Compression of Chinese document images based on morphologic analysis and pattern matching

We propose a highly efficient content-lossless compression scheme for Chinese document images. The scheme combines morphologic analysis with pattern matching to cluster patterns. In order to achieve the error maps with minimal error numbers, the morphologic analysis is applied to decomposing and recomposing the Chinese character patterns. In the pattern matching, the criteria are adapted to the characteristics of Chinese characters. Since small-size components sometimes can be inserted into the blank spaces of large-size components, we can achieve small-size pattern library images. Arithmetic coding is applied to the final compression. Our method achieves much better compression performance than most alternative methods, and assures content-lossless reconstruction. (c) 2006 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

Legal dimensions of the Chinese experience in Los Angeles, 1860-1880

On October 24, 1871, a massacre of eighteen Chinese in Los Angeles brought the small southern California settlement into the national spotlight. Within a few days, news of this “night of horrors” was reported in newspapers across the country. This massacre has been cited in Asian American narratives as the first documented outbreak of ethnic violence against a Chinese community in the United States. This is ironic because Los Angeles’ small population has generally placed it on the periphery in historical studies of the California anti-Chinese movement. Because the massacre predated Los Angeles’ organized Chinese exclusion movements of the late 1870s, it has often been erroneously dismissed as an aberration in the history of the city.

The violence of 1871 was an outburst highlighting existing community tensions that would become part of public debate by decade’s close. The purpose of this study is to insert the massacre into a broader context of anti-Chinese sentiments, legal discrimination, and dehumanization in nineteenth century Los Angeles. While a second incident of widespread anti-Chinese violence never occurred, brutal attacks directed at Chinese small businessmen and others highlighted continued community conflict. Similarly, economic rivalries and concerns over Chinese prostitution that underlay the 1871 massacre were manifest in later campaigns of economic discrimination and vice suppression that sought to minimize Chinese influence within municipal limits. An analysis of the massacre in terms of anti-Chinese legal, social and economic strategies in nineteenth-century Los Angeles will elucidate these important continuities.

Compression of Chinese document images based on morphologic analysis and pattern matching

We propose a highly efficient content-lossless compression scheme for Chinese document images. The scheme combines morphologic analysis with pattern matching to cluster patterns. In order to achieve the error maps with minimal error numbers, the morphologic analysis is applied to decomposing and recomposing the Chinese character patterns. In the pattern matching, the criteria are adapted to the characteristics of Chinese characters. Since small-size components sometimes can be inserted into the blank spaces of large-size components, we can achieve small-size pattern library images. Arithmetic coding is applied to the final compression. Our method achieves much better compression performance than most alternative methods, and assures content-lossless reconstruction. (c) 2006 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

'Fa Tsai', a Chinese edible Nostoc in market. [Translation from: Bulletin of the Japanese Society of Phycology 8 124-126, 1960. ]

The Nostoc 'Fa Tsai' is sometimes seen in Chinese cooking materials stores. It is investigated what 'Fa Tsai' consists of and where it originates.

Origin of Chinese ancient glasses;study on the earliest Chinese ancient glasses

The earliest Chinese ancient glasses before the West Han Dynasty (200 BC) from different regions are studied. The glass samples were unearthed from Hunan, Hubei, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Guangdong and Xinjiang of China. The chemical composition of these glasses samples is analyzed by proton induced X-ray emission (PIXE) technique, energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) method and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). It is shown that the glass chemical compositions belong to barium-lead silicate BaO-PbO-SiO2, potash soda lime silicate K2O (Na2O)-CaO-SiO2 (K2O/Na2O > 1), soda potash lime silicate Na2O (K2O)-CaO-SiO2 (K2O/Na2O < 1) and potash silicate K2O-SiO2 glass systems, respectively. The origins of the earliest Chinese ancient glasses are discussed from the archaeological and historical points of view. These four types of Chinese ancient glasses were all made in Chinese territory using local raw materials. The glass preparation technology was related to the Chinese ancient bronze metallurgy and proto-porcelain glaze technology. The glass technology relationship between the East and the West is analyzed at the same time.