\magnification=1200 \baselineskip=20pt \nopagenumbers \font\big=cmr12 scaled \magstep2 \centerline{\bf STANFORD UNIVERSITY} \centerline{\bf DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS} \centerline{\big DEPARTMENTAL SEMINAR} \bigskip \baselineskip=12pt \centerline{4:15 p.m., Tuesday, May 06, 2003} \centerline{Sequoia Hall Room 200} \centerline{(Cookies at 3:45 in 1st Floor Lounge)} \bigskip \baselineskip=15pt \centerline{\sl Arnab Chakraborty} \centerline{\sl Stanford University} \bigskip \centerline{\bf An attempt at Optical Character Recognition for Bengali} \bigskip In this talk I shall discuss my attempts to perform Optical Character Recognition for machine printed Bengali characters. I shall go over the general algorithm quickly and focus on certain particular features in more detail. These will include looking closely at the noise model of flatbed scanners (like the ones we have in our dept), and how a Markov-like model works (or rather fails to work) using bigram probabilities. The discussion will hardly involve any mathematical treatment. \bye