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Role of Face recognition in security applications can never be overstated, that is why researchers around the world are still actively participating in this area. The initial step in the procedure of face recognition is to detect it efficiently. In this paper, a hybrid technique is being proposed using skin detection (in RGB color space) and block approach. This fusion is proposed to achieve fast skin detection. Along with the fusion, template matching is also used for detection purpose. Block approach for skin detection means dividing the image into square blocks virtually and then applying the detection ratios on corner pixels. If the corner pixels satisfy the ratios completely, the whole block will be considered as a skin block and if none of them satisfies these ratios, the block will be treated as a non-skin block. Even if some of the corner pixels satisfy the ratios, then the block will be searched for skin pixels. In this way, it will rapidly detect a face in an image including high resolution pixels. The experiments are carried out and the results have shown the significant improvements both in time and accuracy of the detection, that has prove the fastness and robustness of the proposed technique.

Extant literature links the higher bargaining power of women with favorable outcomes for the health and education of children, lower domestic abuse, and enhanced socioeconomic status. This paper examines the interplay between the financial inclusion of a woman and her intra-household bargaining power. The theoretical model predicts an ambiguous effect, wherein improvements in her well-being depend on her husband's reaction. Using household-level data from India, we show that a woman's well-being improves in many ways when she has a bank account. We use two unique instruments to address the issue of simultaneity. Placebo tests also certify our results. Our findings suggest that removing financial barriers for women increases their independence and say in household decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely believed that empowering women via various material means increases women's outside options and, thereby, makes them less vulnerable to intimate partner violence. However, the effect of such empowerment on domestic violence could be subtle particularly in countries with pre-existing high tolerance to violence, weak law enforcement and male institutional domination. Using cross-sectional household-level survey data for Latin American countries, we test the effect of property ownership by women on domestic violence. The results show that a woman's sole property ownership is not associated with less domestic violence against her; sometimes the correlation is even positive. However, married women who co-own the property are less likely to face domestic abuse by husbands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the interplay of trade and terrorism externalities under free trade between a developed nation that exports a manufactured good to and imports a primary product from a developing nation. A terrorist organization targets both nations and reduces its attacks in response to a nation's defensive counterterrorism efforts, while transferring some of its attacks abroad. Terms-of-trade considerations lead the developed nation to raise its counterterrorism level beyond the 'small-country' level, thus compounding its overprovision of these measures. By contrast, the developing nation limits its defensive countermeasures below that of the small-country level. This asymmetry is a novel finding. The analysis is extended to include proactive countermeasures to weaken the terrorist group. Again, the developed country raises its efforts owing to the terms-of-trade externality, which now opposes the underprovision associated with proactive efforts. A second extension allows for several developing-country exporters of the primary product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of parental transfers on family size. We introduce a simple theoretical model of fertility decision where preferences towards children may differ between female and male spouses. Parental transfers increase both the household income and the bargaining power of the recipient spouse. Therefore, transfers from wife's and husband's parents may have dissimilar effects on the number of children. Our empirical result, based on a unique household-level data for Japan, supports this hypothesis. In particular, received transfers from the wife's parents are negatively associated with the demand for children. In contrast, both received and expected transfers from the husband's parents are positively associated with the demand for children. These results hold important policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]