and DRAM memory cells.
SRAM memory cells can be formed according to the present invention with a cross-coupled data latch which requires only two NEM switching devices as compared to the normal four transistors in conventional CMOS SRAM memory cells. The SRAM memory cells formed using the NEM switching devices of the present invention will also have a near-zero stand-by power consumption due to a push-pull operation resulting from the gates and drains located on opposite sides of the electrically-conductive beam and also due to the extremely low leakage current of the NEM switching devices.
DRAM memory cell arrays can be formed according to the present invention which require only one-half the number of NEM switching devices compared to conventional CMOS DRAM memory cell arrays since each NEM switching device is capable of addressing two storage capacitors. Each DRAM memory cell formed according to the present invention will also have a much lower leakage current compared to a conventional CMOS DRAM memory cell; and this will allow a longer charge retention time.
These and other advantages of the present invention will become evident to those skilled in the art.

Nanoeletromechanical switch and logic circuits formed therefrom


An airbag module (10) comprises an airbag (14) and an elongate inflator (12) having at least one laterally projecting fastening bolt (36), wherein the airbag (14) comprises a cushion portion (24) and an insertion portion (26) for receiving the inflator (12) in an inserting direction (R), wherein the insertion portion (26) is arranged, with the airbag (14) being not inflated and flatly spread, on a side of the cushion portion (24) and includes one boundary (30) close to the cushion portion (24) and one boundary (32) remote from the cushion portion (24). The flatly spread airbag (14) has a front peripheral portion (20) and an opposed rear peripheral portion (22). The insertion portion (26) is wider than a diameter (d) of the inflator (12) and has at least one hole (38) for the fastening bolt (36) of the inflator (12) to pass through. The insertion portion (26) is angled toward the insertion opening (28) on the side remote from the cushion portion (24) opposed to the adjacent rear peripheral portion (22).

In different types of airbag modules, especially those that are mounted as side airbag in a seat back of a vehicle seat, the inflator is partially inserted into the airbag, and the airbag is fastened around the outer housing of the inflator. A secure connection between the inflator and the airbag is guaranteed by one or more fastening bolts which project laterally from the inflator and which protrude through holes in the airbag. The entire airbag module is tightly fixed to the vehicle via said fastening bolts.
Due to said fastening bolts projecting from the inflator, the insertion opening in the airbag through which the inflator is inserted into the airbag must be wider than the diameter of the actual outer housing of the inflator. The gas tightness required then is produced by gathering the material around the insertion opening. In doing so, tensile stresses may occur which might affect positioning of the airbag in the inflated state.

Airbag module and method for installing a gas generator in an airbag


Various methods, apparatuses/systems, and media for implementing an emergency system halt mechanism are disclosed. A processor establishes a communication link with a plurality of data sources and a receiver. The receiver receives data related to disaster and/or cyber scenarios from the plurality of data sources. The processor automatically determines, by utilizing an intelligent activation system (IAS), whether to activate an emergency system halt mechanism (ESHM) upon detection of a disaster and/or a cyber scenario based on analyzing the received data and using pre-determined rules and artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) models. The processor also automatically determines whether to activate or deactivate the ESHM based on a result of determination of the IAS. Once activated, a secure voice-based authentication processes designed to work in the limitations of cyber and disaster scenarios allow registered users to take actions such as halt or resume systems.

The developments described in this section are known to the inventors. However, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the developments described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section, or that those developments are known to a person of ordinary skill in the art.
In a disaster or cyber scenario, management may wish to urgently halt systems for damage limitation or other reasons. As such scenarios may occur at any time, management may be at any location globally, which may include non-company locations. In addition, in scenarios such as natural disaster, mobile data networks may be congested to a point of inoperability and management may need to rely on company provided priority telephones. Correspondingly, in a cyber scenario, normal remote connection mechanisms may be locked down. Therefore, the system may need to operate under these limitations.
For additional security, it may be desirable that a halt mechanism should be disabled in normal situations and should only become active for use by authorized management in a disaster or a cyber scenario. While there should be the ability for manual activation of the mechanism (e.g., by resiliency management, cyber defense HQ, etc.), due to the urgency of such situations it may be desirable that there should also be automatic activation when appropriate scenarios occur (e.g., major cyber incident, terrorist attacks, major earthquake, or other major natural disasters, etc.).

Method and apparatus for protected authenticated emergency system halt mechanism for disaster and cyber scenarios


Methods and systems for a mixed time-frequency domain compander, where the expander and compressor are applied in the frequency domain (subbands), while the limiter and the linear gain are applied in the time-domain (full band). Far-end noise reduction is achieved by adapting the expander gain to the far-end noise, near-end noise compensation is achieved by adapting the linear gain and the compressor gain to the near-end noise. The range of the linear gain section is set individually for each subband, but the linear gain is essentially applied to the full band signal via a scaling procedure. The scaling procedure first reduces the compander gain in the frequency domain by a scaling factor and then performs the reciprocal reverse scaling in the time domain. Far-end noise reduction is coupled to near-end noise compensation in order to avoid cross-modulation of the far-end noise by the near-end noise.

Although cell-phones have become increasingly popular over the last decade, their use in "noisy" environments, such as restaurants, airports, train stations, arenas, and the like, have been limited due to a lack of appropriate speech enhancements. In the past, background noise has been addressed mainly by manual volume controls located on the mobile handset. However, these manual controls are usually inconvenient to use and ineffective in compensating for the background noise of the environment, especially in environments where the background noise changes rapidly. Manual interaction by the caller is often inaccurate both in time and magnitude, that is, compensation may come too late and too loud.
In these adverse environments, automatic noise compensation greatly improves conversation conditions and reduces the inconvenience of the caller. Referring to the two sides of the telephone link as "near-end" and "far-end," an elementary realization of a near-end noise compensator consists of a noise-adaptive gain controller for the far-end signal, whereby the gain applied is proportionate to the near-end noise level.
Intelligibility losses due to background noise are well known. One solution to reduce the impact of background noise on intelligibility losses uses a "clipping" technique. Although clipping improves intelligibility, it adds distortion to the received signal. Other techniques have improved intelligibility by high-pass filtering, dynamic compression, or a combination of these two. However, none of these early systems used an expander to avoid undesired far-end noise.
In addition, although there has been a proliferation in the research of automatic noise compensation and automatic noise reduction, these two functions have been implemented as separate entities (i.e., without being coupled to one another). In the absence of coupling the two functions, noise compensation leads to far-end noise modulation (i.e., far-end noise is modulated by near-end noise). In other words, all the level changes of the near-end noise are echoed in the far-end noise, which is an unwanted and annoying artifact. For example, when the near-end noise follows a pattern of loud-soft-loud, the far-end noise follows the same pattern. Noise compensation should be designed such that near-end noise purposely and only modulates far-end speech, but no modulation should result for the far-end noise. In general, amplitude modulation of a near-stationary signal such as steady background noise sounds unnatural and artificial while amplitude modulation of a non-stationary signal, such as speech, is acceptable to an extent. Human ears are by a magnitude more sensitive to amplitude modulation of near stationary noise than to amplitude modulation of speech.
The previous noise compensation methods unfortunately have the unpleasant side-effect of amplifying the far-end noise, since the noise compensation methods have been unable to discriminate between the signal and noise. Therefore, whenever the signal is amplified, the far-end noise is also amplified. One method to reduce this unwanted side-effect is to use an expander operating in the time domain. The method works well if the signal is disturbed only by moderate or weak background noise. Unfortunately, if the far-end signal is disturbed by strong ambient noise, the time-domain expander is unable to adequately reduce the noise. Thus, there is a need in the art for a compander which couples the noise compensation and noise reduction functions into a single compander which is able to adequately reduce excessive far-end noise and eliminate any effects of the near-end noise echoed in the far-end noise signal.

