A Hand-Based Biometric Verification System Using Ant Colony Optimization

This paper presents a novel personal authentication system using hand-based biometrics, which utilizes internal (beneath the skin) structure of veins on the dorsal part of the hand and the outer shape of the hand. The hand-vein and the hand-shape images can be simultaneously acquired by using infrared thermal and digital camera respectively. A claimed identity is authenticated by integrating these two traits based on the score-level fusion in which four fusion rules are used for the integration. Before their fusion, each modality is evaluated individually in terms of error rates and weights are assigned according to their performance. In order to achieve an adaptive security in the proposed bimodal system, an optimal selection of fusion parameters is required. Hence, Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is employed in the bimodal system to select the weights and also one out of the four fusion rules optimally for the adaptive fusion of the two modalities to meet the user defined security levels. The databases of hand-veins and the hand-shapes consisting of 150 users are acquired using the peg-free imaging setup. The experimental results show genuine acceptance rate (GAR) of 98% at false acceptance rate (FAR) of 0.001% and the system has the potential for any online personal authentication based application.

A New Hand Based Biometric Modality & An Automated Authentication System

With increased adoption of smartphones, security has become important like never before. Smartphones store confidential information and carry out sensitive financial transactions. Biometric sensors such as fingerprint scanners are built in to smartphones to cater to security concerns. However, due to limited size of smartphone, miniaturised sensors are used to capture the biometric data from the user. Other hand based biometric modalities like hand veins and finger veins need specialised thermal/IR sensors which add to the overall cost of the system. In this paper, we introduce a new hand based biometric modality called Fistprint.  Fistprints can be captured using digital camera available in any smartphone. In this work, our contributions are: i) we propose a new non-touch and non-invasive hand based biometric modality called fistprint. Fistprint contains many distinctive elements such as fist shape, fist size, fingers shape and size, knuckles, finger nails, palm crease/wrinkle lines etc. ii) Prepare fistprint DB for the first time. We collected fistprint information of twenty individuals - both males and females aged from 23 years to 45 years of age. Four images of each hand fist (total 160 images) were taken for this purpose. iii) Propose Fistprint Automatic Authentication SysTem (FAAST). iv) Implement FAAST system on Samsung Galaxy smartphone running Android and server side on a windows machine and validate the effectiveness of the proposed modality. The experimental results show the effectiveness of fistprint as a biometric with GAR of 97.5 % at 1.0% FAR

Screening mint (Mentha spp.) accessions against root-knot nematode infection

Different mint (Mentha spp.) accessions were screened in vitro against root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne incognita). Root-knot infection was high in Siwalik and Himalaya and two M. arvensis cultivars, whereas moderate reaction was found in M. arvensis cultivars like SS-11, SS-27, Gomti, Kosi, M. cardiaca, and MAH-1. The lowest root-knot infection level was found on SS-4, SS-5, Kalka and 55-20. Moderate to high degree of resistance was recorded in SS-1-4, SS-2-7, SS-15, SS-26, M. piperita cv. Kukrail, M. spicata cv. Neera, M. spicata cv. Arka, M. sitrata cv. Kiran, M. gracilis and M. viridis. &nbsp

Screening mint (Mentha spp.) accessions against root-knot nematode infection

Different mint (Mentha spp.) accessions were screened in vitro against root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne incognita). Root-knot infection was high in Siwalik and Himalaya and two M. arvensis cultivars, whereas moderate reaction was found in M. arvensis cultivars like SS-11, SS-27, Gomti, Kosi, M. cardiaca, and MAH-1. The lowest root-knot infection level was found on SS-4, SS-5, Kalka and 55-20. Moderate to high degree of resistance was recorded in SS-1-4, SS-2-7, SS-15, SS-26, M. piperita cv. Kukrail, M. spicata cv. Neera, M. spicata cv. Arka, M. sitrata cv. Kiran, M. gracilis and M. viridis. &nbsp

