Handwritten mathematical symbols dataset

PubMed Central

Chajri, Yassine; Bouikhalene, Belaid

2016-01-01

Due to the technological advances in recent years, paper scientific documents are used less and less. Thus, the trend in the scientific community to use digital documents has increased considerably. Among these documents, there are scientific documents and more specifically mathematics documents. In this context, we present our own dataset of handwritten mathematical symbols composed of 10,379 images. This dataset gathers Arabic characters, Latin characters, Arabic numerals, Latin numerals, arithmetic operators, set-symbols, comparison symbols, delimiters, etc. PMID:27006975

A distinguishing method of printed and handwritten legal amount on Chinese bank check

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Ningbo; Lou, Zhen; Yang, Jingyu

2003-09-01

While carrying out Optical Chinese Character Recognition, distinguishing the font between printed and handwritten characters at the early phase is necessary, because there is so much difference between the methods on recognizing these two types of characters. In this paper, we proposed a good method on how to banish seals and its relative standards that can judge whether they should be banished. Meanwhile, an approach on clearing up scattered noise shivers after image segmentation is presented. Four sets of classifying features that show discrimination between printed and handwritten characters are well adopted. The proposed approach was applied to an automatic check processing system and tested on about 9031 checks. The recognition rate is more than 99.5%.

Kannada character recognition system using neural network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kumar, Suresh D. S.; Kamalapuram, Srinivasa K.; Kumar, Ajay B. R.

2013-03-01

Handwriting recognition has been one of the active and challenging research areas in the field of pattern recognition. It has numerous applications which include, reading aid for blind, bank cheques and conversion of any hand written document into structural text form. As there is no sufficient number of works on Indian language character recognition especially Kannada script among 15 major scripts in India. In this paper an attempt is made to recognize handwritten Kannada characters using Feed Forward neural networks. A handwritten Kannada character is resized into 20x30 Pixel. The resized character is used for training the neural network. Once the training process is completed the same character is given as input to the neural network with different set of neurons in hidden layer and their recognition accuracy rate for different Kannada characters has been calculated and compared. The results show that the proposed system yields good recognition accuracy rates comparable to that of other handwritten character recognition systems.

Semi-automatic ground truth generation using unsupervised clustering and limited manual labeling: Application to handwritten character recognition

PubMed Central

Vajda, Szilárd; Rangoni, Yves; Cecotti, Hubert

2015-01-01

For training supervised classifiers to recognize different patterns, large data collections with accurate labels are necessary. In this paper, we propose a generic, semi-automatic labeling technique for large handwritten character collections. In order to speed up the creation of a large scale ground truth, the method combines unsupervised clustering and minimal expert knowledge. To exploit the potential discriminant complementarities across features, each character is projected into five different feature spaces. After clustering the images in each feature space, the human expert labels the cluster centers. Each data point inherits the label of its cluster’s center. A majority (or unanimity) vote decides the label of each character image. The amount of human involvement (labeling) is strictly controlled by the number of clusters – produced by the chosen clustering approach. To test the efficiency of the proposed approach, we have compared, and evaluated three state-of-the art clustering methods (k-means, self-organizing maps, and growing neural gas) on the MNIST digit data set, and a Lampung Indonesian character data set, respectively. Considering a k-nn classifier, we show that labeling manually only 1.3% (MNIST), and 3.2% (Lampung) of the training data, provides the same range of performance than a completely labeled data set would. PMID:25870463

Recognition of degraded handwritten digits using dynamic Bayesian networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Likforman-Sulem, Laurence; Sigelle, Marc

2007-01-01

We investigate in this paper the application of dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs) to the recognition of handwritten digits. The main idea is to couple two separate HMMs into various architectures. First, a vertical HMM and a horizontal HMM are built observing the evolving streams of image columns and image rows respectively. Then, two coupled architectures are proposed to model interactions between these two streams and to capture the 2D nature of character images. Experiments performed on the MNIST handwritten digit database show that coupled architectures yield better recognition performances than non-coupled ones. Additional experiments conducted on artificially degraded (broken) characters demonstrate that coupled architectures better cope with such degradation than non coupled ones and than discriminative methods such as SVMs.

Performance evaluation of MLP and RBF feed forward neural network for the recognition of off-line handwritten characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rishi, Rahul; Choudhary, Amit; Singh, Ravinder; Dhaka, Vijaypal Singh; Ahlawat, Savita; Rao, Mukta

2010-02-01

In this paper we propose a system for classification problem of handwritten text. The system is composed of preprocessing module, supervised learning module and recognition module on a very broad level. The preprocessing module digitizes the documents and extracts features (tangent values) for each character. The radial basis function network is used in the learning and recognition modules. The objective is to analyze and improve the performance of Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) using RBF transfer functions over Logarithmic Sigmoid Function. The results of 35 experiments indicate that the Feed Forward MLP performs accurately and exhaustively with RBF. With the change in weight update mechanism and feature-drawn preprocessing module, the proposed system is competent with good recognition show.

Slant correction for handwritten English documents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shridhar, Malayappan; Kimura, Fumitaka; Ding, Yimei; Miller, John W. V.

2004-12-01

Optical character recognition of machine-printed documents is an effective means for extracting textural material. While the level of effectiveness for handwritten documents is much poorer, progress is being made in more constrained applications such as personal checks and postal addresses. In these applications a series of steps is performed for recognition beginning with removal of skew and slant. Slant is a characteristic unique to the writer and varies from writer to writer in which characters are tilted some amount from vertical. The second attribute is the skew that arises from the inability of the writer to write on a horizontal line. Several methods have been proposed and discussed for average slant estimation and correction in the earlier papers. However, analysis of many handwritten documents reveals that slant is a local property and slant varies even within a word. The use of an average slant for the entire word often results in overestimation or underestimation of the local slant. This paper describes three methods for local slant estimation, namely the simple iterative method, high-speed iterative method, and the 8-directional chain code method. The experimental results show that the proposed methods can estimate and correct local slant more effectively than the average slant correction.

Construction of language models for an handwritten mail reading system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morillot, Olivier; Likforman-Sulem, Laurence; Grosicki, Emmanuèle

2012-01-01

This paper presents a system for the recognition of unconstrained handwritten mails. The main part of this system is an HMM recognizer which uses trigraphs to model contextual information. This recognition system does not require any segmentation into words or characters and directly works at line level. To take into account linguistic information and enhance performance, a language model is introduced. This language model is based on bigrams and built from training document transcriptions only. Different experiments with various vocabulary sizes and language models have been conducted. Word Error Rate and Perplexity values are compared to show the interest of specific language models, fit to handwritten mail recognition task.

Arabic handwritten: pre-processing and segmentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maliki, Makki; Jassim, Sabah; Al-Jawad, Naseer; Sellahewa, Harin

2012-06-01

This paper is concerned with pre-processing and segmentation tasks that influence the performance of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems and handwritten/printed text recognition. In Arabic, these tasks are adversely effected by the fact that many words are made up of sub-words, with many sub-words there associated one or more diacritics that are not connected to the sub-word's body; there could be multiple instances of sub-words overlap. To overcome these problems we investigate and develop segmentation techniques that first segment a document into sub-words, link the diacritics with their sub-words, and removes possible overlapping between words and sub-words. We shall also investigate two approaches for pre-processing tasks to estimate sub-words baseline, and to determine parameters that yield appropriate slope correction, slant removal. We shall investigate the use of linear regression on sub-words pixels to determine their central x and y coordinates, as well as their high density part. We also develop a new incremental rotation procedure to be performed on sub-words that determines the best rotation angle needed to realign baselines. We shall demonstrate the benefits of these proposals by conducting extensive experiments on publicly available databases and in-house created databases. These algorithms help improve character segmentation accuracy by transforming handwritten Arabic text into a form that could benefit from analysis of printed text.

Character context: a shape descriptor for Arabic handwriting recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mudhsh, Mohammed; Almodfer, Rolla; Duan, Pengfei; Xiong, Shengwu

2017-11-01

In the handwriting recognition field, designing good descriptors are substantial to obtain rich information of the data. However, the handwriting recognition research of a good descriptor is still an open issue due to unlimited variation in human handwriting. We introduce a "character context descriptor" that efficiently dealt with the structural characteristics of Arabic handwritten characters. First, the character image is smoothed and normalized, then the character context descriptor of 32 feature bins is built based on the proposed "distance function." Finally, a multilayer perceptron with regularization is used as a classifier. On experimentation with a handwritten Arabic characters database, the proposed method achieved a state-of-the-art performance with recognition rate equal to 98.93% and 99.06% for the 66 and 24 classes, respectively.

Optical character recognition with feature extraction and associative memory matrix

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sasaki, Osami; Shibahara, Akihito; Suzuki, Takamasa

1998-06-01

A method is proposed in which handwritten characters are recognized using feature extraction and an associative memory matrix. In feature extraction, simple processes such as shifting and superimposing patterns are executed. A memory matrix is generated with singular value decomposition and by modifying small singular values. The method is optically implemented with two liquid crystal displays. Experimental results for the recognition of 25 handwritten alphabet characters clearly shows the effectiveness of the method.

Health Information in Farsi (فارسی)

MedlinePlus

... and Driving Laws - فارسی (Farsi) MP3 Karen Chemical Dependency Taskforce of Minnesota How Beer and Alcohol Affect ... Affect the Body - فارسی (Farsi) MP3 Karen Chemical Dependency Taskforce of Minnesota Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse How ...

Ancient administrative handwritten documents: X-ray analysis and imaging

PubMed Central

Albertin, F.; Astolfo, A.; Stampanoni, M.; Peccenini, Eva; Hwu, Y.; Kaplan, F.; Margaritondo, G.

2015-01-01

Handwritten characters in administrative antique documents from three centuries have been detected using different synchrotron X-ray imaging techniques. Heavy elements in ancient inks, present even for everyday administrative manuscripts as shown by X-ray fluorescence spectra, produce attenuation contrast. In most cases the image quality is good enough for tomography reconstruction in view of future applications to virtual page-by-page ‘reading’. When attenuation is too low, differential phase contrast imaging can reveal the characters from refractive index effects. The results are potentially important for new information harvesting strategies, for example from the huge Archivio di Stato collection, objective of the Venice Time Machine project. PMID:25723946

Ancient administrative handwritten documents: X-ray analysis and imaging.

PubMed

Albertin, F; Astolfo, A; Stampanoni, M; Peccenini, Eva; Hwu, Y; Kaplan, F; Margaritondo, G

2015-03-01

Handwritten characters in administrative antique documents from three centuries have been detected using different synchrotron X-ray imaging techniques. Heavy elements in ancient inks, present even for everyday administrative manuscripts as shown by X-ray fluorescence spectra, produce attenuation contrast. In most cases the image quality is good enough for tomography reconstruction in view of future applications to virtual page-by-page `reading'. When attenuation is too low, differential phase contrast imaging can reveal the characters from refractive index effects. The results are potentially important for new information harvesting strategies, for example from the huge Archivio di Stato collection, objective of the Venice Time Machine project.

Comparative implementation of Handwritten and Machine written Gurmukhi text utilizing appropriate parameters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaur, Jaswinder; Jagdev, Gagandeep, Dr.

2018-01-01

Optical character recognition is concerned with the recognition of optically processed characters. The recognition is done offline after the writing or printing has been completed, unlike online recognition where the computer has to recognize the characters instantly as they are drawn. The performance of character recognition depends upon the quality of scanned documents. The preprocessing steps are used for removing low-frequency background noise and normalizing the intensity of individual scanned documents. Several filters are used for reducing certain image details and enabling an easier or faster evaluation. The primary aim of the research work is to recognize handwritten and machine written characters and differentiate them. The language opted for the research work is Punjabi Gurmukhi and tool utilized is Matlab.

Recognition of Telugu characters using neural networks.

PubMed

Sukhaswami, M B; Seetharamulu, P; Pujari, A K

1995-09-01

The aim of the present work is to recognize printed and handwritten Telugu characters using artificial neural networks (ANNs). Earlier work on recognition of Telugu characters has been done using conventional pattern recognition techniques. We make an initial attempt here of using neural networks for recognition with the aim of improving upon earlier methods which do not perform effectively in the presence of noise and distortion in the characters. The Hopfield model of neural network working as an associative memory is chosen for recognition purposes initially. Due to limitation in the capacity of the Hopfield neural network, we propose a new scheme named here as the Multiple Neural Network Associative Memory (MNNAM). The limitation in storage capacity has been overcome by combining multiple neural networks which work in parallel. It is also demonstrated that the Hopfield network is suitable for recognizing noisy printed characters as well as handwritten characters written by different "hands" in a variety of styles. Detailed experiments have been carried out using several learning strategies and results are reported. It is shown here that satisfactory recognition is possible using the proposed strategy. A detailed preprocessing scheme of the Telugu characters from digitized documents is also described.

A Dynamic Bayesian Network Based Structural Learning towards Automated Handwritten Digit Recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pauplin, Olivier; Jiang, Jianmin

Pattern recognition using Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBNs) is currently a growing area of study. In this paper, we present DBN models trained for classification of handwritten digit characters. The structure of these models is partly inferred from the training data of each class of digit before performing parameter learning. Classification results are presented for the four described models.

Normative data for Farsi-speaking Iranians in the United States on measures of executive functioning.

PubMed

Avila, Justina F; Verney, Steven P; Kauzor, Kaitlyn; Flowers, Amina; Mehradfar, Maryam; Razani, Jill

2018-01-09

As the Farsi-speaking Iranian population continues to grow in the United States, examination of their cognitive performance is an imperative first step to providing this group with culturally competent services. Thirty-six healthy primarily Farsi-speaking Iranian adults completed Farsi-translated and adapted versions of three frequently used measures of executive/subcortical functioning: Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Trail Making Test (TMT), and Color Trails Test (CTT). Participants' performance on each measure was compared to published normative data resulting in 0-85% of cognitively and medically healthy individuals being classified as impaired depending on the executive/subcortical test score examined, with the highest impairment rates for specific WCST outcome scores. These findings raise questions for the use of published norms with Farsi-speaking Iranians residing in the US. The present study provided normative data from this group of Farsi-speaking Iranians on the Farsi-translated and adapted versions of the WCST, TMT, and CTT.

Automatic extraction of numeric strings in unconstrained handwritten document images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haji, M. Mehdi; Bui, Tien D.; Suen, Ching Y.

2011-01-01

Numeric strings such as identification numbers carry vital pieces of information in documents. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm for automatic extraction of numeric strings in unconstrained handwritten document images. The algorithm has two main phases: pruning and verification. In the pruning phase, the algorithm first performs a new segment-merge procedure on each text line, and then using a new regularity measure, it prunes all sequences of characters that are unlikely to be numeric strings. The segment-merge procedure is composed of two modules: a new explicit character segmentation algorithm which is based on analysis of skeletal graphs and a merging algorithm which is based on graph partitioning. All the candidate sequences that pass the pruning phase are sent to a recognition-based verification phase for the final decision. The recognition is based on a coarse-to-fine approach using probabilistic RBF networks. We developed our algorithm for the processing of real-world documents where letters and digits may be connected or broken in a document. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is shown by extensive experiments done on a real-world database of 607 documents which contains handwritten, machine-printed and mixed documents with different types of layouts and levels of noise.

Validity and Reliability of Farsi Version of Youth Sport Environment Questionnaire

PubMed Central

Eshghi, Mohammad Ali; Kordi, Ramin; Memari, Amir Hossein; Ghaziasgar, Ahmad; Mansournia, Mohammad-Ali; Zamani Sani, Seyed Hojjat

2015-01-01

The Youth Sport Environment Questionnaire (YSEQ) had been developed from Group Environment Questionnaire, a well-known measure of team cohesion. The aim of this study was to adapt and examine the reliability and validity of the Farsi version of the YSEQ. This version was completed by 455 athletes aged 13–17 years. Results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that two-factor solution showed a good fit to the data. The results also revealed that the Farsi YSEQ showed high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and good concurrent validity. This study indicated that the Farsi version of the YSEQ is a valid and reliable measure to assess team cohesion in sport setting. PMID:26464900

Text-line extraction in handwritten Chinese documents based on an energy minimization framework.

PubMed

Koo, Hyung Il; Cho, Nam Ik

2012-03-01

Text-line extraction in unconstrained handwritten documents remains a challenging problem due to nonuniform character scale, spatially varying text orientation, and the interference between text lines. In order to address these problems, we propose a new cost function that considers the interactions between text lines and the curvilinearity of each text line. Precisely, we achieve this goal by introducing normalized measures for them, which are based on an estimated line spacing. We also present an optimization method that exploits the properties of our cost function. Experimental results on a database consisting of 853 handwritten Chinese document images have shown that our method achieves a detection rate of 99.52% and an error rate of 0.32%, which outperforms conventional methods.

Spotting handwritten words and REGEX using a two stage BLSTM-HMM architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bideault, Gautier; Mioulet, Luc; Chatelain, Clément; Paquet, Thierry

2015-01-01

In this article, we propose a hybrid model for spotting words and regular expressions (REGEX) in handwritten documents. The model is made of the state-of-the-art BLSTM (Bidirectional Long Short Time Memory) neural network for recognizing and segmenting characters, coupled with a HMM to build line models able to spot the desired sequences. Experiments on the Rimes database show very promising results.

"Ich Brauche Mix-Cough": Cross-Linguistic Influence Involving German, English and Farsi

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kazzazi, Kerstin

2011-01-01

This paper deals with cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in early trilingualism involving the languages German, English and Farsi. The data come from the case study of the author's two children growing up in a trilingual family within a monolingual German-speaking environment. Specific types of CLI from the non-dominant language Farsi on German and…

Eye movements when reading sentences with handwritten words.

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Marcet, Ana; Uixera, Beatriz; Vergara-Martínez, Marta

2016-10-17

The examination of how we read handwritten words (i.e., the original form of writing) has typically been disregarded in the literature on reading. Previous research using word recognition tasks has shown that lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) are magnified when reading difficult handwritten words. To examine this issue in a more ecological scenario, we registered the participants' eye movements when reading handwritten sentences that varied in the degree of legibility (i.e., sentences composed of words in easy vs. difficult handwritten style). For comparison purposes, we included a condition with printed sentences. Results showed a larger reading cost for sentences with difficult handwritten words than for sentences with easy handwritten words, which in turn showed a reading cost relative to the sentences with printed words. Critically, the effect of word frequency was greater for difficult handwritten words than for easy handwritten words or printed words in the total times on a target word, but not on first-fixation durations or gaze durations. We examine the implications of these findings for models of eye movement control in reading.

Fuzzy Logic Module of Convolutional Neural Network for Handwritten Digits Recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Popko, E. A.; Weinstein, I. A.

2016-08-01

Optical character recognition is one of the important issues in the field of pattern recognition. This paper presents a method for recognizing handwritten digits based on the modeling of convolutional neural network. The integrated fuzzy logic module based on a structural approach was developed. Used system architecture adjusted the output of the neural network to improve quality of symbol identification. It was shown that proposed algorithm was flexible and high recognition rate of 99.23% was achieved.

Handwritten text line segmentation by spectral clustering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Han, Xuecheng; Yao, Hui; Zhong, Guoqiang

2017-02-01

Since handwritten text lines are generally skewed and not obviously separated, text line segmentation of handwritten document images is still a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose a novel text line segmentation algorithm based on the spectral clustering. Given a handwritten document image, we convert it to a binary image first, and then compute the adjacent matrix of the pixel points. We apply spectral clustering on this similarity metric and use the orthogonal kmeans clustering algorithm to group the text lines. Experiments on Chinese handwritten documents database (HIT-MW) demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Gapping in Farsi: A Crosslinguistic Investigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Farudi, Annahita

2013-01-01

This dissertation explores a longstanding challenge in work on gapping through the empirical lens of gapping in Farsi (the Tehrani variant of Modern Persian). While gapping has much in common with more uncontroversial elliptical constructions such as VPE and sluicing, it also differs from ellipsis in ways that accounts combining TP or CP…

Handwritten digits recognition based on immune network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Yangyang; Wu, Yunhui; Jiao, Lc; Wu, Jianshe

2011-11-01

With the development of society, handwritten digits recognition technique has been widely applied to production and daily life. It is a very difficult task to solve these problems in the field of pattern recognition. In this paper, a new method is presented for handwritten digit recognition. The digit samples firstly are processed and features extraction. Based on these features, a novel immune network classification algorithm is designed and implemented to the handwritten digits recognition. The proposed algorithm is developed by Jerne's immune network model for feature selection and KNN method for classification. Its characteristic is the novel network with parallel commutating and learning. The performance of the proposed method is experimented to the handwritten number datasets MNIST and compared with some other recognition algorithms-KNN, ANN and SVM algorithm. The result shows that the novel classification algorithm based on immune network gives promising performance and stable behavior for handwritten digits recognition.

Offline handwritten word recognition using MQDF-HMMs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramachandrula, Sitaram; Hambarde, Mangesh; Patial, Ajay; Sahoo, Dushyant; Kochar, Shaivi

2015-01-01

We propose an improved HMM formulation for offline handwriting recognition (HWR). The main contribution of this work is using modified quadratic discriminant function (MQDF) [1] within HMM framework. In an MQDF-HMM the state observation likelihood is calculated by a weighted combination of MQDF likelihoods of individual Gaussians of GMM (Gaussian Mixture Model). The quadratic discriminant function (QDF) of a multivariate Gaussian can be rewritten by avoiding the inverse of covariance matrix by using the Eigen values and Eigen vectors of it. The MQDF is derived from QDF by substituting few of badly estimated lower-most Eigen values by an appropriate constant. The estimation errors of non-dominant Eigen vectors and Eigen values of covariance matrix for which the training data is insufficient can be controlled by this approach. MQDF has been successfully shown to improve the character recognition performance [1]. The usage of MQDF in HMM improves the computation, storage and modeling power of HMM when there is limited training data. We have got encouraging results on offline handwritten character (NIST database) and word recognition in English using MQDF HMMs.

Psychometric data for a Farsi translation of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale.

PubMed

Bayani, Ali Asghar

2009-08-01

This study examined the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity of a Farsi version of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale, with a sample of 306 undergraduate students (123 men, 183 women) ages 18 to 51 years. Participants completed Farsi versions of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale. Analysis confirmed the preliminary reliabilities and construct validity of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale.

Recognizing characters of ancient manuscripts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Diem, Markus; Sablatnig, Robert

2010-02-01

Considering printed Latin text, the main issues of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems are solved. However, for degraded handwritten document images, basic preprocessing steps such as binarization, gain poor results with state-of-the-art methods. In this paper ancient Slavonic manuscripts from the 11th century are investigated. In order to minimize the consequences of false character segmentation, a binarization-free approach based on local descriptors is proposed. Additionally local information allows the recognition of partially visible or washed out characters. The proposed algorithm consists of two steps: character classification and character localization. Initially Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) features are extracted which are subsequently classified using Support Vector Machines (SVM). Afterwards, the interest points are clustered according to their spatial information. Thereby, characters are localized and finally recognized based on a weighted voting scheme of pre-classified local descriptors. Preliminary results show that the proposed system can handle highly degraded manuscript images with background clutter (e.g. stains, tears) and faded out characters.

Recognition of handprinted characters for automated cartography A progress report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lybanon, M.; Brown, R. M.; Gronmeyer, L. K.

1980-01-01

A research program for developing handwritten character recognition techniques is reported. The generation of cartographic/hydrographic manuscripts is overviewed. The performance of hardware/software systems is discussed, along with future research problem areas and planned approaches.

Transcript mapping for handwritten English documents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jose, Damien; Bharadwaj, Anurag; Govindaraju, Venu

2008-01-01

Transcript mapping or text alignment with handwritten documents is the automatic alignment of words in a text file with word images in a handwritten document. Such a mapping has several applications in fields ranging from machine learning where large quantities of truth data are required for evaluating handwriting recognition algorithms, to data mining where word image indexes are used in ranked retrieval of scanned documents in a digital library. The alignment also aids "writer identity" verification algorithms. Interfaces which display scanned handwritten documents may use this alignment to highlight manuscript tokens when a person examines the corresponding transcript word. We propose an adaptation of the True DTW dynamic programming algorithm for English handwritten documents. The integration of the dissimilarity scores from a word-model word recognizer and Levenshtein distance between the recognized word and lexicon word, as a cost metric in the DTW algorithm leading to a fast and accurate alignment, is our primary contribution. Results provided, confirm the effectiveness of our approach.

Do handwritten words magnify lexical effects in visual word recognition?

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Gil-López, Cristina; Beléndez, Victoria; Carreiras, Manuel

2016-01-01

An examination of how the word recognition system is able to process handwritten words is fundamental to formulate a comprehensive model of visual word recognition. Previous research has revealed that the magnitude of lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) is greater with handwritten words than with printed words. In the present lexical decision experiments, we examined whether the quality of handwritten words moderates the recruitment of top-down feedback, as reflected in word-frequency effects. Results showed a reading cost for difficult-to-read and easy-to-read handwritten words relative to printed words. But the critical finding was that difficult-to-read handwritten words, but not easy-to-read handwritten words, showed a greater word-frequency effect than printed words. Therefore, the inherent physical variability of handwritten words does not necessarily boost the magnitude of lexical effects.

The Psychometric Parameters of the Farsi Form of the Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety

PubMed Central

Abdel-Khalek, Ahmed M.; Lester, David

2017-01-01

The aim of this study was to describe the psychometric properties of the Farsi Form of the Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety (ASDA). The original scale was first translated into Farsi by language experts using the back translation procedure and then administered to a total of 252 Iranian college students and 52 psychiatric outpatients from psychiatric and psychological clinics. The one-week test-retest reliability of the Farsi version in a sample of college students was 0.78, indicating good temporal stability and corroborating the trait-like nature of scores. Cronbach's α was 0.90 for the college students and 0.92 for the psychiatric outpatients, indicating high internal consistency. Scale scores correlated 0.46 with Death Obsession Scale scores, 0.56 with Death Depression Scale scores, 0.41 with Death Anxiety Scale scores, and 0.40 with Wish to be Dead Scale scores, indicating good construct and criterion-related validity. A principal component analysis with a Varimax rotation yielded four factors in the sample of Iranian college students, indicating a lack of homogeneity in the content of the scale. Male students obtained a significant higher mean score than did females. It was concluded that the Farsi ASDA had good internal consistency, temporal stability, criterion-related validity, and a factor structure reflecting important features of death anxiety. In general, the Farsi ASDA could be recommended for use in research on death anxiety among Iranian college students and psychiatric outpatients. PMID:28698887

The Psychometric Parameters of the Farsi Form of the Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety.

PubMed

Dadfar, Mahboubeh; Abdel-Khalek, Ahmed M; Lester, David; Atef Vahid, Mohammad Kazem

2017-01-01

The aim of this study was to describe the psychometric properties of the Farsi Form of the Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety (ASDA). The original scale was first translated into Farsi by language experts using the back translation procedure and then administered to a total of 252 Iranian college students and 52 psychiatric outpatients from psychiatric and psychological clinics. The one-week test-retest reliability of the Farsi version in a sample of college students was 0.78, indicating good temporal stability and corroborating the trait-like nature of scores. Cronbach's α was 0.90 for the college students and 0.92 for the psychiatric outpatients, indicating high internal consistency. Scale scores correlated 0.46 with Death Obsession Scale scores, 0.56 with Death Depression Scale scores, 0.41 with Death Anxiety Scale scores, and 0.40 with Wish to be Dead Scale scores, indicating good construct and criterion-related validity. A principal component analysis with a Varimax rotation yielded four factors in the sample of Iranian college students, indicating a lack of homogeneity in the content of the scale. Male students obtained a significant higher mean score than did females. It was concluded that the Farsi ASDA had good internal consistency, temporal stability, criterion-related validity, and a factor structure reflecting important features of death anxiety. In general, the Farsi ASDA could be recommended for use in research on death anxiety among Iranian college students and psychiatric outpatients.

Hemispheric Differences in Processing Handwritten Cursive

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hellige, Joseph B.; Adamson, Maheen M.

2007-01-01

Hemispheric asymmetry was examined for native English speakers identifying consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) non-words presented in standard printed form, in standard handwritten cursive form or in handwritten cursive with the letters separated by small gaps. For all three conditions, fewer errors occurred when stimuli were presented to the right…

Preliminary study towards the development of copying skill assessment on dyslexic children in Jawi handwriting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rahim, Kartini Abdul; Kahar, Rosmila Abdul; Khalid, Halimi Mohd.; Salleh, Rohayu Mohd; Hashim, Rathiah

2015-05-01

Recognition of Arabic handwritten and its variants such as Farsi (Persian) and Urdu had been receiving considerable attention in recent years. Being contrast to Arabic handwritten, Jawi, as a second method of Malay handwritten, has not been studied yet, but if any, there were a few references on it. The recent transformation in Malaysian education, the Special Education is one of the priorities in the Malaysia Blueprint. One of the special needs quoted in Malaysia education is dyslexia. A dyslexic student is considered as student with learning disability. Concluding a student is truly dyslexia might be incorrect for they were only assessed through Roman alphabet, without considering assessment via Jawi handwriting. A study was conducted on dyslexic students attending a special class for dyslexia in Malay Language to determine whether they are also dyslexia in Jawi handwriting. The focus of the study is to test the copying skills in relation to word reading and writing in Malay Language with and without dyslexia through both characters. A total of 10 dyslexic children and 10 normal children were recruited. In conclusion for future study, dyslexic students have less difficulty in performing Jawi handwriting in Malay Language through statistical analysis.

Assessment of legibility and completeness of handwritten and electronic prescriptions.

PubMed

Albarrak, Ahmed I; Al Rashidi, Eman Abdulrahman; Fatani, Rwaa Kamil; Al Ageel, Shoog Ibrahim; Mohammed, Rafiuddin

2014-12-01

To assess the legibility and completeness of handwritten prescriptions and compare with electronic prescription system for medication errors. Prospective study. King Khalid University Hospital (KKUH), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Handwritten prescriptions were received from clinical units of Medicine Outpatient Department (MOPD), Primary Care Clinic (PCC) and Surgery Outpatient Department (SOPD) whereas electronic prescriptions were collected from the pediatric ward. The handwritten prescription was assessed for completeness by the checklist designed according to the hospital prescription and evaluated for legibility by two pharmacists. The comparison between handwritten and electronic prescription errors was evaluated based on the validated checklist adopted from previous studies. Legibility and completeness of prescriptions. 398 prescriptions (199 handwritten and 199 e-prescriptions) were assessed. About 71 (35.7%) of handwritten and 5 (2.5%) of electronic prescription errors were identified. A significant statistical difference (P < 0.001) was observed between handwritten and e-prescriptions in omitted dose and omitted route of administration category of error distribution. The rate of completeness in patient identification in handwritten prescriptions was 80.97% in MOPD, 76.36% in PCC and 85.93% in SOPD clinic units. Assessment of medication prescription completeness was 91.48% in MOPD, 88.48% in PCC, and 89.28% in SOPD. This study revealed a high incidence of prescribing errors in handwritten prescriptions. The use of e-prescription system showed a significant decline in the incidence of errors. The legibility of handwritten prescriptions was relatively good whereas the level of completeness was very low.

Segmentation of touching handwritten Japanese characters using the graph theory method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suwa, Misako

2000-12-01

Projection analysis methods have been widely used to segment Japanese character strings. However, if adjacent characters have overhanging strokes or a touching point doesn't correspond to the histogram minimum, the methods are prone to result in errors. In contrast, non-projection analysis methods being proposed for use on numerals or alphabet characters cannot be simply applied for Japanese characters because of the differences in the structure of the characters. Based on the oversegmenting strategy, a new pre-segmentation method is presented in this paper: touching patterns are represented as graphs and touching strokes are regarded as the elements of proper edge cutsets. By using the graph theoretical technique, the cutset martrix is calculated. Then, by applying pruning rules, potential touching strokes are determined and the patterns are over segmented. Moreover, this algorithm was confirmed to be valid for touching patterns with overhanging strokes and doubly connected patterns in simulations.

Assessment of legibility and completeness of handwritten and electronic prescriptions

PubMed Central

Albarrak, Ahmed I; Al Rashidi, Eman Abdulrahman; Fatani, Rwaa Kamil; Al Ageel, Shoog Ibrahim; Mohammed, Rafiuddin

2014-01-01

Objectives To assess the legibility and completeness of handwritten prescriptions and compare with electronic prescription system for medication errors. Design Prospective study. Setting King Khalid University Hospital (KKUH), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Subjects and methods Handwritten prescriptions were received from clinical units of Medicine Outpatient Department (MOPD), Primary Care Clinic (PCC) and Surgery Outpatient Department (SOPD) whereas electronic prescriptions were collected from the pediatric ward. The handwritten prescription was assessed for completeness by the checklist designed according to the hospital prescription and evaluated for legibility by two pharmacists. The comparison between handwritten and electronic prescription errors was evaluated based on the validated checklist adopted from previous studies. Main outcome measures Legibility and completeness of prescriptions. Results 398 prescriptions (199 handwritten and 199 e-prescriptions) were assessed. About 71 (35.7%) of handwritten and 5 (2.5%) of electronic prescription errors were identified. A significant statistical difference (P < 0.001) was observed between handwritten and e-prescriptions in omitted dose and omitted route of administration category of error distribution. The rate of completeness in patient identification in handwritten prescriptions was 80.97% in MOPD, 76.36% in PCC and 85.93% in SOPD clinic units. Assessment of medication prescription completeness was 91.48% in MOPD, 88.48% in PCC, and 89.28% in SOPD. Conclusions This study revealed a high incidence of prescribing errors in handwritten prescriptions. The use of e-prescription system showed a significant decline in the incidence of errors. The legibility of handwritten prescriptions was relatively good whereas the level of completeness was very low. PMID:25561864

Invariant approach to the character classification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Šariri, Kristina; Demoli, Nazif

2008-04-01

Image moments analysis is a very useful tool which allows image description invariant to translation and rotation, scale change and some types of image distortions. The aim of this work was development of simple method for fast and reliable classification of characters by using Hu's and affine moment invariants. Measure of Eucleidean distance was used as a discrimination feature with statistical parameters estimated. The method was tested in classification of Times New Roman font letters as well as sets of the handwritten characters. It is shown that using all Hu's and three affine invariants as discrimination set improves recognition rate by 30%.

Text-image alignment for historical handwritten documents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zinger, S.; Nerbonne, J.; Schomaker, L.

2009-01-01

We describe our work on text-image alignment in context of building a historical document retrieval system. We aim at aligning images of words in handwritten lines with their text transcriptions. The images of handwritten lines are automatically segmented from the scanned pages of historical documents and then manually transcribed. To train automatic routines to detect words in an image of handwritten text, we need a training set - images of words with their transcriptions. We present our results on aligning words from the images of handwritten lines and their corresponding text transcriptions. Alignment based on the longest spaces between portions of handwriting is a baseline. We then show that relative lengths, i.e. proportions of words in their lines, can be used to improve the alignment results considerably. To take into account the relative word length, we define the expressions for the cost function that has to be minimized for aligning text words with their images. We apply right to left alignment as well as alignment based on exhaustive search. The quality assessment of these alignments shows correct results for 69% of words from 100 lines, or 90% of partially correct and correct alignments combined.

Quantify spatial relations to discover handwritten graphical symbols

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Jinpeng; Mouchère, Harold; Viard-Gaudin, Christian

2012-01-01

To model a handwritten graphical language, spatial relations describe how the strokes are positioned in the 2-dimensional space. Most of existing handwriting recognition systems make use of some predefined spatial relations. However, considering a complex graphical language, it is hard to express manually all the spatial relations. Another possibility would be to use a clustering technique to discover the spatial relations. In this paper, we discuss how to create a relational graph between strokes (nodes) labeled with graphemes in a graphical language. Then we vectorize spatial relations (edges) for clustering and quantization. As the targeted application, we extract the repetitive sub-graphs (graphical symbols) composed of graphemes and learned spatial relations. On two handwriting databases, a simple mathematical expression database and a complex flowchart database, the unsupervised spatial relations outperform the predefined spatial relations. In addition, we visualize the frequent patterns on two text-lines containing Chinese characters.

Reliability and preliminary evidence of validity of a Farsi version of the depression anxiety stress scales.

PubMed

Bayani, Ali Asghar

2010-08-01

The internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity of the Farsi version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales were examined, with a sample of 306 undergraduate students (123 men, 183 women) ranging from 18 to 51 years of age (M age = 25.4, SD = 6.1). Participants completed the Satisfaction with Life Scale, Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. The findings confirmed the preliminary reliabilities and preliminary construct validity of the Farsi translation of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales.

Application of the ANNA neural network chip to high-speed character recognition.

PubMed

Sackinger, E; Boser, B E; Bromley, J; Lecun, Y; Jackel, L D

1992-01-01

A neural network with 136000 connections for recognition of handwritten digits has been implemented using a mixed analog/digital neural network chip. The neural network chip is capable of processing 1000 characters/s. The recognition system has essentially the same rate (5%) as a simulation of the network with 32-b floating-point precision.

Interactive-predictive detection of handwritten text blocks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramos Terrades, O.; Serrano, N.; Gordó, A.; Valveny, E.; Juan, A.

2010-01-01

A method for text block detection is introduced for old handwritten documents. The proposed method takes advantage of sequential book structure, taking into account layout information from pages previously transcribed. This glance at the past is used to predict the position of text blocks in the current page with the help of conventional layout analysis methods. The method is integrated into the GIDOC prototype: a first attempt to provide integrated support for interactive-predictive page layout analysis, text line detection and handwritten text transcription. Results are given in a transcription task on a 764-page Spanish manuscript from 1891.

Handwritten Word Recognition Using Multi-view Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Oliveira, J. J.; de A. Freitas, C. O.; de Carvalho, J. M.; Sabourin, R.

This paper brings a contribution to the problem of efficiently recognizing handwritten words from a limited size lexicon. For that, a multiple classifier system has been developed that analyzes the words from three different approximation levels, in order to get a computational approach inspired on the human reading process. For each approximation level a three-module architecture composed of a zoning mechanism (pseudo-segmenter), a feature extractor and a classifier is defined. The proposed application is the recognition of the Portuguese handwritten names of the months, for which a best recognition rate of 97.7% was obtained, using classifier combination.

What differs in visual recognition of handwritten vs. printed letters? An fMRI study.

PubMed

Longcamp, Marieke; Hlushchuk, Yevhen; Hari, Riitta

2011-08-01

In models of letter recognition, handwritten letters are considered as a particular font exemplar, not qualitatively different in their processing from printed letters. Yet, some data suggest that recognizing handwritten letters might rely on distinct processes, possibly related to motor knowledge. We applied functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the neural correlates of perceiving handwritten letters vs. standard printed letters. Statistical analysis circumscribed to frontal brain regions involved in hand-movement triggering and execution showed that processing of handwritten letters is supported by a stronger activation of the left primary motor cortex and the supplementary motor area. At the whole-brain level, additional differences between handwritten and printed letters were observed in the right superior frontal, middle occipital, and parahippocampal gyri, and in the left inferior precentral and the fusiform gyri. The results are suggested to indicate embodiment of the visual perception of handwritten letters. Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The Communication Function Classification System: cultural adaptation, validity, and reliability of the Farsi version for patients with cerebral palsy.

PubMed

Soleymani, Zahra; Joveini, Ghodsiye; Baghestani, Ahmad Reza

2015-03-01

This study developed a Farsi language Communication Function Classification System and then tested its reliability and validity. Communication Function Classification System is designed to classify the communication functions of individuals with cerebral palsy. Up until now, there has been no instrument for assessment of this communication function in Iran. The English Communication Function Classification System was translated into Farsi and cross-culturally modified by a panel of experts. Professionals and parents then assessed the content validity of the modified version. A backtranslation of the Farsi version was confirmed by the developer of the English Communication Function Classification System. Face validity was assessed by therapists and parents of 10 patients. The Farsi Communication Function Classification System was administered to 152 individuals with cerebral palsy (age, 2 to 18 years; median age, 10 years; mean age, 9.9 years; standard deviation, 4.3 years). Inter-rater reliability was analyzed between parents, occupational therapists, and speech and language pathologists. The test-retest reliability was assessed for 75 patients with a 14 day interval between tests. The inter-rater reliability of the Communication Function Classification System was 0.81 between speech and language pathologists and occupational therapists, 0.74 between parents and occupational therapists, and 0.88 between parents and speech and language pathologists. The test-retest reliability was 0.96 for occupational therapists, 0.98 for speech and language pathologists, and 0.94 for parents. The findings suggest that the Farsi version of Communication Function Classification System is a reliable and valid measure that can be used in clinical settings to assess communication function in patients with cerebral palsy. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Spotting words in handwritten Arabic documents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Srihari, Sargur; Srinivasan, Harish; Babu, Pavithra; Bhole, Chetan

2006-01-01

The design and performance of a system for spotting handwritten Arabic words in scanned document images is presented. Three main components of the system are a word segmenter, a shape based matcher for words and a search interface. The user types in a query in English within a search window, the system finds the equivalent Arabic word, e.g., by dictionary look-up, locates word images in an indexed (segmented) set of documents. A two-step approach is employed in performing the search: (1) prototype selection: the query is used to obtain a set of handwritten samples of that word from a known set of writers (these are the prototypes), and (2) word matching: the prototypes are used to spot each occurrence of those words in the indexed document database. A ranking is performed on the entire set of test word images-- where the ranking criterion is a similarity score between each prototype word and the candidate words based on global word shape features. A database of 20,000 word images contained in 100 scanned handwritten Arabic documents written by 10 different writers was used to study retrieval performance. Using five writers for providing prototypes and the other five for testing, using manually segmented documents, 55% precision is obtained at 50% recall. Performance increases as more writers are used for training.

New efficient algorithm for recognizing handwritten Hindi digits

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

El-Sonbaty, Yasser; Ismail, Mohammed A.; Karoui, Kamal

2001-12-01

In this paper a new algorithm for recognizing handwritten Hindi digits is proposed. The proposed algorithm is based on using the topological characteristics combined with statistical properties of the given digits in order to extract a set of features that can be used in the process of digit classification. 10,000 handwritten digits are used in the experimental results. 1100 digits are used for training and another 5500 unseen digits are used for testing. The recognition rate has reached 97.56%, a substitution rate of 1.822%, and a rejection rate of 0.618%.

Farsi version of social skills rating system-secondary student form: cultural adaptation, reliability and construct validity.

PubMed

Eslami, Ahmad Ali; Amidi Mazaheri, Maryam; Mostafavi, Firoozeh; Abbasi, Mohamad Hadi; Noroozi, Ensieh

2014-01-01

Assessment of social skills is a necessary requirement to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive and behavioral interventions. This paper reports the cultural adaptation and psychometric properties of the Farsi version of the social skills rating system-secondary students form (SSRS-SS) questionnaire (Gresham and Elliot, 1990), in a normative sample of secondary school students. A two-phase design was used that phase 1 consisted of the linguistic adaptation and in phase 2, using cross-sectional sample survey data, the construct validity and reliability of the Farsi version of the SSRS-SS were examined in a sample of 724 adolescents aged from 13 to 19 years. Content validity index was excellent, and the floor/ceiling effects were low. After deleting five of the original SSRS-SS items, the findings gave support for the item convergent and divergent validity. Factor analysis revealed four subscales. RESULTS showed good internal consistency (0.89) and temporal stability (0.91) for the total scale score. Findings demonstrated support for the use of the 27-item Farsi version in the school setting. Directions for future research regarding the applicability of the scale in other settings and populations of adolescents are discussed.

The Interaction between Central and Peripheral Processing in Chinese Handwritten Production: Evidence from the Effect of Lexicality and Radical Complexity

PubMed Central

Zhang, Qingfang; Feng, Chen

2017-01-01

The interaction between central and peripheral processing in written word production remains controversial. This study aims to investigate whether the effects of radical complexity and lexicality in central processing cascade into peripheral processing in Chinese written word production. The participants were asked to write characters and non-characters (lexicality) with different radical complexity (few- and many-strokes). The findings indicated that regardless of the lexicality, the writing latencies were longer for characters with higher complexity (the many-strokes condition) than for characters with lower complexity (the few-strokes condition). The participants slowed down their writing execution at the radicals' boundary strokes, which indicated a radical boundary effect in peripheral processing. Interestingly, the lexicality and the radical complexity affected the pattern of shift velocity and writing velocity during the execution of writing. Lexical processing cascades into peripheral processing but only at the beginning of Chinese characters. In contrast, the radical complexity influenced the execution of handwriting movement throughout the entire character, and the pattern of the effect interacted with the character frequency. These results suggest that the processes of the lexicality and the radical complexity function during the execution of handwritten word production, which suggests that central processing cascades over peripheral processing during Chinese characters handwriting. PMID:28348536

An adaptive deep Q-learning strategy for handwritten digit recognition.

PubMed

Qiao, Junfei; Wang, Gongming; Li, Wenjing; Chen, Min

2018-02-22

Handwritten digits recognition is a challenging problem in recent years. Although many deep learning-based classification algorithms are studied for handwritten digits recognition, the recognition accuracy and running time still need to be further improved. In this paper, an adaptive deep Q-learning strategy is proposed to improve accuracy and shorten running time for handwritten digit recognition. The adaptive deep Q-learning strategy combines the feature-extracting capability of deep learning and the decision-making of reinforcement learning to form an adaptive Q-learning deep belief network (Q-ADBN). First, Q-ADBN extracts the features of original images using an adaptive deep auto-encoder (ADAE), and the extracted features are considered as the current states of Q-learning algorithm. Second, Q-ADBN receives Q-function (reward signal) during recognition of the current states, and the final handwritten digits recognition is implemented by maximizing the Q-function using Q-learning algorithm. Finally, experimental results from the well-known MNIST dataset show that the proposed Q-ADBN has a superiority to other similar methods in terms of accuracy and running time. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Handwritten document age classification based on handwriting styles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramaiah, Chetan; Kumar, Gaurav; Govindaraju, Venu

2012-01-01

Handwriting styles are constantly changing over time. We approach the novel problem of estimating the approximate age of Historical Handwritten Documents using Handwriting styles. This system will have many applications in handwritten document processing engines where specialized processing techniques can be applied based on the estimated age of the document. We propose to learn a distribution over styles across centuries using Topic Models and to apply a classifier over weights learned in order to estimate the approximate age of the documents. We present a comparison of different distance metrics such as Euclidean Distance and Hellinger Distance within this application.

