A Comprehensive Study of ImageNet Pre-Training for Historical Document Image Analysis

Automatic analysis of scanned historical documents comprises a wide range of image analysis tasks, which are often challenging for machine learning due to a lack of human-annotated learning samples. With the advent of deep neural networks, a promising way to cope with the lack of training data is to pre-train models on images from a different domain and then fine-tune them on historical documents. In the current research, a typical example of such cross-domain transfer learning is the use of neural networks that have been pre-trained on the ImageNet database for object recognition. It remains a mostly open question whether or not this pre-training helps to analyse historical documents, which have fundamentally different image properties when compared with ImageNet. In this paper, we present a comprehensive empirical survey on the effect of ImageNet pre-training for diverse historical document analysis tasks, including character recognition, style classification, manuscript dating, semantic segmentation, and content-based retrieval. While we obtain mixed results for semantic segmentation at pixel-level, we observe a clear trend across different network architectures that ImageNet pre-training has a positive effect on classification as well as content-based retrieval

TEACHER’S DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING JAPANESE WRITING SYSTEM (SAKUBUN)

This paper aims to describe the problem of teacher in teaching japanese writing sytem (sakubun). Write the letter of japanese, Hiragana, katakana, and kanji will be the most difficult thing. Writing skills are necessary to develop students’ practical communication abilities. Teacher is an important person in learning process. The role of the teacher is diverse and has several orientations. One important aspect is that of facilitator of student learning. The facilitator attempts to provide circumstances that will enable students to engage with the learning opportunities and construct for themselves their understandings and skills. That’s why teacher should offered how to solve a japanese students problem in writing

An analysis of typing errors by JFL learners and the causes of those errors.

The present study investigated the tendency of common typing errors by JFL (Japanese as a Foreign Language) learners, focusing on errors that relate to long vowels and the causes of those errors. With the widespread use of computers and the Internet, communication through "typing" such as e-mailing and social networking has increased more than ever. Also, activities and assignments which require skills of Japanese word-processing have been increasing in Japanese courses. To maximize the benefit of those new types of language tools, accurate typing skills are essential. The present study examined the following hypotheses. 1) JFL learners make typing errors because they are unable to perceive Japanese duration contrast and thus cannot spell words accurately. 2) JFL learners make typing errors because they are unable to use appropriate romaji or Roman alphabet to input Japanese words correctly to computers. Forty-two JFL learners (21elementary and 21 intermediate learners of Japanese) and eight Japanese native speakers participated in this study. Three tasks were conducted in order to test the hypothesis: the mora counting task, the romanization task, and the hiragana transcription task. The results indicated that the problem of perceiving duration contrasts mainly affected the accuracy of transcribing words with long vowels. On the other hand, the inability of romanization affected the scores of all of the word types regardless of the presence of long vowels. Another finding was that romanization skills improve according to the amount of experience of typing Japanese, i.e., the intermediate group (IG) did better than the beginner group (BG) in the romanization task, whereas the perception of the duration contrasts does not develop greatly even as the learners' proficiency level advances, i.e., there was no significant difference between the BG and the IG in the score of the mora counting task. The error analysis of the learner groups' answers revealed that the most common error of the transcription tasks was the wrong spelling of long vowels. Both the BG and the IG showed similar tendencies in this error type, though the error ratio was higher in the BG. Over all the results imply that it is easier to acquire the romanization of Japanese than the perception of Japanese duration contrasts. Therefore, introducing common errors in romanization in the early stage of Japanese typing instruction will let the JFL learners be aware of those errors and prevent them from occurring

The role of visuo-spatial and verbal working memory in L2 Japanese reading proficiency

Verbal working memory is recognized as a strong predictor of L2 reading development in the area of learning new vocabulary, reading comprehension, and overall L2 proficiency in alphabetic languages such as English. However, few studies have addressed if the same is true in logographic languages such as Japanese. Previous literature has indicated that phonology plays a weaker role in reading Japanese than alphabetic languages and that visual information is often processed for semantic rather than phonetic information. Based on these findings, it was hypothesized that visuo-spatial working memory would display a stronger relationship with Japanese reading proficiency than verbal working memory. This study investigated the relationship between (a) visuo-spatial working memory and Japanese reading proficiency and (b) verbal working memory and Japanese reading proficiency. Thirty learners of Japanese as a foreign language had their visuo-spatial working memory assessed using a spatial span task and a dual 3-back task. Their verbal working memory was assessed using an automated reading span task. Participants also took a Japanese cloze test and proficiency self-rating questionnaire to indicate their reading proficiency. Correlations were not found between the visuo-spatial working memory tasks and the Japanese cloze test, but a weak correlation was found between the verbal working memory task and the Japanese cloze test. Since the reading assessment used in this study had questionable validity, the hypothesis and research questions for this study could not be fully addressed. Suggestions are made for refining assessment tools and using other techniques to help us better understand of the relationship between working memory measures and Japanese reading proficiency

