Abstract: Our article is presenting an attempt to apply NLP methods to optimize the process of text recognition (in case of historical sources). Any researcher who decides to use scanned text recognition tools will face a number of limitations of the pipeline (sequence of recognition operations) accuracy. Even the most qualitatively trained models can give a significant error due to the unsatisfactory state of the source that has come down to us: cuts, bends, blots, erased letters - all these interfere with high-quality recognition. Our assumption is to use a predetermined set of words marking the presence of a study topic with Fuzzy sets module from the SpaCy to restore words that were recognized with mistakes. To check the quality of the text recovery procedure on a sample of 50 issues of the newspaper, we calculated estimates of the number of words that would not be included in the semantic analysis due to incorrect recognition. All metrics were also calculated using fuzzy set patterns. It turned out that approximately 119.6 words (mean for 50 issues) contain misprints associated with incorrect recognition. Using fuzzy set algorithms, we managed to restore these words and include them in semantic analysis.

Abstract: The article studies St. Petersburg Stock Exchange speculator’s economic thinking at the beginning of the 20th century. It finds out how market participants analyzed fundamental (or economic) and speculative / irrational pricing factors to make trade decisions. The author primarily addresses the way the market was perceived by its agents. He makes content analysis and network analysis to create the matrix of perception by identifying connections in categories of economic thinking. The main idea of the study is its address to the level of trade decision formation. Describing the stock exchange life in the Russian Empire in the early 20th century, the author attempts to see how trade participants understood the way the stock exchange market functioned. Based on the results of the study, two key findings are formulated. According to I.P. Manus, the fundamental factors of the economic process are a part of the concept of the perfect economy which the real economy strives for. The main distortion that prevents this utopia from coming true is the human factor: the desire for easy money that leads one to a financial crime; artificially maintained information asymmetry; the stupidity and emotionality of the "crowd" which is the "eternal" victim of a cynical speculator, etc. At the same time, it turned out that any speculative strategy presupposes (in the reflexive model of Manus) the exploitation of fundamental mechanisms (such as "liquidity" or "supply volume") through the creation of barriers to the functioning of the perfect economy.