Interactive interpretation of structured documents: Application to the recognition of handwritten architectural plans

International audienceThis paper addresses a whole architecture, including the IMISketch method. IMISketch method incorporates two aspects: document analysis and interactivity. This paper describes a global vision of all the parts of the project. IMISketch is a generic method for an interactive interpretation of handwritten sketches. The analysis of complex documents requires the management of uncertainty. While, in practice the similar methods often induce a large combinatorics, IMISketch method presents several optimization strategies to reduce the combinatorics. The goal of these optimizations is to have a time analysis compatible with user expectations. The decision process is able to solicit the user in the case of strong ambiguity: when it is not sure to make the right decision, the user explicitly validates the right decision to avoid a fastidious a posteriori verification phase due to propagation of errors.This interaction requires solving two major problems: how interpretation results will be presented to the user, and how the user will interact with analysis process. We propose to study the effects of those two aspects. The experiments demonstrate that (i) a progressive presentation of the analysis results, (ii) user interventions during it and (iii) the user solicitation by the analysis process are an efficient strategy for the recognition of complex off-line documents.To validate this interactive analysis method, several experiments are reported on off-line handwritten 2D architectural floor plans

Optimisation de l'analyse en largeur pour une approche structurelle d'interprétation de croquis

International audienceDans ce papier, nous présentons une approche optimisée d'analyse en largeur pour la reconnaissance interactive de documents structurés. Les méthodes d'analyse à base d'exploration en largeur permettent de confronter plusieurs hypothèses d'interprétation. Malheureusement, en pratique ces méthodes sont peu utilisées car elles engendrent souvent une trop grande combinatoire, difficile à maîtriser. Ce papier présente une stratégie d'optimisation afin de limiter la combinatoire. L'objectif est de démontrer la pertinence de l'exploration en largeur dans les méthodes d'analyse de documents notamment lorsqu'elles sont interactives, c'est à dire qu'elles intègrent l'utilisateur dans la boucle d'analyse. Ces optimisations ont été testées sur la reconnaissance d'images de plans d'architecture tracés à main levée

Incremental learning for interactive sketch recognition

International audienceIn this paper, we present the integration of a classifier, based on an incremental learning method, in an interactive sketch analyzer. The classifier recognizes the symbol with a degree of confidence. Sometimes the analyzer considers that the response is insufficient to make the right decision. The decision process then solicits the user to explicitly validate the right decision. The user associates the symbol to an existing class, to a newly created class or ignores this recognition. The classifier learns during the interpretation phase. We can thus have a method for auto-evolutionary interpretation of sketches. In fact, the user participation has a great impact to avoid error accumulation during the analysis. This paper demonstrates this integration in an interactive method based on a competitive breadth-first exploration of the analysis tree for interpreting the 2D architectural floor plans

International Business and Finance

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of bank manager behavior and investor behavior on market value of Islamic and conventional banks in the Middle East and North Africa region. Firstly, our analysis denoted the positive effect of discretionary behavior of manager on both types of banks on share prices since discretionary behavior transmits to investor a positive signal of future earnings' prospects. Also, we find that the conventional bank stock prices response is very high to negative signal compared with positive signal. This result is explained by prospect theory and loss aversion bias which specified that individuals are more sensitive to losses than gains of same magnitude. In particular, we discover that the negative effect of non-discretionary behavior is much lower on Islamic bank value since investors give more confidence to Islamic bank because they are motivated by the idea that Islamic banks are safer than conventional banks. Secondly, the results show that investor sentiment affects significantly both bank market prices. Thus, both Islamic and conventional banks' market value depends similarly on manager and investor behavior. The implication of this paper is that Islamic bank concentrations reveal a positive effect on their price values because of the recently increased investments in Islamic banks. PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT The stock market value depends on various factors. This study investigates the effect of bank manager behavior and investor behavior on market value of Islamic and conventional banks in eight countries of the Middle East and North Africa region. The empirical findings of this paper show that the behavior of manager affects significantly the banks value. Indeed, discretionary behavior of manager transmits to investor a positive signal of future earnings' prospects. Moreover, conventional market bank value response is very high to negative signal compared with positive signal. Our results also indicate that the effect of investor sentiment on both bank market prices is also significant. Our paper highlights either an important implication that the limited number of Islamic banks presents a positive effect on Islamic market bank value

Interprétation interactive de documents structurés : application à la rétroconversion de plans d'architecture manuscrits

