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

Obtaining business benefits from IT: factors that influence the adoption of benefit realisation methodologies in New Zealand organisations

Almost without exception organisations have become reliant on Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT) applications. Although competitive advantage, task efficiency and effective information management are considered to be among the major drivers for investing in IS/IT, recognising, valuing and realising these expected business benefits from their investments has proved to be a complex task for organisations. The track record of the IS/IT industry shows that there are high rates of project failures, budget overruns and cancellations, resulting in the so-called IT productivity paradox. Researchers argue that the current evaluation techniques (primarily financial) are insufficient to identify, track and evaluate benefits obtained through IS/IT projects. Therefore they encourage organisations to employ non-financial techniques that are apparently more suitable for IS/IT investments. There is still much debate, however, concerning the efficiency and effectiveness of the current evaluation techniques in terms of satisfying the IS/IT investment evaluation criteria.Benefit realisation (BR) approaches are among the non-financial techniques suggested by some in order to facilitate organisations to track, identify, measure and optimise business benefits from IS/IT projects. It appears, however, that most organisations worldwide have failed to change their practices, in part due to managerial perspectives and uncertainty of the effectiveness of BR models.The situation in New Zealand in relation to BR is unknown. This research therefore focuses on analysing the perspectives of IT and business/finance managers' towards their current IS/IT practices. Thereby to investigate the influence of three key factors, awareness, use and effectiveness of BR models those were identified from past studies, in New Zealand business context.In order to assess these factors, this exploratory study employed a positivist cross-sectional survey approach and selected five hundred IT-enabled New Zealand organisations across a variety of industry sectors, sizes and localities as the main sample. The results describe local perspectives on current IS/IT evaluation practices and on formal BR models in use. The report further compares and contrasts IT and finance managers' views towards organisations' current IS/IT practices and BR approaches. Finally concludes with recommendations for practice and implications for further research.Although the survey received relatively low levels of response, some preliminary outcomes are evident. The main insight obtained through this study is that among the responding organisations, awareness of formal benefit realisation and use of formal BR models are fairly low. In spite of this low awareness, there is some evidence of the presence of BR practice among nearly one-third of IT respondents and almost half of finance respondents, who indicated the use of in-house developed models. Some of the in-house models encompass important aspects of formal BR approaches. However the extent of their use varies significantly.Many of the responding organisations, in acknowledging their limited awareness of BR, indicated a desire to know more about the formal methods available. Moreover this research's findings are consistent with the similar studies conducted in Australia and UK. Therefore this study emphasises the need for improvement of NZ organisations' current IS/IT practice by incorporating a BR approach in order to better optimise business benefits from IS/IT. This study recommends that organisations identify the missing links in their current practices through a conceptual framework suggested here and to improve their awareness (and likely adoption) of BR in order to better optimise their business benefits and justify their investments in IS/IT

Influence of AM fungi and its associated bacteria on growth promotion and nutrient acquisition in grafted sapota seedling production

A study was undertaken to know the effect of co-inoculation of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and its associated bacteria on enhancing AM root colonization, growth promotion and nutrient acquisition in grafted sapota plants. The best mycorrhiza associated bacteria i.e. Pseudomonas putida (HM590707) isolated from Funneliformis mosseae spore was evaluated along with AM fungi for growth promotion and AM fungal colonization in grafted sapota plants. The combined application of P. putida along with AM fungi significantly increased plant height (39.67 %), stem girth (3.2 cm), total biomass (66.8 g plant-1), AM root colonization (73.4 %)and plant nutrient concentrations viz., N (2.52 %), P (0.18 %), K (2.90 %), Fe (428.4 ppm) and Zn (21.40 ppm) as compared to uninoculated control. This finding clearly demonstrated that grafted sapota plants can be successfully established by combined inoculation of AM fungi and its associated bacteria which have a greater impact on healthy grafted plants

Reducing data storage requirements for machine learning algorithms using principle component analysis

While current computers have shown to be particular useful for arithmetic and logic implementations, their accuracy and efficiency for applications such as e.g. face, object and speech recognition, are not that impressive, especially when compared to what the human brain can do. Machine learning algorithms have been useful, especially for these type of applications, as they operate in a similar way to the human brain, by learning the data provided and storing it for future recognition. Until now, there has been a strong focus on developing the process of data storage and retrieval, merely neglecting the value of the provided information and the amount of data required to store. Hence, currently all information provided is stored, because it is difficult for the machine to decide which information needs to be stored. Consequently, large amounts of data are stored, which then affects the processing of the data. Thus, this paper investigates the opportunity to reduce data storage through the use of differentiation and combine it with an existing similarity detection algorithm. The differentiation is achieved through the use of, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which not only reduces the data storage requirements by about 80%, but also improves the overall detection accuracy around 50 to nearly 80%

Machine learning for voice recognition

Verbal communication is very important to us humans, but using thisperforming verbal communication to communicateion with machines still faces particular challenges. Therefore, researchers are trying to find ways to make communication with a machine more similar to communicating with other people, for which two systems have been identified: speech and voice recognition. While speech recognition has aimed to become speaker independent, voice recognition focuses on identifying the speaker, by looking at the tone of the voice, which is affected by the physical characteristics of that person. This requires one to identify these unique tonal features, to then train a system with this data. Being able to perform this identification well, would also bring benefit to speech recognition by allowing the system to adjust to the characteristics of that speaker and how he/she produces their sounds

Extreme Peripheral Blood Plasmacytosis Mimicking Plasma Cell Leukemia as a Presenting Feature of Angioimmunoblastic T-Cell Lymphoma (AITL).

Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL) is one of four major subtypes of nodal peripheral T cell lymphoma, characterized by its cell of origin, the follicular helper T-cell (TFH). Patients typically present with prominent constitutional (B) symptoms, generalized lymphadenopathy, hepatosplenomegaly, cytopenias, and rash. Here we present a case of a 62-year-old male with progressive cervical adenopathy, fevers and weight loss presenting with extreme polyclonal plasmacytosis and high plasma EBV viral load. While the initial presentation appeared to mimic plasma cell leukemia or severe infection, lymph node biopsy and bone marrow biopsy confirmed a diagnosis of AITL. This case highlights the heterogeneity of the clinical presentation of AITL to enable physicians to more promptly recognize, diagnose and initiate treatment

Maternal morbidity associated with violence and maltreatment from husbands and in-laws: findings from Indian slum communities.

BackgroundIntimate partner violence (IPV) victimization is linked to a broad range of negative maternal health outcomes. However, it is unclear whether IPV is directly related to poor maternal outcomes or whether IPV is a marker for other forms of chronic, mundane maltreatment of women that stem from the culture of gender inequity that also gives rise to IPV. To determine the prevalence of non-violent forms of gender-based household maltreatment by husbands and in-laws (GBHM), and violence from in-laws (ILV) and husbands (IPV) against women during the peripregnancy period (during and in the year prior to pregnancy); to assess relative associations of GBHM, ILV and IPV with maternal health.MethodsCross-sectional data were collected from women <6 months postpartum (n = 1,039, ages 15-35 years) seeking child immunization in Mumbai, India. Associations of IPV, ILV and GBHM during the peripregnancy period with maternal health (prenatal care in first trimester, no weight gain, pain during intercourse, high blood pressure, vaginal bleeding, premature rupture of membranes, premature birth) were evaluated.ResultsOne in three women (34.0 %) reported IPV, 4.8 % reported ILV, and 48.5 % reported GBHM during the peripregnancy period. After adjusting for other forms of abuse, IPV related to pain during intercourse (AOR = 1.79); ILV related to not receiving first trimester antenatal care (AOR = 0.49), and GBHM remained associated with premature rupture of membranes (AOR = 2.28), pain during intercourse (AOR = 1.60), and vaginal bleeding (AOR = 1.80).ConclusionAfter adjusting for ILV and IPV, peripregnancy GBHM remained significantly associated with multiple forms of maternal morbidity, suggesting that GBHM is a prevalent and reliable indicator of maternal health risk

Pengembangan Model Pembelajaran Kooperatif Handep Untuk Pembelajaran Matematika

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengembangkan Model Pembelajaran Kooperatif berbasis mekanisme gotong royong Handep. Handep adalah bentuk gotong royong suku Dayak Kalimantan Tengah. Model pembelajaran diberi nama Model Pembelajaran Kooperatif (MPK) Handep. Pengembangan MPKHandep dilakukan dengan menyusun buku ajar tentang MPK Handep. Hasil pengembangan divalidasi melalui uji ahli Teknolog Pembelajaran dalam tiga tahapan, dan disimpulkan bahwa preskripsi komponen-komponen MPK Handep telah layak dijadikan sebagai model pembelajaran. Validasi kelompok kecil menunjukkan, MPK Handep telah memenuhi prinsip-prinsip pembelajaran efektif (95,59%), elemen-elemen pembelajaran kooperatif (98,68%), dan kaidah-kaidah Quantum Teaching(75%). Ketercapaian penguasaan kemampuan pemecahan masalah kajian himpunan sebagai dampak instruksional (92%) dan penguasaan keterampilan sosial (91,7%) sebagai dampak pengiring implementasi MPK Handep. The purpose of research developed cooperative learning model based on mechanism of mutual cooperation handep. Handep is the form of collaboration in Dayak Ngaju tribe (Central Kalimantan). The models of teaching and learning namely Handep Cooperative Learning. The model was developed by designing theoretical model of MPK Handep and then validation that model. Cooperative Learning Handep validated by expert in Instructional Technology in three phases and field research in small group of students. The result from the expert validation, that Cooperative Learing Handep prescriptions was sufficiently as a model of learning. The result from field research, that Cooperative Learning Handep were sufficiently for the principles of learning effective (95,59%), the elements of cooperative learning (98,68%), and principles of the Quantum Teaching (75%). Problem solving ability as instructional effect was achieved (92%) and social skill as nurturant effect (91,70%)