阅读说明：本技术 耗材残留信息的消除方法、装置、电子设备及存储介质 (Method and device for eliminating consumable residual information, electronic equipment and storage medium ) 是由 马永刚 袁兆祯 田俊杰 蒋志 胡玲 陈宙 孙欣 于 2021-09-16 设计创作，主要内容包括：本申请实施例提供一种耗材残留信息的消除方法、装置、电子设备及存储介质,涉及打印设备技术领域。该耗材残留信息的消除方法包括：获取耗材在打印后的残留信息长度数据,所述耗材包括碳带或色带；根据所述残留信息长度数据将所述耗材移动至打印机的打印位置；根据预设图样数据在所述耗材打印,以消除所述耗材上的残留信息。该耗材残留信息的消除方法,打印机无需改动或新增结构即可消除耗材打印后的残留信息,可以实现降低成本、提高打印效率的技术效果。(The embodiment of the application provides a method and a device for eliminating consumable residual information, electronic equipment and a storage medium, and relates to the technical field of printing equipment. The method for eliminating the consumable residual information comprises the following steps: acquiring residual information length data of consumables after printing, wherein the consumables comprise carbon ribbons or color ribbons; moving the consumable to a printing position of a printer according to the residual information length data; printing on the consumable according to preset pattern data to eliminate residual information on the consumable. According to the method for eliminating the consumable residual information, the printer can eliminate the residual information after the consumable printing without changing or adding a new structure, and the technical effects of reducing the cost and improving the printing efficiency can be achieved.)

1. A method for eliminating consumable residual information is applied to a printer, and the method comprises the following steps:

acquiring residual information length data of consumables after printing, wherein the consumables comprise carbon ribbons or color ribbons;

moving the consumable to a printing position of a printer according to the residual information length data;

printing on the consumable according to preset pattern data to eliminate residual information on the consumable.

2. The method for eliminating consumable residual information according to claim 1, wherein after the step of acquiring the residual information length data of the consumable after printing, the method further comprises:

and acquiring residual position data of the residual information on the consumable according to the residual information length data.

3. The method for eliminating consumable remaining information according to claim 2, wherein the step of moving the consumable to a printing position of a printer according to the length data comprises:

and moving the consumable to a printing position of a printer according to the residual position data.

4. The method for eliminating the residual information of the consumable according to claim 1, wherein the preset pattern data comprises a first preset printing pattern and a second preset printing pattern, and the step of printing on the consumable according to the preset pattern data to eliminate the residual information on the consumable comprises:

printing the consumable according to the first preset printing pattern to obtain a primary elimination consumable;

printing the primary elimination consumable material according to the second preset printing pattern.

5. An apparatus for eliminating residual information of consumable, comprising:

the acquisition module is used for acquiring the residual information length data of consumables after printing, wherein the consumables comprise carbon ribbons or color ribbons;

the moving module is used for moving the consumable to the printing position of a printer according to the residual information length data;

and the printing module is used for printing the consumable according to preset pattern data so as to eliminate residual information on the consumable.

6. The apparatus for eliminating residual information of consumable parts according to claim 5, wherein the acquiring module is further configured to acquire residual position data of the residual information on the consumable part according to the length data of the residual information.

7. The apparatus for eliminating consumable remaining information according to claim 6, wherein the moving module is further configured to move the consumable to a printing position of a printer according to the remaining position data.

8. The apparatus for eliminating residual information of consumables according to claim 5, wherein the preset pattern data includes a first preset print pattern and a second preset print pattern, and the print module includes:

the first printing unit is used for printing the consumables according to the first preset printing pattern to obtain primary elimination consumables;

and the second printing unit is used for printing the primary elimination consumables according to the second preset printing pattern.

9. An electronic device, comprising: memory, processor and computer program stored in said memory and executable on said processor, said processor implementing the steps of the method for eliminating consumable residual information according to any one of claims 1 to 4 when executing said computer program.

10. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to execute the method of eliminating consumable residual information according to any one of claims 1 to 4.

Technical Field

The application relates to the technical field of printing equipment, in particular to a method and a device for eliminating consumable residual information, electronic equipment and a storage medium.

Background

At present, a thermal transfer printer is a printer using a thermal transfer technology, and is increasingly widely applied. The ink types are classified into a hot-pressing transfer type and a thermal sublimation transfer type; the articles to be transferred are classified into fabrics, plastics (plates, sheets, films), ceramics, metal-coated plates, and the like; the printing modes can be classified into screen printing, flat printing, gravure printing, letterpress printing, ink jet printing, ribbon printing and the like; thermal transfer paper, thermal transfer plastic film, and the like are classified from a printing material.

