Fingerprint Liveness Detection using Minutiae-Independent Dense Sampling of Local Patches

Fingerprint recognition and matching is a common form of user authentication. While a fingerprint is unique to each individual, authentication is vulnerable when an attacker can forge a copy of the fingerprint (spoof). To combat these spoofed fingerprints, spoof detection and liveness detection algorithms are currently being researched as countermeasures to this security vulnerability. This paper introduces a fingerprint anti-spoofing mechanism using machine learning.Comment: Submitted, peer-reviewed, accepted, and under publication with Springer Natur

LEARNING-FREE DEEP FEATURES FOR MULTISPECTRAL PALM-PRINT CLASSIFICATION

The feature extraction step is a major and crucial step in analyzing and understanding raw data as it has a considerable impact on the system accuracy. Unfortunately, despite the very acceptable results obtained by many handcrafted methods, they can have difficulty representing the features in the case of large databases or with strongly correlated samples. In this context, we proposed a new, simple and lightweight method for deep feature extraction. Our method can be configured to produce four different deep features, each controlled to tune the system accuracy. We have evaluated the performance of our method using a multispectral palmprint based biometric system and the experimental results, using the CASIA database, have shown that our method has high accuracy compared to many current handcrafted feature extraction methods and many well known deep learning based methods

Morphing Attack Detection -- Database, Evaluation Platform and Benchmarking

Morphing attacks have posed a severe threat to Face Recognition System (FRS). Despite the number of advancements reported in recent works, we note serious open issues such as independent benchmarking, generalizability challenges and considerations to age, gender, ethnicity that are inadequately addressed. Morphing Attack Detection (MAD) algorithms often are prone to generalization challenges as they are database dependent. The existing databases, mostly of semi-public nature, lack in diversity in terms of ethnicity, various morphing process and post-processing pipelines. Further, they do not reflect a realistic operational scenario for Automated Border Control (ABC) and do not provide a basis to test MAD on unseen data, in order to benchmark the robustness of algorithms. In this work, we present a new sequestered dataset for facilitating the advancements of MAD where the algorithms can be tested on unseen data in an effort to better generalize. The newly constructed dataset consists of facial images from 150 subjects from various ethnicities, age-groups and both genders. In order to challenge the existing MAD algorithms, the morphed images are with careful subject pre-selection created from the contributing images, and further post-processed to remove morphing artifacts. The images are also printed and scanned to remove all digital cues and to simulate a realistic challenge for MAD algorithms. Further, we present a new online evaluation platform to test algorithms on sequestered data. With the platform we can benchmark the morph detection performance and study the generalization ability. This work also presents a detailed analysis on various subsets of sequestered data and outlines open challenges for future directions in MAD research

Simulating the impacts of climate on rivers, irrigation and crops in South Asia

The effect of increasing green house gases (GHGs) is already changing the worlds climate, increasing atmospheric temperatures and affecting the land-surface, for example, by changing water availability and the viability of crops. These direct and indirect climate change impacts interact with each other, thereby increasing or decreasing the overall impact of a changing climate. South Asia (SA) is a region with complex orography, ranging from high glaciated mountains, the headwaters for large rivers that flow through several countries to feed vast lowland deltas. The region has extensive irrigation systems that support an intensive agricultural industry. These features, together with a highly variable climate, make SA vulnerable to climate change and important for developing understanding of interactions between land-surface climate impacts. This thesis develops simulations to study the interactions between water resources and crop production for SA using a land surface model. Analysis of SA river flows from regional climate model (RCM) simulations indicate an increasing water resource toward 2100. However this RCM does not include abstraction or irrigation. The Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) represents rivers but irrigation and crops require development to represent key features of the SA crop calendar; these include: the correct growing season inputs for crops, the capability to simulate several crops in rotation during a single growing period (sequential cropping) and crop specific irrigation. This thesis addresses the main development needs for representing the SA region. A method is presented for estimating sowing and harvest dates for SA based on the dominating climatological phenomena, the Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM). This method provides a more accurate alternative to the global datasets of cropping calendars than is currently available and generates more representative inputs for climate impact assessments. In order to model the SA cropping system more accurately, the development and implementation of sequential cropping in JULES with crop specific irrigation is presented to develop simulations to understand how changes in the SA climate could affect water resources and crops. Finally I present simulations in which all of the individual developments from this thesis are brought together; these show the progress that has been made towards simulations that enable analysis of the impacts of climate on rivers, irrigation and crops for SA in a fully integrated way

