A position measurement system for precision alignment of roll-to-roll printing and sensitivity analysis of thermal deformation

Roll-to-roll processing in the field of printed electronics is the process of creating electronic circuits or devices on a roll of flexible plastic or metal foil, and it can be used in the manufacture of many products, such as RFID tags, solar cells, and flexible display panels, at a much lower cost than that in the semiconductor lithography process. This process is also more efficient in producing electronic devices in a large volume than semiconductor lithography. As with lithography, roll-to-roll processing also needs to achieve accurate layer-to-layer alignment in fabricating multi-layered circuits or devices. This alignment precision, in fact, is a critical factor in determining the integration and performance of printed electronics. In other words, it is essential to achieve highly precise alignment in roll-to-roll printing for the full commercialization of printed electronics. To that end, this study proposes an alignment pattern that is directly printed on a web as a solution that can enhance the alignment precision in roll-to-roll printing. Based on this, the study also proposes a web position measurement system using optical measurement instruments and verifies its applicability and reliability. Considering the fact that tension on the web and heat generated in the process of curing may deform the web, we conducted experiments and simulations to analyze the measurement sensitivity when the web is actually deformed and we present the results of the study.     

CLELIA: a multi-agent system for publishing printed and electronic media

This paper describes a multi-agent system (MAS) for automatic publication of information in both printed and electronic media. The main objective is to have a document ready to be displayed (and printed) at every stage of the workflow. This is accomplished by replacing the traditional human role of page editing by a multi-agent system composed of three different agent roles (section, page and element). Key aspects such as page aesthetics or readability are handled by using artificial intelligence techniques such as neural networks, genetic algorithms and fuzzy logic. The theoretical foundations of this system are discussed and an example of implementation using an external toolkit is described.     

ASTER—Towards Modality-Independent Electronic Documents

The advent of electronic documents and the consequent creation of digital libraries—vast repositories of electronic information—has a profound impact on how we produce, organize, store, retrieve and consume information. All of these activities have been dictated to the present by the technologies used to share information. A change in the underlying technology, namely, the move from paper to electronic documents, offers a unique opportunity to revolutionize how information is archived and disseminated. This paper will focus on a specific aspect of the opportunities opened up by electronic publishing on the NII—the ability to present information in multiple modalities and thereby free it from any single presentation medium.Traditional printed communication relies on a passive intermediary, paper, for the exchange of information between the author and reader. Ideas put down on paper come back to life only when perused by the reader.Electronic publishing is mediated by a computer, an agent capable of processing the information. As a consequence, the ideas expressed by an author need no longer be bound to any single display form; nor does it require human intervention to translate the information from one displayed form to another. Electronic information can be processed and displayed in a manner best suited to each individual's needs. Thus, the advent of electronic documents makes information available in more than its visual form—electronic information can now be display-independent.Traditionally, an electronic document has been viewed simply as digitally representing (or the means towards producing) the printed page. Instead, we view the electronic document as the basic entity that represents information; we allow the information to be rendered in different ways—on paper, spoken, processed in different ways by a computer, etc. This change of viewpoint has allowed us to develop ASTER (Audio System For Technical Readings) a computing system that audio formats electronic documents to produce audio documents. ASTER can speak both literary texts and highly technical documents that contain complex mathematics. Moreover, the listener can ask to have parts of a document repeated in different ways: a document has many different spoken views.The adequacy of the audio rendering depends on how well the electronic document captures the essential internal structure of the information. In this paper, we discuss capturing structure and give guidelines for authors to follow to ensure that their documents exhibit structure adequately.In the context of the NII, the digital libraries of the future can be viewed as large information servers that allow multiple clients to access and display information in a format chosen by the user. By obviating the need to move physical media, e.g., printed paper or recorded tapes, the NII enables the ready dissemination of multimodal renderings of information.     

