It has been recently suggested that a background radiation can be explained as a combination of weak background sources. We provide a mathematical argument in favor of a cosmological origin of the background. Namely, the background radiation is well described by Planck’s law. As for possible sources (stars, etc), for their spectra the black-body formula is a very crude approximation, because th...

Background subtraction is a commonly used process in surveillance systems. One difficult problem when using the process is maintaining a correct background image against changing illumination conditions. Most methods for maintaining the background image are based on intuitive definitions about the illumination change and are implemented as somewhat ad hoc algorithms. In contrast, we first defin...

Background subtraction methods are widely exploited for moving object detection in videos in many applications, such as traffic monitoring, human motion capture, and video surveillance. How to correctly and efficiently model and update the background model and how to deal with shadows are two of the most distinguishing and challenging aspects of such approaches. This work proposes a general-pur...

wants to thank the ESI for the financial and administrative support during his tenure at the institute. 2 ABSTRACT Measurement theory is a branch of applied mathematics that clarifies how quantitative concepts can be defined and what their mathematical properties are. In this contribution ideas from measurement theory are applied to the fitness concept. It is shown that fitness can be quantifie...

Expect is a programming language for automating interactive programs. Recently, people have begun using Expect to connect multiple interactive programs together, allowing for new classes of applications. With some basic building blocks and a little scripting, it is possible to build such applications quickly. This paper discusses the general technique, while focusing on a particular example: Ki...

As an environmental agent that is toxic at high concentrations, radon can exert a beneficial effect on the immune system when it generates low radiation doses in man. This paper is a brief examination of this effect and considers in particular that produced by low radiation doses and their mechanisms of action. It also analyses the effects found in the study of human populations exposed to low ...

I review recent progress on the Higgs production in γγ collisions at the photon mode of the Next Linear Collider (NLC). I mainly focus on two particular topics. The first topic is the Higgs-two photon vertex, which is sensitive to new physics, and can be considered a counter of the number of new heavy particles. I recall the results on QCD and electroweak two loop radiative corrections. The sec...