Search results for "Special relativity"

Why you trust in visual saliency

2015

Image understanding is a simple task for a human observer. Visual attention is automatically pointed to interesting regions by a natural objective stimulus in a first step and by prior knowledge in a second step. Saliency maps try to simulate human response and use actual eye-movements measurements as ground truth. An interesting question is: how much corruption in a digital image can affect saliency detection respect to the original image? One of the contributions of this work is to compare the performances of standard approaches with respect to different type of image corruptions and different threshold values on saliency maps. If the corruption can be estimated and/or the threshold is fi…

A "imunidade soberana" de Pinochet contestada

2000

Um observador privilegiado e participante do processo que levou à quebra da "imunidade soberana" do ex-ditador chileno Augusto Pinochet expõe como e em nome do que isso ocorreu. A privileged observer of, as well as a participant in, the process that resulted in the breaking of the "sovereign immunity" of Chiles former dictator Augusto Pinochet tells how and in the name of what this happened.

Contour/Outline/Silhouette

2020

The contour is the locus at which the parts of opaque solid objects appear to form an edge because it corresponds for the viewer to the projection of the rim, namely the curve that divides the surfaces into visible and invisible parts. The rim between the visible front and the invisible rear side is projected onto the contour that is the envelope of all the curves of equal depth. Although the rim and the contour run into depth, they are distinct concepts that regard the object-centred and the viewer-centred description. The outline is the boundary of the surface delimited by the contour, which fills a spatial region. Rubin (1921) discovered the property that allows the contour and the outli…

Robust fault detection design for unknown inputs Takagi-Sugeno models with parametric uncertainties and time-varying delays

2014

This paper deals with the design of robust fault detection system for Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) modes with parametric uncertainties and time-varying delay. An Unknown Input Observer (UIO) is designed such that the unknown inputs are thoroughly decoupled from residual signals while they show the maximum possible sensitivity to the faults and the minimum possible sensitivity to the external disturbances. Since the system under consideration is subjected to parametric uncertainties, the H ∞ model matching approach is used to design an optimal observer. Design procedure is given in terms of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). Finally, a numerical example is presented to show the effectiveness of the p…

The Mathematicians’ Happy Hunting Ground: Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity

2004

There is hardly any doubt that for physics special relativity theory is of much greater consequence than the general theory. The reverse situation prevails with respect to mathematics: there special relativity theory had comparatively little, general relativity theory very considerable, influence, above all upon the development of a general scheme for differential geometry. —Hermann Weyl, “Relativity as a Stimulus to Mathematical Research,” pp. 536–537.

Seeing reality through Einstein's eyes: a teaching proposal for special relativity

2021

The teaching of Special Relativity is still a critical issue not only for students but also for teachers. In this paper, we describe the trial of a learning unit on the Special Relativity topic based on Minkowski's approach through spacetime diagrams, following the results in pedagogical researches in this field. The main innovation of our project consists of a mechanical instrument: it allows to physically and mechanically represent Lorentz’s transformations by hands, exploring the effects of a change of the reference frame. Teachers and students can deal “by eye” with unusual phenomena as the loss of simultaneity, time dilation, length contraction, relativistic addition of velocities and …

Observer-Based Stabilization of Stochastic Systems with Limited Communication

2012

Published version of an article in the journal: Mathematical Problems in Engineering. Also available from Hindawi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/781542 Open Access This paper studies the problem of observer-based stabilization of stochastic nonlinear systems with limited communication. A communication channel exists between the output of the plant and the input of the dynamic controller, which is considered network-induced delays, data packet dropouts, and measurement quantization. A new stability criterion is derived for the stochastic nonlinear system by using the Lyapunov functional approach. Based on this, the design procedure of observer-based controller is presented,which ensures asy…

2020

Visually induced motion sickness is an unpleasant but common side-effect of many simulations and VR-applications. We investigated whether an earth-fixed reference frame provided in the simulation is able to reduce motion sickness. To do so, we created a moving starfield that did not contain any indicators of the spatial orientation of the observer. The observer wore a head-mounted display (HTC Vive) and was simulated to move through the randomly oscillating starfield, a time-to-contact task had to be carried out. Two colored stars on collision course with each other had to be spotted, then they disappeared and the time of their collision had to be judged. Eye-movements, task performance, an…

Saliency Based Aesthetic Cut of Digital Images

2013

Aesthetic cut of photos is a process well known to professional photographers. It consists of cutting the original photo to remove less relevant parts close to the borders leaving in this way the interesting subjects in a position that is perceived by the observer as more pleasant. In this paper we propose a saliency based technique to automatically perform aesthetic cut in images. We use a standard method to estimate the saliency map and propose some post processing on the map to make it more suitable for our scope. We then apply a greedy algorithm to determine the cut (i.e. the most important part of the original image) both in the cases of free and fixed aspect ratio. Experimental result…

Electromagnetic spectrum and color vision

2004

In most of occasions the maps, drawings and printed images are elaborated thinking that the observer will visualize them with illuminants like the light of the day. With these illuminants, for example the CIE D/sub 65/, we can distinguish the great quantity of colors that it is capable the human eye. But if the illuminant has a very different spectrum than the light of day, for example the light of acetylene, the number of colors that we are able to distinguish can decrease drastically.