Abstract A quick-response liquid powder display (QR-LPD) is a favorable candidate for flexible electronic paper since it provides an affordable plastic panel fabrication. However, significant image noise is perceived on QR-LPDs. In this article, we discuss the root causes of nonuniform optical response and powder clustering. We propose an image compensation system to improve the nonuniform optical response. The experiment results show improvements in the mean-square signal-to-noise ratio of over 8.6 dB, with an average improvement of 4.6 dB.

Abstract For better understanding of air quality, ultrafine particles (UFPs) emitted from laser printers were evaluated as a function of toner coverage, printer type, potential submicrometer particle sources, and fuser units. Emission measurements were conducted using 11 printers with different fuser units from a variety of manufacturers. Particle concentrations with different fuser units and temperatures were monitored using a condensation particle counter (CPC) from the chamber. The relationship between the emission rate and the temperature of a fuser unit is very strong. The regression relationship satisfies a positive exponential-rise equation. However, only a weak positive exponential-rise relation was observed with the mixed data from four different fuser units. This is one piece of evidence that suggests that other factors play a role in laser printer fine particle/ultrafine particle emission.

Abstract Measured drop speeds from a range of industrial drop-on-demand (DoD) ink-jet print head designs scale with the predictions of very simple physical models and results of numerical simulations. The main drop/jet speeds at a specified stand-off depend on fluid properties, nozzle exit diameter, and print head drive amplitude for fixed waveform timescales. Drop speeds from the Xaar, Spectra Dimatix, and MicroFab DoD print heads tested with (i) Newtonian, (ii) weakly elastic, and (iii) highly shear-thinning fluids all show a characteristic linear rise with drive voltage (setting) above an apparent threshold drive voltage. Jetting, simple modeling approaches, and numerical simulations of Newtonian fluids over the typical DoD printing range of surface tensions and viscosities were studied to determine how this threshold drive value and the slope of the characteristic linear rise depend on these fluid properties and nozzle exit area. The final speed is inversely proportional to the nozzle exit area, as expected from volume conservation. These results should assist specialist users in the development and optimization of DoD applications and print head design. For a given density, the drive threshold is determined primarily by viscosity η, and the constant of proportionality k linking speed with drive above a drive threshold becomes independent of viscosity and surface tension for more viscous DoD fluid jetting: <disp-formula id="jist4738ueqn1"> <mml:math overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>F</mml:mi> <mml:mi>i</mml:mi> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> <mml:mi>a</mml:mi> <mml:mi>l</mml:mi> <mml:mo>_</mml:mo> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mi>e</mml:mi> <mml:mi>e</mml:mi> <mml:mi>d</mml:mi> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mi>k</mml:mi> <mml:mo>×</mml:mo> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>D</mml:mi> <mml:mi>r</mml:mi> <mml:mi>i</mml:mi> <mml:mi>v</mml:mi> <mml:mi>e</mml:mi> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mi>D</mml:mi> <mml:mi>r</mml:mi> <mml:mi>i</mml:mi> <mml:mi>v</mml:mi> <mml:mi>e</mml:mi> <mml:mo>_</mml:mo> <mml:mi>T</mml:mi> <mml:mi>h</mml:mi> <mml:mi>r</mml:mi> <mml:mi>e</mml:mi> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> <mml:mi>h</mml:mi> <mml:mi>o</mml:mi> <mml:mi>l</mml:mi> <mml:mi>d</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mo>)</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mo>)</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mo>/</mml:mo> <mml:mi>N</mml:mi> <mml:mi>o</mml:mi> <mml:mi>z</mml:mi> <mml:mi>z</mml:mi> <mml:mi>l</mml:mi> <mml:mi>e</mml:mi> <mml:mo>_</mml:mo> <mml:mi>E</mml:mi> <mml:mi>x</mml:mi> <mml:mi>i</mml:mi> <mml:mi>t</mml:mi> <mml:mo>_</mml:mo> <mml:mi>A</mml:mi> <mml:mi>r</mml:mi> <mml:mi>e</mml:mi> <mml:mi>a</mml:mi> </mml:math> </disp-formula>

Abstract Novel ester acetal polymers were synthesized by the polymerization reaction of aromatic dicarboxylic acids with 1,4-cyclohexanedimethanol divinyl ether in organic solvent under heating. The obtained polymers show good solubilities in common organic solvents and high thermal stability. The number-average molecular weights of the ester acetal polymers range from 5000 to 7000 with M _w /M _n of 2.0‐3.0. The polymers can undergo acidolytic reaction rapidly at room temperature or at a slightly higher temperature. By making use of the high acidolytic activity of the ester acetal polymers, new imaging materials can be developed for thermal sensitive plates in computer-to-plate (CTP) and UV-CTP applications.

Abstract The real world abounds with textured surfaces. Texture-based object segmentation is one of the early steps towards identification of surfaces and objects in an image. In this article, a feature-based segmentation (FBS) method is provided to isolate objects that consist of similar texture patterns from an image based on the following features: inverse difference moment of gray-level co-occurrence matrix, contrast of Tamura, and gradient. In this article, a genetic algorithm is also provided to decide the most suitable values of the parameters used in the FBS method. The experimental results show that the FBS method can provide expressive segmentation results.

Abstract Hiroshima (1958) and Children of Chikuho (1960) are photographic books expressing the essence of photographer Ken Domon. These two photographic books share the common characteristic of recording an era. However, there are major differences in the printing quality and book design between the two books. Hiroshima is a hardcover B4-size book of overall good quality (retail price: 2300 yen), whereas Children of Chikuho has the same level of quality and design as the B5-size weekly magazines printed at the time the photographic book was published (retail price: 100 yen). This study discusses the influence that the quality and design of photographic books have on the impression that their contents make on viewers and the generation dependence of such photographic books. The authors prepared a version of Children of Chikuho at the same quality and design level as Hiroshima and a version of Hiroshima at the same level as Children of Chikuho. The impressions conveyed by these two photographic book versions in addition to the original photographic books were examined using the semantic differential (SD) method. The results verify that the quality and binding of the photographic books play a vital role in effectively conveying the main themes of Hiroshima (“impact/shock”) and Children of Chikuho (“poverty”). Moreover, the results show that younger generations are strongly influenced by quality, whereas older generations are not; rather, the older generations have a strong tendency to try to grasp the essence of the photography collection.

Abstract Segmentation of tumors in medical images is not only of high interest in serial treatment monitoring of “disease burden” in oncologic imaging, but is also gaining popularity with the advance of image guided surgical approaches. Magnetic resonance images are widely used in the diagnosis of brain tumors. In this article, an automatic tumor detection and classification system is presented, which focuses on the structural study on both tumorous and normal tissue. The proposed system consists of the following steps: (i) pre-processing, (ii) feature extraction using an enhanced texton co-occurrence matrix and (iii) classification. In classification, a fuzzy logic based support vector machine is used to classify the experimental images into normal and abnormal. The obtained experimental results show that the proposed brain tumor detection approach is more robust than other neural network based classifiers, feed forward neural network and radial basis function, in terms of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy.