The adoption and impact of computer integrated prepress systems in the printing and publishing industries of Kuwait

This research is aimed at developing a comprehensive picture of the implications of digital technology in the graphic arts industries in Kuwait. The purpose of the study is twofold: (1) to explore the meaning of the outcomes of recent technological change processes for the traditional prepress occupations in Kuwait; and, (2) to examine the impact of technology on Arabic layout and design. The study is based on the assumption that technological change is a chain of interactions among the sociological, cultural, political and economic variables. The prepress area in Kuwait has its own cultural, social, economic, and political structure. When a new technology is introduced it is absorbed and shaped by the existing structure. Based on such a dialectical conceptualisation, four major levels of analysis can be distinguished in this study: (1) technological change in the graphic arts industries; (2) the typographic evolution of the Arabic script; (3) the workers themselves as individuals and occupational collectives; and, (4) technology's impact on Arabic publication design. The methodological approach selected for this study can be defined as a dialectical, interpretive exploration. Given the historical perspective and the multiple levels of analysis, this approach calls for a variety of data gathering methods. Both qualitative and quantitative data were sought. A combination of document analysis, participant observation and interviewing allow to link the historical and current events with individual and collective actions, perceptions and interpretations of reality. The findings presented in this study contradicts the belief that the widespread adoption of new production processes is coincidental with continuous advances in scientific knowledge which provide the basis for the development of new technologies. Instead, the changes have been hindered by the lack of untrained personnel, the Arabic software incompatibility, and the lack of informed decisions to successfully implement the technology. Without any doubt, the new technology has influenced Arabic calligraphy, but this does not mean the decay of Arabic calligraphy as an art. As this study shows, the challenge is not to the art, but to the artist

Adaptive Methods for Robust Document Image Understanding

A vast amount of digital document material is continuously being produced as part of major digitization efforts around the world. In this context, generic and efficient automatic solutions for document image understanding represent a stringent necessity. We propose a generic framework for document image understanding systems, usable for practically any document types available in digital form. Following the introduced workflow, we shift our attention to each of the following processing stages in turn: quality assurance, image enhancement, color reduction and binarization, skew and orientation detection, page segmentation and logical layout analysis. We review the state of the art in each area, identify current defficiencies, point out promising directions and give specific guidelines for future investigation. We address some of the identified issues by means of novel algorithmic solutions putting special focus on generality, computational efficiency and the exploitation of all available sources of information. More specifically, we introduce the following original methods: a fully automatic detection of color reference targets in digitized material, accurate foreground extraction from color historical documents, font enhancement for hot metal typesetted prints, a theoretically optimal solution for the document binarization problem from both computational complexity- and threshold selection point of view, a layout-independent skew and orientation detection, a robust and versatile page segmentation method, a semi-automatic front page detection algorithm and a complete framework for article segmentation in periodical publications. The proposed methods are experimentally evaluated on large datasets consisting of real-life heterogeneous document scans. The obtained results show that a document understanding system combining these modules is able to robustly process a wide variety of documents with good overall accuracy

Organised Labour, Sectionalism and Changing Technology in the British Newspaper Industry

Much has been written during the 1980s about the changes taking place within the British newspaper industry, emanating out of the development of computerisation and the concomitant demise of hot-metal production methods. However, most of the work undertaken in this field has tended to be either accounts of specific instances of conflict over the introduction of new technology, or have been focussed upon structural changes taking place within the industry and the trade unions. But given the radical nature of change occurring at the point of production, little work has been done on the perspective of the shop-floor worker and the longer term implications for interunion relationships at the plant level. The following thesis therefore, attempts two main tasks. Firstly, in an empirical context, to bridge the 'gap' in the literature, by focussing on an analysis of the ways in which changing technology has interacted with and influenced the interrelationship between three highly differentiated categories of newspaper industry unionised employees -journalist, clerical and craft workers. And secondly, in a theoretical sense, to develop a conceptualisation which differentiates between structural change in the world of work, and perceptual change within the 'consciousness' of the workers, by focussing on the concept of 'sectionalism'

