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    That will be the work for your Ph.D. I hope.   Well done Stuart!<br>
    <br>
    Marie<br>
    Marie Alexander (from Malta)<br>
    <br>
    <br>
    On 5/10/2011 5:40 PM, Stuart Thiessen wrote:
    <blockquote
      cite="mid:BANLkTimEbzPm-CfR8gTHKfZYAY3=Jeihww@mail.gmail.com"
      type="cite">Thanks for the questions. I have been travelling for
      work so I haven't had a chance to check responses to my email
      until now. :) I arrive home tonight. I will reply with answers to
      your questions and other questions in this thread.
      <div>
        <br>
      </div>
      <div>Let me say this much and then I'll respond more specifically
        later. My goal for the thesis was to provide an analysis of the
        symbols based on the symbols themselves and then look for
        predictable rules that can help us develop rules that a computer
        can use to predict placement. Where possible, predicted
        placement can help us have more predictable spellings and less
        variations. I did want to talk more in detail about placement
        issues, but I did not have time because I needed to describe
        each symbol category in depth first. My last 2 chapters deal
        with placement questions. The research I was able to do gives me
        some ideas on how placement could be handled, but I would need
        more time to develop that.
        <div>
          <br>
        </div>
        <div>Thanks,</div>
        <div><br>
        </div>
        <div>Stuart<br>
          <div><br>
            <div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 1:16 PM,
              Bill Reese <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
                  href="mailto:wreese01@tampabay.rr.com">wreese01@tampabay.rr.com</a>></span>
              wrote:<br>
              <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt
                0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);
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                <div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Great!  I'm glad
                  they're working together on it.  I hope great things
                  come out of the collaboration.<br>
                  <br>
                  I know I brought this up before but I'm wondering,
                  Stuart, if a concept of relative coordinate systems
                  was discussed in your thesis?   I did a quick scan so
                  I'm not sure if it was.  What I mean by "relative" is
                  a coordinate system that's related to a previous
                  symbol in a sign according to that sign's signspelling
                  sequence.   <br>
                  <br>
                  The coordinate for the first symbol would be in
                  absolute coordinates according to the signbox, then
                  the second symbol would relate to the first symbol
                  according to a coordinate system using a point of the
                  first symbol as the origin.  <br>
                  <br>
                  Doing it that way may allow establishing matrices of
                  symbol pairing in a sign.   I would imagine this to be
                  similar to "kerning" and possibly define distances
                  according to the pairs rotation of not only themselves
                  but to each other.  Similar to what you were saying
                  about establishing minimum distances. <br>
                  <br>
                  About the overlap of symbols that you mention.  I was
                  wondering if it couldn't also be solved by a matrix of
                  symbol pairing so that a particular matrix value would
                  indicate overlap - say, a value of -1.   On the other
                  hand, do you think it would be possible to create
                  totally different symbols that are overlaps of two
                  symbols?  I ask this as that's what's done in other
                  languages when there's an overlap.  For instance, "æ"
                  which looks like "a" and "e" overlapped but is it's
                  own symbol.  I would hazard a guess that separate
                  symbols are only possible when there's only a few.<br>
                  <font color="#888888"> <br>
                    Bill</font>
                  <div>
                    <div class="h5"><br>
                      <br>
                      <br>
                      On 5/9/2011 1:06 PM, Valerie Sutton wrote:
                      <blockquote type="cite">SignWriting List
                        <div>May 9, 2011</div>
                        <div><br>
                        </div>
                        <div>Hello Bill -</div>
                        <div>Just want you to know that we have a group
                          of Unicode-knowledgeable people working
                          together on our SignWriting proposals that
                          will be presented to the Unicode-related
                          meetings over a period of years, and Steve and
                          Stuart are both in the group, along with
                          others as well - so we are all working
                          together...The proposals have been separated
                          into proposing the encoding of the symbols, or
                          characters, first, (of the International
                          SignWriting Alphabet 2010) and then once the
                          symbols have been encoded, we will present a
                          second proposal related to layout and symbol
                          placement issues - so that second area is
                          where different theories will be discussed
                          until we can come up with a final decision for
                          a second proposal - so we are taking this one
                          step at at a time...</div>
                        <div><br>
                        </div>
                        <div>An exciting time for all of us - smile - </div>
                        <div><br>
                        </div>
                        <div>Val ;-)</div>
                        <div><br>
                        </div>
                        <div>----------</div>
                        <div><br>
                          <div>
                            <div>On May 9, 2011, at 8:56 AM, Bill Reese
                              wrote:</div>
                            <br>
                            <blockquote type="cite">
                              <div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
                                Stuart,<br>
                                <br>
                                Wow, that was a lot of work!  I do have
                                one question.  How would the most recent
                                work in Unicode and, more particularly,
                                what Steve Slevinski has written to the
                                list affect the portion where you talk
                                about what may be needed for successful
                                Unicode acceptance?   From what it
                                appears, it's well on it's way to
                                acceptance with what Steve and Michael
                                Everson have done.<br>
                                <br>
                                Bill<br>
                                <br>
                                <br>
                                On 5/8/2011 1:02 AM, Stuart Thiessen
                                wrote:
                                <blockquote type="cite">Hello, all! I
                                  know it's been a long time, no see. I
                                  wanted to let you know that I have
                                  completed my MA thesis on SignWriting.
                                  For those of you interested in reading
                                  it, you can download a PDF from the
                                  University website. Just so you know,
                                  the PDF itself is about 22MB. 
                                  <div> <br>
                                  </div>
                                  <div><u><a moz-do-not-send="true"
                                        href="http://www.und.edu/dept/linguistics/theses/2011Thiessen.htm"
                                        target="_blank">http://www.und.edu/dept/linguistics/theses/2011Thiessen.htm</a></u></div>
                                  <div><br>
                                  </div>
                                  <div>If you have any questions about
                                    it, just let me know.</div>
                                  <div><br>
                                  </div>
                                  <div>Thanks,</div>
                                  <div><br>
                                  </div>
                                  <div>Stuart</div>
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