In the prior art, a thermal transfer printer comprises printer consumables, a printed medium, a printer head and other parts, and printing information remains on the printer consumables after printing; the existing thermal transfer printer generally adopts a cutter mechanism to scrape the residual information after printing by a cutter; however, the addition of the cutter mechanism causes the cost of the printer to increase; in addition, the cutter mechanism is slightly inclined in the operation process, so that the risk of scraping a carbon belt and incomplete information scraping is caused.

Disclosure of Invention

An object of the embodiments of the present application is to provide a method and an apparatus for eliminating consumable residual information, an electronic device, and a storage medium, in which a printer can eliminate the residual information after printing the consumable without changing or adding a new structure, thereby achieving the technical effects of reducing cost and improving printing efficiency.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a method for eliminating consumable residual information, where the method includes:

acquiring residual information length data of consumables after printing, wherein the consumables comprise carbon ribbons or color ribbons;

moving the consumable to a printing position of a printer according to the residual information length data;

printing on the consumable according to preset pattern data to eliminate residual information on the consumable.

In the implementation process, printing information can be remained after the consumable material is normally printed, and information leakage can be caused, the method for eliminating the residual information of the consumable material repeatedly consumes the consumable material of the printer in a mode of acquiring the residual information length data of the residual information on the consumable material after the consumable material is normally printed and printing the preset pattern data again according to the residual information length data, so that the information residual of the consumable material after the printer is printed is eliminated, the information safety is protected, and the problem of information leakage is solved; therefore, the method for eliminating the consumable residual information can eliminate the residual information after the consumable printing without changing the hardware or adding a new structure of the printer, protect the information safety, and realize the technical effects of reducing the cost and improving the printing efficiency.

Further, after the step of acquiring the residual information length data of the consumable after printing, the method further comprises:

and acquiring residual position data of the residual information on the consumable according to the residual information length data.

In the implementation process, according to the printing information of the consumables during normal printing, the length data of the residual information of the consumables after printing can be acquired, and the residual position data of the residual information is further acquired, so that the residual information is accurately destroyed; alternatively, the specific destruction length distance may be cleared at any length set by software, which is only exemplary and not limiting.

Further, the step of moving the consumable to a printing position of a printer according to the length data includes:

and moving the consumable to a printing position of a printer according to the residual position data.

In the implementation process, the consumable is moved to the printing position of the printer, so that the residual information can be destroyed accurately.

Further, the preset pattern data includes a first preset printing pattern and a second preset printing pattern, and the step of printing on the consumable according to the preset pattern data to eliminate the residual information on the consumable includes:

printing the consumable according to the first preset printing pattern to obtain a primary elimination consumable;

printing the primary elimination consumable material according to the second preset printing pattern.

In the implementation process, the consumable is dually printed according to the first preset printing pattern and the second preset printing pattern, the first preset printing pattern and the second preset printing pattern are different, the residual information on the consumable is completely destroyed, information leakage is avoided, and information safety is protected.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides an apparatus for eliminating consumable residual information, including:

the acquisition module is used for acquiring the residual information length data of consumables after printing, wherein the consumables comprise carbon ribbons or color ribbons;

the moving module is used for moving the consumable to the printing position of a printer according to the residual information length data;

and the printing module is used for printing the consumable according to preset pattern data so as to eliminate residual information on the consumable.

Further, the obtaining module is further configured to obtain residual position data of the residual information on the consumable according to the residual information length data.

Further, the moving module is also used for moving the consumable to a printing position of a printer according to the residual position data.

Further, the preset pattern data includes a first preset print pattern and a second preset print pattern, and the printing module includes:

the first printing unit is used for printing the consumables according to the first preset printing pattern to obtain primary elimination consumables;

and the second printing unit is used for printing the primary elimination consumables according to the second preset printing pattern.

In a third aspect, an electronic device provided in an embodiment of the present application includes: memory, a processor and a computer program stored in the memory and executable on the processor, the processor implementing the steps of the method according to any of the first aspect when executing the computer program.

In a fourth aspect, a storage medium is provided in an embodiment of the present application, where the storage medium has instructions stored thereon, and when the instructions are executed on a computer, the instructions cause the computer to perform the method according to any one of the first aspect.

In a fifth aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a computer program product, which when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method according to any one of the first aspect.

Additional features and advantages of the disclosure will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the above-described techniques.

In order to make the aforementioned objects, features and advantages of the present application more comprehensible, preferred embodiments accompanied with figures are described in detail below.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, the drawings that are required to be used in the embodiments of the present application will be briefly described below, it should be understood that the following drawings only illustrate some embodiments of the present application and therefore should not be considered as limiting the scope, and that those skilled in the art can also obtain other related drawings based on the drawings without inventive efforts.

Fig. 1 is a schematic flowchart illustrating a method for eliminating consumable residual information according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a printer according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a schematic flowchart illustrating another method for eliminating residual information of consumable parts according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a first preset print pattern provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a second preset print pattern provided in the embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an apparatus for eliminating residual information of consumables according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 7 is a block diagram of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Icon: 101-consumable; 102-a medium to be printed; 103-unwinding a reel; 104-a winding reel; 105-a printer print head; 100-an acquisition module; 200-a mobile module; 300-a printing module; 510-a processor; 520-a communication interface; 530-a memory; 540 — communication bus.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application.

It should be noted that: like reference numbers and letters refer to like items in the following figures, and thus, once an item is defined in one figure, it need not be further defined and explained in subsequent figures. Meanwhile, in the description of the present application, the terms "first", "second", and the like are used only for distinguishing the description, and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance.

The embodiment of the application provides a method and a device for eliminating consumable residual information, electronic equipment and a storage medium, which can be applied to eliminating the residual information of consumables on a printer; the method for eliminating the consumable material residual information repeatedly consumes the printer consumable materials by acquiring the residual information length data of the residual information on the consumable materials after normal printing and printing the preset pattern data again according to the residual information length data, so that the information residual of the consumable materials after printing of the printer is eliminated, the information safety is protected, and the problem of information leakage is solved; therefore, the method for eliminating the consumable residual information can eliminate the residual information after the consumable printing without changing the hardware or adding a new structure of the printer, protect the information safety, and realize the technical effects of reducing the cost and improving the printing efficiency.

Referring to fig. 1 and fig. 2, fig. 1 is a schematic flow chart of a method for eliminating consumable remaining information according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, and fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a printer according to an embodiment of the present disclosure; the method for eliminating the residual information of the consumable comprises the following steps:

s100: and acquiring residual information length data of consumables after printing, wherein the consumables comprise carbon ribbons or color ribbons.

Illustratively, the thermal tape is a material which is very important in printing, and the thermal tape is mainly composed of materials classified as: a wax-based carbon ribbon, a resin carbon ribbon, and a semi-fat semi-wax carbon ribbon; the quality of the ribbon, in addition to determining the life of the printhead, is also related to the effectiveness of the printing. The good carbon ribbon can protect the printing head, and the produced effect can be accurately attached to the paper, is not easy to diffuse and is not easy to fall off. The ribbon is also a printing consumable material, and generally speaking, the ribbon is manufactured by soaking and dyeing a ribbon base which is woven by taking nylon yarn as a raw material through ink.

Illustratively, as shown in fig. 2, the printer includes a consumable 101, a to-be-printed medium 102, an unwinding reel 103, a winding reel 104, and a printer head 105, wherein the unwinding reel 103 provides the non-printed consumable 101, the winding reel 104 recovers the printed consumable 101, and the to-be-printed medium may be a film tape, a card, a paper, or the like, which is not limited herein; the ribbon residue information generation to removal operation during normal printing of the printer is described in detail below:

the printer starts printing, the unwinding reel 103 and the winding reel 104 rotate anticlockwise, the unwinding reel 103 rotates a brand-new and unprinted consumable 101 region to the printing position of the printer, and the printing position is aligned with the to-be-printed medium 102;

and then the printer printing head 105 is controlled to descend, the consumable 101 is attached to the to-be-printed medium 102, and the specific part on the consumable 101 forms visual information on the to-be-printed medium 102 through heating, so that the printing process is completed.

After the printer prints, printing information, i.e., residual information, may remain on the consumable 101, and specific residual information length data may be obtained according to the residual information on the consumable 101, so as to perform accurate clearing according to the residual information length data.

In some embodiments, the length distance of a particular destruction may be cleared at any length set by software, which is only by way of example and not by way of limitation.

S200: and moving the consumable to the printing position of the printer according to the residual information length data.

Illustratively, according to the length data of the residual information, the unwinding spool 103 may rotate clockwise to move the region to be eliminated on the consumable 101 to the printing position of the printer, i.e., to move the relevant region on the consumable 101 between the printer head 105 and the to-be-printed medium 102 for printing again.

Illustratively, the area to be eliminated/relevant area on the consumable 101 refers to an area of the remaining information on the consumable 101 that needs to be eliminated after normal printing.

S300: printing on the consumable according to the preset pattern data so as to eliminate residual information on the consumable.