NEW FIXED POINT RESULTS FOR T-CONTRACTIVE MAPPING WITH c-DISTANCE IN CONE METRIC SPACES

In this article, we generalize and improve the results of Fadail et al.[Z. M. Fadail and S. M. Abusalim, Int. Jour. of Math. Anal., Vol. 11, No. 8(2017), pp. 397-405.] and Dubey et al.[AnilKumar Dubey and Urmila Mishra, Non. Func. Anal. Appl., Vol. 22, No. 2(2017), pp 275-286.] under the concept of a c-distance in cone metric spaces. We prove the existence and uniqueness of the fixed point for T -contractive type mapping under the concept of c-distance in cone metric spaces

Gestational Diabetes Triggers Postpartum Cardiac Hypertrophy via Activation of Calcineurin/NFAT Signaling

Population-based studies identified an association between a prior pregnancy complicated by gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and cardiac hypertrophy and dysfunction later in life. It is however unclear whether GDM initiates this phenotype and what are the underlying mechanisms. We addressed these questions by using female rats that express human amylin (HIP rats) as a GDM model and their wild-type (WT) littermates as the normal pregnancy model. Pregnant and two months postpartum HIP females had increased left-ventricular mass and wall thickness compared to non-pregnant HIP females, which indicates the presence of concentric hypertrophy. These parameters were unchanged in WT females during both pregnancy and postpartum periods. Hypertrophic Ca2+-dependent calcineurin/NFAT signaling was stimulated two months after giving birth in HIP females but not in the WT. In contrast, the CaMKII/HDAC hypertrophy pathway was active immediately after giving birth and returned to the baseline by two months postpartum in both WT and HIP females. Myocytes from two months postpartum HIP females exhibited slower Ca2+ transient relaxation and higher diastolic Ca2+ levels, which may explain calcineurin activation. No such effects occurred in the WT. These results suggest that a GDM-complicated pregnancy accelerates the development of pathological cardiac remodeling likely through activation of calcineurin/NFAT signaling

Distinguishing ‘dual’ from ‘duplicated’ right coronary artery: Revisiting the nomenclature

We report a case of a 53-year-old man with a "short RCA" seen coursing within the proximal part of the right atrioventricular (AV) groove and terminating in the mid-portion of the right AV groove and a "long RCA" seen to have a proximal course outside the right AV groove, over the free wall of the right ventricle, where it gave rise to the right ventricular and acute marginal branches before returning to the right AV groove in its distal course. The discussion highlights the need for revisiting the nomenclature of "dual RCA and drawing a distinction between "dual" and "duplicated" RCA

Active Physical Practice Followed by Mental Practice Using BCI-Driven Hand Exoskeleton: A Pilot Trial for Clinical Effectiveness and Usability

Appropriately combining mental practice (MP) and physical practice (PP) in a post-stroke rehabilitation is critical for ensuring a substantially positive rehabilitation outcome. Here we present a rehabilitation protocol incorporating a separate active PP stage followed by MP stage, using a hand exoskeleton and brain-computer interface (BCI). The PP stage was mediated by a force sensor feedback based assist-as-needed control strategy, whereas the MP stage provided BCI based multimodal neurofeedback combining anthropomorphic visual feedback and proprioceptive feedback of the impaired hand extension attempt. A 6 week long clinical trial was conducted on 4 hemiparetic stroke patients (screened out of 16) with left hand disability. The primary outcome, motor functional recovery, was measured in terms of changes in Grip-Strength (GS) and Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) scores; whereas the secondary outcome, usability of the system, was measured in terms of changes in mood, fatigue and motivation on a visual-analog-scale (VAS). A positive rehabilitative outcome was found as the group mean changes from the baseline in the GS and ARAT were +6.38 kg and +5.66 accordingly. The VAS scale measurements also showed betterment in mood (-1.38), increased motivation (+2.10) and reduced fatigue (-0.98) as compared to the baseline. Thus the proposed neurorehabilitation protocol is found to be promising both in terms of clinical effectiveness and usability