Text-independent chinese writer identification using hybrid SLT-LBP feature

This study proposes a new hybrid method using texture features of input handwriting document image as global to overcome the limitation of data heterogeneity, which causing the ambiguity and leads to inconsistent results apart from problems of scale involve database size. The method first adopts Slantlet Transform (SLT) to bring out hidden texture details prior to feature extractions. Then, Local Binary Pattern (LBP) descriptor is applied on the SLT image to extract texture features. A new hybrid method Slantlet Transform based Local Binary Pattern (SLT-LBP), are experimented on an open and widely used HIT-MW Chinese database for performance evaluation. This study strengthens the idea that to unravel some of data heterogeneity and lead to improve identification performance, especially searching for relevant document from large complex repositories is an essential issue

Automatic handwriter identification using advanced machine learning

Handwriter identification a challenging problem especially for forensic investigation. This topic has received significant attention from the research community and several handwriter identification systems were developed for various applications including forensic science, document analysis and investigation of the historical documents. This work is part of an investigation to develop new tools and methods for Arabic palaeography, which is is the study of handwritten material, particularly ancient manuscripts with missing writers, dates, and/or places. In particular, the main aim of this research project is to investigate and develop new techniques and algorithms for the classification and analysis of ancient handwritten documents to support palaeographic studies. Three contributions were proposed in this research. The first is concerned with the development of a text line extraction algorithm on colour and greyscale historical manuscripts. The idea uses a modified bilateral filtering approach to adaptively smooth the images while still preserving the edges through a nonlinear combination of neighboring image values. The proposed algorithm aims to compute a median and a separating seam and has been validated to deal with both greyscale and colour historical documents using different datasets. The results obtained suggest that our proposed technique yields attractive results when compared against a few similar algorithms. The second contribution proposes to deploy a combination of Oriented Basic Image features and the concept of graphemes codebook in order to improve the recognition performances. The proposed algorithm is capable to effectively extract the most distinguishing handwriter’s patterns. The idea consists of judiciously combining a multiscale feature extraction with the concept of grapheme to allow for the extraction of several discriminating features such as handwriting curvature, direction, wrinkliness and various edge-based features. The technique was validated for identifying handwriters using both Arabic and English writings captured as scanned images using the IAM dataset for English handwriting and ICFHR 2012 dataset for Arabic handwriting. The results obtained clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method when compared against some similar techniques. The third contribution is concerned with an offline handwriter identification approach based on the convolutional neural network technology. At the first stage, the Alex-Net architecture was employed to learn image features (handwritten scripts) and the features obtained from the fully connected layers of the model. Then, a Support vector machine classifier is deployed to classify the writing styles of the various handwriters. In this way, the test scripts can be classified by the CNN training model for further classification. The proposed approach was evaluated based on Arabic Historical datasets; Islamic Heritage Project (IHP) and Qatar National Library (QNL). The obtained results demonstrated that the proposed model achieved superior performances when compared to some similar method

Information Preserving Processing of Noisy Handwritten Document Images

Many pre-processing techniques that normalize artifacts and clean noise induce anomalies due to discretization of the document image. Important information that could be used at later stages may be lost. A proposed composite-model framework takes into account pre-printed information, user-added data, and digitization characteristics. Its benefits are demonstrated by experiments with statistically significant results. Separating pre-printed ruling lines from user-added handwriting shows how ruling lines impact people\u27s handwriting and how they can be exploited for identifying writers. Ruling line detection based on multi-line linear regression reduces the mean error of counting them from 0.10 to 0.03, 6.70 to 0.06, and 0.13 to 0.02, com- pared to an HMM-based approach on three standard test datasets, thereby reducing human correction time by 50%, 83%, and 72% on average. On 61 page images from 16 rule-form templates, the precision and recall of form cell recognition are increased by 2.7% and 3.7%, compared to a cross-matrix approach. Compensating for and exploiting ruling lines during feature extraction rather than pre-processing raises the writer identification accuracy from 61.2% to 67.7% on a 61-writer noisy Arabic dataset. Similarly, counteracting page-wise skew by subtracting it or transforming contours in a continuous coordinate system during feature extraction improves the writer identification accuracy. An implementation study of contour-hinge features reveals that utilizing the full probabilistic probability distribution function matrix improves the writer identification accuracy from 74.9% to 79.5%

Love Don't Need a Reason

"From a stage erected in front of the US Capitol, on April 25, 1993, Michael Callen surveyed the throng: an estimated one million people stretched across the National Mall in the largest public demonstration of queer political solidarity in history. “What a sight,” he told the crowd, his earnest Midwestern twang reverberating through loudspeakers. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. Being gay is the greatest gift I have ever been given, and I don’t care who knows about it.” He then launched into a gorgeous rendition of “Love Don’t Need a Reason,” the AIDS anthem he composed with Marsha Malamet and the late Peter Allen. As Callen finished singing, people stood cheering and flashing the familiar American Sign Language symbol for “I Love You.” For they knew the song’s sentiment rang true for Callen, who had recently announced his retirement from music and activism after a living for more than a decade with what was then called “full-blown AIDS.” After the March on Washington, Callen returned to his recently adopted West Coast home, Los Angeles. In the ensuing months, his health rapidly declined, and on 27 December 1993, Callen died of AIDS-related pulmonary Kaposi’s sarcoma. Love Don’t Need a Reason focuses on Callen’s most important and lasting legacy: his music. A witness to the overlooked last years of Gay Liberation and a major figure in the early years of the AIDS crisis, Michael Callen chronicled these experiences in song. A community organizer, activist, author, and architect of the AIDS self-empowerment movement, he literally changed the way we have sex in an epidemic when he co-authored one of the first safe-sex guides in 1983. A gifted singer, songwriter, and performer, he also made gay music for gay people and used music to educate and empower people with AIDS. Listening again to his music allows us to hear the shifting dynamics of American families, changing notions of masculinity, gay migration to urban areas, the sexual politics of Gay Liberation, and HIV/AIDS activism. Using extensive archival materials and newly-conducted oral history interviews with Callen’s friends, family, and fellow musicians, Matthew J. Jones reintroduces Callen to the history of LGBTQIA+ music and places Callen’s music at the center of his important activist work.

