pROST: a smoothed \ell _p-norm robust online subspace tracking method for background subtraction in video

An increasing number of methods for background subtraction use Robust PCA to identify sparse foreground objects. While many algorithms use the \(\ell _1\) -norm as a convex relaxation of the ideal sparsifying function, we approach the problem with a smoothed \(\ell _p\) -quasi-norm and present pROST, a method for robust online subspace tracking. The algorithm is based on alternating minimization on manifolds. Implemented on a graphics processing unit, it achieves realtime performance at a resolution of \(160 \times 120\) . Experimental results on a state-of-the-art benchmark for background subtraction on real-world video data indicate that the method succeeds at a broad variety of background subtraction scenarios, and it outperforms competing approaches when video quality is deteriorated by camera jitter.     

Geschäftsmodelle

The business model concept, although a relatively new topic for research, has garnered growing attention over the past decade. Whilst it has been robustly defined, the concept has so far attracted very little substantive research. In the context of the wide-spread digitization of businesses and society at large, the logic inherent in a business model has become critical for business success and, hence, a focus for academic inquiry. The business model concept is identified as the missing link between business strategy, processes, and Information Technology (IT). The authors argue that the BISE community offers distinct and unique competencies (e.g., translating business strategies into IT systems, managing business and IT processes, etc.) that can be harnessed for significant research contributions to this field. Within this research gap three distinct streams are delineated, namely, business models in IT industries, IT enabled or digital business models, and IT support for developing and managing business models. For these streams, the current state of the art, suggest critical research questions, and suitable research methodologies are outlined.     

Macromolecular stabilizers for polymers

Inherent chemical activity, physical persistence and good compatibility are factors determining the efficiency of a stabilizer observed during the degradation of amorphous and crystalline synthetic polymers. Synthesis of macromolecular stabilizers is one of the ways used to solve the problem of physical persistency of stabilizers under severe aggressive environmental attacks on polymers. General types of macromolecular stabilizers, routes to their synthesis and characteristic examples of macromolecular antioxidants, UV absorbers, hindered amine light stabilizers, flame retarders and biostabilizers, as well as of polyfunctional systems are given. Problems connected with the use of macromolecular stabilizers are mentioned.     

On the effect of treating poly(acrylic acid) with argon and tetrafluoromethane plasmas: Kinetics and degradation mechanism

Poly(acrylic acid) (PAAc) films were treated with either an argon or a tetrafluoromethane (CF₄) plasma and subsequently analyzed with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). PAAc films were decarboxylated during both types of plasma treatments. In addition, during the CF₄ plasma treatment, the PAAc films became fluorinated. The plasma phase during the argon plasma treatment of PAAc films was investigated with optical emission spectroscopy. It was shown that during this plasma treatment carbon dioxide, water, and possibly hydrogen were liberated from the PAAc surface. By covering the surface of PAAc films with different materials (lithium fluoride, UV fused silica, and glass) during the plasma treatment, it was possible to differentiate between photochemically induced and particle-induced changes of the surface. This method was used to show that decarboxylation during the argon plasma treatment was caused by vacuum UV radiation (wavelength < 150 nm) and the decarboxylation/fluorination during the CF₄ plasma treatment was induced by reactive fluorine-containing species from the plasma phase. Furthermore, during both processes, etching of the PAAc surface occurred. Based on these mechanisms, kinetic models were derived that could be used to describe the measured kinetic data adequately. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Analytical Determination of the Distribution of Polishing Time over the Surface of Polished Tiles

Several kinds of glossiness pattern can be seen on the surface of porcelain stoneware tiles right after the polishing process, as a function of the kinematics performed by the polishing heads. For the newest generation of industrial polishing trains, where a transverse oscillation is included, there is still a great need for literature about the resulting patterns. This paper intends to find the spatial distribution of time under polishing analytically using the kinematics equations involved in the polishing process. The measured values of glossiness collected from three polished tiles are also presented. The importance of adopting a good kinematics for the polishing process has been highlighted, and the equations developed herein are useful tools for further attempts at optimizing the polishing process.     