Systems and methods for far-end noise reduction and near-end noise compensation in a mixed time-frequency domain compander to improve signal quality in communications systems


A method for producing and tuning a packaged integrated circuit a) incorporates into a packaged integrated circuit design, at least one tunable circuit feature; b) fabricates a packaged integrated circuit in accordance with said packaged integrated circuit design; c) identifies a trimming point on the tunable circuit feature of said packaged integrated circuit, using an x-ray inspection system; d) relates coordinates of the trimming point to coordinates of a visible reference marker; e) utilizes the relationship between the visible reference marker and the trimming point to position a cutting tool over the trimming point; and f) utilizes the cutting tool to make one or more cuts into the packaged integrated circuit, until the tunable circuit feature has been acceptably modified at the trimming point.

After completing an integrated circuit (IC) design, an engineer must test the functionality and robustness of his or her design. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do this without fabricating and packaging a "lot" of ICs, in accordance with the design. As is known in the art, a "lot" of ICs may comprise dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of ICs.
If during test, a design flaw or manufacturing error is identified within one of the packaged ICs, then the entire lot of ICs is typically scrapped, as the permanent nature of an IC's packaging has made the repair of any defect interior to the IC's package difficult at best.
If a defect that is interior to a packaged IC is not identified until the packaged IC has been assembled onto a circuit board, then the defective part must be removed and replaced through the undesirable rework process (commonly referred to in the electronic industry as the "Known Good Die" problem).
In addition to the repair issue, packaged ICs are problematic from a development perspective. Typically, an engineer will experiment with different circuit layouts while designing an IC, in order to optimize the IC's design. If a design is believed to have merit, a "lot" of ICs is fabricated and packaged for testing. Design flaws and poor performing circuitry are then identified; the remainder of the ICs are scrapped; and the "design and test" cycle is repeated. The permanency of an IC's package therefore turns the development of a functional and robust IC into a serial process.
Although the above problems are only representative of the types of problems that can be encountered during an IC's development (and only some of the above problems may be encountered during the development of any particular IC), encountering any of these problems leads to a long and costly product development cycle.

Methods for designing and tuning one or more packaged integrated circuits


A liquid storage and controlled-release device and a biological detection chip. The liquid storage and controlled-release device comprises a liquid storage capsule with a liquid storage body which is deformable under a pressure, and a sealing layer for sealing the liquid storage body. A support platform is provided right below the liquid storage capsule and tightly connected with the liquid storage capsule, wherein, a directional release chamber is provided at the middle of the support platform, and the directional release chamber is provided with a guiding chamber for collecting the liquid and a sharp edge for inducing break. Compared with the conventional technology, the opening for liquid release is at the end far away from the rotation center, so that the liquid can be released completely by the centrifugal force, ensuring the quantitative release of stored liquid and reducing the influence on the accuracy of the subsequent detection.

With the development of In Vitro Diagnosis (IVD) technology, more and more biochemical, immunological, and molecular diagnostic products have emerged. Among them, products based on microfluidic chip technology are developing in the direction of miniaturization, function integration, and ease of operation. Based on the above requirements, the storage of reagents in microfluidic chips has become a technical problem that needs to be overcome. At present, the reagent storage method in the chip can be roughly divided into a solid storage and a liquid storage. Among them, the solid storage has the following limitations: 1) the range of applicable reagents is limited, and not all reagents can be stored in a solid state; 2) low production efficiency and high cost; 3) the reagents stored in the solid state need to be re-dissolved and thoroughly mixed before they can be used to realize their functions, and the mixing operation is not easy to be achieved under the tiny scale of the microfluidic chip, which in turn will lead to new problems; 4) the reagent in the dry state requires higher storage conditions for the whole chip, and once it gets wet during storage, the entire chip will fail even within the validity period.
The current liquid storage method cannot guarantee that the liquid is completely released. Due to the presence of liquid residue, the quantitative release of liquid cannot be achieved, especially in the microfluidic chip driven by centrifugal force that requires multi-step liquid release. In the subsequent centrifugation step, the remaining reagent in the liquid storage unit has an uncontrollable outflow risk, which affects the accuracy of subsequent detection. For example, the Chinese Patent Publication No. CN104884169A discloses a film bag for storing fluid and a device for providing fluid. In this publication, a film bag with a predetermined breaking point is placed in a sealed chamber, and the film bag contains a certain volume of liquid. Pressure is applied to the film bag through the pressure plate on the top of the sealed chamber, so that the liquid in the bag is subjected to pressure to expand and rupture from the predetermined breaking point; as the pressure plate continues to be pressed down, the liquid in the bag is released. In this publication, since the liquid is stored in the film bag, the liquid cannot be completely released. Even if the pressure plate is pressed down to the limit, there will still be residual liquid in the film bag, so accurate and quantitative release of the liquid cannot be achieved. In addition, in the technical solution of CN104884169A, the liquid release opening, that is, the predetermined breaking point, is also at the sealing surface. When the pressure plate is pressed to compress the volume and cause the liquid to release, it will inevitably cause an increase in air pressure in the overall system. Therefore, this method is not suitable for biological detection chips that require an enclosed condition, especially heating reaction conditions, such as nucleic acid lysis, nucleic acid amplification and other biological detection chips.
Therefore, the technical problem that needs to be solved by a person skilled in the art is to realize the directional and quantitative release of the stored liquid without any liquid residue that affects the subsequent experimental procedure.

Liquid storage and controlled-release device and biological detection chip

West China Hospital of Sichuan University


A book scanner which reads an image of a book or a bound document placed as turned upward, computes the document inclination from the outer shape of the document, detects the top end of the bound part of the document from the document height, thereby determines the accurate position of the center line existing in a slanted posture, detecting the brightness in the neighborhood of the bound part, thereby computes the erasing width to be erased as unnecessary for an image with precision, and erases only the center line zone without failing to effect thorough erasure of the slanted center line.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image reading apparatus for placing a book or a bound document that is turned upward for reading an image of the leaf surface of the book or the bound document.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the conventional field of image reading apparatuses, the technique, which is composed of detecting a shaded zone generated by the protrusion of the central bound part in the leaf surface (the surface of spread pages of abound document) in terms of the shade depth of an image itself in the bound part and eliminating the detected zone during the reading of the bound document, has been proposed as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Applications JP-A-62-14664, JP-A-63-249869, and JP-A-03-79158, for example. By this technique, it is avoided that the shade and shadow of the bound part, which does not need to be read out as an image, are generated in the center of the leaf surface and the image being read out of a bound document is obscured.
In the method of detecting the bound part and eliminating the detected zone as used in the conventional image reading apparatus, it is, however, incurred that particularly when the bound document is placed aslant, the shade and shadow of the bound part in the center of the leaf surface and the image information such as characters and ruled lines confusedly exist within data on the same main-scanning line (for example, in the longitudinal direction of the apparatus). Such a situation gives rise to the drawback that the bound part is not easily detected and the elimination of the center line zone is not properly attained.


A CaF2 polycrystalline body which is a polycrystalline body constituted of CaF2 and of which an average grain size of crystalline grains is 200 μm or more, and a method for producing a CaF2 polycrystalline body, the method including a process of introducing a compact which is obtained by using a CaF2 powder raw material into a vacuum sintering furnace and sintering at a temperature of not higher than 1400° C. for six hours or more, thereby obtaining the CaF2 polycrystalline body.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a member of CaF2 polycrystalline body with excellent corrosion durability.
Background
CaF2 single crystal has a high transmittance characteristic of light ranging from ultraviolet region to infrared region and is used as a lens material. CaF2 has lower deliquescent properties and is a more stable fluoride compared with MgF2 and BaF2 fluorides.
In addition, CaF2 has also excellent durability such as fluorine-plasma durability, HF (hydrogen fluoride) durability, chemical durability, and heat durability and therefore CaF2 is available as a plasma-durable member or a crucible member.
However, CaF2 single crystal has cleavability and therefore can be easily cracked by vibration or impact.
In contrast, CaF2 polycrystalline body is superior in that it does not have cleavability as a bulk material because microscopic crystals are bound together to constitute CaF2 polycrystalline body.
On the other hand, it is known that polycrystalline body generally has a grain boundary and the grain boundary surface is preferentially corroded and etched. Therefore, a single crystal which does not have the grain boundary surface is superior from the viewpoint of corrosion durability. Thus, there is a need for a CaF2 member which is poly crystal and yet has improved corrosion durability.
Moreover, superior process-ability is required in order to use as a member.
In order to meet such a need, a member for a semiconductor manufacture apparatus is proposed which is constituted of a high-density fluoride sintered body of which a relative density is 95% or more and an average grain size of crystalline grains is 30 μm or less (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Publication No. 3618048).