This thesis is part of the Mobisketch ANR project (http://mobisketch.irisa.fr/). This project aims to develop a generic pen-based solution for the realization of structured documents: drawings, plans... The objective is to achieve a continuum between a technical scheme in its paper form and the same document in its digital interpreted form. This continuum requires two coherent analyzers: one for the recognition phase and another for the composition /editing phase. We are interested in this thesis to the recognition analyzer. The aim of our work was to develop an interactive, incremental and generic method for the recognition of structured documents. The originality of our recognition method, named IMISketch, is to solicit the user during the analysis phase. Indeed, the analysis process is able to solicit the user if it finds ambiguity cases. Two cases of ambiguity may arise: the structural ambiguity and the shape ambiguity. The structural ambiguity is solved by the analysis system when it hesitates between two different segmentations to interpret a symbol. For example, in an architectural plan, the structural ambiguity can be raised to find the right segmentation of primitives between a wall and an opening (door, window, etc.). The shape ambiguity is raised if there are several competing hypotheses to label a symbol, such an ambiguity between a door and a window. The integration of the user in the loop recognition avoids tedious a posteriori correction of recognition errors. The recognition process is based on a separation of the analyzer and of the knowledge related to the kind of document to recognize. The a priori knowledge on the structure of the document is expressed through a visual grammatical language based on some production rules. The application of each rule is quantified by assigning a score to each hypothesis associated to a branch of the analysis tree. The grammatical description is used to drive the analysis. Our rule-based analyzer is able to compete some hypotheses of interpretation, in order to solicit the user when necessary. In addition, to limit the combinatorial, the analyzer is based on a local search context. We also implement an original process based on an hybrid exploration, guided by the grammatical description, which locally accelerates the analysis while limiting the false interpretation risk. Our interactive method has been validated on handwritten architectural plans. These plans are made of walls, three opening types and a dozen of furniture classes. This work shows that the user solicitation improves the quality of document recognition.Cette thèse entre dans le cadre de projet ANR-Mobisketch (http://mobisketch.irisa.fr/). Ce projet vise à élaborer une solution logicielle générique orientée stylo pour la réalisation de documents techniques : schémas, plans... L'objectif est d'aboutir à un continuum entre un document technique sous sa forme papier et ce même document sous sa forme numérique interprétée. Ce continuum nécessite deux analyseurs cohérents : un pour la phase de reconnaissance et un autre pour la composition/édition. Nous nous sommes intéressés dans cette thèse à l'analyseur pour la reconnaissance de documents. Le but de nos travaux était d'élaborer une approche interactive, générique et incrémentale. L'originalité de notre méthode de reconnaissance, nommée IMISketch, est la sollicitation de l'utilisateur durant la phase d'analyse. En effet, le processus d'analyse est capable de solliciter l'utilisateur s'il rencontre des cas d'ambigüités. Deux cas d'ambigüité peuvent se présenter : l'ambigüité structurelle et l'ambigüité de forme. L'ambigüité structurelle est levée par le système d'analyse quand il hésite entre deux segmentations différentes pour interpréter un symbole. Par exemple, dans un plan d'architecture, une ambigüité structurelle peut être levée pour trouver la bonne segmentation des primitives entre un mur et un ouvrant (porte, fenêtre, etc.). L'ambigüité de forme est levée s'il existe plusieurs hypothèses concurrentes pour étiqueter un symbole, par exemple une ambigüité entre une porte et une fenêtre. L'intégration de l'utilisateur dans la boucle de reconnaissance évite une correction a posteriori fastidieuse des erreurs de reconnaissance tout en permettant d'avoir un système auto-évolutif au fur et à mesure de l'analyse. Le processus de reconnaissance est basé sur une séparation de l'analyseur et des connaissances liées au type de document à reconnaître. Les connaissances structurelles a priori du document sont exprimées à travers un langage visuel grammatical basé sur l'écriture de règles de production. L'application de chaque règle est quantifiée par l'attribution d'un score à chaque hypothèse sous tendue par une branche de l'arbre d'analyse. La description grammaticale ainsi produite permet de piloter l'analyseur. Notre analyseur à base de règles est capable de mettre en concurrence des hypothèses possibles d'interprétation, afin de solliciter l'utilisateur lorsque c'est nécessaire. De plus, afin de limiter la combinatoire, l'analyseur se base sur un contexte local de recherche. Nous avons également mis en place un processus d'exploration hybride original, guidé par la description grammaticale, qui permet d'accélérer localement l'analyse tout en limitant le risque de réaliser une fausse interprétation. Notre méthode interactive a été validée sur les plans d'architecture dessinés à main levée. Ces plans sont composés de murs, de trois types d'ouvrants et d'une dizaine de classes de mobilier. Ces travaux montrent que la sollicitation de l'utilisateur permet d'améliorer la qualité de reconnaissance des documents

Competitive hybrid exploration for off-line sketches structure recognition

International audienceWe work on new strategies of exploration for interpretation of off-line sketches. A first approach (call IMISketch) was based on a competitive breadth-first exploration of the analysis tree allowing to evaluate simultaneously several possible hypotheses of recognition in a dynamic local context of document. A great advantage of this strategy is to be able to solicit the user during the decision process to avoid error accumulation in the analysis step. IMISketch strategy is very interesting but it can lead combinatory problems when addressing complex sketches. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid strategy for exploration. The recognition process alternates between a breadth-first and depth-first exploration. The strategy is totally driven by the grammatical description of the document. The paper demonstrates the interest of this new hybrid strategy method on handwritten 2D architectural floor plans containing walls, opening and furnitures

Efficiency of U.S. Oil and Gas Companies toward Energy Policies

The petroleum industry faces crucial environmental problems that exacerbate business instability, such as climate change and greenhouse gas emission regulations. Generally, governments focus on pricing, environmental protection, and supply security when developing energy policy. This article evaluates the technical efficiency of 53 oil and gas companies in the United States during the period 1998–2018 using the stochastic frontier analysis methods and investigates the degree to which energy policies influence the efficiency levels in these companies. Our empirical results show that the average technical efficiency of the 53 U.S. oil and gas companies is 0.75 and confirm that prices, production, consumption, and reserves of the U.S. petroleum and gas have a significant influence on technical efficiency levels. Specifically, our findings show that renewable energy and nuclear power contribute to explaining the distortion between the optimal and observed output of the U.S. oil and gas companies

Optimization Analysis Based On A Breadth-First Exploration For A Structural Approach Of Sketches Interpretation

International audienceIn this paper, we present an optimized approach, based on a competitive breadth-first exploration of the analysis tree, for an interactive interpretation of off-line sketch. The competitive breadth-first exploration of the analysis tree, allows to compare several hypotheses of interpretation to deal with confusion. Unfortunately, in practice these methods are rarely used because they often induce a large combinatory. This paper presents an optimization strategy to minimize the combinatory. The aim is to demonstrate the relevance of a competitive breadth-first exploration in off-line document analysis, in particular when the approach is interactive, ie the user is involved into the loop analysis. This paper demonstrates this optimized interactive analysis method on off-line handwritten 2D architectural floor plans