Illustratively, the preset pattern data needs to be dense enough that the printing medium on the consumable 101 can be sufficiently consumed during printing, thereby achieving the purpose of eliminating the residual information on the consumable 101.

In some implementation scenes, printing information can be remained after the consumable is normally printed, and information leakage can be caused, the method for eliminating the residual information of the consumable repeatedly consumes the consumable of the printer by acquiring the residual information length data of the residual information on the consumable after the consumable is normally printed and printing the preset pattern data again according to the residual information length data, so that the information residual of the consumable after the printing of the printer is eliminated, the information safety is protected, and the problem of information leakage is solved; therefore, the method for eliminating the consumable residual information can eliminate the residual information after the consumable printing without changing the hardware or adding a new structure of the printer, protect the information safety, and realize the technical effects of reducing the cost and improving the printing efficiency.

Referring to fig. 3, fig. 3 is a schematic flowchart illustrating another method for eliminating consumable remaining information according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Exemplarily, S100: after the step of acquiring length data of the consumable, the method further comprises:

s110: and acquiring residual position data of the residual information on the consumable according to the residual information length data.

Illustratively, according to the printing information of the consumable 101 during normal printing, the length data of the residual information of the consumable 101 after printing can be acquired, and further the residual position data of the residual information can be acquired, so that the residual information can be destroyed accurately; alternatively, the specific destruction length distance may be cleared at any length set by software, which is only exemplary and not limiting.

Exemplarily, S200: moving the consumable to a print position of the printer according to the length data, comprising:

s210: and moving the consumable to the printing position of the printer according to the residual position data.

Illustratively, the consumable 101 is moved to the printing location of the printer for accurate destruction of the residual information.

Exemplarily, S300: the preset pattern data comprises a first preset printing pattern and a second preset printing pattern, and the printing is carried out on the consumable according to the preset pattern data so as to eliminate the residual information on the consumable, and the method comprises the following steps:

s310: printing consumables according to the first preset printing pattern to obtain primary elimination consumables;

s320: printing on the first elimination consumable material according to a second preset printing pattern.

Exemplarily, the consumable 101 is dually printed according to a first preset printing pattern and a second preset printing pattern, which are different from each other, so that the residual information on the consumable 101 is completely destroyed, information leakage is avoided, and information safety is protected.

Referring to fig. 4 and 5, fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a first preset print pattern provided in the embodiment of the present application, and fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a second preset print pattern provided in the embodiment of the present application.

Illustratively, as shown in fig. 4 and 5, the first preset print pattern is data information of a water wave pattern, and the second preset print pattern is data information of a checkered pattern.

In some embodiments, the printing order of the first preset printing pattern and the second preset printing pattern may be interchanged (i.e., the printing order of the data information of the water mark pattern and the data information of the checkered pattern may be interchanged); or printing may be performed only once according to the first preset printing pattern or the second preset printing pattern, which is not limited herein; it should be noted that the specific images of the first and second preset print patterns shown in fig. 4 and 5 are only exemplary and not limiting, and other dense patterns may be adopted for the first and second preset print patterns, so as to eliminate the residual information on the consumable 101.

In some implementation scenarios, when the printer finishes normal printing (i.e. first printing), the residual information part on the consumable 101 is recovered into the winding reel 104, at this time, the residual information on the consumable 101 to be eliminated is wound back to the unwinding reel 103, the specific destroyed length distance can be cleared by setting any length through software, then the residual information part on the consumable 101 is printed for the second time, and the data information printed for the second time uses the data information of the water mark pattern; at this time, the printing information remaining in the consumable 101 has been cleared to some extent; then, the residual information part on the consumable part 101 printed for the second time is recovered into the winding reel 104, the residual information on the consumable part 101 to be eliminated is wound back to the unwinding reel 103 again, the specific destroyed length distance can be cleared by setting any length through software, then the residual information part 101 printed for the first time is repeatedly printed for the third time, and the data information printed for the third time uses the data information of the grid pattern; at this time, the printing information remaining in the consumable 101 has been cleared.

Illustratively, the method for eliminating the consumable remaining information provided by the embodiment of the application repeatedly consumes the consumable of the printer in a mode of printing the graph again, so that the information remaining of the consumable after printing of the printer is eliminated, the information safety is protected, and the information leakage problem is prevented. Compared with the prior art, the method for eliminating the consumable residual information provided by the embodiment of the application has the advantages that the printer does not need to be changed, a new structure does not need to be added, only software modification is needed, and therefore the device cost is reduced.