Postprocessing for character recognition using pattern features and linguistic information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yoshikawa, Takatoshi; Okamoto, Masayosi; Horii, Hiroshi

1993-04-01

We propose a new method of post-processing for character recognition using pattern features and linguistic information. This method corrects errors in the recognition of handwritten Japanese sentences containing Kanji characters. This post-process method is characterized by having two types of character recognition. Improving the accuracy of the character recognition rate of Japanese characters is made difficult by the large number of characters, and the existence of characters with similar patterns. Therefore, it is not practical for a character recognition system to recognize all characters in detail. First, this post-processing method generates a candidate character table by recognizing the simplest features of characters. Then, it selects words corresponding to the character from the candidate character table by referring to a word and grammar dictionary before selecting suitable words. If the correct character is included in the candidate character table, this process can correct an error, however, if the character is not included, it cannot correct an error. Therefore, if this method can presume a character does not exist in a candidate character table by using linguistic information (word and grammar dictionary). It then can verify a presumed character by character recognition using complex features. When this method is applied to an online character recognition system, the accuracy of character recognition improves 93.5% to 94.7%. This proved to be the case when it was used for the editorials of a Japanese newspaper (Asahi Shinbun).

Simulation Detection in Handwritten Documents by Forensic Document Examiners.

PubMed

Kam, Moshe; Abichandani, Pramod; Hewett, Tom

2015-07-01

This study documents the results of a controlled experiment designed to quantify the abilities of forensic document examiners (FDEs) and laypersons to detect simulations in handwritten documents. Nineteen professional FDEs and 26 laypersons (typical of a jury pool) were asked to inspect test packages that contained six (6) known handwritten documents written by the same person and two (2) questioned handwritten documents. Each questioned document was either written by the person who wrote the known documents, or written by a different person who tried to simulate the writing of the person who wrote the known document. The error rates of the FDEs were smaller than those of the laypersons when detecting simulations in the questioned documents. Among other findings, the FDEs never labeled a questioned document that was written by the same person who wrote the known documents as "simulation." There was a significant statistical difference between the responses of the FDEs and layperson for documents without simulations. © 2015 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Handwritten numeral databases of Indian scripts and multistage recognition of mixed numerals.

PubMed

Bhattacharya, Ujjwal; Chaudhuri, B B

2009-03-01

This article primarily concerns the problem of isolated handwritten numeral recognition of major Indian scripts. The principal contributions presented here are (a) pioneering development of two databases for handwritten numerals of two most popular Indian scripts, (b) a multistage cascaded recognition scheme using wavelet based multiresolution representations and multilayer perceptron classifiers and (c) application of (b) for the recognition of mixed handwritten numerals of three Indian scripts Devanagari, Bangla and English. The present databases include respectively 22,556 and 23,392 handwritten isolated numeral samples of Devanagari and Bangla collected from real-life situations and these can be made available free of cost to researchers of other academic Institutions. In the proposed scheme, a numeral is subjected to three multilayer perceptron classifiers corresponding to three coarse-to-fine resolution levels in a cascaded manner. If rejection occurred even at the highest resolution, another multilayer perceptron is used as the final attempt to recognize the input numeral by combining the outputs of three classifiers of the previous stages. This scheme has been extended to the situation when the script of a document is not known a priori or the numerals written on a document belong to different scripts. Handwritten numerals in mixed scripts are frequently found in Indian postal mails and table-form documents.

Dynamic and Contextual Information in HMM Modeling for Handwritten Word Recognition.

PubMed

Bianne-Bernard, Anne-Laure; Menasri, Farès; Al-Hajj Mohamad, Rami; Mokbel, Chafic; Kermorvant, Christopher; Likforman-Sulem, Laurence

2011-10-01

This study aims at building an efficient word recognition system resulting from the combination of three handwriting recognizers. The main component of this combined system is an HMM-based recognizer which considers dynamic and contextual information for a better modeling of writing units. For modeling the contextual units, a state-tying process based on decision tree clustering is introduced. Decision trees are built according to a set of expert-based questions on how characters are written. Questions are divided into global questions, yielding larger clusters, and precise questions, yielding smaller ones. Such clustering enables us to reduce the total number of models and Gaussians densities by 10. We then apply this modeling to the recognition of handwritten words. Experiments are conducted on three publicly available databases based on Latin or Arabic languages: Rimes, IAM, and OpenHart. The results obtained show that contextual information embedded with dynamic modeling significantly improves recognition.

Rotation Reveals the Importance of Configural Cues in Handwritten Word Perception

PubMed Central

Barnhart, Anthony S.; Goldinger, Stephen D.

2013-01-01

A dramatic perceptual asymmetry occurs when handwritten words are rotated 90° in either direction. Those rotated in a direction consistent with their natural tilt (typically clockwise) become much more difficult to recognize, relative to those rotated in the opposite direction. In Experiment 1, we compared computer-printed and handwritten words, all equated for degrees of leftward and rightward tilt, and verified the phenomenon: The effect of rotation was far larger for cursive words, especially when rotated in a tilt-consistent direction. In Experiment 2, we replicated this pattern with all items presented in visual noise. In both experiments, word frequency effects were larger for computer-printed words and did not interact with rotation. The results suggest that handwritten word perception requires greater configural processing, relative to computer print, because handwritten letters are variable and ambiguous. When words are rotated, configural processing suffers, particularly when rotation exaggerates natural tilt. Our account is similar to theories of the “Thatcher Illusion,” wherein face inversion disrupts holistic processing. Together, the findings suggest that configural, word-level processing automatically increases when people read handwriting, as letter-level processing becomes less reliable. PMID:23589201

Cross Cultural Adaptation, Validity, and Reliability of the Farsi Breastfeeding Attrition Prediction Tools in Iranian Pregnant Women

PubMed Central

Mortazavi, Forough; Mousavi, Seyed Abbas; Chaman, Reza; Khosravi, Ahmad; Janke, Jill R.

2015-01-01

Background: The rate of exclusive breastfeeding in Iran is decreasing. The breastfeeding attrition prediction tools (BAPT) have been validated and used in predicting premature weaning. Objectives: We aimed to translate the BAPT into Farsi, assess its content validity, and examine its reliability and validity to identify exclusive breastfeeding discontinuation in Iran. Materials and Methods: The BAPT was translated into Farsi and the content validity of the Farsi version of the BAPT was assessed. It was administered to 356 pregnant women in the third trimester of pregnancy, who were residents of a city in northeast of Iran. The structural integrity of the four-factor model was assessed in confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and item-subscale correlations. Validity was assessed using the known-group comparison (128 with vs. 228 without breastfeeding experience) and predictive validity (80 successes vs. 265 failures in exclusive breastfeeding). Results: The internal consistency of the whole instrument (49 items) was 0.775. CFA provided an acceptable fit to the a priori four-factor model (Chi-square/df = 1.8, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.049, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.064, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.911). The difference in means of breastfeeding control (BFC) between the participants with and without breastfeeding experience was significant (P < 0.001). In addition, the total score of BAPT and the score of Breast Feeding Control (BFC) subscale were higher in women who were on exclusive breastfeeding than women who were not, at four months postpartum (P < 0.05). Conclusions: This study validated the Farsi version of BAPT. It is useful for researchers who want to use it in Iran to identify women at higher risks of Exclusive Breast Feeding (EBF) discontinuation. PMID:26019910

Shape analysis modeling for character recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khan, Nadeem A. M.; Hegt, Hans A.

1998-10-01

Optimal shape modeling of character-classes is crucial for achieving high performance on recognition of mixed-font, hand-written or (and) poor quality text. A novel scheme is presented in this regard focusing on constructing such structural models that can be hierarchically examined. These models utilize a certain `well-thought' set of shape primitives. They are simplified enough to ignore the inter- class variations in font-type or writing style yet retaining enough details for discrimination between the samples of the similar classes. Thus the number of models per class required can be kept minimal without sacrificing the recognition accuracy. In this connection a flexible multi- stage matching scheme exploiting the proposed modeling is also described. This leads to a system which is robust against various distortions and degradation including those related to cases of touching and broken characters. Finally, we present some examples and test results as a proof-of- concept demonstrating the validity and the robustness of the approach.

Unsupervised Word Spotting in Historical Handwritten Document Images using Document-oriented Local Features.

PubMed

Zagoris, Konstantinos; Pratikakis, Ioannis; Gatos, Basilis

2017-05-03

Word spotting strategies employed in historical handwritten documents face many challenges due to variation in the writing style and intense degradation. In this paper, a new method that permits effective word spotting in handwritten documents is presented that it relies upon document-oriented local features which take into account information around representative keypoints as well a matching process that incorporates spatial context in a local proximity search without using any training data. Experimental results on four historical handwritten datasets for two different scenarios (segmentation-based and segmentation-free) using standard evaluation measures show the improved performance achieved by the proposed methodology.

Variational dynamic background model for keyword spotting in handwritten documents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kumar, Gaurav; Wshah, Safwan; Govindaraju, Venu

2013-12-01

We propose a bayesian framework for keyword spotting in handwritten documents. This work is an extension to our previous work where we proposed dynamic background model, DBM for keyword spotting that takes into account the local character level scores and global word level scores to learn a logistic regression classifier to separate keywords from non-keywords. In this work, we add a bayesian layer on top of the DBM called the variational dynamic background model, VDBM. The logistic regression classifier uses the sigmoid function to separate keywords from non-keywords. The sigmoid function being neither convex nor concave, exact inference of VDBM becomes intractable. An expectation maximization step is proposed to do approximate inference. The advantage of VDBM over the DBM is multi-fold. Firstly, being bayesian, it prevents over-fitting of data. Secondly, it provides better modeling of data and an improved prediction of unseen data. VDBM is evaluated on the IAM dataset and the results prove that it outperforms our prior work and other state of the art line based word spotting system.

Psychometric Properties of Physical Activity and Leisure Motivation Scale in Farsi: an International Collaborative Project on Motivation for Physical Activity and Leisure.

PubMed

Zarei, Sahar; Memari, Amir-Hossein; Moshayedi, Pouria; Mosayebi, Fatolla; Mansournia, Mohammad Ali; Khoo, Selina; Morris, Tony

2016-10-01

Given the importance of regular physical activity, it is crucial to evaluate the factors favoring participation in physical activity. We aimed to report the psychometric analysis of the Farsi version of the Physical Activity and Leisure Motivation Scale (PALMS). The Farsi version of PALMS was completed by 406 healthy adult individuals to test its factor structure and concurrent validity and reliability. Conducting the exploratory factor analysis revealed nine factors that accounted for 64.6% of the variances. The PALMS reliability was supported with a high internal consistency of 0.91 and a high test-retest reliability of 0.97 (95% CI: 0.97-0.98). The association between the PALMS and its previous version Recreational Exercise Motivation Measure scores was strongly significant (r= 0.86, P < 0.001). We have shown that the Farsi version of the PALMS appears to be a valuable instrument to measure motivation for physical activity and leisure.

A perceptive method for handwritten text segmentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lemaitre, Aurélie; Camillerapp, Jean; Coüasnon, Bertrand

2011-01-01

This paper presents a new method to address the problem of handwritten text segmentation into text lines and words. Thus, we propose a method based on the cooperation among points of view that enables the localization of the text lines in a low resolution image, and then to associate the pixels at a higher level of resolution. Thanks to the combination of levels of vision, we can detect overlapping characters and re-segment the connected components during the analysis. Then, we propose a segmentation of lines into words based on the cooperation among digital data and symbolic knowledge. The digital data are obtained from distances inside a Delaunay graph, which gives a precise distance between connected components, at the pixel level. We introduce structural rules in order to take into account some generic knowledge about the organization of a text page. This cooperation among information gives a bigger power of expression and ensures the global coherence of the recognition. We validate this work using the metrics and the database proposed for the segmentation contest of ICDAR 2009. Thus, we show that our method obtains very interesting results, compared to the other methods of the literature. More precisely, we are able to deal with slope and curvature, overlapping text lines and varied kinds of writings, which are the main difficulties met by the other methods.

ASM Based Synthesis of Handwritten Arabic Text Pages

PubMed Central

Al-Hamadi, Ayoub; Elzobi, Moftah; El-etriby, Sherif; Ghoneim, Ahmed

2015-01-01

Document analysis tasks, as text recognition, word spotting, or segmentation, are highly dependent on comprehensive and suitable databases for training and validation. However their generation is expensive in sense of labor and time. As a matter of fact, there is a lack of such databases, which complicates research and development. This is especially true for the case of Arabic handwriting recognition, that involves different preprocessing, segmentation, and recognition methods, which have individual demands on samples and ground truth. To bypass this problem, we present an efficient system that automatically turns Arabic Unicode text into synthetic images of handwritten documents and detailed ground truth. Active Shape Models (ASMs) based on 28046 online samples were used for character synthesis and statistical properties were extracted from the IESK-arDB database to simulate baselines and word slant or skew. In the synthesis step ASM based representations are composed to words and text pages, smoothed by B-Spline interpolation and rendered considering writing speed and pen characteristics. Finally, we use the synthetic data to validate a segmentation method. An experimental comparison with the IESK-arDB database encourages to train and test document analysis related methods on synthetic samples, whenever no sufficient natural ground truthed data is available. PMID:26295059

ASM Based Synthesis of Handwritten Arabic Text Pages.

PubMed

Dinges, Laslo; Al-Hamadi, Ayoub; Elzobi, Moftah; El-Etriby, Sherif; Ghoneim, Ahmed

2015-01-01

Document analysis tasks, as text recognition, word spotting, or segmentation, are highly dependent on comprehensive and suitable databases for training and validation. However their generation is expensive in sense of labor and time. As a matter of fact, there is a lack of such databases, which complicates research and development. This is especially true for the case of Arabic handwriting recognition, that involves different preprocessing, segmentation, and recognition methods, which have individual demands on samples and ground truth. To bypass this problem, we present an efficient system that automatically turns Arabic Unicode text into synthetic images of handwritten documents and detailed ground truth. Active Shape Models (ASMs) based on 28046 online samples were used for character synthesis and statistical properties were extracted from the IESK-arDB database to simulate baselines and word slant or skew. In the synthesis step ASM based representations are composed to words and text pages, smoothed by B-Spline interpolation and rendered considering writing speed and pen characteristics. Finally, we use the synthetic data to validate a segmentation method. An experimental comparison with the IESK-arDB database encourages to train and test document analysis related methods on synthetic samples, whenever no sufficient natural ground truthed data is available.

Handwritten digits recognition using HMM and PSO based on storks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, Liao; Jia, Zhenhong; Yang, Jie; Pang, Shaoning

2010-07-01

A new method for handwritten digits recognition based on hidden markov model (HMM) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is proposed. This method defined 24 strokes with the sense of directional, to make up for the shortage that is sensitive in choice of stating point in traditional methods, but also reduce the ambiguity caused by shakes. Make use of excellent global convergence of PSO; improving the probability of finding the optimum and avoiding local infinitesimal obviously. Experimental results demonstrate that compared with the traditional methods, the proposed method can make most of the recognition rate of handwritten digits improved.

Interpreting Chicken-Scratch: Lexical Access for Handwritten Words

PubMed Central

Barnhart, Anthony S.; Goldinger, Stephen D.

2014-01-01

Handwritten word recognition is a field of study that has largely been neglected in the psychological literature, despite its prevalence in society. Whereas studies of spoken word recognition almost exclusively employ natural, human voices as stimuli, studies of visual word recognition use synthetic typefaces, thus simplifying the process of word recognition. The current study examined the effects of handwriting on a series of lexical variables thought to influence bottom-up and top-down processing, including word frequency, regularity, bidirectional consistency, and imageability. The results suggest that the natural physical ambiguity of handwritten stimuli forces a greater reliance on top-down processes, because almost all effects were magnified, relative to conditions with computer print. These findings suggest that processes of word perception naturally adapt to handwriting, compensating for physical ambiguity by increasing top-down feedback. PMID:20695708

Psychometric properties of the Farsi version of modified Multidimensional Sexual Self-concept Questionnaire

PubMed Central

Ziaei, Teyebe; Khoei, Effat Merghati; Salehi, Mehrdad; Farajzadegan, Ziba

2013-01-01

Background: The awareness regarding the contribution of sexual self-concept to healthy sexual well-being is on a rise. The Multidimensional Sexual Self-concept Questionnaire (MSSCQ) was developed to assess the 20 aspects related to sexual self-concept and has been widely applied in Western societies. The adequacy of its application in Iran has not been determined in order to guaranty its reliability and validity. An attempt was made here to interpret this questionnaire in Farsi and adopt it in Iran with respect to psychometric properties of the native youth. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional design was employed and 352 couples were recruited from a premarital consulting center in Isfahan, Iran on a random basis. The MSSCQ was translated into Farsi and back-translated by four bilingual scholars. Face and content validity of the questionnaire was determined. Internal consistency was evaluated by applying Cronbach's alpha. Pearson correlation coefficient was employed. The adopted model was tested through confirmatory factor analysis using SPSS-AMOS software (version 16). Results: The mean age of couples was 25.68 years (women 23.92 ± 2.92 years and men 27.44 ± 3.14 years). The obtained Cronbach's alpha was 0.88. Twenty-two items with an impact score below 1.5 and content validity index <0.70 were omitted. Pearson correlation showed positive and negative correlations among the dimensions. Sexual anxiety, fear of sex, and sexual depression had negative correlation with the other dimensions (r = −0.36, r = −0.43, r = −0.32, respectively). The model exhibited adequate fitness: χ2/df = 4.95, goodness-of-fit index = 0.95, adjusted goodness-of-fit index = 0.91, normed fit index = 0.94, comparative fit index = 0.95, and root mean square error of approximation = 0.07. Conclusion: The Farsi version of MSSCQ with 78 items is valuable and reliable to be applied on the youth in Isfahan. This questionnaire was verified under two main categories through confirmatory

Neural Networks for Handwritten English Alphabet Recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perwej, Yusuf; Chaturvedi, Ashish

2011-04-01

This paper demonstrates the use of neural networks for developing a system that can recognize hand-written English alphabets. In this system, each English alphabet is represented by binary values that are used as input to a simple feature extraction system, whose output is fed to our neural network system.

Robust recognition of handwritten numerals based on dual cooperative network

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Sukhan; Choi, Yeongwoo

1992-01-01

An approach to robust recognition of handwritten numerals using two operating parallel networks is presented. The first network uses inputs in Cartesian coordinates, and the second network uses the same inputs transformed into polar coordinates. How the proposed approach realizes the robustness to local and global variations of input numerals by handling inputs both in Cartesian coordinates and in its transformed Polar coordinates is described. The required network structures and its learning scheme are discussed. Experimental results show that by tracking only a small number of distinctive features for each teaching numeral in each coordinate, the proposed system can provide robust recognition of handwritten numerals.

Combination of dynamic Bayesian network classifiers for the recognition of degraded characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Likforman-Sulem, Laurence; Sigelle, Marc

2009-01-01

We investigate in this paper the combination of DBN (Dynamic Bayesian Network) classifiers, either independent or coupled, for the recognition of degraded characters. The independent classifiers are a vertical HMM and a horizontal HMM whose observable outputs are the image columns and the image rows respectively. The coupled classifiers, presented in a previous study, associate the vertical and horizontal observation streams into single DBNs. The scores of the independent and coupled classifiers are then combined linearly at the decision level. We compare the different classifiers -independent, coupled or linearly combined- on two tasks: the recognition of artificially degraded handwritten digits and the recognition of real degraded old printed characters. Our results show that coupled DBNs perform better on degraded characters than the linear combination of independent HMM scores. Our results also show that the best classifier is obtained by linearly combining the scores of the best coupled DBN and the best independent HMM.

Keywords image retrieval in historical handwritten Arabic documents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saabni, Raid; El-Sana, Jihad

2013-01-01

A system is presented for spotting and searching keywords in handwritten Arabic documents. A slightly modified dynamic time warping algorithm is used to measure similarities between words. Two sets of features are generated from the outer contour of the words/word-parts. The first set is based on the angles between nodes on the contour and the second set is based on the shape context features taken from the outer contour. To recognize a given word, the segmentation-free approach is partially adopted, i.e., continuous word parts are used as the basic alphabet, instead of individual characters or complete words. Additional strokes, such as dots and detached short segments, are classified and used in a postprocessing step to determine the final comparison decision. The search for a keyword is performed by the search for its word parts given in the correct order. The performance of the presented system was very encouraging in terms of efficiency and match rates. To evaluate the presented system its performance is compared to three different systems. Unfortunately, there are no publicly available standard datasets with ground truth for testing Arabic key word searching systems. Therefore, a private set of images partially taken from Juma'a Al-Majid Center in Dubai for evaluation is used, while using a slightly modified version of the IFN/ENIT database for training.

Modeling the Lexical Morphology of Western Handwritten Signatures

PubMed Central

Diaz-Cabrera, Moises; Ferrer, Miguel A.; Morales, Aythami

2015-01-01

A handwritten signature is the final response to a complex cognitive and neuromuscular process which is the result of the learning process. Because of the many factors involved in signing, it is possible to study the signature from many points of view: graphologists, forensic experts, neurologists and computer vision experts have all examined them. Researchers study written signatures for psychiatric, penal, health and automatic verification purposes. As a potentially useful, multi-purpose study, this paper is focused on the lexical morphology of handwritten signatures. This we understand to mean the identification, analysis, and description of the signature structures of a given signer. In this work we analyze different public datasets involving 1533 signers from different Western geographical areas. Some relevant characteristics of signature lexical morphology have been selected, examined in terms of their probability distribution functions and modeled through a General Extreme Value distribution. This study suggests some useful models for multi-disciplinary sciences which depend on handwriting signatures. PMID:25860942

Correlation of patient entry rates and physician documentation errors in dictated and handwritten emergency treatment records.

PubMed

Dawdy, M R; Munter, D W; Gilmore, R A

1997-03-01

This study was designed to examine the relationship between patient entry rates (a measure of physician work load) and documentation errors/omissions in both handwritten and dictated emergency treatment records. The study was carried out in two phases. Phase I examined handwritten records and Phase II examined dictated and transcribed records. A total of 838 charts for three common chief complaints (chest pain, abdominal pain, asthma/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) were retrospectively reviewed and scored for the presence or absence of 11 predetermined criteria. Patient entry rates were determined by reviewing the emergency department patient registration logs. The data were analyzed using simple correlation and linear regression analysis. A positive correlation was found between patient entry rates and documentation errors in handwritten charts. No such correlation was found in the dictated charts. We conclude that work load may negatively affect documentation accuracy when charts are handwritten. However, the use of dictation services may minimize or eliminate this effect.

Interpreting Chicken-Scratch: Lexical Access for Handwritten Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barnhart, Anthony S.; Goldinger, Stephen D.

2010-01-01

Handwritten word recognition is a field of study that has largely been neglected in the psychological literature, despite its prevalence in society. Whereas studies of spoken word recognition almost exclusively employ natural, human voices as stimuli, studies of visual word recognition use synthetic typefaces, thus simplifying the process of word…

Translation, Cross-cultural Adaptation and Validation of the Farsi Version of NIH Task Force's Recommended Multidimensional Minimal Dataset for Research on Chronic Low Back Pain.

PubMed

Noormohammadpour, Pardis; Tavana, Bahareh; Mansournia, Mohammad Ali; Zeinalizadeh, Mehdi; Mirzashahi, Babak; Rostami, Mohsen; Kordi, Ramin

2018-05-01

Translation and cultural adaptation of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Task Force's minimal dataset. The purpose of this study was to evaluate validity and reliability of the Farsi version of NIH Task Force's recommended multidimensional minimal dataset for research on chronic low back pain (CLBP). Considering the high treatment cost of CLBP and its increasing prevalence, NIH Pain Consortium developed research standards (including recommendations for definitions, a minimum dataset, and outcomes' report) for studies regarding CLBP. Application of these recommendations could standardize research and improve comparability of different studies in CLBP. This study has three phases: translation of dataset into Farsi and its cultural adaptation, assessment of pre-final version of dataset's comprehensibility via a pilot study, and investigation of the reliability and validity of final version of translated dataset. Subjects were 250 patients with CLBP. Test-retest reliability, content validity, and convergent validity (correlations among different dimensions of dataset and Farsi versions of Oswestry Disability Index, Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire, Fear-Avoidance Belief Questionnaire, and Beck Depression Inventory-II) were assessed. The Farsi version demonstrated good/excellent convergent validity (the correlation coefficient between impact dimension and ODI was r = 0.75 [P < 0.001], between impact dimension and Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire was r = 0.80 [P < 0.001], and between psychological dimension and BDI was r = 0.62 [P < 0.001]). The test-retest reliability was also strong (intraclass correlation coefficient value ranged between 0.70 and 0.95) and the internal consistency was good/excellent (Chronbach's alpha coefficients' value for two main dimensions including impact dimension and psychological dimension were 0.91 and 0.82 [P < 0.001], respectively). In addition, its face validity and content validity were

[About da tai - abortion in old Chinese folk medicine handwritten manuscripts].

PubMed

Zheng, Jinsheng

2013-01-01

Of 881 Chinese handwritten volumes with medical texts of the 17th through mid-20th century held by Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and Ethnologisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem, 48 volumes include prescriptions for induced abortion. A comparison shows that these records are significantly different from references to abortion in Chinese printed medical texts of pre-modern times. For example, the percentage of recipes recommended for artificial abortions in handwritten texts is significantly higher than those in printed medical books. Authors of handwritten texts used 25 terms to designate artificial abortion, with the term da tai [see text], lit.: "to strike the fetus", occurring most frequently. Its meaning is well defined, in contrast to other terms used, such as duo tai [see text], lit: "to make a fetus fall", xia tai [see text], lit. "to bring a fetus down", und duan chan [see text], lit., to interrupt birthing", which is mostly used to indicate a temporary or permanent sterilization. Pre-modern Chinese medicine has not generally abstained from inducing abortions; physicians showed a differentiating attitude. While abortions were descibed as "things a [physician with an attitude of] humaneness will not do", in case a pregnancy was seen as too risky for a woman she was offered medication to terminate this pregnancy. The commercial application of abortifacients has been recorded in China since ancient times. A request for such services has continued over time for various reasons, including so-called illegitimate pregnancies, and those by nuns, widows and prostitutes. In general, recipes to induce abortions documented in printed medical literature have mild effects and are to be ingested orally. In comparison, those recommended in handwritten texts are rather toxic. Possibly to minimize the negative side-effects of such medication, practitioners of folk medicine developed mechanical devices to perform "external", i.e., vaginal approaches.

Handwritten Newspapers on the Iowa Frontier, 1844-54.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Atwood, Roy Alden

Journalism on the agricultural frontier of the Old Northwest territory of the United States was shaped by a variety of cultural forces and environmental factors and took on diverse forms. Bridging the gap between the two cultural forms of written correspondence and printed news was a third form: the handwritten newspaper. Between 1844 and 1854…

A comparison study between MLP and convolutional neural network models for character recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ben Driss, S.; Soua, M.; Kachouri, R.; Akil, M.

2017-05-01

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems have been designed to operate on text contained in scanned documents and images. They include text detection and character recognition in which characters are described then classified. In the classification step, characters are identified according to their features or template descriptions. Then, a given classifier is employed to identify characters. In this context, we have proposed the unified character descriptor (UCD) to represent characters based on their features. Then, matching was employed to ensure the classification. This recognition scheme performs a good OCR Accuracy on homogeneous scanned documents, however it cannot discriminate characters with high font variation and distortion.3 To improve recognition, classifiers based on neural networks can be used. The multilayer perceptron (MLP) ensures high recognition accuracy when performing a robust training. Moreover, the convolutional neural network (CNN), is gaining nowadays a lot of popularity for its high performance. Furthermore, both CNN and MLP may suffer from the large amount of computation in the training phase. In this paper, we establish a comparison between MLP and CNN. We provide MLP with the UCD descriptor and the appropriate network configuration. For CNN, we employ the convolutional network designed for handwritten and machine-printed character recognition (Lenet-5) and we adapt it to support 62 classes, including both digits and characters. In addition, GPU parallelization is studied to speed up both of MLP and CNN classifiers. Based on our experimentations, we demonstrate that the used real-time CNN is 2x more relevant than MLP when classifying characters.

Classification of remotely sensed data using OCR-inspired neural network techniques. [Optical Character Recognition

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kiang, Richard K.

1992-01-01

Neural networks have been applied to classifications of remotely sensed data with some success. To improve the performance of this approach, an examination was made of how neural networks are applied to the optical character recognition (OCR) of handwritten digits and letters. A three-layer, feedforward network, along with techniques adopted from OCR, was used to classify Landsat-4 Thematic Mapper data. Good results were obtained. To overcome the difficulties that are characteristic of remote sensing applications and to attain significant improvements in classification accuracy, a special network architecture may be required.

Script-independent text line segmentation in freestyle handwritten documents.

PubMed

Li, Yi; Zheng, Yefeng; Doermann, David; Jaeger, Stefan; Li, Yi

2008-08-01

Text line segmentation in freestyle handwritten documents remains an open document analysis problem. Curvilinear text lines and small gaps between neighboring text lines present a challenge to algorithms developed for machine printed or hand-printed documents. In this paper, we propose a novel approach based on density estimation and a state-of-the-art image segmentation technique, the level set method. From an input document image, we estimate a probability map, where each element represents the probability that the underlying pixel belongs to a text line. The level set method is then exploited to determine the boundary of neighboring text lines by evolving an initial estimate. Unlike connected component based methods ( [1], [2] for example), the proposed algorithm does not use any script-specific knowledge. Extensive quantitative experiments on freestyle handwritten documents with diverse scripts, such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Hindi, demonstrate that our algorithm consistently outperforms previous methods [1]-[3]. Further experiments show the proposed algorithm is robust to scale change, rotation, and noise.

Spatial Analysis of Handwritten Texts as a Marker of Cognitive Control.

PubMed

Crespo, Y; Soriano, M F; Iglesias-Parro, S; Aznarte, J I; Ibáñez-Molina, A J

2017-12-01

We explore the idea that cognitive demands of the handwriting would influence the degree of automaticity of the handwriting process, which in turn would affect the geometric parameters of texts. We compared the heterogeneity of handwritten texts in tasks with different cognitive demands; the heterogeneity of texts was analyzed with lacunarity, a measure of geometrical invariance. In Experiment 1, we asked participants to perform two tasks that varied in cognitive demands: transcription and exposition about an autobiographical episode. Lacunarity was significantly lower in transcription. In Experiment 2, we compared a veridical and a fictitious version of a personal event. Lacunarity was lower in veridical texts. We contend that differences in lacunarity of handwritten texts reveal the degree of automaticity in handwriting.

A paper form processing system with an error correcting function for reading handwritten Kanji strings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Katsumi Marukawa; Kazuki Nakashima; Masashi Koga

1994-12-31

This paper presents a paper form processing system with an error correcting function for reading handwritten kanji strings. In the paper form processing system, names and addresses are important key data, and especially this paper takes up an error correcting method for name and address recognition. The method automatically corrects errors of the kanji OCR (Optical Character Reader) with the help of word dictionaries and other knowledge. Moreover, it allows names and addresses to be written in any style. The method consists of word matching {open_quotes}furigana{close_quotes} verification for name strings, and address approval for address strings. For word matching, kanjimore » name candidates are extracted by automaton-type word matching. In {open_quotes}furigana{close_quotes} verification, kana candidate characters recognized by the kana OCR are compared with kana`s searched from the name dictionary based on kanji name candidates, given by the word matching. The correct name is selected from the results of word matching and furigana verification. Also, the address approval efficiently searches for the right address based on a bottom-up procedure which follows hierarchical relations from a lower placename to a upper one by using the positional condition among the placenames. We ascertained that the error correcting method substantially improves the recognition rate and processing speed in experiments on 5,032 forms.« less

Determining the Value of Handwritten Comments within Work Orders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thombs, Daniel

2010-01-01

In the workplace many work orders are handwritten on paper rather than recorded in a digital format. Despite being archived, these documents are neither referenced nor analyzed after their creation. Tacit knowledge gathered though employee documentation is generally considered beneficial, but only if it can be easily gathered and processed. …

Synthesis of Common Arabic Handwritings to Aid Optical Character Recognition Research.

PubMed

Dinges, Laslo; Al-Hamadi, Ayoub; Elzobi, Moftah; El-Etriby, Sherif

2016-03-11

Document analysis tasks such as pattern recognition, word spotting or segmentation, require comprehensive databases for training and validation. Not only variations in writing style but also the used list of words is of importance in the case that training samples should reflect the input of a specific area of application. However, generation of training samples is expensive in the sense of manpower and time, particularly if complete text pages including complex ground truth are required. This is why there is a lack of such databases, especially for Arabic, the second most popular language. However, Arabic handwriting recognition involves different preprocessing, segmentation and recognition methods. Each requires particular ground truth or samples to enable optimal training and validation, which are often not covered by the currently available databases. To overcome this issue, we propose a system that synthesizes Arabic handwritten words and text pages and generates corresponding detailed ground truth. We use these syntheses to validate a new, segmentation based system that recognizes handwritten Arabic words. We found that a modification of an Active Shape Model based character classifiers-that we proposed earlier-improves the word recognition accuracy. Further improvements are achieved, by using a vocabulary of the 50,000 most common Arabic words for error correction.

Synthesis of Common Arabic Handwritings to Aid Optical Character Recognition Research

PubMed Central

Dinges, Laslo; Al-Hamadi, Ayoub; Elzobi, Moftah; El-etriby, Sherif

2016-01-01

Document analysis tasks such as pattern recognition, word spotting or segmentation, require comprehensive databases for training and validation. Not only variations in writing style but also the used list of words is of importance in the case that training samples should reflect the input of a specific area of application. However, generation of training samples is expensive in the sense of manpower and time, particularly if complete text pages including complex ground truth are required. This is why there is a lack of such databases, especially for Arabic, the second most popular language. However, Arabic handwriting recognition involves different preprocessing, segmentation and recognition methods. Each requires particular ground truth or samples to enable optimal training and validation, which are often not covered by the currently available databases. To overcome this issue, we propose a system that synthesizes Arabic handwritten words and text pages and generates corresponding detailed ground truth. We use these syntheses to validate a new, segmentation based system that recognizes handwritten Arabic words. We found that a modification of an Active Shape Model based character classifiers—that we proposed earlier—improves the word recognition accuracy. Further improvements are achieved, by using a vocabulary of the 50,000 most common Arabic words for error correction. PMID:26978368

Recognition of Handwritten Arabic words using a neuro-fuzzy network

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Boukharouba, Abdelhak; Bennia, Abdelhak

We present a new method for the recognition of handwritten Arabic words based on neuro-fuzzy hybrid network. As a first step, connected components (CCs) of black pixels are detected. Then the system determines which CCs are sub-words and which are stress marks. The stress marks are then isolated and identified separately and the sub-words are segmented into graphemes. Each grapheme is described by topological and statistical features. Fuzzy rules are extracted from training examples by a hybrid learning scheme comprised of two phases: rule generation phase from data using a fuzzy c-means, and rule parameter tuning phase using gradient descentmore » learning. After learning, the network encodes in its topology the essential design parameters of a fuzzy inference system.The contribution of this technique is shown through the significant tests performed on a handwritten Arabic words database.« less

Psychometric Properties of the Farsi Version of “Spiritual Needs Questionnaire” for Cancer Patients in Iran: A Methodological Study

PubMed

Hatamipour, Khadijeh; Rassouli, Maryam; Yaghmaie, Farideh; Zendedel, Kazem

2018-04-25

Background and objectives: Spiritual needs are very important requirements to cancer patients. A valid and reliable instrument is needed for evaluation. This study was conducted to psychometrically evaluate a Spiritual Needs Questionnaire (SpNQ) for cancer patients in Iran. Methods: In this study, the methodology and psychometric properties of the Farsi version of the SpNQ (Büssing et al., (2010)) were evaluated, based on the model proposed by Wilde et al., (2005). The study population included cancer patients referred to the largest referral center in Iran. Some 400 subjects were selected. Then, the content, face and construct validity, as well as the internal consistency and reliability of the Farsi version were assessed. Findings: In the confirmatory factor analysis, the original four-factor version with 19 phrases was not confirmed. Subsequently, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was carried out in which phrases were included in three dimensions (peace and active giving, religion, and existence) that explained 48.1% of the variance. Later, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted, which showed a good fit of the model (CFI=0.94, GFI=0.94, RMSEA=0.071, and AGFI=0.96). Cronbach’s alpha was α=0.91 for the whole SpNQ. Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from 0.76 to 0.86 for the three factors. The intra-class correlation coefficient was ICC=0.82 between two tests performed with a two-week interval. Conclusion: The modified Farsi version of the SpNQ shows good psychometric properties for patients and can be used to investigate the spiritual needs of Iranian cancer patients. Creative Commons Attribution License

Marker Registration Technique for Handwritten Text Marker in Augmented Reality Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thanaborvornwiwat, N.; Patanukhom, K.

2018-04-01

Marker registration is a fundamental process to estimate camera poses in marker-based Augmented Reality (AR) systems. We developed AR system that creates correspondence virtual objects on handwritten text markers. This paper presents a new method for registration that is robust for low-content text markers, variation of camera poses, and variation of handwritten styles. The proposed method uses Maximally Stable Extremal Regions (MSER) and polygon simplification for a feature point extraction. The experiment shows that we need to extract only five feature points per image which can provide the best registration results. An exhaustive search is used to find the best matching pattern of the feature points in two images. We also compared performance of the proposed method to some existing registration methods and found that the proposed method can provide better accuracy and time efficiency.

Analysis of line structure in handwritten documents using the Hough transform

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ball, Gregory R.; Kasiviswanathan, Harish; Srihari, Sargur N.; Narayanan, Aswin

2010-01-01

In the analysis of handwriting in documents a central task is that of determining line structure of the text, e.g., number of text lines, location of their starting and end-points, line-width, etc. While simple methods can handle ideal images, real world documents have complexities such as overlapping line structure, variable line spacing, line skew, document skew, noisy or degraded images etc. This paper explores the application of the Hough transform method to handwritten documents with the goal of automatically determining global document line structure in a top-down manner which can then be used in conjunction with a bottom-up method such as connected component analysis. The performance is significantly better than other top-down methods, such as the projection profile method. In addition, we evaluate the performance of skew analysis by the Hough transform on handwritten documents.

Completion of hand-written surgical consent forms is frequently suboptimal and could be improved by using electronically generated, procedure-specific forms.

PubMed

St John, E R; Scott, A J; Irvine, T E; Pakzad, F; Leff, D R; Layer, G T

2017-08-01

Completion of hand-written consent forms for surgical procedures may suffer from missing or inaccurate information, poor legibility and high variability. We audited the completion of hand-written consent forms and trialled a web-based application to generate modifiable, procedure-specific consent forms. The investigation comprised two phases at separate UK hospitals. In phase one, the completion of individual responses in hand-written consent forms for a variety of procedures were prospectively audited. Responses were categorised into three domains (patient details, procedure details and patient sign-off) that were considered "failed" if a contained element was not correct and legible. Phase two was confined to a breast surgical unit where hand-written consent forms were assessed as for phase one and interrogated for missing complications by two independent experts. An electronic consent platform was introduced and electronically-produced consent forms assessed. In phase one, 99 hand-written consent forms were assessed and the domain failure rates were: patient details 10%; procedure details 30%; and patient sign-off 27%. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy was the most common procedure (7/99) but there was significant variability in the documentation of complications: 12 in total, a median of 6 and a range of 2-9. In phase two, 44% (27/61) of hand-written forms were missing essential complications. There were no domain failures amongst 29 electronically-produced consent forms and no variability in the documentation of potential complications. Completion of hand-written consent forms suffers from wide variation and is frequently suboptimal. Electronically-produced, procedure-specific consent forms can improve the quality and consistency of consent documentation. Copyright © 2015 Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (Scottish charity number SC005317) and Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development of a character, line and point display system. [for medical records

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Owen, E. W.

1977-01-01

A compact graphics terminal for use as the input to a computerized medical records system is described. The principal mode of communication between the terminal and the records system is by checklists and menu selection. However, the terminal accepts short, handwritten messages as well as conventional alphanumeric input. The terminal consists of an electronic tablet, a display, a microcomputer controller, a character generator, and a refresh memory for the display. An Intel SBC 80/10 microcomputer controls the flow of information and a 16 kilobyte memory stores the point-by-point array of information to be displayed. A specially designed interface continuously generates the raster display without the intervention of the microcomputer.

Transdiagnostic culturally adapted CBT with Farsi-speaking refugees: a pilot study.

PubMed

Kananian, Schahryar; Ayoughi, Sarah; Farugie, Arieja; Hinton, Devon; Stangier, Ulrich

2017-01-01

Background : Approximately half of all asylum seekers suffer from trauma-related disorders requiring treatment, among them Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and somatic symptoms. There is a lack of easily accessible, low-threshold treatments taking the cultural background into account. Culturally Adapted CBT (CA CBT) is a well evaluated, transdiagnostic group intervention for refugees, using psychoeducation, meditation, and Yoga-like exercises. Objective: An uncontrolled pilot study with male Farsi-speaking refugees from Afghanistan and Iran was conducted to investigate feasibility with this ethnic group; a group for which no previous CBT trials have been reported. Method : The participants were nine Farsi-speaking, male refugees with M.I.N.I./DSM-IV diagnoses comprising PTSD, major depressive disorder, and anxiety disorders. Treatment components were adapted to the specific cultural framework of perception of symptoms, causes, ideas of healing, and local therapeutic processes. Before and after 12 weeks of treatment, the primary outcome was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). Secondary outcome measures were the Posttraumatic Checklist, Patient Health Questionnaire, Somatic Symptom Scale, World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF), Affective Style Questionnaire (ASQ), and Emotion Regulation Scale (ERS). Results : Seven participants completed treatment. In the completer analysis, improvements were found on almost all questionnaires. Large effect sizes were seen for the GHQ-28 ( d  = 2.0), WHOQOL-BREF scales ( d  = 1.0-2.3), ASQ tolerating subscale ( d  = 2.2), and ERS ( d  = 1.7). With respect to feasibility, cultural adaptation seemed to be a crucial means to promote effectiveness. Conclusion : CA CBT may reduce general psychopathological distress and improve quality of life. Improvement in emotion regulation strategies may mediate treatment effects. More support should be provided to

Transdiagnostic culturally adapted CBT with Farsi-speaking refugees: a pilot study

PubMed Central

Kananian, Schahryar; Ayoughi, Sarah; Farugie, Arieja; Hinton, Devon; Stangier, Ulrich

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Background: Approximately half of all asylum seekers suffer from trauma-related disorders requiring treatment, among them Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and somatic symptoms. There is a lack of easily accessible, low-threshold treatments taking the cultural background into account. Culturally Adapted CBT (CA CBT) is a well evaluated, transdiagnostic group intervention for refugees, using psychoeducation, meditation, and Yoga-like exercises. Objective: An uncontrolled pilot study with male Farsi-speaking refugees from Afghanistan and Iran was conducted to investigate feasibility with this ethnic group; a group for which no previous CBT trials have been reported. Method: The participants were nine Farsi-speaking, male refugees with M.I.N.I./DSM-IV diagnoses comprising PTSD, major depressive disorder, and anxiety disorders. Treatment components were adapted to the specific cultural framework of perception of symptoms, causes, ideas of healing, and local therapeutic processes. Before and after 12 weeks of treatment, the primary outcome was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). Secondary outcome measures were the Posttraumatic Checklist, Patient Health Questionnaire, Somatic Symptom Scale, World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF), Affective Style Questionnaire (ASQ), and Emotion Regulation Scale (ERS). Results: Seven participants completed treatment. In the completer analysis, improvements were found on almost all questionnaires. Large effect sizes were seen for the GHQ-28 (d = 2.0), WHOQOL-BREF scales (d = 1.0–2.3), ASQ tolerating subscale (d = 2.2), and ERS (d = 1.7). With respect to feasibility, cultural adaptation seemed to be a crucial means to promote effectiveness. Conclusion: CA CBT may reduce general psychopathological distress and improve quality of life. Improvement in emotion regulation strategies may mediate treatment effects. More support should be provided to

Evaluating structural pattern recognition for handwritten math via primitive label graphs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zanibbi, Richard; Mouchère, Harold; Viard-Gaudin, Christian

2013-01-01

Currently, structural pattern recognizer evaluations compare graphs of detected structure to target structures (i.e. ground truth) using recognition rates, recall and precision for object segmentation, classification and relationships. In document recognition, these target objects (e.g. symbols) are frequently comprised of multiple primitives (e.g. connected components, or strokes for online handwritten data), but current metrics do not characterize errors at the primitive level, from which object-level structure is obtained. Primitive label graphs are directed graphs defined over primitives and primitive pairs. We define new metrics obtained by Hamming distances over label graphs, which allow classification, segmentation and parsing errors to be characterized separately, or using a single measure. Recall and precision for detected objects may also be computed directly from label graphs. We illustrate the new metrics by comparing a new primitive-level evaluation to the symbol-level evaluation performed for the CROHME 2012 handwritten math recognition competition. A Python-based set of utilities for evaluating, visualizing and translating label graphs is publicly available.

Validating the Farsi version of the Pregnancy Worries and Stress Questionnaire (PWSQ): An exploratory factor analysis.

