Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Tatsuya Inagaki

Toru Matsuda

Kurt W Piersol

Kiyoshi Suzuki

Takashi Yoshikawa

Hideyuki Watanabe

Teruyuki Maruyama

Masayoshi Miyamoto

Akio Urabe

Tatsuo Miyachi

Yuichi Araumi

Shinsuke Teramura

Hiroyuki Kinbara

Tomoharu Kaneko

A communication system and communication apparatus that can improve the stability and security of communication. In this communication system, a communication apparatus () generates, at a predetermined interval, a keep-alive message based on key information stored in a key information database part () and transmits the keep-alive message to a communication apparatus (). The communication apparatus () receives the keep-alive message from the communication apparatus (), and a key information updating part () updates (for example, corrects), based on this keep-alive message, the data stored in a key information database part (). In this way, the information stored in the communication apparatus () and the information stored in the communication apparatus () can be made common, and problems, such as a communication interruption, caused by disagreement between the information stored in the communication apparatus () and the information stored in the communication apparatus () can be solved, resulting in improvement of the stability and security of communication between the two communication apparatuses.

Communication system and communication apparatus

A dynamically configurable network architecture comprising networked office appliances which provide network addressing, network naming, service discovery, and user identification in one system. The network architecture provides automatic configuration services for unadministered networks while being automatically adaptable within administered environments.

Method and apparatus for automatic network configuration

In a data transmission apparatus and method of the present invention, a specific operator ID for an operator who uses a data processing device to process image data to be copied or transmitted, is selected. Specific owner IDs for owners who are authorized to access the image data, are selected. User identification data, inclusive of all operator IDs and owner IDs correlated to the data processing device, are stored in a storage device each time image data is captured by the data processing device. Allocation of the stored user identification data to each of the image data is managed by reading items of the user identification data from the storage device in response to the selections of the specific operator ID and the specific owner IDs and displaying the user identification data items.

Data transmission apparatus and method for management of user identification data allocated to image data

A potential estimation apparatus estimates a potential of a photosensitive body of an image forming apparatus that carries out an electro-photography process using the photosensitive body. The potential estimation apparatus includes a sensor group for sensing and outputting data related to information which affects the electro-photography process, a storage unit for at least storing the data output from the sensor group and information related to charge of the photosensitive body, and an estimation circuit including a neural network for estimating a charged portion potential of the photosensitive body based on a charge retentivity of the photosensitive body learned by the neural network. The neural network in a learning mode receives at least one of the data output from the sensor group and time-sequentially sampled, and parameters which affect the charge retentivity of the photosensitive body as an input, and receives as a teaching value a charged portion potential which is obtained in advance with respect to at least an amount of charge and the charge retentivity of the photosensitive body.

Potential estimating apparatus using a plurality of neural networks for

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Ito, Japan

Tatsuya Inagaki