A new three-dimensional imaging system has been needed to overcome the problems of the prior arts using conventional variable focal length lenses, which have slow response time, small focal length variation, and low focusing efficiency, and require a complex mechanism to control it. The three-dimensional imaging system of the present invention uses the variable focal length micromirror array lens. Since the micromirror array lens has many advantages such as very fast response time, large focal length variation, high optical focusing efficiency, large size aperture, low cost, simple mechanism, and so on, the three-dimensional imaging system can get a real-time three-dimensional image with large depth range and high depth resolution.

There are so many different three-dimensional imaging systems as well as so many different ways to represent an object in three-dimensional space. The most popular three-dimensional imaging system is stereoscopic imaging systems, which acquire depth information from a scene in the form that the parallax phenomenon of human eyes is simulated. When human eyes see a scene, right and left side eyes have two different perspectives due to their separation. The brain fuses these two perspectives and assesses the visual depth. Similarly to human eyes, stereoscopic three-dimensional imaging systems take two perspective images by two parallel cameras that are disposed to view the scene from different angles at the same time as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,432,712 to Chan. These devices, however, tend to be large and heavy, and come at high cost due to multiple camera systems and their optical axis separation requirement. Also, when stereoscopic images are displayed for three-dimensional viewing, many technical problems can be arisen involved with arbitrary distribution of the viewer's position, watching by multiple viewers, binocular disparity due to deviations in the distance between the two eyes, vergence, fatigue accumulation in the eye, accommodation, the relative position change of the three-dimensional image due to viewer's movement, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,503,195 to Keller discloses a structured light depth extraction system in which a projector projects a structured light pattern such as grids in the visible or invisible form onto an object, and then an image processor calculates depth information based on the reflected light pattern. In case of using visible light, image quality can be degraded while using invisible light requires an additional sensor system. Also, performance of the structured light depth extraction system depends on the reflectivity of the object.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,506,327 to Leith discloses a holographic imaging system, which uses coherent radiation to produce an object-bearing beam and reference beam. These two beams produce a pattern of interference fringe on the detector, wherein the intensity and phase information of light are recorded. Three-dimensional image can be reconstructed by illuminating the pattern of interference fringe with the reference beam. The maximum image depth is limited by mainly the coherence length of the beam. The holographic imaging system requires expensive and high power consuming coherent light source such as laser and the near darkroom conditions for imaging. Therefore, the holographic imaging system is not applicable to portable imaging devices as well as may cause some safety concerns using in the public area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,032,720 to White and U.S. Pat. No. 6,949,069 to Farkas disclose a three-dimensional confocal system in which a point of interest is illuminated by a light source using a pinhole aperture. The confocal system can provide a high resolution three-dimensional image with a single camera system, but most of illuminating light is wasted and causes noise problem. To overcome this, U.S. Pat. No. 6,749,346 to Dickensheets and U.S. Pat. No. 6,563,105 to Seibel use a single optical fiber to scan and collect reflected light, but point by point scanning can lead to a slow image refresh rate.
The depth from focus criteria is well known for three-dimensional imaging, wherein a sequence of images is taken by changing the camera focus and in-focus regions are extracted from the images. Camera focus can be changed in many different ways. U.S. Pat. No. 5,986,811 to Wohlstadter discloses a three-dimensional imaging method and system using conventional motorized optics having an input lens and an output lens to change the focal length of the imaging system. Conventional motorized optics has a slow response time and complex driving mechanisms to control the relative position of the lenses. Therefore, it is difficult to use in the real-time imaging system and miniaturize the imaging system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,344,930 to Kaneko discloses a total-focus imaging system using a sealed liquid lens actuated by a piezoelectric actuator to change the focal length of the imaging system. The proposed liquid lens has a slow focal length change speed of several hundreds of Hz. The system can have only a half dozen of focal length changes for each three-dimensional image when considering the standard video or movie rate. Besides, the lens has a small focal length variation range. These problems limit the possible range of depth and the depth resolution of the three-dimensional image.
A most advanced variable focal length lens is a liquid crystal variable focal length lens, wherein its focal length is changed by modulating the refractive index. However, it has a complex mechanism to control it and a slow response time typically on the order of hundreds of milliseconds, while the fastest response liquid crystal lens has a response time of tens of milliseconds, which still provides a low depth resolution three-dimensional image. Also, it has a small focal length variation and a low focusing efficiency.
A high speed, large variation of numerical aperture, and large diameter of variable focal length lens is necessary to get a real-time, large range of depth, and high depth resolution three-dimensional image.


A method of lubricating MEMS devices using fluorosurfactants 42. Micro-machined devices, such as a digital micro-mirror device (DMD™) 940, which make repeated contact between moving parts, require lubrication in order to prevent the onset of stiction (static friction) forces significant enough to cause the parts to stick irreversibly together, causing defects. These robust and non-corrosive fluorosurfactants 42, which consists of a hydrophilic chain 40 attached to a hydrophobic fluorocarbon tail 41, are applied by nebulization and replace the more complex lubricating systems, including highly reactive PFDA lubricants stored in polymer getters, to keep the parts from sticking. This lubrication process, which does not require the use of getters, is easily applied and has been shown to provide long-life, lower-cost, operable MEMS devices.

Micro-machined or micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) devices, where there is repeated physical contact between moving parts, require lubrication to prevent the onset of stiction (static friction). This stiction can be strong enough to cause the parts to stick irreversibly together, making the devices inoperable.
For example, in the digital micromirror device (DMD™) of FIG. 1, which is one type of a MEMS device, the mirror/yoke 10/11 assemblies rotate on torsion hinges 12 attached to support posts 13 until the yoke tips 14 contact (land on) landing pads 15 located on a lower substrate layer 16. It is this mechanical contact between the yoke landing tips 14 and the landing pad sites 15 that is of particular relevance to this invention. In some cases the mirror/yoke assemblies become slow in lifting off the landing pad, affecting the response of the device and in other cases the assemblies become permanently stuck to the landing pads. One of the primary causes of stiction has been shown to be that of the landing tips scrubbing into the metal landing pads.
This "sticking" problem has been addressed by lubricating or passivating the metal surfaces of the devices to make them "slick." Getters have been used in the device package to store the lubricants in order to maintain a low stiction environment for all moving parts over long device lifetimes. One lubricant used is powdered perfluordecanoic acid (PFDA), which tends to decrease the Van der Waals forces associated with the mirror assemblies in the DMD™ or any moving parts in a MEMS device, and thereby reduces the tendency for the mirrors to stick to the landing pads. However, PDFA has a very reactive molecule, which can react with other package constituents, causing severe damage to the device.
FIG. 2 is a drawing of a typical DMD™ device package. This shows the DMD™ 21 mounted in a package frame 20 with attached cover glass (package lid) 22. The cover glass 20 is usually made opaque 23 on the underside with a transparent aperture for optical interfacing with the device. As mentioned, this stiction problem has normally been addressed by attempting to control the environment inside the packages. For example, FIG. 3 illustrates how PFDA getters 31 and/or moisture gathering getters are attached to the underside of the glass cover 30 by means of an adhesive 32. The getters are used to both collect moisture in the package and provide lubrication (PFDA) to the moving parts in the DMD™. These getters may also be installed in empty areas within the package cavity. However, the PFDA lubricants are reactive and difficult to handle in a manufacturing environment and as a result, tend to drive up the cost of packaged MEMS devices. The moisture getters are used to control rather large amounts of moisture in the package, which should only be present if the getters themselves are misprocessed.
What is needed is a robust, non-corrosive lubricant that can be easily applied, without the use of getters, to the surface of MEMS devices to prevent the moving parts from sticking together. The fluorosurfactant lubricant of the present invention meets these requirements.

