In the preparation of the AgX/[AgO₂CR]₂ components that are used in photothermographic imaging films, where X = Br or Cl and R = linear alkyl chain, the reaction of silver ions with sodium fatty acid salts produces various silver soap structures containing different interface properties, depending on the starting silver ion source. Use of pre-prepared silver bromide microcrystals and silver nitrate, for example, has been shown to produce a AgBr/[AgO₂CR]₂ epitaxial interface. Conversely, we now find that silver chloride can be reacted directly with NaO₂CR to prepare a [Ag(O₂C_nH_2n−1)]₂ product without needing to add silver nitrate. In this article we report the results of our continuing investigation, by TEM and X-ray diffraction, of the nature of the interface formed between prepared silver halides and [AgO₂CR]₂.

Syntheses and technology for preparation of cyan toner for dual component development by means of a suspension polymerization method is described. In this study, the organic phase, containing styrene monomer, n-butylacrylate, divinylbenzene, azo-bis-diisobutyronitrile, paraffin and Phthalocyanine Blue, was first dispersed into the aqueous phase, containing polyvinyl alcohol and sodium dodecylsulfate as suspension dispersants. Then dispersion was performed by a rotor-stator homogenizer, and subsequently the dispersion system was transferred to a three-orifice flask with a paddle stirring blade, where the polymerization reaction occurred. Correlations between amount of crosslinking agent and molecular weight of insoluble proportion in toners, and between gel content and some rheological behavior, such as viscous ? ow temperature, and melt index are discussed. Effects of Phthalocyanine Blue on charge-to-mass ratio and the interaction between resin in toners and Phthalocyanine Blue were studied. It was suggested that gel formation rather than increasing the molecular weight of the insoluble portion of the toner resulted in a change in rheological behavior according to the measured data of gel content, GPC, DSC, softening point and melt index. The Phthalocyanine Blue cause a notable increase in charge-to-mass ratio. The related infrared spectra suggested that the interactions between Phthalocyanine Blue T and resin mainly involved physical forces.

Use of electrophotographic techniques to digitally produce images on textiles and non-planar substrates can be accomplished if the adhesion forces between the toner and the photoconductor are sufficiently reduced and/or that the forces between the toner to the receiver are greater than those adhering the toner to the photoconductor.

A laboratory simulation technique that is able to study in situ drying of ink jet printed ink drops and to predict results of ink jet printing on a given substrate before mass production has been developed. The technique includes drop formation (ink jetting), imaging, and data processing. The imaging and data processing parts of the system also enable analyzing industrially-printed materials. A possibility to predict mass production results using less then 1 ml of ink is demonstrated. High flexibility makes the system applicable for different optimization tasks such as ink-substrate matching, ink formulation optimization, drying technology development, etc. By analyzing different quality parameters we give a rigorous definition of roundness and show its importance in evaluating print quality.

An iterative region growing algorithm for segmentation within the chromatin of ovarian cells is presented. The growing procedure starts with small seed regions that are relatively easier to segment accurately by an intensity thresholding process. In each of the iterations, the growth decision is made based on whether a given test is passed. The growth test is set to pass more easily in the first iterations when the intensities are low and the gradients are high. As the region grows, the test gradually becomes more difficult to pass. The growth stops when it reaches the boundaries where the pixel intensities are high and the gradients decrease to zero. To reduce the noise effects that may interrupt the region growth, a preprocessing median filter is applied to smooth the original image and suppress the image noise. Results are demonstrated on ovarian cells.

This article proposes an illuminant estimation algorithm that estimates the spectral power distribution of an incident light source using its chromaticity determined based on the perceived illumination and highlight region. The proposed algorithm is composed of three steps. First, the illuminant chromaticity of the global incident light is estimated using a hybrid method that combines the perceived illumination and highlight region. Second, the surface spectral reflectance is then recovered from the image after decoupling the global incident illuminant for each channel. The surface spectral reflectance calculation is limited to the MAR (maximum achromatic region), which is the most achromatic and brightest region in the image, and estimated using the PCA (principal component analysis) method along with a set of given Munsell samples. Third, the closest colors are selected from a spectral database composed of reflected-lights generated by the given Munsell samples and a set of illuminants. Finally, the illuminant of the image is calculated using the average spectral distributions of the reflected-lights selected for the MAR region and its average surface reflectance. Experimental results confirmed the accuracy of the estimates produced by the proposed method for various illuminants.

This article proposes a halftoning method using dispersed CMY dithering with blue noise masks (BNM) to print CMY dots instead of black (K) dots in a bright gray region in a black-and-white (B/W) image. To reduce high granularity in a bright region, dispersed CMY dots using a BNM instead of K dots are spatially assigned to a bright region. First, a threshold is determined to avoid the granularity caused by K dots. Below this threshold, the image made by the BNM is composed of CMYK dots, whereas above the threshold, a dispersed CMY image is made from mutually exclusive C, M, and Y patterns, defined by the stacking constraint of the BNM. To make mutually exclusive C, M, and Y patterns, modified jointly-blue noise masks (MJBNMs) are generated for a grayscale image. As a result of processing a grayscale image, the low-pass filtered error for single and triple patterns where the three mask patterns overlap is minimized. As such, single and triple patterns are used. Experiments demonstrated that the bright regions produced by the proposed method were uniform and sufficiently pleasing when compared to conventional results.

An experimental analysis of Floyd—Steinberg and clustered dot halftones printed with both cyan and black toner on both 300 dpi and 600 dpi laser electrophotographic printers. The printed halftone ramps were measured as reflectance, R, versus coverage of toner, C in units of mass/area. Gravimetric analysis was used to measure coverage. Rather than modeling tone reproduction as a bilevel model of discrete dots on paper, the images were modeled as contiguous layers of colorant on paper. Both the Beer—Lambert and Kubelka—Munk laws were applied. Just as ideal bilevel halftone models require significant modifications to fit experimental data, so too were modifications of the continuous tone model required. The ideal continuous tone model tended to over-compensate for the traditional halftone corrections called “dot-gain”. Thus, the corrections applied to the continuous tone model were called ink “anti-gain” to emphasize the analogy with bilevel models. The resulting corrections resulted in reasonably good agreement between the model and the data. Moreover, exploring some of the characteristics of the model indicated a reasonable physical interpretation of the corrections that were applied.