PubMed

Navidpour, Fariba; Dolatian, Mahrokh; Shishehgar, Sara; Yaghmaei, Farideh; Majd, Hamid Alavi; Hashemi, Seyed Saeed

2016-10-01

Biological, environmental, inter- and intrapersonal changes during the antenatal period can result in anxiety and stress in pregnant women. It is pivotal to identify potential stressors and prevent their foetal and maternal consequences. The present study was conducted to validate and examine the factor structure of the Farsi version of the Pregnancy Worries and Stress Questionnaire (PWSQ). In 2015, 502 Iranian healthy pregnant women, referred to selected hospitals in Tehran for prenatal care at 8-39 weeks of pregnancy, were recruited through a randomized cluster sampling. The PWSQ was translated into Farsi, and its validity and reliability were examined using exploratory factor analysis by SPSS version 21. The content validity of items on the PWSQ was between 0.63-1. The content validity index for relevance, clarity and simplicity were 0.92, 0.98, and 0.98, respectively, with a mean of 0.94. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.863. Test-retest reliability showed high internal consistency (α=0.89; p<0.0001). The psychometric evaluation and exploratory factor analysis showed that the translated questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool to identify stress in Iranian pregnant women. Application of the questionnaire can facilitate the diagnosis of stress in pregnant women and assist health care providers in providing timely support and minimizing negative outcomes of stress and anxiety in pregnant women and their infants.

Is handwriting constrained by phonology? Evidence from Stroop tasks with written responses and Chinese characters

PubMed Central

Damian, Markus F.; Qu, Qingqing

2013-01-01

To what extent is handwritten word production based on phonological codes? A few studies conducted in Western languages have recently provided evidence showing that phonology contributes to the retrieval of graphemic properties in written output tasks. Less is known about how orthographic production works in languages with non-alphabetic scripts such as written Chinese. We report a Stroop study in which Chinese participants wrote the color of characters on a digital graphic tablet; characters were either neutral, or homophonic to the target (congruent), or homophonic to an alternative (incongruent). Facilitation was found from congruent homophonic distractors, but only when the homophone shared the same tone with the target. This finding suggests a contribution of phonology to written word production. A second experiment served as a control experiment to exclude the possibility that the effect in Experiment 1 had an exclusively semantic locus. Overall, the findings offer new insight into the relative contribution of phonology to handwriting, particularly in non-Western languages. PMID:24146660

HMM-based lexicon-driven and lexicon-free word recognition for online handwritten Indic scripts.

PubMed

Bharath, A; Madhvanath, Sriganesh

2012-04-01

Research for recognizing online handwritten words in Indic scripts is at its early stages when compared to Latin and Oriental scripts. In this paper, we address this problem specifically for two major Indic scripts--Devanagari and Tamil. In contrast to previous approaches, the techniques we propose are largely data driven and script independent. We propose two different techniques for word recognition based on Hidden Markov Models (HMM): lexicon driven and lexicon free. The lexicon-driven technique models each word in the lexicon as a sequence of symbol HMMs according to a standard symbol writing order derived from the phonetic representation. The lexicon-free technique uses a novel Bag-of-Symbols representation of the handwritten word that is independent of symbol order and allows rapid pruning of the lexicon. On handwritten Devanagari word samples featuring both standard and nonstandard symbol writing orders, a combination of lexicon-driven and lexicon-free recognizers significantly outperforms either of them used in isolation. In contrast, most Tamil word samples feature the standard symbol order, and the lexicon-driven recognizer outperforms the lexicon free one as well as their combination. The best recognition accuracies obtained for 20,000 word lexicons are 87.13 percent for Devanagari when the two recognizers are combined, and 91.8 percent for Tamil using the lexicon-driven technique.

Word spotting for handwritten documents using Chamfer Distance and Dynamic Time Warping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saabni, Raid M.; El-Sana, Jihad A.

2011-01-01

A large amount of handwritten historical documents are located in libraries around the world. The desire to access, search, and explore these documents paves the way for a new age of knowledge sharing and promotes collaboration and understanding between human societies. Currently, the indexes for these documents are generated manually, which is very tedious and time consuming. Results produced by state of the art techniques, for converting complete images of handwritten documents into textual representations, are not yet sufficient. Therefore, word-spotting methods have been developed to archive and index images of handwritten documents in order to enable efficient searching within documents. In this paper, we present a new matching algorithm to be used in word-spotting tasks for historical Arabic documents. We present a novel algorithm based on the Chamfer Distance to compute the similarity between shapes of word-parts. Matching results are used to cluster images of Arabic word-parts into different classes using the Nearest Neighbor rule. To compute the distance between two word-part images, the algorithm subdivides each image into equal-sized slices (windows). A modified version of the Chamfer Distance, incorporating geometric gradient features and distance transform data, is used as a similarity distance between the different slices. Finally, the Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) algorithm is used to measure the distance between two images of word-parts. By using the DTW we enabled our system to cluster similar word-parts, even though they are transformed non-linearly due to the nature of handwriting. We tested our implementation of the presented methods using various documents in different writing styles, taken from Juma'a Al Majid Center - Dubai, and obtained encouraging results.

Unconstrained handwritten numeral recognition based on radial basis competitive and cooperative networks with spatio-temporal feature representation.

PubMed

Lee, S; Pan, J J

1996-01-01

This paper presents a new approach to representation and recognition of handwritten numerals. The approach first transforms a two-dimensional (2-D) spatial representation of a numeral into a three-dimensional (3-D) spatio-temporal representation by identifying the tracing sequence based on a set of heuristic rules acting as transformation operators. A multiresolution critical-point segmentation method is then proposed to extract local feature points, at varying degrees of scale and coarseness. A new neural network architecture, referred to as radial-basis competitive and cooperative network (RCCN), is presented especially for handwritten numeral recognition. RCCN is a globally competitive and locally cooperative network with the capability of self-organizing hidden units to progressively achieve desired network performance, and functions as a universal approximator of arbitrary input-output mappings. Three types of RCCNs are explored: input-space RCCN (IRCCN), output-space RCCN (ORCCN), and bidirectional RCCN (BRCCN). Experiments against handwritten zip code numerals acquired by the U.S. Postal Service indicated that the proposed method is robust in terms of variations, deformations, transformations, and corruption, achieving about 97% recognition rate.

Line Segmentation in Handwritten Assamese and Meetei Mayek Script Using Seam Carving Based Algorithm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kumar, Chandan Jyoti; Kalita, Sanjib Kr.

Line segmentation is a key stage in an Optical Character Recognition system. This paper primarily concerns the problem of text line extraction on color and grayscale manuscript pages of two major North-east Indian regional Scripts, Assamese and Meetei Mayek. Line segmentation of handwritten text in Assamese and Meetei Mayek scripts is an uphill task primarily because of the structural features of both the scripts and varied writing styles. Line segmentation of a document image is been achieved by using the Seam carving technique, in this paper. Researchers from various regions used this approach for content aware resizing of an image. However currently many researchers are implementing Seam Carving for line segmentation phase of OCR. Although it is a language independent technique, mostly experiments are done over Arabic, Greek, German and Chinese scripts. Two types of seams are generated, medial seams approximate the orientation of each text line, and separating seams separated one line of text from another. Experiments are performed extensively over various types of documents and detailed analysis of the evaluations reflects that the algorithm performs well for even documents with multiple scripts. In this paper, we present a comparative study of accuracy of this method over different types of data.

Comparing Postsecondary Marketing Student Performance on Computer-Based and Handwritten Essay Tests

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Truell, Allen D.; Alexander, Melody W.; Davis, Rodney E.

2004-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences in postsecondary marketing student performance on essay tests based on test format (i.e., computer-based or handwritten). Specifically, the variables of performance, test completion time, and gender were explored for differences based on essay test format. Results of the study…

Online handwritten mathematical expression recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Büyükbayrak, Hakan; Yanikoglu, Berrin; Erçil, Aytül

2007-01-01

We describe a system for recognizing online, handwritten mathematical expressions. The system is designed with a user-interface for writing scientific articles, supporting the recognition of basic mathematical expressions as well as integrals, summations, matrices etc. A feed-forward neural network recognizes symbols which are assumed to be single-stroke and a recursive algorithm parses the expression by combining neural network output and the structure of the expression. Preliminary results show that writer-dependent recognition rates are very high (99.8%) while writer-independent symbol recognition rates are lower (75%). The interface associated with the proposed system integrates the built-in recognition capabilities of the Microsoft's Tablet PC API for recognizing textual input and supports conversion of hand-drawn figures into PNG format. This enables the user to enter text, mathematics and draw figures in a single interface. After recognition, all output is combined into one LATEX code and compiled into a PDF file.

Handwritten dynamics assessment through convolutional neural networks: An application to Parkinson's disease identification.

PubMed

Pereira, Clayton R; Pereira, Danilo R; Rosa, Gustavo H; Albuquerque, Victor H C; Weber, Silke A T; Hook, Christian; Papa, João P

2018-05-01

Parkinson's disease (PD) is considered a degenerative disorder that affects the motor system, which may cause tremors, micrography, and the freezing of gait. Although PD is related to the lack of dopamine, the triggering process of its development is not fully understood yet. In this work, we introduce convolutional neural networks to learn features from images produced by handwritten dynamics, which capture different information during the individual's assessment. Additionally, we make available a dataset composed of images and signal-based data to foster the research related to computer-aided PD diagnosis. The proposed approach was compared against raw data and texture-based descriptors, showing suitable results, mainly in the context of early stage detection, with results nearly to 95%. The analysis of handwritten dynamics using deep learning techniques showed to be useful for automatic Parkinson's disease identification, as well as it can outperform handcrafted features. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Enhancement and character recognition of the erased colophon of a 15th-century Hebrew prayer book

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walvoord, Derek J.; Easton, Roger L., Jr.; Knox, Keith T.; Heimbueger, Matthew

2005-01-01

A handwritten codex often included an inscription that listed facts about its publication, such as the names of the scribe and patron, date of publication, the city where the book was copied, etc. These facts obviously provide essential information to a historian studying the provenance of the codex. Unfortunately, this page was sometimes erased after the sale of the book to a new owner, often by scraping off the original ink. The importance of recovering this information would be difficult to overstate. This paper reports on the methods of imaging, image enhancement, and character recognition that were applied to this page in a Hebrew prayer book copied in Florence in the 15th century.

Enhancement and character recognition of the erased colophon of a 15th-century Hebrew prayer book

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walvoord, Derek J.; Easton, Roger L., Jr.; Knox, Keith T.; Heimbueger, Matthew

2004-12-01

A handwritten codex often included an inscription that listed facts about its publication, such as the names of the scribe and patron, date of publication, the city where the book was copied, etc. These facts obviously provide essential information to a historian studying the provenance of the codex. Unfortunately, this page was sometimes erased after the sale of the book to a new owner, often by scraping off the original ink. The importance of recovering this information would be difficult to overstate. This paper reports on the methods of imaging, image enhancement, and character recognition that were applied to this page in a Hebrew prayer book copied in Florence in the 15th century.

Formant transitions in the fluent speech of Farsi-speaking people who stutter.

PubMed

Dehqan, Ali; Yadegari, Fariba; Blomgren, Michael; Scherer, Ronald C

2016-06-01

Second formant (F2) transitions can be used to infer attributes of articulatory transitions. This study compared formant transitions during fluent speech segments of Farsi (Persian) speaking people who stutter and normally fluent Farsi speakers. Ten Iranian males who stutter and 10 normally fluent Iranian males participated. Sixteen different "CVt" tokens were embedded within the phrase "Begu CVt an". Measures included overall F2 transition frequency extents, durations, and derived overall slopes, initial F2 transition slopes at 30ms and 60ms, and speaking rate. (1) Mean overall formant frequency extent was significantly greater in 14 of the 16 CVt tokens for the group of stuttering speakers. (2) Stuttering speakers exhibited significantly longer overall F2 transitions for all 16 tokens compared to the nonstuttering speakers. (3) The overall F2 slopes were similar between the two groups. (4) The stuttering speakers exhibited significantly greater initial F2 transition slopes (positive or negative) for five of the 16 tokens at 30ms and six of the 16 tokens at 60ms. (5) The stuttering group produced a slower syllable rate than the non-stuttering group. During perceptually fluent utterances, the stuttering speakers had greater F2 frequency extents during transitions, took longer to reach vowel steady state, exhibited some evidence of steeper slopes at the beginning of transitions, had overall similar F2 formant slopes, and had slower speaking rates compared to nonstuttering speakers. Findings support the notion of different speech motor timing strategies in stuttering speakers. Findings are likely to be independent of the language spoken. Educational objectives This study compares aspects of F2 formant transitions between 10 stuttering and 10 nonstuttering speakers. Readers will be able to describe: (a) characteristics of formant frequency as a specific acoustic feature used to infer speech movements in stuttering and nonstuttering speakers, (b) two methods of

Sub-word image clustering in Farsi printed books

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soheili, Mohammad Reza; Kabir, Ehsanollah; Stricker, Didier

2015-02-01

Most OCR systems are designed for the recognition of a single page. In case of unfamiliar font faces, low quality papers and degraded prints, the performance of these products drops sharply. However, an OCR system can use redundancy of word occurrences in large documents to improve recognition results. In this paper, we propose a sub-word image clustering method for the applications dealing with large printed documents. We assume that the whole document is printed by a unique unknown font with low quality print. Our proposed method finds clusters of equivalent sub-word images with an incremental algorithm. Due to the low print quality, we propose an image matching algorithm for measuring the distance between two sub-word images, based on Hamming distance and the ratio of the area to the perimeter of the connected components. We built a ground-truth dataset of more than 111000 sub-word images to evaluate our method. All of these images were extracted from an old Farsi book. We cluster all of these sub-words, including isolated letters and even punctuation marks. Then all centers of created clusters are labeled manually. We show that all sub-words of the book can be recognized with more than 99.7% accuracy by assigning the label of each cluster center to all of its members.

Structural analysis of online handwritten mathematical symbols based on support vector machines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Simistira, Foteini; Papavassiliou, Vassilis; Katsouros, Vassilis; Carayannis, George

2013-01-01

Mathematical expression recognition is still a very challenging task for the research community mainly because of the two-dimensional (2d) structure of mathematical expressions (MEs). In this paper, we present a novel approach for the structural analysis between two on-line handwritten mathematical symbols of a ME, based on spatial features of the symbols. We introduce six features to represent the spatial affinity of the symbols and compare two multi-class classification methods that employ support vector machines (SVMs): one based on the "one-against-one" technique and one based on the "one-against-all", in identifying the relation between a pair of symbols (i.e. subscript, numerator, etc). A dataset containing 1906 spatial relations derived from the Competition on Recognition of Online Handwritten Mathematical Expressions (CROHME) 2012 training dataset is constructed to evaluate the classifiers and compare them with the rule-based classifier of the ILSP-1 system participated in the contest. The experimental results give an overall mean error rate of 2.61% for the "one-against-one" SVM approach, 6.57% for the "one-against-all" SVM technique and 12.31% error rate for the ILSP-1 classifier.

Boosting bonsai trees for handwritten/printed text discrimination

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ricquebourg, Yann; Raymond, Christian; Poirriez, Baptiste; Lemaitre, Aurélie; Coüasnon, Bertrand

2013-12-01

Boosting over decision-stumps proved its efficiency in Natural Language Processing essentially with symbolic features, and its good properties (fast, few and not critical parameters, not sensitive to over-fitting) could be of great interest in the numeric world of pixel images. In this article we investigated the use of boosting over small decision trees, in image classification processing, for the discrimination of handwritten/printed text. Then, we conducted experiments to compare it to usual SVM-based classification revealing convincing results with very close performance, but with faster predictions and behaving far less as a black-box. Those promising results tend to make use of this classifier in more complex recognition tasks like multiclass problems.

A comparison of the surface contaminants of handwritten recycled and printed electronic parenteral nutrition prescriptions and their transfer to bag surfaces during delivery to hospital wards.

PubMed

Austin, Peter David; Hand, Kieran Sean; Elia, Marinos

2014-02-01

Handwritten recycled paper prescription for parenteral nutrition (PN) may become a concentrated source of viable contaminants, including pathogens. This study examined the effect of using fresh printouts of electronic prescriptions on these contaminants. Cellulose sponge stick swabs with neutralizing buffer were used to sample the surfaces of PN prescriptions (n = 32 handwritten recycled; n = 32 printed electronic) on arrival to the pharmacy or following printing and PN prescriptions and bags packaged together during delivery (n = 38 handwritten recycled; n = 34 printed electronic) on arrival to hospital wards. Different media plates and standard microbiological procedures identified the type and number of contaminants. Staphylococcus aureus, fungi, and mold were infrequent contaminants. nonspecific aerobes more frequently contaminated handwritten recycled than printed electronic prescriptions (into pharmacy, 94% vs 44%, fisher exact test P .001; onto wards, 76% vs 50%, p = .028), with greater numbers of colony-forming units (CFU) (into pharmacy, median 130 [interquartile range (IQR), 65260] VS 0 [075], Mann-Whitney U test, P .001; onto wards, median 120 [15320] vs 10 [040], P = .001). packaging with handwritten recycled prescriptions led to more frequent nonspecific aerobic bag surface contamination (63% vs 41%, fisher exact test P = .097), with greater numbers of CFU (median 40 [IQR, 080] VS 0 [040], Mann-Whitney U test, P = .036). The use of printed electronic PN prescriptions can reduce microbial loads for contamination of surfaces that compromises aseptic techniques.

Background feature descriptor for offline handwritten numeral recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ming, Delie; Wang, Hao; Tian, Tian; Jie, Feiran; Lei, Bo

2011-11-01

This paper puts forward an offline handwritten numeral recognition method based on background structural descriptor (sixteen-value numerical background expression). Through encoding the background pixels in the image according to a certain rule, 16 different eigenvalues were generated, which reflected the background condition of every digit, then reflected the structural features of the digits. Through pattern language description of images by these features, automatic segmentation of overlapping digits and numeral recognition can be realized. This method is characterized by great deformation resistant ability, high recognition speed and easy realization. Finally, the experimental results and conclusions are presented. The experimental results of recognizing datasets from various practical application fields reflect that with this method, a good recognition effect can be achieved.

Psychometric Properties of Farsi Version of the Wish to be Dead Scale.

PubMed

Dadfar, Mahboubeh; Lester, David; Atef Vahid, Mohammad Kazem; Abdel-Khalek, Ahmed M

2017-11-01

The Wish to be Dead Scale (WDS) is a new scale to measure precursors to suicidal ideation, and the aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric characteristics of a Farsi version of the WDS. The sample was a convenience sample of 145 Iranian female undergraduates and postgraduates selected from different faculties at Iran University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Using a principal component analysis and a varimax rotation with Kaiser normalization, three factors were identified and labeled: (a) lack of purpose and usefulness in life, (b) lack of interest in living, and (c) fantasizing about being dead. The WDS had good inter-item and test-retest reliability and significant positive correlations with scores on the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale-10 and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and negative correlations with scores on the Adult Hope Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, the Love of Life Scale, the Life Orientation Test, and the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. We conclude that the WDS may prove to be useful in clinical practice and research into suicide.

The use of discrete-event simulation modeling to compare handwritten and electronic prescribing systems.

PubMed

Ghany, Ahmad; Vassanji, Karim; Kuziemsky, Craig; Keshavjee, Karim

2013-01-01

Electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) is expected to bring many benefits to Canadian healthcare, such as a reduction in errors and adverse drug reactions. As there currently is no functioning e-prescribing system in Canada that is completely electronic, we are unable to evaluate the performance of a live system. An alternative approach is to use simulation modeling for evaluation. We developed two discrete-event simulation models, one of the current handwritten prescribing system and one of a proposed e-prescribing system, to compare the performance of these two systems. We were able to compare the number of processes in each model, workflow efficiency, and the distribution of patients or prescriptions. Although we were able to compare these models to each other, using discrete-event simulation software was challenging. We were limited in the number of variables we could measure. We discovered non-linear processes and feedback loops in both models that could not be adequately represented using discrete-event simulation software. Finally, interactions between entities in both models could not be modeled using this type of software. We have come to the conclusion that a more appropriate approach to modeling both the handwritten and electronic prescribing systems would be to use a complex adaptive systems approach using agent-based modeling or systems-based modeling.

Handwritten-word spotting using biologically inspired features.

PubMed

van der Zant, Tijn; Schomaker, Lambert; Haak, Koen

2008-11-01

For quick access to new handwritten collections, current handwriting recognition methods are too cumbersome. They cannot deal with the lack of labeled data and would require extensive laboratory training for each individual script, style, language and collection. We propose a biologically inspired whole-word recognition method which is used to incrementally elicit word labels in a live, web-based annotation system, named Monk. Since human labor should be minimized given the massive amount of image data, it becomes important to rely on robust perceptual mechanisms in the machine. Recent computational models of the neuro-physiology of vision are applied to isolated word classification. A primate cortex-like mechanism allows to classify text-images that have a low frequency of occurrence. Typically these images are the most difficult to retrieve and often contain named entities and are regarded as the most important to people. Usually standard pattern-recognition technology cannot deal with these text-images if there are not enough labeled instances. The results of this retrieval system are compared to normalized word-image matching and appear to be very promising.

A Novel Handwritten Letter Recognizer Using Enhanced Evolutionary Neural Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mahmoudi, Fariborz; Mirzashaeri, Mohsen; Shahamatnia, Ehsan; Faridnia, Saed

This paper introduces a novel design for handwritten letter recognition by employing a hybrid back-propagation neural network with an enhanced evolutionary algorithm. Feeding the neural network consists of a new approach which is invariant to translation, rotation, and scaling of input letters. Evolutionary algorithm is used for the global search of the search space and the back-propagation algorithm is used for the local search. The results have been computed by implementing this approach for recognizing 26 English capital letters in the handwritings of different people. The computational results show that the neural network reaches very satisfying results with relatively scarce input data and a promising performance improvement in convergence of the hybrid evolutionary back-propagation algorithms is exhibited.

Age and gender-invariant features of handwritten signatures for verification systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

AbdAli, Sura; Putz-Leszczynska, Joanna

2014-11-01

Handwritten signature is one of the most natural biometrics, the study of human physiological and behavioral patterns. Behavioral biometrics includes signatures that may be different due to its owner gender or age because of intrinsic or extrinsic factors. This paper presents the results of the author's research on age and gender influence on verification factors. The experiments in this research were conducted using a database that contains signatures and their associated metadata. The used algorithm is based on the universal forgery feature idea, where the global classifier is able to classify a signature as a genuine one or, as a forgery, without the actual knowledge of the signature template and its owner. Additionally, the reduction of the dimensionality with the MRMR method is discussed.

Orthographic and phonological neighborhood effects in handwritten word perception

PubMed Central

Goldinger, Stephen D.

2017-01-01

In printed-word perception, the orthographic neighborhood effect (i.e., faster recognition of words with more neighbors) has considerable theoretical importance, because it implicates great interactivity in lexical access. Mulatti, Reynolds, and Besner Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, 799–810 (2006) questioned the validity of orthographic neighborhood effects, suggesting that they reflect a confound with phonological neighborhood density. They reported that, when phonological density is controlled, orthographic neighborhood effects vanish. Conversely, phonological neighborhood effects were still evident even when controlling for orthographic neighborhood density. The present study was a replication and extension of Mulatti et al. (2006), with words presented in four different formats (computer-generated print and cursive, and handwritten print and cursive). The results from Mulatti et al. (2006) were replicated with computer-generated stimuli, but were reversed with natural stimuli. These results suggest that, when ambiguity is introduced at the level of individual letters, top-down influences from lexical neighbors are increased. PMID:26306881

Psychometric Properties of Farsi Version of the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children.

PubMed

Abdekhodaie, Ehsan; Arghabaei, Mohammad; Bahrami Ehsan, Hadi

2016-02-18

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Farsi version of the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children (Ollendick, 1983), namely the FSSC-FA, in a sample of Iranian children and adolescents (N = 394, 206 girls) aged 9-11:11 years. The internal consistency coefficient was found to range from .79 to .96 for total and subscale scores. The authors used exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to determine the factor structure of the FSSC-FA. The results showed that a 71-item, six-factor model provided a satisfactory fit for the structure of the FSSC-FA (RMSEA = .07, 90% CIs [.068, .072], CFI = .94, NNFI = .94, χ2/df = 2.94). With regard to gender and age differences in fears of the present sample, girls typically reported more fears than boys (Cohen's d = .28, 95% CIs [.08, .48], p < .001), but differences between older and younger participants were modest. The study also reported most common fears in the sample which were very similar to those reported by other studies except one item being specific to the Iranian population. Bearing in mind the limitations discussed, the results generally show that the FSSC-FA scores are valid and reliable to assess fears in Iranian youth.

THE RELIABILITY OF HAND-WRITTEN AND COMPUTERISED RECORDS OF BIRTH DATA COLLECTED AT BARAGWANATH HOSPITAL IN SOWETO

PubMed Central

Ellison, GTH; Richter, LM; de Wet, T; Harris, HE; Griesel, RD; McIntyre, JA

2007-01-01

This study examined the reliability of hand-written and computerised records of birth data collected during the Birth to Ten study at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. The reliability of record-keeping in hand-written obstetric and neonatal files was assessed by comparing duplicate records of six different variables abstracted from six different sections in these files. The reliability of computerised record-keeping was assessed by comparing the original hand-written record of each variable with records contained in the hospital’s computerised database. These data sets displayed similar levels of reliability which suggests that similar errors occurred when data were transcribed from one section of the files to the next, and from these files to the computerised database. In both sets of records reliability was highest for the categorical variable infant sex, and for those continuous variables (such as maternal age and gravidity) recorded with unambiguous units. Reliability was lower for continuous variables that could be recorded with different levels of precision (such as birth weight), those that were occasionally measured more than once, and those that could be measured using more than one measurement technique (such as gestational age). Reducing the number of times records are transcribed, categorising continuous variables, and standardising the techniques used for measuring and recording variables would improve the reliability of both hand-written and computerised data sets. OPSOMMING In hierdie studie is die betroubaarheid van handgeskrewe en gerekenariseerde rekords van ge boortedata ondersoek, wat versamel is gedurende die ‘Birth to Ten’ -studie aan die Baragwanath hospitaal in Soweto. Die betroubaarheid van handgeskrewe verloskundige en pasgeboortelike rekords is beoordeel deur duplikaatrekords op ses verskillende verander likes te vergelyk, wat onttrek is uit ses verskillende dele van die betrokke lêers. Die gerekenariseerde rekords se betroubaarheid

Supporting Learning with Weblogs in Science Education: A Comparison of Blogging and Hand-Written Reflective Writing with and without Prompts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Petko, Dominik; Egger, Nives; Graber, Marc

2014-01-01

The goal of this study was to compare how weblogs and traditional handwritten reflective learning protocols compare regarding the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies for knowledge acquisition as well as learning gains in secondary school students. The study used a quasi-experimental control group design with repeated measurements…

Classification and Verification of Handwritten Signatures with Time Causal Information Theory Quantifiers

PubMed Central

Ospina, Raydonal; Frery, Alejandro C.

2016-01-01

We present a new approach for handwritten signature classification and verification based on descriptors stemming from time causal information theory. The proposal uses the Shannon entropy, the statistical complexity, and the Fisher information evaluated over the Bandt and Pompe symbolization of the horizontal and vertical coordinates of signatures. These six features are easy and fast to compute, and they are the input to an One-Class Support Vector Machine classifier. The results are better than state-of-the-art online techniques that employ higher-dimensional feature spaces which often require specialized software and hardware. We assess the consistency of our proposal with respect to the size of the training sample, and we also use it to classify the signatures into meaningful groups. PMID:27907014

Classification and Verification of Handwritten Signatures with Time Causal Information Theory Quantifiers.

PubMed

Rosso, Osvaldo A; Ospina, Raydonal; Frery, Alejandro C

2016-01-01

We present a new approach for handwritten signature classification and verification based on descriptors stemming from time causal information theory. The proposal uses the Shannon entropy, the statistical complexity, and the Fisher information evaluated over the Bandt and Pompe symbolization of the horizontal and vertical coordinates of signatures. These six features are easy and fast to compute, and they are the input to an One-Class Support Vector Machine classifier. The results are better than state-of-the-art online techniques that employ higher-dimensional feature spaces which often require specialized software and hardware. We assess the consistency of our proposal with respect to the size of the training sample, and we also use it to classify the signatures into meaningful groups.

Signature Verification Based on Handwritten Text Recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Viriri, Serestina; Tapamo, Jules-R.

Signatures continue to be an important biometric trait because it remains widely used primarily for authenticating the identity of human beings. This paper presents an efficient text-based directional signature recognition algorithm which verifies signatures, even when they are composed of special unconstrained cursive characters which are superimposed and embellished. This algorithm extends the character-based signature verification technique. The experiments carried out on the GPDS signature database and an additional database created from signatures captured using the ePadInk tablet, show that the approach is effective and efficient, with a positive verification rate of 94.95%.

A Record Book of Open Heart Surgical Cases between 1959 and 1982, Hand-Written by a Cardiac Surgeon.

PubMed

Kim, Won-Gon

2016-08-01

A book of brief records of open heart surgery underwent between 1959 and 1982 at Seoul National University Hospital was recently found. The book was hand-written by the late professor and cardiac surgeon Yung Kyoon Lee (1921-1994). This book contains valuable information about cardiac patients and surgery at the early stages of the establishment of open heart surgery in Korea, and at Seoul National University Hospital. This report is intended to analyze the content of the book.

[Patient safety: a comparison between handwritten and computerized voluntary incident reporting].

PubMed

Capucho, Helaine Carneiro; Arnas, Emilly Rasquini; Cassiani, Silvia Helena De Bortoli

2013-03-01

This study's objective was to compare two types of voluntary incident reporting methods that affect patient safety, handwritten (HR) and computerized (CR), in relation to the number of reports, type of incident reported the individual submitting the report, and quality of reports. This was a descriptive, retrospective and cross-sectional study. CR were more frequent than HR (61.2% vs. 38.6%) among the 1,089 reports analyzed and were submitted every day of the month, while HR were submitted only on weekdays. The highest number of reports referred to medication, followed by problems related to medical-hospital material and the professional who most frequently submitted reports were nurses in both cases. Overall CR presented higher quality than HR (86.1% vs. 61.7%); 36.8% of HR were illegible, a problem that was eliminated in CR. Therefore, the use of computerized incident reporting in hospitals favors qualified voluntary reports, increasing patient safety.

Psychometric properties of the Farsi version of effort-reward imbalance questionnaire: a longitudinal study in employees of a synthetic fibre factory in Iran.

PubMed

Yadegarfar, Ghasem; Alinia, Tahereh; Hosseini, Reihane; Hassannejad, Razieh; Fayaz, Mahsa; Sanati, Javad; Sanati, Kave; Harandi, Jalal; Hajnoorozali, Vahid; Baghi, Mahmood-Reza; Mirzavand, Enayat; Majeed, Azeem

2013-02-01

To assess the reliability and validity of the Farsi version of the effort-reward imbalance questionnaire (F-ERIQ) and to examine the responsiveness of the tool to changes over time. A longitudinal study was carried out among 227 male employees of Iran Polyacryl Corporation. The F-ERIQ was developed through a forward-backward translation process that includes three scales of effort, reward and over-commitment (OC). Reliability and internal consistency of the F-ERIQ were assessed by split-half and Cronbach's alpha coefficients. Confirmatory factor analysis, convergent and discriminant validity were conducted to evaluate construct validity. Depressive mood was used as an indicator for exploring criterion validity. The variations in mean scores over time for scales were regarded as measures of the responsiveness to changes. Baseline split-half correlations for effort, reward and OC were 0.53, 0.85 and 0.65, respectively; Cronbach's alpha coefficients improved from 0.61 to 0.70 for effort, 0.85 to 0.88 for reward and 0.67 to 0.72 for OC. All of item-total correlations were higher than 0.23 and item-scales correlations were higher than 0.4. Although Values of Goodness of Fit Index and Adjusted GFI were higher than 0.9 and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation, Root Mean Square Residual and Standardized RMR were lower than 0.05, confirmatory factor analysis only confirmed the construct of the effort and OC. People with higher job stress were at higher risk of depressive mood (at least 3 times more). Overall, the mean score of effort, OC and ERI increase, and the figures decrease for reward among people who experience changes. These findings provide evidence that the F-ERIQ is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing psychosocial stress at work among Farsi-speaking male employees. We propose that F-ERIQ be further evaluated across a variety of jobs and industries.

Analog design of a new neural network for optical character recognition.

PubMed

Morns, I P; Dlay, S S

1999-01-01

An electronic circuit is presented for a new type of neural network, which gives a recognition rate of over 100 kHz. The network is used to classify handwritten numerals, presented as Fourier and wavelet descriptors, and has been shown to train far quicker than the popular backpropagation network while maintaining classification accuracy.

The depressive character.

PubMed

Kahn, E

1975-01-01

The depressive character is characterized by perpetual and unsuccessful efforts to maintain self-esteem and to avoid a sense of helplessness. Such individuals suffer from chronic depression which may or may not be masked, but which permeates their character. Although the condition is among the commonest seen in many of our clinics and practices, it remains without a generally accepted diagnostic form. It is suggested that the essential, clinical, dynamic, and structural features of the depressive character are: (1) consistently low self-esteem and a sense of helplessness, dependent object relations and chronic guilt; (2) self-directed aggression and masochism are frequent but not invariable; (3) extensive use of the mechanism of denial is as common as the previously described obsessional defenses seen in patients subject to psychotic depression; (4) often the depressive character suffers from intense oral envy; (5) depressive character traits may help to ward off any of the basic anxieties, namely, object loss, loss of love, castration anxiety, and superego anxiety (guilt) (6) the depressive character may be similar to a number of related disorders, namely, the obsessional character, hysterical characters with a large oral component, and depressive borderline states; (7) sensitivity to loss, sadness, and fragility of self-esteem makes the depressive character especially vulnerable to regression into overt depression; (8) the persistence of oral incorporative mechanisms, ambivalent, dependent object relations, ego versus superego tension with depressive affect, and sensitivity to loss are characteristic of the ego of the depressive character.

New approach for segmentation and recognition of handwritten numeral strings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sadri, Javad; Suen, Ching Y.; Bui, Tien D.

2004-12-01

In this paper, we propose a new system for segmentation and recognition of unconstrained handwritten numeral strings. The system uses a combination of foreground and background features for segmentation of touching digits. The method introduces new algorithms for traversing the top/bottom-foreground-skeletons of the touched digits, and for finding feature points on these skeletons, and matching them to build all the segmentation paths. For the first time a genetic representation is used to show all the segmentation hypotheses. Our genetic algorithm tries to search and evolve the population of candidate segmentations and finds the one with the highest confidence for its segmentation and recognition. We have also used a new method for feature extraction which lowers the variations in the shapes of the digits, and then a MLP neural network is utilized to produce the labels and confidence values for those digits. The NIST SD19 and CENPARMI databases are used for evaluating the system. Our system can get a correct segmentation-recognition rate of 96.07% with rejection rate of 2.61% which compares favorably with those that exist in the literature.

New approach for segmentation and recognition of handwritten numeral strings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sadri, Javad; Suen, Ching Y.; Bui, Tien D.

2005-01-01

In this paper, we propose a new system for segmentation and recognition of unconstrained handwritten numeral strings. The system uses a combination of foreground and background features for segmentation of touching digits. The method introduces new algorithms for traversing the top/bottom-foreground-skeletons of the touched digits, and for finding feature points on these skeletons, and matching them to build all the segmentation paths. For the first time a genetic representation is used to show all the segmentation hypotheses. Our genetic algorithm tries to search and evolve the population of candidate segmentations and finds the one with the highest confidence for its segmentation and recognition. We have also used a new method for feature extraction which lowers the variations in the shapes of the digits, and then a MLP neural network is utilized to produce the labels and confidence values for those digits. The NIST SD19 and CENPARMI databases are used for evaluating the system. Our system can get a correct segmentation-recognition rate of 96.07% with rejection rate of 2.61% which compares favorably with those that exist in the literature.

"Invitations" to Character

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Milliren, Al; Messer, Mitchell H.

2009-01-01

If we are to help children develop character, we have to go beyond offering a character education class once or twice each month. We actually have to validate character when we see it or hear about it happening. Through the use of a new strategy called "focused invitations," counselors and teachers can focus on the 36 core components of character.…

[New discovery of the handwritten draft of Eucharius Rösslin's midwifery textbook Pregnant Women and Midwives Rosengarten and Ps.-Ortlof's Small Book for Women].

PubMed

Kruse, B J

1994-01-01

The author of the famous midwifery text book Der schwangeren Frauen und Hebammen Rosengarten has until now thought to have been Eucharius Rösslin the Elder, in whose name the first printed edition of the work appeared in 1513. According to him, he compiled the text from various sources in the years 1508-1512 at the suggestion of the Duchess Catherine of Brunswick-Luneburg. In the SB und UB Hamburg there is a handwritten preliminary draft of Rosengarten (Cod. med. 801, p. 9-130), dated by the scribe in the year 1494 (this is borne out by watermark analysis). It reproduces the text of Rosengarten without the privilegium, the dedication and the rhyming 'admonition' of the pregnant women and the midwives, as well as the glossary and the illustrative woodcuts almost identically. The printed version of Rosengarten was also expanded by Eucharius Rösslin the Elder with passages among others from Ps.-Ortolfs Frauenbüchlein. The author of this paper was also able to trace a handwritten preliminary draft of Frauenbüchlein, until now unknown, in manuscript 2967 of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The remark Hic liber pertinet ad Constantinum Roeslin written in the manuscript by a previous owner, and a treatise on syphilis in the hand Eucharius Rösslin the Younger, would indicate that Cod. med. 801 was once in the possession of the Rösslin family. Since Eucharius Rösslin the Elder was born around 1470, and since errors and omissions in Cod. med. 801 indicate that it is a copy of an older text, we are confronted with the question of whether or not the handwritten edition of Rosengarten originates from him or from some other author.

U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Corporate Dari Document Transcription and Translation Guidelines

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-10-01

text file format. 15. SUBJECT TERMS Transcription, Translation, guidelines, ground truth, Optical character recognition , OCR, Machine Translation, MT...foreign language into a target language in order to train, test, and evaluate optical character recognition (OCR) and machine translation (MT) embedded...graphic element and should not be transcribed. Elements that are not part of the primary text such as handwritten annotations or stamps should not be

Learning representation hierarchies by sharing visual features: a computational investigation of Persian character recognition with unsupervised deep learning.

PubMed

Sadeghi, Zahra; Testolin, Alberto

2017-08-01

In humans, efficient recognition of written symbols is thought to rely on a hierarchical processing system, where simple features are progressively combined into more abstract, high-level representations. Here, we present a computational model of Persian character recognition based on deep belief networks, where increasingly more complex visual features emerge in a completely unsupervised manner by fitting a hierarchical generative model to the sensory data. Crucially, high-level internal representations emerging from unsupervised deep learning can be easily read out by a linear classifier, achieving state-of-the-art recognition accuracy. Furthermore, we tested the hypothesis that handwritten digits and letters share many common visual features: A generative model that captures the statistical structure of the letters distribution should therefore also support the recognition of written digits. To this aim, deep networks trained on Persian letters were used to build high-level representations of Persian digits, which were indeed read out with high accuracy. Our simulations show that complex visual features, such as those mediating the identification of Persian symbols, can emerge from unsupervised learning in multilayered neural networks and can support knowledge transfer across related domains.

Arabic writer identification based on diacritic's features

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maliki, Makki; Al-Jawad, Naseer; Jassim, Sabah A.

2012-06-01

Natural languages like Arabic, Kurdish, Farsi (Persian), Urdu, and any other similar languages have many features, which make them different from other languages like Latin's script. One of these important features is diacritics. These diacritics are classified as: compulsory like dots which are used to identify/differentiate letters, and optional like short vowels which are used to emphasis consonants. Most indigenous and well trained writers often do not use all or some of these second class of diacritics, and expert readers can infer their presence within the context of the writer text. In this paper, we investigate the use of diacritics shapes and other characteristic as parameters of feature vectors for Arabic writer identification/verification. Segmentation techniques are used to extract the diacritics-based feature vectors from examples of Arabic handwritten text. The results of evaluation test will be presented, which has been carried out on an in-house database of 50 writers. Also the viability of using diacritics for writer recognition will be demonstrated.

AIDS education in an Islamic nation: content analysis of Farsi-language AIDS-education materials in Iran.

PubMed

Kalkhoran, Sara; Hale, Lauren

2008-09-01

Inconsistent statistics about the number of HIV/AIDS cases in Iran and misinformation about HIV/AIDS among Iranian adolescents necessitate proper understanding and knowledge of HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention. This is particularly important since many issues related to HIV/AIDS, such as sex, homosexuality, and drug use, are taboo topics in the Islamic world. We analyzed Farsi-language educational and informational small media items to ascertain the nature of HIV/AIDS-related material available in society. While all of the documents mentioned sexual contact as a means of transmitting the virus, and the majority (87%) mentioned condom use as a preventive means, mention of homosexuality (43%) and prostitution (17%) was lacking in most. Thus, mention of "safe sex" strategies was not avoided due to fear of promoting sex outside of marriage, as has been noted in other Islamic nations. Mention of intravenous drug use in 90% of the documents shows an acknowledgment of the drug problem in the nation, and an effort to curb its harmful sequelae. Therefore, while certain issues such as sex, condoms, and drug use were well represented in the documents analyzed, additional inclusion of topics such as homosexuality and prostitution, issues already discussed infrequently in society, can help to better educate the population and curb the spread of this life-threatening disease.

Deep Convolutional Extreme Learning Machine and Its Application in Handwritten Digit Classification

PubMed Central

Yang, Xinyi

2016-01-01

In recent years, some deep learning methods have been developed and applied to image classification applications, such as convolutional neuron network (CNN) and deep belief network (DBN). However they are suffering from some problems like local minima, slow convergence rate, and intensive human intervention. In this paper, we propose a rapid learning method, namely, deep convolutional extreme learning machine (DC-ELM), which combines the power of CNN and fast training of ELM. It uses multiple alternate convolution layers and pooling layers to effectively abstract high level features from input images. Then the abstracted features are fed to an ELM classifier, which leads to better generalization performance with faster learning speed. DC-ELM also introduces stochastic pooling in the last hidden layer to reduce dimensionality of features greatly, thus saving much training time and computation resources. We systematically evaluated the performance of DC-ELM on two handwritten digit data sets: MNIST and USPS. Experimental results show that our method achieved better testing accuracy with significantly shorter training time in comparison with deep learning methods and other ELM methods. PMID:27610128

Deep Convolutional Extreme Learning Machine and Its Application in Handwritten Digit Classification.

PubMed

Pang, Shan; Yang, Xinyi

2016-01-01

In recent years, some deep learning methods have been developed and applied to image classification applications, such as convolutional neuron network (CNN) and deep belief network (DBN). However they are suffering from some problems like local minima, slow convergence rate, and intensive human intervention. In this paper, we propose a rapid learning method, namely, deep convolutional extreme learning machine (DC-ELM), which combines the power of CNN and fast training of ELM. It uses multiple alternate convolution layers and pooling layers to effectively abstract high level features from input images. Then the abstracted features are fed to an ELM classifier, which leads to better generalization performance with faster learning speed. DC-ELM also introduces stochastic pooling in the last hidden layer to reduce dimensionality of features greatly, thus saving much training time and computation resources. We systematically evaluated the performance of DC-ELM on two handwritten digit data sets: MNIST and USPS. Experimental results show that our method achieved better testing accuracy with significantly shorter training time in comparison with deep learning methods and other ELM methods.

Parish Character.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duggan, Robert D.

1999-01-01

Discusses the role of the Catholic parish in forming the character of its youth, asserting that vibrant communities of faith can form Catholic character and values that will survive any threat from society. Presents a formula for success in this endeavor, which includes: (1) good liturgy; (2) democratic leadership; (3) lifelong religious education…

Arabic Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Evaluation in Order to Develop a Post-OCR Module

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-09-01

handwritten, and many more have some handwriting in the margins. Some images are blurred or faded to the point of illegibility. Others are mostly or...it is to English, because Arabic has more features such as agreement. We say that Arabic is more “morphologically rich” than English. We intend to

Text vectorization based on character recognition and character stroke modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fan, Zhigang; Zhou, Bingfeng; Tse, Francis; Mu, Yadong; He, Tao

2014-03-01

In this paper, a text vectorization method is proposed using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and character stroke modeling. This is based on the observation that for a particular character, its font glyphs may have different shapes, but often share same stroke structures. Like many other methods, the proposed algorithm contains two procedures, dominant point determination and data fitting. The first one partitions the outlines into segments and second one fits a curve to each segment. In the proposed method, the dominant points are classified as "major" (specifying stroke structures) and "minor" (specifying serif shapes). A set of rules (parameters) are determined offline specifying for each character the number of major and minor dominant points and for each dominant point the detection and fitting parameters (projection directions, boundary conditions and smoothness). For minor points, multiple sets of parameters could be used for different fonts. During operation, OCR is performed and the parameters associated with the recognized character are selected. Both major and minor dominant points are detected as a maximization process as specified by the parameter set. For minor points, an additional step could be performed to test the competing hypothesis and detect degenerated cases.

Internalization of Character Traits by Those Who Teach Character Counts!

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harms, Kristyn; Fritz, Susan

2001-01-01

Cooperative extension personnel (n=53) completed a Web-based survey analyzing the impact of the Character Counts! program on extension, their personal lives, and society. Results demonstrated that extension educators and assistants were more likely to make ethical decisions as a result of teaching Character Counts! The need for increased…

Believable Characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

El-Nasr, Magy Seif; Bishko, Leslie; Zammitto, Veronica; Nixon, Michael; Vasiliakos, Athanasios V.; Wei, Huaxin

The interactive entertainment industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. In 1996, the U.S. entertainment software industry reported 2.6 billion in sales revenue, this figure has more than tripled in 2007 yielding 9.5 billion in revenues [1]. In addition, gamers, the target market for interactive entertainment products, are now reaching beyond the traditional 8-34 year old male to include women, Hispanics, and African Americans [2]. This trend has been observed in several markets, including Japan, China, Korea, and India, who has just published their first international AAA title (defined as high quality games with high budget), a 3D third person action game: Ghajini - The Game [3]. The topic of believable characters is becoming a central issue when designing and developing games for today's game industry. While narrative and character were considered secondary to game mechanics, games are currently evolving to integrate characters, narrative, and drama as part of their design. One can see this pattern through the emergence of games like Assassin's Creed (published by Ubisoft 2008), Hotel Dusk (published by Nintendo 2007), and Prince of Persia series (published by Ubisoft), which emphasized character and narrative as part of their design.

