The Legacy of Omar Mohsen

Omar Mohsen may be just a gate name for some AUCians; however, this name has a huge story behind it. In this audio feature, you will know why AUC is honored to have a student like Omar and what the university did to keep his memory alive. This Audio Feature has been recorded for the Audio Production course at the American University in Cairo, taught by professor Kim Fox in the Fall Semester of 2021

Pre-trained based CNN model to identify finger vein

In current biometric security systems using images for security authentication, finger vein-based systems are getting special attention in particular attributable to the facts such as insurance of data confidentiality and higher accuracy. Previous studies were mostly based on finger-print, palm vein etc. however, due to being more secure than fingerprint system and due to the fact that each person's finger vein is different from others finger vein are impossible to use to do forgery as veins reside under the skin. The system that we worked on functions by recognizing vein patterns from images of fingers which are captured using near Infrared (NIR) technology. Due to the lack of an available database, we created and used our own dataset which was pre-trained using transfer learning of AlexNet model and verification is done by applying correct as well as incorrect test images. The result of deep convolutional neural network (CNN) based several experimental results are shown with training accuracy, training loss, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curve and Area Under the Curve (AUC)

Finger vein identification based on transfer learning of AlexNet

Nowadays finger vein-based validation systems are getting extra attraction among other authentication systems due to high security in terms of ensuring data confidentiality. This system works by recognizing patterns from finger vein images and these images are captured using a camera based on near-infrared technology. In this research, we focused finger vein identification system by using our own finger vein dataset, we trained it with transfer learning of AlexNet model and verified by test images. We have done three different experiments with the same dataset but different sizes of data. Therefore, we obtained varied predictability with 95% accuracy from the second experiment

Convolutional neural network-based finger vein recognition using near infrared images

Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is opening new horizons in biometrics-based authentication field and finger vein recognition is the prominent one which can provide the best possible security system depending on this aforementioned technology. In this paper, we used 5 convolutional layers and 4 fully-connected layers where our developed network has shown the capability to produce the result with almost 100% accuracy rate which became possible due to the fact that deep learning, an end-to-end system is used which performs better in a lot of aspects in comparison to conventional techniques.Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is opening new horizons in biometrics-based authentication field and finger vein recognition is the prominent one which can provide the best possible security system depending on this aforementioned technology. In this paper, we used 5 convolutional layers and 4 fully-connected layers where our developed network has shown the capability to produce the result with almost 100% accuracy rate which became possible due to the fact that deep learning, an end-to-end system is used which performs better in a lot of aspects in comparison to conventional techniques

Stem cell research: a religious and ethical perspective

Stem cell research is among the most promising and controversial technological breakthroughs of our time. Stem cells are the cells from which all 210 different kinds of tissue in the human body originate. There are great potential to relieve human disease and suffering. The first studies on stem cells began in the 60s. Scientists have isolated the first human embryonic stem cell lines specifically tailored to match the nuclear DNA of patients, both male and female of various ages, suffering from disease or spinal cord injury. Because many diseases result from the death or dysfunction of a single cell type, scientists believe that the introduction of healthy cells of this type into a patient may restore lost or compromised function. Stem cells are able to divide, while maintaining their totipotent or pluripotent characteristics. Early in mammalian development, stem cells (embryonic stem cells); have the ability to differentiate into every cell of the human body (totipotent), potentially forming an entire fetus. Stem cells derived from later stages of mammalian development have the ability to differentiate into multiple cell types, but not into an entire organism. Adult stem cells are generally limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin Most cells in the human body are differentiated and have the ability to form only cells similar to them. If one can manipulate the conditions controlling cellular differentiation, it may be possible to create replacement cells and organs, potentially curing illnesses such as diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and other potentially serious illnesses.. Embryonic Stem cells for research are obtained from the surplus fertilized embryos in infertility management with IVF, from aborted fetuses, umbilical cord and cloning whether therapeutic or reproductive. The overwhelming objection to stem cell research is that it involves the destruction of an embryo or foetus. For many, this constitutes destruction of a potential human, and conflicts with religious and moral views held in our society. For others, the potential for this research to provide treatments and possibly cures for debilitating illnesses that have no cure and significantly impact on our way of life overrides this concern. Central to any argument on this is what actually constitutes the beginning of life for a human. Opinions on this vary from the moment of conception to a 14 day embryo and a living baby at birth. The other major ethical issue associated with stem cell research ties in with the combination of embryonic stem cell and cloning technologies. This newly emerging technology has caused a great deal of ethical, legal, and theological discussion and debate. Is IVF permitted to begin with? Are pre-embryos included in the prohibition of abortion? May a very early embryo be sacrificed for stem cells that could save lives or at least cure disease? May we fertilize ova specifically to create an embryo to be sacrificed for stem cells? With 'surplus' embryos cryopreserved in IVF clinics, is there a need to create additional embryos solely for purposes of stem cells basic research? Need we make "fences" in the form of protective laws to protect fetuses from wanton destruction? May tissue from aborted fetuses be used for research or medical treatment?. This paper discusses stem cell research in an ethical and religious perspective showing the Islamic, Catholic, Judaism and secular ethical views. it also projects possible compromises that could be utilized and urges local authorities to develop regulations for all clinical and research work that involves the human embryo

