Principal line based ICP alignment for palmprint verification

2009 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, ICIP 2009, Cairo, 7-10 November 2009Image alignment is a crucial step in palmprint verification. However, most of the existing palmprint alignment methods use only some key points between fingers or in palm boundary to extract the region of interest (ROI), which is consequently used for feature extraction and matching. Such alignment methods can only give a coarse alignment of the palmprint images. This paper presents a new effective refinement method for palmprint alignment by adapting the iterative closest point (ICP) method to the palmprint principal lines. The proposed method offers a more accurate alignment of palmprints by correcting efficiently the shifting, rotation and scaling variations introduced in data acquisition. The experimental results show that the proposed method can greatly improve the palmprint verification accuracy in real time.Department of ComputingRefereed conference pape

Biometric recognition based on the texture along palmprint lines

Tese de Mestrado Integrado. Bioengenharia. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201

Fast and efficient palmprint identification of a small sample within a full image.

In some fields like forensic research, experts demand that a found sample of an individual can be matched with its full counterpart contained in a database. The found sample may present several characteristics that make this matching more difficult to perform, such as distortion and, most importantly, a very small size. Several solutions have been presented intending to solve this problem, however, big computational effort is required or low recognition rate is obtained. In this paper, we present a fast, simple, and efficient method to relate a small sample of a partial palmprint to a full one using elemental optimization processes and a voting mechanic. Experimentation shows that our method performs with a higher recognition rate than the state of the art method, when trying to identify palmprint samples with a radius as small as 2.64 cm

Building a Strong Undergraduate Research Culture in African Universities

Africa had a late start in the race to setting up and obtaining universities with research quality fundamentals. According to Mamdani [5], the first colonial universities were few and far between: Makerere in East Africa, Ibadan and Legon in West Africa. This last place in the race, compared to other continents, has had tremendous implications in the development plans for the continent. For Africa, the race has been difficult from a late start to an insurmountable litany of problems that include difficulty in equipment acquisition, lack of capacity, limited research and development resources and lack of investments in local universities. In fact most of these universities are very recent with many less than 50 years in business except a few. To help reduce the labor costs incurred by the colonial masters of shipping Europeans to Africa to do mere clerical jobs, they started training ―workshops‖ calling them technical or business colleges. According to Mamdani, meeting colonial needs was to be achieved while avoiding the ―Indian disease‖ in Africa -- that is, the development of an educated middle class, a group most likely to carry the virus of nationalism. Upon independence, most of these ―workshops‖ were turned into national ―universities‖, but with no clear role in national development. These national ―universities‖ were catering for children of the new African political elites. Through the seventies and eighties, most African universities were still without development agendas and were still doing business as usual. Meanwhile, governments strapped with lack of money saw no need of putting more scarce resources into big white elephants. By mid-eighties, even the UN and IMF were calling for a limit on funding African universities. In today‘s African university, the traditional curiosity driven research model has been replaced by a market-driven model dominated by a consultancy culture according to Mamdani (Mamdani, Mail and Guardian Online). The prevailing research culture as intellectual life in universities has been reduced to bare-bones classroom activity, seminars and workshops have migrated to hotels and workshop attendance going with transport allowances and per diems (Mamdani, Mail and Guardian Online). There is need to remedy this situation and that is the focus of this paper

The development of automated palmprint identification using major flexion creases

Palmar flexion crease matching is a method for verifying or establishing identity. New methods of palmprint identification, that complement existing identification strategies, or reduce analysis and comparison times, will benefit palmprint identification communities worldwide. To this end, this thesis describes new methods of manual and automated palmar flexion crease identification, that can be used to identify palmar flexion creases in online palmprint images. In the first instance, a manual palmar flexion crease identification and matching method is described, which was used to compare palmar flexion creases from 100 palms, each modified 10 times to mimic some of the types of alterations that can be found in crime scene palmar marks. From these comparisons, using manual palmar flexion crease identification, results showed that when labelled within 10 pixels, or 3.5 mm, of the palmar flexion crease, a palmprint image can be identified with a 99.2% genuine acceptance rate and a 0% false acceptance rate. Furthermore, in the second instance, a new method of automated palmar flexion crease recognition, that can be used to identify palmar flexion creases in online palmprint images, is described. A modified internal image seams algorithm was used to extract the flexion creases, and a matching algorithm, based on kd-tree nearest neighbour searching, was used to calculate the similarity between them. Results showed that in 1000 palmprint images from 100 palms, when compared to manually identified palmar flexion creases, a 100% genuine acceptance rate was achieved with a 0.0045% false acceptance rate. Finally, to determine if automated palmar flexion crease recognition can be used as an effective method of palmprint identification, palmar flexion creases from two online palmprint image data sets, containing images from 100 palms and 386 palms respectively, were automatically extracted and compared. In the first data set, that is, for images from 100 palms, an equal error rate of 0.3% was achieved. In the second data set, that is, for images from 386 palms, an equal error rate of 0.415% was achieved.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Biometrics

