An SPN based methodology for document understanding

The paper presents a methodology for document processing and understanding. The methodology assumes that text paragraphs have been separated from the text images and that the necessary interrelationships are for a possible reconstruction of the original page. Each text line forms a natural language text which requires analysis in order to contribute to text understanding. The analysis is based on the formal representation and processing of natural language text by using stochastic Petri nets (SPNs). Text understanding is based on the semantic analysis/synthesis of SPN forms for the appropriate interpretations. These interpretations in combinations with image descriptions and/or objects extracted from images contribute to document understanding.