Reducing Minimum Miscibility Pressure in Gas Injection for Enhanced Oil Recovery

This research presents a novel experimental investigation to reduce the minimum miscibility pressure in methane-oil systems using chemical additives

A systematic approach for developing course learning outcomes to fulfill accreditation requirements in Malaysia

Writing appropriate learning outcomes is crucial to course design. Properly written outcomes aids the design of other course elements such as delivery methods and assessment. This paper proposes a systematic approach for writing learning outcomes. The proposed procedure takes advantage of the hierarchical structure of the programme building components. When applied, the procedure helps meet some of the accreditation requirements imposed by the Malaysian Engineering Accreditation Council such as explicit assessment of programme outcomes. Key to success is the careful mapping between course components. Besides, the procedure simplifies course design consequently leading to continual improvement. The procedure can be applied to wide range engineering courses. It also gives more control on planning a balanced assessment

Performance analysis of BUNSD-LMA

The IETF is developed Network Mobility Basic Support (NEMO BSP) to support session continuity and reachability to the Mobile Network Nodes (MNNs) as one unit while they move. While NEMO move and attached to different networks, it needs to register the MNNs. This function of registration decreases the performance of NEMO. NEMO BSP suffers from some challenges. The most important of these challenges are route optimization, seamless mobility, handover latency and registration time. Binding Update No Sense Drop (BUNSD) Binding Cache Entry (BCE) in Local Mobility Anchor (LMA) is proposed to find a possible solution to MNNs. MNNs that are roaming in a Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) domain to perform seamless mobility while they are maintaining their session continuity through mobile router (MR). In this paper, BUNSD-LMA is analyzed mathematically with NEMO BS based on handover latency, total packet delivery delay cost, and throughput time during handoff. The analytical result shows that the BUNSD-LMA had better performance in term of handover, and registrations of MNNs. As a result the total packet loss is decreased and seamless mobility of MNNs enhanced compared to NEMO BS benchmarks. Keywords: NEMO, PMIPv6, BUNSD, MR, MAG, LM

The impact of time and power allocation on the performance of the three-node decode and-forward relay channel

Relying has in use for decades to tackle some of the challenges of wireless communication such as extending transmitting distance, transmitting over rough terrains. Relaying also achieve diversity which was proposed recently as an effective means to combat channel fading. In this work, effect of time and power allocation on relay performance is studied. The channel considered is the three-node channel with half-duplex constraint on the relay. The relaying technique assumed is decode-and-forward. Mutual information is used as the criteria to measure channel performance whereas noise is assumed to be the primary channel impairment. After deriving suitable formula for the mutual information as a function of time and power allocation, numerical results are obtained. Results have shown that the importance of relaying is more apparent when more resources are allocated to the relay. It was also shown that quality of the source to destination link has direct impact on the decision to relay or not to relay. Relatively good source to destination channel makes relaying less useful. The opposite is true for the other two links, namely the source to relay channel and the relay to destination channel. When these two channels are good, relaying becomes advantageous

GNSS Error Sources

This chapter discusses the most serious sources of error affecting global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) signals, classifying these in a new way, according to their nature and/or effects. For instance, errors due to clock bias or drift are grouped together. Errors related to the signal propagation medium, too, are treated in the same way. GNSS errors need to be corrected to achieve accepted positioning and navigational accuracy. We provide a theoretical description for each source, supporting these with diagrams and analytical figures where possible. Some common metrics to measure the magnitude of GNSS errors, including the user equivalent range error (UERE) and the dilution of precision (DOP), are also presented. The chapter concludes with remarks on the significance of the sources of error