The usefulness of digitized documents is directly related to the quality of the extracted text. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has reached a point where well-formatted and clean machine- printed documents are easily recognizable by current commercial OCR products; however, older or degraded machine-printed documents present problems to OCR engines resulting in word error rates (WER) that severely limit either automated or manual use of the extracted text. Major archives of historical machine-printed documents are being assembled around the globe, requiring an accurate transcription of the text for the automated creation of descriptive metadata, full-text searching, and information extraction. Given document images to be transcribed, ensemble recognition methods with multiple sources of evidence from the original document image and information sources external to the document have been shown in this and related work to improve output. This research introduces new methods of evidence extraction, feature engineering, and evidence combination to correct errors from state-of-the-art OCR engines. This work also investigates the success and failure of ensemble methods in the OCR error correction task, as well as the conditions under which these ensemble recognition methods reduce the Word Error Rate (WER), improving the quality of the OCR transcription, showing that the average document word error rate can be reduced below the WER of a state-of-the-art commercial OCR system by between 7.4% and 28.6% depending on the test corpus and methods. This research on OCR error correction contributes within the larger field of ensemble methods as follows. Four unique corpora for OCR error correction are introduced: The Eisenhower Communiqués, a collection of typewritten documents from 1944 to 1945; The Nineteenth Century Mormon Articles Newspaper Index from 1831 to 1900; and two synthetic corpora based on the Enron (2001) and the Reuters (1997) datasets. The Reverse Dijkstra Heuristic is introduced as a novel admissible heuristic for the A* exact alignment algorithm. The impact of the heuristic is a dramatic reduction in the number of nodes processed during text alignment as compared to the baseline method. From the aligned text, the method developed here creates a lattice of competing hypotheses for word tokens. In contrast to much of the work in this field, the word token lattice is created from a character alignment, preserving split and merged tokens within the hypothesis columns of the lattice. This alignment method more explicitly identifies competing word hypotheses which may otherwise have been split apart by a word alignment. Lastly, this research explores, in order of increasing contribution to word error rate reduction: voting among hypotheses, decision lists based on an in-domain training set, ensemble recognition methods with novel feature sets, multiple binarizations of the same document image, and training on synthetic document images.

No description available.

Multiple Sequenzalignments (MSAs) von homologen Proteinen sind nützliche Werkzeuge, um kompensatorische Mutationen zwischen nicht-konservierten Residuen zu charakterisieren. Die Identifizierung dieser Residuen in MSAs ist eine wichtige Aufgabe um die strukturellen Grundlagen und molekularen Mechanismen von Proteinfunktionen besser zu verstehen. Trotz der vielen Anzahl an Literatur über kompensatorische Mutationen sowie über die Sequenzkonservierungsanalyse für die Erkennung von wichtigen Residuen, haben vorherige Methoden meistens die biochemischen Eigenschaften von Aminosäuren nicht mit in Betracht gezogen, welche allerdings entscheidend für die Erkennung von kompensatorischen Mutationssignalen sein können. Jedoch werden kompensatorische Mutationssignale in MSAs oft durch das Rauschen verfälscht. Aus diesem Grund besteht ein weiteres Problem der Bioinformatik in der Trennung signifikanter Signale vom phylogenetischen Rauschen und beziehungslosen Paarsignalen. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit besteht darin Methoden zu entwickeln, welche biochemische Eigenschaften wie Ähnlichkeiten und Unähnlichkeiten von Aminosäuren in der Identifizierung von kompensatorischen Mutationen integriert und sich mit dem Rauschen auseinandersetzt. Deshalb entwickeln wir unterschiedliche Methoden basierend auf klassischer- und quantum Informationstheorie sowie multiple Testverfahren. Unsere erste Methode basiert auf der klassischen Informationstheorie. Diese Methode betrachtet hauptsächlich BLOSUM62-unähnliche Paare von Aminosäuren als ein Modell von kompensatorischen Mutationen und integriert sie in die Identifizierung von wichtigen Residuen. Um diese Methode zu ergänzen, entwickeln wir unsere zweite Methode unter Verwendung der Grundlagen von quantum Informationstheorie. Diese neue Methode unterscheidet sich von der ersten Methode durch gleichzeitige Modellierung ähnlicher und unähnlicher Signale in der kompensatorischen Mutationsanalyse. Des Weiteren, um signifikante Signale vom Rauschen zu trennen, entwickeln wir ein MSA-spezifisch statistisches Modell in Bezug auf multiple Testverfahren. Wir wenden unsere Methode für zwei menschliche Proteine an, nämlich epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) und glucokinase (GCK). Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das MSA-spezifisch statistische Modell die signifikanten Signale vom phylogenetischen Rauschen und von beziehungslosen Paarsignalen trennen kann. Nur unter Berücksichtigung BLOSUM62-unähnlicher Paare von Aminosäuren identifiziert die erste Methode erfolgreich die krankheits-assoziierten wichtigen Residuen der beiden Proteine. Im Gegensatz dazu, durch die gleichzeitige Modellierung ähnlicher und unähnlicher Signale von Aminosäurepaare ist die zweite Methode sensibler für die Identifizierung von katalytischen und allosterischen Residuen.