SELF-EVALUATION AND KANJI PROFICIENCY OF ADOLESCENT JAPANESE HERITAGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS: A FOLLOW-UP STUDY AFTER ONE YEAR OF KANJI LEARNING

This paper explores issues related to learning Japanese as a heritage language and the challenges that arise for children learning the language of their families while living in another language environment. The context for the study was a hoshuu-koo, a Japanese Saturday school, in Australia. The participants were students in Year 7 who attended the hoshuu-koo. This study was a follow-up study to the research conducted on the same students in the previous year. After one year of learning kanji, one of the Japanese scripts, the focus was on how students’ self-recognition of their kanji skills and kanji proficiency had changed. It was predicted that improvement in kanji proficiency would contribute to the enhancement of the accuracy of self-recognition of kanji proficiency and elicit an appropriate recognition of proficiency in each component of kanji. Data were based on students’ performance in kanji tests and answers on questionnaires and the Excel Correl Function was used to calculate correlation coefficients. Graphs were used to analyse the data. It was found that when the students’ kanji proficiency was improved, their self-evaluation skills also enhanced; however, different tendencies were found between reading and writing kanji. The over-estimation of skills for easier levels of kanji were reduced but increased for more difficult levels of kanji amongst the students who did not have adequate kanji skills. The appropriate recognition of each kanji component was mostly improved but further approaches would be needed for the okurigana component, which was a significant problem found in the previous study. Concluding comments centre on the implications for further teaching approaches and research on the enhancement of kanji self-evaluation skills.  Article visualizations

SELF-EVALUATION AND KANJI PROFICIENCY OF ADOLESCENT JAPANESE HERITAGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS: A FOLLOW-UP STUDY AFTER ONE YEAR OF KANJI LEARNING

This paper explores issues related to learning Japanese as a heritage language and the challenges that arise for children learning the language of their families while living in another language environment. The context for the study was a hoshuu-koo, a Japanese Saturday school, in Australia. The participants were students in Year 7 who attended the hoshuu-koo. This study was a follow-up study to the research conducted on the same students in the previous year. After one year of learning kanji, one of the Japanese scripts, the focus was on how students’ self-recognition of their kanji skills and kanji proficiency had changed. It was predicted that improvement in kanji proficiency would contribute to the enhancement of the accuracy of self-recognition of kanji proficiency and elicit an appropriate recognition of proficiency in each component of kanji. Data were based on students’ performance in kanji tests and answers on questionnaires and the Excel Correl Function was used to calculate correlation coefficients. Graphs were used to analyse the data. It was found that when the students’ kanji proficiency was improved, their self-evaluation skills also enhanced; however, different tendencies were found between reading and writing kanji. The over-estimation of skills for easier levels of kanji were reduced but increased for more difficult levels of kanji amongst the students who did not have adequate kanji skills. The appropriate recognition of each kanji component was mostly improved but further approaches would be needed for the okurigana component, which was a significant problem found in the previous study. Concluding comments centre on the implications for further teaching approaches and research on the enhancement of kanji self-evaluation skills.  Article visualizations

Advances in Character Recognition

This book presents advances in character recognition, and it consists of 12 chapters that cover wide range of topics on different aspects of character recognition. Hopefully, this book will serve as a reference source for academic research, for professionals working in the character recognition field and for all interested in the subject

Impactful beauty or serious disgust

The Japanese language utilizes primarily three writing systems; Kanji, hiragana and katakana. The latter two are known as kana. All three writing systems have their own unique role when writing in Japanese. Corresponding to their primary roles, there are various ‘sub roles’ as well. This paper will mainly be focusing on the katakana writing system’s lesser known role, emphasizing. Seven interviews have been conducted in order to find answers on this phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to find out how emphasizing with katakana is utilized, when it is used and by whom it is used. These questions are answered by four Japanese native speakers around the ages 20-21 and three Japanese native speakers that are around the age of 40