Shadows often confound algorithms designed to solve computer vision tasks such as image segmentation, object detection and tracking. In this paper, a shadow detection and removal technique is proposed. The method requires no camera calibration or other a priori information regarding the scene. Support vector machines are used to identify shadow boundaries based on their boundary properties. Thi...

In recent years, many probabilistic algorithms (i.e., algorithms that can toss coins) that run in polynomial time have been discovered for problems with no known deterministic polynomial time algorithms. Perhaps the most famous example is the problem of testing large (say, 100 digit) numbers for primality. Even for problems which are known to have deterministic polynomial time algorithms, these...

Big bang/crunch curvature singularities in exact CFT string backgrounds can be removed by turning on gauge fields. This is described within a family of SL(2)×SU(2)×U(1)x U(1)×U(1) quotient CFTs. Uncharged incoming wavefunctions from the “whiskers” of the extended universe can be fully reflected if and only if a big bang/crunch curvature singularity, from which they are scattered, exists. Extend...