Writer identification approach based on bag of words with OBI features

Handwriter identification aims to simplify the task of forensic experts by providing them with semi-automated tools in order to enable them to narrow down the search to determine the final identification of an unknown handwritten sample. An identification algorithm aims to produce a list of predicted writers of the unknown handwritten sample ranked in terms of confidence measure metrics for use by the forensic expert will make the final decision.Most existing handwriter identification systems use either statistical or model-based approaches. To further improve the performances this paper proposes to deploy a combination of both approaches using Oriented Basic Image features and the concept of graphemes codebook. To reduce the resulting high dimensionality of the feature vector a Kernel Principal Component Analysis has been used. To gauge the effectiveness of the proposed method a performance analysis, using IAM dataset for English handwriting and ICFHR 2012 dataset for Arabic handwriting, has been carried out. The results obtained achieved an accuracy of 96% thus demonstrating its superiority when compared against similar techniques.     

Spontaneous spatial strategy use in learning from scientific text

Two studies explored the role of the spontaneous use of spatial note-taking strategies (i.e., creating maps and drawings) and spatial ability in learning from a scientific passage. In Study 1, college students read and took notes by hand on a 10-paragraph scientific passage about the human respiratory system. Students tended to use verbal strategies such as lists (on 48% of the paragraphs), outlines (29%) and running text (15%), but also used spatial strategies such as maps (28%) and drawings (11%). Regression analyses indicated that spatial ability and the use of spatial strategies (maps or drawings) significantly predicted learning outcomes, with spatial strategy use explaining additional variance beyond spatial ability. In Study 2, students read the same scientific passage and took notes either by hand on paper (paper group), by hand on a large whiteboard (whiteboard group), or on a laptop computer (computer group). A similar general pattern as Study 1 was found for the paper group, but this pattern was not found for the computer or whiteboard groups, suggesting that the relationships found in Study 1 might depend on the note-taking medium. Results also indicated that students in the paper and whiteboard groups spontaneously used more spatial strategies, whereas the computer group tended to use verbal strategies (i.e., words only), suggesting that different note-taking contexts encourage different strategies.     

Children's responses to the interactivity of storybook apps in family shared reading events involving the iPad

This paper reports on some data on the effects of screen‐based interactivity on children's engagement with storybook apps during family shared book reading that were gathered in a 2‐year, small‐scale ethnographic case study in Spain. Data analysis focuses on the complex interplay between the storybook app's interactive features and the children's responses to them. Our findings show that interactive elements increase the child's autonomy, as they tend to promote the importance of the reader, positioning him or her as a collaborator, storyteller, an author or an internal character in the fiction; something that can materialise in exciting narrative strategies that can trigger powerful responses to digital literary texts in emergent readers, including playing, creating new fictions or engaging emotionally with the story. Finally, we argue that the Reader Response models that have been used over recent decades to understand children's reading experiences with storybooks need to be revised to better understand their current experiences with interactive texts.     

中巴建交六十年:双边关系回顾与思考

自1951年中国与巴基斯坦建立外交关系以来,至2011年,双边关系迎来了60周年。回顾过去跨世纪的60年,中巴关系在几个发展阶段都呈现出一些共同的特征,无论双方国内政治格局如何变动,无论国际风云如何变幻,中国和巴基斯坦都经受住了时间的检验,将"好邻居、好朋友、好伙伴、好兄弟"的国家和人民之间的关系不断推向更高的阶段,最终形成"全天候"和"全方位"的战略合作关系,成为当代国际关系的典范,也成为维护地区和世界和平、稳定与安全的重要力量。60年的中巴交往积累了丰富的弥足珍贵的经验,可以概括为:以"和谐世界"、"和而不同"的哲学思想为出发点,互相尊重,平等相待,高度信任;从全球化角度来审视和处理两国关系是中巴能够"以不变应万变"、长期保持"全天候"和"全方位"战略合作的最佳视域;以维护对方国家核心利益为基轴,在事关领土完整、民族安全等重大问题上相互理解和支持;与时俱进,扩大互利共赢的双边经贸合作是巩固和拓展两国"特殊关系"的基石;频繁的高端互访和各领域、各层次友好往来是中巴关系长盛不衰、保持活力的根本源泉。事实上,这种非同一般的关系已经远远超越双边和地区范畴,对全世界都有借鉴意义。     

小学语文阅读教学“标准”与“多元”探究

本文概述了"多元解读"的产生及其必要性,以及在实施过程中,如何避免对"多元解读"的过分追求所导致的语文阅读教学的一些误区。同时,本文对"多元解读"的现状加以分析并提出了一些解决问题的策略。     

汉代藏书及其影响浅析

两汉藏书各有千秋 ,无论从藏书的数量和质量 ,还是从藏书的途经和手段来说都有各自的特色 ,然而在其对文化传播的影响 ,对图书馆的产生与发展 ,对经学理论的体系化等方面又走到了一起     

欧盟基本法的本质

欧盟基本法是欧盟法律的主要渊源。欧盟基本法在欧盟法律体系中具有宪法的三个最基本特征,即地位具最高性,内容具根本性,程序具严格性,在欧盟法律体系中实际上起着宪法的作用。     

Are We There Yet? Calculating Wait Time for Popular Digital Titles

E-books and audiobooks are becoming increasingly popular in the United States. Unfortunately, the supply of digital titles does not meet the demand. Library patrons must frequently wait for weeks to receive popular e-books. We examined the issue of wait time for e-book and audiobook titles using three public library patron accounts to gather data consisting of the average daily number of wait spots for each title, and days until the title was available. Based on our observations, we propose the Waiting Reduction Rate (WRR) formula to determine the average number of wait spots per title as a metric to help determine a better holds-to-copy ratio for electronic materials and reduce patron wait time.     

Using LSA and text segmentation to improve automatic Chinese dialogue text summarization

Automatic Chinese text summarization for dialogue style is a relatively new research area. In this paper, Latent Semantic Analysis （LSA） is first used to extract semantic knowledge from a given document, all question paragraphs are identified, an automatic text segmentation approach analogous to Text＇filing is exploited to improve the precision of correlating question paragraphs and answer paragraphs, and finally some ＂important＂ sentences are extracted from the generic content and the question-answer pairs to generate a complete summary. Experimental results showed that our approach is highly efficient and improves significantly the coherence of the summary while not compromising informativeness.     

英语中的委婉语的构成手段

委婉语是语言使用中人们协调人际关系的一个重要手段，也是人类语言中的一种普遍的语言现象。委婉借助于语音、语法、语用、语义等手段构成，非常得体地表达生活中的那些使人尴尬、令人不快或使人恐惧的事物，本文则主要介绍委婉语的构成手段。