E-Learning: Its Implementation in Higher Institutions in Nigeria

Advances in computer, communication and network technology have led to the evolution of new ways of learning generally grouped as, and termed e-learning. It is a name that came into existence not more than a decade ago though it was being implemented since the second half of the 20th century in its various sub forms. E-learning is becoming a standard for learning in several higher institutions in various countries of the world. This paper discusses the full meaning of e-learning, all its components and the impact of implementing e-learning in higher institutions in Nigeria

Comparison of the Minutiae Quadruplets and Minutiae Triplets Techniques

Identifying distorted ngerprint images is a major problem in ngerprint recog-nition systems. Several techniques, such as the minutiae triplets technique, have been proposed for minutiae matching and indexing. The minutiae triplets technique however is largely aected by minutiae distortions and occlusions and hence can rarely produce a stable feature set. In this paper, the characteristics of the minutiae quadruplets and the minutiae triplets structures are compared. The minutiae quadruplet technique is proposed as a better technique because the features are robust to minutiae distortions and occlusions and it eliminates the known drawbacks of the minutiae triplet technique

Fingerprint Matching Using Minutiae Quadruplets

Fingerprint matching faces several challenges resulting from the varying quality of fingerprint scanners, the weakness of some scanners in detecting fake fingerprints and the poor performance of fingerprint matching algorithms caused by the high intraclass variations between fingerprints of the same subject. The major contributions to the high intraclass variations include high displacement between an enrolled fingerprint and an input fingerprint of the same person; rotations and occlusions caused by non-uniform finger pressure on the scanner, differences in sensed fingerprint area, dry-skin or accidents; non-linear distortion as a 3 dimensional fingerprint image is sensed by a 2 dimensional fingerprint scanner. This paper proposes a new method of matching fingerprints using geometric features termed minutiae quadruplets. The performance of the properties of minutiae quadruplets were evaluated on unprocessed datasets of database_a (110 pairs of fingerprint images) of the Fingerprint Verification Competition (FVC) 2000 database.  The evaluation resulted in genuine matches of 89 out of 110 fingerprints; and a receiver operating characteristics of about 20% off the zero axes. This entails that the properties of minutiae quadruplets may not be beneficial for fingerprint matching of unprocessed fingerprints but may be beneficial for matching of processed fingerprints

Biometric Recognition: Overview and Applications

Earlier forms of person identification or verification like usernames, passwords or personal identification numbers (PINs) are still in use though not sufficiently effective in handling Internet crimes, frauds and security threats. Biometric person identification is preferred because biometric identifiers are unique to each person, permanent and hardly subject to change. These advantages make biometric recognition the preferred mode for most virtual and access control. Biometrics is universal and easily implemented with existing or new technologies. This paper discusses biometric recognition; the different modalities of biometric recognition technology; their strengths, limitations and applications

Performance Evaluation of Feature Sets of Minutiae Quadruplets

The features proposed in this paper are derived from minutiae quadruplets and are applicable in matching and indexing ngerprint images. In this work nineteen different possibilities of features were explored for indexing and the performances of some of the feature sets were mixed: some giving good performances on certain databases and poor performances on other databases. A nal ranking was done and one feature-set was chosen as viable geometrical features for minutiae matching and indexing based on their performances on three Fingerprint Verication Databases (FVC) 2000, 2002 and 2004

Image Processing and Features Extraction of Fingerprint Images

Several fingerprint matching algorithms have been developed for minutiae or template matching of fingerprint templates. The efficiency of these fingerprint matching algorithms depends on the success of the image processing and features extraction steps employed. Fingerprint image processing and analysis is hence an essential step to the efficient matching and classification of fingerprint features. To demonstrate the importance of the image processing of fingerprint images prior to image enrolment or comparison, the set of fingerprint images in databases (a) and (b) of the FVC (Fingerprint Verification Competition) 2000 database were analyzed using a features extraction algorithm. This paper presents the results of the features extraction of the datasets of the FVC 2000 database. It also discusses the limitations of the FVC database and recommends what can be done to improve proprietary databases

Mean of Median Absolute Derivation Technique for Speckle Noise Variance Estimation in Computerised Tomography Images

The accurate estimation of noise variance in an image is the first important stage in image filtering using adaptive filters. In this paper, a new technique for the estimation of speckle noise present in Computerised Tomography (CT) lung image was developed. The development of mean of median absolute derivation technique based on the estimated mean of speckle noise present in CT images is presented. From the result of the simulations, the new technique gave a reasonably accurate estimate of variance of speckle noise present in CT Images. Ten samples of 85x73 CT images corrupted by speckle noise level ranging from 10% to 30% where used as test images. Also, the new technique gave the lowest average speckle noise variance estimation error of 2.53% compared to 12.53% for the Median of Median Absolute Derivative Technique, 18.18% for the Transfer function technique and 37.14% for the Mode of Variance Technique. The simulation software used in the paper is Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB2012).http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v34i2.2