Minolta Company, Ltd.

Dowa Mining Co., Ltd.

Hiroshi Miura

Kishio Tayama

Takashi Ohgami

Hideaki Kusano

A high purity silver wire for use in recording, acoustic or image transmission applications. The high purity silver wire is made of high purity silver containing sulfur, iron, copper, palladium, gold and lead impurities in an amount such that no one of the sulfur, iron, copper, palladium, gold and lead impurities individually exceeds 0.5 ppmw, and wherein all other impurities are present in a total amount of less than 1 ppmw.

High-purity silver wires for use in recording, acoustic or image transmission applications

An apparatus for producing a high-purity silver material. The apparatus includes an electric furnace. The electric furnace has an outer cylinder which encloses an inner cylinder. The outer cylinder is capable of being evacuated with a vacuum pump. A recovery mold is disposed within the inner cylinder. An aspiration table is connected to a central portion of the recovery mold. A feed crucible is disposed above the recovery mold and is connected to the aspiration table. A cooling trap is disposed below the recovery mold. A water-cooling flange is disposed below the cooling mold.

Apparatus for producing high-purity silver materials

A process for producing a high-purity silver material comprising placing a silver feed in a crucible disposed in a furnace comprising an inner cylinder which encloses the crucible and an outer cylinder which encloses the inner cylinder; heating the silver feed at a temperature not lower than 1065&deg; C. and at a pressure not higher than 0.1 Pa such that the silver evaporates and condenses on the ceiling of the inner cylinder to yield silver particles; and collecting silver particles in a recovery mold disposed beneath the crucible and within the inner cylinder, such that gold, copper and other impurities having a lower vapor pressure than silver remain within the crucible, whereas sulfur, sodium and the other impurities having a higher vapor pressure than silver are withdrawn by a vacuum pump and are then introduced into a cooling trap disposed beneath the recovery mold, such that the higher vapor pressure impurities are solidified in the cooling trap.

Process for producing high-purity silver materials

In an image reading method which executes a prescan to obtain optimum reading parameters for a main scan prior to a main scan for reading a document image, a document image is read by illuminating the document image by a specific exposure amount for the prescan and reading the document thereby, detecting the density of the document, and determining the exposure amount for illuminating said document in a main scan in accordance with the detected document density, and determining a wait time to delay the start of the main scan in accordance with the determined exposure amount of the main scan, then starting the reading of the document in a main scan after waiting the determined wait period.

Image scanner

This invention realizes synthesis of an image of an original document (an original image) with a separate image composed of a row of characters. The possibility that the original image and the separate image will overlap each other when the original image is printed on a sheet is precluded by the present invention using a procedure which comprises comparing the size of the sheet with the size of the original image (size of sheet&gt; size of original image) and shifting (adjusting) the position for printing the original image or, when necessary, further contracting the original image or the separate image so that the separate image may be contained by way of synthesis in the part of a margin of the sheet appearing as the difference between the size of the sheet and the size of the original image prior to the printing of the original image on the sheet.

Image reading apparatus

This invention realizes synthesis of an image of an original document (an original image) with a separate image composed of a row of characters. The possibility that the original image and the separate image will overlap each other when the original image is printed on a sheet is precluded by the present invention using a procedure which comprises comparing the size of the sheet with the size of the original image (size of sheet&gt;size of original image) and shifting (adjusting) the position for printing the original image or, when necessary, further contracting the original image or the separate image so that the separate image may be contained by way of synthesis in the part of a margin of the sheet appearing as the difference between the size of the sheet and the size of the original image prior to the printing of the original image on the sheet.

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Hiroshi Miura