Character trees from transcriptome data: Origin and individuation of morphological characters and the so-called "species signal".

PubMed

Musser, Jacob M; Wagner, Günter P

2015-11-01

We elaborate a framework for investigating the evolutionary history of morphological characters. We argue that morphological character trees generated by phylogenetic analysis of transcriptomes provide a useful tool for identifying causal gene expression differences underlying the development and evolution of morphological characters. They also enable rigorous testing of different models of morphological character evolution and origination, including the hypothesis that characters originate via divergence of repeated ancestral characters. Finally, morphological character trees provide evidence that character transcriptomes undergo concerted evolution. We argue that concerted evolution of transcriptomes can explain the so-called "species signal" found in several recent comparative transcriptome studies. The species signal is the phenomenon that transcriptomes cluster by species rather than character type, even though the characters are older than the respective species. We suggest the species signal is a natural consequence of concerted gene expression evolution resulting from mutations that alter gene regulatory network interactions shared by the characters under comparison. Thus, character trees generated from transcriptomes allow us to investigate the variational independence, or individuation, of morphological characters at the level of genetic programs. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

C-CAT: a computer software used to analyze and select Chinese characters and character components for psychological research.

PubMed

Lo, Ming; Hue, Chih-Wei

2008-11-01

The Character-Component Analysis Toolkit (C-CAT) software was designed to assist researchers in constructing experimental materials using traditional Chinese characters. The software package contains two sets of character stocks: one suitable for research using literate adults as subjects and one suitable for research using schoolchildren as subjects. The software can identify linguistic properties, such as the number of strokes contained, the character-component pronunciation regularity, and the arrangement of character components within a character. Moreover, it can compute a character's linguistic frequency, neighborhood size, and phonetic validity with respect to a user-selected character stock. It can also search the selected character stock for similar characters or for character components with user-specified linguistic properties.

Acquisition of Chinese characters: the effects of character properties and individual differences among second language learners

PubMed Central

Kuo, Li-Jen; Kim, Tae-Jin; Yang, Xinyuan; Li, Huiwen; Liu, Yan; Wang, Haixia; Hyun Park, Jeong; Li, Ying

2015-01-01

In light of the dramatic growth of Chinese learners worldwide and a need for cross-linguistic research on Chinese literacy development, this study drew upon theories of visual complexity effect (Su and Samuels, 2010) and dual-coding processing (Sadoski and Paivio, 2013) and investigated (a) the effects of character properties (i.e., visual complexity and radical presence) on character acquisition and (b) the relationship between individual learner differences in radical awareness and character acquisition. Participants included adolescent English-speaking beginning learners of Chinese in the U.S. Following Kuo et al. (2014), a novel character acquisition task was used to investigate the process of acquiring the meaning of new characters. Results showed that (a) characters with radicals and with less visual complexity were easier to acquire than characters without radicals and with greater visual complexity; and (b) individual differences in radical awareness were associated with the acquisition of all types of characters, but the association was more pronounced with the acquisition of characters with radicals. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed. PMID:26379562

Character Apps for Children's Snacks: Effects of Character Awareness on Snack Selection and Consumption Patterns

PubMed Central

Cotto, Caroline E.; Calvert, Sandra L.

2018-01-01

Abstract Objective: Media characters are used to market snacks that are typically of poor nutritional value, which has been linked to childhood obesity. This study examines whether children's snack selections and consumption patterns are influenced by an app depicting a popular children's media character, as well as the role that children's awareness of the character plays. The results can increase our understanding of how to encourage healthier snack selection and consumption in newer game-based marketing venues, such as apps. Materials and Methods: Four- and 5-year-old children (N = 132) played a bowling game on an iPad with no character or with a character holding either healthier or unhealthy snacks. After app-play, children selected and consumed healthier or unhealthy snacks. Children's awareness of the character was measured by children's verbalizations of the character's name during or after app-play. Results: An ordered logistic regression found no significant effect of treatment conditions compared with the control group. Within treatment conditions, awareness of the character led to selection and consumption of more healthy snacks in the healthier condition (odds ratio β = 10.340, P = 0.008), and of unhealthy snacks in the unhealthy condition (odds ratio β = 0.228, P = 0.033), but children were unaware that the character influenced their decisions. Conclusions: Results suggest that young children will choose and consume healthier, not just unhealthy, products when they are aware that a popular character in an app is associated with the snack, potentially leading to healthier eating patterns. PMID:29297713

Character Apps for Children's Snacks: Effects of Character Awareness on Snack Selection and Consumption Patterns.

PubMed

Putnam, Marisa M; Cotto, Caroline E; Calvert, Sandra L

2018-04-01

Media characters are used to market snacks that are typically of poor nutritional value, which has been linked to childhood obesity. This study examines whether children's snack selections and consumption patterns are influenced by an app depicting a popular children's media character, as well as the role that children's awareness of the character plays. The results can increase our understanding of how to encourage healthier snack selection and consumption in newer game-based marketing venues, such as apps. Four- and 5-year-old children (N = 132) played a bowling game on an iPad with no character or with a character holding either healthier or unhealthy snacks. After app-play, children selected and consumed healthier or unhealthy snacks. Children's awareness of the character was measured by children's verbalizations of the character's name during or after app-play. An ordered logistic regression found no significant effect of treatment conditions compared with the control group. Within treatment conditions, awareness of the character led to selection and consumption of more healthy snacks in the healthier condition (odds ratio β = 10.340, P = 0.008), and of unhealthy snacks in the unhealthy condition (odds ratio β = 0.228, P = 0.033), but children were unaware that the character influenced their decisions. Results suggest that young children will choose and consume healthier, not just unhealthy, products when they are aware that a popular character in an app is associated with the snack, potentially leading to healthier eating patterns.

Rank-frequency relation for Chinese characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deng, Weibing; Allahverdyan, Armen E.; Li, Bo; Wang, Qiuping A.

2014-02-01

We show that the Zipf's law for Chinese characters perfectly holds for sufficiently short texts (few thousand different characters). The scenario of its validity is similar to the Zipf's law for words in short English texts. For long Chinese texts (or for mixtures of short Chinese texts), rank-frequency relations for Chinese characters display a two-layer, hierarchic structure that combines a Zipfian power-law regime for frequent characters (first layer) with an exponential-like regime for less frequent characters (second layer). For these two layers we provide different (though related) theoretical descriptions that include the range of low-frequency characters (hapax legomena). We suggest that this hierarchic structure of the rank-frequency relation connects to semantic features of Chinese characters (number of different meanings and homographies). The comparative analysis of rank-frequency relations for Chinese characters versus English words illustrates the extent to which the characters play for Chinese writers the same role as the words for those writing within alphabetical systems.

A Missing Piece of the Contemporary Character Education Puzzle: The Individualisation of Moral Character

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Yi-Lin

2013-01-01

The different sorts of virtuous people who display various virtues to a remarkable degree have brought the issue of individualisation of moral character to the forefront. It signals a more personal dimension of character development which is notoriously ignored in the current discourse on character education. The case is made that since in…

Spiking neural networks for handwritten digit recognition-Supervised learning and network optimization.

PubMed

Kulkarni, Shruti R; Rajendran, Bipin

2018-07-01

We demonstrate supervised learning in Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) for the problem of handwritten digit recognition using the spike triggered Normalized Approximate Descent (NormAD) algorithm. Our network that employs neurons operating at sparse biological spike rates below 300Hz achieves a classification accuracy of 98.17% on the MNIST test database with four times fewer parameters compared to the state-of-the-art. We present several insights from extensive numerical experiments regarding optimization of learning parameters and network configuration to improve its accuracy. We also describe a number of strategies to optimize the SNN for implementation in memory and energy constrained hardware, including approximations in computing the neuronal dynamics and reduced precision in storing the synaptic weights. Experiments reveal that even with 3-bit synaptic weights, the classification accuracy of the designed SNN does not degrade beyond 1% as compared to the floating-point baseline. Further, the proposed SNN, which is trained based on the precise spike timing information outperforms an equivalent non-spiking artificial neural network (ANN) trained using back propagation, especially at low bit precision. Thus, our study shows the potential for realizing efficient neuromorphic systems that use spike based information encoding and learning for real-world applications. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Examining Authenticity: An Initial Exploration of the Suitability of Handwritten Electronic Signatures.

PubMed

Heckeroth, J; Boywitt, C D

2017-06-01

Considering the increasing relevance of handwritten electronically captured signatures, we evaluated the ability of forensic handwriting examiners (FHEs) to distinguish between authentic and simulated electronic signatures. Sixty-six professional FHEs examined the authenticity of electronic signatures captured with software by signotec on a smartphone Galaxy Note 4 by Samsung and signatures made with a ballpoint pen on paper (conventional signatures). In addition, we experimentally varied the name ("J. König" vs. "A. Zaiser") and the status (authentic vs. simulated) of the signatures in question. FHEs' conclusions about the authenticity did not show a statistically significant general difference between electronic and conventional signatures. Furthermore, no significant discrepancies between electronic and conventional signatures were found with regard to other important aspects of the authenticity examination such as questioned signatures' graphic information content, the suitability of the provided sample signatures, the necessity of further examinations and the levels of difficulty of the cases under examination. Thus, this study did not reveal any indications that electronic signatures captured with software by signotec on a Galaxy Note 4 are less well suited than conventional signatures for the examination of authenticity, precluding potential technical problems concerning the integrity of electronic signatures. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Character Issues: Reality Character Problems and Solutions through Education in Indonesia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saidek, Abdul Rahim; Islami, Raisul; Abdoludin

2016-01-01

Weak character education raises the problem of corruption, a fight between students, free sex, drugs and rape/abortion indicate that the issue of character education of the nation must be improved and the concern of all parties, the nation's leaders, law enforcement officers, educators, religious leaders, groups and other etc. There are two…

Character in Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carr, David

2007-01-01

Qualities of personal character would appear to play a significant role in the professional conduct of teachers. It is often said that we remember teachers as much for the kinds of people they were than for anything they may have taught us, and some kinds of professional expertise may best be understood as qualities of character. After (roughly)…

Handprinted Forms and Characters

National Institute of Standards and Technology Data Gateway

NIST Handprinted Forms and Characters (Web, free access)   NIST Special Database 19 contains NIST's entire corpus of training materials for handprinted document and character recognition. It supersedes NIST Special Databases 3 and 7.

A Few Funny Characters.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zingher, Gary

2002-01-01

Describes funny characters in children's books and films, including humorous children, adults, and animal characters. Considers younger children and middle grade and older children and suggests library media center activities for various age groups. (LRW)

Research on Russian National Character

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Na, Zhuo

2008-01-01

The special geographical location Russia lies in creates the unique character of the Russian nation. Based on the dual nature of the Russian national character, the Russian geographical environment and the analysis of its social structure, this text tries to explore the reasons of the dual nature of Russian national character.

Character: A Multifaceted Developmental System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nucci, Larry

2017-01-01

Character is a developmental system embedded within the self-system. This Relational Developmental Systems (RDS) view is in juxtaposition with virtue theory and accounts of character in terms of moral identity. The character system includes 4 components 3 of which: basic moral cognition (as described within domain theory); other regarding; and…

Bring Character Education into Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Agboola, Alex; Tsai, Kaun Chen

2012-01-01

Character education is a growing discipline with the deliberate attempt to optimize students' ethical behavior. The outcome of character education has always been encouraging, solidly, and continually preparing the leaders of tomorrow. The promotion of character education should not just a leap service but has an action plan for practice. In order…

Characters as Guides to Meaning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roser, Nancy; Martinez, Miriam; Fuhrken, Charles; McDonnold, Kathleen

2007-01-01

Characters in children's books can help to guide readers through stories, contributing to deepened understandings of plot and themes. The authors discuss why characters become vivid and lasting in readers' minds, the ways in which students are often asked to think about characters in classroom literature study, and how students' understanding of…

Visual capability to receive character information. Part I: How many characters can we recognize at a glance?

PubMed

Fukuda, T

1992-01-01

A study was made on the capability to receive character information and the factors restricting it. The study showed that the capability indicated by the memory span was limited by the average number of characters for words that are made up of individual characters, and calculated in terms of information quantity, there was no difference among the individual characters. The differences in memory span, depending on the size of the pattern presented, was negligible. The difference in the way characters were arranged produced the difference in memory span saturation. This phenomenon is explained by the nature of the lateral interference effect working among the adjacent characters.

Character order processing in Chinese reading.

PubMed

Gu, Junjuan; Li, Xingshan; Liversedge, Simon P

2015-02-01

We explored how character order information is encoded in isolated word processing or Chinese sentence reading in 2 experiments using a masked priming paradigm and a gaze-contingent display-change paradigm. The results showed that response latencies in the lexical decision task and reading times on the target word region were longer in the unrelated condition (the prime or the preview was unrelated with the target word) than the transposed-character condition (the prime or the preview was a transposition of the 2 characters of the target word), which were respectively longer than in the identity condition (the prime or preview was identical to the target word). These results show that character order is encoded at an early stage of processing in Chinese reading, but character position encoding was not strict. We also found that character order encoding was similar for single-morpheme and multiple-morpheme words, suggesting that morphemic status does not affect character order encoding. The current results represent an early contribution to our understanding of character order encoding during Chinese reading.

Shaping the Future through Character Education. Colorado State Conference on Character Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Colorado State Dept. of Education, Denver.

With the decline in morality and values, character education is gaining considerable momentum. Public opinion polls show growing support for teaching it in schools. Evidence indicates that character education programs change the school culture for the better, allowing students to feel safe to concentrate on learning. In Colorado, character…

An Historical Analysis of Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watz, Michael

2011-01-01

What is termed "character education" in today's world has been called many things throughout the history of education in this country. Character education has been both a formal and informal part of schools. Much of character education in the United States can be closely tied in its roots to the education of character in Europe, which…

A comparison of 1D and 2D LSTM architectures for the recognition of handwritten Arabic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yousefi, Mohammad Reza; Soheili, Mohammad Reza; Breuel, Thomas M.; Stricker, Didier

2015-01-01

In this paper, we present an Arabic handwriting recognition method based on recurrent neural network. We use the Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) architecture, that have proven successful in different printed and handwritten OCR tasks. Applications of LSTM for handwriting recognition employ the two-dimensional architecture to deal with the variations in both vertical and horizontal axis. However, we show that using a simple pre-processing step that normalizes the position and baseline of letters, we can make use of 1D LSTM, which is faster in learning and convergence, and yet achieve superior performance. In a series of experiments on IFN/ENIT database for Arabic handwriting recognition, we demonstrate that our proposed pipeline can outperform 2D LSTM networks. Furthermore, we provide comparisons with 1D LSTM networks trained with manually crafted features to show that the automatically learned features in a globally trained 1D LSTM network with our normalization step can even outperform such systems.

Computer-Mediated Materials for Chinese Character Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hsu, Hui-Mei; Gao, Liwei

2002-01-01

Reviews four sets of computer-mediated materials for Chinese character learning. These include the following: Write Chinese, Chinese Characters Primer, Animated Chinese Characters, and USC Chinese Character Page. (Author/VWL)

Hidden Markov models for character recognition.

PubMed

Vlontzos, J A; Kung, S Y

1992-01-01

A hierarchical system for character recognition with hidden Markov model knowledge sources which solve both the context sensitivity problem and the character instantiation problem is presented. The system achieves 97-99% accuracy using a two-level architecture and has been implemented using a systolic array, thus permitting real-time (1 ms per character) multifont and multisize printed character recognition as well as handwriting recognition.

Sampling diverse characters improves phylogenies: Craniodental and postcranial characters of vertebrates often imply different trees.

PubMed

Mounce, Ross C P; Sansom, Robert; Wills, Matthew A

2016-03-01

Morphological cladograms of vertebrates are often inferred from greater numbers of characters describing the skull and teeth than from postcranial characters. This is either because the skull is believed to yield characters with a stronger phylogenetic signal (i.e., contain less homoplasy), because morphological variation therein is more readily atomized, or because craniodental material is more widely available (particularly in the palaeontological case). An analysis of 85 vertebrate datasets published between 2000 and 2013 confirms that craniodental characters are significantly more numerous than postcranial characters, but finds no evidence that levels of homoplasy differ in the two partitions. However, a new partition test, based on tree-to-tree distances (as measured by the Robinson Foulds metric) rather than tree length, reveals that relationships inferred from the partitions are significantly different about one time in three, much more often than expected. Such differences may reflect divergent selective pressures in different body regions, resulting in different localized patterns of homoplasy. Most systematists attempt to sample characters broadly across body regions, but this is not always possible. We conclude that trees inferred largely from either craniodental or postcranial characters in isolation may differ significantly from those that would result from a more holistic approach. We urge the latter. © 2016 The Author(s). Evolution © 2016 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

The case for character displacement in plants

PubMed Central

Beans, Carolyn M

2014-01-01

The evidence for character displacement as a widespread response to competition is now building. This progress is largely the result of the establishment of rigorous criteria for demonstrating character displacement in the animal literature. There are, however, relatively few well-supported examples of character displacement in plants. This review explores the potential for character displacement in plants by addressing the following questions: (1) Why aren't examples of character displacement in plants more common? (2) What are the requirements for character displacement to occur and how do plant populations meet those requirements? (3) What are the criteria for testing the pattern and process of character displacement and what methods can and have been used to address these criteria in the plant literature? (4) What are some additional approaches for studying character displacement in plants? While more research is needed, the few plant systems in which character displacement hypotheses have been rigorously tested suggest that character displacement may play a role in shaping plant communities. Plants are especially amenable to character displacement studies because of the experimental ease with which they can be used in common gardens, selection analyses, and breeding designs. A deeper investigation of character displacement in plants is critical for a more complete understanding of the ecological and evolutionary processes that permit the coexistence of plant species. PMID:24683467

Among-character rate variation distributions in phylogenetic analysis of discrete morphological characters.

PubMed

Harrison, Luke B; Larsson, Hans C E

2015-03-01

Likelihood-based methods are commonplace in phylogenetic systematics. Although much effort has been directed toward likelihood-based models for molecular data, comparatively less work has addressed models for discrete morphological character (DMC) data. Among-character rate variation (ACRV) may confound phylogenetic analysis, but there have been few analyses of the magnitude and distribution of rate heterogeneity among DMCs. Using 76 data sets covering a range of plants, invertebrate, and vertebrate animals, we used a modified version of MrBayes to test equal, gamma-distributed and lognormally distributed models of ACRV, integrating across phylogenetic uncertainty using Bayesian model selection. We found that in approximately 80% of data sets, unequal-rates models outperformed equal-rates models, especially among larger data sets. Moreover, although most data sets were equivocal, more data sets favored the lognormal rate distribution relative to the gamma rate distribution, lending some support for more complex character correlations than in molecular data. Parsimony estimation of the underlying rate distributions in several data sets suggests that the lognormal distribution is preferred when there are many slowly evolving characters and fewer quickly evolving characters. The commonly adopted four rate category discrete approximation used for molecular data was found to be sufficient to approximate a gamma rate distribution with discrete characters. However, among the two data sets tested that favored a lognormal rate distribution, the continuous distribution was better approximated with at least eight discrete rate categories. Although the effect of rate model on the estimation of topology was difficult to assess across all data sets, it appeared relatively minor between the unequal-rates models for the one data set examined carefully. As in molecular analyses, we argue that researchers should test and adopt the most appropriate model of rate variation for the

Character Development in Adolescents.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kessler, Glenn R.; And Others

1986-01-01

Explored the effects of a program consisting of communication and counseling skills, assertiveness training and moral dilemmas on the character development of high school students. The results demonstrated that the character development of the students in the experimental treatment group was affected significantly over time by the program.…

Talking about a black man: the influence of defendant and character witness race on jurors' use of character evidence.

PubMed

Maeder, Evelyn M; Hunt, Jennifer S

2011-01-01

To determine whether anti-Black bias influences mock jurors' use of character evidence (i.e., information about a defendant's personality), this study manipulated the race (Black, White) of the defendant and character witness and the type of character evidence presented in a fictitious criminal trial. Two hundred six predominantly White participants read a trial transcript, then made verdicts and trial judgments. Results confirm previous findings that positive character evidence has a limited impact on jurors' judgments, but negative character evidence is misused to evaluate the defendant's guilt. However, participants were more influenced by character evidence that was inconsistent with racial stereotypes. Specifically, positive character evidence had a stronger effect for Black defendants, whereas negative rebuttal evidence had a stronger influence for White defendants. The race of the character witness did not affect judgments. Thus, defendant race may provide a framework that influences how mock jurors process character evidence. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Character Education in School Settings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Hanford D.; And Others

1973-01-01

Describes how various teachers in public and parochial schools have used CRP (Character Research Project Curriculum) materials to insert positive character training into their particular class situations. (DS)

The Character to Seek Justice: Showing Fairness to Diverse Visions of Character Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glanzer, Perry L.

1998-01-01

Alfie Kohn's article in the February 1997 "Kappan," which questioned the world views informing character education, was disappointing. His criticisms of habit formation were misdirected, and he failed to reconcile the various world views held by parents and children. Character, like other human endeavors, requires vigorous training in…

Degraded character recognition based on gradient pattern

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Babu, D. R. Ramesh; Ravishankar, M.; Kumar, Manish; Wadera, Kevin; Raj, Aakash

2010-02-01

Degraded character recognition is a challenging problem in the field of Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The performance of an optical character recognition depends upon printed quality of the input documents. Many OCRs have been designed which correctly identifies the fine printed documents. But, very few reported work has been found on the recognition of the degraded documents. The efficiency of the OCRs system decreases if the input image is degraded. In this paper, a novel approach based on gradient pattern for recognizing degraded printed character is proposed. The approach makes use of gradient pattern of an individual character for recognition. Experiments were conducted on character image that is either digitally written or a degraded character extracted from historical documents and the results are found to be satisfactory.

Moral character in the workplace.

PubMed

Cohen, Taya R; Panter, A T; Turan, Nazli; Morse, Lily; Kim, Yeonjeong

2014-11-01

Using two 3-month diary studies and a large cross-sectional survey, we identified distinguishing features of adults with low versus high levels of moral character. Adults with high levels of moral character tend to: consider the needs and interests of others and how their actions affect other people (e.g., they have high levels of Honesty-Humility, empathic concern, guilt proneness); regulate their behavior effectively, specifically with reference to behaviors that have positive short-term consequences but negative long-term consequences (e.g., they have high levels of Conscientiousness, self-control, consideration of future consequences); and value being moral (e.g., they have high levels of moral identity-internalization). Cognitive moral development, Emotionality, and social value orientation were found to be relatively undiagnostic of moral character. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that employees with low moral character committed harmful work behaviors more frequently and helpful work behaviors less frequently than did employees with high moral character, according to their own admissions and coworkers' observations. Study 3 revealed that adults with low moral character committed more delinquent behavior and had more lenient attitudes toward unethical negotiation tactics than did adults with high moral character. By showing that individual differences have consistent, meaningful effects on employees' behaviors, after controlling for demographic variables (e.g., gender, age, income) and basic attributes of the work setting (e.g., enforcement of an ethics code), our results contest situationist perspectives that deemphasize the importance of personality. Moral people can be identified by self-reports in surveys, and these self-reports predict consequential behaviors months after the initial assessment.

Character Education with Resident Assistants: A Model for Developing Character on College Campuses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Healea, Christopher Daryl

2005-01-01

Character education in higher education is a challenging enterprise. There are concerns regarding academic freedom, debates about the role of the university, and criticisms of purported indoctrination. Character education initiatives in the past have often erred by neglecting what is known about individual human development, at one extreme, or by…

Essays on Character & Opportunity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Center on Children and Families at Brookings, 2014

2014-01-01

These essays provide richer set of writings on the philosophical, empirical and practical issues raised by a focus on character, and in particular its relationship to questions of opportunity. Each one is an intellectual pemmican: sharp and to the point. Two scholars draw attention to the gendered nature of character formation (Segal and Lexmond);…

Character Interviews Help Bring Literature to Life.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Swindall, Vickie; Cantrell, R. Jeffrey

1999-01-01

Describes "Character Interviews," a class activity that guides children, especially reluctant readers, to the meaning of a story through a thoughtful understanding of character as they consider a character's emotions and motives, to respond to a question as that character would. Describes the interview process. Offers sample interviews…

Building Character through Literacy with Children's Literature

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Almerico, Gina M.

2014-01-01

Character education is described as curriculum specifically developed to teach children about the quality and traits of good character. One means in which children can learn about good character is through the pages of high quality children's literature. In this study, the author defines the characteristics of an effective character development…

The Effect of Realistic Appearance of Virtual Characters in Immersive Environments - Does the Character's Personality Play a Role?

PubMed

Zibrek, Katja; Kokkinara, Elena; Mcdonnell, Rachel

2018-04-01

Virtual characters that appear almost photo-realistic have been shown to induce negative responses from viewers in traditional media, such as film and video games. This effect, described as the uncanny valley, is the reason why realism is often avoided when the aim is to create an appealing virtual character. In Virtual Reality, there have been few attempts to investigate this phenomenon and the implications of rendering virtual characters with high levels of realism on user enjoyment. In this paper, we conducted a large-scale experiment on over one thousand members of the public in order to gather information on how virtual characters are perceived in interactive virtual reality games. We were particularly interested in whether different render styles (realistic, cartoon, etc.) would directly influence appeal, or if a character's personality was the most important indicator of appeal. We used a number of perceptual metrics such as subjective ratings, proximity, and attribution bias in order to test our hypothesis. Our main result shows that affinity towards virtual characters is a complex interaction between the character's appearance and personality, and that realism is in fact a positive choice for virtual characters in virtual reality.

Promoting Character Development through Coach Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Power, F. Clark; Seroczynski, A. D.

2015-01-01

Can youth sports build character? Research suggests that the answer to this question leads to 2 further questions: (1) can youth sport coaches be effectively prepared to become character educators, and (2) can character education take place in today's competitive youth sport environment? (Bredemeier & Shields, 2006; Power, 2015; Power &…

Printed Arabic optical character segmentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mohammad, Khader; Ayyesh, Muna; Qaroush, Aziz; Tumar, Iyad

2015-03-01

A considerable progress in recognition techniques for many non-Arabic characters has been achieved. In contrary, few efforts have been put on the research of Arabic characters. In any Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system the segmentation step is usually the essential stage in which an extensive portion of processing is devoted and a considerable share of recognition errors is attributed. In this research, a novel segmentation approach for machine Arabic printed text with diacritics is proposed. The proposed method reduces computation, errors, gives a clear description for the sub-word and has advantages over using the skeleton approach in which the data and information of the character can be lost. Both of initial evaluation and testing of the proposed method have been developed using MATLAB and shows 98.7% promising results.

Complex root networks of Chinese characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Po-Han; Chen, Jia-Ling; Wang, Po-Cheng; Chi, Ting-Ting; Xiao, Zhi-Ren; Jhang, Zih-Jian; Yeh, Yeong-Nan; Chen, Yih-Yuh; Hu, Chin-Kun

There are several sets of Chinese characters still available today, including Oracle Bone Inscriptions (OBI) in Shang Dynasty, Chu characters (CC) used in Chu of Warring State Period, Small Seal Script in dictionary Shuowen Jiezi (SJ) in Eastern Han Dynasty, and Kangxi Dictionary (KD) in Qing Dynasty. Such as Chinese characters were all constructed via combinations of meaningful patterns, called roots. Our studies for the complex networks of all roots indicate that the roots of the characters in OBI, CC, SJ and KD have characteristics of small world networks and scale-free networks.

Constructing Stylish Characters on Computer Graphics Systems.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldman, Gary S.

1980-01-01

Computer graphics systems typically produce a single, machine-like character font. At most, these systems enable the user to (1) alter the aspect ratio (height-to-width ratio) of the characters, (2) specify a transformation matrix to slant the characters, and (3) define a virtual pen table to change the lineweight of the plotted characters.…

A Study of Character among Collegiate Athletes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heupel, Jill D.

2017-01-01

The idea that sport builds character has been around for a long time. However, sports may not build the type of character once thought. Character of athletes was defined based on differing views held by sport scholars, coaches, athletes, and sport enthusiast. Sport scholars tend to view character of athletes from a moral perspective. Coaches,…

Development and Evolution of Character Displacement

PubMed Central

Pfennig, David W.; Pfennig, Karin S.

2012-01-01

Character displacement occurs when competition for either resources or successful reproduction imposes divergent selection on interacting species, causing divergence in traits associated with resource use or reproduction. Here, we describe how character displacement can be mediated either by genetically canalized changes (i.e., changes that reflect allelic or genotype frequency changes) or by phenotypic plasticity. We also discuss how these two mechanisms influence the tempo of character displacement. Specifically, we suggest that, under some conditions, character displacement mediated by phenotypic plasticity might occur more rapidly than that mediated by genetically canalized changes. Finally, we describe how these two mechanisms may act together and determine character displacement’s mode, such that it proceeds through an initial phase in which trait divergence is environmentally induced to a later phase in which divergence becomes genetically canalized. This plasticity-first hypothesis predicts that character displacement should be generally mediated by ancestral plasticity and that it will arise similarly in multiple, independently evolving populations. We conclude by highlighting future directions for research that would test these predictions. PMID:22257002

The conformal characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bourget, Antoine; Troost, Jan

2018-04-01

We revisit the study of the multiplets of the conformal algebra in any dimension. The theory of highest weight representations is reviewed in the context of the Bernstein-Gelfand-Gelfand category of modules. The Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials code the relation between the Verma modules and the irreducible modules in the category and are the key to the characters of the conformal multiplets (whether finite dimensional, infinite dimensional, unitary or non-unitary). We discuss the representation theory and review in full generality which representations are unitarizable. The mathematical theory that allows for both the general treatment of characters and the full analysis of unitarity is made accessible. A good understanding of the mathematics of conformal multiplets renders the treatment of all highest weight representations in any dimension uniform, and provides an overarching comprehension of case-by-case results. Unitary highest weight representations and their characters are classified and computed in terms of data associated to cosets of the Weyl group of the conformal algebra. An executive summary is provided, as well as look-up tables up to and including rank four.

Research in Practice: Character Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lasley, Thomas J.; And Others

1996-01-01

Three articles explore character education from different perspectives: "Teaching Students to See Beyond Themselves" (Lasley, Biddle); "An Effective Character Education Model for a Diverse Student Population" (Cline, Necochea); and "Teaching as Modeling: The Impact of Teacher Behaviors upon Student Character…

A character string scanner

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Enison, R. L.

1971-01-01

A computer program called Character String Scanner (CSS), is presented. It is designed to search a data set for any specified group of characters and then to flag this group. The output of the CSS program is a listing of the data set being searched with the specified group of characters being flagged by asterisks. Therefore, one may readily identify specific keywords, groups of keywords or specified lines of code internal to a computer program, in a program output, or in any other specific data set. Possible applications of this program include the automatic scan of an output data set for pertinent keyword data, the editing of a program to change the appearance of a certain word or group of words, and the conversion of a set of code to a different set of code.

Document Form and Character Recognition using SVM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Park, Sang-Sung; Shin, Young-Geun; Jung, Won-Kyo; Ahn, Dong-Kyu; Jang, Dong-Sik

2009-08-01

Because of development of computer and information communication, EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) has been developing. There is OCR (Optical Character Recognition) of Pattern recognition technology for EDI. OCR contributed to changing many manual in the past into automation. But for the more perfect database of document, much manual is needed for excluding unnecessary recognition. To resolve this problem, we propose document form based character recognition method in this study. Proposed method is divided into document form recognition part and character recognition part. Especially, in character recognition, change character into binarization by using SVM algorithm and extract more correct feature value.

Building innovative and creative character through mathematics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suyitno, Hardi; Suyitno, Amin

2018-03-01

21st century is predicted as the century with rapid development in all aspects of life. People require creative and innovative character to exist. Specifically, mathematics has been given to students from the kindergarten until the middle school. Thus, building character through mathematics should begin since the early age. The problem is how to build creative and innovative character through mathematics education? The goal expected from this question is to build innovative and creative characters to face the challenges of the 21st century. This article discusses the values of mathematics, the values in mathematics education, innovative and creative character, and the integration of these values in teaching mathematics that support the innovative and creative character building, and applying the values in structurely programmed, measurable, and applicable learning activities.

Character Education in Print: Content Analysis of Character Education in Introduction to Education Textbooks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Protz, Babette Marisa

2013-01-01

Albert Einstein is credited with saying that the most important component of education is the development of students' character. While debate exists as to the delivery of character education in the public schools, it must be recognized that not all students have a support system outside of the schoolhouse. Consequently, when character…

Phonological Codes Constrain Output of Orthographic Codes via Sublexical and Lexical Routes in Chinese Written Production

PubMed Central

Wang, Cheng; Zhang, Qingfang

2015-01-01

To what extent do phonological codes constrain orthographic output in handwritten production? We investigated how phonological codes constrain the selection of orthographic codes via sublexical and lexical routes in Chinese written production. Participants wrote down picture names in a picture-naming task in Experiment 1or response words in a symbol—word associative writing task in Experiment 2. A sublexical phonological property of picture names (phonetic regularity: regular vs. irregular) in Experiment 1and a lexical phonological property of response words (homophone density: dense vs. sparse) in Experiment 2, as well as word frequency of the targets in both experiments, were manipulated. A facilitatory effect of word frequency was found in both experiments, in which words with high frequency were produced faster than those with low frequency. More importantly, we observed an inhibitory phonetic regularity effect, in which low-frequency picture names with regular first characters were slower to write than those with irregular ones, and an inhibitory homophone density effect, in which characters with dense homophone density were produced more slowly than those with sparse homophone density. Results suggested that phonological codes constrained handwritten production via lexical and sublexical routes. PMID:25879662

Landscape Character of Pongkor Mining Ecotourism Area

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kusumoarto, A.; Gunawan, A.; Machfud; Hikmat, A.

2017-10-01

Pongkor Mining Ecotourism Area has a diverse landscape character as a potential landscape resources for the development of ecotourism destination. This area is part of the Mount of Botol Resort, Halimun Salak National Park (HSNP). This area also has a fairly high biodiversity. This study aims to identify and analysis the category of landscape character in the Pongkor Mining Ecotourism Area for the development of ecotourism destination. This study used a descriptive approach through field surveys and interviews, was carried out through two steps : 1) identify the landscape character, and 2) analysis of the landscape character. The results showed that in areas set aside for ecotourism destination in Pongkor Mining, landscape character category scattered forests, tailing ponds, river, plain, and the built environment. The Category of landscape character most dominant scattered in the area is forest, here is the river, plain, tailing ponds, the built environment, and plain. The landscape character in a natural environment most preferred for ecotourism activities. The landscape character that spread in the natural environment and the built environment is a potential that must be protected and modified such as elimination of incongruous element, accentuation of natural form, alteration of the natural form, intensification and enhanced visual quality intensively to be developed as a ecotourism destination area.

Character Education--A Joint Responsibility

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brannon, Diana

2008-01-01

Young children's beliefs about what is right and wrong traditionally have been strongly influenced by their families. However, today children often come to school with problematic behaviors and attitudes. Character education has become a necessity. Character education programs have a positive effect on achievement, classroom behaviors, and…

Improving social competence through character education.

PubMed

Cheung, Chau-kiu; Lee, Tak-yan

2010-08-01

Character education is supposed to meet early adolescents' need (i.e., eighth and ninth graders) for strengthening social competence. Moreover, adolescents' engagement in character education is integral to their learning from the education. The engagement and deficit in social competence are therefore plausible conditions for the effectiveness of character education in promoting social competence. Based on a quasi-experimental design, this study focuses on the prediction of social competence of 920 ninth graders in secondary schools of Hong Kong, China. To reduce bias from the selection process of the study and the character education program, the study adjusts for the propensity of enrolling in the program throughout the analysis. The results of the analysis show the contribution of the character education program to social competence. Moreover, engagement in the program and prior lower social competence are the adolescent's characteristics that are responsible for the contribution. Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Character Education: Frill or Foundation?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schwartz, Merle J.; Beatty, Alexandra; Dachnowicz, Eileen

2006-01-01

Proof of academic performance often serves as the litmus test for maintaining instructional practices and programs. Just as the national focus on academic improvement has gained momentum, so too has another movement calling for character education. Educators find themselves caught in the middle, questioning whether character education is just…

Emphasizing the only character: emphasis, attention and contrast.

PubMed

Chen, Lijing; Yang, Yufang

2015-03-01

In conversations, pragmatic information such as emphasis is important for identifying the speaker's/writer's intention. The present research examines the cognitive processes involved in emphasis processing. Participants read short discourses that introduced one or two character(s), with the character being emphasized or non-emphasized in subsequent texts. Eye movements showed that: (1) early processing of the emphasized word was facilitated, which may have been due to increased attention allocation, whereas (2) late integration of the emphasized character was inhibited when the discourse involved only this character. These results indicate that it is necessary to include other characters as contrastive characters to facilitate the integration of an emphasized character, and support the existence of a relationship between Emphasis and Contrast computation. Taken together, our findings indicate that both attention allocation and contrast computation are involved in emphasis processing, and support the incremental nature of sentence processing and the importance of contrast in discourse comprehension. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Non-Roman Font Generation Via Interactive Computer Graphics,

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-07-01

sets of kana representing the same set of sounds: hiragana , a cursive script for transcribing native Japanese words (including those borrowed low from...used for transcribing spoken Japanese into dwritten language. Hiragana have a cursive (handwritten) appearance. homophone A syllable or word which is...language into written form. These symbol sets are syllabaries. (see also hiragana , katakana) kanji "Chinese characters" ( Japanese ). (see also hanzi

Optical character recognition based on nonredundant correlation measurements.

PubMed

Braunecker, B; Hauck, R; Lohmann, A W

1979-08-15

The essence of character recognition is a comparison between the unknown character and a set of reference patterns. Usually, these reference patterns are all possible characters themselves, the whole alphabet in the case of letter characters. Obviously, N analog measurements are highly redundant, since only K = log(2)N binary decisions are enough to identify one out of N characters. Therefore, we devised K reference patterns accordingly. These patterns, called principal components, are found by digital image processing, but used in an optical analog computer. We will explain the concept of principal components, and we will describe experiments with several optical character recognition systems, based on this concept.

Character Education/Formation in Catholic Schools (K-12).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marine, Robert A.

Noting that character formation within Catholic education has undergone several changes over the last 10 years, this paper examines character education and character formation as they are currently implemented in Catholic elementary and secondary schools. Section 1 of the paper considers the definition of character, and traces the development of…

On a Character Education Inventory.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Etzioni, Amatai

1998-01-01

The father of the communitarian movement presents a Character Education Inventory that gives specific guidance on how to build character education into a school setting. Schools must continually take inventory of their own actions to ensure that what they are doing matches what they are instructing children to do. The inventory should include…

Exploring Good Character and Citizenship in England

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arthur, James; Harrison, Tom

2012-01-01

Citizenship, character and the virtues that constitute both are increasingly concerns of public policy in the UK. This article understands character to encompass the morally valuable, reason-response and education part of personality, and understands virtues as states of character concerned with praiseworthy feelings and conduct in specific…

Character Counts: Don't Leave Home without It!

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review, 2011

2011-01-01

Orrs Elementary School in Griffin-Spalding County, Georgia, was selected as a 2010 National School of Character by the Character Education Partnership (CEP) and was honored at the National Forum of Character Education awards ceremony in San Francisco, California. According to Principal Dexter Martin, character education is more than a phrase or a…

Character Analysis: Up Close and Personal.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDonough, Carla J.

1995-01-01

Describes a class activity which gives students practice in character analysis based on characters' dialog in plays. Offers a version of this activity as applied to Caryl Churchill's play "Top Girls." (SR)

CEP's Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lickona, Tom; Schaps, Eric; Lewis, Catherine

2007-01-01

There is no single script for effective character education, but there are some important basic principles. This document presents eleven principles that schools and other groups can use to plan a character education effort and to evaluate available character education programs: (1) Promotes core ethical values and supportive performance values as…

Character Education: Christian Education Perspectives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilhelm, Gretchen M.; Firmin, Michael W.

2008-01-01

Character is defined broadly by leading authorities, including concepts such as practicing apt behavior and teaching right from wrong. Virtue and moral undertones tend to pervade most experts' use of character, although in secular settings, the notion of ethics is more prominent. Overall, developing in students a desire for the good is how most…

First Steps in Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hill, Patty Smith

2017-01-01

For many centuries, there has been theoretical statements asserting faith in character as the main objective in education, but it is only comparatively recently enough has been known about character and the scientific conditions for its development to make an honored place for it in the curricula. Today, it is creeping into curricula under new…

Character Recognition Using Genetically Trained Neural Networks

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Diniz, C.; Stantz, K.M.; Trahan, M.W.

1998-10-01

Computationally intelligent recognition of characters and symbols addresses a wide range of applications including foreign language translation and chemical formula identification. The combination of intelligent learning and optimization algorithms with layered neural structures offers powerful techniques for character recognition. These techniques were originally developed by Sandia National Laboratories for pattern and spectral analysis; however, their ability to optimize vast amounts of data make them ideal for character recognition. An adaptation of the Neural Network Designer soflsvare allows the user to create a neural network (NN_) trained by a genetic algorithm (GA) that correctly identifies multiple distinct characters. The initial successfidmore » recognition of standard capital letters can be expanded to include chemical and mathematical symbols and alphabets of foreign languages, especially Arabic and Chinese. The FIN model constructed for this project uses a three layer feed-forward architecture. To facilitate the input of characters and symbols, a graphic user interface (GUI) has been developed to convert the traditional representation of each character or symbol to a bitmap. The 8 x 8 bitmap representations used for these tests are mapped onto the input nodes of the feed-forward neural network (FFNN) in a one-to-one correspondence. The input nodes feed forward into a hidden layer, and the hidden layer feeds into five output nodes correlated to possible character outcomes. During the training period the GA optimizes the weights of the NN until it can successfully recognize distinct characters. Systematic deviations from the base design test the network's range of applicability. Increasing capacity, the number of letters to be recognized, requires a nonlinear increase in the number of hidden layer neurodes. Optimal character recognition performance necessitates a minimum threshold for the number of cases when genetically training the net. And, the

Image Segmentation of Historical Handwriting from Palm Leaf Manuscripts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Surinta, Olarik; Chamchong, Rapeeporn

Palm leaf manuscripts were one of the earliest forms of written media and were used in Southeast Asia to store early written knowledge about subjects such as medicine, Buddhist doctrine and astrology. Therefore, historical handwritten palm leaf manuscripts are important for people who like to learn about historical documents, because we can learn more experience from them. This paper presents an image segmentation of historical handwriting from palm leaf manuscripts. The process is composed of three steps: 1) background elimination to separate text and background by Otsu's algorithm 2) line segmentation and 3) character segmentation by histogram of image. The end result is the character's image. The results from this research may be applied to optical character recognition (OCR) in the future.

Integrity and virtue: The forming of good character

PubMed Central

Mitchell, Louise A.

2015-01-01

Moral character is formed by one's actions. The habits, actions, and emotional responses of the person of good character all are united and directed toward the moral and the good. Because human beings are body/soul unities, actions of the body are actions of the self, that is, human beings are self-possessing, self-governing, and self-determining. In order to be of good character, one must know the good, act in morally good ways, and be disposed and inclined toward the good through the development of virtues. Character and action are intertwined so intimately that one's professional duties, or even what is perceived by others as one's duties, cannot override one's conscience without negatively affecting (and changing) one's character. For the physician to be of good character, it is vital that he or she follow his or her conscience in all things: in private life and also in his or her profession, i.e., in the treatment of patients. Lay summary: Character cannot be separated from the person. To be of good character means that one’s habits, actions, and emotional responses all are united and directed toward the moral and the good. In this, public actions cannot be separated from private actions. Both sets of actions affect one’s character. For example, a physician believes use of contraceptives to be immoral yet prescribes them in the office because he or she feels a duty to provide what the patient asks for, or a pharmacist who believes abortion to be immoral fills prescriptions for the abortifacient RU-486. These public acts affect one’s character even if one’s private belief is the opposite of the action. They leave traces on one’s character. Not only do actions reflect the goodness or badness of one’s character, one’s actions also change one’s character. The more one does an immoral action or recommends an immoral action for others, the more it becomes part of one’s character to be the type of person who condones that immoral action. In order to

Rapid Naming Speed and Chinese Character Recognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liao, Chen-Huei; Georgiou, George K.; Parrila, Rauno

2008-01-01

We examined the relationship between rapid naming speed (RAN) and Chinese character recognition accuracy and fluency. Sixty-three grade 2 and 54 grade 4 Taiwanese children were administered four RAN tasks (colors, digits, Zhu-Yin-Fu-Hao, characters), and two character recognition tasks. RAN tasks accounted for more reading variance in grade 4 than…

Good character at school: positive classroom behavior mediates the link between character strengths and school achievement

PubMed Central

Wagner, Lisa; Ruch, Willibald

2015-01-01

Character strengths have been found to be substantially related to children’s and adolescents’ well-being. Initial evidence suggests that they also matter for school success (e.g., Weber and Ruch, 2012). The present set of two studies aimed at replicating and extending these findings in two different age groups, primary school students (N = 179; mean age = 11.6 years) and secondary school students (N = 199; mean age = 14.4 years). The students completed the VIA-Youth (Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth), a self-report measure of the 24 character strengths in the VIA classification. Their teachers rated the students’ positive behavior in the classroom. Additionally, school achievement was assessed: For the primary school students (Study 1), teachers rated the students’ overall school achievement and for the secondary school students (Study 2), we used their grades as a measure of school achievement. We found that several character strengths were associated with both positive classroom behavior and school achievement. Across both samples, school achievement was correlated with love of learning, perseverance, zest, gratitude, hope, and perspective. The strongest correlations with positive classroom behavior were found for perseverance, self-regulation, prudence, social intelligence, and hope. For both samples, there were indirect effects of some of the character strengths on school achievement through teacher-rated positive classroom behavior. The converging findings from the two samples support the notion that character strengths contribute to positive classroom behavior, which in turn enhances school achievement. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and for school interventions based on character strengths. PMID:26029144

Good character at school: positive classroom behavior mediates the link between character strengths and school achievement.

