Data processing: measuring – calibrating – or testing – Measurement system in a specific environment – Chemical analysis
Reexamination Certificate
2002-04-10
2004-01-20
Barlow, John (Department: 2863)
Data processing: measuring, calibrating, or testing
Measurement system in a specific environment
Chemical analysis
C430S030000, C700S121000, C702S032000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06681187
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and a device for determining composition amounts of a functional mixture, and particularly to a method and a device for determining the composition amounts of the functional mixture, which can determine composition amounts of a functional mixture composed of N components without actual preparation of the functional mixture.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following various methods have been known hitherto as methods of determining the composition amounts of a functional mixture composed of N components, in terms of composition ratios.
According to a general method, a functional mixture is actually prepared, and it is estimated for the functional mixture by some method whether or not desired functionality has been imparted to the functional mixture.
This method will be described below as it is applied to an emulsion-dispersed material, which is a kind of functional mixture.
The emulsion-dispersed material contains hydrophobic material dispersed in the form of minute oil-in-water droplets in a dispersion medium, and such is used in various fields such as photosensitive materials for photography, cosmetics, foods, chemicals, etc.
As one of the functions required of the emulsion-disperses material, it is required that the size of the minute oil-in-water droplets is prevented from increasing to a fixed value or more with the passing of time and that no over-size oil droplets are generated. The necessity of this function is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 9-131519, and this publication discloses a method of estimating the functionality of the emulsion-dispersed material by directly observing over-size oil droplets. Further, JP-A No. 10-260488 discloses a method of directly estimating the number of over-size oil droplets.
Furthermore, as an example where the functionality necessary for the emulsion-dispersed material is hindered, Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-B) No. 60-53865 discloses an observation example of deposition of a coupler (the hydrophobic material) which would have been originally dissolved in the minute oil droplets.
In order to prepare the emulsion-dispersed material such that occurrence of over-size oil droplets and deposition are prevented, it is required that the emulsion-dispersed material is actually prepared and such estimations as are carried out in the above prior art examples are carried out on the actually prepared emulsion-dispersed material to check the functionality of the emulsion-dispersed material.
Beside the above, JP-A No. 2000-89404 discloses a method of specifying solubility parameters of a hydrophobic material and a high boiling point solvent, and thus volume percentages of the hydrophobic material and the solvent that will prevent deposition of the hydrophobic material. According to this method, an emulsion-dispersed material composition which can suppress deposition can be achieved in advance.
However, in the case where many kinds of hydrophobic materials are added or the like, satisfactory prediction cannot be performed.
Further, the composition of an emulsion-dispersed material which does not deposit can be determined before preparation thereof, by applying a method for preventing the deposition of the hydrophobic material to the emulsion-dispersed material. However, it is difficult to pre-empt the occurrence of over-size oil droplets.
Beside these, JP-A No. 2000-171956 (a corresponding patent : U.S. Pat. No. 6,117,601) discloses a method of judging a treatment liquid (a kind of functional mixture) and treatment conditions for a silver halide photosensitive material, and a correction method therefor.
JP-A No. 2000-171956 discloses a method of determining a Mahalanobis distance from a group of many normal states (as expected of a functional mixture provided with functionality) to thereby judge a treatment liquid for which it is unclear whether the liquid is normal or not (i.e., it is unclear whether the liquid will have the required functionality). Further, it is disclosed that for each constituent component, the Mahalanobis distance is compared between a case where all the constituent components are contained and cases where each component is excluded, thereby detecting any constituent components that cause “non-normality”.
By the above method, the constituent components to be corrected can be specified. However, a method of determining how the constituent components should be corrected must be additionally considered.
If necessary, tests and estimations must be newly carried out, and there are cases where a correction value cannot be quickly predicted.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a method and a device by which the composition amounts of each of constituent components effecting functionality of a functional mixture, such as an emulsion-dispersed material or the like, are brought closer to correlation coefficients between respective constituent components of functional mixtures which have been previously achieved, before the functional mixture is actually prepared, and accordingly determining the composition amounts of the constituent components and imparting the functionality.
In order to attain the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided a functional mixture composition amount determining method for determining a composition amount of each of N constituent components when a functional mixture including the N constituent components is to be prepared, the method including the steps of: (1) determining a correlation matrix R having as elements correlation coefficients between composition amounts c
1
, c
2
, c
3
, . . . , c
N
of the N constituent components of each of M functional mixtures C, each functional mixture C being known in advance to have required functionality, and M being greater than N; (2) calculating a Mahalanobis distance D
2
or D for all of composition amounts u
1
, u
2
, u
3
, . . . , u
N
of the N constituent components of a functional mixture U, it being unknown whether or not the functional mixture U has the required functionality; and (3) varying the composition amount of at least one of the constituent components of the functional mixture U such that the Mahalanobis distance is reduced, and determining as a composition amount of the at least one constituent component in the functional mixture to be prepared the composition amount at which the Mahalanobis distance is reduced.
D
2
=UR
−1
U
T
(1)
U
T
represents the transposed matrix of a matrix U, the matrix U is (u
1
, u
2
u
3
, . . . , u
N
), and each composition amount c
k
of each of the M functional mixtures C and each composition amount u
k
of the functional mixture U is transformed such that, for each of the N constituent components, the average of the composition amounts of the constituent component in the M functional mixtures C and the functional mixture U is 0 and the standard deviation of the composition amounts thereof is 1.0.
Further, in order to attain the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided a functional mixture composition amount determining device for determining a composition amount of each of N constituent components when a functional mixture including the N constituent components is to be prepared, the device including: a storage component which stores at least one of a correlation matrix R having as elements the correlation coefficients between composition amounts c
1
, c
2
, c
3
, . . . , c
N
of the N constituent components of each of M functional mixtures C and the inverse matrix of the correlation matrix R, each functional mixture C being known in advance to have required functionality, and M being greater than N; a calculation component which calculates a Mahalanobis distance D
2
or D for all of composition amounts u
1
, u
2
, u
3
, . . . , u
N
of the N constituent components of a functional mixture U, it being unknown whether or not the functional mixt
Deguchi Yasuaki
Ikeda Akira
Ishii Yoshio
Okamoto Jun
Barlow John
Fuji Photo Film Co. , Ltd.
Le John
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