Lubricating micro-machined devices using fluorosurfactants


Disclosed is a process for forming two-color images which comprises (1) charging an imaging member in an imaging apparatus; (2) creating on the member a latent image comprising areas of high, intermediate, and low potential; (3) developing the low areas of potential with a colored developer comprising a colored first toner comprising a polymer resin selected from the group consisting of styrene-butadiene copolymers, styrene-acrylate copolymers, styrene-methacrylate copolymers, and mixtures thereof, a blue first colored pigment of the formula C.sub.32 H.sub.16 N.sub.8 Cu, a cetyl pyridinium chloride charge control agent, a 3,5-di-tertbutyl salicylate compound charge control agent, colloidal silica surface external additives, and metal stearate salt surface external additives; a colored second toner comprising a polymer resin selected from the group consisting of styrene-butadiene copolymers, styrene-acrylate copolymers, styrene-methacrylate copolymers, and mixtures thereof, a cyan second colored pigment of the formula C.sub.104 H.sub.164 N.sub.12 O.sub.8 S.sub.4 Cu, a charge control agent selected from the group consisting of distearyl dimethyl ammonium methyl sulfate and distearyl dimethyl ammonium bisulfate, colloidal silica surface external additives, and metal stearate salt surface external additives; and a color carrier comprising a core and a coating selected from the group consisting of methyl terpolymer, polymethyl methacrylate, and a blend of from about 35 to about 65 percent by weight of polymethylmethacrylate and from about 35 to about 65 percent by weight of chlorotrifluoroethylene-vinyl chloride copolymer, wherein the coating contains from 0 to about 40 percent by weight of the coating of conductive particles; (4) subsequently developing the high areas of potential with a black developer comprising a black toner comprising a second resin present selected from the group consisting of polyesters, styrene-butadiene polymers, styrene-acrylate polymers, styrene-methacrylate polymers, and mixtures thereof, a black pigment, and a charge control additive; and a black carrier comprising a core and a coating selected from the group consisting of chlorotrifluoroethylene-vinyl chloride copolymer containing from 0 to about 40 percent by weight of conductive particles; polyvinylfluoride; and polyvinylchloride; and (5) transferring the developed two-color image to a substrate.