Breakdowns in writing intentions when simultaneously deploying SGML-marked texts in hard copy and electronic copy

Many writers of technical documentation must consider two different presentation media, namely traditional printed books and electronic forms. This appears to be a long-term situation, not a transitional phase: for some reading tasks, hard copy will be preferred, but for others, electronic copy will be preferred. In some settings, it is thus necessary to prepare material that is of high quality in both media, often with the constraint that a single source file be used. The problem is to specify the structure of a text so that whether it is printed or deployed electronically, neither version contains textual problems caused by its dual role. Several examples are presented to show how a writer's structuring intentions can be effective in hard copy but not in electronic copy. The difficulty of preserving structuring intentions in both media stems from declarative markup languages that are rhetorically impoverished. While standard markup languages can be used to specify what text elements comprise a text, they cannot be used to specify the intended roles of the text elements. To preserve structuring intentions, it is proposed that a rhetorical markup language is needed. Two potential advantages of such a language are improved media-transferabitity and improved visibility of text structure.     

Research directions for user interface software tools

Abstract

Many writers of technical documentation must consider two different presentation media, namely traditional printed books and electronic forms. This appears to be a long-term situation, not a transitional phase: for some reading tasks, hard copy will be preferred, but for others, electronic copy will be preferred. In some settings, it is thus necessary to prepare material that is of high quality in both media, often with the constraint that a single source file be used. The problem is to specify the structure of a text so that whether it is printed or deployed electronically, neither version contains textual problems caused by its dual role. Several examples are presented to show how a writer's structuring intentions can be effective in hard copy but not in electronic copy. The difficulty of preserving structuring intentions in both media stems from declarative markup languages that are rhetorically impoverished. While standard markup languages can be used to specify what text elements comprise a text, they cannot be used to specify the intended roles of the text elements. To preserve structuring intentions, it is proposed that a rhetorical markup language is needed. Two potential advantages of such a language are improved media-transferabitity and improved visibility of text structure.     

The electronic business card: an experiment in half-dead hypertext

Abstract

Half-dead hypertext has links where the user has to do some work to retrieve the destination nodes (for example mount a CD-ROM or send an email message). Also, response times may be so slow that users do not have the normal hypertext feeling of freely navigating an information space. This is in contrast to normal live hypertext where the nodes appear immediately upon activation of a link anchor and dead hypertext where the links are simple cross-references to material that is not available on the computer and thus cannot be retrieved at all. Half-dead hypertext can be used in cases where live links are technically difficult or impossible to support. One example is the electronic business card, which is a link to further information about its owner. Electronic business cards can be transmitted between personal digital assistants and will allow the recipient to link to much more extensive information than can be transmitted and stored on a PDA platform. Also, electronic business card links can be printed in brochures, research papers, and other non-electronic media from which access to the server can be made with human intervention.     

Optical Watermarking for Printed Document Authentication

This article describes a novel visual information concealment technique, referred to as optical watermarking, for the authentication of original printed documents. An optical watermark is a two-dimensional binary image. It can be of any shape and can be printed on any part of a document. The optical watermark is constructed by the superposition of multiple two-dimensional binary images (referred to as layers), each with different carrier structural patterns embedding various hidden information. The hidden information is embedded into each layer using phase modulation. Based on properties of the human visual system and modulation principle, the hidden information becomes visible to the human eyes only when a right "key" is positioned on top of the optical watermark with the right alignment. Here, "keys" play the similar role as keys in encryption, that is, to decode hidden information. Thus, with such a "lock and key" approach, it greatly improves the security level of the optical watermark. In addition, the multiple layer structure of the optical watermark makes it extremely robust against reverse engineering attacks. Due to its high security and tight link with electronic document systems, which requires documents to be finally printed on paper, the optical watermark has been applied to various electronic document systems. These are online ticketing, online bill of lading, and remote signing and printing of documents, where critical and unique information are embedded in watermarks and printed together with individual documents for future authentication. It has also been used in offline and traditional antiforgery applications, such as brand protection, preprinted high-value tickets, and identification documents     