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

Σε μια εποχή αυξημένου περιβαλλοντικού ενδιαφέροντος, η προστασία του θαλάσσιου περιβάλλοντος αποτελεί ζήτημα ιδιαίτερης βαρύτητας. Για την επίτευξη του σκοπού αυτού, η διατήρηση της θαλάσσιας βιοποικιλότητας (ενός επιστημονικού όρου η νομική κάλυψη του οποίου κατέστη επιτακτική σχετικά πρόσφατα) αποτελεί το βασικό πυλώνα και το σημείο εκκίνησης κάθε προσπάθειας καταστολής και μελέτης των περιβαλλοντικών κινδύνων. Το ολιστικό εργαλείο των θαλάσσιων προστατευόμενων περιοχών έχει αποδειχθεί ιδιαιτέρως αποτελεσματικό για τα παράκτια Κράτη προς τη διατήρηση της βιοποικιλότητας σε περιοχές υπό την εθνική κυριαρχία ή δικαιοδοσία τους. Αντιθέτως, η χρήση του εργαλείου καθίσταται δυσχερής και νομικά αμφισβητήσιμη σε θαλάσσιες περιοχές εκτός εθνικής δικαιοδοσίας (ανοιχτή θάλασσα και διεθνής βυθός), που αποτελούν και το συντριπτικά μεγαλύτερο ποσοστό θαλάσσιας επιφάνειας του πλανήτη, δεδομένων των θεμελιωδών ελευθεριών που επιφυλάσσει για το σύνολο της διεθνούς κοινότητας στις περιοχές αυτές το Σύνταγμα των Ωκεανών, δηλαδή η Σύμβαση των Η.Ε. του 1982 για το Δίκαιο της Θάλασσας. Έτσι, το νομικό εμπόδιο που θέτει η ιστορική αυτή Σύμβαση αντιπαραβάλλεται προς την πραγματική ανάγκη διατήρησης της θαλάσσιας βιοποικιλότητας του πλανήτη σε όλες τις περιοχές, ανεξαρτήτως νομικού καθεστώτος. Η παρούσα εργασία ξεκινά με την παρουσίαση και θεμελίωση της έννοιας και των προσεγγίσεων προς την (θαλάσσια) βιοποικιλότητα, όπως προκύπτει τόσο από διεθνή μη νομικώς δεσμευτικά, αλλά καθολικής αποδοχής, κείμενα, όσο και σχετικές οικουμενικές συμβάσεις, δηλαδή τη Σύμβαση του 1982 και τη Σύμβαση των Η.Ε. του 1992 για τη Βιοποικιλότητα. Παράλληλα, παρουσιάζονται οι (άμεσες ή έμμεσες) νομικές βάσεις για την εφαρμογή του εργαλείου των θαλάσσιων προστατευόμενων περιοχών και η δυνατότητα θέσπισής τους σε περιοχές εκτός εθνικής δικαιοδοσίας υπό το ισχύον διεθνές νομικό σύστημα. Στον αντίποδα του παγκόσμιου "σκηνικού", η εργασία συνεχίζει παραθέτοντας τα περιφερειακά συστήματα προστασίας του θαλάσσιου περιβάλλοντος που έχουν καινοτομήσει στον τομέα της βιοποικιλότητας εγκαθιδρύοντας προστατευόμενες περιοχές στην ανοικτή θάλασσα ή το διεθνή βυθό εντός του γεωγραφικού τους εύρους. Σε μια προσπάθεια σύγκρισης της παγκόσμιας και περιφερειακής προσέγγισης προς τη θαλάσσια βιοποικιλότητα και καταγραφής των πλεονεκτημάτων-μειονεκτημάτων τους, η εργασία εξετάζει την ιστορική απόφαση της Γενικής Συνέλευσης των Η.Ε. για την έναρξη διαπραγματεύσεων με σκοπό την υιοθέτηση ενός νέου νομικώς δεσμευτικού κειμένου για την προστασία της θαλάσσιας βιοποικιλότητας σε περιοχές εκτός εθνικής δικαιοδοσίας και την πρόοδο των διαπραγματεύσεων που πραγματοποιήθηκαν μέχρι το χρόνο συγγραφής της παρούσας εργασίας, στο πλαίσιο των οποίων η εφαρμογή του εργαλείου των θαλάσσιων προστατευόμενων περιοχών βρέθηκε στο επίκεντρο. Εν κατακλείδι, αξιολογείται το κατά πόσο ο συνδυασμός των δύο ανωτέρω προσεγγίσεων μπορεί να επιτύχει το μέγιστο δυνατό συμβιβασμό ανάμεσα στο νομικό αδιέξοδο και την περιβαλλοντική πραγματικότητα.Since the early 1970s, the conservation of marine biodiversity has been at the centre of the international environmental attention, even though previously being quite neglected. At the same time, the tool of marine protected areas (MPAs) has been widely regarded by coastal States as a useful and effective means for the conservation goals, especially used in areas