PubMed

Wagner, Lisa; Ruch, Willibald

2015-01-01

Character strengths have been found to be substantially related to children's and adolescents' well-being. Initial evidence suggests that they also matter for school success (e.g., Weber and Ruch, 2012). The present set of two studies aimed at replicating and extending these findings in two different age groups, primary school students (N = 179; mean age = 11.6 years) and secondary school students (N = 199; mean age = 14.4 years). The students completed the VIA-Youth (Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth), a self-report measure of the 24 character strengths in the VIA classification. Their teachers rated the students' positive behavior in the classroom. Additionally, school achievement was assessed: For the primary school students (Study 1), teachers rated the students' overall school achievement and for the secondary school students (Study 2), we used their grades as a measure of school achievement. We found that several character strengths were associated with both positive classroom behavior and school achievement. Across both samples, school achievement was correlated with love of learning, perseverance, zest, gratitude, hope, and perspective. The strongest correlations with positive classroom behavior were found for perseverance, self-regulation, prudence, social intelligence, and hope. For both samples, there were indirect effects of some of the character strengths on school achievement through teacher-rated positive classroom behavior. The converging findings from the two samples support the notion that character strengths contribute to positive classroom behavior, which in turn enhances school achievement. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and for school interventions based on character strengths.

On the information content of discrete phylogenetic characters.

PubMed

Bordewich, Magnus; Deutschmann, Ina Maria; Fischer, Mareike; Kasbohm, Elisa; Semple, Charles; Steel, Mike

2017-12-16

Phylogenetic inference aims to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships of different species based on genetic (or other) data. Discrete characters are a particular type of data, which contain information on how the species should be grouped together. However, it has long been known that some characters contain more information than others. For instance, a character that assigns the same state to each species groups all of them together and so provides no insight into the relationships of the species considered. At the other extreme, a character that assigns a different state to each species also conveys no phylogenetic signal. In this manuscript, we study a natural combinatorial measure of the information content of an individual character and analyse properties of characters that provide the maximum phylogenetic information, particularly, the number of states such a character uses and how the different states have to be distributed among the species or taxa of the phylogenetic tree.

Which "Character" Should Sport Develop?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rudd, Andy

2005-01-01

For years, strong claims have been made that sport builds character. Despite such claims, a "winning at all cost" mentality can frequently be seen within all of sport. The reason for this paradox may relate to confusion around what it means to demonstrate character. The purpose of this article is to show that there are indeed two distinct types of…

A Developmental Study of Chinese Children's Word and Character Reading.

PubMed

Li, Tong; Wang, Ying; Tong, Xiuhong; McBride, Catherine

2017-02-01

To investigate the relationship between Chinese children's character and word reading, 62 third and 50 fifth grade children in Hong Kong were asked to read single characters and words that were comprised of these characters. Results showed that words helped children to recognize characters for both grades of children. Compared to older children, younger children's character reading was more likely to rely on the word that the character appeared in as a component; younger children made more errors in confusing the correct character with words related to it. Younger children's greater rate of meaning-related errors also underscored the role of the word in their character learning. This study confirmed the important role of words in children's character learning, and provided evidence for a developmental pattern of character and word reading in Chinese.

Aristotelian versus Virtue Ethical Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curren, Randall

2016-01-01

This article examines some central aspects of Kristján Kristjánsson's book, "Aristotelian Character Education," beginning with the claim that contemporary virtue ethics provides methodological, ontological, epistemological, and moral foundations for Aristotelian character education. It considers three different formulations of what…

Improved Characters and Student Learning Outcomes through Development of Character Education Based General Physics Learning Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Derlina; Sabani; Mihardi, Satria

2015-01-01

Education Research in Indonesia has begun to lead to the development of character education and is no longer fixated on the outcomes of cognitive learning. This study purposed to produce character education based general physics learning model (CEBGP Learning Model) and with valid, effective and practical peripheral devices to improve character…

A Review of Virtual Character's Emotion Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Zhen

2008-11-01

Emotional virtual characters are essential to digital entertainment, an emotion is related to virtual environment and a virtual character's inner variables, emotion model of virtual character is a hot topic in many fields, domain knowledge is very important for modeling emotion, and the current research of emotion expression in the world was also summarized, and some new research directions of emotion model are presented.

The influence of media characters on children's food choices.

PubMed

Kotler, Jennifer A; Schiffman, Jennifer M; Hanson, Katherine G

2012-01-01

Two experiments were conducted to assess the role of media characters in influencing children's food choices; the first focused on children's self-reported preference, whereas the second focused on actual choice. The results of the experiments suggest that popular characters can make a difference in encouraging children to select one food over another. In the first experiment, children were more likely to indicate a preference for one food over another when one was associated with characters that they liked and with whom they were familiar. This effect was particularly strong when a sugary or salty snack branded by a favored character was competing with a healthier option branded by an unknown character or no character. Alternatively, when children were asked to choose between a healthy food and a sugary or salty snack, branding of the healthy food with a favored character did not significantly change appeal of that healthy snack. However, when foods within the same category (i.e., 2 vegetables, 2 fruits, or 2 grains) were asked to compete against each other, character branding strongly influenced children's food choice. Findings from the second experiment suggest that children are more willing to try more pieces of a healthy food if a favored character, in comparison with an unknown character, is promoting that food.

A smart sensor architecture based on emergent computation in an array of outer-totalistic cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dogaru, Radu; Dogaru, Ioana; Glesner, Manfred

2005-06-01

A novel smart-sensor architecture is proposed, capable to segment and recognize characters in a monochrome image. It is capable to provide a list of ASCII codes representing the recognized characters from the monochrome visual field. It can operate as a blind's aid or for industrial applications. A bio-inspired cellular model with simple linear neurons was found the best to perform the nontrivial task of cropping isolated compact objects such as handwritten digits or characters. By attaching a simple outer-totalistic cell to each pixel sensor, emergent computation in the resulting cellular automata lattice provides a straightforward and compact solution to the otherwise computationally intensive problem of character segmentation. A simple and robust recognition algorithm is built in a compact sequential controller accessing the array of cells so that the integrated device can provide directly a list of codes of the recognized characters. Preliminary simulation tests indicate good performance and robustness to various distortions of the visual field.

Character feature integration of Chinese calligraphy and font

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shi, Cao; Xiao, Jianguo; Jia, Wenhua; Xu, Canhui

2013-01-01

A framework is proposed in this paper to effectively generate a new hybrid character type by means of integrating local contour feature of Chinese calligraphy with structural feature of font in computer system. To explore traditional art manifestation of calligraphy, multi-directional spatial filter is applied for local contour feature extraction. Then the contour of character image is divided into sub-images. The sub-images in the identical position from various characters are estimated by Gaussian distribution. According to its probability distribution, the dilation operator and erosion operator are designed to adjust the boundary of font image. And then new Chinese character images are generated which possess both contour feature of artistical calligraphy and elaborate structural feature of font. Experimental results demonstrate the new characters are visually acceptable, and the proposed framework is an effective and efficient strategy to automatically generate the new hybrid character of calligraphy and font.

Integrating Character Education Model With Spiral System In Chemistry Subject

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hartutik; Rusdarti; Sumaryanto; Supartono

2017-04-01

Integrating character education is the responsibility of all subject teachers including chemistry teacher. The integration of character education is just administrative requirements so that the character changes are not measurable. The research objective 1) describing the actual conditions giving character education, 2) mapping the character integration of chemistry syllabus with a spiral system, and 3) producing syllabus and guide system integrating character education in chemistry lessons. Of the eighteen value character, each character is mapped to the material chemistry value concepts of class X and repeated the system in class XI and class XII. Spiral system integration means integrating the character values of chemistry subjects in steps from class X to XII repeatedly at different depth levels. Besides developing the syllabus, also made the integration of characters in a learning guide. This research was designed with research and development [3] with the scope of 20 chemistry teachers in Semarang. The focus of the activities is the existence of the current character study, mapping the character values in the syllabus, and assessment of the integration guides of character education. The validity test of Syllabus and Lesson Plans by experts in FGD. The data were taken with questionnaire and interviews, then processed by descriptive analysis. The result shows 1) The factual condition, in general, the teachers designed learning one-time face-to-face with the integration of more than four characters so that behaviour changes and depth of character is poorly controlled, 2) Mapping each character values focused in the syllabus. Meaning, on one or two basic competence in four or five times, face to face, enough integrated with the value of one character. In this way, there are more noticeable changes in students behaviour. Guidance is needed to facilitate the integration of character education for teachers integrating systems. Product syllabus and guidelines

Character education in perspective of chemistry pre-service teacher

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Merdekawati, Krisna

2017-12-01

As one of the pre-service teacher education programs, Chemistry Education Department Islamic University of Indonesia (UII) is committed to providing quality education. It is an education that can produce competent and characteristic chemistry pre-service teacher. The focus of research is to describe the perception of students as a potential teacher of chemistry on character education and achievement of character education. The research instruments include questionnaires and observation sheets. Research data show that students have understood the importance of character education and committed to organizing character education later in schools. Students have understood the ways in which character education can be used. The students stated that Chemistry Education Department has tried to equip students with character education. The observation result shows that students generally have character as a pre-service teacher.

47 CFR 10.430 - Character limit.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Character limit. 10.430 Section 10.430 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION GENERAL COMMERCIAL MOBILE ALERT SYSTEM Alert Message Requirements § 10.430 Character limit. A CMAS Alert Message processed by a Participating CMS Provider must not...

Illuminating the Mechanisms of Character Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Farrington, Camille A.

2017-01-01

This paper responds to Berkowitz, Bier, and McCauley's description of effective features and practices that support character development by pushing on the question of "how" child and youth environments might "build character." Acknowledging the challenges of drawing on program evaluations and extant studies of character…

Character & Cane

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sartorius, Tara Cady

2009-01-01

They say first impressions can be deceiving. The difficulty of getting to know someone increases when that person is mostly fictional. Whatever the author writes is all readers can know. Whatever they read about the character is all they have to go on. Now take it another step back, and imagine a portrait drawing, painting or print of that…

Identification Of Minangkabau Landscape Characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asrina, M.; Gunawan, A.; Aris, Munandar

2017-10-01

Minangkabau is one of cultures in indonesia which occupies landscape intact. Landscape of Minangkabau have a very close relationship with the culture of the people. Uniqueness of Minangkabau culture and landscape forming an inseparable characterunity. The landscape is necessarily identified to know the inherent landscape characters. The objective of this study was to identify the character of the Minangkabau landscape characterizes its uniqueness. The study was conducted by using descriptive method comprised literature review and field observasion. Observed the landscape characters comprised two main features, they were major and minor features. Indetification of the features was conducted in two original areas (darek) of the Minangkabau traditional society. The research results showed that major features or natural features of the landscape were predominantly landform, landcover, and hidrology. All luhak (districts) of Minangkabau showed similar main features such as hill, canyon, lake, valley, and forest. The existence of natural features such as hills, canyon and valleys characterizes the nature of minangkabau landscape. Minor features formed by Minangkabau cultural society were agricultural land and settlement. Rumah gadang (big house) is one of famous minor features characterizes the Minangkabau culture. In addition, several historical artefacts of building and others structure may strengthen uniqueness of the Minangkabau landscape character, such as The royal palace, inscription, and tunnels.

Computer-Generated, Three-Dimensional Character Animation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Baerle, Susan Lynn

This master's thesis begins by discussing the differences between 3-D computer animation of solid three-dimensional, or monolithic, objects, and the animation of characters, i.e., collections of movable parts with soft pliable surfaces. Principles from two-dimensional character animation that can be transferred to three-dimensional character…

Improving Social Competence through Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheung, Chau-kiu; Lee, Tak-yan

2010-01-01

Character education is supposed to meet early adolescents' need (i.e., eighth and ninth graders) for strengthening social competence. Moreover, adolescents' engagement in character education is integral to their learning from the education. The engagement and deficit in social competence are therefore plausible conditions for the effectiveness of…

Virtue and Character in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carr, David

2017-01-01

Despite much recent concern with the possibilities of moral character education in elementary schooling and professional training, the university and higher educational prospects of such education have only lately received much attention. This paper begins by considering--and largely endorsing--the general case for character education in contexts…

School-Based Character Education in the United States

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Brian H.

2013-01-01

Character education has been a part of schooling in the United States since the early years of its public education system. Starting with a religious emphasis on moral development, character education eventually transformed into more secular approaches, like the values clarification model, character word-of-the-month approach, performance…

The dark cube: dark and light character profiles.

PubMed

Garcia, Danilo; Rosenberg, Patricia

2016-01-01

Background. Research addressing distinctions and similarities between people's malevolent character traits (i.e., the Dark Triad: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) has detected inconsistent linear associations to temperament traits. Additionally, these dark traits seem to have a common core expressed as uncooperativeness. Hence, some researchers suggest that the dark traits are best represented as one global construct (i.e., the unification argument) rather than as ternary construct (i.e., the uniqueness argument). We put forward the dark cube (cf. Cloninger's character cube) comprising eight dark profiles that can be used to compare individuals who differ in one dark character trait while holding the other two constant. Our aim was to investigate in which circumstances individuals who are high in each one of the dark character traits differ in Cloninger's "light" character traits: self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence. We also investigated if people's dark character profiles were associated to their light character profiles. Method. A total of 997 participants recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) responded to the Short Dark Triad and the Short Character Inventory. Participants were allocated to eight different dark profiles and eight light profiles based on their scores in each of the traits and any possible combination of high and low scores. We used three-way interaction regression analyses and t-tests to investigate differences in light character traits between individuals with different dark profiles. As a second step, we compared the individuals' dark profile with her/his character profile using an exact cell-wise analysis conducted in the ROPstat software (http://www.ropstat.com). Results. Individuals who expressed high levels of Machiavellianism and those who expressed high levels of psychopathy also expressed low self-directedness and low cooperativeness. Individuals with high levels of narcissism, in contrast

Teaching with Your Librarian--Great Character!

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meagher, Sandy

2005-01-01

Attracting middle grade readers is a true art. When talking to middle grade teachers, they understand that you have to have a hook to catch these students. In this article, the author suggests several books that are perfect for character studies and for encouraging kids to develop characters of their own.

How familiar characters influence children's judgments about information and products.

PubMed

Danovitch, Judith H; Mills, Candice M

2014-12-01

Children are exposed to advertisements and products that incorporate familiar characters, such as Dora the Explorer and Bob the Builder, virtually from birth. How does the presence of these characters influence children's judgments about information and products? Three experiments (N=125) explored how 4-year-olds evaluate messages from familiar characters and how their trust in a familiar character's testimony relates to their product preferences. Children endorsed objective and subjective claims made by a familiar character more often than those made by a perceptually similar but unfamiliar character even in situations where they had evidence that the familiar character was unreliable. Children also preferred low-quality products bearing a familiar character's image over high-quality products without a character image up to 74% of the time (whereas control groups preferred the low-quality products less than 6% of the time when they did not include a character image). These findings suggest that young children are powerfully influenced by familiar characters encountered in the media, leaving them vulnerable to advertising messages and clouding their judgments about products. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

WWC Evidence Review Protocol for Character Education Interventions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

What Works Clearinghouse, 2014

2014-01-01

Character education is an inclusive concept regarding all aspects of how families, schools, and related social institutions support the positive character development of children and adults. "Character" in this context refers to the moral and ethical qualities of persons as well as the demonstration of those qualities in their emotional…

First Course in Japanese: Character Workbook.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Niwa, Tamako

This character workbook is an introduction to Japanese writing designed to be used in conjunction with Parts One and Two of this introductory course in Japanese. All the "hiragana", several "katakana", and 88 Japanese characters are introduced in this text. The workbook, consisting of 30 lessons, is divided into three parts.…

Do Rural Schools Need Character Education?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reynolds, Janice Carner

Studies suggest that the challenge of violence in public schools can be met through character education, whether by providing a school culture in which core values are practiced or some form of moral training (indoctrination). To assess the need for character education in rural schools, small-school superintendents and board members in central…

Physical Education Teachers' Views about Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tutkun, Erkut; Görgüt, Ilyas; Erdemir, Ibrahim

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to find out the views of teachers of physical education about how they define character education, whether they think national education curriculum and the curriculum of private schools are suitable for character education and whether they think character education can be applied in physical education lessons. Case…

Character strengths, social anxiety, and physiological stress reactivity.

PubMed

Li, Tingting; Duan, Wenjie; Guo, Pengfei

2017-01-01

In this paper, the effects of character strengths on the physiological reactivity to social anxiety induced by the Trier Social Stress Task were reported. On the basis of their scores in the Chinese Virtues Questionnaire, 30 college students were assigned to either high- ( n  = 15) or low-character-strength ( n  = 15) groups. Their psychological stress and physiological data across three laboratory stages (namely, baseline, stress exposure, and post-stress) were collected. Results indicated that individuals with high character strengths exhibited rapid cardiovascular recovery from baseline to post-stress even if high- and low-character-strength groups showed similar patterns of cardiovascular arousal in response to the stress at baseline and stress exposure. These results prove that character strengths are stress-defense factors that allow for psychological and physiological adaptation to stress.

Learning and Inductive Inference

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-07-01

a set of graph grammars to describe visual scenes . Other researchers have applied graph grammars to the pattern recognition of handwritten characters...345 1. Issues / 345 2. Mostows’ operationalizer / 350 0. Learning from ezamples / 360 1. Issues / 3t60 2. Learning in control and pattern recognition ...art.icleis on rote learntinig and ailvice- tAik g. K(ennieth Clarkson contributed Ltte article on grmvit atical inference, anid Geoff’ lroiney wrote

Cultivating characters (moral value) through internalization strategy in science classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ibrahim, M.; Abadi

2018-01-01

It is still in a crucial debate that characters play an important learning outcome to be realized by design. So far, most people think that characters were reached as nurturance effect with the assumption that students who are knowledgeable and skillful will have good characters automatically. Lately, obtained evidence that this assumption is not true. Characters should be taught deliberately or by design. This study was designed to culture elementary school students’ characters through science classroom. The teaching-learning process was conducted to facilitate and bridge the students from the known (concrete images: Science phenomena) to the unknown (abstract ideas: characters: care, and tolerance. Characters were observed five weeks before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed from observation of 24 students in internalization strategy-based courses. Qualitative and quantitative data suggested that the internalization strategy that use of science phenomena to represent abstract ideas (characters) in science classroom positively cultivating characters.

Applying Adult Learning Theory through a Character Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baskas, Richard S.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study is to analyze the behavior of a character, Celie, in a movie, 'The Color Purple," through the lens of two adult learning theorists to determine the relationships the character has with each theory. The development and portrayal of characters in movies can be explained and understood by the analysis of adult learning…

Putting Characters First in a Middle School Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sass-Henke, Amanda

2012-01-01

One of the most important aspects of developing a close, personal relationship with literary characters is "relevancy." Readers have to find something to connect with in characters to care about them, and for that connection to take place, stories and their characters have to be relevant in the eyes of an adolescent to the point where they can…

Character combinations, convergence and diversification in ectoparasitic arthropods.

PubMed

Poulin, Robert

2009-08-01

Different lineages of organisms diversify over time at different rates, in part as a consequence of the characteristics of the species in these lineages. Certain suites of traits possessed by species within a clade may determine rates of diversification, with some particular combinations of characters acting synergistically to either limit or promote diversification; the most successful combinations may also emerge repeatedly in different clades via convergent evolution. Here, the association between species characters and diversification is investigated amongst 21 independent lineages of arthropods ectoparasitic on vertebrate hosts. Using nine characters (each with two to four states) that capture general life history strategy, transmission mode and host-parasite interaction, each lineage was described by the set of character states it possesses. The results show, firstly, that most possible pair-wise combinations of character states have been adopted at least once, sometimes several times independently by different lineages; thus, ectoparasitic arthropods have explored most of the life history character space available to them. Secondly, lineages possessing commonly observed combinations of character states are not necessarily the ones that have experienced the highest rates of diversification (measured as a clade's species-per-genus ratio). Thirdly, some specific traits are associated with higher rates of diversification. Using more than one host per generation, laying eggs away from the host and intermediate levels of fecundity are features that appear to have promoted diversification. These findings indicate that particular species characters may be evolutionary drivers of diversity, whose effects could also apply in other taxa.

The dark cube: dark and light character profiles

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Background. Research addressing distinctions and similarities between people’s malevolent character traits (i.e., the Dark Triad: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) has detected inconsistent linear associations to temperament traits. Additionally, these dark traits seem to have a common core expressed as uncooperativeness. Hence, some researchers suggest that the dark traits are best represented as one global construct (i.e., the unification argument) rather than as ternary construct (i.e., the uniqueness argument). We put forward the dark cube (cf. Cloninger’s character cube) comprising eight dark profiles that can be used to compare individuals who differ in one dark character trait while holding the other two constant. Our aim was to investigate in which circumstances individuals who are high in each one of the dark character traits differ in Cloninger’s “light” character traits: self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence. We also investigated if people’s dark character profiles were associated to their light character profiles. Method. A total of 997 participants recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) responded to the Short Dark Triad and the Short Character Inventory. Participants were allocated to eight different dark profiles and eight light profiles based on their scores in each of the traits and any possible combination of high and low scores. We used three-way interaction regression analyses and t-tests to investigate differences in light character traits between individuals with different dark profiles. As a second step, we compared the individuals’ dark profile with her/his character profile using an exact cell-wise analysis conducted in the ROPstat software (http://www.ropstat.com). Results. Individuals who expressed high levels of Machiavellianism and those who expressed high levels of psychopathy also expressed low self-directedness and low cooperativeness. Individuals with high levels of

Skipping of Chinese characters does not rely on word-based processing.

PubMed

Lin, Nan; Angele, Bernhard; Hua, Huimin; Shen, Wei; Zhou, Junyi; Li, Xingshan

2018-02-01

Previous eye-movement studies have indicated that people tend to skip extremely high-frequency words in sentence reading, such as "the" in English and "/de" in Chinese. Two alternative hypotheses have been proposed to explain how this frequent skipping happens in Chinese reading: one assumes that skipping happens when the preview has been fully identified at the word level (word-based skipping); the other assumes that skipping happens whenever the preview character is easy to identify regardless of whether lexical processing has been completed or not (character-based skipping). Using the gaze-contingent display change paradigm, we examined the two hypotheses by substituting the preview of the third character of a four-character Chinese word with the high-frequency Chinese character "/de", which should disrupt the ongoing word-level processing. The character-based skipping hypothesis predicts that this manipulation will enhance the skipping probability of the target character (i.e., the third character of the target word), because the character "/de" has much higher character frequency than the original character. The word-based skipping hypothesis instead predicts a reduction of the skipping probability of the target character because the presence of the character "/de" is lexically infelicitous at word level. The results supported the character-based skipping hypothesis, indicating that in Chinese reading the decision of skipping a character can be made before integrating it into a word.

Head capsule characters in the Hymenoptera and their phylogenetic implications

PubMed Central

Vilhelmsen, Lars

2011-01-01

Abstract The head capsule of a taxon sample of three outgroup and 86 ingroup taxa is examined for characters of possible phylogenetic significance within Hymenoptera. 21 morphological characters are illustrated and scored, and their character evolution explored by mapping them onto a phylogeny recently produced from a large morphological data set. Many of the characters are informative and display unambiguous changes. Most of the character support demonstrated is supportive at the superfamily or family level. In contrast, only few characters corroborate deeper nodes in the phylogeny of Hymenoptera. PMID:22259288

Character strengths, social anxiety, and physiological stress reactivity

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

In this paper, the effects of character strengths on the physiological reactivity to social anxiety induced by the Trier Social Stress Task were reported. On the basis of their scores in the Chinese Virtues Questionnaire, 30 college students were assigned to either high- (n = 15) or low-character-strength (n = 15) groups. Their psychological stress and physiological data across three laboratory stages (namely, baseline, stress exposure, and post-stress) were collected. Results indicated that individuals with high character strengths exhibited rapid cardiovascular recovery from baseline to post-stress even if high- and low-character-strength groups showed similar patterns of cardiovascular arousal in response to the stress at baseline and stress exposure. These results prove that character strengths are stress-defense factors that allow for psychological and physiological adaptation to stress. PMID:28584721

Representations of deaf characters in children's picture books.

PubMed

Golos, Debbie B; Moses, Annie M

2011-01-01

Picture books can influence how children perceive people of different backgrounds, including people with disabilities whose cultures differ from their own. Researchers have examined the portrayal of multicultural characters with disabilities in children's literature. However, few have specifically considered the portrayal of deaf characters, despite increased inclusion of deaf characters in children's literature over the past two decades. The present study analyzed the portrayal of deaf characters in picture books for children ages 4-8 years. A content analysis of 20 children's picture books was conducted in which the books were analyzed for messages linked to pathological and cultural categories. Results indicated that these books did not portray Deaf characters from a cultural perspective but, rather, highlighted aspects of deafness as a medical condition, one that requires fixing and that perpetuates stereotypes of deafness as a disability.

Influence of a Character-Based App on Children's Learning of Nutritional Information: Should Apps Be Served with a Side of Media Characters?

PubMed

Putnam, Marisa M; Richmond, Elana M; Brunick, Kaitlin L; Wright, Charlotte A; Calvert, Sandra L

2018-04-01

Childhood obesity is a health issue in the United States, associated with marketing practices in which media characters are often used to sell unhealthy products. This study examined exposure to a socially contingent touch-screen gaming app, which replied immediately, reliably, and accurately to children's actions. Children's recall of nutritional content and their liking of the character were assessed. Four- and five-year-old children (N = 114) received no-exposure, single-exposure, or repeated-exposure to a character-based iPad app rewarding healthy and penalizing unhealthy behaviors. Children reported how much they liked the character and recalled healthy and unhealthy items from the app. An ordinary least squares regression was conducted on how much children liked the character by condition. Poisson regressions were conducted on the number of items recalled by condition alone, and in an interacted model of treatment condition by liking the character. Children liked the character more in the repeated app-exposure condition than in the control group (P = 0.018). Children in the repeated and single app-exposure conditions recalled more healthy (P < 0.001) and unhealthy (P < 0.001) items than the control group. Within treatment conditions, liking the character increased recall of healthy items in the single app-exposure compared to the repeated app-exposure condition (P = 0.005). Results revealed that repeated exposure increased children's learning of nutritional information and liking of the character. The results contribute to our understanding of how to deliver effective nutrition information to young children in a new venue, a gaming app.

The Inaccuracy of National Character Stereotypes

PubMed Central

McCrae, Robert R.; Chan, Wayne; Jussim, Lee; De Fruyt, Filip; Löckenhoff, Corinna E.; De Bolle, Marleen; Costa, Paul T.; Hřebíčková, Martina; Graf, Sylvie; Realo, Anu; Allik, Jüri; Nakazato, Katsuharu; Shimonaka, Yoshiko; Yik, Michelle; Ficková, Emília; Brunner-Sciarra, Marina; Reátigui, Norma; de Figueora, Nora Leibovich; Schmidt, Vanina; Ahn, Chang-kyu; Ahn, Hyun-nie; Aguilar-Vafaie, Maria E.; Siuta, Jerzy; Szmigielska, Barbara; Cain, Thomas R.; Crawford, Jarret T.; Mastor, Khairul Anwar; Rolland, Jean-Pierre; Nansubuga, Florence; Miramontez, Daniel R.; Benet-Martínez, Veronica; Rossier, Jérôme; Bratko, Denis; Marušić, Iris; Halberstadt, Jamin; Yamaguchi, Mami; Knežević, Goran; Purić, Danka; Martin, Thomas A.; Gheorghiu, Mirona; Smith, Peter B.; Barbaranelli, Claudio; Wang, Lei; Shakespeare-Finch, Jane; Lima, Margarida P.; Klinkosz, Waldemar; Sekowski, Andrzej; Alcalay, Lidia; Simonetti, Franco; Avdeyeva, Tatyana V.; Pramila, V. S.; Terracciano, Antonio

2013-01-01

Consensual stereotypes of some groups are relatively accurate, whereas others are not. Previous work suggesting that national character stereotypes are inaccurate has been criticized on several grounds. In this article we (a) provide arguments for the validity of assessed national mean trait levels as criteria for evaluating stereotype accuracy; and (b) report new data on national character in 26 cultures from descriptions (N=3,323) of the typical male or female adolescent, adult, or old person in each. The average ratings were internally consistent and converged with independent stereotypes of the typical culture member, but were weakly related to objective assessments of personality. We argue that this conclusion is consistent with the broader literature on the inaccuracy of national character stereotypes. PMID:24187394

Influence of a Character-Based App on Children's Learning of Nutritional Information: Should Apps Be Served with a Side of Media Characters?

PubMed Central

Richmond, Elana M.; Brunick, Kaitlin L.; Wright, Charlotte A.; Calvert, Sandra L.

2018-01-01

Abstract Objective: Childhood obesity is a health issue in the United States, associated with marketing practices in which media characters are often used to sell unhealthy products. This study examined exposure to a socially contingent touch-screen gaming app, which replied immediately, reliably, and accurately to children's actions. Children's recall of nutritional content and their liking of the character were assessed. Materials and Methods: Four- and five-year-old children (N = 114) received no-exposure, single-exposure, or repeated-exposure to a character-based iPad app rewarding healthy and penalizing unhealthy behaviors. Children reported how much they liked the character and recalled healthy and unhealthy items from the app. An ordinary least squares regression was conducted on how much children liked the character by condition. Poisson regressions were conducted on the number of items recalled by condition alone, and in an interacted model of treatment condition by liking the character. Results: Children liked the character more in the repeated app-exposure condition than in the control group (P = 0.018). Children in the repeated and single app-exposure conditions recalled more healthy (P < 0.001) and unhealthy (P < 0.001) items than the control group. Within treatment conditions, liking the character increased recall of healthy items in the single app-exposure compared to the repeated app-exposure condition (P = 0.005). Conclusions: Results revealed that repeated exposure increased children's learning of nutritional information and liking of the character. The results contribute to our understanding of how to deliver effective nutrition information to young children in a new venue, a gaming app. PMID:29364706

[Temperament and character traits measured by temperament and character inventory (TCI) by Cloninger in patients with ischemic heart disease].

PubMed

Stetkiewicz-Lewandowicz, Agnieszka; Borkowska, Alina; Sobów, Tomasz

2014-09-01

Ischemic heart disease (IHD) is one of the main causes of death and disability worldwide. This situation stimulates research of its ethiopathogenesis. The role of psychosocial factors like depression, stress is underlined. Also personality traits play an important role in this process. The aim of study was to assess temperament and character traits in a group of patients with IHD. Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was used to determine temperament and character dimensions. Temperament traits: harm avoidance (HA), reward dependence (RD), novelty seeking (NS), persistence (P), character traits: cooperativeness (C), self-directedness (SD), self-transcendence (ST). Each of these traits has a varying number of subscales. The dimensions are determined from a 240-item questionnaire. Patients with IHD obtained higher scores in HA dimension of the TCI questionnaire. The study group achieved lower score in a subscale of NS called extravagance (NS3), and higher score of C dimension called compassion (C4). The intensity of temperament and character traits are different in a group of patients with IHD in comparison with the control group especially in dimensions of HA, NS3 and C4. Variables that differentiated the study group were also sex, age and years of education.

The genetic and environmental structure of the character sub-scales of the temperament and character inventory in adolescence.

PubMed

Lester, Nigel; Garcia, Danilo; Lundström, Sebastian; Brändström, Sven; Råstam, Maria; Kerekes, Nóra; Nilsson, Thomas; Cloninger, C Robert; Anckarsäter, Henrik

2016-01-01

The character higher order scales (self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence) in the temperament and character inventory are important general measures of health and well-being [Mens Sana Monograph 11:16-24 (2013)]. Recent research has found suggestive evidence of common environmental influence on the development of these character traits during adolescence. The present article expands earlier research by focusing on the internal consistency and the etiology of traits measured by the lower order sub-scales of the character traits in adolescence. The twin modeling analysis of 423 monozygotic pairs and 408 same sex dizygotic pairs estimated additive genetics (A), common environmental (C), and non-shared environmental (E) influences on twin resemblance. All twins were part of the on-going longitudinal Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden (CATSS). The twin modeling analysis suggested a common environmental contribution for two out of five self-directedness sub-scales (0.14 and 0.23), for three out of five cooperativeness sub-scales (0.07-0.17), and for all three self-transcendence sub-scales (0.10-0.12). The genetic structure at the level of the character lower order sub-scales in adolescents shows that the proportion of the shared environmental component varies in the trait of self-directedness and in the trait of cooperativeness, while it is relatively stable across the components of self-transcendence. The presence of this unique shared environmental effect in adolescence has implications for understanding the relative importance of interventions and treatment strategies aimed at promoting overall maturation of character, mental health, and well-being during this period of the life span.

Homosexuality in TV situation comedies: characters and verbal comments.

PubMed

Fouts, Gregory; Inch, Rebecca

2005-01-01

A content analysis was conducted on 22 television situation comedies in order to determine the incidence of homosexual characters, their demographics (sex, age and race/ethnicity), and whether they verbally comment about sexual orientation. One episode of each program appearing in early October 2000 was video recorded and analyzed for its contents by trained coders. Only 2% of the 125 central characters were homosexual; thus, homosexuality is significantly under-represented in programs that adolescents and young adults watch compared to actual prevalence rates of homosexuality in North America (10-13%). All the homosexual characters were male and in the 20-35-year-old age group; this indicates that homosexual adolescent viewers have no peer role models with whom to identify. Homosexual characters made significantly more comments about sexual orientation than heterosexual characters. This suggests that television writers/producers present sexual orientation as a significant theme in the lives of homosexual characters.

How jurors use and misuse character evidence.

PubMed

Hunt, Jennifer S; Budesheim, Thomas Lee

2004-04-01

The Federal Rules of Evidence allow defendants to offer testimony about their good character, but that testimony can be impeached with cross-examination or a rebuttal witness. It is assumed that jurors use the defense's character evidence (CE) to form guilt and conviction judgments but use impeachment evidence only to assess the character witness's credibility. Two experiments tested these assumptions by presenting mock jurors with various forms of CE and impeachment. Participants made trait ratings for the character witness and defendant and guilt and conviction judgments. Positive CE did not affect guilt or conviction judgments, but cross-examination caused a backlash in which judgments were harsher than when no CE was given. Using path analysis, the authors tested a model of the process by which CE and impeachment affect defendant and witness impressions and guilt and conviction judgments. Implications for juror decision making are discussed.

Benchmark for license plate character segmentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gonçalves, Gabriel Resende; da Silva, Sirlene Pio Gomes; Menotti, David; Shwartz, William Robson

2016-09-01

Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) has been the focus of many researches in the past years. In general, ALPR is divided into the following problems: detection of on-track vehicles, license plate detection, segmentation of license plate characters, and optical character recognition (OCR). Even though commercial solutions are available for controlled acquisition conditions, e.g., the entrance of a parking lot, ALPR is still an open problem when dealing with data acquired from uncontrolled environments, such as roads and highways when relying only on imaging sensors. Due to the multiple orientations and scales of the license plates captured by the camera, a very challenging task of the ALPR is the license plate character segmentation (LPCS) step, because its effectiveness is required to be (near) optimal to achieve a high recognition rate by the OCR. To tackle the LPCS problem, this work proposes a benchmark composed of a dataset designed to focus specifically on the character segmentation step of the ALPR within an evaluation protocol. Furthermore, we propose the Jaccard-centroid coefficient, an evaluation measure more suitable than the Jaccard coefficient regarding the location of the bounding box within the ground-truth annotation. The dataset is composed of 2000 Brazilian license plates consisting of 14000 alphanumeric symbols and their corresponding bounding box annotations. We also present a straightforward approach to perform LPCS efficiently. Finally, we provide an experimental evaluation for the dataset based on five LPCS approaches and demonstrate the importance of character segmentation for achieving an accurate OCR.

Technical guide for monitoring selected conditions related to wilderness character

Treesearch

Peter Landres; Steve Boutcher; Liese Dean; Troy Hall; Tamara Blett; Terry Carlson; Ann Mebane; Carol Hardy; Susan Rinehart; Linda Merigliano; David N. Cole; Andy Leach; Pam Wright; Deb Bumpus

2009-01-01

The purpose of monitoring wilderness character is to improve wilderness stewardship by providing managers a tool to assess how selected actions and conditions related to wilderness character are changing over time. Wilderness character monitoring provides information to help answer two key questions about wilderness character and wilderness stewardship: 1. How is...

Linking Character Education and Global Understanding through Children's Picture Books

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Helterbran, Valeri R.

2009-01-01

Character education has been part of the educational and societal landscape for millennia. Through consensus, school communities teach and model traits that influence the character and moral development of children. Children learn character traits from others--both good and bad--whether that is intended or not. To avoid leaving character education…

Neural system applied on an invariant industrial character recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lecoeuche, Stephane; Deguillemont, Denis; Dubus, Jean-Paul

1997-04-01

Besides the variety of fonts, character recognition systems for the industrial world are confronted with specific problems like: the variety of support (metal, wood, paper, ceramics . . .) as well as the variety of marking (printing, engraving, . . .) and conditions of lighting. We present a system that is able to solve a part of this problem. It implements a collaboration between two neural networks. The first network specialized in vision allows the system to extract the character from an image. Besides this capability, we have equipped our system with characteristics allowing it to obtain an invariant model from the presented character. Thus, whatever the position, the size and the orientation of the character during the capture are, the model presented to the input of the second network will be identical. The second network, thanks to a learning phase, permits us to obtain a character recognition system independent of the type of fonts used. Furthermore, its capabilities of generalization permit us to recognize degraded and/or distorted characters. A feedback loop between the two networks permits the first one to modify the quality of vision.The cooperation between these two networks allows us to recognize characters whatever the support and the marking.

Making Characters Come Alive: Using Characters for Identification and Engagement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chadwick, Jocelyn A.

2012-01-01

How do English teachers, with their amazing gift, empower students to see and experience literature not as a burden that must be endured and memorized for the test and then mercifully forgotten, but as a vehicle for self-discovery and reflection? One effective way to help students experience and discover literature is through the characters. For…

Mainstream body-character breach films and subjectivization.

PubMed

Meiri, Sandra; Kohen-Raz, Odeya

2017-02-01

The authors analyze a unique cinematic corpus - 'body-character breach films' (one character, initially played by a certain actor, occupies the body of another character) - demonstrating Lacan's notion of traversing the fantasy, both on the level of the films' diegesis and that of spectatorship. Breaching the alliance between actors and their characters perturbs the viewer's fantasy of wholeness enabled by this very alliance. Consequently, a change in subject/spectatorial position in relation to the lack in the Other is induced, enhanced through the visualization of various scenarios of unconscious fantasies (mostly incest). These are meant to unsettle the spectator into an awareness of how a conscious fantasy conceals another unconscious fundamental fantasy, thereby encouraging a change in spectatorial position (from 'perverse'/fetishistic to 'neurotic'). Conflating this change with Lacan's notion of traversing the fantasy, the authors contend that mainstream cinema has the capacity to induce a process of subjectivization (assuming responsibility for one's own desire). This process is contingent on four conditions: identification with the protagonist's fantasy to conceal the lack in the Other; dissolution of this fantasy, initiated by the body-character breach; rhetorical strategies (the coding of unconscious scenarios cinematically); and an ethical dimension (encouraging the subject/spectator to follow her/his desire). Copyright © 2016 Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Effect of refractive error on temperament and character properties.

PubMed

Kalkan Akcay, Emine; Canan, Fatih; Simavli, Huseyin; Dal, Derya; Yalniz, Hacer; Ugurlu, Nagihan; Gecici, Omer; Cagil, Nurullah

2015-01-01

To determine the effect of refractive error on temperament and character properties using Cloninger's psychobiological model of personality. Using the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), the temperament and character profiles of 41 participants with refractive errors (17 with myopia, 12 with hyperopia, and 12 with myopic astigmatism) were compared to those of 30 healthy control participants. Here, temperament comprised the traits of novelty seeking, harm-avoidance, and reward dependence, while character comprised traits of self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence. Participants with refractive error showed significantly lower scores on purposefulness, cooperativeness, empathy, helpfulness, and compassion (P<0.05, P<0.01, P<0.05, P<0.05, and P<0.01, respectively). Refractive error might have a negative influence on some character traits, and different types of refractive error might have different temperament and character properties. These personality traits may be implicated in the onset and/or perpetuation of refractive errors and may be a productive focus for psychotherapy.

A Developmental Study of Chinese Children's Word and Character Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Tong; Wang, Ying; Tong, Xiuhong; McBride, Catherine

2017-01-01

To investigate the relationship between Chinese children's character and word reading, 62 third and 50 fifth grade children in Hong Kong were asked to read single characters and words that were comprised of these characters. Results showed that words helped children to recognize characters for both grades of children. Compared to older children,…

Character, Social-Emotional, and Academic Outcomes among Underachieving Elementary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grier, Leslie K.

2012-01-01

One purpose of this research was to examine the psychometric properties of a character assessment scale (the Character Assessment for School Age Children; CASAC) based on 6 pillars of character (Josephson Institute, 2009). Many youth development and character education programs utilize some, if not all, of the pillars of character explicitly or…

A Japanese logographic character frequency list for cognitive science research.

PubMed

Chikamatsu, N; Yokoyama, S; Nozaki, H; Long, E; Fukuda, S

2000-08-01

This paper describes a Japanese logographic character (kanji) frequency list, which is based on an analysis of the largest recently available corpus of Japanese words and characters. This corpus comprised a full year of morning and evening editions of a major newspaper, containing more than 23 million kanji characters and more than 4,000 different kanji characters. This paper lists the 3,000 most frequent kanji characters, as well as an analysis of kanji usage and correlations between the present list and previous Japanese frequency lists. The authors believe that the present list will help researchers more accurately and efficiently control the selection of kanji characters in cognitive science research and interpret related psycholinguistic data.

A database application for wilderness character monitoring

Treesearch

Ashley Adams; Peter Landres; Simon Kingston

2012-01-01

The National Park Service (NPS) Wilderness Stewardship Division, in collaboration with the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute and the NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program, developed a database application to facilitate tracking and trend reporting in wilderness character. The Wilderness Character Monitoring Database allows consistent, scientifically based...

Character Education, New Media, and Political Spectacle

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winton, Sue

2010-01-01

Ontario's new Character Development Initiative is analyzed to determine whether it can be characterized as political spectacle. Examination of official policy texts, media reports, speeches, web pages, webcasts, and events at the Character Development Symposium suggests that the Initiative contains many elements of political spectacle; however,…

A study of the utility of convergent characters for phylogeny reconstruction: do ecomorphological characters track evolutionary history in Anolis lizards?

PubMed

Poe, Steven

2005-01-01

The reconstruction of phylogeny requires homologous similarities across species. Characters that have been shown to evolve quickly or convergently in some species are often considered to be poor phylogenetic markers. Here I evaluate the phylogenetic utility of a set of morphological characters that are correlated with ecology and have been shown to evolve convergently in Anolis lizards in the Greater Antilles. Results of randomization tests suggest that these "ecomorph" characters are adequate phylogenetic markers, both for Anolis in general and for the Greater Antillean species for which ecomorphological convergence was originally documented. Explanations for this result include the presence of ecomorphologically similar species within evolutionary radiations within islands, some monophyly of ecomorphs across islands, and the existence of several species that defy ecomorphological characterization but share phylogenetic similarity in some ecomorph characters.

Promoting Character Development through Teaching Wrestling in Physical Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Destani, Fitni; Hannon, James C.; Podlog, Leslie; Brusseau, Timothy A.

2014-01-01

Character development has become an important component of physical education that contributes directly to the affective learning domain. However, teaching character development can be challenging. The purpose of this article is to suggest that character development be promoted through the teaching of wrestling, due to the unique moral development…

Character complexity and redundancy in writing systems over human history.

PubMed

Changizi, Mark A; Shimojo, Shinsuke

2005-02-07

A writing system is a visual notation system wherein a repertoire of marks, or strokes, is used to build a repertoire of characters. Are there any commonalities across writing systems concerning the rules governing how strokes combine into characters; commonalities that might help us identify selection pressures on the development of written language? In an effort to answer this question we examined how strokes combine to make characters in more than 100 writing systems over human history, ranging from about 10 to 200 characters,and including numerals, abjads, abugidas, alphabets and syllabaries from five major taxa: Ancient Near-Eastern, European, Middle Eastern, South Asian, Southeast Asian. We discovered underlying similarities in two fundamental respects. (i) The number of strokes per characters is approximately three, independent of the number of characters in the writing system; numeral systems are the exception, having on average only two strokes per character. (ii) Characters are ca. 50% redundant, independent of writing system size; intuitively, this means that acharacter's identity can be determined even when half of its strokes are removed. Because writing systems are under selective pressure to have characters that are easy for the visual system to recognize and for the motor system to write, these fundamental commonalities may be a fingerprint of mechanisms underlying the visuo-motor system.

'Do not attempt resuscitation'--do standardised order forms make a clinical difference above hand-written note entries?

PubMed

Lewis, Keir Edward; Edwards, Victoria Middleton; Hall, Sian; Temblett, Paul; Hutchings, Hayley

2009-01-01

To quantify any effect of Standardised Order Forms (SOFs), versus hand-written note entries for 'Do Not Attempt Resuscitation'--on the selection and survival of remaining cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) attempts. A prospective, observational study in two UK Hospitals, comparing numbers, demographics and survival rates from CPR attempts for 2 years prior to and 2 years after the introduction of SOFs (the only change in DNAR policy). There were 133 CPR attempts, representing 0.30% of the 44,792 admissions, pre SOFs and 147 CPR attempts representing 0.32% of the 45,340 admissions following the SOFs (p=0.46). The median duration of a CPR attempt was 11min prior to and 15min following the SOFs (p=0.02). Of the CPR attempts, there was no change in mean age (p=0.34), proportions occurring outside working hours (p=0.70) or proportions presenting with an initial shockable rhythm (p=0.30). Survival to discharge following CPR was unchanged (p=0.23). The introduction of SOFs for DNAR orders was associated with a significantly longer duration of CPR (on average by 3-4min) but no difference in overall number, demographics or type of arrest or survival in the remaining CPR attempts.

