International Business Machines Corporation

John Joseph Hilliard

Walter S Rosenbaum

Allen Harold Ett

Ellen Willis Bollinger

Jean Marie Ciconte

Anne Marie Chaires

Philip Joseph Mullan

Donald Francis Kocher

The invention is characterized as a data processing architecture and method for multi-stage processing of mail, using knowledge based techniques. The system includes OCR-scanning a multipart address field of a mail piece at a sending location, the address field including at least two portions, a first stage routing portion (destination city, state, country, zip code) and a second stage routing portion (destination street address, building floor, corporate addressee internal routing). At the sending location, the image of the entire address field is captured by an OCR head and stored in memory. A serial number is printed on the mail piece. The first routing portion is then converted into sorting signals to sort the mail piece to a truck at the sending location which is to be dispatched to the city, state and country indicated in the first stage routing portion. Then, while the mail piece is in transit by truck to the destination city, the image of the second stage routing portion is analyzed by a knowledge base processor to resolve street addresses, building floor, corporate addressee internal routing information and addressee name. The deferred execution of the analysis by the knowledge base processor is available because of the sporadic volume of mail pieces submitted to the sytem. While the mail piece is in transit on the truck, the knowledge processor completes its analysis and is able to transmit by electronic communications link to the destination location, the information that the mail piece is on its way and the second stage routing information needed to automatically sort and deliver the mail piece to its corporate addressee.

System and method for deferred processing of OCR scanned mail

The print convention apparatus and method disclosed herein effects a decision making process with respect to a determination as to whether an alphabetic character field output from an optical character reader (OCR) is related to the OCR scan of an upper case or a lower case inscription on the document scanned. The alphabetic character field (e.g., a word) is comprised of one or a series of alphabetic characters which represent the OCR's interpretation of characters printed on the scanned document. Each word output by the OCR corresponds to a field (i.e., word) of characters imprinted on the scanned document. The electrical signals representative of the upper and lower case alphabetic characters and rejects including conflicts outputted from the OCR are applied to a character occurrence probability storage apparatus which contains precomputed empirical probabilities therein that: (1) a given character recognition is the result of the scan of an upper case character; and (2) a given character recognition is the result of the scan of a lower case character. In addition, the storage apparatus includes probability values for character conflicts and rejects. As the series of alphabetic character signals from the OCR output are applied character-by-character to the character occurrence probability storage apparatus (e.g., a read-only store), a running sum of the respective probabilities for the upper case and lower case print conventions is developed so that, following the input of the final character, reject or conflict within a word to the aforesaid apparatus, an appropriate upper or lower case determination can be made for all of the characters within the word. This determination corresponds with the print convention of the word inscribed on the scanned document. A corresponding upper or lower case flag is correspondingly generated with the print convention determination, and associated with the alphabetic character word output from the print convention apparatus for further text processing. In one embodiment of the invention the probability for each OCR output alphabetic character being an upper or lower case character is stored in respective upper and lower case character occurrence probability storage devices after having been precomputed as the product of two probability factors; i.e., (1) a first probability factor with respect to the likelihood that the OCR recognition resulted from the scan of an upper or lower case character, and (2) a second probability factor with respect to the likelihood of a given character occurring in a specified language (e.g., English) document. In another embodiment of the invention, the character occurrence probability storage devices are functionally replaced by a read-only store having an address position for each upper and lower case alphabetic character outputted by the OCR including conflicts and rejects, and a precomputed numerical probability value associated with each address position to represent the quotient of: (1) the probability that a given character is related to an upper case print convention; and (2) the probability that the same character is related to a lower case print convention.

Alphabetic character word upper/lower case print convention apparatus

A cluster storage apparatus is disclosed for outputting groups of valid alpha words as potential candidates for the correct form of an alpha word misrecognized by a character recognition machine. Groups of alpha words are arranged in the cluster storage apparatus such that adjacent locations contain alpha words having similar character recognition misread propensities. Alpha words which have been determined to be misrecognized, are input to the cluster storage apparatus. Numerical values assigned to the characters of which the input word is composed, are used to calculate the address of that group of valid alpha words having similar character recognition misread propensities. The cluster storage apparatus then outputs the accessed groups of alpha words for subsequent processing. The organization of the cluster storage apparatus minimizes the difference in address between alpha words with similar character recognition misread propensities by assigning high numeric values to highly reliable characters, as determined by measuring the character transfer function of the character recognition machine.

Cluster storage apparatus for post processing error correction of a

A data processing system is disclosed for selecting the correct form of a garbled input word misread by an optical character reader so as to change the number of characters in the word by character splitting or concatenation. Dictionary words are stored in the system, having characters which are flagged for segmentation or concatenation OCR misread propensity. The OCR word and a dictionary word are loaded into a pair of associated shift registers, aligning their letters on one end. The dictionary word characters are inspected for error propensity flags. When a splitting propensity, for example, is found for a character, special conductional probability values are accessed from a storage and a calculation is performed of the probability that the first character of the dictionary word was split by the OCR into the first and second characters of the OCR word. This regional context probability is compared with the probability of a simple substitution error for the characters. If the probability of segmentation is larger, the OCR characters in the first shift register are shifted one space with respect to the dictionary word characters in the second shift register so that subsequent character pairs to be compared are properly matched. The greater calculated probability is combined in a running product. The dictionary word with the largest running product is output by the system as the most likely correct form of the garbled OCR input word. In addition to optical character recognition, the system disclosed may be applied to correcting segmentation errors in phoneme-characters output from a speech analyzer. In addition to optical character recognition, the system disclosed may be applied to correcting character substitutions, transpositions, additions, and omissions inadvertently typed on a keyboard.

Growing community of inventors

Potomac, MD, United States of America

John Joseph Hilliard