The present invention is directed to a process for forming two-color images. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a process for forming two-color images which comprises charging an imaging member, creating on the member a latent image comprising areas of high, medium, and low potential, developing the low areas of potential with a colored developer comprising a first blue colored toner, a second cyan colored toner, and a specific "color" carrier as described herein, subsequently developing the high areas of potential with a black developer comprising a specific black toner and a specific "black" carrier as described herein, transferring the developed two-color image to a substrate, and optionally permanently affixing the image to the substrate.
The process of charging a photoresponsive imaging member to a single polarity and creating on it an image consisting of at least three different levels of potential of the same polarity is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,078,929, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference. This patent discloses a method of creating two colored images by creating on an imaging surface a charge pattern including an area of first charge as a background area, a second area of greater voltage than the first area, and a third area of lesser voltage than the first area, with the second and third areas functioning as image areas. The charge pattern is developed in a first step with positively charged toner particles of a first color, and, in a subsequent development step, developed with negatively charged toner particles of a second color. Alternatively, charge patterns may be developed with a dry developer containing toners of two different colors in a single development step. According to the teachings of this patent, however, the images produced are of inferior quality compared to those developed in two successive development steps. Also of interest with respect to the tri-level process for generating images is U.S. Pat. No. 4,686,163.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,948,686, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a process for forming two-color images which comprises (1) charging an imaging member in an imaging apparatus; (2) creating on the member a latent image comprising areas of high, intermediate, and low potential; (3) developing the low areas of potential with a developer comprising a colored first toner comprising a first resin selected from the group consisting of polyesters, styrene-butadiene polymers, styrene-acrylate polymers, styrene-methacrylate polymers, and mixtures thereof; a first pigment; a charge control agent; colloidal silica surface external additives present; and external additives comprising metal salts or metal salts of fatty acids; and a first carrier comprising a core and a coating selected from the group consisting of methyl terpolymer, polymethyl methacrylate, and a blend of from about 35 to about 65 percent by weight of polymethylmethacrylate and from about 35 to about 65 percent by weight of chlorotrifluoroethylene-vinyl chloride copolymer, wherein the coating contains from 0 to about 40 percent by weight of the coating of conductive particles; (4) subsequently developing the high areas of potential with a developer comprising a black second toner comprising a second resin present selected from the group consisting of polyesters, styrene-butadiene polymers, styrene-acrylate polymers, styrene-methacrylate polymers, and mixtures thereof; a second pigment; and a second charge control additive; and a second carrier comprising a core and a coating selected from the group consisting of chlorotrifluoroethylene-vinyl chloride copolymer containing from 0 to about 40 percent by weight of conductive particles; polyvinylfluoride; and polyvinylchloride; and (5) transferring the developed two-color image to a substrate.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,264,185, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses an apparatus for forming two color images by forming a bipolar electrostatic image of a two color original document on a photoconductive drum. A first developing unit applies a toner of a first color and polarity to the drum and a second developing unit applies a toner of a second color and polarity to the drum to form a two color electrostatic image which is transferred and fixed to a copy sheet. A bias voltage of the first polarity is applied to the second developing unit to repel the toner of the first color and polarity against the drum and prevent degradation of the first color toner image. A bias voltage of the second polarity is applied to the first developing unit to prevent contamination of the first color toner with the second color toner.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,308,821 discloses a method and apparatus for forming two-color images which employs two magnetic brushes. The first developed image is not disturbed during development of the second image, since the second magnetic brush contacts the surface of the imaging member more lightly than the first magnetic brush, and the toner scraping force of the second magnetic brush is reduced in comparison with that of the first magnetic brush by setting the magnetic flux density on a second non-magnetic sleeve with an internally disposed magnet smaller than the magnetic flux density on a first magnetic sleeve, or by adjusting the distance between the second non-magnetic sleeve and the surface of the imaging member. In addition, the toners may have different quantities of electric charge.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,378,415 discloses a method of highlight color imaging which comprises providing a layered organic photoreceptor having a red sensitive layer and a short wavelength sensitive layer, subjecting the imaging member to negative charges, followed by subjecting the imaging member to positive charges, imagewise exposing the member, and developing with a colored developer composition comprising positively charged toner components, negatively charged toner components, and carrier particles.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,430,402, discloses a two-component type dry developer for use in dichromatic electrophotography which comprises two kinds of developers, each of which consists of a toner and a carrier. Dichromatic images are formed by developing a both positively and negatively electrified electrostatic latent image successively with toners different in polarity and color from each other, wherein one carrier becomes positively charged by friction with either of the two toners while the other carrier becomes negatively charged by friction with either of the two toners.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,594,302 discloses a developing process for two-colored electrophotography which comprises charging the surface of a photoreceptor with two photosensitive layers of different spectral sensitivities with one polarity, subsequently charging the photoreceptor with a different polarity, exposing a two-colored original to form electrostatic latent images having different polarities corresponding to the two-colored original, developing one latent image with a first color toner of one polarity, exposing the photoreceptor to eliminate electric charges with the same polarity as the first color toner which are induced on the surface of the photoreceptor in the vicinity of the latent image developed by the first color toner, and developing the other latent image with a second color toner charged with a polarity different from that of the first color toner.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,616 discloses a method of developing electrostatic latent images by selectively extracting colored grains of one polarity from a mixture containing colored grains having opposite polarity to each other in the presence of an alternating field, followed by development of the electrostatic image by the selectively extracted colored grains.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,524,117 discloses an electrophotographic method for forming two-colored images which comprises uniformly charging the surface of a photoreceptor having a conductive surface and a photoconductive layer sensitive to a first color formed on the conductive substance, followed by exposing a two-colored original to form on the photoconductive layer a latent image corresponding to a second color region in the original with the same polarity as the electric charges on the surface of the photoconductive layer. The photoreceptor surface is then subjected to a reversal development treatment by the use of a photoconductive color toner charged with the same polarity as the electric charges constituting the latent image, to develop the non-charged region with the photoconductive toner. The latent image is then subjected to normal development treatment with an insulative toner having a color different from the color of the photoconductive toner. Subsequently, the color toners on the photoconductive layer are charged with a different polarity from the charging polarity and, simultaneously, the original is exposed through a filter shielding against the first color, thereby forming a two-colored image.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,525,447, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses an image forming method which comprises forming on a photosensitive member an electrostatic latent image having at least three different levels of potentials, or comprising first and second latent images and developing the first and second latent images with a three component developer. The developer comprises a magnetic carrier, a first toner chargeable to one polarity by contact with the magnetic carrier, and a second toner chargeable to a polarity opposite to that of the first toner by contact with the first toner, but substantially not chargeable by contact with the magnetic carrier.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,539,281 discloses a method of forming dichromatic copy images by forming an electrostatic latent image having a first image portion and a second image portion. The first image portion is developed by a first magnetic brush with a magnetic toner of a first color that is chargeable to a specific polarity, and the second image portion is developed by a second magnetic brush with a mixture of a magnetic carrier substantially not chargeable with the magnetic toner and a non-magnetic toner of a second color chargeable to a polarity opposite to that of the magnetic toner by contact with the magnetic carrier.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,129, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a method of forming dichromatic copy images with a developer composed of a high-resistivity magnetic carrier and a nonmagnetic insulating toner which are triboelectrically chargeable. An electrostatic latent image having at least three different levels of potential is formed and the toner and carrier are adhered respectively onto the first and second image portions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,883, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a method of forming composite or dichromatic images which comprises forming on an imaging member electrostatic latent images having at least three different potential levels, the first and second latent images being represented respectively by a first potential and a second potential relative to a common background potential. The first and second images are developed by a first magnetic brush using two kinds of toners, at least one of which is magnetic, and both of which are chargeable to polarities opposite to each other, with application to a developing electrode of a bias voltage capable of depositing the magnetic toner on the background potential area, to deposit selectively the two toners on the first and second latent images and to deposit the magnetic toner on the background potential area, while collecting the deposited magnetic toner at least from the background potential area by second magnetic brush developing means.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,013,890 (Bixby), the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a method and composition for making visible electrostatic images whereby both positive and negative electrostatic images may be developed simultaneously in one or two colors. The process entails generating an electrostatic image on an insulating surface, bringing to the insulating surface a solid surface having electrostatically coated thereon positively and negatively charged powder particles, whereby the particles are electrostatically attracted from the surface bearing the powder particles to deposit on the insulating surface in conformity with electrostatic lines of force of the electrostatic image. In a specific embodiment, both kinds of toner particles are both coated onto a single carrier and, relative to the carrier surface, the first toner particles assume a positive electrostatic charge and the second toner particles assume a negative electrostatic charge.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,045,644 (Schwertz), the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a two-color electrostatic apparatus for recording and printing information. An electrostatic latent image is applied to an insulating surface, said image having areas of both positive polarity and negative polarity. Subsequently, positively charged and negatively charged toner particles of two different colors are applied consecutively to the latent image to develop the two-color image.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,395,471 (Hauser et al.), the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a developer composition comprising a styrene/n-butyl methacrylate copolymer resin, a colorant, and a single carrier. In one embodiment, the composition is a combination of a single carrier, a cyan toner comprising a styrene/n-butyl methacrylate copolymer resin and a tetra-4-(octadecylsulfonomido)phthalocyanine pigment, a magenta toner comprising a styrene/n-butyl methacrylate copolymer resin and a 2,9-dimethyl substituted quinacridone pigment, and/or a yellow toner comprising a styrene/n-butyl methacrylate copolymer resin and a diaryldide 3,3-dichlorobenzidene aceto acetanilide pigment. A series of toners is provided wherein a variety of single colored toners are obtained by blending different amounts of the primary colors together with the carrier.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,312,932 (Hauser et al.), the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a color developing composition comprising a single carrier and toner resin particles, each toner particle containing up to four pigments. A series of toners is provided wherein a variety of single colored toners are obtained by incorporating different amounts of the pigments into each toner in the series.
Also directed to the tri-level imaging process and specific embodiments thereof are U.S. Pat. No. 4,903,048, U.S. Pat. No. 4,847,655, U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,046, U.S. Pat. No. 5,021,838, U.S. Pat. No. 4,833,504, U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,114, U.S. Pat. No. 5,080,988, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,114, the disclosures of each of which are totally incorporated herein by reference.
Copending Application U.S. Ser. No. 07/755,979, entitled "Improved Toner and Process for Forming Two-Color Images," with the named inventors Edward J. Gutman, Michael L. Grande, William H. Hollenbaugh, Jr., and Roger N. Ciccarelli, filed Sep. 6, 1991, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a toner composition comprising a resin, a colorant, and a charge control additive selected from the group consisting of (a) zinc 3,5-di-tert-butyl salicylate compounds; (b) mixtures of a zinc 3,5-di-tert-butyl salicylate compound and an alkyl pyridinium halide; (c) mixtures of a zinc 3,5-di-tert-butyl salicylate compound and distearyl dimethyl ammonium methyl sulfate; (d) mixtures of a zinc 3,5-di-tert-butyl salicylate compound and distearyl dimethyl ammonium bisulfate; (e) mixtures of an aluminum 3,5-di-tert-butyl salicylate compound and an alkyl pyridinium halide; (f) mixtures of an aluminum 3,5-di-tert-butyl salicylate compound and distearyl dimethyl ammonium methyl sulfate; (g) mixtures of an aluminum 3,5-di-tert-butyl salicylate compound and distearyl dimethyl ammonium bisulfate; and mixtures thereof, a colloidal silica external additive, and a metal salt of a fatty acid external additive. Also disclosed are imaging processes employing the toner, including a process for forming two-color images which comprises creating on an imaging member a latent image comprising areas of high, medium, and low potential, developing the low areas of potential with a developer comprising the toner disclosed herein and a carrier, subsequently developing the high areas of potential with a developer comprising a toner of a second color and a carrier, transferring the developed two-color image to a substrate, and optionally permanently affixing the image to the substrate.
Copending Application U.S. Ser. No. 07/755,915, entitled "Improved Electrostatic Developing Composition and Process", with the named inventors Don B. Jugle, Michael L. Grande, Edward J. Gutman, Douglas A. Lundy, and Charles D. Zimmer, filed Sep. 6, 1991, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a developer composition which consists essentially of a toner consisting essentially of a resin, a colorant, and colloidal silica external additive particles and a carrier consisting essentially of a core, an optional coating on the core, and an external additive selected from the group consisting of metal salts of fatty acids, linear polymeric alcohols comprising a fully saturated hydrocarbon backbone with at least about 80 percent of the polymeric chains terminated at one chain end with a hydroxyl group, polyethylene waxes with a molecular weight of from about 300 to about 2,000, polypropylene waxes with a molecular weight of from about 300 to about 3,000, and mixtures thereof. Also disclosed are processes for using the aforementioned developer in a tri-level development process.
Copending Application U.S. Ser. No. 07/706,476, entitled "Passivated Toner Compositions," with the named inventors Roger N. Ciccarelli and Denise R. Bayley, filed May 28, 1991, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a process for the preparation of passivated toners with a substantially stable positive or negative triboelectic value of from about 10 to about 30 microcoulombs per gram which comprises admixing toner resin particles, colored pigment particles, and a charge enhancing additive and subsequently adding thereto surface additives, wherein the charge additive functions primarily as a passivating component. The toners are useful in tri-level processes for creating two-color images in a single pass. Also disclosed is the admixing in known effective amounts of known cyan, magenta, and yellow toners, preferably with a common carrier, to obtain process colors like red, blue, green, and the like.
Copending Application U.S. Ser. No. 07/706,477, entitled "Passivated Green Toner Compositions," with the named inventors Roger N. Ciccarelli and Denise R. Bayley, filed May 28, 1991, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a green toner comprising resin particles, HELIOGEN GREEN.TM. pigment particles, a charge enhancing additive, and surface additive particles. The toner is useful in tri-level processes for creating two-color images in a single pass. Also disclosed is the admixing in known effective amounts of known cyan, magenta, and yellow toners, preferably with a common carrier, to obtain process colors like red, blue, green, and the like.
Copending Application U.S. Ser. No. 07/705,595, entitled "Magenta Toner Compositions," with the named inventors Roger N. Ciccarelli and Don B. Jugle, filed May 28, 1991, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference, discloses a toner comprising resin particles, magenta pigment particles, and surface additive particles comprising a mixture of colloidal silica, metal oxide, and a polymeric hydroxy compound. The toner is useful in tri-level processes for creating two-color images in a single pass.
While known compositions and processes for forming two-color images are suitable for their intended purposes, a need remains for processes for forming two-color images by a tri-level process wherein at least one of the colors can be adjusted for custom applications. Adjusting the color of a toner employed in a tri-level imaging process is generally a complex process that entails more than merely adjusting the concentrations of one or more pigments contained in the toner. For example, some pigments can be compatible with the toner resin for the present purposes only over a limited concentration range. In addition, pigments may have inherent charging characteristics that will result in admix problems when the pigment concentration is changed. Further, if a blend of two or more colors is employed to develop one of the images in a two-color tri-level imaging process, both toners in the blend must become charged uniformly and rapidly to the same polarity and approximately the same charge magnitude so that both toners transfer from the developer housing to the latent image in the desired concentrations during image development. Additionally, the toner or toners employed to develop one image in a two-color tri-level imaging process must not interact with the toner or carrier employed to develop the image of the other color. Thus, a need remains for processes for forming two-color images wherein one of the colors is developed with a mixture of two types of toner particles of different colors which, when blended, form a desired custom color. Further, there is a need for processes for for forming two-color images wherein one of the colors is developed with a mixture of two types of toner particles of different colors which can be blended in varying ratios to obtain a wide range of blends of desired colors. Additionally, there is a need for processes for forming two-color images wherein one of the colors is developed with a mixture of two types of toner particles of different colors which can be blended in varying ratios such that both types of toner particles become charged to the same polarity and obtain similar charge magnitudes. There is also a need for processes for forming two-color images wherein one of the colors is developed with a mixture of two types of toner particles of different colors and wherein the admix times for each type of toner particle are acceptable. Further, there is a need for processes for forming two-color images wherein one of the colors is developed with a mixture of two types of toner particles of different colors and wherein neither toner in the mixture employed to develop one color interacts with the toner or carrier employed to develop the other color. Mutual and deleterious interaction may occur, for example, when the carrier of the developer used second triboelectrically charges against the toner used first; thus, the first image is developed with the first developer and the second image is subsequently developed with the second developer of different color, and during development of the second image, the carrier of the second developer triboelectrically interacts with the image previously developed with the first toner. This interaction can result in removal of some of the first toner from the substrate, causing reduced image density, and can also lead to contamination of the second developer housing with the first toner. A need also exists for a process for forming two-color images wherein the second developer does not react with, or is triboactively neutral to, the first developed image on the photoreceptor. A need also exists for a process for forming two-color images wherein the first developer comprises a mixture of two types of toner particles of different colors and the mixture does not discharge the latent image to be developed by the second developer. Additionally, there is a need for a two-color image formation process wherein the developers are of specified triboelectric charge, charge distribution, and conductivity, and exhibit acceptable admix times and developer lifetimes. Further, there is a need for a two-color image formation process wherein the developers exhibit similar rheological properties, thereby enhancing fusing, and similar cleaning latitudes, thereby enhancing cleaning of the photoreceptor.

