Biometric presentation attack detection: beyond the visible spectrum

The increased need for unattended authentication in multiple scenarios has motivated a wide deployment of biometric systems in the last few years. This has in turn led to the disclosure of security concerns specifically related to biometric systems. Among them, presentation attacks (PAs, i.e., attempts to log into the system with a fake biometric characteristic or presentation attack instrument) pose a severe threat to the security of the system: any person could eventually fabricate or order a gummy finger or face mask to impersonate someone else. In this context, we present a novel fingerprint presentation attack detection (PAD) scheme based on i) a new capture device able to acquire images within the short wave infrared (SWIR) spectrum, and i i) an in-depth analysis of several state-of-theart techniques based on both handcrafted and deep learning features. The approach is evaluated on a database comprising over 4700 samples, stemming from 562 different subjects and 35 different presentation attack instrument (PAI) species. The results show the soundness of the proposed approach with a detection equal error rate (D-EER) as low as 1.35% even in a realistic scenario where five different PAI species are considered only for testing purposes (i.e., unknown attacks

Research at the University of Wageningen, The Netherlands, and at CIAD Mazatlan, Mexico with regard to fish nutrition.

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Axioms for consensus functions on the n-cube

An elementary general result is proved that allows for simple characterizations of well-known location/consensus functions (median, mean and center) on the n-cube. In addition, alternate new characterizations are given for the median and anti-median functions on the n-cube.Comment: 12 page

Pla de gestió i manteniment del parc de Can Gambús

Can Gambús és un parc públic d’uns 100000 m² situat a la zona nord-oest del municipi de Sabadell i ubicat entre una zona agrícola i zona urbana. Es tracta d’un parc de recent creació i sense cap pla de conservació específic assignat fins al moment. L’objectiu del treball és elaborar el pla de gestió i manteniment de la vegetació del parc per obtenir un aspecte paisatgístic adequat respectant les expectatives de disseny realitzades pels arquitectes, les necessitats pròpies de l’evolució dels elements vegetals i les exigències de la població com a parc públic. El pla de gestió fa un anàlisi dels elements vegetals que hi ha al parc i se’ls hi relaciona i es defineixen totes aquelles tasques que es faran per obtenir l’objectiu ornamental desitjat. Per una altra banda, en el pla de manteniment es fan uns calendaris on es veuen les freqüències de totes aquelles tasques ja descrites. Finalment, s’enumeraran unes propostes que serviran per facilitar o millorar alguns aspectes del parc

SUSIG: an on-line signature database, associated protocols and benchmark results

We present a new online signature database (SUSIG). The database consists of two parts that are collected using different pressure-sensitive tablets ( one with and the other without an LCD display). A total of 100 people contributed to each part, resulting in a database of more than 3,000 genuine signatures and 2,000 skilled forgeries. The genuine signatures in the database are real signatures of the contributors. In collecting skilled forgeries, forgers were shown the signing process on the monitor and were given a chance to practice. Furthermore, for a subset of the forgeries ( highly skilled forgeries), this animation was mapped onto the LCD screen of the tablet so that the forgers could trace over the mapped signature. Forgers in this group were also informed of how close they were to the reference signature, so that they could improve their forgery quality. We describe the signature acquisition process and several verification protocols for this database. We also report the performance of a state-of-the-art signature verification system using the associated protocols. The results show that the highly skilled forgery set is significantly more difficult compared to the skilled forgery set, providing researchers with challenging forgeries. The database is available through http://icproxy.sabanciuniv.edu:215

A generative modeling approach for benchmarking and training shallow quantum circuits

Hybrid quantum-classical algorithms provide ways to use noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers for practical applications. Expanding the portfolio of such techniques, we propose a quantum circuit learning algorithm that can be used to assist the characterization of quantum devices and to train shallow circuits for generative tasks. The procedure leverages quantum hardware capabilities to its fullest extent by using native gates and their qubit connectivity. We demonstrate that our approach can learn an optimal preparation of the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, also known as "cat states". We further demonstrate that our approach can efficiently prepare approximate representations of coherent thermal states, wave functions that encode Boltzmann probabilities in their amplitudes. Finally, complementing proposals to characterize the power or usefulness of near-term quantum devices, such as IBM's quantum volume, we provide a new hardware-independent metric called the qBAS score. It is based on the performance yield in a specific sampling task on one of the canonical machine learning data sets known as Bars and Stripes. We show how entanglement is a key ingredient in encoding the patterns of this data set; an ideal benchmark for testing hardware starting at four qubits and up. We provide experimental results and evaluation of this metric to probe the trade off between several architectural circuit designs and circuit depths on an ion-trap quantum computer.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures. Minor revisions. As published in npj Quantum Informatio

Calidad del aire interior en viviendas ventiladas de forma natural en España

This article presents the results of the exploratory study on indoor air quality in existing dwellings with traditional ventilation systems based on natural ventilation. A preliminary study of the most representative typology of the Spanish housing stock has been conducted and, based on it, twelve dwellings located in Madrid have been monitored in different periods. Monitored indoor air quality has been compared to that required in the regulations in Spain, the Código Técnico de la Edificación (Technical Building Code). According to the results of the research, 50 % of the monitored dwellings do not comply with the CO2-based air quality quantification offset in the regulations. Such non-compliance is primarily caused by high CO2 concentrations in winter, especially in bedrooms. These high concentrations and their seasonality are attributed to the interference of the occupant’s behaviour, influenced by weather conditions, that is affecting the efficiency of the existing natural ventilation systems.Este artículo presenta los resultados del estudio exploratorio sobre la calidad del aire interior en viviendas existentes con sistemas de ventilación tradicional basada en ventilación natural. Se ha realizado un estudio previo de la tipología de viviendas más representativa del parque inmobiliario español en base al cual se han monitorizado doce viviendas ubicadas en Madrid. La calidad del aire interior obtenida se ha comparado con la requerida reglamentariamente por el Código Técnico de la Edificación. Como resultado, el 50 % de las viviendas monitorizadas no cumplen con la cuantificación de calidad del aire en función del CO2 de la reglamentación de aplicación. Dicho incumplimiento se produce fundamentalmente por las altas concentraciones de CO2 alcanzadas en invierno, especialmente en los dormitorios. Estas altas concentraciones y su estacionalidad se atribuyen a las interferencias del comportamiento de los ocupantes, influenciado por la meteorología, en la eficacia de los sistemas de ventilación natural