Books on the topic 'OCR,Computer Vision'

Technology doesn't flow smoothly; it's the big surprises that matter, and Yale computer expert David Gelernter sees one such giant leap right on the horizon. Today's small scale software programs are about to be joined by vast public software works that will revolutionize computing and transform society as a whole. One such vast program is the "Mirror world." Imagine looking at your computer screen and seeing reality--an image of your city, for instance, complete with moving traffic patterns, or a picture that sketches the state of an entire far-flung corporation at this second. These representations are called Mirror worlds, and according to Gelernter they will soon be available to everyone. Mirror worlds are high-tech voodoo dolls: by interacting with the images, you interact with reality. Indeed, Mirror worlds will revolutionize the use of computers, transforming them from (mere) handy tools to crystal balls which will allow us to see the world more vividly and see into it more deeply. Reality will be replaced gradually, piece-by-piece, by a software imitation; we will live inside the imitation; and the surprising thing is--this will be a great humanistic advance. we gain control over our world, plus a huge new measure of insight and vision. In this fascinating book--part speculation, part explanation--Gelernter takes us on a tour of the computer technology of the near future. Mirror worlds, he contends, will allow us to explore the world in unprecedented depth and detail without ever changing out of our pajamas. A hospital administrator might wander through an entire medical complex via a desktop computer. Any citizen might explore the performance of the local schools, chat electronically with teachers and other Mirror world visitors, plant software agents to report back on interesting topics; decide to run for the local school board, hire a campaign manager, and conduct the better part of the campaign itself--all by interacting with the Mirror world. Gelernter doesn't just speculate about how this amazing new software will be used--he shows us how it will be made, explaining carefully and in detail how to build a Mirror world using technology already available. we learn about "disembodied machines," "trellises," "ensembles," and other computer components which sound obscure, but which Gelernter explains using familiar metaphors and terms. (He tells us that a Mirror world is a microcosm just like a Japanese garden or a Gothic cathedral, and that a computer program is translated by the computer in the same way a symphony is translated by a violinist into music.) Mirror worlds offers a lucid and humanistic account of the coming software revolution, told by a computer scientist at the cutting edge of his field.

Finding patterns in biomolecular data, particularly in DNA and RNA, is at the center of modern biological research. These data are complex and growing rapidly, so the search for patterns requires increasingly sophisticated computer methods. Pattern Discovery in Biomolecular Data provides a clear, up-to-date summary of the principal techniques. Each chapter is self-contained, and the techniques are drawn from many fields, including graph theory, information theory, statistics, genetic algorithms, computer visualization, and vision. Since pattern searches often benefit from multiple approaches, the book presents methods in their purest form so that readers can best choose the method or combination that fits their needs. The chapters focus on finding patterns in DNA, RNA, and protein sequences, finding patterns in 2D and 3D structures, and choosing system components. This volume will be invaluable for all workers in genomics and genetic analysis, and others whose research requires biocomputing.

Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications is the premier biennial conference in Australia on the topics of image processing and image analysis. This seventh edition of the proceedings has seen an unprecedented level of submission, on such diverse areas as: Image processing; Face recognition; Segmentation; Registration; Motion analysis; Medical imaging; Object recognition; Virtual environments; Graphics; Stereo-vision; and Video analysis. These two volumes contain all the 108 accepted papers and five invited talks that were presented at the conference. These two volumes provide the Australian and international imaging research community with a snapshot of current theoretical and practical developments in these areas. They are of value to any engineer, computer scientist, mathematician, statistician or student interested in these matters.

In this chapter the spirit of William Petty is the driving force, but it is given new theoret- ical foundations, mainly as a result of developments in the mathematic underpinnings of the tremendous developments in the potentials of computing, especially using digital technology. Computation and simulation have always played a role in economics, whether it be pure economic theory or any variant of applied economics. This tradition can be traced to the vision of Petty, the founding father of political economy as political arithmetic. A running theme is that, increasingly, the development of economic theory seems to go hand in hand with advances in the theory and practice of computing, which is, in turn, a catalyst for the move away from overreliance on any kind of mathematics for the formalization of economic entities that is inconsistent with the mathematical, philosophical, and epistemological foundations of the digital computer.

This volume offers new ways to read the audiovisual. In the media landscapes of today, conglomerates jockey for primacy and the Internet increasingly places media in the hands of individuals-producing the range of phenomena from movie blockbuster to YouTube aesthetics. Media forms and genres are proliferating and interpenetrating, from movies, music, and other entertainments streaming on computers and iPods to video games and wireless phones. The audiovisual environment of everyday life, too-from street to stadium to classroom-would at times be hardly recognizable to the mid-twentieth-century subject. The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics provides powerful ways to understand these changes. Earlier approaches tended to consider sound and music as secondary to image and narrative. These remained popular even as practices from theater, cinema, and television migrated across media. However, the traversal, or “remediation,” from one medium to another has also provided practitioners and audiences the chance to rewrite the rules of the audiovisual contract. Whether viewed from the vantage of televised mainstream culture, the Hollywood film industry, the cinematic avant-garde, or the participatory discourses of “cyberspace,” audiovisual expression has changed dramatically. The book provides a definitive cross-section of current ways of thinking about sound and image. Its authors-leading scholars and promising younger ones, audiovisual practitioners and nonacademic writers (both mainstream and independent)-open the discussion on audiovisual aesthetics in new directions. Our contributors come from fields including film, visual arts, new media, cultural theory, and sound and music studies, and they draw variously from economic, political, institutional, psychoanalytic, genre-based, auteurist, internationalist, reception-focused, technological, and cultural approaches to questions concerning today’s sound and image. All consider the aural dimension, and what Michel Chion calls “audio-vision:” the sensory and semiotic result of sound placed with vision, an encounter greater than their sum.

The words that physicians use with patients have the power to heal or harm. The practice of medicine is shaped by the potent metaphors that are prevalent in clinical care, and military metaphors and the words of war bring with them unfortunate consequences for patients and physicians alike. Physicians who fight disease turn the patient into a passive battlefield. Patients are encouraged to remain stoic, blamed for “failing” chemotherapy and sadly remembered in heroic obituaries of lost battles. The search for disease as enemy shifts the doctor’s gaze to the computer and imaging technologies that render the patient transparent, unseen and unheard. Modern treatments save lives but patients can be the victims of collateral damage and friendly fire. In The Language of Medicine, Abraham Fuks, physician, medical educator and former Dean of Medicine, shows us how words are potent drugs that must be tailored to the individual patient and applied in carefully chosen and measured doses to offer benefits and avoid toxicity. The book shines a light on our culture that deprecates the skill of listening that is, paradoxically, the attribute that patients most desire of their doctors. Societal metronomes beat rapidly and compress clinic visits into stroboscopic encounters that leave patients puzzled, fearful and uncertain. Building on research about physicians in practice, the experiences of patients, stories of medical students as well as the history of medicine, Dr. Fuks promotes an ideal of clinical practice that is achieved by humble physicians who provide time and space for listening, select words with care, and choose metaphors that engender healing.