Determining and producing an optimum photographic print for photomechanical reproduction

This research has explored the possibility of determining the optimum black and white photographic print characteristics for paper surface, image color, and contrast to achieve optimum reproduction from that original for a given set of printing press conditions utilizing single impression offset lithography. A random population of 101 observers evaluated the reproduction of eighteen different photographic prints of the same subject from the identical film negative. The prints varied in contrast grades from grade one to grade three; in image color from warm black to neutral black to cool black; in surface characteristics from glossy to semi-lustre to matte; and surface finishes of smooth and textured. The reproductions studied were produced after a tone reproduction analysis was conducted to determine the printing press characteristics. To reduce variablity the same press, paper, inks, and plates were used for all the press tests. The film negatives were generated by scanning each of the eighteen original photographic prints on the state-of-the-art Crosfield Magnascan 640 utilizing a predetermined program derived from the initial press and tone reproduction data. The observers were asked to choose what they believed to be the best three reproductions and the three most inferior reproductions. To analyze the characteristics which contributed to the findings of certain reproductions being selected superior to others a correlation analysis was performed. With this information, the paper characteristics which yielded the optimum reproduction was determined. These characteristics are: A medium to double weight paper stock A cool black image color A smooth, glossy surface (not ferrotyped) A contrast grade between 1.5 and 2.5 when the negative has a density range between 0.90 and 1.3 A density range of the original greater than 1.4 but less than 1.9 with gradients equal to 12 plus/minus 1 gradient To obtain the appropriate highlight, midtone and shadow densities on the photographic print, a darkroom tool was developed and successfully tested as a three step reference for the photographer to insure proper placement of these predetermined tones for an optimum reproduction. The visual comparator is waterproof and is used when the print is wet; however, examination of the photographic print takes place under standard viewing conditions. Another advantage of the comparator is that it is made of the same photographic material as the photograph itself. This study shows that a systems approach can be applied to the creation of the photographic print to incorporate photography with the reproduction process producing high quality reproductions

Parametric classification in domains of characters, numerals, punctuation, typefaces and image qualities

This thesis contributes to the Optical Font Recognition problem (OFR), by developing a classifier system to differentiate ten typefaces using a single English character ‘e’. First, features which need to be used in the classifier system are carefully selected after a thorough typographical study of global font features and previous related experiments. These features have been modeled by multivariate normal laws in order to use parameter estimation in learning. Then, the classifier system is built up on six independent schemes, each performing typeface classification using a different method. The results have shown a remarkable performance in the field of font recognition. Finally, the classifiers have been implemented on Lowercase characters, Uppercase characters, Digits, Punctuation and also on Degraded Images

Semantics-enriched workflow creation and management system with an application to document image analysis and recognition

Scientific workflow systems are an established means to model and execute experiments or processing pipelines. Nevertheless, designing workflows can be a daunting task for users due to the complexities of the systems and the sheer number of available processing nodes, each having different compatibility/applicability characteristics. This Thesis explores how concepts of the Semantic Web can be used to augment workflow systems in order to assist researchers as well as non-expert users in creating valid and effective workflows. A prototype workflow creation/management system has been developed, including components for ontology modelling, workflow composition, and workflow repositories. Semantics are incorporated as a lightweight layer, permeating all aspects of the system and workflows, including retrieval, composition, and validation. Document image analysis and recognition is used as a representative application domain to evaluate the validity of the system. A new semantic model is proposed, covering a wide range of aspects of the target domain and adjacent fields. Real-world use cases demonstrate the assistive features and the automated workflow creation. On that basis, the prototype workflow creation/management system is compared to other state-of-the-art workflow systems and it is shown how those could benefit from the semantic model. The Thesis concludes with a discussion on how a complete infrastructure based on semantics-enriched datasets, workflow systems, and sharing platforms could represent the next step in automation within document image analysis and other domains