Predict if a handwritten document has been produced by a male or a female writer ($1,000 prize)

Kaggle ^

[Flightdeck]

The prediction of gender from handwriting is a very interesting research field. It has many applications including the forensic application where it can help investigators focusing more on a certain category of suspects.

There are a few studies regarding the automatic detection of the gender of a handwritten document [1-3].

The aim of this competition is to attract the interest of the document analysis community to this research area and to measure the performance of recent advances in this field.

The dataset used in this study has been described in this paper [4].

A total of 475 writers produced 4 handwritten documents: •the first page contains an Arabic handwritten text which varies from one writer to another. •the second page contains an Arabic handwritten text which is the same for all the writers. •the third page contains an English handwritten text which varies from one writer to another. •and the fourth page contains an English handwritten text which is the same for all the writers.

The training set consists of the first 282 writers for which the genders are provided.

Participants are asked to predict the gender of the remaining 193 writers.

For participants who are not familiar with digital image-processing, a set of features extracted from all the images will be provided. Those features are similiar to that of the previous 2011 and 2012 Arabic Writer Identification Contests. Those features are described in [5].

This competition is organized in the scope of the Twelfth International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition ICDAR2013 that will be held in Washington, DC.

[1] Bandi, K., Srihari, S.N., Writer demographic identification using bagging and boosting. In: Proc. International Graphonomics Society Con- ference (IGS). pp. 133–137 (2005).

[2] Liwicki, M., Schlapbach, A., Loretan, P., Bunke, H., Automatic detection of gender and handedness from online handwriting. In: Proc. 13th Conference of the International Graphonomics Society. pp. 179–183 (2007).

[3] Liwicki, M., Schlapbach, A., Bunke, H., Automatic gender detection using on-line and off-line information. Pattern Analysis and Applications 14, 87–92 (2011).

[4] Al-Ma’adeed, S., Ayouby, W., Hassaine, A., Aljaam, J., QUWI: An Arabic and English Handwriting Dataset for Offline Writer Identification. In: Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition, International Conference on. Bari, Italy (September 2012).

[5] Hassaïne, A., Al-Maadeed, S. and Bouridane, A., A Set of Geometrical Features for Writer Identification. Neural Information Processing. Springer Berlin/Heidelberg, 2012.

[Flightdeck]

FreeRepublic has a rich history of document-sleuthing. With $1,000 to the winner, let's make it richer.

[afraidfortherepublic]

This will be impossible in another 10 years, now that th schools have sstopped teaching handwriting.

[Drango]

0bama’s sample is female. Biden is transgender.

[ASA Vet]

now that th schools have sstopped teaching handwriting and the proper use of the word "gender."

[Fzob]

This is simple. Girls dot their I’s with little hearts or smiley faces and boys don’t.

[blueunicorn6]

Well, it’s 50/50, unless you’re in San Francisco, so I’ll guess......male.

[GeronL]

predict? as in before you even see it?

heh

[autumnraine]

Who has time for that crap?

[dfwgator]

[JoeProBono]

[LearsFool]

There are a few studies regarding the automatic detection of the gender of a handwritten document

"Studies"? All that's needed is a study of elementary grammar. Simply look at the nouns and pronouns.

Masculine gender: he, him, his, waiter, steward, etc.

Feminine gender: she, her, hers, waitress, stewardess, etc.

Neuter gender: it, its, automobile, etc.

[ASA Vet]

I detect a kindred spirit. See post #4.

[TexasKamaAina]

I work with teenagers and people in their twenties. They don’t know how to write. They can use a keyboard and they can print, but handwriting is not a skill they were ever taught or learned.

[loungitude]

This is simple. Girls dot their I’s with little hearts or smiley faces and boys don’t.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/28/us/judge-s-optimistic-signature-on-a-grim-faced-death-row.html

[heartwood]

My handwriting looks like my father’s, especially my signature although I can write like my mother - used to forge her signature in high school.

And my children’s handwriting, the boys and the girls, is like their father’s, unfortunately.

Now am I my children’s mother or father?

[Baynative]

Us old timers remember the day when every classroom had cursive handwriting examples above the chalk board. For me that was what I doodled with when I was bored and though I was not a highly motivated student, I did have excellent penmanship.

Also, my mom always told us (back in the days of letter and note writing) that your pen was often the first impression you made on someone.

[Flightdeck]

It’s not a completely frivolous exercise. Note that the target language is Arabic. The sponsors likely want to be able to identify the gender of US-bashing drivel for profile purposes. It’s also interesting from a statistical perspective.

[Fzob]

Charles J. Hearn, a Texas state judge, has been putting a happy face on his signature for years.

I guess it takes all kinds.

[autumnraine]

HA!

[expat1000]

>>I work with teenagers and people in their twenties. They don’t know how to write. They can use a keyboard and they can print, but handwriting is not a skill they were ever taught or learned.

I must admit I can barely write myself, but my niece is entering middle school here in Thailand, not an international school, but a good, private Thai school, and they teach English cursive writing.