Evaluating the performance of iPhoto facial recognition at the biometric verification task

2012 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.The Faces feature of Apple's iPhoto '09 software uses facial recognition techniques to help people organize their digital photographs. This work seeks to measure the facial recognition performance of iPhoto Faces in order to gain insight into the progress of facial recognition systems in commercial software. A common performance evaluation protocol is explained and performance values are presented. The protocol is based on performance measurements of academic and biometric facial recognition systems performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. It uses the data set developed for the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly Face Recognition Challenge Problem which contains images with varying levels of facial recognition difficulty. Results show high performance on the hardest faces to recognize, less than peak performance on the easier faces, and overall less variation in performance across varying levels of difficulty than is observed for alternative baseline algorithms

Shape and Texture Combined Face Recognition for Detection of Forged ID Documents

This paper proposes a face recognition system that can be used to effectively match a face image scanned from an identity (ID) doc-ument against the face image stored in the biometric chip of such a document. The purpose of this specific face recognition algorithm is to aid the automatic detection of forged ID documents where the photography printed on the document’s surface has been altered or replaced. The proposed algorithm uses a novel combination of texture and shape features together with sub-space representation techniques. In addition, the robustness of the proposed algorithm when dealing with more general face recognition tasks has been proven with the Good, the Bad & the Ugly (GBU) dataset, one of the most challenging datasets containing frontal faces. The proposed algorithm has been complement-ed with a novel method that adopts two operating points to enhance the reliability of the algorithm’s final verification decision.Final Accepted Versio

The good, the bad and the ugly .... of Horava gravity

I review the good, the bad and the ugly of the non-projectable versions of Horava gravity. I explain how this non-relativistic theory was constructed and why it was touted with such excitement as a quantum theory of gravity. I then review some of the issues facing the theory, explaining how strong coupling occurs and why this is such a problem for both phenomenology and the question of renormalisability. Finally I comment on possible violations of Equivalence Principle, and explain why these could be an issue for Blas et al's "healthy extension". This paper was presented as a talk at PASCOS 2010 in Valencia.Comment: 7 page

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: An Inquiry into the Causes and Nature of Credit Cycles

This paper builds models of nonlinear dynamics in the aggregate investment and borrower net worth and uses them to study the causes and nature of endogenous credit cycles. The basic model has two types of projects: the Good and the Bad. The Bad is highly productive, but, unlike the Good, it generates less aggregate demand spillovers and contributes little to improve borrower net worth. Furthermore, it is relatively difficult to finance externally due to the agency problem. With a low net worth, the agents cannot finance the Bad, and much of the credit goes to finance the Good, even when the Bad projects are more profitable than the Good projects. This over-investment to the Good creates a boom and generates high aggregate demand spillovers. This leads to an improvement in borrower net worth, which makes it possible for the agents to finance the Bad. This shift in the composition of the credit from the Good to the Bad at the peak of the boom causes a deterioration of net worth. The whole process repeats itself. Endogenous fluctuations occur, as the Good breeds the Bad, and the Bad destroys the Good. The model is then extended to add a third type of the projects, the Ugly, which are unproductive but easy to finance. With a low net worth, the Good competes with the Ugly, creating the credit multiplier effect; with a high net worth, the Good competes with the Bad, creating the credit reversal effect. By combining these two effects, this model generates intermittency phenomena, i.e., relatively long periods of small and persistent movements punctuated intermittently by seemingly random-looking behaviors. Along these cycles, the economy exhibits asymmetric fluctuations; it experiences a long and slow process of recovery from a recession, followed by a rapid expansion, and possibly after a period of high volatility, plunges into a recession.wealth-dependent borrowing constraints, heterogeneity of projects, aggregate demand spillovers, credit multiplier effect, credit reversal effect, endogenous credit cycles, nonlinear dynamics, chaos, flip and tangent bifurcations, homoclinic orbits, intermittency, asymmetric fluctuations

Do possible worlds compromise God’s beauty? A reply to Mark Ian Thomas Robson

In a recent article Mark Ian Thomas Robson argues that there is a clear contradiction between the view that possible worlds are a part of God's nature and the theologically pivotal, but philosophically neglected, claim that God is perfectly beautiful. In this article I show that Robson's argument depends on several key assumptions that he fails to justify and as such that there is reason to doubt the soundness of his argument. I also demonstrate that if Robson's argument were sound then this would be a problem for all classical theists and not just those who hold the possible worlds view

Deflation and Monetary Policy in a Historical Perspective: Remembering the Past or Being Condemned to Repeat It?

What does the historical record tell us about how to conduct monetary policy in a deflationary environment? We present a broad cross-country historical study of deflation over the past two centuries in order to shed light on current policy challenges. We first review the theoretical literature on deflation. We then characterize deflation by distinguishing among the "good, the bad and the ugly" ones - considering both empirical determinants and historical narratives of each type. Emphasis is put on the linkages between the current inflation environment and that of the gold standard period. Particular attention is also put on what the historical record reveals about policies to escape undesirable deflation. In this regard we develop a policy typology based on the relative merits of interest rate and monetary instruments in combating different types of inflation/deflation behavior.