Integrating Writing Dynamics in CNN for Online Children Handwriting Recognition

International audienceOnline handwriting recognition is challenging but an already well-studied topic. However, recent advances in the development of convolutional neural networks (CNN) make us believe that these networks could still improve the state of the art especially in the much more challenging context of online children handwritten letters recognition. This is because, children handwriting is, at an early stage of learning, approximate and includes deformed letters. To evaluate the potential of these networks, we study the early and late fusions of different input channels that can provide a CNN with information about the handwriting dynamics in addition to the static image of the characters. The experiments on a real children handwriting dataset with 27 000 characters acquired in primary schools, show that using multiple channels with CNN, improves the accuracy performance of different CNN architectures and different fusion settings for character recognition

Multiethnic Societies of Central Asia and Siberia Represented in Indigenous Oral and Written Literature

Central Asia and Siberia are characterized by multiethnic societies formed by a patchwork of often small ethnic groups. At the same time large parts of them have been dominated by state languages, especially Russian and Chinese. On a local level the languages of the autochthonous people often play a role parallel to the central national language. The contributions of this conference proceeding follow up on topics such as: What was or is collected and how can it be used under changed conditions in the research landscape, how does it help local ethnic communities to understand and preserve their own culture and language? Do the spatially dispersed but often networked collections support research on the ground? What contribution do these collections make to the local languages and cultures against the backdrop of dwindling attention to endangered groups? These and other questions are discussed against the background of the important role libraries and private collections play for multiethnic societies in often remote regions that are difficult to reach

Multiethnic Societies of Central Asia and Siberia Represented in Indigenous Oral and Written Literature

Central Asia and Siberia are characterized by multiethnic societies formed by a patchwork of often small ethnic groups. At the same time large parts of them have been dominated by state languages, especially Russian and Chinese. On a local level the languages of the autochthonous people often play a role parallel to the central national language. The contributions of this conference proceeding follow up on topics such as: What was or is collected and how can it be used under changed conditions in the research landscape, how does it help local ethnic communities to understand and preserve their own culture and language? Do the spatially dispersed but often networked collections support research on the ground? What contribution do these collections make to the local languages and cultures against the backdrop of dwindling attention to endangered groups? These and other questions are discussed against the background of the important role libraries and private collections play for multiethnic societies in often remote regions that are difficult to reach

GENDERED READINGS OF RITUAL: EXPLORING NARRATIVES OF CHINESE RELIGION THROUGH NINETEENTH CENTURY CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY WRITINGS

This thesis presents gendered narratives of Chinese religion as revealed through the writings of late Nineteenth Century Christian missionaries. Through a recontextualized, material and practical approach to these sources I uncover examples of non-elite ritual practice. I utilize the personal experiences and philological work of Protestant men and women to explore instances of religion at two well-known sites of Chinese Buddhism, Putuoshan and Wutaishan. I reveal how religious adherents, both lay and ordained are classified and depicted though a Western Protestant lens. This exploration highlights how personal and non-elite narratives of Chinese religion produced by missionary women have been continually undervalued within the academic study of Chinese religion. I propose a means to overcome embedded Protestant biases within our own scholarly tradition through acknowledging the authority of ritual, of human action, within Chinese religion and within secondary missionary sources