Using wilderness character to improve wilderness stewardship

Treesearch

Peter Landres; Wade M. Vagias; Suzy Stutzman

2012-01-01

This article describes how understanding wilderness character leads to improved communication among staff and with the public, helping park staff make more informed decisions about park planning, management, and monitoring in wilderness. Wilderness character is defined in terms of five qualities: natural, solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation, undeveloped,...

Flexibility of orthographic and graphomotor coordination during a handwritten copy task: effect of time pressure

PubMed Central

Sausset, Solen; Lambert, Eric; Olive, Thierry

2013-01-01

The coordination of the various processes involved in language production is a subject of keen debate in writing research. Some authors hold that writing processes can be flexibly coordinated according to task demands, whereas others claim that process coordination is entirely inflexible. For instance, orthographic planning has been shown to be resource-dependent during handwriting, but inflexible in typing, even under time pressure. The present study therefore went one step further in studying flexibility in the coordination of orthographic processing and graphomotor execution, by measuring the impact of time pressure during a handwritten copy task. Orthographic and graphomotor processes were observed via syllable processing. Writers copied out two- and three-syllable words three times in a row, with and without time pressure. Latencies and letter measures at syllable boundaries were analyzed. We hypothesized that if coordination is flexible and varies according to task demands, it should be modified by time pressure, affecting both latency before execution and duration of execution. We therefore predicted that the extent of syllable processing before execution would be reduced under time pressure and, as a consequence, syllable effects during execution would be more salient. Results showed, however, that time pressure interacted neither with syllable number nor with syllable structure. Accordingly, syllable processing appears to remain the same regardless of time pressure. The flexibility of process coordination during handwriting is discussed, as is the operationalization of time pressure constraints. PMID:24319435

Computational Design of Animated Mechanical Characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coros, Stelian; Thomaszewski, Bernhard; DRZ Team Team

2014-03-01

A factor key to the appeal of modern CG movies and video-games is that the virtual worlds they portray place no bounds on what can be imagined. Rapid manufacturing devices hold the promise of bringing this type of freedom to our own world, by enabling the fabrication of physical objects whose appearance, deformation behaviors and motions can be precisely specified. In order to unleash the full potential of this technology however, computational design methods that create digital content suitable for fabrication need to be developed. In recent work, we presented a computational design system that allows casual users to create animated mechanical characters. Given an articulated character as input, the user designs the animated character by sketching motion curves indicating how they should move. For each motion curve, our framework creates an optimized mechanism that reproduces it as closely as possible. The resulting mechanisms are attached to the character and then connected to each other using gear trains, which are created in a semi-automated fashion. The mechanical assemblies generated with our system can be driven with a single input driver, such as a hand-operated crank or an electric motor, and they can be fabricated using rapid prototyping devices.

Optical Character Recognition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Converso, L.; Hocek, S.

1990-01-01

This paper describes computer-based optical character recognition (OCR) systems, focusing on their components (the computer, the scanner, the OCR, and the output device); how the systems work; and features to consider in selecting a system. A list of 26 questions to ask to evaluate systems for potential purchase is included. (JDD)

Direct Measures of Character Mislocalizations with Masked/Unmasked Exposures.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chastain, Garvin; And Others

Butler (1980) compared errors representing intrusions and mislocalizations on 3x3 letter displays under pattern-mask versus no-mask conditions and found that pattern masking increased character mislocalization errors (naming a character in the display but not in the target position as being the target) over intrusion errors (naming a character not…

Consciousness and abilities of dream characters observed during lucid dreaming.

PubMed

Tholey, P

1989-04-01

A description of several phenomenological experiments is given. These were done to investigate of which cognitive accomplishments dream characters are capable in lucid dreams. Nine male experienced lucid dreamers participated as subjects. They were directed to set different tasks to dream characters they met while lucid dreaming. Dream characters were asked to draw or write, to name unknown words, to find rhyme words, to make verses, and to solve arithmetic problems. Part of the dream characters actually agreed to perform the tasks and were successful, although the arithmetic accomplishments were poor. From the phenomenological findings, nothing contradicts the assumption that dream characters have consciousness in a specific sense. Herefrom the conclusion was drawn, that in lucid dream therapy communication with dream characters should be handled as if they were rational beings. Finally, several possibilities of assessing the question, whether dream characters possess consciousness, can be examined with the aid of psychophysiological experiments.

Developing Individual and Team Character in Sport

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gaines, Stacey A.

2012-01-01

The idea that participation in sport builds character is a long-standing one. Advocates of sport participation believe that sport provides an appropriate context for the learning of social skills such as cooperation and the development of prosocial behavior (Weiss, Smith, & Stuntz, 2008). Research in sport regarding character development has…

Chinese character recognition based on Gabor feature extraction and CNN

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiong, Yudian; Lu, Tongwei; Jiang, Yongyuan

2018-03-01

As an important application in the field of text line recognition and office automation, Chinese character recognition has become an important subject of pattern recognition. However, due to the large number of Chinese characters and the complexity of its structure, there is a great difficulty in the Chinese character recognition. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a method of printed Chinese character recognition based on Gabor feature extraction and Convolution Neural Network(CNN). The main steps are preprocessing, feature extraction, training classification. First, the gray-scale Chinese character image is binarized and normalized to reduce the redundancy of the image data. Second, each image is convoluted with Gabor filter with different orientations, and the feature map of the eight orientations of Chinese characters is extracted. Third, the feature map through Gabor filters and the original image are convoluted with learning kernels, and the results of the convolution is the input of pooling layer. Finally, the feature vector is used to classify and recognition. In addition, the generalization capacity of the network is improved by Dropout technology. The experimental results show that this method can effectively extract the characteristics of Chinese characters and recognize Chinese characters.

Enhancement Of Reading Accuracy By Multiple Data Integration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Kangsuk

1989-07-01

In this paper, a multiple sensor integration technique with neural network learning algorithms is presented which can enhance the reading accuracy of the hand-written numerals. Many document reading applications involve hand-written numerals in a predetermined location on a form, and in many cases, critical data is redundantly described. The amount of a personal check is one such case which is written redundantly in numerals and in alphabetical form. Information from two optical character recognition modules, one specialized for digits and one for words, is combined to yield an enhanced recognition of the amount. The combination can be accomplished by a decision tree with "if-then" rules, but by simply fusing two or more sets of sensor data in a single expanded neural net, the same functionality can be expected with a much reduced system cost. Experimental results of fusing two neural nets to enhance overall recognition performance using a controlled data set are presented.

A Chinese Character Teaching System Using Structure Theory and Morphing Technology

PubMed Central

Sun, Linjia; Liu, Min; Hu, Jiajia; Liang, Xiaohui

2014-01-01

This paper proposes a Chinese character teaching system by using the Chinese character structure theory and the 2D contour morphing technology. This system, including the offline phase and the online phase, automatically generates animation for the same Chinese character from different writing stages to intuitively show the evolution of shape and topology in the process of Chinese characters teaching. The offline phase builds the component models database for the same script and the components correspondence database for different scripts. Given two or several different scripts of the same Chinese character, the online phase firstly divides the Chinese characters into components by using the process of Chinese character parsing, and then generates the evolution animation by using the process of Chinese character morphing. Finally, two writing stages of Chinese characters, i.e., seal script and clerical script, are used in experiment to show the ability of the system. The result of the user experience study shows that the system can successfully guide students to improve the learning of Chinese characters. And the users agree that the system is interesting and can motivate them to learn. PMID:24978171

Character complexity and redundancy in writing systems over human history

PubMed Central

Changizi, Mark A.; Shimojo, Shinsuke

2005-01-01

A writing system is a visual notation system wherein a repertoire of marks, or strokes, is used to build a repertoire of characters. Are there any commonalities across writing systems concerning the rules governing how strokes combine into characters; commonalities that might help us identify selection pressures on the development of written language? In an effort to answer this question we examined how strokes combine to make characters in more than 100 writing systems over human history, ranging from about 10 to 200 characters, and including numerals, abjads, abugidas, alphabets and syllabaries from five major taxa: Ancient Near-Eastern, European, Middle Eastern, South Asian, Southeast Asian. We discovered underlying similarities in two fundamental respects.The number of strokes per characters is approximately three, independent of the number of characters in the writing system; numeral systems are the exception, having on average only two strokes per character.Characters are ca. 50% redundant, independent of writing system size; intuitively, this means that a character’s identity can be determined even when half of its strokes are removed.Because writing systems are under selective pressure to have characters that are easy for the visual system to recognize and for the motor system to write, these fundamental commonalities may be a fingerprint of mechanisms underlying the visuo–motor system. PMID:15705551

Educating Moral People: A Caring Alternative to Character Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Noddings, Nel

An alternative to character education is care ethics. The ethics of care can be seen as fundamentally relational, not individual-agent-based in the way of virtue ethics, and the ethics of care is more indirect than character education. After an introductory chapter that outlines the similarities and differences between character education and care…

Character Education of the Most Developed Countries in ASEAN

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Istiningsih

2016-01-01

Character education into an international issue, especially in developing countries. More specifically in Indonesia, character education is a major issue in the 2012's to the present. What kind of education that may build character? To be able to answer this question, we need a broad and deep research. Research simpler related to character…

Keeping in Character: A Time-Tested Solution.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Benninga, Jaques S.; Wynne, Edward A.

1998-01-01

Refutes Alfie Kohn's criticisms of modern character education programs in the February 1997 "Kappan." The basic structure of true "for character" education relies on an approach relevant for students of all ages, has been time-tested over 2,500 years, has broad public support, and has a valid research base. Kohn advocates…

Relationships between Character Education and School Climate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karaburk, Hasan

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between character education and school climate based on the lived experiences and beliefs of teachers. The research was conducted in a public middle school to explore understandings and beliefs of teachers about character education and its perceived impact on school climate. Social…

Character Development Practices in Higher Education Institutions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wesley, Vernon L.

2010-01-01

Character Development continues to be the all too unintentional elephant in the room of Higher Education. This project looked at what character development practices are being accomplished and who in higher education is making it happen. No longer satisfied with leaving the task to elementary and secondary education, higher education has begun to…

Factors Influencing the Learning of Chinese Characters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sung, Ko-Yin; Wu, Hsiao-Ping

2011-01-01

This survey study, which involved 108 language learners enrolled in first-year Chinese as a foreign language classrooms in the United States, intended to address the research questions, "What types of Chinese-character learning strategies do US learners use?" and "Do US learners' Chinese-character learning strategy use differ based on the…

"It Could Affect You as a Person, Character-Wise": Promoting Character Development and Preventing Sexual Violence at West Point

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arbeit, Miriam R.

2017-01-01

The United States Military Academy at West Point develops cadets into "leaders of character" who will become Army officers. This focus on character presents an opportunity for the prevention of sexual violence through an emphasis on military values. Using constructivist grounded theory, this study examined how cadets experience their own…

Children's Contemporary Realistic Fiction Portraying Dyslexic Characters: An Examination of the Issues Confronted and the Gender of the Characters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Altieri, Jennifer L.

2006-01-01

Seventy-seven contemporary realistic fiction children's books portraying a dyslexic character were published in the United States between 1993 and 2003. This study examined the texts to determine what types of issues the reading difficulty posed for the character. Texts were analyzed to determine if there was a relationship between the gender of…

Neural basis of hierarchical visual form processing of Japanese Kanji characters.

PubMed

Higuchi, Hiroki; Moriguchi, Yoshiya; Murakami, Hiroki; Katsunuma, Ruri; Mishima, Kazuo; Uno, Akira

2015-12-01

We investigated the neural processing of reading Japanese Kanji characters, which involves unique hierarchical visual processing, including the recognition of visual components specific to Kanji, such as "radicals." We performed functional MRI to measure brain activity in response to hierarchical visual stimuli containing (1) real Kanji characters (complete structure with semantic information), (2) pseudo Kanji characters (subcomponents without complete character structure), (3) artificial characters (character fragments), and (4) checkerboard (simple photic stimuli). As we expected, the peaks of the activation in response to different stimulus types were aligned within the left occipitotemporal visual region along the posterior-anterior axis in order of the structural complexity of the stimuli, from fragments (3) to complete characters (1). Moreover, only the real Kanji characters produced functional connectivity between the left inferotemporal area and the language area (left inferior frontal triangularis), while pseudo Kanji characters induced connectivity between the left inferotemporal area and the bilateral cerebellum and left putamen. Visual processing of Japanese Kanji takes place in the left occipitotemporal cortex, with a clear hierarchy within the region such that the neural activation differentiates the elements in Kanji characters' fragments, subcomponents, and semantics, with different patterns of connectivity to remote regions among the elements.

Developing wilderness character monitoring: A personal reflection

Treesearch

Peter Landres

2006-01-01

The 1964 U.S. Wilderness Act has one, clear mandate to the agencies that manage wilderness: preserve the wilderness character of the area. But even though the Wilderness Act went into effect 42 years ago, and all four federal agencies that manage wilderness have policies that direct managers to preserve wilderness character, the agencies can't show whether they...

Text Extraction from Scene Images by Character Appearance and Structure Modeling

PubMed Central

Yi, Chucai; Tian, Yingli

2012-01-01

In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm to detect text information from natural scene images. Scene text classification and detection are still open research topics. Our proposed algorithm is able to model both character appearance and structure to generate representative and discriminative text descriptors. The contributions of this paper include three aspects: 1) a new character appearance model by a structure correlation algorithm which extracts discriminative appearance features from detected interest points of character samples; 2) a new text descriptor based on structons and correlatons, which model character structure by structure differences among character samples and structure component co-occurrence; and 3) a new text region localization method by combining color decomposition, character contour refinement, and string line alignment to localize character candidates and refine detected text regions. We perform three groups of experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm, including text classification, text detection, and character identification. The evaluation results on benchmark datasets demonstrate that our algorithm achieves the state-of-the-art performance on scene text classification and detection, and significantly outperforms the existing algorithms for character identification. PMID:23316111

[Impact of interactivity on identification with characters in fiction].

PubMed

Soto-Sanfiel, María T; Aymerich-Franch, Laura; Ribes Guàrdia, Francesc Xavier

2010-11-01

The effect of interactivity on identification with characters in audiovisual fiction was observed. 310 participants were asked to watch a film in one of these two conditions: 1) interactive (they selected the plot), and 2) non-interactive (they consumed the fiction in a conventional way). After watching the movie, they completed a questionnaire with the EDI scale of identification and empathy with characters, created by Igartua and Paez. The capacity to intervene in the configuration of the plot (interactivity) affected identification with characters. The results provide data about the psychology of media and interactivity in communication and allow us to understand the processes of empathy and identification with characters.

Meeting Characters in Caldecotts: What Does This Mean for Today's Readers?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koss, Melanie D.; Martinez, Miriam; Johnson, Nancy J.

2016-01-01

We examined representations of main characters in Caldecott Award winner and honor books over the past 25 years. Each book containing a human main character was coded for the following features: culture/ethnicity, gender, age, place where character lives, time period in which the character lives, disability, religion, socioeconomic status, and…

Item-specific and generalization effects on brain activation when learning Chinese characters

PubMed Central

Deng, Yuan; Booth, James R.; Chou, Tai-Li; Ding, Guo-Sheng; Peng, Dan-Ling

2009-01-01

Neural changes related to learning of the meaning of Chinese characters in English speakers were examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We examined item specific learning effects for trained characters, but also the generalization of semantic knowledge to novel transfer characters that shared a semantic radical (part of a character that gives a clue to word meaning, e.g. water for lake) with trained characters. Behavioral results show that acquired semantic knowledge improves performance for both trained and transfer characters. Neuroimaging results show that the left fusiform gyrus plays a central role in the visual processing of orthographic information in characters. The left superior parietal cortex seems to play a crucial role in learning the visual–spatial aspects of the characters because it shows learning related decreases for trained characters, is correlated with behavioral improvement from early to late in learning for the trained characters, and is correlated with better long-term retention for the transfer characters. The inferior frontal gyrus seems to be associated with the efficiency of retrieving and manipulating semantic representations because there are learning related decreases for trained characters and this decrease is correlated with greater behavioral improvement from early to late in learning. PMID:18514678

Assessing Leaders’ Character. Character and Leadership: A Theoretical Integration of Two Emerging Concepts. Implications for Research and Teaching

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-11-01

Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Wernsing, T. S., & Peterson, S. J. (2008). Authentic leadership : Development and validation of a theory ...AFRL-AFOSR-UK-TR-2011-0053 Assessing Leader’s Character Character and Leadership : A Theoretical Integration... Leadership and Communication Studies Casern Birmensdorf, Switzerland 8903 EOARD GRANT 10-3099 November 2011 Final Report for 14 September

Portrayal of Physically Handicapped Characters in Adolescent Fiction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stroud, Janet G.

1980-01-01

Reviews the portrayals of handicapped fictional characters for prognosis of the handicap, for effect on the subject and other characters, and for treatment of the disability. Twelve recently published books are examined for their readership interest for young people. (RAA)

Playing MMORPGs: connections between addiction and identifying with a character.

PubMed

Smahel, David; Blinka, Lukas; Ledabyl, Ondrej

2008-12-01

Addiction to online role-playing games is one of the most discussed aspects of recent cyberpsychology, mainly for its potentially negative impact on the social lives of young people. In our study, we focus on some aspects of youth and adolescent addiction to MMORPGs. We investigated connections between players and their game characters and examined if, and in what ways, player relationship to their character affected potential addiction. Players attitude to their characters seems to play a specific role, since players who tend to be addicted view their characters as being superior and more often wish to be like their characters in their real lives. Our research also confirmed that younger players are generally more prone to addiction.

Influence of licensed characters on children's taste and snack preferences.

PubMed

Roberto, Christina A; Baik, Jenny; Harris, Jennifer L; Brownell, Kelly D

2010-07-01

The goal was to study how popular licensed cartoon characters appearing on food packaging affect young children's taste and snack preferences. Forty 4- to 6-year-old children tasted 3 pairs of identical foods (graham crackers, gummy fruit snacks, and carrots) presented in packages either with or without a popular cartoon character. Children tasted both food items in each pair and indicated whether the 2 foods tasted the same or one tasted better. Children then selected which of the food items they would prefer to eat for a snack. Children significantly preferred the taste of foods that had popular cartoon characters on the packaging, compared with the same foods without characters. The majority of children selected the food sample with a licensed character on it for their snack, but the effects were weaker for carrots than for gummy fruit snacks and graham crackers. Branding food packages with licensed characters substantially influences young children's taste preferences and snack selection and does so most strongly for energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods. These findings suggest that the use of licensed characters to advertise junk food to children should be restricted.

Character displacement in the fighting colours of Hetaerina damselflies.

PubMed

Anderson, Christopher N; Grether, Gregory F

2010-12-07

Aggression between species is a seldom-considered but potentially widespread mechanism of character displacement in secondary sexual characters. Based on previous research showing that similarity in wing coloration directly influences interspecific territorial aggression in Hetaerina damselflies, we predicted that wing coloration would show a pattern of character displacement (divergence in sympatry). A geographical survey of four Hetaerina damselfly species in Mexico and Texas showed evidence for character displacement in both species pairs that regularly occurs sympatrically. Hetaerina titia, a species that typically has large black wing spots and small red wing spots, shifted to having even larger black spots and smaller red wing spots at sites where a congener with large red wing spots is numerically dominant (Hetaerina americana or Hetaerina occisa). Hetaerina americana showed the reverse pattern, shifting towards larger red wing spots where H. titia is numerically dominant. This pattern is consistent with the process of agonistic character displacement, but the ontogenetic basis of the shift remains to be demonstrated.

ERPs reveal sub-lexical processing in Chinese character recognition.

PubMed

Wu, Yan; Mo, Deyuan; Tsang, Yiu-Kei; Chen, Hsuan-Chih

2012-04-18

The present study used ERPs and a lexical decision task to explore the roles of position-general and position-specific radicals and their relative time courses in processing Chinese characters. Two types of radical frequency were manipulated: the number of characters containing a specific radical irrespective of position (i.e., radical frequency or RF) and the number of characters containing a specific radical at a particular position (i.e., position-specific radical frequency or PRF). The PRF effect was found to be associated with P150, P200, and N400, whereas the RF effect was associated with P200. These results suggest that both position-general and position-specific radicals could influence character processing, but the effect of position-specific radicals appeared earlier and lasted longer than that of position-general radicals. These findings are interpreted in terms of the specific orthographic properties of the sub-lexical components of Chinese characters. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automatic Identification of Character Types from Film Dialogs

PubMed Central

Skowron, Marcin; Trapp, Martin; Payr, Sabine; Trappl, Robert

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT We study the detection of character types from fictional dialog texts such as screenplays. As approaches based on the analysis of utterances’ linguistic properties are not sufficient to identify all fictional character types, we develop an integrative approach that complements linguistic analysis with interactive and communication characteristics, and show that it can improve the identification performance. The interactive characteristics of fictional characters are captured by the descriptive analysis of semantic graphs weighted by linguistic markers of expressivity and social role. For this approach, we introduce a new data set of action movie character types with their corresponding sequences of dialogs. The evaluation results demonstrate that the integrated approach outperforms baseline approaches on the presented data set. Comparative in-depth analysis of a single screenplay leads on to the discussion of possible limitations of this approach and to directions for future research. PMID:29118463

Systematic review of character development and childhood chronic illness.

PubMed

Maslow, Gary R; Hill, Sherika N

2016-05-08

To review empirical evidence on character development among youth with chronic illnesses. A systematic literature review was conducted using PubMed and PSYCHINFO from inception until November 2013 to find quantitative studies that measured character strengths among youth with chronic illnesses. Inclusion criteria were limited to English language studies examining constructs of character development among adolescents or young adults aged 13-24 years with a childhood-onset chronic medical condition. A librarian at Duke University Medical Center Library assisted with the development of the mesh search term. Two researchers independently reviewed relevant titles (n = 549), then abstracts (n = 45), and finally manuscripts (n = 3). There is a lack of empirical research on character development and childhood-onset chronic medical conditions. Three studies were identified that used different measures of character based on moral themes. One study examined moral reasoning among deaf adolescents using Kohlberg's Moral Judgement Instrument; another, investigated moral values of adolescent cancer survivors with the Values In Action Classification of Strengths. A third study evaluated moral behavior among young adult survivors of burn injury utilizing the Tennessee Self-Concept, 2(nd) edition. The studies observed that youth with chronic conditions reasoned at less advanced stages and had a lower moral self-concept compared to referent populations, but that they did differ on character virtues and strengths when matched with healthy peers for age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Yet, generalizations could not be drawn regarding character development of youth with chronic medical conditions because the studies were too divergent from each other and biased from study design limitations. Future empirical studies should learn from the strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature on character development among youth with chronic medical conditions.

Systematic review of character development and childhood chronic illness

PubMed Central

Maslow, Gary R; Hill, Sherika N

2016-01-01

AIM: To review empirical evidence on character development among youth with chronic illnesses. METHODS: A systematic literature review was conducted using PubMed and PSYCHINFO from inception until November 2013 to find quantitative studies that measured character strengths among youth with chronic illnesses. Inclusion criteria were limited to English language studies examining constructs of character development among adolescents or young adults aged 13-24 years with a childhood-onset chronic medical condition. A librarian at Duke University Medical Center Library assisted with the development of the mesh search term. Two researchers independently reviewed relevant titles (n = 549), then abstracts (n = 45), and finally manuscripts (n = 3). RESULTS: There is a lack of empirical research on character development and childhood-onset chronic medical conditions. Three studies were identified that used different measures of character based on moral themes. One study examined moral reasoning among deaf adolescents using Kohlberg’s Moral Judgement Instrument; another, investigated moral values of adolescent cancer survivors with the Values In Action Classification of Strengths. A third study evaluated moral behavior among young adult survivors of burn injury utilizing the Tennessee Self-Concept, 2nd edition. The studies observed that youth with chronic conditions reasoned at less advanced stages and had a lower moral self-concept compared to referent populations, but that they did differ on character virtues and strengths when matched with healthy peers for age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Yet, generalizations could not be drawn regarding character development of youth with chronic medical conditions because the studies were too divergent from each other and biased from study design limitations. CONCLUSION: Future empirical studies should learn from the strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature on character development among youth with chronic medical conditions

The Importance of Character Development: An Interview with Ron Kinnamon.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kinnamon, Ron

2003-01-01

Building good character in today's youth is an adult issue because children learn values from adults. Adults must demonstrate the core values: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. Camps have developed expertise in character development and can provide leadership in the community in character education.…

Brain Activity while Reading Sentences with Kanji Characters Expressing Emotions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuasa, Masahide; Saito, Keiichi; Mukawa, Naoki

In this paper, we describe the brain activity associated with kanji characters expressing emotion, which are places at the end of a sentence. Japanese people use a special kanji character in brackets at the end of sentences in text messages such as those sent through e-mail and messenger tools. Such kanji characters plays a role to expresses the sender's emotion (such as fun, laughter, sadness, tears), like emoticons. It is a very simple and effective way to convey the senders' emotions and his/her thoughts to the receiver. In this research, we investigate the effects of emotional kanji characters by using an fMRI study. The experimental results show that both the right and left inferior frontal gyrus, which have been implicated on verbal and nonverbal information, were activated. We found that we detect a sentence with an emotional kanji character as the verbal and nonverval information, and a sentence with emotional kanji characters enrich communication between the sender and the reciever.

Stroop phenomena in the Japanese language: the case of ideographic characters (kanji) and syllabic characters (kana).

PubMed

Morikawa, Y

1981-08-01

Utilizing a unique feature of the Japanese languages--that besides two syllabic orthographies, which have identical pronunciations, words with the same pronunciation may also be written in an orthography composed of ideographic characters--we have conducted an investigation of Stroop phenomena. The fact that pronunciations of the three Japanese orthographies are identical means that, if there are any differences between them in the Stroop phenomena observed, we can place the locus of this interference effect in the perceptual process. Five color names were written in the ideographic characters (kanji) and the two syllabic orthographies (hiragana and katakana). Color-congruent cards and incongruent cards were utilized in a color-naming task and a word-reading task. Mean required times for the color-naming condition and the word-reading conditions were compared with those for control conditions. Stroop phenomena were observed in both ideographic and syllabic orthographies. Significant differences in mean required times were observed between the ideographic and syllabic orthographies but not between the two syllabic orthographies. Interferences in comparisons of Japanese orthographies and color patch control conditions were much smaller than in the case of Stroop's (1935) experiment. A "Reverse Stroop Phenomenon" was observed only in the case of kanji on incongruent cards in the word-reading condition. The results support the hypothesis that both ideographic characters (in this case, kanji) and colors are processed in a parallel fashion in the non-dominant right cerebral hemisphere, while syllabic or phonetic characters are processed in the dominant left cerebral hemisphere.

A New Experiment on Bengali Character Recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barman, Sumana; Bhattacharyya, Debnath; Jeon, Seung-Whan; Kim, Tai-Hoon; Kim, Haeng-Kon

This paper presents a method to use View based approach in Bangla Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system providing reduced data set to the ANN classification engine rather than the traditional OCR methods. It describes how Bangla characters are processed, trained and then recognized with the use of a Backpropagation Artificial neural network. This is the first published account of using a segmentation-free optical character recognition system for Bangla using a view based approach. The methodology presented here assumes that the OCR pre-processor has presented the input images to the classification engine described here. The size and the font face used to render the characters are also significant in both training and classification. The images are first converted into greyscale and then to binary images; these images are then scaled to a fit a pre-determined area with a fixed but significant number of pixels. The feature vectors are then formed extracting the characteristics points, which in this case is simply a series of 0s and 1s of fixed length. Finally, an artificial neural network is chosen for the training and classification process.

Animal regeneration: ancestral character or evolutionary novelty?

PubMed

Slack, Jonathan Mw

2017-09-01

An old question about regeneration is whether it is an ancestral character which is a general property of living matter, or whether it represents a set of specific adaptations to the different circumstances faced by different types of animal. In this review, some recent results on regeneration are assessed to see if they can throw any new light on this question. Evidence in favour of an ancestral character comes from the role of Wnt and bone morphogenetic protein signalling in controlling the pattern of whole-body regeneration in acoels, which are a basal group of bilaterian animals. On the other hand, there is some evidence for adaptive acquisition or maintenance of the regeneration of appendages based on the occurrence of severe non-lethal predation, the existence of some novel genes in regenerating organisms, and differences at the molecular level between apparently similar forms of regeneration. It is tentatively concluded that whole-body regeneration is an ancestral character although has been lost from most animal lineages. Appendage regeneration is more likely to represent a derived character resulting from many specific adaptations. © 2017 The Author.

Spatial Metaphor in Language Can Promote the Development of Cross-Modal Mappings in Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shayan, Shakila; Ozturk, Ozge; Bowerman, Melissa; Majid, Asifa

2014-01-01

Pitch is often described metaphorically: for example, Farsi and Turkish speakers use a "thickness" metaphor (low sounds are "thick" and high sounds are "thin"), while German and English speakers use a height metaphor ("low", "high"). This study examines how child and adult speakers of Farsi,…

The Influence of Brand Equity Characters on Children's Food Preferences and Choices.

PubMed

McGale, Lauren Sophie; Halford, Jason Christian Grovenor; Harrold, Joanne Alison; Boyland, Emma Jane

2016-10-01

To assess the influence of brand equity characters displayed on food packaging on children's food preferences and choices, 2 studies were conducted. Brand equity characters are developed specifically to represent a particular brand or product. Despite existing literature suggesting that promotional characters influence children's food choices, to date, no research has assessed the influence of brand equity characters specifically. We recruited 209 children 4-8 years of age from schools and childcare centers in the UK. In a mixed-measures design, the children were asked to rate their taste preferences and preferred snack choice for 3 matched food pairs, presented either with or without a brand equity character displayed on packaging. Study 1 addressed congruent food-character associations and study 2 addressed incongruent associations. Participants were also asked to rate their recognition and liking of characters used. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and χ(2) analyses were used where appropriate. Children were significantly more likely to show a preference for foods with a brand equity character displayed on the packaging compared with a matched food without a brand equity character, for both congruent and incongruent food-character associations. The presence of a brand equity character also significantly influenced the children's within-pair preferences, within-pair choices, and overall snack choice (congruent associations only). Displaying brand equity characters promotes unhealthy food choices in children. The findings are consistent with those of studies exploring other types of promotional characters. In the context of a childhood obesity epidemic, the use of brand equity characters in the promotion of foods high in fat, salt, and sugar to children should be restricted. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Body-conscious Shakespeare: sensory disturbances in troubled characters.

PubMed

Heaton, Kenneth W

2011-12-01

It is widely accepted that Shakespeare was unique in the range of his insights into the human mind, but the way his characters reveal their mental states through bodily sensations has not been systematically explored. The author has searched for these phenomena in the 42 major works of Shakespeare and in 46 genre-matched works by his contemporaries, and in this paper the author focuses on sensory changes other than those involving vision, taste, the heart and the alimentary tract (all considered in other papers). Vertigo is experienced by five distressed Shakespearean characters, all men, but not at all by the other writers' characters. Breathlessness, probably representing hyperventilation, occurs eleven times in Shakespeare's works but only twice in the other writers' works. Fatigue, expressing grief, is articulated by several Shakespearean characters including Hamlet. It features less often in the others' works. Deafness at a time of high emotion is mentioned by Shakespeare several times but usually by a character 'turning a deaf ear', consciously or unconsciously. To the other writers, ears show emotion only by burning or itching. Blunting of touch and pain and their opposites of hypersensitivity to touch and pain are all to be found in Shakespeare's works when a character is distressed or excited, but not so with his contemporaries' works. Faint feelings and cold feelings are also more common in the works of Shakespeare. Overall, therefore, Shakespeare was exceptional in his use of sensory disturbances to express emotional upset. This may be a conscious literary device or a sign of exceptional awareness of bodily sensations.

Mathematical morphology-based shape feature analysis for Chinese character recognition systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pai, Tun-Wen; Shyu, Keh-Hwa; Chen, Ling-Fan; Tai, Gwo-Chin

1995-04-01

This paper proposes an efficient technique of shape feature extraction based on the application of mathematical morphology theory. A new shape complexity index for preclassification of machine printed Chinese Character Recognition (CCR) is also proposed. For characters represented in different fonts/sizes or in a low resolution environment, a more stable local feature such as shape structure is preferred for character recognition. Morphological valley extraction filters are applied to extract the protrusive strokes from four sides of an input Chinese character. The number of extracted local strokes reflects the shape complexity of each side. These shape features of characters are encoded as corresponding shape complexity indices. Based on the shape complexity index, data base is able to be classified into 16 groups prior to recognition procedures. The performance of associating with shape feature analysis reclaims several characters from misrecognized character sets and results in an average of 3.3% improvement of recognition rate from an existing recognition system. In addition to enhance the recognition performance, the extracted stroke information can be further analyzed and classified its own stroke type. Therefore, the combination of extracted strokes from each side provides a means for data base clustering based on radical or subword components. It is one of the best solutions for recognizing high complexity characters such as Chinese characters which are divided into more than 200 different categories and consist more than 13,000 characters.

Character virtues in psychiatric practice.

PubMed

Radden, Jennifer; Sadler, John Z

2008-01-01

The character-focused approach known as virtue ethics is especially well suited to understanding and promoting ethical psychiatric practice. Virtues are stable dispositions and responses attributed to character, and a virtue-based ethics is one in which people's selves or characters are at the center of moral assessment. In this discussion by a clinician and a philosopher, clinical scenarios using exchanges and inner monologue illustrate key aspects of virtues. Virtues are acquired through habituation; they are habits of mind as much as behavior; they are as a group heterogeneous, and individually composite; they involve affective responses; they are not impartial; they are compatible with the "role morality" required of professionals; they are responses to particular temptations and weaknesses; and they include, in the capacity for practical judgment known as phronesis, a way of resolving many of the conflicts and dilemmas that arise in practice. The virtue approach to ethics will likely be most useful in the educational setting where practitioners are learning clinical skills and socialized into the broad ethos of professional practice. Aspects of this educational effort are briefly reviewed, including whether it ought to be undertaken at all, whether the effort to teach virtues is possible, and, if so, how it can be achieved.

Character convergence under competition for nutritionally essential resources.

PubMed

Fox, Jeremy W; Vasseur, David A

2008-11-01

Resource competition is thought to drive divergence in resource use traits (character displacement) by generating selection favoring individuals able to use resources unavailable to others. However, this picture assumes nutritionally substitutable resources (e.g., different prey species). When species compete for nutritionally essential resources (e.g., different nutrients), theory predicts that selection drives character convergence. We used models of two species competing for two essential resources to address several issues not considered by existing theory. The models incorporated either slow evolutionary change in resource use traits or fast physiological or behavioral change. We report four major results. First, competition always generates character convergence, but differences in resource requirements prevent competitors from evolving identical resource use traits. Second, character convergence promotes coexistence. Competing species always attain resource use traits that allow coexistence, and adaptive trait change stabilizes the ecological equilibrium. In contrast, adaptation in allopatry never preadapts species to coexist in sympatry. Third, feedbacks between ecological dynamics and trait dynamics lead to surprising dynamical trajectories such as transient divergence in resource use traits followed by subsequent convergence. Fourth, under sufficiently slow trait change, ecological dynamics often drive one of the competitors to near extinction, which would prevent realization of long-term character convergence in practice.

Experimental Realization of a Quantum Support Vector Machine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Zhaokai; Liu, Xiaomei; Xu, Nanyang; Du, Jiangfeng

2015-04-01

The fundamental principle of artificial intelligence is the ability of machines to learn from previous experience and do future work accordingly. In the age of big data, classical learning machines often require huge computational resources in many practical cases. Quantum machine learning algorithms, on the other hand, could be exponentially faster than their classical counterparts by utilizing quantum parallelism. Here, we demonstrate a quantum machine learning algorithm to implement handwriting recognition on a four-qubit NMR test bench. The quantum machine learns standard character fonts and then recognizes handwritten characters from a set with two candidates. Because of the wide spread importance of artificial intelligence and its tremendous consumption of computational resources, quantum speedup would be extremely attractive against the challenges of big data.

"I Had to Live, Breathe, and Write My Character": Character Selection and Student Engagement in an Online Role-Play Simulation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rector-Aranda, Amy; Raider-Roth, Miriam; Glaser, Noah; Behrman, Matthew

2017-01-01

This study explores the relationship between character selection and student engagement in the Jewish Court of All Time (JCAT), an online and classroom-based role-playing simulation of a current events court case with Jewish historical roots. Analyzing students' responses to three questions posed in an out-of-character JCAT discussion forum, we…

Prevalence of smoking among major movie characters: 1996–2004

PubMed Central

Worth, Keilah A; Cin, Sonya Dal; Sargent, James D

2006-01-01

Background Reports of a relationship between watching smoking in movies and smoking among adolescents have prompted greater scrutiny of smoking in movies by the public health community. Objective To assess the smoking prevalence among adult and adolescent movie characters, examine trends in smoking in movies over time, and compare the data with actual smoking prevalence among US adults and adolescents. Design and methods Smoking status of all major human adolescent and adult movie characters in the top 100 box office hits from 1996 to 2004 (900 movies) was assessed, and smoking prevalence was examined by Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating and year of release. Results The movies contained 5944 major characters, of whom 4911 were adults and 466 were adolescents. Among adult movie characters, the overall smoking prevalence was 20.6%; smoking was more common in men than in women (22.6% v 16.1%, respectively, p<0.001), and was related to MPAA rating category (26.9% for movies rated R (restricted, people aged <17 years require accompanying adult), 17.9% for PG‐13 (parents strongly cautioned that some material might be inappropriate for children) and 10.4% for G/PG (general audiences, all ages; parental guidance suggested for children), p<0.001). In 1996, the smoking prevalence for major adult movie characters (25.7%) was similar to that in the actual US population (24.7%). Smoking prevalence among adult movie characters declined to 18.4% in 2004 (p for trend <0.001), slightly below that for the US population for that year (20.9%). Examination of trends by MPAA rating showed that the downward trend in smoking among adult movie characters was statistically significant in movies rated G/PG and R, but not in those rated PG‐13. A downward trend over time was also found for smoking among adolescent movie characters. There was no smoking among adult characters in 43.3% of the movies; however, in 39% of the movies, smoking prevalence among adult characters

A cognitive network for oracle bone characters related to animals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dress, Andreas; Grünewald, Stefan; Zeng, Zhenbing

2016-01-01

In this paper, we present an analysis of oracle bone characters for animals from a “cognitive” point of view. After some general remarks on oracle-bone characters presented in Sec. 1 and a short outline of the paper in Sec. 2, we collect various oracle-bone characters for animals from published resources in Sec. 3. In the next section, we begin analyzing a group of 60 ancient animal characters from www.zdic.net, a highly acclaimed internet dictionary of Chinese characters that is strictly based on historical sources, and introduce five categories of specific features regarding their (graphical) structure that will be used in Sec. 5 to associate corresponding feature vectors to these characters. In Sec. 6, these feature vectors will be used to investigate their dissimilarity in terms of a family of parameterized distance measures. And in the last section, we apply the SplitsTree method as encoded in the NeighborNet algorithms to construct a corresponding family of dissimilarity-based networks with the intention of elucidating how the ancient Chinese might have perceived the “animal world” in the late bronze age and to demonstrate that these pictographs reflect an intuitive understanding of this world and its inherent structure that predates its classification in the oldest surviving Chinese encyclopedia from approximately the third century BC, the Er Ya, as well as similar classification systems in the West by one to two millennia. We also present an English dictionary of 70 oracle bone characters for animals in Appendix A. In Appendix B, we list various variants of animal characters that were published in the Jia Gu Wen Bian (cf. 甲骨文编, A Complete Collection of Oracle Bone Characters, edited by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, published by the Zhonghua Book Company in 1965). We recall the frequencies of the 521 most frequent oracle bone characters in Appendix C as reported in [T. Chen, Yin-Shang Jiaguwen Zixing

Lessons in Character Impact Evaluation. Final Report. NCEE 2012-4004

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hanson, Thomas; Dietsch, Barbara; Zheng, Hong

2012-01-01

Character education has become one of the fastest growing reform movements in K-12 education today, partially in response to unacceptable levels of student misbehavior and inadequate endorsement of good character values (Williams 2000). Between 1993 and 2009, 36 states passed laws mandating or recommending some aspect of character education in…

The Re-Emergence of Character Education in British Education Policy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arthur, James

2005-01-01

Character education is a specific approach to morals or values education, which is consistently linked with citizenship education. But how is it possible for a heterogeneous society that disagrees about basic values to reach a consensus on what constitutes character education? This article explores how character education has returned to the…

Once Upon a Time: A Grimm Approach to Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bryan, Laura

2005-01-01

Many school districts have implemented "packaged" programs designed to teach character education. Millions of dollars have been spent on these programs, yet society continues to produce more "characters" than students "with character." This article describes a shift from the "programmatic" mindset to a solution that is not packaged or purchased.…

Toda Systems, Cluster Characters, and Spectral Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Williams, Harold

2016-11-01

We show that the Hamiltonians of the open relativistic Toda system are elements of the generic basis of a cluster algebra, and in particular are cluster characters of nonrigid representations of a quiver with potential. Using cluster coordinates defined via spectral networks, we identify the phase space of this system with the wild character variety related to the periodic nonrelativistic Toda system by the wild nonabelian Hodge correspondence. We show that this identification takes the relativistic Toda Hamiltonians to traces of holonomies around a simple closed curve. In particular, this provides nontrivial examples of cluster coordinates on SL n -character varieties for n > 2 where canonical functions associated to simple closed curves can be computed in terms of quivers with potential, extending known results in the SL 2 case.

Assessing Multi-cultural Television Characters for Children. Revised.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

LaRose, Robert; Eisenstock, Barbara

Two studies were undertaken to investigate the effectiveness of portrayals of minority group characters in television productions. One study evaluated minority children's identification with minority characters in the "Superfriends" series. The second study focused on interracial attitude changes associated with exposure to a pilot for "The New…

Character Decomposition and Transposition Processes in Chinese Compound Words Modulates Attentional Blink.

PubMed

Cao, Hongwen; Gao, Min; Yan, Hongmei

2016-01-01

The attentional blink (AB) is the phenomenon in which the identification of the second of two targets (T2) is attenuated if it is presented less than 500 ms after the first target (T1). Although the AB is eliminated in canonical word conditions, it remains unclear whether the character order in compound words affects the magnitude of the AB. Morpheme decomposition and transposition of Chinese two-character compound words can provide an effective means to examine AB priming and to assess combinations of the component representations inherent to visual word identification. In the present study, we examined the processing of consecutive targets in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm using Chinese two-character compound words in which the two characters were transposed to form meaningful words or meaningless combinations (reversible, transposed, or canonical words). We found that when two Chinese characters that form a compound word, regardless of their order, are presented in an RSVP sequence, the likelihood of an AB for the second character is greatly reduced or eliminated compared to when the two characters constitute separate words rather than a compound word. Moreover, the order of the report for the two characters is more likely to be reversed when the normal order of the two characters in a compound word is reversed, especially when the interval between the presentation of the two characters is extremely short. These findings are more consistent with the cognitive strategy hypothesis than the resource-limited hypothesis during character decomposition and transposition of Chinese two-character compound words. These results suggest that compound characters are perceived as a unit, rather than two separate words. The data further suggest that readers could easily understand the text with character transpositions in compound words during Chinese reading.

Character Education: Controversy and Consensus. Controversial Issues in Education Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lockwood, Anne Turnbaugh

This book draws on conversations with six individuals, each of whom offers a distinct approach to character education and speaks to the problems and the practical side of designing, implementing, and evaluating character education. The text opens with an overview of character education, exploring what it is, moral dilemmas, goals, and criticisms.…

The Inversion Effect for Chinese Characters is Modulated by Radical Organization.

PubMed

Luo, Canhuang; Chen, Wei; Zhang, Ye

2017-06-01

In studies of visual object recognition, strong inversion effects accompany the acquisition of expertise and imply the involvement of configural processing. Chinese literacy results in sensitivity to the orthography of Chinese characters. While there is some evidence that this orthographic sensitivity results in an inversion effect, and thus involves configural processing, that processing might depend on exact orthographic properties. Chinese character recognition is believed to involve a hierarchical process, involving at least two lower levels of representation: strokes and radicals. Radicals are grouped into characters according to certain types of structure, i.e. left-right structure, top-bottom structure, or simple characters with only one radical by itself. These types of radical structures vary in both familiarity, and in hierarchical level (compound versus simple characters). In this study, we investigate whether the hierarchical-level or familiarity of radical-structure has an impact on the magnitude of the inversion effect. Participants were asked to do a matching task on pairs of either upright or inverted characters with all the types of structure. Inversion effects were measured based on both reaction time and response sensitivity. While an inversion effect was observed in all 3 conditions, the magnitude of the inversion effect varied with radical structure, being significantly larger for the most familiar type of structure: characters consisting of 2 radicals organized from left to right. These findings indicate that character recognition involves extraction of configural structure as well as radical processing which play different roles in the processing of compound characters and simple characters.

Virtual muscularity: a content analysis of male video game characters.

PubMed

Martins, Nicole; Williams, Dmitri C; Ratan, Rabindra A; Harrison, Kristen

2011-01-01

The 150 top-selling video games were content analyzed to study representations of male bodies. Human males in the games were captured via screenshot and body parts measured. These measurements were then compared to anthropometric data drawn from a representative sample of 1120 North American men. Characters at high levels of photorealism were larger than the average American male, but these characters did not mirror the V-shaped ideal found in mainstream media. Characters at low levels of photorealism were also larger than the average American male, but these characters were so much larger that they appeared cartoonish. Idealized male characters were more likely to be found in games for children than in games for adults. Implications for cultivation theory are discussed. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Teaching Character Education to College Students Using Bildungsromans

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Novianti, Nita

2017-01-01

The paper reports a study on the teaching of character education in higher education using English Bildungsroman, "Jane Eyre." The participants were 35 sixth-semester students of English Literature program in an Indonesian state university. Guided by the approach to teaching character education exemplified by Ryan & Bohlin (1999),…

The Development of Leader Character through Crucible Moments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Byrne, Alyson; Crossan, Mary; Seijts, Gerard

2018-01-01

Business schools strive to develop leadership excellence in their students. In this essay, we suggest that educators should find ways to help students develop and deepen leader character, a fundamental component of exemplary leadership. Frequently, business school students have preconceived ideas of leadership, often neglecting leader character.…

The Content of America's Character: Recovering Civic Virtue.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eberly, Don E., Ed.