The diploma thesis focuses on the introduction of statistical process control in selected manufacturing company XYZ. It is divided into a theoretical and a practical part, while the theoretical part deals with theoretical knowledge of SPC methodology and quality management. The content of the practical part is the design and implementation of the measuring and evaluation station, which will be used for statistical control of the SPC process, into the emerging production of chip machining.

The diploma thesis focuses on the introduction of statistical process control in selected manufacturing company XYZ. It is divided into a theoretical and a practical part, while the theoretical part deals with theoretical knowledge of SPC methodology and quality management. The content of the practical part is the design and implementation of the measuring and evaluation station, which will be used for statistical control of the SPC process, into the emerging production of chip machining.

In the first part of this thesis is described implementation of quality management system in a small company according to ISO 9001. Next part is about production process by method PPAP. In this section is solved primarily ISO 9001 standard, statistical control of production and certification company according to requirements of ISO 9001. Second part is focused on mass production of flange by using the company facilities Kovobrábění Sobotka. In the end of thesis are reflected weaknesses of production. In the conclusion is described technical and economic evaluation of implementation QMS and machining sample parts.

Operating through complex supply chains and multiple jurisdictions, today’s business enterprises can outsource manufacturing to different parts of the world where they can take advantage of low labour- and production costs. In the global quest for businesses to maximise their profits, deteriorating working conditions for offshore labour workers are increasing the risks of human rights abuses. Such abuses often take the form of ‘modern slavery’, which refers to situations of exploitation in which labour workers are trapped and unable to leave due to threats, violence, deception, abuse of power or other forms of coercion. In 2015, the United Kingdom (UK) enacted the Modern Slavery Act (MSA), aimed at combatting modern slavery by requiring business enterprises to be transparent with the steps they have taken to ensure that modern slavery is not taking place within their supply chains. By putting pressure on business enterprises to display their actions taken to address adverse human rights impacts, the MSA has brought the responsibility of business enterprises to conduct ‘human rights due diligence’ (HRDD) – as stipulated in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) - into domestic law. While the MSA has been regarded as a ‘world-leading instrument’ and a ‘historic milestone’ by the UK government, its effectiveness in counteracting modern slavery has been questioned in various studies, pointing towards a risk that the MSA is allowing human rights abuses to prevail under a form of a legal veil. Bearing in mind the country’s long colonial history, the enactment of the MSA can be seen as carrying an important symbolic value for the UK when it comes to taking accountability for human rights abuses committed overseas. However, adopting weak or ineffective legislation could instead, paradoxically, reflect an interest by the UK government to maintain beneficial trade relationships based on exploitative working conditions in a manner that reflects a continuation of former colonial power structures. This thesis is set out to examine this potential paradox by analysing the MSA’s level of compliance with the UNGPs from a postcolonial perspective.

No description available.

Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes are linear error-correcting codes used to establish reliable communication between units on a noisy transmission channel in mobile telecommunications. LDPC algorithms detect and recover altered or corrupted message bits using sparse parity-check matrices in order to decipher messages correctly. LDPC codes have been shown to be fitting coding schemes for the fifth generation (5G) New Radio (NR), according to the third generation partnership project (3GPP).  TietoEvry, a consultant in telecom, has discovered that optimizations of LDPC decoding algorithms can be achieved/obtained with the use of a parallel computing platform called Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA), developed by NVIDIA. This platform utilizes the capabilities of a graphics processing unit (GPU) rather than a central processing unit (CPU), which in turn provides parallel computing. An optimized version of an LDPC decoding algorithm, the Min-Sum Algorithm (MSA), is implemented in CUDA and in C++ for comparison in terms of CPU execution time, to explore the capabilities that CUDA offers. The testing is done with a set of 12 sparse parity-check matrices and input-channel messages with different sizes. As a result, the CUDA implementation executes approximately 55% faster than a standard, unoptimized C++ implementation.

