11,326 research outputs found
Chromatic Illumination Discrimination Ability Reveals that Human Colour Constancy Is Optimised for Blue Daylight Illuminations
The phenomenon of colour constancy in human visual perception keeps surface colours constant, despite changes in their reflected light due to changing illumination. Although colour constancy has evolved under a constrained subset of illuminations, it is unknown whether its underlying mechanisms, thought to involve multiple components from retina to cortex, are optimised for particular environmental variations. Here we demonstrate a new method for investigating colour constancy using illumination matching in real scenes which, unlike previous methods using surface matching and simulated scenes, allows testing of multiple, real illuminations. We use real scenes consisting of solid familiar or unfamiliar objects against uniform or variegated backgrounds and compare discrimination performance for typical illuminations from the daylight chromaticity locus (approximately blue-yellow) and atypical spectra from an orthogonal locus (approximately red-green, at correlated colour temperature 6700 K), all produced in real time by a 10-channel LED illuminator. We find that discrimination of illumination changes is poorer along the daylight locus than the atypical locus, and is poorest particularly for bluer illumination changes, demonstrating conversely that surface colour constancy is best for blue daylight illuminations. Illumination discrimination is also enhanced, and therefore colour constancy diminished, for uniform backgrounds, irrespective of the object type. These results are not explained by statistical properties of the scene signal changes at the retinal level. We conclude that high-level mechanisms of colour constancy are biased for the blue daylight illuminations and variegated backgrounds to which the human visual system has typically been exposed
Digital Color Imaging
This paper surveys current technology and research in the area of digital
color imaging. In order to establish the background and lay down terminology,
fundamental concepts of color perception and measurement are first presented
us-ing vector-space notation and terminology. Present-day color recording and
reproduction systems are reviewed along with the common mathematical models
used for representing these devices. Algorithms for processing color images for
display and communication are surveyed, and a forecast of research trends is
attempted. An extensive bibliography is provided
The Evolution of the Number Density of Large Disk Galaxies in COSMOS
We study a sample of approximately 16,500 galaxies with I_(ACS,AB) ≤ 22.5 in the central 38% of the COSMOS field, which are extracted from a catalog constructed from the Cycle 12 ACS F814W COSMOS data set. Structural information on the galaxies is derived by fitting single Sérsic models to their two-dimensional surface brightness distributions. In this paper we focus on the disk galaxy population (as classified by the Zurich Estimator of Structural Types), and investigate the evolution of the number density of disk galaxies larger than approximately 5 kpc between redshift z ~ 1 and the present epoch. Specifically, we use the measurements of the half-light radii derived from the Sérsic fits to construct, as a function of redshift, the size function Φ(r_(1/2), z) of both the total disk galaxy population and of disk galaxies split in four bins of bulge-to-disk ratio. In each redshift bin, the size function specifies the number of galaxies per unit comoving volume and per unit half-light radius r_(1/2). Furthermore, we use a selected sample of roughly 1800 SDSS galaxies to calibrate our results with respect to the local universe. We find the following: (1) The number density of disk galaxies with intermediate sizes (r_(1/2) ~ 5-7 kpc) remains nearly constant from z ~ 1 to today. Unless the growth and destruction of such systems exactly balanced in the last eight billion years, they must have neither grown nor been destroyed over this period. (2) The number density of the largest disks (r_(1/2) > 7 kpc) decreases by a factor of about 2 out to z ~ 1. (3) There is a constancy—or even slight increase—in the number density of large bulgeless disks out to z ~ 1; the deficit of large disks at early epochs seems to arise from a smaller number of bulged disks. Our results indicate that the bulk of the large disk galaxy population has completed its growth by z ~ 1 and support the theory that secular evolution processes produce—or at least add stellar mass to—the bulge components of disk galaxies
Hierarchical fuzzy logic based approach for object tracking
In this paper a novel tracking approach based on fuzzy concepts is introduced. A methodology for both single and multiple object tracking is presented. The aim of this methodology is to use these concepts as a tool to, while maintaining the needed accuracy, reduce the complexity usually involved in object tracking problems. Several dynamic fuzzy sets are constructed according to both kinematic and non-kinematic properties that distinguish the object to be tracked. Meanwhile kinematic related fuzzy sets model the object's motion pattern, the non-kinematic fuzzy sets model the object's appearance. The tracking task is performed through the fusion of these fuzzy models by means of an inference engine. This way, object detection and matching steps are performed exclusively using inference rules on fuzzy sets. In the multiple object methodology, each object is associated with a confidence degree and a hierarchical implementation is performed based on that confidence degree.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Children, Humanoid Robots and Caregivers
This paper presents developmental learning on a humanoid robot from human-robot interactions. We consider in particular teaching humanoids as children during the child's Separation and Individuation developmental phase (Mahler, 1979). Cognitive development during this phase is characterized both by the child's dependence on her mother for learning while becoming awareness of her own individuality, and by self-exploration of her physical surroundings. We propose a learning framework for a humanoid robot inspired on such cognitive development
Method of improving a digital image
A method of improving a digital image is provided. The image is initially represented by digital data indexed to represent positions on a display. The digital data is indicative of an intensity value I.sub.i (x,y) for each position (x,y) in each i-th spectral band. The intensity value for each position in each i-th spectral band is adjusted to generate an adjusted intensity value for each position in each i-th spectral band in accordance with ##EQU1## where S is the number of unique spectral bands included in said digital data, W.sub.n is a weighting factor and * denotes the convolution operator. Each surround function F.sub.n (x,y) is uniquely scaled to improve an aspect of the digital image, e.g., dynamic range compression, color constancy, and lightness rendition. The adjusted intensity value for each position in each i-th spectral band is filtered with a common function and then presented to a display device. For color images, a novel color restoration step is added to give the image true-to-life color that closely matches human observation
The Mid-Infrared Extinction Law in the Ophiuchus, Perseus, and Serpens Molecular Clouds
We compute the mid-infrared extinction law from 3.6-24 microns in three
molecular clouds: Ophiuchus, Perseus, and Serpens, by combining data from the
"Cores to Disks" Spitzer Legacy Science program with deep JHKs imaging. Using a
new technique, we are able to calculate the line-of-sight extinction law
towards each background star in our fields. With these line-of-sight
measurements, we create, for the first time, maps of the chi-squared deviation
of the data from two extinction law models. Because our chi-squared maps have
the same spatial resolution as our extinction maps, we can directly observe the
changing extinction law as a function of the total column density. In the
Spitzer IRAC bands, 3.6-8 microns, we see evidence for grain growth. Below
, our extinction law is well-fit by the Weingartner & Draine
(2001) diffuse interstellar medium dust model. As the extinction
increases, our law gradually flattens, and for , the data are
more consistent with the Weingartner & Draine model that uses
larger maximum dust grain sizes. At 24 microns, our extinction law is 2-4 times
higher than the values predicted by theoretical dust models, but is more
consistent with the observational results of Flaherty et al. (2007). Lastly,
from our chi-squared maps we identify a region in Perseus where the IRAC
extinction law is anomalously high considering its column density. A steeper
near-infrared extinction law than the one we have assumed may partially explain
the IRAC extinction law in this region.Comment: 38 pages, 19 figures in pre-print format. Accepted for publication in
ApJ. A version with full-resolution figures can be found here:
http://peggysue.as.utexas.edu/SIRTF
Study of permeability characteristics of membranes Quarterly progress report, 9 Apr. - 9 Aug. 1968
Electrochemical cell constructed to measure membrane transport propertie
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