Tri-level imaging processes with adjustable color


A method of producing a gas discharge panel includes forming a surrounding unit by positioning a first panel and a second panel together with barrier ribs to partition the space between the panels into cells for light emission when charged with a plasma gas and appropriately addressed. An anti-sealing material inflow rib surrounds the barrier ribs. Sealing material is positioned outside the anti-sealing material inflow rib. The pressure inside the surrounding unit is adjusted to be lower than pressure outside the surrounding unit while applying heat to fuse the sealing material between the first panel and the second panel whereby sealing material is prevented from inflowing into the cells between the barrier ribs during production.

Recently, as the demand for high-quality large-screen TVs such as high definition TVs has increased, displays suitable for such TVs, such as Cathode Ray Tube (CRT), Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), and Plasma Display Panel (PDP), have been developed.
CRTs have been widely used as TV displays and excel in terms of resolution and picture quality. However, the depth and weight increase as the screen size increases. Therefore, CRTs are not suitable for large screen sizes exceeding 40 inch. LCDs consume a small amount of electricity and operate on a low voltage. However, producing a large LCD screen is technically difficult, and the viewing angles of LCDs are limited.
On the other hand, it is possible to make a PDP with a large screen with a short depth, and 50-inch PDP products have already been developed.
PDPs are divided into two types: Direct Current (DC) and Alternating Current (AC). Currently, PDPs are mainly AC-type since they are suitable for large screens.
AC surface-discharge type PDP, a typical AC-type PDP, is typically composed of a front panel and a back panel to each of which electrodes are attached so that the electrodes of both panels face each other. A space between the front panel and the back panel is divided into a plurality of spaces by barrier ribs. The plurality of spaces between these barrier ribs are each filled with discharge gas and any of red, green, and blue fluorescent substances. When a driving circuit applies a voltage to each electrode to cause a discharge, ultraviolet light is emitted. The ultraviolet light excites fluorescent substances. The excited fluorescent substances emit red, green, and blue lights. The emitted light of these colors forms images on the screen.
Typically, such PDPs are manufactured by the following procedure. The barrier ribs are disposed on a surface of the back panel; fluorescent substance layers are formed in grooves between the barrier ribs; the front panel is laid on top of the barrier ribs to form a surrounding unit (the front panel and the back panel bonded together with inner space in between); the rim of the surrounding unit, that is, the front and back panels, is sealed with a sealing material; gas is exhausted from the inner space to produce a vacuum; and the inner space is filled with a discharge gas.
The sealing material is typically a low-melting glass that softens by heat. A mixture of the low-melting glass and a binder is applied by a dispenser or the like to the rim of either the front panel or the back panel before the surrounding unit is constructed by putting the panels together. In the sealing process, the panels are bonded by heating the panels to a temperature higher than the softening point of the low-melting glass while the rim of the surrounding unit covering the applied sealing material and the outermost area is fixed by clips or the like.
However, the PDPs manufactured with such a method have gaps between the barrier ribs and the front panel. The gaps vary from barrier rib to barrier rib or from point to point on each barrier rib. The reason for this is considered as follows. (1) Variations of the barrier ribs in height are generated in the barrier rib formation process in which the material for the barrier ribs are placed on the back panel. (2) The panels and the barrier ribs are distorted in heating processes such as the processes for baking the barrier ribs, fluorescent substance, electrodes, and dielectric layer, and the sealing glass layer temporary baking process which are performed before the sealing process.
Further, in the sealing process of PDP, the rim of the front panel and the back panel is fixed by fastening tools such as clips so as to prevent displacement of the panels after they were positioned to face each other. However, such fastening of the rim tends to generate a gap between the top of the barrier ribs and the front panel at the center by the action of a lever. In addition, unequal gaps are often formed since the pressures given by the fastening tools are different.
In the PDPs manufactured through the sealing process with such gaps, crosstalks often occur when the PDPs are activated, or noises often occur between the barrier ribs and the panels due to vibration of the panels caused by the discharge or the like.
Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 1-113948 discloses a technique in which a low-melting glass is applied to the top of the barrier ribs before the front and back panels are positioned to face each other and bonded together. When the front panel is bonded with the whole top of the barrier ribs using this technique, the surrounding unit does not expand even if the inner space is filled with a discharge gas at high pressure. Also, the gaps between the barrier ribs and the front panel are filled with the sealing material. Accordingly, the technique solves the problem of the vibration.
However, in reality, it is difficult to bond the whole top of the barrier ribs with the front panel. A part of the top of the barrier ribs often remains unattached. Accordingly, this technique is not sufficient to solve the problem of the pressure. Especially, when there are variations of the barrier ribs in height on the back panel, many parts remain unattached. When this happens, it is impossible to obtain sufficient resistance to pressure.
There is another conventional method in which a set of the front and back panels is heated for sealing while a weight such as a stone is placed at the center thereof. However, according to this method, more energy is required for the heating since the weight on the panels is also heated. The heating temperatures for surrounding units tends to be unequal. It is difficult to use this technique for the production of large-screen PDPs.
There is another requirement for the production of the panels. Typically, a vacuum pump or a discharge gas cylinder is connected to an exhaust pipe attached to the surrounding unit. The exhaust pipe is chipped off later by a burner or a heater. A reliable method of chipping off the exhaust pipe is desired.