Addressing the problems of increasing antisocial behavior, declining civility, and decaying morals, this book contains a collection of essays that consider the origins and the development of America's character, the factors that influence it, and the consequences for society of inadequate character development. Essays include the following: "The…

Chinese-Cantonese Dictionary of Common Chinese-Cantonese Characters.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Defense Language Inst., Washington, DC.

This dictionary contains 1,500 Chinese-Cantonese characters (selected from three frequency lists), and more than 6,000 Chinese-Cantonese terms (selected from three Cantonese-English dictionaries). The characters are arranged alphabetically according to the U.S. Army Language School System of Romanization, which is described in the…

Another Look at Character Education in Christian Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Algera, Henry F.; Sink, Christopher A.

2002-01-01

A review of the literature and meta-analytic research into the effectiveness of character/moral education programs reveals that Christian educators should be wary of implementing such curricula. A history of character education demonstrates how the field has evolved. Problems associated with programming rationale, faulty methodology, and lack of…

12 CFR 333.2 - Change in general character of business.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 12 Banks and Banking 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Change in general character of business. 333.2... GENERAL POLICY EXTENSION OF CORPORATE POWERS Regulations § 333.2 Change in general character of business... permit any change to be made in the general character or type of business exercised by it after the...

Mapping wilderness character in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

Treesearch

James Tricker; Ann Schwaller; Teresa Hanson; Elizabeth Mejicano; Peter Landres

2017-01-01

A GIS-based approach was used to depict how threats to wilderness character vary in extent and magnitude across the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Based on the interagency strategy to monitor wilderness character, Keeping It Wild: An Interagency Strategy for Monitoring Wilderness Character Across the National Wilderness Preservation System (Landres et al. 2008a...

Picture This Character: Using Imagery To Teach a Japanese Syllabary.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Joyce D.; Wakefield, John F.

This study examined the effectiveness of imagery to teach native English speakers to associate hiragana characters (a Japanese script) with the spoken Japanese syllables that the characters represent. Twenty-one adults in a psychology of learning class for teachers were taught to picture a hiragana character in such a way as to establish an…

[The representation of madness in William Shakespeare's characters].

PubMed

Stompe, Thomas; Ritter, Kristina; Friedmann, Alexander

2006-08-01

Shakespeare is one of the great creators of human characters of the 16(th) century. Like for many of his contemporaries madness was a central topic of his work. The first part of this paper discusses the sociocultural environment and the semantic field of madness in the Elizabethan age, which forms the background for Shakespeare's characters. In the second part we try to analyze the clinical pictures of the fictive characters of Othello, Hamlet, Lear and Macbeth. While we find melancholy, delusions and hallucinations, other diseases such as schizophrenia are missing entirely. Schizophrenia only appears in the literature more than two hundred years later, in the beginning of modern age.

Developing Character through Literature: A Teacher's Resource Book.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication, Bloomington, IN.

Based on the idea that the most important foundation of education is character development, this book guides teachers and parents in building strong character traits while reading and discussing popular books. Children's books and young adult books draw students into discussions that can lead to action and to personal development. Thoughtful…

42 CFR 54.5 - Religious character and independence.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... definition, practice and expression of its religious beliefs. The organization may not expend funds that it... 42 Public Health 1 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Religious character and independence. 54.5 Section... AND/OR PROJECTS FOR ASSISTANCE IN TRANSITION FROM HOMELESSNESS GRANTS § 54.5 Religious character and...

42 CFR 54.5 - Religious character and independence.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... definition, practice and expression of its religious beliefs. The organization may not expend funds that it... 42 Public Health 1 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Religious character and independence. 54.5 Section... AND/OR PROJECTS FOR ASSISTANCE IN TRANSITION FROM HOMELESSNESS GRANTS § 54.5 Religious character and...

42 CFR 54.5 - Religious character and independence.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... definition, practice and expression of its religious beliefs. The organization may not expend funds that it... 42 Public Health 1 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Religious character and independence. 54.5 Section... AND/OR PROJECTS FOR ASSISTANCE IN TRANSITION FROM HOMELESSNESS GRANTS § 54.5 Religious character and...

42 CFR 54.5 - Religious character and independence.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... definition, practice and expression of its religious beliefs. The organization may not expend funds that it... 42 Public Health 1 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Religious character and independence. 54.5 Section... AND/OR PROJECTS FOR ASSISTANCE IN TRANSITION FROM HOMELESSNESS GRANTS § 54.5 Religious character and...

42 CFR 54.5 - Religious character and independence.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... definition, practice and expression of its religious beliefs. The organization may not expend funds that it... 42 Public Health 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Religious character and independence. 54.5 Section... AND/OR PROJECTS FOR ASSISTANCE IN TRANSITION FROM HOMELESSNESS GRANTS § 54.5 Religious character and...

12 CFR 925.12 - Character of management requirement.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 12 Banks and Banking 7 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Character of management requirement. 925.12 Section 925.12 Banks and Banking FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE BOARD FEDERAL HOME LOAN BANK MEMBERS AND HOUSING ASSOCIATES MEMBERS OF THE BANKS Eligibility Requirements § 925.12 Character of management requirement. An...

Character Education and Media Literacy--Finding Common Ground.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herrington, Scott D.; Emmans, Cindy C.

2002-01-01

Discusses curriculum development in the areas of character education and media literacy. Topics include what character education is and what it attempts to promote within a school setting; moral judgments; moral and ethical values; behavior; decision making; the role of mass media, including media violence; and adding media education to the…

Mapping wilderness character: New tools for new concepts

Treesearch

James Tricker

2012-01-01

The recent development of an interagency strategy to monitor wilderness character (Landres et al. 2008) allows on-the-ground managers and decision makers to assess whether stewardship actions for an individual wilderness are fulfilling the mandate to "preserve wilderness character." Since nearly all wilderness monitoring data depict spatial features, a recent...

The Implementation of Character Education through Scout Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mislia; Mahmud, Alimuddin; Manda, Darman

2016-01-01

This research aims at describing the factors influencing the extracurricular activities especially scouting. This research also aims at describing the Scouts skills that can form the students' character. This research is also to describe the strategies for the formation of the students' character through scout activities. This research was a…

Cytochrome P450 2D6 polymorphism and character traits.

PubMed

Suzuki, Eiji; Kitao, Yoshie; Ono, Yutaka; Iijima, Yoshimi; Inada, Toshiya

2003-06-01

It has been suggested that cytochrome P450 2D6 (CYP2D6) is involved in dopamine metabolism within the brain. The dopamine system is suggested to play a role in determining normal character. The purpose of this study was to examine whether character traits are dependent on cytochrome P450 2D6 activity. We investigated the association between temperament and CYP2D6 gene polymorphism. The subjects were all Japanese and the polymorphism genotyped in the present study was CYP2D6*10. Character traits were assessed using the Temperament and Character Inventory. There was no overall or specific association between personality traits and the CYP2D6*10 allele and genotype frequencies. The present results do not support the hypothesis that CYP2D6 activity affects temperament and character.

EEG character identification using stimulus sequences designed to maximize mimimal hamming distance.

PubMed

Fukami, Tadanori; Shimada, Takamasa; Forney, Elliott; Anderson, Charles W

2012-01-01

In this study, we have improved upon the P300 speller Brain-Computer Interface paradigm by introducing a new character encoding method. Our concept in detection of the intended character is not based on a classification of target and nontarget responses, but based on an identifaction of the character which maximize the difference between P300 amplitudes in target and nontarget stimuli. Each bit included in the code corresponds to flashing character, '1', and non-flashing, '0'. Here, the codes were constructed in order to maximize the minimum hamming distance between the characters. Electroencephalography was used to identify the characters using a waveform calculated by adding and subtracting the response of the target and non-target stimulus according the codes respectively. This stimulus presentation method was applied to a 3×3 character matrix, and the results were compared with that of a conventional P300 speller of the same size. Our method reduced the time until the correct character was obtained by 24%.

Digital access and national character.

PubMed

Yang, Bijou; Lester, David

2006-04-01

A digital access index was associated with measures of national character (such as extraversion and individualism) for 18 industrialized nations, but statistical controls for gross domestic product per capita eliminated these associations.

Common constraints limit Korean and English character recognition in peripheral vision.

PubMed

He, Yingchen; Kwon, MiYoung; Legge, Gordon E

2018-01-01

The visual span refers to the number of adjacent characters that can be recognized in a single glance. It is viewed as a sensory bottleneck in reading for both normal and clinical populations. In peripheral vision, the visual span for English characters can be enlarged after training with a letter-recognition task. Here, we examined the transfer of training from Korean to English characters for a group of bilingual Korean native speakers. In the pre- and posttests, we measured visual spans for Korean characters and English letters. Training (1.5 hours × 4 days) consisted of repetitive visual-span measurements for Korean trigrams (strings of three characters). Our training enlarged the visual spans for Korean single characters and trigrams, and the benefit transferred to untrained English symbols. The improvement was largely due to a reduction of within-character and between-character crowding in Korean recognition, as well as between-letter crowding in English recognition. We also found a negative correlation between the size of the visual span and the average pattern complexity of the symbol set. Together, our results showed that the visual span is limited by common sensory (crowding) and physical (pattern complexity) factors regardless of the language script, providing evidence that the visual span reflects a universal bottleneck for text recognition.

Common constraints limit Korean and English character recognition in peripheral vision

PubMed Central

He, Yingchen; Kwon, MiYoung; Legge, Gordon E.

2018-01-01

The visual span refers to the number of adjacent characters that can be recognized in a single glance. It is viewed as a sensory bottleneck in reading for both normal and clinical populations. In peripheral vision, the visual span for English characters can be enlarged after training with a letter-recognition task. Here, we examined the transfer of training from Korean to English characters for a group of bilingual Korean native speakers. In the pre- and posttests, we measured visual spans for Korean characters and English letters. Training (1.5 hours × 4 days) consisted of repetitive visual-span measurements for Korean trigrams (strings of three characters). Our training enlarged the visual spans for Korean single characters and trigrams, and the benefit transferred to untrained English symbols. The improvement was largely due to a reduction of within-character and between-character crowding in Korean recognition, as well as between-letter crowding in English recognition. We also found a negative correlation between the size of the visual span and the average pattern complexity of the symbol set. Together, our results showed that the visual span is limited by common sensory (crowding) and physical (pattern complexity) factors regardless of the language script, providing evidence that the visual span reflects a universal bottleneck for text recognition. PMID:29327041

Refined geometric transition and qq-characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kimura, Taro; Mori, Hironori; Sugimoto, Yuji

2018-01-01

We show the refinement of the prescription for the geometric transition in the refined topological string theory and, as its application, discuss a possibility to describe qq-characters from the string theory point of view. Though the suggested way to operate the refined geometric transition has passed through several checks, it is additionally found in this paper that the presence of the preferred direction brings a nontrivial effect. We provide the modified formula involving this point. We then apply our prescription of the refined geometric transition to proposing the stringy description of doubly quantized Seiberg-Witten curves called qq-characters in certain cases.

VARIABILITY AND CHARACTER ASSOCIATION IN ROSE COLOURED LEADWORT (PLUMBAGO ROSEA Linn.)

PubMed Central

Kurian, Alice; Anitha, C.A.; Nybe, E.V.

2001-01-01

Forty five plumbago rosea accessions collected from different parts of Kerala state were evaluated for variability in morphological and yield related characters and plumbagin content. Highly significant variation was evident for all the characters studied except leaf size indicating wide variability in the accessions. Accessions PR 25 and PR 31 appear to be promising with respect to root yield and high plumbagin content. Character association revelated significant and positive correlation of all the characters except leaf size with yield. Hence, selection of high yielding types could easily be done based on visual characters expressing more vegetative growth but with reduced leaf size. PMID:22557037

Most Likely to Succeed: Seeking Self-Knowledge in the Company of Characters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gardoqui, Kate Ehrenfeld

2012-01-01

In this article, the author describes several innovative activities for engaging students in studies of literary characters: voting on superlatives for characters, creating characters' Facebook profiles, and composing creative dialogs in which characters from different works meet each other. The author points out that it is this self-knowledge…

Coaching for Civic Character

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shields, David Light; Bredemeier, Brenda Light

2011-01-01

The purpose of this article is to examine why and how sport coaches can play an important role in promoting citizenship and democratic character. As microcommunities, sport teams may provide potent venues for learning about the rights and responsibilities of belonging to social organizations; within teams, participants can practice the democratic…

The Forgotten American: A Story for Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sanchez, Tony

2007-01-01

As character education continues to be an objective of the social studies, the more effective educators have taken up the challenge by first understanding the principles of their discipline and the opportunities for examining the values of character to be encountered. Social studies is rediscovering the focus on the actual men and women of history…

Rachel's Challenge: A Moral Compass for Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hollingshead, Barbara; Crump, Christi; Eddy, Rochelle; Rowe, Dina

2009-01-01

Though American life in 1923 was significantly different than the present day, authors John Dewey and Diana Brannon share similar concerns about character. Historically, educators as far back as the 1800s have felt an obligation to the community to transcend the primary purpose for schooling by including character education in their curricula.…

A psycholinguistic database for traditional Chinese character naming.

PubMed

Chang, Ya-Ning; Hsu, Chun-Hsien; Tsai, Jie-Li; Chen, Chien-Liang; Lee, Chia-Ying

2016-03-01

In this study, we aimed to provide a large-scale set of psycholinguistic norms for 3,314 traditional Chinese characters, along with their naming reaction times (RTs), collected from 140 Chinese speakers. The lexical and semantic variables in the database include frequency, regularity, familiarity, consistency, number of strokes, homophone density, semantic ambiguity rating, phonetic combinability, semantic combinability, and the number of disyllabic compound words formed by a character. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the predictive powers of these variables for the naming RTs. The results demonstrated that these variables could account for a significant portion of variance (55.8%) in the naming RTs. An additional multiple regression analysis was conducted to demonstrate the effects of consistency and character frequency. Overall, the regression results were consistent with the findings of previous studies on Chinese character naming. This database should be useful for research into Chinese language processing, Chinese education, or cross-linguistic comparisons. The database can be accessed via an online inquiry system (http://ball.ling.sinica.edu.tw/namingdatabase/index.html).

A menagerie of promotional characters: promoting food to children through food packaging.

PubMed

Hebden, Lana; King, Lesley; Kelly, Bridget; Chapman, Kathy; Innes-Hughes, Christine

2011-01-01

To determine the extent to which (1) promotional characters are used on food packaging for healthful and less-healthful food and (2) different companies use this persuasive marketing strategy. Cross-sectional supermarket audit of all food and beverages featuring promotional characters on the packaging. Three Australian supermarket chains. Frequency of observed products, package size, nutritional composition. Frequencies and bivariate analyses was conducted. Nutritional composition (healthful vs less healthful) was analyzed by character type and company type, that is, whether the company was signed to the Australian Food and Grocery Council Responsible Marketing to Children Initiative (RMCI) signatory. Products featuring promotional characters on packaging (n = 352) were predominantly less-healthful food and beverages (70%). [corrected]. Nutritional composition varied significantly by character type, with 69% of products with sportspersons, celebrities, or movie tie-ins being healthful, compared with 38% of licensed and 16% [corrected] of company-owned characters. Only 13 of the 75 companies using characters on packaging were RMCI signatory. Promotional characters are largely used on food packaging to promote less-healthful food to children. Most of these characters are company-owned characters that are not subject to any form of regulation in Australia. Further efforts to limit this form of marketing to children are required. Copyright © 2011 Society for Nutrition Education. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Contribution of finger tracing to the recognition of Chinese characters.

PubMed

Yim-Ng, Y Y; Varley, R; Andrade, J

2000-01-01

Finger tracing is a simulation of the act of writing without the use of pen and paper. It is claimed to help in the processing of Chinese characters, possibly by providing additional motor coding. In this study, blindfolded subjects were equally good at identifying Chinese characters and novel visual stimuli through passive movements made with the index finger of the preferred hand and those made with the last finger of that hand. This suggests that finger tracing provides a relatively high level of coding specific to individual characters, but non-specific to motor effectors. Beginning each stroke from the same location, i.e. removing spatial information, impaired recognition of the familiar characters and the novel nonsense figures. Passively tracing the strokes in a random sequence also impaired recognition of the characters. These results therefore suggest that the beneficial effect of finger tracing on writing or recall of Chinese characters is mediated by sequence and spatial information embedded in the motor movements, and that proprioceptive channel may play a part in mediating visuo-spatial information. Finger tracing may be a useful strategy for remediation of Chinese language impairments.

Non-Markovian character in human mobility: Online and offline.

PubMed

Zhao, Zhi-Dan; Cai, Shi-Min; Lu, Yang

2015-06-01

The dynamics of human mobility characterizes the trajectories that humans follow during their daily activities and is the foundation of processes from epidemic spreading to traffic prediction and information recommendation. In this paper, we investigate a massive data set of human activity, including both online behavior of browsing websites and offline one of visiting towers based mobile terminations. The non-Markovian character observed from both online and offline cases is suggested by the scaling law in the distribution of dwelling time at individual and collective levels, respectively. Furthermore, we argue that the lower entropy and higher predictability in human mobility for both online and offline cases may originate from this non-Markovian character. However, the distributions of individual entropy and predictability show the different degrees of non-Markovian character between online and offline cases. To account for non-Markovian character in human mobility, we apply a protype model with three basic ingredients, namely, preferential return, inertial effect, and exploration to reproduce the dynamic process of online and offline human mobilities. The simulations show that the model has an ability to obtain characters much closer to empirical observations.

High fidelity simulations of infrared imagery with animated characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Näsström, F.; Persson, A.; Bergström, D.; Berggren, J.; Hedström, J.; Allvar, J.; Karlsson, M.

2012-06-01

High fidelity simulations of IR signatures and imagery tend to be slow and do not have effective support for animation of characters. Simplified rendering methods based on computer graphics methods can be used to overcome these limitations. This paper presents a method to combine these tools and produce simulated high fidelity thermal IR data of animated people in terrain. Infrared signatures for human characters have been calculated using RadThermIR. To handle multiple character models, these calculations use a simplified material model for the anatomy and clothing. Weather and temperature conditions match the IR-texture used in the terrain model. The calculated signatures are applied to the animated 3D characters that, together with the terrain model, are used to produce high fidelity IR imagery of people or crowds. For high level animation control and crowd simulations, HLAS (High Level Animation System) has been developed. There are tools available to create and visualize skeleton based animations, but tools that allow control of the animated characters on a higher level, e.g. for crowd simulation, are usually expensive and closed source. We need the flexibility of HLAS to add animation into an HLA enabled sensor system simulation framework.

On defining a unique phylogenetic tree with homoplastic characters.

PubMed

Goloboff, Pablo A; Wilkinson, Mark

2018-05-01

This paper discusses the problem of whether creating a matrix with all the character state combinations that have a fixed number of steps (or extra steps) on a given tree T, produces the same tree T when analyzed with maximum parsimony or maximum likelihood. Exhaustive enumeration of cases up to 20 taxa for binary characters, and up to 12 taxa for 4-state characters, shows that the same tree is recovered (as unique most likely or most parsimonious tree) as long as the number of extra steps is within 1/4 of the number of taxa. This dependence, 1/4 of the number of taxa, is discussed with a general argumentation, in terms of the spread of the character changes on the tree used to select character state distributions. The present finding allows creating matrices which have as much homoplasy as possible for the most parsimonious or likely tree to be predictable, and examination of these matrices with hill-climbing search algorithms provides additional evidence on the (lack of a) necessary relationship between homoplasy and the ability of search methods to find optimal trees. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Chinese Readers Can Perceive a Word Even When It's Composed of Noncontiguous Characters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ma, Guojie; Pollatsek, Alexander; Li, Yugang; Li, Xingshan

2017-01-01

This study explored whether readers could recognize a word composed of noncontiguous characters (a "cross-character word") in Chinese reading. All 3 experiments employed Chinese 4-character strings ABCD, where both AB and CD were 2-character words. In the cross-character word condition, AC was a word but in the control condition, AC was…

Bringing in a New Era in Character Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hymowitz, Kay S.

2003-01-01

Reviews the book, "Bringing in a New Era in Character Education," a collection of essays by prominent social critics and social scientists. Suggests that the book shows that the character education movement is a reaction to the moral vacuum created by the transformations of the middle and late 20th century. Notes that most of the essays…

When goals collide: monitoring the goals of multiple characters.

PubMed

Magliano, Joseph P; Taylor, Holly A; Kim, Hyun-Jeong Joyce

2005-12-01

Most story plots contain multiple characters who are independent, interact, and often have conflicting goals. One would expect that narrative understanding would require monitoring of the goals, concerns, and situations of multiple agents. There is considerable evidence that understanders monitor the primary protagonist's goal plans (e.g., Suh & Trabasso, 1993). However, there is relatively little research on the extent to which understanders monitor the goals of multiple agents. We investigated the impact of characters' roles and prominence on the extent to which understanders monitor the goal plans of multiple characters in a feature length film. In Experiment 1, participants made situation change judgments, and in Experiment 2, they verbally described scenes. Both types of judgments indicated that viewers monitor the goals and plans of multiple agents but do so to a greater extent for characters more prominent to the plotline.

Investigations into Character Enhancement.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hartoonian, H. Michael

2001-01-01

Presents six different investigations of character enhancement that attempts to answer three questions: (1) who are you; (2) what is your destination; and (3) who is your captain? Intends to build relationships among ideas such as perspective taking, seeing and making connections with the other, and understanding more about ethical development.…

Inversion effect in the visual processing of Chinese character: an fMRI study.

PubMed

Zhao, Jizheng; Liu, Jiangang; Li, Jun; Liang, Jimin; Feng, Lu; Ai, Lin; Tian, Jie

2010-07-05

Chinese people engage long-term processing of characters. It has been demonstrated that the presented orientation affects the perception of several types of stimuli when people have possessed expertise with them, e.g. face, body, and scene. However, the influence of inversion on the neural mechanism of Chinese character processing has not been sufficiently discussed. In the present study, a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment is performed to examine the effect of inversion on Chinese character processing, which employs Chinese character, face and house as stimuli. The region of interest analysis demonstrates inversion leads to neural response increases for Chinese character in left fusiform character-preferential area, bilateral fusiform object-preferential area and bilateral occipital object-preferential area, and such inversion-caused changes in the response pattern of characters processing are highly similar to those of faces processing but quiet different from those of houses processing. Whole brain analysis reveals the upright characters recruit several language regions for phonology and semantic processing, however, the inverted characters activated extensive regions related to the visual information processing. Our findings reveal a shift from the character-preferential processing route to the generic object processing steam within visual cortex when the characters are inverted, and suggest that different mechanisms may underlie the upright and the inverted Chinese character, respectively. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Research on Chinese characters display of airborne MFD based on GL studio

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Zhile; Dong, Junyu; Hu, Wenting; Cui, Yipeng

2018-04-01

GL Studio cannot display Chinese characters during developing the airborne MFD, this paper propose a method of establishing a Chinese character font with GB2312 encoding, establish the font table and the display unit of Chinese characters based on GL Studio. Abstract the storage and display data model of Chinese characters, parse the GB encoding of the corresponding Chinese characters that MFD received, find the coordinates of the Chinese characters in the font table, establish the dynamic control model and the dynamic display model of Chinese characters based on the display unit of Chinese characters. In GL Studio and VC ++.NET environment, this model has been successfully applied to develop the airborne MFD in a variety of mission simulators. This method has successfully solved the problem that GL Studio software cannot develop MFD software of Chinese domestic aircraft and can also be used for other professional airborne MFD development tools such as IDATA. It has been proved by experiments that this is a fast effective scalable and reconfigurable method of developing both actual equipment and simulators.

Character selecting advisor for a role-playing game

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Redfield, Carol L.; Berlanga, Felicia

1994-01-01

Role-playing games have been a source of much pleasure and merriment for people of all ages. The process of developing a character for a role-playing game is usually very, very time consuming, delaying what many players consider the most entertaining part of the game. An expert system has been written to assist a player in creating a character by guiding the player through a series of questions. This paper discusses the selection of this topic, the knowledge engineering, the software development, and the resulting program that cuts the time of character development from about 4 hours to 30 minutes. The program was written on a PC and an Apollo in CLIPS 4.3 and currently runs on the Apollo.

Building Hierarchical Representations for Oracle Character and Sketch Recognition.

PubMed

Jun Guo; Changhu Wang; Roman-Rangel, Edgar; Hongyang Chao; Yong Rui

2016-01-01

In this paper, we study oracle character recognition and general sketch recognition. First, a data set of oracle characters, which are the oldest hieroglyphs in China yet remain a part of modern Chinese characters, is collected for analysis. Second, typical visual representations in shape- and sketch-related works are evaluated. We analyze the problems suffered when addressing these representations and determine several representation design criteria. Based on the analysis, we propose a novel hierarchical representation that combines a Gabor-related low-level representation and a sparse-encoder-related mid-level representation. Extensive experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed representation in both oracle character recognition and general sketch recognition. The proposed representation is also complementary to convolutional neural network (CNN)-based models. We introduce a solution to combine the proposed representation with CNN-based models, and achieve better performances over both approaches. This solution has beaten humans at recognizing general sketches.

Princesses, Princes, and Superheroes: Children's Gender Cognitions and Fictional Characters.

PubMed

Dinella, Lisa M; Claps, Juliana M; Lewandowski, Gary W

2017-01-01

The goal of the present study was to identify whether children recognize the gender stereotypes prevalent within the increasingly popular princess, prince, and superhero characters. Interviews with 126 children from the northeast region of the Unites States (3-11 years old) indicated that children recognized the gender-typed personality traits of princesses, princes, and superheroes, with older children holding more gender-typed cognitions about the characters. Children's own-schemas (i.e., beliefs that apply to themselves) and superordinate schemas (i.e., include beliefs about others' preferences and behaviors) for the characters were mostly gender typed and congruent. Older children gender-typed princesses as for girls more than younger children, whereas older children considered superheroes to be for boys and girls more than younger children did. Older children also considered the characters to be for them less, potentially reducing the negative implications of exposure to gender-typed messages associated with the characters. Individual differences exist in children's perceptions of these fictional characters, with children's own androgyny being positively correlated with their perceptions of princesses' androgyny levels. Further, girls were more flexible in their stereotyping of princesses, noting they were "for girls and boys" more. The authors discuss the results' practical and theoretical implications.

Re-Emphasizing Character Education in Early Childhood Programs: Korean Children's Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Guang-Lea

2013-01-01

Character education efforts are influenced by the cultures in which they are implemented. This article describes the character education provided to children in Korea, both in school and at home. The author explores how the Korean early childhood education system strives to ensure positive character development among children. These discussions…

A cognitive network for oracle-bone characters related to animals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dress. Andreas; Grünewald, Stefan; Zeng, Zhenbing

This paper is dedicated to HAO Bailin on the occasion of his eighties birthday, the great scholar and very good friend who never tired to introduce us to the wonderful and complex intricacies of Chinese culture and history. In this paper, we present an analysis of oracle-bone characters for animals from a `cognitive' point of view. After some general remarks on oraclebone characters presented in Section 1 and a short outline of the paper in Section 2, we collect various oracle-bone characters for animals from published resources in Section 3. In the next section, we begin analysing a group of 60 ancient animal characters from www.zdic.net, a highly acclaimed internet dictionary of Chinese characters that is strictly based on historical sources, and introduce five categories of specific features regarding their (graphical) structure that will be used in Section 5 to associate corresponding feature vectors to these characters. In Section 6, these feature vectors will be used to investigate their dissimilarity in terms of a family of parameterised distance measures. And in the last section, we apply the SplitsTree method as encoded in the NeighbourNet algorithms to construct a corresponding family of dissimilarity-based networks with the intention of elucidating how the ancient Chinese might have perceived the `animal world' in the late bronze age and to demonstrate that these pictographs reflect an intuitive understanding of this world and its inherent structure that predates its classification in the oldest surviving Chinese encyclopedia from approximately the 3rd century BC, the ErYa, as well as similar classification systems in the West by one to two millennia. We also present an English dictionary of 70 oracle-bone characters for animals in Appendix 1. In Appendix 2, we list various variants of animal characters that were published in the Jia Gu Wen Bian (cf. Scanners, optical character readers, Cyrillic alphabet and Russian translations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Gordon G.

1995-01-01

The writing of code for capture, in a uniform format, of bit maps of words and characters from scanner PICT files is presented. The coding of Dynamic Pattern Matched for the identification of the characters, words and sentences in preparation for translation is discussed.

A Method of Character Detection and Segmentation for Highway Guide Signs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Jiawei; Zhang, Chongyang

2018-01-01

In this paper, a method of character detection and segmentation for highway signs in China is proposed. It consists of four steps. Firstly, the highway sign area is detectedby colour and geometric features, andthe possible character region is obtained by multi-level projection strategy. Secondly, pseudo target character region is removed by local binary patterns (LBP) feature. Thirdly, convolutional neural network (CNN)is used to classify target regions. Finally, adaptive projection strategies are used to segment characters strings. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method achieves new state-of-the-art results.

Basic test framework for the evaluation of text line segmentation and text parameter extraction.

PubMed

Brodić, Darko; Milivojević, Dragan R; Milivojević, Zoran

2010-01-01

Text line segmentation is an essential stage in off-line optical character recognition (OCR) systems. It is a key because inaccurately segmented text lines will lead to OCR failure. Text line segmentation of handwritten documents is a complex and diverse problem, complicated by the nature of handwriting. Hence, text line segmentation is a leading challenge in handwritten document image processing. Due to inconsistencies in measurement and evaluation of text segmentation algorithm quality, some basic set of measurement methods is required. Currently, there is no commonly accepted one and all algorithm evaluation is custom oriented. In this paper, a basic test framework for the evaluation of text feature extraction algorithms is proposed. This test framework consists of a few experiments primarily linked to text line segmentation, skew rate and reference text line evaluation. Although they are mutually independent, the results obtained are strongly cross linked. In the end, its suitability for different types of letters and languages as well as its adaptability are its main advantages. Thus, the paper presents an efficient evaluation method for text analysis algorithms.

Basic Test Framework for the Evaluation of Text Line Segmentation and Text Parameter Extraction

PubMed Central

Brodić, Darko; Milivojević, Dragan R.; Milivojević, Zoran

2010-01-01

Text line segmentation is an essential stage in off-line optical character recognition (OCR) systems. It is a key because inaccurately segmented text lines will lead to OCR failure. Text line segmentation of handwritten documents is a complex and diverse problem, complicated by the nature of handwriting. Hence, text line segmentation is a leading challenge in handwritten document image processing. Due to inconsistencies in measurement and evaluation of text segmentation algorithm quality, some basic set of measurement methods is required. Currently, there is no commonly accepted one and all algorithm evaluation is custom oriented. In this paper, a basic test framework for the evaluation of text feature extraction algorithms is proposed. This test framework consists of a few experiments primarily linked to text line segmentation, skew rate and reference text line evaluation. Although they are mutually independent, the results obtained are strongly cross linked. In the end, its suitability for different types of letters and languages as well as its adaptability are its main advantages. Thus, the paper presents an efficient evaluation method for text analysis algorithms. PMID:22399932

A unified approach for development of Urdu Corpus for OCR and demographic purpose

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choudhary, Prakash; Nain, Neeta; Ahmed, Mushtaq

2015-02-01

This paper presents a methodology for the development of an Urdu handwritten text image Corpus and application of Corpus linguistics in the field of OCR and information retrieval from handwritten document. Compared to other language scripts, Urdu script is little bit complicated for data entry. To enter a single character it requires a combination of multiple keys entry. Here, a mixed approach is proposed and demonstrated for building Urdu Corpus for OCR and Demographic data collection. Demographic part of database could be used to train a system to fetch the data automatically, which will be helpful to simplify existing manual data-processing task involved in the field of data collection such as input forms like Passport, Ration Card, Voting Card, AADHAR, Driving licence, Indian Railway Reservation, Census data etc. This would increase the participation of Urdu language community in understanding and taking benefit of the Government schemes. To make availability and applicability of database in a vast area of corpus linguistics, we propose a methodology for data collection, mark-up, digital transcription, and XML metadata information for benchmarking.

Experimental confirmation of a character-facing bias in literacy development.

PubMed

McIntosh, Robert D; Anderson, Eilidh L; Henderson, Rowena M

2018-06-01

When learning to write, children often mirror-reverse individual letters. For children learning to use the Latin alphabet, in a left-to-right writing culture, letters that appear to face left (such as J and Z) seem to be more prone to reversal than those that appear to face right (such as B and C). It has been proposed that, because most asymmetrical Latin letters face right, children statistically learn this general regularity and are subsequently biased to write any letter rightward. The evidence for this character-facing bias is circumstantial, however, because letter-facing direction is confounded with other factors that could affect error rates; for instance, J and Z are left-facing, but they are also infrequent. We report the first controlled experimental test of the character-facing bias. We taught 43 Scottish primary schoolchildren (aged 4.8-5.8 years) four artificial, letter-like characters, two of which were left-facing and two of which were right-facing. The characters were novel and so were not subject to prior exposure effects, and alternate groups of children were assigned to identical but mirror-reflected character sets. Children were three times more likely to mirror-write a novel character they had learned in a left-facing format than to mirror-write one they had learned in a right-facing format. This provides the first experimental confirmation of the character-facing bias in literacy development and suggests that implicit knowledge acquired from exposure to written language is readily generalized to novel letter-like forms. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Indexing and retrieving motions of characters in close contact.

PubMed

Ho, Edmond S L; Komura, Taku

2009-01-01

Human motion indexing and retrieval are important for animators due to the need to search for motions in the database which can be blended and concatenated. Most of the previous researches of human motion indexing and retrieval compute the Euclidean distance of joint angles or joint positions. Such approaches are difficult to apply for cases in which multiple characters are closely interacting with each other, as the relationships of the characters are not encoded in the representation. In this research, we propose a topology-based approach to index the motions of two human characters in close contact. We compute and encode how the two bodies are tangled based on the concept of rational tangles. The encoded relationships, which we define as TangleList, are used to determine the similarity of the pairs of postures. Using our method, we can index and retrieve motions such as one person piggy-backing another, one person assisting another in walking, and two persons dancing / wrestling. Our method is useful to manage a motion database of multiple characters. We can also produce motion graph structures of two characters closely interacting with each other by interpolating and concatenating topologically similar postures and motion clips, which are applicable to 3D computer games and computer animation.

Relationship between chronotype and temperament/character among university students.

PubMed

Lee, Kounseok; Lee, Hye-Kyung; Jhung, Kyungun; Park, Jin Young

2017-05-01

Chronotype is largely classified as being morning or evening types according to preference for daily activity and the preferred bedtime. This study examined the relationship between chronotype and temperament/character dimensions among university students. A total of 2857 participants completed the 140-item Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised Short version (TCI-RS) from a 5-score scale as well as the 13-item composite scale for morningness-eveningness (CSM). In this study, we classified chronotype as "morning," "neither," or "evening" types according to CSM scores and compared the scores in terms of 4 temperament dimensions and 3 character dimensions. The evening type showed high values for novelty seeking and harm avoidance, whereas the morning type had high scores for persistence, self-directedness, and cooperativeness. A logistic regression analysis after controlling for age and gender showed that chronotype significantly associated with persistence and novelty seeking. The results of this study suggest that chronotype is different according to gender and age and in addition, chronotype closely correlates with temperament and character. Among these, eveningness was associated with high novelty seeking, whereas morningness was associated with high persistence. Further studies are required to investigate the relationship between chronotype and temperament/character dimensions in a wider age bracket. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Method for guessing the response of a physical system to an arbitrary input

DOEpatents

Wolpert, David H.

1996-01-01

Stacked generalization is used to minimize the generalization errors of one or more generalizers acting on a known set of input values and output values representing a physical manifestation and a transformation of that manifestation, e.g., hand-written characters to ASCII characters, spoken speech to computer command, etc. Stacked generalization acts to deduce the biases of the generalizer(s) with respect to a known learning set and then correct for those biases. This deduction proceeds by generalizing in a second space whose inputs are the guesses of the original generalizers when taught with part of the learning set and trying to guess the rest of it, and whose output is the correct guess. Stacked generalization can be used to combine multiple generalizers or to provide a correction to a guess from a single generalizer.

BPS States, Torus Links and Wild Character Varieties

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Diaconescu, Duiliu-Emanuel; Donagi, Ron; Pantev, Tony

2018-02-01

A string theoretic framework is constructed relating the cohomology of wild character varieties to refined stable pair theory and torus link invariants. Explicit conjectural formulas are derived for wild character varieties with a unique irregular point on the projective line. For this case, this leads to a conjectural colored generalization of existing results of Hausel, Mereb and Wong as well as Shende, Treumann and Zaslow.

Building Strengths of Character: Keys to Positive Youth Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park, Nansook

2009-01-01

Character is vital force for positive development and societal well-being. Character strengths play important roles in positive youth development, not only as broad-protective factors, preventing or mitigating psychopathology and problems, but also as enabling conditions that promote thriving and flourishing. Recent research findings show that…

The Effectiveness of Full Day School System for Students’ Character Building

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Benawa, A.; Peter, R.; Makmun, S.

2018-01-01

The study aims to put forward that full day school which was delivered in Marsudirini Elementary School in Bogor is effective for students’ character building. The study focused on the implementation of full day school system. The qualitative-based research method applied in the study is characteristic evaluation involving non-participant observation, interview, and documentation analysis. The result of this study concludes that the full day school system is significantly effective in education system for elementary students’ character building. The full day school system embraced the entire relevant processes based on the character building standard. The synergy of comprehensive components in instructional process at full day school has influenced the building of the students’ character effectively and efficiently. The relationship emerged between instructional development process in full day school system and the character building of the students. By developing instructional process through systemic and systematic process in full day school system, the support of stakeholders (leaders, human resources, students, parents’ role) and other components (learning resources, facilities, budget) provides a potent and expeditious contribution for character building among the students eventually.

Comparison of brain mechanisms underlying the processing of Chinese characters and pseudo-characters: an event-related potential study.

PubMed

Wang, Ting; Li, Hong; Zhang, Qinglin; Tu, Shen; Yu, Caiyun; Qiu, Jiang

2010-04-01

Most Chinese characters are composed of a semantic radical on the left and a phonetic radical on the right. The semantic radical provides the semantic information; the phonetic radical provides information concerning the pronunciation of the whole character. The pseudo-characters in the study consisted of different sub-lexical parts of real Chinese characters and consequently they also had the semantic radical and the phonetic radical. But they were not readable and had no actual meaning. In order to investigate the spatiotemporal cortical activation patterns underlying the orthographic, phonological and semantic processing of Chinese characters, we used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to explore the processing of Chinese characters and pseudo-characters when 14 healthy Chinese college students viewed the characters passively. Results showed that both Chinese characters and pseudo-characters elicited an evident negative potential peaking around 120 ms (N120), which appeared to reflect initial orthographic distinction and evaluation. Then, Chinese pseudo-characters elicited a more positive ERP deflection (P220) than did Chinese characters 200-250 ms after onset of the stimuli. It was similar to the recognition potential (RP) and might reflect the integration processes of phonological and semantic processing on the basis of early orthographic information. Dipole source analysis of the difference wave (pseudo-characters minus characters) indicated that a generator localized in the left temporal-occipital junction contributed to this effect, which was possibly related to phonological and perceptual-semantic information integration. Between 350-450 ms, a greater negativity (N360) in pseudo-characters as compared to characters was found over midline fronto-central scalp regions. Dipole analysis localized the generator of N360 in the right parahippocampal cortex. Therefore, the N360 might be an N400 component and reflect the higher-level semantic activation on the

Violent film characters' portrayal of alcohol, sex, and tobacco-related behaviors.

PubMed

Bleakley, Amy; Romer, Daniel; Jamieson, Patrick E

2014-01-01

To determine the extent to which movies popular with adolescents feature characters who jointly engage in violence and other risk behaviors. We hypothesized that violent characters engage in other risk behaviors equally often in films rated appropriate for children over 12 (PG-13) and Restricted (R)-rated films. Content analysis of a sample of top-grossing movies from 1985 to 2010 (n = 390). We coded movies for the presence of at least 1 main character who was involved in violence and either sex, tobacco, or alcohol use within a 5-minute movie segment and throughout a film. Approximately 90% of the movies contained a segment with a main character involved in violence, and ~77% of the films had the same character engaging in at least 1 other risk behavior. A violent character was portrayed most often partaking in alcohol-related and sexual behaviors. G and PG movies had less co-occurrence than PG-13 or R-rated movies, but there was no statistical difference between PG-13 and R-rated movies with regards to violence co-occurring with other risk behaviors. These trends did not vary over time. Popular films that contain violent characters also show those characters engaging in other risk behaviors. Similar rates of co-occurrence between PG-13 and R-rated films suggest that the Motion Picture Association of America ratings system is not sensitive to the joint portrayal of violence and alcohol, sex, and tobacco-related risk behaviors. The on-screen clustering of violence with other risk behaviors is cause for concern and worthy of additional research.

Color pattern evolution in Vanessa butterflies (Nymphalidae: Nymphalini): non-eyespot characters.

PubMed

Abbasi, Roohollah; Marcus, Jeffrey M

2015-01-01

A phylogenetic approach was used to study color pattern evolution in Vanessa butterflies. Twenty-four color pattern elements from the Nymphalid ground plan were identified on the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the fore- and hind wings. Eyespot characters were excluded and will be examined elsewhere. The evolution of each character was traced over a Bayesian phylogeny of Vanessa reconstructed from 7750 DNA base pairs from 10 genes. Generally, the correspondence between character states on the same surface of the two wings is stronger on the ventral side compared to the dorsal side. The evolution of character states on both sides of a wing correspond with each other in most extant species, but the correspondence between dorsal and ventral character states is much stronger in the forewing than in the hindwing. The dorsal hindwing of many species of Vanessa is covered with an extended Basal Symmetry System and the Discalis I pattern element is highly variable between species, making this wing surface dissimilar to the other wing surfaces. The Basal Symmetry System and Discalis I may contribute to behavioral thermoregulation in Vanessa. Overall, interspecific directional character state evolution of non-eyespot color patterns is relatively rare in Vanessa, with a majority of color pattern elements showing non-variable, non-directional, or ambiguous character state evolution. The ease with which the development of color patterns can be modified, including character state reversals, has likely made important contributions to the production of color pattern diversity in Vanessa and other butterfly groups. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

"Reel" Character Education: Using Film to Promote Global Citizenship

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Russell, William Benedict, III; Waters, Stewart

2013-01-01

This article explores using films to spark moral dilemma discussions and thereby promote critical thinking and character education for global citizenship in elementary classrooms. After clarifying some of the basic concepts associated with the fields of character education and global citizenship, and the interrelationship between the two, the…

Clearinghouse Established for Character Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Benninga, Jaques; Minkler, John

1997-01-01

Examines the planning, implementation, and mission of the Clearinghouse for Character Education at California State University, Fresno. Materials collected at the Clearinghouse include samples of model programs, research, contacts for program development, and instructional resources for teachers, schools, and districts interested in character…

Vocal analysis of suicidal movie characters.

PubMed

Palinkas-Sanches, Elaine; Sanches, Marsal; Ferrari, Maria Cristina C; Oliveira, Gisele; Behlau, Mara

2010-12-01

The aim of this study was to describe the auditory-perceptive evaluation and the psychodynamic aspects of voice samples among suicidal movie characters. Voice samples of 48 characters (27 male, 21 female), extracted from 36 movies produced between 1968 and 2006, were analyzed. The samples were evaluated through a specific protocol focusing on the auditory-perceptive evaluation (voice quality, resonance, pitch, loudness, modulation, pauses, articulation and rhythm) and the psychodynamic aspects of voice. 85.5% of the samples exhibited abnormal findings in at least five parameters of the auditory-perceptive analysis, such as breathiness (n=42; 87.5% of the samples), hoarseness (n=39; 81.2%) and strain (n=29; 60.4%), as well as laryngopharingeal resonance (n=39; 81.2%), either high pitch (n=14; 29.2%), or decreased loudness (n=31; 64.6%). With respect to the psychodynamic aspects, dismay was detected in 50% (n=24) of the samples, hopelessness in 47.9% (n=23), resignation in 37.5% (n=18), and sadness in 33.3% (n=16). Our findings suggest the existence of specific patterns used by actors during the interpretation of suicidal characters. The replication of these findings among real patients may contribute to improvement in the evaluation of potential suicidal patients, as well as the implementation of preventive measures.

Holistic neural coding of Chinese character forms in bilateral ventral visual system.

