Authentications of Myanmar National Registration Card

The automatic identification system of Myanmar national registration card (NRC) holder is presented in this paper. The proposed system can be handled the identification by the extracted low quality face image and fingerprint image from Myanmar NRC. Both of the facial recognition and fingerprint recognition system are developed for Myanmar citizenship confirmation. Age invariant face recognition algorithm is performed based on combination of DiaPCA (Diagonal principal Component Analysis) and KNN (Kth nearest neighbor classifier) approaches. An algorithm of the fingerprint recognition is proposed for recognition of the poor quality fingerprint image with fabric background.  Several experiments have been done for confirming the effectiveness of the proposed approach

How International Doctoral Students’ Fields of Study, Proficiency in English and Gender Interact with Their Sense of Making Progress in English Academic Writing Abilities

This study investigates how non-native English-speaking (NNES) doctoral students selfassess their English academic writing (EAW) abilities. A total of 255 international NNES students, hailing from 49 different countries and speaking 48 mother tongues, voluntarily participated in our study. They were enrolled in 65 PhD programs at 14 universities across Hungary during the 2021–2022 academic year. To address our research aim, we developed a survey using a 6-point Likert scale, following the guidelines of Do¨rnyei and Dewaele (2022). The survey focused on self-assessing their abilities to write academic texts in English. The analysis results indicate that students lacked confidence in their EAW abilities at the beginning of their PhD studies but exhibited increased confidence at the current stage. The results also highlight the influence of gender and English language proficiency on EAW self-assessments. Additionally, senior PhD students demonstrated greater confidence in field-specific lexical knowledge compared to their first-year peers. This study highlights the fact that NNES novice writers lacked the necessary EAW skills upon entering their PhD programs, making it challenging for them to start doctoral-level writing immediately. This underscores the need for comprehensive support that encompasses both enhancing English language proficiency and providing academic writing assistance

Exploring the interplay of English academic reading and writing proficiency among international doctoral students

Academic English is discipline-specific and requires a high level of linguistic knowledge as well as expertise in respective fields. Therefore, doctoral students with limited exposure to academic English tend to face challenges in dealing with its demands, especially when they come from non-native English-speaking (NNES) backgrounds. At the doctoral level, research students are expected to work independently. Therefore, the ability to critically engage with academic materials written in English and the ability to write a dissertation in English at an expected standard play essential roles in successful PhD completion for students studying in international PhD programs where everything is conducted in English. This study investigates the relationship between English academic reading (EAR) and English academic writing (EAW) abilities among NNES doctoral students. We conducted a survey by employing a 1–6 Likert scale, following Dörnyei and Dewaele (2022), in the 2021–2022 academic year. A total of 255 international doctoral students studying in 65 PhD programs across Hungary voluntarily participated in the study. The students came from 49 countries and represented 48 mother tongues. The analysis revealed that students were positive about their abilities in both EAR and EAW, even though there was a significant gender difference at the p < 0.01 level. Additionally, students with the highest English proficiency level (C2) were found to be the most confident about their EAR and EAW abilities. The most junior students from 1st-year PhD programs were less confident about their abilities compared to their peers from 2nd, 3rd, 4th-year PhD programs. The analysis showed a significantly positive correlation between EAR and EAW (r = 0.792, p < 0.001). This study highlighted the inseparable role of EAR in fulfilling doctoral requirements and submitting a dissertation within a contracted PhD time framework, indicating the importance of targeted language support in facilitating academic progression within PhD programs