Train Technical English

Number 18                                                                                   March  2010

Editorial

In technical communication when writing business and other letters, participating in conferences, discussing issues with colleagues and many other similar situations we often need to pose questions. In these cases being understood by others is of paramount importance. Thus the present ViCTE Newsletter has as a main topic considerations around word order in English question sentences.

When making questions about anything in a sentence except the subject, use please the rule 1– 2 – 3. It is easy. For example, let us have a think about the sentence:   

Public has become accustomed to handwriting recognition.  

The questions could be:

Has(1) public(2) become(3) accustomed to handwriting recognition?

Why has(1) public(2) become(3) accustomed to handwriting recognition?

What has(1) public(2) become(3) accustomed to?

In all questions we have a sequence:  “has(1) public(2) become(3)”, where (1) is an auxiliary verb, (2) is a subject, (3) is a main verb. And this word order is kept in all similar questions. So it is the rule 1 –2 – 3. Practise it doing exercise 2. Again please drop a look at Basic word order in English .

As always enriching your vocabulary concerns the words which are typical for topics regarding hand writing recognition (exercises 1 and 3). Below find the technical text about the topic.

More information about handwriting recognition in connection with Windows 7 you can find in Handwriting recognition and Windows 7 . 

Handwriting recognition

Three main kinds of handwriting recognition are distinguished now:

Intelligent Word Recognition (IWR) is intended to recognize unconstrained handwritten words. It recognizes entire handwritten words or phrases instead of character-by-character estimating. IWR technology matches handwritten or handprinted words to a user-defined dictionary, significantly reducing character errors. IWR also eliminates manual data entry of handwritten documents, which in the past could be ensured only by a human. IWR is ideal for processing real-world documents that contain mostly freeform, hard-to-recognize data.

Optical character recognition (OCR) is the conversion of images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text (usually captured by a scanner) into machine-editable text. Replacing each block of pixels that resembles a particular character (a letter, digit or punctuation mark) or a word with that character, OCR enables to store the text compactly, to edit it, display or print a copy of the text free of scanning artifacts. OCR is still a field of research in pattern recognition, artificial intelligence and computer vision. In spite of that the focus on OCR has moved to implementation of proven techniques.

Intelligent character recognition (ICR) is an advanced OCR. Fonts and different styles of handwriting are enabled to be learned by a computer during data processing to improve accuracy and recognition levels. Most ICR software has a self-learning system referred to as a neural network, which automatically updates the recognition database for new handwriting patterns. Even then accuracy levels of handwriting recognition using ICR may not be very good. Nevertheless, reading handwriting in structured forms helps to achieve 97% accuracy rates.

New technology on the market for handwriting recognition utilizes IWR, OCR, and ICR together, which enables processing documents either constrained (handprinted or machine printed) or unconstrained (freeform cursive). 

As for a conclusion it concerns on-line and off-line handwriting recognition. On-line recognition refers to recognition of handwriting using a real-time digitizing tablet for input. Off-line one pertains optical character recognition of static handwritten symbols from paper.

Reference: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  http://en.wikipedia.org

Vocabulary

Exercises

The exercises below are based on the technical text above and on the content of Handwriting recognition and Windows 7 .

Exercise 1  Fill in gaps in the text wit words from the list below:

Digitizing tablet

A digitizing tablet (or graphics tablet, graphics pad or pen pad or digitizer, drawing tablet) is a computer input device that allows you to hand-draw … and graphics These tablets may also be used to … data or handwritten … .

A graphics tablet … a flat surface on which the user “draws” an … with attached stylus, a pen-like … gadget. The image does not usually appear on the … itself but, rather, is displayed on the computer monitor. Some tablets, however … as a secondary computer screen with which you can … directly using the stylus.

Some … are intended to replace a mouse as the primary pointing and … device for desktop computers.

Exercise 2  Make questions beginning with the words in bold :

1. Handwriting recognition enables the computer to receive and  interpret handwritten input from different sources.    What … ?
2. A tablet personal computer  is equipped with a digitizer tablet and a stylus.     What … with?
3. Handwriting recognition has not achieved widespread use in either desktop computers or laptops yet.     Why … ?
4. Off-line handwriting recognition involves the automatic conversion of text in an image into letter codes.     What conversion … ?
5. Off-line handwriting recognition pertains optical character recognition of static handwritten symbols from paper.      When … ?
6. The quality of recognition can be substantially increased by structuring the documents.     How … ?
7. IWR technology matches handwritten or printed words to a user-defined dictionary.    What … ?

Exercise 3   Match the beginning of the sentence  in Column A to its ending in Column B:

Find keys to the exercises on Keys to exercises on this blog (but do the exercises first!)

Would you like to improve your pronunciation?

Do you want to speak English like a native speaker?

Visit English for Busy People

 http://www.dailystep.com/content.asp?id=16  

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Good luck!