An Efficient Hidden Markov Model for Offline Handwritten Numeral Recognition

Traditionally, the performance of ocr algorithms and systems is based on the recognition of isolated characters. When a system classifies an individual character, its output is typically a character label or a reject marker that corresponds to an unrecognized character. By comparing output labels with the correct labels, the number of correct recognition, substitution errors misrecognized characters, and rejects unrecognized characters are determined. Nowadays, although recognition of printed isolated characters is performed with high accuracy, recognition of handwritten characters still remains an open problem in the research arena. The ability to identify machine printed characters in an automated or a semi automated manner has obvious applications in numerous fields. Since creating an algorithm with a one hundred percent correct recognition rate is quite probably impossible in our world of noise and different font styles, it is important to design character recognition algorithms with these failures in mind so that when mistakes are inevitably made, they will at least be understandable and predictable to the person working with theComment: 6pages, 5 figure

‘Emigrants of the labouring classes’: Capital, labour and learning in Wellington, 1840-45

Questions of space and place are of increasing interest to educational researchers. A recent synopsis of “educational geography” identifies Henri Lefebvre as a particularly “overarching presence in the educational appropriation of spatial theories with many researchers referring to his work on perceived, conceived and lived space” (Gulson and Symes, 2007, p.101). Physical, or perceived, space is that of everyday embodied “spatial practices” in everyday life: “social practice, the body, the use of the hands, the practical basis of the perception of the outside world” (Lefebvre, 1974, p.38). Abstract, or conceived, space, a product of capitalism, “includes the ‘world’ of commodities, its ‘logical’ and its worldwide strategies; as well as the power of money and that of the political state” (Lefebvre, 1974, p.53). “Representations of space” are the charts, texts or maps of these rationally determined enclosures, including those of “cartographers, urban planners or property speculators” (Shields, 2004, p. 210). Enacting technologies of domination, these introduce “a new form into a pre-existing space – generally a rectilinear or rectangular form such as a meshwork or chequerwork” (Lefebvre, 1974, p.139). Lived, or social, space includes the realm of the imagination that “has been kept alive and acceptable by the arts and literature. This ‘third space’ not only transcends but also has the power to refigure the balance of popular ‘perceived space’ and official ‘conceived space’” (Shields, 2004, p. 210). The artistic and other expressions of “lived space” are referred to as “representational spaces.” In capitalist societies, Lefbvre argued, the abstract appropriations of “conceived space”, and textual representations of this space, gain ascendency

Finding What You Need, and Knowing What You Can Find: Digital Tools for Palaeographers in Musicology and Beyond

This chapter examines three projects that provide musicologists with a range of resources for managing and exploring their materials: DIAMM (Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music), CMME (Computerized Mensural Music Editing) and the software Gamera. Since 1998, DIAMM has been enhancing research of scholars worldwide by providing them with the best possible quality of digital images. In some cases these images are now the only access that scholars are permitted, since the original documents are lost or considered too fragile for further handling. For many sources, however, simply creating a very high-resolution image is not enough: sources are often damaged by age, misuse (usually Medieval ‘vandalism’), or poor conservation. To deal with damaged materials the project has developed methods of digital restoration using mainstream commercial software, which has revealed lost data in a wide variety of sources. The project also uses light sources ranging from ultraviolet to infrared in order to obtain better readings of erasures or material lost by heat or water damage. The ethics of digital restoration are discussed, as well as the concerns of the document holders. CMME and a database of musical sources and editions, provides scholars with a tool for making fluid editions and diplomatic transcriptions: without the need for a single fixed visual form on a printed page, a computerized edition system can utilize one editor’s transcription to create any number of visual forms and variant versions. Gamera, a toolkit for building document image recognition systems created by Ichiro Fujinaga is a broad recognition engine that grew out of music recognition, which can be adapted and developed to perform a number of tasks on both music and non-musical materials. Its application to several projects is discussed

The Diary of a District Officer: Alastair Morrison\u27s 1953 Trip to the Kelabit Highlands

In 1953, Alastair Morrison, then acting District Officer for the Bara, traveled to the Kelabit Highlands along with his wife, photographer Hedda Morrison, and ever changing entourage of \u27coolie porters and guides. This journey was part of his regular responsibilities as a District Officer. During such tours, Morrison surveyed longhouse communities and collected information about the local population and spoke to people about government policies, school fees, taxes, the registering of guns, and often sought to resolve local disputes. Such journeys were summarized in formal reports. However, Morrison also kept travel notebooks, which he later used to write his memoir, which summarized the highlights of his life in Sarawak (Morrison 1993). These handwritten travel notebooks from his journeys are preserved, along with his wife\u27s photographs, in the Kroch Rare Book and Manuscript Collection at Cornell University. This article is based on a close reading of Morrison\u27s Kelabit notebooks, where he recorded his daily thoughts during a one month trip on food through the Kelabit Highlands in 1953. Whereas Morrison\u27s published memoir (1993: 86-88) summaries in just over two pages the main issues encountered on the journey, the original notebooks provide much additional information