Text line segmentation of historical documents: a survey

There is a huge amount of historical documents in libraries and in various National Archives that have not been exploited electronically. Although automatic reading of complete pages remains, in most cases, a long-term objective, tasks such as word spotting, text/image alignment, authentication and extraction of specific fields are in use today. For all these tasks, a major step is document segmentation into text lines. Because of the low quality and the complexity of these documents (background noise, artifacts due to aging, interfering lines), automatic text line segmentation remains an open research field. The objective of this paper is to present a survey of existing methods, developed during the last decade and dedicated to documents of historical interest.     

A multimodal annotated corpus of consensus decision making meetings

In this paper we present an annotated audio–video corpus of multi-party meetings. The multimodal corpus provides for each subject involved in the experimental sessions six annotation dimensions referring to group dynamics; speech activity and body activity. The corpus is based on 11 audio and video recorded sessions which took place in a lab setting appropriately equipped with cameras and microphones. Our main concern in collecting this multimodal corpus was to explore the possibility of providing feedback services to facilitate group processes and to enhance self awareness among small groups engaged in meetings. We therefore introduce a coding scheme for annotating relevant functional roles that appear in a small group interaction. We also discuss the reliability of the coding scheme and we present the first results for automatic classification.     

构成廉价电感测量仪的单个IC

本设计实例显示了如何构建一个可靠的低成本的简单电感测量仪.电感测量仪的基础是一个皮尔斯(Pierce)CMOS缓冲振荡器(图1).代替普通的石英晶体,连接待测电感.     

Attention for emotional faces under restricted awareness revisited: Do emotional faces automatically attract attention?

Theoretical models of attention for affective information have assigned a special status to the cognitive processing of emotional facial expressions. One specific claim in this regard is that emotional faces automatically attract visual attention. In three experiments, the authors investigated attentional cueing by angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions that were presented under conditions of limited awareness. In these experiments, facial expressions were presented in a masked (14 ms or 34 ms, masked by a neutral face) and unmasked fashion (34 ms or 100 ms). Compared with trials containing neutral cues, delayed responding was found on trials with emotional cues in the unmasked, 100-ms condition, suggesting stronger allocation of cognitive resources to emotional faces. However, in both masked and unmasked conditions, the hypothesized cueing of visual attention to the location of emotional facial expression was not found. In contrary, attentional cueing by emotional faces was less strong compared with neutral faces in the unmasked, 100-ms condition. These data suggest that briefly presented emotional faces influence cognitive processing but do not automatically capture visual attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of hydrogen on the mechanical properties of a 2 1/4Cr–1Mo steel

This paper explores the effects of hydrogen on the mechanical properties of a 2 1/4Cr–1Mo steel. The results for both microstructural conditions, as received and aged, indicated a loss of ductility after hydrogen charging treatment, but the yield strength and ultimate tensile strength remained unaltered. The fractograph analysis revealed that the fracture mode was modified by the hydrogen. The steel in the as-received condition showed craters and fisheyes on the fracture surface. The aged steel showed a brittle appearance associated with cleavage facets and small portion of areas with dimples. The hydrogen diffusivity and solubility were investigated using electrochemical permeation technique. It was observed that the hydrogen diffusivity decreased from 2.3 ± 0.4 × 10⁻¹⁰ m² s⁻¹ in the as-received condition to 5.7 ± 0.1 × 10⁻¹¹ m² s⁻¹ in the aged condition. The hydrogen solubility showed an increase for the aged condition in comparison to the as received sample. Both phenomena can be attributed to carbide evolution during aging, resulting in an increase of the carbide/matrix interfacial area.     

Hydrogen component fugacity coefficients in binary mixtures with ethane: Pressure dependence

The fugacity coefficients of hydrogen in binary mixtures with ethane were measured. Data were taken using an experimental chamber which is divided into two regions by a semipermeable membrane through which hydrogen, but not ethane, can penetrate. The measurement of the gas pressures inside and outside the membrane gives the hydrogen component fugacity at a given temperature, binary mixture mole fraction, and mixture pressure. In this paper, results are reported at mixture pressures of 5.25, 6.97, 10.21, and 13.47 MPa. In each case, the temperature of the mixture was maintained at an average value of 130°C (403.15 K). The general qualitative features of the data are discussed, and comparisons are made with predictions obtained from the Redlich-Kwong and Peng-Robinson equations of state.     

Comparison of toxaphene congeners levels in five seal species from eastern Canada: what is the importance of biological factors?

Environmentally relevant chlorobornanes (CHBs) were measured in blubber samples of harbor (Phoca vitulina), gray (Halichoerus grypus), harp (Phoca groenlandica), and hooded seals (Cystophora cristata) sampled in different part of the St. Lawrence marine ecosystem (SLME) and ringed seals (Phoca hispida) sampled in the eastern Canadian Arctic waters. The purpose of this study was to compare the levels of six CHBs (Parlar-26, -40/-41, -44, -50, and -62) among the five seal species. Seal species could be separated into three groups based on their respective sigmaCHB mean concentrations (+/-standard error): gray (49+/-3.9 ng/g lipid weight) and harbor (80+/-20 ng/g lipid weight) seals were more contaminated than ringed seals (18+/-7.6 ng/g lipid weight) but less contaminated than harp (370+/-87 ng/g lipid weight) and hooded (680+/-310 ng/g lipid weight) seals. These differences are not expected to be related to different sources of toxaphene contamination, since both the SLME and the eastern Canadian Arctic environments are thought to be mainly contaminated via atmospheric transportfrom the southeastern part of the United States. Thus, biological factors such as sex, age, nutritive condition, metabolism capacity, and diet of the animals collected were considered. Results reported in this study indicated that the diet is likely the main factor accounting for interspecies variations in toxaphene contamination in seals from eastern Canada.