under their national sovereignty or jurisdiction. Despite its effectiveness, the use of the tool in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), i.e. the high seas and the Area, seems doubtful given the fundamental freedoms and the subsequent jurisdictional limitations therein introduced by the Constitution of the Oceans, i.e. the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The present thesis, at first, presents the notion and the approaches towards (marine) biodiversity, as universally identified both in international non-legally binding instruments ("soft law") and in the relevant international conventions, such as UNCLOS and the 1992 UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Furthermore, the legal basis for the establishment of MPAs in ABNJ is presented under the current international legal framework. In contrast to the latter, the thesis subsequently examines the regional frameworks for the protection of the marine environment whose governing bodies have been described as pioneers in the field of marine biodiversity by establishing MPAs in areas beyond their Contracting States' sovereignty or jurisdiction. Finally, the thesis focuses on the current developments, and more specifically on the historic resolution of the UN General Assembly to convene an International Conference on the adoption of a new international legally binding agreement on the conservation of marine biodiversity in ABNJ, as an Implementing Agreement under UNCLOS. The establishment of MPAs in ABNJ is one of the main pillars currently under negotiation. The thesis concludes by evaluating the combination of the above-mentioned global and regional approaches as the best way to compromise the legal obstacles of UNCLOS and the universal need for environmental action in the oceans

Towards a Network of Marine Protected Areas in the South China Sea: Legal and Political Perspectives

The once pristine and rich marine environment of the South China Sea is degrading at an alarming rate due to the rapid socioeconomic development of the region. Despite this, and because mainly of complicated sovereignty and maritime boundary disputes, coastal States have not been able to develop effective regional cooperation to safeguard the shared marine environment. This dissertation, “Towards a Network of Marine Protected Areas in the South China Sea: Legal and Political Perspectives”, researches legal and political measures to support the development of a network of marine protected areas in the South China Sea. Such a network, if properly developed, would not only help to protect the marine environment and resources of the region but also contribute to lower the tension among its coastal States. These measures should be developed in accordance with international law, based on the specific geopolitical context of the South China Sea region and take into consideration experiences in developing regional networks of marine protected areas from other marine regions. Consequently, three optional categories of measures for the development of a network of marine protected areas in the South China Sea are suggested at the end. They include national-focused measures; measures to enhance the regional cooperation; and measures to build a regime for marine protected areas and network of marine protected areas in the South China Sea. These measures could be taken alternatively or on a step-by-step basis