Fiber Coating Concepts for Brittle-Matrix Composites

The current interest in tough, high-temperature materials has motivated fiber coating development for brittle-matrix composites with brittle reinforcements. Such coatings are needed for controlled interface debonding and frictional sliding. The system investigated in this study was sapphire fiber-reinforced alumina. This system is thermochemically stable for severe use conditions, exhibits little thermal expansion mismatch, and utilizes the excellent strength and creep resistance of sapphire reinforcements. Porous oxide and refractory metal coatings which satisfy requirements for toughness improvement in these composites were identified by employing a variety of newly developed mechanical testing techniques for determining the interfacial fracture energies and sliding resistances.     

Impacts of new technologies on media usage and social behaviour in domestic environments

Technological infrastructure at home is changing continuously and is becoming increasingly interconnected. Media devices, including the TV set, provide access to the Internet and offer manifold opportunities to consume media on demand. Additionally, personal devices, such as smartphones, also enable flexible consumption and sharing of media. Questions about how these technologies change the user's media usage and how these changes affect the social structure of a household, however, remain largely unanswered. In order to gain insight into the adoption of new technologies into daily routines, we explored these changes in respect of people's media usage in a qualitative long-term Living Lab study. We will present findings regarding personal routines, flexible integration of new devices into existing practices, influences on households as social systems and related issues in device access and collective use. We will highlight potentials and conflicts regarding device shifts and roles; restrictions in device access; social influences in the living room; and individual changes in media consumption.     

Sky Based Light Metering for High Dynamic Range Images

Image calibration requires both linearization of pixel values and scaling so that values in the image correspond to real‐world luminances. In this paper we focus on the latter and rather than rely on camera characterization, we calibrate images by analysing their content and metadata, obviating the need for expensive measuring devices or modeling of lens and camera combinations. Our analysis correlates sky pixel values to luminances that would be expected based on geographical metadata. Combined with high dynamic range (HDR) imaging, which gives us linear pixel data, our algorithm allows us to find absolute luminance values for each pixel—effectively turning digital cameras into absolute light meters. To validate our algorithm we have collected and annotated a calibrated set of HDR images and compared our estimation with several other approaches, showing that our approach is able to more accurately recover absolute luminance. We discuss various applications and demonstrate the utility of our method in the context of calibrated color appearance reproduction and lighting design.     

Spectral Ray Differentials

Light refracted by a dispersive interface leads to beautifully colored patterns that can be rendered faithfully with spectral Monte‐Carlo methods. Regrettably, results often suffer from chromatic noise or banding, requiring high sampling rates and large amounts of memory compared to renderers operating in some trichromatic color space. Addressing this issue, we introduce spectral ray differentials, which describe the change of light direction with respect to changes in the spectrum. In analogy with the classic ray and photon differentials, this information can be used for filtering in the spectral domain. Effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated by filtering for offline spectral light and path tracing as well as for an interactive GPU photon mapper based on splatting. Our results show considerably less chromatic noise and spatial aliasing while retaining good visual similarity to reference solutions with negligible overhead in the order of milliseconds.     

Scalable Realistic Rendering with Many‐Light Methods

Recent years have seen increasing attention and significant progress in many‐light rendering, a class of methods for efficient computation of global illumination. The many‐light formulation offers a unified mathematical framework for the problem reducing the full lighting transport simulation to the calculation of the direct illumination from many virtual light sources. These methods are unrivaled in their scalability: they are able to produce plausible images in a fraction of a second but also converge to the full solution over time. In this state‐of‐the‐art report, we give an easy‐to‐follow, introductory tutorial of the many‐light theory; provide a comprehensive, unified survey of the topic with a comparison of the main algorithms; discuss limitations regarding materials and light transport phenomena and present a vision to motivate and guide future research. We will cover both the fundamental concepts as well as improvements, extensions and applications of many‐light rendering.