基于IMAQ的印刷电路板电子元件缺件检测

提出了基于IMAQ Vision Assistant的印刷电路板上电子元件缺件检测方法。该方法首先对被检测的印刷电路板图像进行校正,然后主要利用IMAQ Vision Assistant的模板匹配函数实现对印刷电路板上电子元件缺件的检测。文中给出了应用实例,结果表明该方法能有效地检测出印刷电路板上电子元件缺件缺陷。     

Virtual Objects in Electronic Catalogs: A Human–Computer Interface Issue

Web interface design is an important aspect of electronic commerce (EC). However, apart from design frameworks and guidelines for web-based EC, not much has been done by researchers or practitioners on how electronic catalogs (e-catalogs) influence the users' desirability and satisfaction as purchasers. In this correspondence, we investigate the form of media that represented the most efficient mode to present products to web users by summarizing and evaluating various existing forms of e-catalogs and their respective responses from web users. We conclude that a 3-D virtual object (VO) is the most efficient mode of electronic cataloging for Web interface due to a better sense of presence of users, a more attractive and enjoyable media of delivery of useful information to users, and a higher level of engagement of user's memory. A 3-D VO, as a result, generates the highest users' satisfaction, which leads to increased propensity to purchase. Further, we discuss the practical and theoretical research implications of these findings to e-catalogs.     

基于控件和XML的可定制软件开发方案

为降低软件维护上的难度，适应不断变化的用户需求，提出了一种基于控件和XML配置技术的可定制的软件开发方案，一定程度上解决了面向Windows应用程序的可定制问题。该方案利用XML存储软件设计中的关键信息，将部分设计信息与开发平台分离，降低了和其它模块的耦合度，使得使用该方案开发的软件系统具有较高的可扩展性。该方案已经在一个电子元器件库存系统和一款印刷电路板的设置软件上得以应用。     

Multi-sensor recognition of electronic components

The Dempster-Shafer theory and the convex Bayesian theory have recently been proposed as alternatives to the (strict) Bayesian theory in the field of reasoning with uncertainty. These relatively new formalisms claim that missing information in the probabilistic model of a process not necessarily disables uncertainty reasoning. However, this paper shows that this does not apply to processes where the reasoning is part of a decision-making process, such as object recognition. In these cases, a complete probabilistic model is required and can be obtained by estimating missing probabilistic information. An examplary approach towards the estimation of uncertain probabilistic information is described in this paper for a multi-sensor system for recognition of electronic components on printed circuit boards. Received: 21 June 1998 / Accepted: 23 May 2000     

User perceptions and expectations of an information retrieval system

Performance measures are frequently used to evaluate user friendliness of a system. An equally important, but often overlooked factor is the users' attitudes towards a system. A prototype interface for information retrieval was developed for presenting engineering manuals online. It was tested on a representative sample of the intended end user community. We found that subjects' expectations were based on their experience with printed materials and other computer systems. Familiar search mechanisms (e.g., table of contents, index) were important for getting them started, even though they switched to other mechanisms as they gained more experience with the system. The fact that the index was more detailed than the one in the printed manual was seen by the subjects as critical for speedy and efficient information retrieval. Keyword search of the database was generally the preferred retrieval mechanism. However, some users preferred the index. The 'Table of Contents' which was a tree structured menu based system was found to be of limited use in the electronic medium, in contrast to the printed manual.     

Possible Changes in Logistic Chain Relationships Due to Internet Developments

For many years EDI was considered as costly but excellent for quick and safe exchange of trade information in freight transport operations. Today Internet settlement suggests different business possibilities, in many ways complementary to EDI. For the last couple of years, we can observe that thr Internet is becoming a pervasive technique. Large transport firms are now have a presence on the WEB, and propose direct services through this media. Also most of them use Intranet for their electronic links between their main trade partners. Individuals already apply to the Internet for electronic commerce. However a problem still remains: the gap due to the SMEs which are numerous along the logistic chain. In this paper, we will first explain the gap in the IT use by small transport firms, secondly we will present the use of information technologies in the transport logistics field. Then we will present the new way of indermediation in the transport and logistic, and we will finish by discussing how the role of these concerns would be modified by Internet/Intranet.     