Sealing method and apparatus for manufacturing high-performance gas discharge panel

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


Methods and system for efficient collection and storage of experimental data allow experimental data from high-throughput, feature-rich data collection systems, such as high-throughput cell data collection systems to be efficiently collected, stored, managed and displayed. The methods and system can be used, for example, for storing, managing, and displaying cell image data and cell feature data collected from microplates including multiple wells and a variety of bio-chips in which an experimental compound has been applied to a population of cells. The methods and system provide a flexible and scalable repository of experimental data including multiple databases at multiple locations including pass-through databases that can be easily managed and allows cell data to be analyzed, manipulated and archived. The methods and system may improve the identification, selection, validation and screening of new drug compounds that have been applied to populations of cells.

Historically, the discovery and development of new drugs has been an expensive, time consuming and inefficient process. With estimated costs of bringing a single drug to market requiring an investment of approximately 8 to 12 years and approximately $350 to $500 million, the pharmaceutical research and development market is in need of new technologies that can streamline the drug discovery process. Companies in the pharmaceutical research and development market are under fierce pressure to shorten research and development cycles for developing new drugs, while at the same time, novel drug discovery screening instrumentation technologies are being deployed, producing a huge amount of experimental data.
Innovations in automated screening systems for biological and other research are capable of generating enormous amounts of data. The massive volumes of feature-rich data being generated by these systems and the effective management and use of information from the data has created a number of very challenging problems. As is known in the art, "feature-rich" data includes data wherein one or more individual features of an object of interest (e.g., a cell) can be collected. To fully exploit the potential of data from high-volume data generating screening instrumentation, there is a need for new informatic and bioinformatic tools.
Identification, selection, validation and screening of new drug compounds is often completed at a nucleotide level using sequences of Deoxyribonucleic Acid ("DNA"), Ribonucleic Acid ("RNA") or other nucleotides. "Genes" are regions of DNA, and "proteins" are the products of genes. The existence and concentration of protein molecules typically help determine if a gene is "expressed" or "repressed" in a given situation. Responses of genes to natural and artificial compounds are typically used to improve existing drugs, and develop new drugs. However, it is often more appropriate to determine the effect of a new compound on a cellular level instead of a nucleotide level.
Cells are the basic units of life and integrate information from DNA, RNA, proteins, metabolites, ions and other cellular components. New compounds that may look promising at a nucleotide level may be toxic at a cellular level. Florescence-based reagents can be applied to cells to determine ion concentrations, membrane potentials, enzyme activities, gene expression, as well as the presence of metabolites, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and other cellular components.
There are two types of cell screening methods that are typically used: (1) fixed cell screening; and (2) live cell screening. For fixed cell screening, initially living cells are treated with experimental compounds being tested. No environmental control of the cells is provided after application of a desired compound and the cells may die during screening. Live cell screening requires environmental control of the cells (e.g., temperature, humidity, gases, etc.) after application of a desired compound, and the cells are kept alive during screening. Fixed cell assays allow spatial measurements to be obtained, but only at one point in time. Live cell assays allow both spatial and temporal measurements to be obtained.
The spatial and temporal frequency of chemical and molecular information present within cells makes it possible to extract feature-rich cell information from populations of cells. For example, multiple molecular and biochemical interactions, cell kinetics, changes in sub-cellular distributions, changes in cellular morphology, changes in individual cell subtypes in mixed populations, changes and sub-cellular molecular activity, changes in cell communication, and other types of cell information can be obtained.
The types of biochemical and molecular cell-based assays now accessible through fluorescence-based reagents is expanding rapidly. The need for automatically extracting additional information from a growing list of cell-based assays has allowed automated platforms for feature-rich assay screening of cells to be developed. For example, the ArrayScan System by Cellomics, Inc. of Pittsburgh, Pa., is one such feature-rich cen•screening system. Cell based systems such as FLIPR, by Molecular Devices, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., FMAT, of PE Biosystems of Foster City, Calif., ViewLux by EG&G Wallac, now a subsidiary of Perkin-Elmer Life Sciences of Gaithersburg, Md., and others also generate large amounts of data and photographic images that would benefit from efficient data management solutions. Photographic images are typically collected using a digital camera. A single photographic image may take up as much as 512 Kilobytes ("KB") or more of storage space as is explained below. Collecting and storing a large number of photographic images adds to the data problems encountered when using high throughput systems. For more information on fluorescence based systems, see "Bright ideas for high-throughput screening—One-step fluorescence HTS assays are getting faster, cheaper, smaller and more sensitive," by Randy Wedin, Modern Drug Discovery, Vol. 2(3), pp. 61-71, May/June 1999.
Such automated feature-rich cell screening systems and other systems known in the art typically include microplate scanning hardware, fluorescence excitation of cells, fluorescence captive emission optics, a photographic microscopic with a camera, data collection, data storage and data display capabilities. For more information on feature-rich cell screening see "High Content Fluorescence-Based Screening," by Kenneth A. Guiliano, et al., Journal of Biomolecular Screening, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 249-259, Winter 1997, ISSN 1087-0571, "PTH Receptor Internalization," Bruce R. Conway, et al., Journal of Biomolecular Screening, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 75-68, April 1999, ISSN 1087-0571, "Fluorescent-Protein Biosensors: New Tools For Drug Discovery," Kenneth A. Giuliano and D. Lansing Taylor, Trends in Biotechnology, ("TIBTECH"), Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 99-146, March 1998, ISSN 0167-7799, all of which are incorporated by reference.
An automated feature-rich cell screening system typically automatically scans a microplate plate with multiple wells and acquires multi-color fluorescence data of cells at one or more instances of time at a pre-determined spatial resolution. Automated feature-rich cell screen systems typically support multiple channels of fluorescence to collect multi-color fluorescence data at different wavelengths and may also provide the ability to collect cell feature information on a cell-by-cell basis including such features as the size and shape of cells and sub-cellar measurements of organelles within a cell.
The collection of data from high throughput screening systems typically produces a very large quantity of data and presents a number of bioinformatics problems. As is known in the art, "bioinformatic" techniques are used to address problems related to the collection, processing, storage, retrieval and analysis of biological information including cellular information. Bioinformatics is defined as the systematic development and application of information technologies and data processing techniques for collecting, analyzing and displaying data obtained by experiments, modeling, database searching, and instrumentation to make observations about biological processes.
The need for efficient data management is not limited to feature-rich cell screening systems or to cell based arrays. Virtually any instrument that runs High Throughput Screening ("RTS") assays also generate large amounts of data. For example, with the growing use of other data collection techniques such as DNA arrays, bio-chips, microscopy, micro-arrays, gel analysis, the amount of data collected, including photographic image data is also growing exponentially. As is known in the art, a "bio-chip" is a stratum with hundreds or thousands of absorbent micro-gels fixed to its surface. A single bio-chip may contain 10,000 or more micro-gels. When performing an assay test, each micro-gel on a bio-chip is like a micro-test tube or a well in a microplate. A bio-chip provides a medium for analyzing known and unknown biological (e.g., nucleotides, cells, etc.) samples in an automated, high-throughput screening system.
Although a wide variety of data collection techniques can be used, cell-based high throughput screening systems are used as an example to illustrate some of the associated data management problems encountered by virtually all high throughput screening systems. One problem with collecting feature-rich cell data is that a microplate plate used for feature-rich screening typically includes 96 to 1536 individual wells. As is known in the art, a "microplate" is a flat, shallow dish that stores multiple samples for analysis. A "well" is a small area in a microplate used to contain an individual sample for analysis. Each well may be divided into multiple fields. A "field" is a sub-region of a well that represents a field of vision (i.e., a zoom level) for a photographic microscope. Each well is typically divided into one to sixteen fields. Each field typically will have between one and six photographic images taken of it, each using a different light filter to capture a different wavelength of light for a different fluorescence response for desired cell components. In each field, a pre-determined number of cells are selected to analyze. The number of cells will vary (e.g., between ten and one hundred). For each cell, multiple cell features are collected. The cell features may include features such as size, shape, etc. of a cell. Thus, a very large amount of data is typically collected for just one well on a single microplate.
From a data volume perspective, the data to be saved for a well can be estimated by number of cell feature records collected and the number of images collected. The number of images collected can be typically estimated by: (number of wells×number of fields×images per field). The current size of an image file is approximately 512 Kilobytes ("KB") of uncompressed data. As is known in the art, a byte is 8-bits of data. The number of cell feature records can typically be estimated by: (number of wells×number of fields×cells per field×features per cell). Data collected from multiple wells on a microplate is typically formatted and stored on a computer system. The collected data is stored in format that can be used for visual presentation software, and allow for data mining and archiving using bioinformatic techniques.
For example, in a typical scenario, scanning one low density microplate with 96 wells, using four fields per well, three images per field and an image size of 512 Kbytes per image, generates about 1,152 images and about 576 megabytes ("MB") of image data (i.e., (96×4×3×512×(1 KB=1024 bytes)/(1 MB=(1024 bytes×1024 bytes))=576 MB). As is known in the art, a megabyte is 220 or 1,048,576 bytes and is commonly interpreted as "one million bytes."
If one hundred cells per field are selected with ten features per cell calculated, such a scan also generates (96×4×100×10)=288,000 cell feature records, whose data size varies with the amount of cell features collected. This results in about 12,000 MB of data being generated per day and about 60,000 MB per week, scanning the 96 well microplates twenty hours a day, five days a week.
In a high data volume scenario based on a current generation of feature-rich cell screening systems, scanning one high-density microplate with 384 wells, using sixteen fields per well, four images per field, 100 cells per field, ten features per cell, and 512 KB per image, generates about 24,576 images or about 12,288 MB of image data and about 6,144,000 cell feature records. This results in about 14,400 MB of data being generated per day and about 100,800 MB per week, scanning the 384 well microplates twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Since multiple microplates can be scanned in parallel, and multiple automated feature-rich cell screening systems can operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year, the experimental data collected may easily exceed physical storage limits for a typical computer network. For example, disk storage on a typical computer network may be in the range from about ten gigabytes ("GB") to about one-hundred GB of data storage. As is known in the art, a gigabyte is 230 bytes, or 1024 MB and is commonly interpreted as "one billion bytes."
The data storage requirements for using automated feature-rich cell screening on a conventional computer network used on a continuous basis could easily exceed a terabyte ("TB") of storage space, which is extremely expensive based on current data storage technologies. As is known in the art, one terabyte equals 240 bytes, and is commonly interpreted as "one trillion bytes." Thus, collecting and storing data from an automated feature-rich cell screening system may severely impact the operation and storage of a conventional computer network.
Another problem with feature-rich cell screening systems is even though a massive amount of cell data is collected, only a very small percentage of the total cell feature data and image data collected will ever be used for direct visual display. Nevertheless, to gather statistically relevant information about a new compound all of the cell data generated, is typically stored on a local hard disk and available for analysis. This may also severely impact a local hard disk storage.
Yet another problem is that microplate scan results information for one microplate can easily exceed about 1,000 database records per plate, and cell feature data and image data can easily exceed about 6,000,000 database records per plate. Most conventional databases used on personal computers can not easily store and manipulate such a large number of data records. In addition, waiting relatively long periods of time to open such a large database on a conventional computer personal computer to query and/or display data may severely affect the performance of a network and may quickly lead to user frustration or user dissatisfaction.
Thus, it is desirable to provide a data storage system that can be used for feature-rich screening on a continuous basis. The data storage system should provide a flexible and scalable repository of cell data that can be easily managed and allows data to be analyzed, manipulated and archived.