Biometrics-Unique and Diverse Applications in Nature, Science, and Technology provides a unique sampling of the diverse ways in which biometrics is integrated into our lives and our technology. From time immemorial, we as humans have been intrigued by, perplexed by, and entertained by observing and analyzing ourselves and the natural world around us. Science and technology have evolved to a point where we can empirically record a measure of a biological or behavioral feature and use it for recognizing patterns, trends, and or discrete phenomena, such as individuals' and this is what biometrics is all about. Understanding some of the ways in which we use biometrics and for what specific purposes is what this book is all about

Learning the Consensus of Multiple Correspondences between Data Structures

En aquesta tesi presentem un marc de treball per aprendre el consens donades múltiples correspondències. S'assumeix que les diferents parts involucrades han generat aquestes correspondències per separat, i el nostre sistema actua com un mecanisme que calibra diferents característiques i considera diferents paràmetres per aprendre les millors assignacions i així, conformar una correspondència amb la major precisió possible a costa d'un cost computacional raonable. Aquest marc de treball de consens és presentat en una forma gradual, començant pels desenvolupaments més bàsics que utilitzaven exclusivament conceptes ben definits o únicament un parell de correspondències, fins al model final que és capaç de considerar múltiples correspondències, amb la capacitat d'aprendre automàticament alguns paràmetres de ponderació. Cada pas d'aquest marc de treball és avaluat fent servir bases de dades de naturalesa variada per demostrar efectivament que és possible tractar diferents escenaris de matching. Addicionalment, dos avanços suplementaris relacionats amb correspondències es presenten en aquest treball. En primer lloc, una nova mètrica de distància per correspondències s'ha desenvolupat, la qual va derivar en una nova estratègia per a la cerca de mitjanes ponderades. En segon lloc, un marc de treball específicament dissenyat per a generar correspondències al camp del registre d'imatges s'ha modelat, on es considera que una de les imatges és una imatge completa, i l'altra és una mostra petita d'aquesta. La conclusió presenta noves percepcions de com el nostre marc de treball de consens pot ser millorada, i com els dos desenvolupaments paral·lels poden convergir amb el marc de treball de consens.En esta tesis presentamos un marco de trabajo para aprender el consenso dadas múltiples correspondencias. Se asume que las distintas partes involucradas han generado dichas correspondencias por separado, y nuestro sistema actúa como un mecanismo que calibra distintas características y considera diferentes parámetros para aprender las mejores asignaciones y así, conformar una correspondencia con la mayor precisión posible a expensas de un costo computacional razonable. El marco de trabajo de consenso es presentado en una forma gradual, comenzando por los acercamientos más básicos que utilizaban exclusivamente conceptos bien definidos o únicamente un par de correspondencias, hasta el modelo final que es capaz de considerar múltiples correspondencias, con la capacidad de aprender automáticamente algunos parámetros de ponderación. Cada paso de este marco de trabajo es evaluado usando bases de datos de naturaleza variada para demostrar efectivamente que es posible tratar diferentes escenarios de matching. Adicionalmente, dos avances suplementarios relacionados con correspondencias son presentados en este trabajo. En primer lugar, una nueva métrica de distancia para correspondencias ha sido desarrollada, la cual derivó en una nueva estrategia para la búsqueda de medias ponderadas. En segundo lugar, un marco de trabajo específicamente diseñado para generar correspondencias en el campo del registro de imágenes ha sido establecida, donde se considera que una de las imágenes es una imagen completa, y la otra es una muestra pequeña de ésta. La conclusión presenta nuevas percepciones de cómo nuestro marco de trabajo de consenso puede ser mejorada, y cómo los dos desarrollos paralelos pueden converger con éste.In this work, we present a framework to learn the consensus given multiple correspondences. It is assumed that the several parties involved have generated separately these correspondences, and our system acts as a mechanism that gauges several characteristics and considers different parameters to learn the best mappings and thus, conform a correspondence with the highest possible accuracy at the expense of a reasonable computational cost. The consensus framework is presented in a gradual form, starting from the most basic approaches that used exclusively well-known concepts or only two correspondences, until the final model which is able to consider multiple correspondences, with the capability of automatically learning some weighting parameters. Each step of the framework is evaluated using databases of varied nature to effectively demonstrate that it is capable to address different matching scenarios. In addition, two supplementary advances related on correspondences are presented in this work. Firstly, a new distance metric for correspondences has been developed, which lead to a new strategy for the weighted mean correspondence search. Secondly, a framework specifically designed for correspondence generation in the image registration field has been established, where it is considered that one of the images is a full image, and the other one is a small sample of it. The conclusion presents insights of how our consensus framework can be enhanced, and how these two parallel developments can converge with it

A Longitudinal Analysis on the Feasibility of Iris Recognition Performance for Infants 0-2 Years Old

The focus of this study was to longitudinally evaluate iris recognition for infants between the ages of 0 to 2 years old. Image quality metrics of infant and adult irises acquired on the same iris camera were compared. Matching performance was evaluated for four groups, infants 0 to 6 months, 7 to 12 months, 13 to 24 months, and adults. A mixed linear regression model was used to determine if infants’ genuine similarity scores changed over time. This study found that image quality metrics were different between infants and adults but in the older group, (13 to 24 months old) the image quality metric scores were more likely to be similar to adults. Infants 0 to 6 months old had worse performance at an FMR of 0.01% than infants 7 to 12 months, 13 to 24 months, and adults