---

This book places the formalism of Markov chain and hidden Markov models at the very center of its examination of current pattern recognition systems, demonstrating how the models can be used in a range of different applications.

---

This thoroughly revised and expanded new edition now includes a more detailed treatment of the EM algorithm, a description of an efficient approximate Viterbi-training procedure, a theoretical derivation of the perplexity measure and coverage of multi-pass decoding based on n -best search. Supporting the discussion of the theoretical foundations of Markov modeling, special emphasis is also placed on practical algorithmic solutions. Features: introduces the formal framework for Markov models; covers the robust handling of probability quantities; presents methods for the configuration of hidden Markov models for specific application areas; describes important methods for efficient processing of Markov models, and the adaptation of the models to different tasks; examines algorithms for searching within the complex solution spaces that result from the joint application of Markov chain and hidden Markov models; reviews key applications of Markov models.

---

Introduction

Application Areas

Part I: Theory

Foundations of Mathematical Statistics

Vector Quantization and Mixture Estimation

Hidden Markov Models

n-Gram Models

Part II: Practice

Computations with Probabilities

Configuration of Hidden Markov Models

Robust Parameter Estimation

Efficient Model Evaluation

Model Adaptation

Integrated Search Methods

Part III: Systems

Speech Recognition

Handwriting Recognition

Analysis of Biological Sequences

---

From the book reviews:

"The book is highly appropriate for researchers and practitioners dealing with pattern recognition in general and speech, character and handwriting recognition sequences, in particular." (Catalin Stoean, zbMATH 1307.68001, 2015)

---

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gernot A. Fink is Head of the Pattern Recognition Research Group at TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany. His other publications include the Springer title Markov Models for Handwriting Recognition.

---