PubMed

Mo, Ce; Yu, Mengxia; Seger, Carol; Mo, Lei

2015-02-01

How are Chinese characters recognized and represented in the brain of skilled readers? Functional MRI fast adaptation technique was used to address this question. We found that neural adaptation effects were limited to identical characters in bilateral ventral visual system while no activation reduction was observed for partially overlapping characters regardless of the spatial location of the shared sub-character components, suggesting highly selective neuronal tuning to whole characters. The consistent neural profile across the entire ventral visual cortex indicates that Chinese characters are represented as mutually distinctive wholes rather than combinations of sub-character components, which presents a salient contrast to the left-lateralized, simple-to-complex neural representations of alphabetic words. Our findings thus revealed the cultural modulation effect on both local neuronal activity patterns and functional anatomical regions associated with written symbol recognition. Moreover, the cross-language discrepancy in written symbol recognition mechanism might stem from the language-specific early-stage learning experience. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Structure of Character Strengths: Variable- and Person-Centered Approaches

PubMed Central

Najderska, Małgorzata; Cieciuch, Jan

2018-01-01

This article examines the structure of character strengths (Peterson and Seligman, 2004) following both variable-centered and person-centered approaches. We used the International Personality Item Pool-Values in Action (IPIP-VIA) questionnaire. The IPIP-VIA measures 24 character strengths and consists of 213 direct and reversed items. The present study was conducted in a heterogeneous group of N = 908 Poles (aged 18–78, M = 28.58). It was part of a validation project of a Polish version of the IPIP-VIA questionnaire. The variable-centered approach was used to examine the structure of character strengths on both the scale and item levels. The scale-level results indicated a four-factor structure that can be interpreted based on four of the five personality traits from the Big Five theory (excluding neuroticism). The item-level analysis suggested a slightly different and limited set of character strengths (17 not 24). After conducting a second-order analysis, a four-factor structure emerged, and three of the factors could be interpreted as being consistent with the scale-level factors. Three character strength profiles were found using the person-centered approach. Two of them were consistent with alpha and beta personality metatraits. The structure of character strengths can be described by using categories from the Five Factor Model of personality and metatraits. They form factors similar to some personality traits and occur in similar constellations as metatraits. The main contributions of this paper are: (1) the validation of IPIP-VIA conducted in variable-centered approach in a new research group (Poles) using a different measurement instrument; (2) introducing the person-centered approach to the study of the structure of character strengths. PMID:29515482

Character Education Connections for School, Home and Community: A Guide for Integrating Character Education. Grades Pre-K through 12. 2nd Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stirling, Diane

This character education guide, for grades Pre-K through 12, presents field-generated, field-tested ideas for integrating character education with daily learning. The ideas are varied in design, scope, and developmental levels and range from half-hour lessons to school-wide events to year-long courses. Each unit (50 in all) is built on particular…

Children's assignment of gender to animal characters in pictures.

PubMed

Arthur, A G; White, H

1996-09-01

In previous research (DeLoache, Cassidy, & Carpenter, 1987), mothers' descriptions of gender-neutral animal characters were influenced by subtle gender stereo-types. The present research was an investigation of children's assignment of gender to the same neutral characters. The youngest children, 4 to 5 years old, usually assigned their own gender to the characters (bears). The 7- to 8-year-old and 10- to 11-year-old children were influenced by gender stereotypes. Solitary or noninteracting bears were less likely to receive female gender labels than were bears involved in adult-child interactions. Boys in the oldest age group were most influenced by the stereotypes.

Positive Character Development in School Sport Programs. ERIC Digest.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beller, Jennifer

This digest discusses the formal and informal processes of moral character development through sport in light of the types of programs that have shown to improve moral character, sportsmanship, and fair play, noting that such efforts involve combined lifelong formal and informal educational processes with three interrelated dimensions: knowing,…

Piaget's stages of cognitive development and adult character structure.

PubMed

Malerstein, A J; Ahern, M M

1979-01-01

Psychonalytic and Piagetian findings are bridged by understanding character structure. Social cognition of the three character types corresponds to three phase of cognitive development: Symbolic, Intuitive, and (Concrete) Operational. A child constructs his supergo by coordinating his perceptions of his caretaking as he coordinates other perceptions in the Operational Period.

Mapping wilderness character in Denali National Park and Preserve

Treesearch

Rob Burrows; James Tricker; Dan Abbe; Peter Landres; Jon Paynter; David Schirokauer; Philip Hooge

2016-01-01

The recent development of an interagency strategy to monitor wilderness character allows on-the-ground managers and decision-makers to assess whether stewardship actions for an individual wilderness are fulfilling the legislative mandate to "preserve wilderness character." By using credible data that are consistently collected, one can assess how wilderness...

Character Sets for PLATO/NovaNET: An Expository Catalog.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gilpin, John B.

The PLATO and NovaNET computer-based instructional systems use a fixed system character set ("normal font") and an author-definable character set ("alternate font"). The alternate font lets the author construct his own symbols and bitmapped pictures. This expository catalog allows users to determine quickly (1) whether there is…

The Impact of Character Education Curricula on Youth Educators

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harms, Kristyn Marie; Fritz, Susan; Rockwell, S. Kay

2004-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine degrees of internalization of character traits across two groups (K-12 teachers and Extension staff) with varying years of participation in character education professional and program development activities. An online survey was developed to collect data describing the 109 respondents, the extent of…

The effect of character contextual diversity on eye movements in Chinese sentence reading.

PubMed

Chen, Qingrong; Zhao, Guoxia; Huang, Xin; Yang, Yiming; Tanenhaus, Michael K

2017-12-01

Chen, Huang, et al. (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2017) found that when reading two-character Chinese words embedded in sentence contexts, contextual diversity (CD), a measure of the proportion of texts in which a word appears, affected fixation times to words. When CD is controlled, however, frequency did not affect reading times. Two experiments used the same experimental designs to examine whether there are frequency effects of the first character of two-character words when CD is controlled. In Experiment 1, yoked triples of characters from a control group, a group matched for character CD that is lower in frequency, and a group matched in frequency with the control group, but higher in character CD, were rotated through the same sentence frame. In Experiment 2 each character from a larger set was embedded in a separate sentence frame, allowing for a larger difference in log frequency compared to Experiment 1 (0.8 and 0.4, respectively). In both experiments, early and later eye movement measures were significantly shorter for characters with higher CD than for characters with lower CD, with no effects of character frequency. These results place constraints on models of visual word recognition and suggest ways in which Chinese can be used to tease apart the nature of context effects in word recognition and language processing in general.

Did the Moral Education Establishment Kill Character? An Autopsy of "The Death of Character."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glanzer, Perry L.

2003-01-01

Examines James Davison Hunter's claim that the moral education establishment is responsible for the death of character. Declares that moral education must grapple with Hunter's finding that effective moral education requires coherent moral culture with a clear conception of public and private good. Compares post-Soviet and current U.S. moral…

No-Excuses for Character: A Critique of Character Education in No-Excuses Charter Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dishon, Gideon; Goodman, Joan F.

2017-01-01

The "no-excuses" model of education has become one of the most prominent educational alternatives for urban youth. Recently, notable no-excuses charter schools have begun a concerted effort to develop students' character strengths, striving to increase their chances of future success. In this article, we situate the no-excuses approach…

Do Sports Build or Reveal Character?--An Exploratory Study at One Service Academy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doty, Joseph P.; Lumpkin, Angela

2010-01-01

Whether participating in sports builds character and if character can be measured continues to be a debated, though important, topic. Almost daily we read or hear about athletes displaying poor character. Most research shows that as the level of sport competition increases, the level of character decreases. However, participating in sports, at any…

Structural fluctuation governed dynamic diradical character in pentacene.

PubMed

Yang, Hongfang; Chen, Mengzhen; Song, Xinyu; Bu, Yuxiang

2015-06-07

We unravel intriguing dynamical diradical behavior governed by structural fluctuation in pentacene using ab initio molecular dynamics simulation. In contrast to static equilibrium configuration of pentacene with a closed-shell ground state without diradical character, due to structural fluctuation, some of its dynamical snapshot configurations exhibit an open-shell broken-symmetry singlet ground state with diradical character, and such diradical character presents irregular pulsing behavior in time evolution. Not all structural changes can lead to diradical character, only those involving the shortening of cross-linking C-C bonds and variations of the C-C bonds in polyacetylene chains are the main contributors. This scenario about diradicalization is distinctly different from that in long acenes. The essence is that structural distortion cooperatively raises the HOMO and lowers the LUMO, efficiently reducing the HOMO-LUMO and singlet-triplet energy gaps, which facilitate the formation of a broken-symmetry open-shell singlet state. The irregular pulsing behavior originates from the mixing of normal vibrations in pentacene. This fascinating behavior suggests the potential application of pentacene as a suitable building block in the design of new electronic devices due to its magnetism-controllability through energy induction. This work provides new insight into inherent electronic property fluctuation in acenes.

Legislating Character: Moral Education in North Carolina's Public Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooley, Aaron

2008-01-01

This article analyzes the epistemological aims and justification of character education legislation passed by the North Carolina General Assembly. I take this specific state law as representative of the broader national trends in the character education movement. I primarily use the work of Richard Rorty as the theoretical lens for the analysis…

Fostering Character Education in an Urban Early Childhood Setting

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kokoszka, Carla; Smith, Juliette

2016-01-01

This article describes the character education program in Donald Stewart School No. 51, in Elizabeth, NJ, a dual-language preschool serving 300 students that first opened its doors in 2004. Over the years this school has been committed to laying the foundation of character development with its preschoolers. Their pillar "Friends Care, Friends…

Physical Education Teachers' Attitudes towards Teaching Character Education and Their Attitudes towards the Character Development of Their Fourth and/or Fifth Grade Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Denaro, Edward Joseph

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of elementary school physical education teachers towards teaching character education related to the variables respect, honesty, fairness and self-discipline and to examine their attitudes towards the character development of their fourth and/or fifth grade students related to the variables…

Comparing the minimum spatial-frequency content for recognizing Chinese and alphabet characters

PubMed Central

Wang, Hui; Legge, Gordon E.

2018-01-01

Visual blur is a common problem that causes difficulty in pattern recognition for normally sighted people under degraded viewing conditions (e.g., near the acuity limit, when defocused, or in fog) and also for people with impaired vision. For reliable identification, the spatial frequency content of an object needs to extend up to or exceed a minimum value in units of cycles per object, referred to as the critical spatial frequency. In this study, we investigated the critical spatial frequency for alphabet and Chinese characters, and examined the effect of pattern complexity. The stimuli were divided into seven categories based on their perimetric complexity, including the lowercase and uppercase alphabet letters, and five groups of Chinese characters. We found that the critical spatial frequency significantly increased with complexity, from 1.01 cycles per character for the simplest group to 2.00 cycles per character for the most complex group of Chinese characters. A second goal of the study was to test a space-bandwidth invariance hypothesis that would represent a tradeoff between the critical spatial frequency and the number of adjacent patterns that can be recognized at one time. We tested this hypothesis by comparing the critical spatial frequencies in cycles per character from the current study and visual-span sizes in number of characters (measured by Wang, He, & Legge, 2014) for sets of characters with different complexities. For the character size (1.2°) we used in the study, we found an invariant product of approximately 10 cycles, which may represent a capacity limitation on visual pattern recognition. PMID:29297056

Radical Sensitivity Is the Key to Understanding Chinese Character Acquisition in Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tong, Xiuhong; Tong, Xiuli; McBride, Catherine

2017-01-01

This study investigated Chinese children's development of sensitivity to positional (orthographic), phonological, and semantic cues of radicals in encoding novel Chinese characters. A newly designed picture-novel character mapping task, along with nonverbal reasoning ability, vocabulary, and Chinese character recognition were administered to 198…

Stroke-model-based character extraction from gray-level document images.

PubMed

Ye, X; Cheriet, M; Suen, C Y

2001-01-01

Global gray-level thresholding techniques such as Otsu's method, and local gray-level thresholding techniques such as edge-based segmentation or the adaptive thresholding method are powerful in extracting character objects from simple or slowly varying backgrounds. However, they are found to be insufficient when the backgrounds include sharply varying contours or fonts in different sizes. A stroke-model is proposed to depict the local features of character objects as double-edges in a predefined size. This model enables us to detect thin connected components selectively, while ignoring relatively large backgrounds that appear complex. Meanwhile, since the stroke width restriction is fully factored in, the proposed technique can be used to extract characters in predefined font sizes. To process large volumes of documents efficiently, a hybrid method is proposed for character extraction from various backgrounds. Using the measurement of class separability to differentiate images with simple backgrounds from those with complex backgrounds, the hybrid method can process documents with different backgrounds by applying the appropriate methods. Experiments on extracting handwriting from a check image, as well as machine-printed characters from scene images demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model.

Using Star Wars' supporting characters to teach about psychopathology.

PubMed

Friedman, Susan Hatters; Hall, Ryan Cw

2015-08-01

The pop culture phenomenon of Star Wars has been underutilised as a vehicle to teach about psychiatry. It is well known to students, registrars, and consultants alike. New Star Wars films are expected out in 2015, which will likely lead to further popularity. The purpose of this article is to illustrate psychopathology and psychiatric themes demonstrated by supporting characters, and ways they can be used to teach concepts in a hypothetical yet memorable way. Using the minor characters as a springboard for teaching has the benefit of students not having preconceived notions about them. Characters can be used to approach teaching about ADHD, anxiety, kleptomania and paedophilia. © The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists 2015.

Character Recognition Method by Time-Frequency Analyses Using Writing Pressure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Watanabe, Tatsuhito; Katsura, Seiichiro

With the development of information and communication technology, personal verification becomes more and more important. In the future ubiquitous society, the development of terminals handling personal information requires the personal verification technology. The signature is one of the personal verification methods; however, the number of characters is limited in the case of the signature and therefore false signature is used easily. Thus, personal identification is difficult from handwriting. This paper proposes a “haptic pen” that extracts the writing pressure, and shows a character recognition method by time-frequency analyses. Although the figures of characters written by different amanuenses are similar, the differences appear in the time-frequency domain. As a result, it is possible to use the proposed character recognition for personal identification more exactly. The experimental results showed the viability of the proposed method.

Documentation for the machine-readable character coded version of the SKYMAP catalogue

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Warren, W. H., Jr.

1981-01-01

The SKYMAP catalogue is a compilation of astronomical data prepared primarily for purposes of attitude guidance for satellites. In addition to the SKYMAP Master Catalogue data base, a software package of data base management and utility programs is available. The tape version of the SKYMAP Catalogue, as received by the Astronomical Data Center (ADC), contains logical records consisting of a combination of binary and EBCDIC data. Certain character coded data in each record are redundant in that the same data are present in binary form. In order to facilitate wider use of all SKYMAP data by the astronomical community, a formatted (character) version was prepared by eliminating all redundant character data and converting all binary data to character form. The character version of the catalogue is described. The document is intended to fully describe the formatted tape so that users can process the data problems and guess work; it should be distributed with any character version of the catalogue.

It's a word: early electrophysiological response to the character likeness of pictographs.

PubMed

Zhang, Mingxia; Jiang, Ting; Mei, Leilei; Yang, Hongmin; Chen, Chuansheng; Xue, Gui; Dong, Qi

2011-07-01

Using unfamiliar and meaningless pictographs that varied in their degree of similarity to Chinese characters, the current study tested whether the early electrophysiological response was modulated by character likeness. We measured P100 and N170 while 20 native Chinese speakers were viewing Chinese characters, drawings of objects, and pictographs. Comparisons across the three categories of stimuli showed that pictographs elicited a smaller N170 amplitude than did Chinese characters and a stronger N170 amplitude than did objects, but did not differ in the P100 amplitude from the other two categories. Within the category of pictographs, stimuli with a higher degree of character likeness elicited larger N170 amplitudes and shorter N170 peak latencies, and this effect was again not observed in P100. These results suggest that N170 is sensitive to visual stimuli's character likeness even though they are unfamiliar pictographs with no meanings or sounds. Copyright © 2010 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Character Education Connections for School, Home and Community: A Guide for Integrating Character Education. Grades Pre-K through 12. Revised 2002. Third Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stirling, Diane

This character-education guide, for grades Pre-K through 12, presents field-generated, field-tested ideas for integrating character education with daily learning. The ideas are varied in design, scope, and developmental levels, and range from half-hour lessons to schoolwide events to year-long courses. Each unit (50 in all) is built on particular…

The Effects of Privileging Moral or Performance Character Development in Urban Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seider, Scott; Novick, Sarah; Gomez, Jessica

2013-01-01

This study compared the effects of emphasizing moral character development or performance character development at three high-performing, high-poverty urban middle schools. Performance character consists of the qualities that allow individuals to regulate their thoughts and actions in ways that support achievement in a particular endeavor. Moral…

Korea's Attempts to Eliminate Chinese Characters and the Implications for Romanizing Chinese.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hannas, William C.

1995-01-01

Examines Korea's experience with abandoning Chinese characters for an all-phonetic script. Despite efforts to replace characters with "all-hangul" in South Korea, reform opponents reinstated Chinese characters. In North Korea, a similar reform was also rescinded. Certain "linguistic" problems need to be solved for the reform to…

Movie character smoking and adolescent smoking: who matters more, good guys or bad guys?

PubMed

Tanski, Susanne E; Stoolmiller, Mike; Dal Cin, Sonya; Worth, Keilah; Gibson, Jennifer; Sargent, James D

2009-07-01

To assess the association between smoking onset and exposure to movie smoking according to character type. A longitudinal, random-digit-dial telephone survey of 6522 US adolescents was performed with movie exposure assessed at 4 time points over 24 months. Adolescents were asked whether they had seen a random subsample of recently released movies, for which we identified smoking by major characters and type of portrayal (divided into negative, positive, and mixed/neutral categories). Multivariate hazard regression analysis was used to assess the independent effects of these exposures on the odds of trying smoking. By the 24-month follow-up survey, 15.9% of baseline never-smokers had tried smoking. Within the sample of movies, 3848 major characters were identified, of whom 69% were male. Smokers represented 22.8% of 518 negative characters, 13.7% of 2486 positive characters, and 21.1% of 844 mixed/neutral characters. Analysis of the crude relationship showed that episodes of negative character smoking exposure had the strongest influence on smoking initiation. However, because most characters were portrayed as positive, exposure to this category was greatest. When the full population effect of each exposure was modeled, each type of character smoking independently affected smoking onset. There was an interaction between negative character smoking and sensation-seeking with stronger response for adolescents lower in sensation-seeking. Character smoking predicts adolescent smoking initiation regardless of character type, which demonstrates the importance of limiting exposure to all movie smoking. Negative character portrayals of smoking have stronger impact on low risk-taking adolescents, undercutting the argument that greater exposure is a marker for adolescent risk-taking behavior.

Movie Character Smoking and Adolescent Smoking: Who Matters More, Good Guys or Bad Guys?

PubMed Central

Tanski, Susanne E.; Stoolmiller, Mike; Cin, Sonya Dal; Worth, Keilah; Gibson, Jennifer; Sargent, James D.

2009-01-01

Objective To assess the association between smoking onset and exposure to movie smoking according to character type. Methods A longitudinal, random-digit-dial telephone survey of 6522 US adolescents was performed with movie exposure assessed at 4 time points over 24 months. Adolescents were asked whether they had seen a random subsample of recently released movies, for which we identified smoking by major characters and type of portrayal (divided into negative, positive, and mixed/neutral categories). Multivariate hazard regression analysis was used to assess the independent effects of these exposures on the odds of trying smoking. Results By the 24-month follow-up survey, 15.9% of baseline never-smokers had tried smoking. Within the sample of movies, 3848 major characters were identified, of whom 69% were male. Smokers represented 22.8% of 518 negative characters, 13.7% of 2486 positive characters, and 21.1% of 844 mixed/neutral characters. Analysis of the crude relationship showed that episodes of negative character smoking exposure had the strongest influence on smoking initiation. However, because most characters were portrayed as positive, exposure to this category was greatest. When the full population effect of each exposure was modeled, each type of character smoking independently affected smoking onset. There was an interaction between negative character smoking and sensation-seeking with stronger response for adolescents lower in sensation-seeking. Conclusions Character smoking predicts adolescent smoking initiation regardless of character type, which demonstrates the importance of limiting exposure to all movie smoking. Negative character portrayals of smoking have stronger impact on low risk-taking adolescents, undercutting the argument that greater exposure is a marker for adolescent risk-taking behavior. PMID:19564293

Can Youth Sport Build Character?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shields, David Light; Bredemeier, Brenda Light; Power, F. Clark

2001-01-01

Participation and competition in some sports are associated with lower stages of moral reasoning. Coaches can foster moral development by starting with the right mental model, holding benchmark meetings about team values, setting goals for physical and character skills, making time for guided discussion sessions, building community, modeling…

Lessons in Leadership and Character.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilding, James A.

2002-01-01

Discusses how an organization can demonstrate leadership and character through its operating principles and practices based on experiences at the Metro West Airports Authority (MWAA). Explains how the MWAA made the transition from a department within the federal government to an independent, not-for-profit organization. (Author/LRW)

Public domain optical character recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garris, Michael D.; Blue, James L.; Candela, Gerald T.; Dimmick, Darrin L.; Geist, Jon C.; Grother, Patrick J.; Janet, Stanley A.; Wilson, Charles L.

1995-03-01

A public domain document processing system has been developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The system is a standard reference form-based handprint recognition system for evaluating optical character recognition (OCR), and it is intended to provide a baseline of performance on an open application. The system's source code, training data, performance assessment tools, and type of forms processed are all publicly available. The system recognizes the handprint entered on handwriting sample forms like the ones distributed with NIST Special Database 1. From these forms, the system reads hand-printed numeric fields, upper and lowercase alphabetic fields, and unconstrained text paragraphs comprised of words from a limited-size dictionary. The modular design of the system makes it useful for component evaluation and comparison, training and testing set validation, and multiple system voting schemes. The system contains a number of significant contributions to OCR technology, including an optimized probabilistic neural network (PNN) classifier that operates a factor of 20 times faster than traditional software implementations of the algorithm. The source code for the recognition system is written in C and is organized into 11 libraries. In all, there are approximately 19,000 lines of code supporting more than 550 subroutines. Source code is provided for form registration, form removal, field isolation, field segmentation, character normalization, feature extraction, character classification, and dictionary-based postprocessing. The recognition system has been successfully compiled and tested on a host of UNIX workstations. This paper gives an overview of the recognition system's software architecture, including descriptions of the various system components along with timing and accuracy statistics.

Character Education by Design: A Blueprint for Successful District and School Initiatives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maryland State Department of Education, 2007

2007-01-01

Designed for district- and school-level character education committees, "Character Education by Design: A Blueprint for Successful District and School Initiatives" is a how-to guide for developing an effective character education initiative, one that will not only enhance the climate of the school and social behavior of the students, but…

Item-Specific and Generalization Effects on Brain Activation when Learning Chinese Characters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Deng, Yuan; Booth, James R.; Chou, Tai-Li; Ding, Guo-Sheng; Peng, Dan-Ling

2008-01-01

Neural changes related to learning of the meaning of Chinese characters in English speakers were examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We examined item specific learning effects for trained characters, but also the generalization of semantic knowledge to novel transfer characters that shared a semantic radical (part of a…

Effect of pattern complexity on the visual span for Chinese and alphabet characters

PubMed Central

Wang, Hui; He, Xuanzi; Legge, Gordon E.

2014-01-01

The visual span for reading is the number of letters that can be recognized without moving the eyes and is hypothesized to impose a sensory limitation on reading speed. Factors affecting the size of the visual span have been studied using alphabet letters. There may be common constraints applying to recognition of other scripts. The aim of this study was to extend the concept of the visual span to Chinese characters and to examine the effect of the greater complexity of these characters. We measured visual spans for Chinese characters and alphabet letters in the central vision of bilingual subjects. Perimetric complexity was used as a metric to quantify the pattern complexity of binary character images. The visual span tests were conducted with four sets of stimuli differing in complexity—lowercase alphabet letters and three groups of Chinese characters. We found that the size of visual spans decreased with increasing complexity, ranging from 10.5 characters for alphabet letters to 4.5 characters for the most complex Chinese characters studied. A decomposition analysis revealed that crowding was the dominant factor limiting the size of the visual span, and the amount of crowding increased with complexity. Errors in the spatial arrangement of characters (mislocations) had a secondary effect. We conclude that pattern complexity has a major effect on the size of the visual span, mediated in large part by crowding. Measuring the visual span for Chinese characters is likely to have high relevance to understanding visual constraints on Chinese reading performance. PMID:24993020

Portrayals of character smoking and drinking in Argentine-, Mexican- and US-produced films.

PubMed

Kollath-Cattano, Christy; Abad-Vivero, Erika N; Mejia, Raul; Perez-Hernandez, Rosaura; Sargent, James D; Thrasher, James F

2016-09-01

The aim of this study was to assess film character portrayals of tobacco and alcohol use in US and nationally-produced films that were popular in Argentina and Mexico from 2004-2012. We performed a content analysis of these films (n=82 Argentine, 91 Mexican, and 908 US films, respectively). Chi-squares and t-tests were used to compare characteristics of characters who smoked or drank by country of movie production. Then data from all countries were pooled, and generalized estimating equation (GEE) models were used to determine independent correlates of character smoking or drinking. There were 480 major characters for Argentine-, 364 for Mexican-, and 4962 for US-produced films. Smoking prevalence among movie characters was similar to population smoking prevalence in Mexico (21%) and Argentina (26%), but about half in the US (11%), where movie product placements are restricted. Movie smoking declined over the period in all three countries. Movie alcohol prevalence was 40-50% across all countries and did not change with time. Demographic predictors of character smoking included: being male, 18 and older, having negative character valence. Movie smoking was not associated with lower SES. Predictors of character drinking included: being age 18 and older and positive character valence. Smoking and drinking predicted each other, illicit drug use, and higher scores for other risk behaviors. This suggests that policy development in Mexico and Argentina may be necessary to reduce the amount of character tobacco and alcohol use in films. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Healthy characters? An investigation of marketing practices in children's food advertising.

PubMed

Castonguay, Jessica; Kunkel, Dale; Wright, Paul; Duff, Caroline

2013-01-01

To determine the nutritional quality of foods advertised with familiar children's characters and health-related messages. Children's programming aired on the most popular broadcast and cable channels during 2011 was sampled to form a composite weekday and weekend day. All food advertisements (ads) included in this programming were content analyzed. Five hundred seventy-seven food ads. Familiar characters promoting products were either trade or licensed characters. A product's nutritional quality was determined using the United States Department of Health and Human Services' categorizations, based on the frequency foods should be consumed. Health cues were present when a food was claimed to be healthy, physical activity was depicted, or the product was associated with fruit. Frequencies and chi square analyses were conducted; P < .05. Nearly three quarters (73%) of food ads targeting children use a familiar character. The majority of these ads (72%) promote foods of low nutritional quality, yet 53% employ a health-related message. Familiar characters proliferate in food advertising to children, yet marketers do not adhere to recommendations that characters promote strictly healthy foods. Future research is needed to investigate effects and inform policy decisions in this realm. Copyright © 2013 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Advertising and Defamation of Character.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rohrer, Daniel Morgan

Defamation of character, as applied to libel and slander legal decisions, is the subject of this paper. After briefly describing the basis of liability, the author discusses "libels per quod." He then cites numerous court decisions in commenting on mitigating circumstances in action for libel or slander, including absolute privilege,…

Configurable Semi-Autonomic Animated Animal Characters in Interactive Virtual Reality Applications

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-03-01

animal characters that can behave with a high degree of realism. The re- alism can be measured in two aspects. One is behavioral realism, or how real the...representations of animal characters in our training applications. This study is focused on animal behavior and animation for VR applications. A simple...of animal characters in our training applications. One such example is that dogs are used ex- tensively in security and law enforcement environments

Games of Character: Team Sports, Games, and Character Development in Victorian Public Schools, 1850-1900

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dishon, Gideon

2017-01-01

This article examines the ascendance of team sports as tools of "character building" in British Victorian public schools in the second half of the nineteenth century. The focus of this enquiry is the commonly overlooked pedagogical innovation underlying this process--the utilisation of "organised games" as educational tools.…

Improving 3D Character Posing with a Gestural Interface.

PubMed

Kyto, Mikko; Dhinakaran, Krupakar; Martikainen, Aki; Hamalainen, Perttu

2017-01-01

The most time-consuming part of character animation is 3D character posing. Posing using a mouse is a slow and tedious task that involves sequences of selecting on-screen control handles and manipulating the handles to adjust character parameters, such as joint rotations and end effector positions. Thus, various 3D user interfaces have been proposed to make animating easier, but they typically provide less accuracy. The proposed interface combines a mouse with the Leap Motion device to provide 3D input. A usability study showed that users preferred the Leap Motion over a mouse as a 3D gestural input device. The Leap Motion drastically decreased the number of required operations and the task completion time, especially for novice users.

Automatic Content Creation for Games to Train Students Distinguishing Similar Chinese Characters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lai, Kwong-Hung; Leung, Howard; Tang, Jeff K. T.

In learning Chinese, many students often have the problem of mixing up similar characters. This can cause misunderstanding and miscommunication in daily life. It is thus important for students learning the Chinese language to be able to distinguish similar characters and understand their proper usage. In this paper, we propose a game style framework in which the game content in identifying similar Chinese characters in idioms and words is created automatically. Our prior work on analyzing students’ Chinese handwriting can be applied in the similarity measure of Chinese characters. We extend this work by adding the component of radical extraction to speed up the search process. Experimental results show that the proposed method is more accurate and faster in finding more similar Chinese characters compared with the baseline method without considering the radical information.

Sherlock Holmes Meets Othello: A MDS Analysis of Literary Characters.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Russell, G. W.; Lambert, W. B.

1980-01-01

Changes in college freshmen's perceptual organization of characters from "Othello" after three weeks of study and lecture were assessed using multidimensional scaling procedures. Sherlock Holmes experts also provided dissimilarity ratings of Conan Doyle's characters. Discussion centers on the extent to which the lectures on…

A tripartite taxonomy of character: Evidence for intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intellectual competencies in children.

PubMed

Park, Daeun; Tsukayama, Eli; Goodwin, Geoffrey P; Patrick, Sarah; Duckworth, Angela L

2017-01-01

Other than cognitive ability, what competencies should schools promote in children? How are they organized, and to what extent do they predict consequential outcomes? Separate theoretical traditions have suggested interpersonal, intrapersonal, and intellectual dimensions, reflecting how children relate to other people, manage their own goals and impulses, and engage with ideas, respectively. However, very little work has examined character empirically. In the current investigation, we partnered with middle schools that had previously identified character strengths relevant in their communities. Across three longitudinal, prospective studies, we examined the factor structure of character, associations with intelligence and Big Five personality traits, and predictive validity for consequential outcomes like peer relations, class participation, and report card grades. In Study 1, teachers rated their students on behaviors exemplifying character strengths as they played out in students' daily lives. Exploratory factor analyses yielded a three-factor structure consisting of interpersonal (interpersonal self-control, gratitude, social intelligence), intellectual (zest, curiosity), and intrapersonal (academic self-control, grit) factors of character. In Study 2, children rated their own behavior and completed a test of cognitive ability. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the same three-factor structure, and these factors were only weakly associated with cognitive ability. In Study 3, teachers provided character ratings; in parallel, students completed measures of character as well as Big Five personality factors. As expected, intellectual, interpersonal, and intrapersonal character factors related to Big Five openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, respectively. Across studies, positive peer relations were most consistently predicted by interpersonal character, class participation by intellectual character, and report card grades by

A tripartite taxonomy of character: Evidence for intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intellectual competencies in children

PubMed Central

Park, Daeun; Tsukayama, Eli; Goodwin, Geoffrey P.; Patrick, Sarah; Duckworth, Angela L.

2017-01-01

Other than cognitive ability, what competencies should schools promote in children? How are they organized, and to what extent do they predict consequential outcomes? Separate theoretical traditions have suggested interpersonal, intrapersonal, and intellectual dimensions, reflecting how children relate to other people, manage their own goals and impulses, and engage with ideas, respectively. However, very little work has examined character empirically. In the current investigation, we partnered with middle schools that had previously identified character strengths relevant in their communities. Across three longitudinal, prospective studies, we examined the factor structure of character, associations with intelligence and Big Five personality traits, and predictive validity for consequential outcomes like peer relations, class participation, and report card grades. In Study 1, teachers rated their students on behaviors exemplifying character strengths as they played out in students’ daily lives. Exploratory factor analyses yielded a three-factor structure consisting of interpersonal (interpersonal self-control, gratitude, social intelligence), intellectual (zest, curiosity), and intrapersonal (academic self-control, grit) factors of character. In Study 2, children rated their own behavior and completed a test of cognitive ability. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the same three-factor structure, and these factors were only weakly associated with cognitive ability. In Study 3, teachers provided character ratings; in parallel, students completed measures of character as well as Big Five personality factors. As expected, intellectual, interpersonal, and intrapersonal character factors related to Big Five openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, respectively. Across studies, positive peer relations were most consistently predicted by interpersonal character, class participation by intellectual character, and report card grades by

Using a Radical-Derived Character E-Learning Platform to Increase Learner Knowledge of Chinese Characters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Hsueh-Chih; Hsu, Chih-Chun; Chang, Li-Yun; Lin, Yu-Chi; Chang, Kuo-En; Sung, Yao-Ting

2013-01-01

The present study is aimed at investigating the effect of a radical-derived Chinese character teaching strategy on enhancing Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) learners' Chinese orthographic awareness. An e-learning teaching platform, based on statistical data from the Chinese Orthography Database Explorer (Chen, Chang, Chou, Sung, & Chang,…

Improving semi-text-independent method of writer verification using difference vector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Xin; Ding, Xiaoqing

2009-01-01

The semi-text-independent method of writer verification based on the linear framework is a method that can use all characters of two handwritings to discriminate the writers in the condition of knowing the text contents. The handwritings are allowed to just have small numbers of even totally different characters. This fills the vacancy of the classical text-dependent methods and the text-independent methods of writer verification. Moreover, the information, what every character is, is used for the semi-text-independent method in this paper. Two types of standard templates, generated from many writer-unknown handwritten samples and printed samples of each character, are introduced to represent the content information of each character. The difference vectors of the character samples are gotten by subtracting the standard templates from the original feature vectors and used to replace the original vectors in the process of writer verification. By removing a large amount of content information and remaining the style information, the verification accuracy of the semi-text-independent method is improved. On a handwriting database involving 30 writers, when the query handwriting and the reference handwriting are composed of 30 distinct characters respectively, the average equal error rate (EER) of writer verification reaches 9.96%. And when the handwritings contain 50 characters, the average EER falls to 6.34%, which is 23.9% lower than the EER of not using the difference vectors.

Character Strengths and Intellectual and Developmental Disability: A Strengths-Based Approach from Positive Psychology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Niemiec, Ryan M.; Shogren, Karrie A.; Wehmeyer, Michael L.

2017-01-01

There has been limited focus in the disability field on assessing and intervening to promote strengths of character. However, character strengths have received significant attention in the broader field of positive psychology. This paper provides an overview of the growing science of character strengths and explores why and how character strengths…

RESEARCH ON ROBUST METHODS FOR EXTRACTING AND RECOGNIZING PHOTOGRAPHY MANAGEMENT ITEMS FROM VARIOUS IMAGE DATA Of CONSTRUCTION

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kitagawa, Etsuji; Tanaka, Shigenori; Abiko, Satoshi; Wakabayashi, Katsuma; Jiang, Wenyuan

Recently, an electronic delivery for various documents is carried out by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in construction fields. One of them is image data of construction photography that must be delivered with information of photography management items such as construction name or type of works, etc. However, there is a problem that a lot of cost is needed to treat contents of these items from characters printed and handwritten on blackboard into these image data. In this research, we develop the system which can treat contents of these items by extracting contents of these items from the image data of construction photography taken in various scenes with preprocessing the image, recognizing characters with OCR and correcting error with natural language process. And we confirm the effectiveness of the system, by experimenting in each function of system and in entire system.

Online recognition of Chinese characters: the state-of-the-art.

PubMed

Liu, Cheng-Lin; Jaeger, Stefan; Nakagawa, Masaki

2004-02-01

Online handwriting recognition is gaining renewed interest owing to the increase of pen computing applications and new pen input devices. The recognition of Chinese characters is different from western handwriting recognition and poses a special challenge. To provide an overview of the technical status and inspire future research, this paper reviews the advances in online Chinese character recognition (OLCCR), with emphasis on the research works from the 1990s. Compared to the research in the 1980s, the research efforts in the 1990s aimed to further relax the constraints of handwriting, namely, the adherence to standard stroke orders and stroke numbers and the restriction of recognition to isolated characters only. The target of recognition has shifted from regular script to fluent script in order to better meet the requirements of practical applications. The research works are reviewed in terms of pattern representation, character classification, learning/adaptation, and contextual processing. We compare important results and discuss possible directions of future research.

Temperament and character personality dimensions in patients with dental anxiety.

PubMed

Bergdahl, Maud; Bergdahl, Jan

2003-04-01

The aim of the present study was to investigate character and temperament dimensions of personality in six men and 31 women (aged 20-57 yr) with severe dental anxiety, and to evaluate whether these dimensions were associated with the level of dental anxiety. The Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) and the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) were used. High ratings in novelty seeking and female gender predicted high DAS scores. Compared with controls, the patients scored significantly higher on the temperament dimension, novelty seeking. For character dimensions, the patients scored lower on cooperativeness and higher on self-transcendence than controls. Our results indicated that patients with dental anxiety are neurotic extravert (i.e. novelty seekers who experience brief dissociative periods and magical thinking). Furthermore, the combination of the inherited temperament dimension novelty seeking and the social learned character dimension cooperativeness and self-transcendence seem to form a vulnerable personality to develop dental anxiety.

Temperament and character properties of primary focal hyperhidrosis patients

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Primary focal hyperhidrosis is a health problem, which has negative effects on the patient's quality of life and significantly affects the patients’ daily activities, social and business life. The aim of this study is to evaluate temperament and character properties of patients diagnosed with primary focal hyperhidrosis. Methods Fifty-six primary focal hyperhidrosis (22.42 ± 7.80) and 49 control subjects (24.48 ± 5.17) participated in the study. Patients who met the diagnostic criteria for PFH were referred to psychiatry clinic where the subjects were evaluated through Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Disorders-I and Temperament and Character Inventory. Results In order to examine the difference between the PFH and control group in terms of temperament and character properties, one-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was conducted. In terms of temperament properties, PFH group took significantly higher scores than control group in Fatigability and asthenia dimension. In terms of character properties, PFH group scored significantly lower than control group in Purposefulness , Resourcefulness , Self-Directedness and scored significantly higher than control group in Self-forgetfulness and Self-Transcendence. Conclusion Temperament and character features of PFH patients were different from healthy group and it was considered that these features were affected by many factors including genetic, biological, environmental, socio-cultural elements. During the follow-up of PFH cases, psychiatric evaluation is important and interventions, especially psychotherapeutic interventions can increase the chances of success of the dermatological treatments and can have a positive impact on the quality of life and social cohesion of chronic cases. PMID:23311945

[Landscape character assessment framework in rural area: A case study in Qiaokou, Chang-sha, China].

PubMed

Zhang, Qian; Liu, Wen-ping; Yu, Zhen-rong

2015-05-01

Based on the concept and methods of landscape character assessment (LCA) in England, this paper applied a complete process of landscape character assessment with a case study in Qiaokou Town, which is located in a typical southern paddy fields area in Changsha City. We drew the landscape character map of Qiaokou Town through desk classification and field survey, identified and compared the key characters of each character area, and proposed suggestions on the improvement and stewardship of landscape characters. The results showed that Qiaokou could be divided into 2 landscape character types and 7 landscape character areas with the main differences in cropland and vegetation pattern as well as aesthetic characters. The case study indicated that LCA could be a critical tool to identify the characteristics in rural area, and provide helpful guidance to protect, restore and maintain the unique culture and characters of rural landscape, which is useful for targeted rural landscape development. In the future, we suggested that the assessment on the effects of landscape construction measures on the ecosystem services should be incorporated in LCA research as well.

Personality and emotion-based high-level control of affective story characters.

PubMed

Su, Wen-Poh; Pham, Binh; Wardhani, Aster

2007-01-01

Human emotional behavior, personality, and body language are the essential elements in the recognition of a believable synthetic story character. This paper presents an approach using story scripts and action descriptions in a form similar to the content description of storyboards to predict specific personality and emotional states. By adopting the Abridged Big Five Circumplex (AB5C) Model of personality from the study of psychology as a basis for a computational model, we construct a hierarchical fuzzy rule-based system to facilitate the personality and emotion control of the body language of a dynamic story character. The story character can consistently perform specific postures and gestures based on his/her personality type. Story designers can devise a story context in the form of our story interface which predictably motivates personality and emotion values to drive the appropriate movements of the story characters. Our system takes advantage of relevant knowledge described by psychologists and researchers of storytelling, nonverbal communication, and human movement. Our ultimate goal is to facilitate the high-level control of a synthetic character.

Computer-Generated, Three-Dimensional Character Animation: A Report and Analysis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kingsbury, Douglas Lee

This master's thesis details the experience gathered in the production "Snoot and Muttly," a short character animation with 3-D computer generated images, and provides an analysis of the computer-generated 3-D character animation system capabilities. Descriptions are provided of the animation environment at the Ohio State University…

Character Development: Putting It into Practice in Admissions and Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sternberg, Robert J.

2013-01-01

The most important knowledge and skills a college education should develop in young people are those underlying good character, such as integrity, responsibility, work ethic, intellectual curiosity, mental flexibility, and wisdom. When leaders fail, most frequently it is because of issues of character, not lack of knowledge or intellectual…

Character and Citizenship Education: Conversations between Personal and Societal Values

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sim, Jasmine B.-Y.; Low, Ee Ling

2012-01-01

The theme of this special issue is "Character and Citizenship Education: Conversations between Personal and Societal Values." Character education and citizenship education, taken separately or as a single entity are currently riding high on the political and educational policy agendas of several governments (Arthur, 2003; Berkowitz & Bier, 2007;…

Character Strengths and Psychological Wellbeing among Students of Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gustems, Josep; Calderon, Caterina

2014-01-01

The relation between character strengths and psychological well-being can have an important effect on students' academic performance. We examined relationships between character strengths and psychological well-being as assessed by the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths and Brief Symptom Inventory. A sample of 98 teacher education students…

A Study of the Relationship Between Alcoholism and Character Disorder.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolfley, Virgil L.

Studies have shown that sociopaths and alcoholics tend to come from similar social backgrounds and that they share several characteristics. To investigate the relationship between alcoholism and character disorder syndrome in adult males, 20 males who had a history of alcohol problems and displayed characteristics of character disorder were…

Relationships between Implementing Character Education, Student Behavior, and Student Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Skaggs, Gary; Bodenhorn, Nancy

2006-01-01

Over a 4-year period, researchers measured several outcomes in 5 school districts initiating or enhancing character education programs. Based on student, teacher, and administrator surveys, there was a noticeable improvement in character-related behavior. In certain districts, suspension and drop-out rates also decreased after the implementation…

12 CFR 333.1 - Classification of general character of business.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... classifying their general character or type of business, 2 viz: commercial banks, banks and trust companies... 12 Banks and Banking 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Classification of general character of business. 333.1 Section 333.1 Banks and Banking FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION REGULATIONS AND STATEMENTS...

7 CFR 52.3762 - Character.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... character, a score of 24 to 26 points may be given. Canned ripe olives that fall into this classification...) Grade C. If canned ripe olives of whole, pitted, halved, segmented, sliced, chopped and broken pitted... fall into this classification shall not be graded above U.S. Grade C regardless of the total score for...

7 CFR 52.3762 - Character.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... character, a score of 24 to 26 points may be given. Canned ripe olives that fall into this classification...) Grade C. If canned ripe olives of whole, pitted, halved, segmented, sliced, chopped and broken pitted... fall into this classification shall not be graded above U.S. Grade C regardless of the total score for...

Natal plumage characters in rails

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wetherbee, D.K.; Meanley, B.

1965-01-01

The downy young of the Clapper Rail (Rallus longirostris), King Rail (Rallus elegans), and Virginia Rail (Rallus limicola) are described as totally black in all literature examined by us. Wetherbee (Bird-Banding, 32: 141-159, 1961) noted that some neonates of Virginia Rail from Storrs, Connecticut, had patches of white down below the wings. "Neonatal" pertains to the developmental condition or characters at hatching distinct from the much abused term "natal" which in ornithology pertains to the condition or characters from hatching to acquisition of teleoptile plumage. The presence of similar patches of white down was observed by us in the Clapper Rails at Chincoteague, Virginia (Figure 1). An examination of many hundreds of specimens from the ranges of most of the subspecies of Clapper Rails, including the strongly contrasting R. longirostris saturatus from Louisiana, revealed the almost invariable presence of at least 1 and sometimes as many as 30 white neossoptiles in the anterior abdominal regions of the ventral pterylae. Conversely, no King Rail neonate examined by us has shown a white neossoptile.

29 CFR 18.404 - Character evidence not admissible to prove conduct; exceptions; other crimes.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

...; exceptions; other crimes. 18.404 Section 18.404 Labor Office of the Secretary of Labor RULES OF PRACTICE AND... crimes. (a) Character evidence generally. Evidence of a person's character or a trait of character is not... evidence of the character of a witness, as provided in §§ 18.607, 18.608, and 18.609. (b) Other crimes...

Identification of Matra Region and Overlapping Characters for OCR of Printed Bengali Scripts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goswami, Subhra Sundar

One of the important reasons for poor recognition rate in optical character recognition (OCR) system is the error in character segmentation. In case of Bangla scripts, the errors occur due to several reasons, which include incorrect detection of matra (headline), over-segmentation and under-segmentation. We have proposed a robust method for detecting the headline region. Existence of overlapping characters (in under-segmented parts) in scanned printed documents is a major problem in designing an effective character segmentation procedure for OCR systems. In this paper, a predictive algorithm is developed for effectively identifying overlapping characters and then selecting the cut-borders for segmentation. Our method can be successfully used in achieving high recognition result.

Ensuring Good Character and Civic Education: Connecting through Service Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shumer, Robert; Lam, Carolina; Laabs, Bonnie

2012-01-01

Character and citizenship education are part of the vision of many countries, including Singapore. Ensuring they are implemented in academic environments, service learning has been shown to be a natural bridge between the two. Research has shown that service learning, when done well, produces outcomes related to character development and…

16 CFR 18.7 - Misrepresentation as to character of business.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 16 Commercial Practices 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Misrepresentation as to character of business. 18.7 Section 18.7 Commercial Practices FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION GUIDES AND TRADE PRACTICE RULES GUIDES FOR THE NURSERY INDUSTRY § 18.7 Misrepresentation as to character of business. (a) In the sale...

Characters and Episodes that Provide Models for Middle School Writers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pelttari, Carole

2012-01-01