Syntactic Pattern Recognition: An Introduction (Repost)

This book was written to provide students, engineers, and scientists involved in pattern recognition, digital image processing, and artificial intelligence with a comprehensive introduction to the concepts and techniques of syntactic pattern recognition.
Syntactic pattern recognition is concerned with the application of formal language and automata theory to the modeling and description of structural relationships in pattern classes. This is in contrast with classical decision-theoretic methods, in which recognition is generally performed on a strictly quantitative basis without explicit use of structural information.
The capability for describing structure is particularly important in pictorial pattern recognition, scene analysis, and other applications where primitive elements and their relationships are essential characteristics.