A processor, system, and method are described for continued retirement of operations during a commit of a speculative region of program code. For example, one embodiment of a method comprises the operations of identifying a plurality of transactional memory regions in program code, including a first transactional memory region; and retiring one or more of a plurality of operations which follow the first transactional memory region even when a commit operation associated with the first transactional memory region is waiting to complete.

Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of computer processors and software. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for continued retirement during commit of a speculative region of code.
Description of the Related Art
In prior processor architectures, the reorder buffer (ROB) was forced to stall retirement when a region commit uop was the oldest until the memory system (MEU) was prepared to commit values altered in the region. This process caused the out-of-order speculation mechanism to get "backed up" while waiting for the MEU. That is, at the time the commit operation is at the head of the ROB and ready to retire, its retirement is held back, thus preventing the ROB from retiring and speculating deeper into code subsequent to the region. Delay in the retirement of the commit causes delay in the retirement of subsequent uops, which delays releasing resources causing yet other sources of delay.

Method and apparatus for continued retirement during commit of a speculative region of code


Because the spectral characteristics of an original of a printing sheet and those of an original of a photographic image are different, in the case where the same color conversion table is applied at the time of color conversion processing, a deviation occurs in color reproducibility. By determining the sheet type with accuracy based on the feature of fiber that occurs in manufacture of paper and by applying color conversion processing in accordance with the determination result, a highly accurate color reproduction method of an image is implemented.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus for determining the type of an original and an image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A scanner is used widely, which reads a target original by irradiating the original with light from a light source, reading a reflected signal value, and forming an image. As an original a user causes a scanner to read, mention is made of various originals, such as paper on which a photo is printed, printed matter, such as a magazine and a map, and a general written original. Because of this, it becomes necessary to determine the type of an original.
For example, the problem of color reproducibility at the time of scanning various kinds of originals is widely known. The spectral sensitivity of observation by human eyes and the spectral sensitivity of a scanner reading an original do not agree with each other. Because of this, color reproduction is performed by performing color conversion processing so as to match the sensitivity of a scanner scanning an original image with the sensitivity of human eyes. However, in the case where color conversion processing is performed on originals of the same type having the same spectral characteristics, there arises no problem, but in the case where the same color conversion processing is performed on various kinds of originals having different spectral characteristics, a deviation occurs in color reproducibility.
In particular, the spectral characteristics of an original of a printing sheet, such as plain paper are quite different from those of an original of a photographic sheet, such as glossy paper, and therefore, in the case where the same conversion table is applied in color conversion processing, a large deviation occurs in color reproducibility. For example, despite having created a color conversion table that is adjusted to an original of a printing sheet, in the case where the color conversion table is applied to an original of a photographic sheet, the result of color reproduction will be that a color difference ΔE is 7 or more on average. Because of this, it is necessary to accurately discriminate between an original of a photographic sheet and an original of a printing sheet and to perform color conversion processing in accordance with the type of the original in order to prevent a deviation in color reproducibility from occurring.
As an original-type determining method, there is a method in which the surface condition of a paper surface is read and a determination is performed based on the surface roughness and the surface shape (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-042370). Specifically, by taking the depth of the surface irregularities to be a feature of the surface roughness and the period of the surface irregularities to be a feature of the surface shape, the type of an original is determined by paying attention to these features. In general, plain paper has the features that the surface irregularities are deep and the period of irregularities is short. For these features, detection of the period of irregularities by utilizing a run-length and the number of times of change, Ra measurement, and estimation of the depth of irregularities by a histogram are performed.
However, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-042370 has not taken into consideration the directional properties of fiber, etc. Further, there is a case where, for example, an original is placed in various directions with respect to an original table. Because of this, in a read image, the direction of fiber of the paper can take various directions as a result and in this case, the period of the irregularities of the paper surface may also be different depending on the direction of fiber. However, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-042370 has not taken into consideration the directional properties of fiber as described above, and therefore, there is a case where an erroneous determination of an original is caused because the run-length or the number of times of change beyond expectation is detected. In particular, an erroneous determination due to the influence of the directional properties of fiber is easily caused between coated paper and glossy paper whose features, such as the surface roughness and surface shape, are close to each other.

Image processing apparatus and image processing method specifying a type of original based on whether a high frequency component is included in an acquired spatial frequency feature including a feature of fiber of an original