Engagerat ledarskap är grunden till att skapa en god kvalitetskultur och för attlyckas krävs medarbetarskapets delaktighet. Forskare menar att stödet förnärvarande ledare i vården har fram tills idag varit tämligen outvecklat. Syftetmed denna studie var att förstå framgångsfaktorer för hur kvalitetskulturen isvensk sjukvård kan kopplas mot ledarnas möjlighet att främja ett gottmedarbetarskap. Detta utifrån en förklarande sekventiell mixad metod med tvåkvantitativa mätningar som slutligen resulterade i en kvalitativ intervju. Enmätning av kvalitetskulturen vid svenska sjukhus utfördes utifrån ett tidigareframtaget mätinstrument för att mäta kvalitetskultur. Mätinstrumentetpresenterades genom 13 beteendepar som främjar respektive hindrar enkvalitetskultur. Denna mätning visade att det idag råder en generellt godkvalitetskultur vid svenska sjukhus. Genom denna mätning kunde enregressionsanalys utföras som kopplades samman mot sjukhusens resultat iNationell patientenkät. Ett statistiskt signifikant beteende kunde uppmätassom enligt denna mätning skapar nöjdare patienter ju mer medarbetarnaupplever att detta beteende förekommer i deras organisation. Beteendet ärnär vi har ett problem tar vi reda på grundorsaken innan vi beslutar om enlösning. Detta beteende togs med till två framgångsrika sjukhus för att djupareförstå hur dessa arbetar med medarbetarskapet i just detta beteende. Utifrånworkshop med dessa två sjukhus är slutsatsen att ledare behöver ha erfaritden kvalitetskultur och det medarbetarskap de ska bära för att främja ettmedarbetarskap som kopplats samman med kvalitetskulturen. I jakten på attnå framgång är en stark kvalitetskultur eftersträvansvärd men utifrånworkshoparna ser författarna ingen möjlig snabb lösning för att nå dit.Resultatet visar att dagens ledare i vården behöver stöd i form av mentor ellerreflektion kring ledarskap själv eller i grupp för att utvecklas. I konstruktiv andaär det med förbättringskunskap i grunden som allas delaktighet i arbetet medständiga förbättringar bedrivs. Detta kräver allas reflektion, ärlighet, mod,öppenhet och förtroende där allt grundar sig i att alla vill varandras väl! / Committed leadership is the foundation for creating a good quality culture andto succeed, the participation of employees is required. Researchers argue thatsupport for the current leaders in healthcare has until now been ratherundeveloped. The purpose of this study was to understand how the qualityculture in Swedish healthcare can be linked to the leaders' ability to promotegood co-workership. This study was based on an explanatory sequentialmixed method with two quantitative measurements that ultimately resulted in aqualitative interview. A measurement of the quality culture at Swedishhospitals was taken based on a previously developed instrument formeasuring quality culture . The measuring instrument comprises 13behavioral pairs that promote or hinder a quality culture. This measure showsthat there is generally a good quality culture at Swedish hospitals at present.Through this measurement, a regression analysis was done which links to thehospital's results in the National Patient Survey. A statistically significantbehavior was observed, and according to this measurement, is likely to createmore satisfied patients as more professions feel that this behavior occurs intheir organization. The behaviour in question can be described as: when wehave a problem, we find out the root cause before we decide on a solution.This behavior was brought into two successful hospitals in order to understandmore deeply how they work with the co-workership in this particular behavior.Based on the workshop with these two hospitals, we conclude that leadersneed to have experienced the quality culture and the co-workership they areassumed to carry in order to promote an employee culture that is linked to thequality culture. In pursuit of success, a strong quality culture is desirable, butbased on the workshops, the authors see no possible quick solution to reachit. The result shows that today's leaders in healthcare need support in the formof a mentor or time for reflection on leadership on their own or in groups inorder to develop. In constructive approach, it is with improvement knowledgethat everyone's involvement in the work of continuous improvement isconducted. This requires reflection, honesty, courage, openness and trustfrom everyone involved and intentions rooted in the wellness and prosperity ofall. / <p>2019-06-27</p>