Robert Shaw and the Brahms Requiem, op.45: a conductor's approach to performing a masterpiece

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityRobert Lawson Shaw (1916-1999) was a revolutionary figure in the world of choral music. He pioneered effective choral techniques that both refined the skills of his choristers and faithfully realized the composer's music. These techniques ultimately contributed to his acclaimed performance achievements. Although research on Shaw has been previously conducted, it generally consists of biographical data or single techniques, dissected from the whole of Shaw's complex process. This study outlines the wide array of Shaw's choral methods and how he applied them to the preparation and performance of Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem, op. 45. The Introduction provides insight into Shaw's acclaim, his relationship with the Requiem, and the rationale, as well as methodology, of this study. Chapter One details Shaw's analytical process-its influences and specific procedures. Chapter Two outlines Shaw's philosophies regarding the "time" element of music (pulse, rhythm, accentuation) as well as his techniques for improving their execution and how he applied them specifically to the Requiem. Chapter Three examines Shaw's notions of music's "tone" component (intonation, vocalism, dynamics, phrasing, and balance) and methods of refining them in and out of the Requiem's context. Chapter Four discusses Shaw's approach to text and traces its origin and evolution. It also provides a synthesis of decades of writings on diction techniques as well as a full, unpublished English translation, which Shaw created in 1999. An edition of the Requiem's sixth movement comprises Chapter Five, placing all of Shaw's choral methods and English translation into the proper musical context. The conclusion summarizes the findings of this study and offers suggestions for future research. Appendices contain additional germane data, including a listing of career performances, his personal reference materials about the Requiem, his choices of tempi, pertinent diction information, as well as various musings comparing the Requiems of Berlioz, Brahms, and Verdi

Robert Shaw and the Brahms Requiem, op.45: a conductor's approach to performing a masterpiece

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityRobert Lawson Shaw (1916-1999) was a revolutionary figure in the world of choral music. He pioneered effective choral techniques that both refined the skills of his choristers and faithfully realized the composer's music. These techniques ultimately contributed to his acclaimed performance achievements. Although research on Shaw has been previously conducted, it generally consists of biographical data or single techniques, dissected from the whole of Shaw's complex process. This study outlines the wide array of Shaw's choral methods and how he applied them to the preparation and performance of Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem, op. 45. The Introduction provides insight into Shaw's acclaim, his relationship with the Requiem, and the rationale, as well as methodology, of this study. Chapter One details Shaw's analytical process-its influences and specific procedures. Chapter Two outlines Shaw's philosophies regarding the "time" element of music (pulse, rhythm, accentuation) as well as his techniques for improving their execution and how he applied them specifically to the Requiem. Chapter Three examines Shaw's notions of music's "tone" component (intonation, vocalism, dynamics, phrasing, and balance) and methods of refining them in and out of the Requiem's context. Chapter Four discusses Shaw's approach to text and traces its origin and evolution. It also provides a synthesis of decades of writings on diction techniques as well as a full, unpublished English translation, which Shaw created in 1999. An edition of the Requiem's sixth movement comprises Chapter Five, placing all of Shaw's choral methods and English translation into the proper musical context. The conclusion summarizes the findings of this study and offers suggestions for future research. Appendices contain additional germane data, including a listing of career performances, his personal reference materials about the Requiem, his choices of tempi, pertinent diction information, as well as various musings comparing the Requiems of Berlioz, Brahms, and Verdi

Lanthorn, vol. 42, no. 11, September 27, 2007

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State\u27s student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present

Integrating passive ubiquitous surfaces into human-computer interaction

Mobile technologies enable people to interact with computers ubiquitously. This dissertation investigates how ordinary, ubiquitous surfaces can be integrated into human-computer interaction to extend the interaction space beyond the edge of the display. It turns out that acoustic and tactile features generated during an interaction can be combined to identify input events, the user, and the surface. In addition, it is shown that a heterogeneous distribution of different surfaces is particularly suitable for realizing versatile interaction modalities. However, privacy concerns must be considered when selecting sensors, and context can be crucial in determining whether and what interaction to perform.Mobile Technologien ermöglichen den Menschen eine allgegenwärtige Interaktion mit Computern. Diese Dissertation untersucht, wie gewöhnliche, allgegenwärtige Oberflächen in die Mensch-Computer-Interaktion integriert werden können, um den Interaktionsraum über den Rand des Displays hinaus zu erweitern. Es stellt sich heraus, dass akustische und taktile Merkmale, die während einer Interaktion erzeugt werden, kombiniert werden können, um Eingabeereignisse, den Benutzer und die Oberfläche zu identifizieren. Darüber hinaus wird gezeigt, dass eine heterogene Verteilung verschiedener Oberflächen besonders geeignet ist, um vielfältige Interaktionsmodalitäten zu realisieren. Bei der Auswahl der Sensoren müssen jedoch Datenschutzaspekte berücksichtigt werden, und der Kontext kann entscheidend dafür sein, ob und welche Interaktion durchgeführt werden soll