Referring to fig. 6, fig. 6 is a block diagram of an apparatus for eliminating consumable remaining information according to an embodiment of the present application, where the apparatus for eliminating consumable remaining information includes:

the acquiring module 100 is used for acquiring residual information length data of consumables after printing, wherein the consumables comprise carbon ribbons or color ribbons;

the moving module 200 is used for moving the consumable to the printing position of the printer according to the length data of the residual information;

the printing module 300 is configured to print on the consumable according to the preset pattern data to eliminate the residual information on the consumable.

Illustratively, the obtaining module 100 is further configured to obtain residual position data of the residual information on the consumable according to the length data.

Illustratively, the moving module 200 is further configured to move the consumable to a printing location of the printer according to the residual location data.

Illustratively, the preset pattern data includes a first preset print pattern and a second preset print pattern, and the printing module 300 includes:

the first printing unit is used for printing the consumables according to a first preset printing pattern to obtain first elimination consumables;

and the second printing unit is used for printing the first elimination consumables according to a second preset printing pattern.

It should be understood that the apparatus for eliminating the consumable remaining information shown in fig. 6 corresponds to the method embodiments shown in fig. 1 to 5, and is not described herein again to avoid redundancy.

Fig. 7 shows a block diagram of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, where fig. 7 is a block diagram of the electronic device. The electronic device may include a processor 510, a communication interface 520, a memory 530, and at least one communication bus 540. Wherein the communication bus 540 is used for realizing direct connection communication of these components. In this embodiment, the communication interface 520 of the electronic device is used for performing signaling or data communication with other node devices. Processor 510 may be an integrated circuit chip having signal processing capabilities.

The Processor 510 may be a general-purpose Processor including a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Network Processor (NP), and the like; but may also be a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an off-the-shelf programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components. The various methods, steps, and logic blocks disclosed in the embodiments of the present application may be implemented or performed. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor 510 may be any conventional processor or the like.

The Memory 530 may be, but is not limited to, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a Read Only Memory (ROM), a Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM), an Erasable Read Only Memory (EPROM), an electrically Erasable Read Only Memory (EEPROM), and the like. The memory 530 stores computer readable instructions, which when executed by the processor 510, enable the electronic device to perform the steps involved in the method embodiments of fig. 1-5.

Optionally, the electronic device may further include a memory controller, an input output unit.

The memory 530, the memory controller, the processor 510, the peripheral interface, and the input/output unit are electrically connected to each other directly or indirectly, so as to implement data transmission or interaction. For example, these elements may be electrically coupled to each other via one or more communication buses 540. The processor 510 is used to execute executable modules stored in the memory 530, such as software functional modules or computer programs included in the electronic device.

The input and output unit is used for providing a task for a user to create and start an optional time period or preset execution time for the task creation so as to realize the interaction between the user and the server. The input/output unit may be, but is not limited to, a mouse, a keyboard, and the like.

It will be appreciated that the configuration shown in fig. 7 is merely illustrative and that the electronic device may include more or fewer components than shown in fig. 7 or have a different configuration than shown in fig. 7. The components shown in fig. 7 may be implemented in hardware, software, or a combination thereof.

The embodiment of the present application further provides a storage medium, where the storage medium stores instructions, and when the instructions are run on a computer, when the computer program is executed by a processor, the method in the method embodiment is implemented, and in order to avoid repetition, details are not repeated here.

The present application also provides a computer program product which, when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method of the method embodiments.

In the embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and method can be implemented in other ways. The apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative, and for example, the flowchart and block diagrams in the figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of apparatus, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present application. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems which perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.

In addition, functional modules in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated together to form an independent part, or each module may exist separately, or two or more modules may be integrated to form an independent part.

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional modules and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present application or portions thereof that substantially contribute to the prior art may be embodied in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium and including instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device) to execute all or part of the steps of the method according to the embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: a U-disk, a removable hard disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk or an optical disk, and other various media capable of storing program codes.

The above description is only an example of the present application and is not intended to limit the scope of the present application, and various modifications and changes may be made by those skilled in the art. Any modification, equivalent replacement, improvement and the like made within the spirit and principle of the present application shall be included in the protection scope of the present application. It should be noted that: like reference numbers and letters refer to like items in the following figures, and thus, once an item is defined in one figure, it need not be further defined and explained in subsequent figures.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present application, but the scope of the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present application, and shall be covered by the scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

It is noted that, herein, relational terms such as first and second, and the like may be used solely to distinguish one entity or action from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions. Also, the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Without further limitation, an element defined by the phrase "comprising an … …" does not exclude the presence of other identical elements in a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises the element.