浅析智能语音技术

随着计算机技术、电子技术、多媒体技术以及人工智能的不断发展,语音技术作为一种新的信息传递媒介逐渐被计算机产品或其它的电子产品所使用,以用作新的人机接口。这种新的信息传递方式比传统的信息输入输出方式更加灵活、快捷和方便,因此语音编码取代字符编码成为信息的主要传递元素将成为信息技术发展的必然趋势。     

浅析智能语音技术

随着计算机技术、电子技术、多媒体技术以及人工智能的不断发展，语音技术作为一种新的信息传递媒介逐渐被计算机产品或其它的电子产品所使用，以用作新的人机接口：这种新的信息传递方式比传统的信息输入输出方式更加灵活、快捷和方便．因此语音编码取代字符编码成为信息的主要传递元素将成为信息技术发展的必然趋势。     

User perceptions and expectations of an information retrieval system

Abstract

Performance measures are frequently used to evaluate user friendliness of a system. An equally important, but often overlooked factor is the users' attitudes towards a system. A prototype interface for information retrieval was developed for presenting engineering manuals online. It was tested on a representative sample of the intended end user community. We found that subjects' expectations were based on their experience with printed materials and other computer systems. Familiar search mechanisms (e.g., table of contents, index) were important for getting them started, even though they switched to other mechanisms as they gained more experience with the system. The fact that the index was more detailed than the one in the printed manual was seen by the subjects as critical for speedy and efficient information retrieval. Keyword search of the database was generally the preferred retrieval mechanism. However, some users preferred the index. The ‘Table of Contents’ which was a tree structured menu based system was found to be of limited use in the electronic medium, in contrast to the printed manual.     

The use of collaborative electronic media for information sharing: an exploratory study of determinants

This article reports an exploratory investigation of individual perceptions of factors that underlie the use of collaborative electronic media (electronic mail, World Wide Web, list serves, and other collaborative systems) for sharing information in a large state university in Australia. The model builds on the Constant et al.'s theory of information sharing. We propose that perceptions of information culture, attitudes regarding information ownership and propensity to share, as well as task and personal factors influence people's use of collaborative media. We found that task characteristics (task interdependence), perceived information usefulness and the user's computer comfort were most strongly associated with the person's use of collaborative media. Consistent with Constant et al.'s earlier findings, views of information ownership and propensity to share were significantly related to use. Interestingly, use of electronic media for sharing information and contacting people was weakly associated with a more structured, closed information culture. This implies that heavy users and sharers want more structured information flow in place, possibly due to their need to have reliable access to other individual's knowledge and information. Contrary to suggestions in the literature, a fully open, organic information culture may not always be most desirable. Implications for knowledge managers, practitioners and researchers are suggested.     

Table form document analysis based on the document structure grammar

Structure analysis of table form documents is an important issue because a printed document and even an electronic document do not provide logical structural information but merely geometrical layout and lexical information. To handle these documents automatically, logical structure information is necessary. In this paper, we first analyze the elements of the form documents from a communication point of view and retrieve the grammatical elements that appear in them. Then, we present a document structure grammar which governs the logical structure of the form documents. Finally, we propose a structure analysis system of the table form documents based on the grammar. By using grammar notation, we can easily modify and keep it consistent, as the rules are relatively simple. Another advantage of using grammar notation is that it can be used for generating documents only from logical structure. In our system, documents are assumed to be composed of a set of boxes and they are classified as seven box types. Then the box relations between the indication box and its associated entry box are analyzed based on the semantic and geometric knowledge defined in the document structure grammar. Experimental results have shown that the system successfully analyzed several kinds of table forms.