Economic Sustainability, Changing Labor Market through the EU Policies Literature review

Financial Sustainability, Changing Labor Market through the EU Policies - Literature audit Example Writing that bears conversations on maintainability as speculation strategies will be handled by this audit, alongside vital and long haul advancements in the EU district. It will likewise be applicable to cover writing tending to the motivations behind EU and the regular interests maintained by its part countries. This will be associated with the writing on the multiplier impact model. The assets found for this domain are for the most part books, which have been proper materials that empowered accomplishing the destinations of introducing and examining ideas identified with the study.The European Union (EU) makes an effect on national political and managerial frameworks, just as household governmental issues and arrangements. The examination point of view of â€Å"Europeanization† brings into center that Europe assumes a huge job in the typical episodes of the political existence of lawmakers, national civil servants, and the more extensive open, blowing outside air into ol d discussions of European reconciliation, strategy making, and European administration (Lenschow Andrea 2004, p. 56). The move of political obligations and perhaps, open unwaveringness to the European level has suggested an overall debilitating of national state structures, while there are a few discussions guaranteeing that European-level courses of action have reinforced national governments (Lenschowâ 2004,â p. 56). The different medicines of European and national governmental issues were finished by the idea of staggered administration in which the large number of political and cultural entertainers is viewed as possible pieces of a unique system while the vertical degrees of administration are interlinked in the idea of staggered administration. The EU administration structure has a top-down procedure, which creates an effect on the residential structures of EU part states (Cowles, et al., 2001 in Lenschowâ 2004, p. 57). The top-down effect of the EU on its part states pr oposes reorienting the heading and state of governmental issues such that EU political and financial developments and elements become a piece of the bigger hierarchical procedure of strategy making (Lenschow, 2004, p. 58). There likewise seems a flat exchange of ideas and approaches between part conditions of the EU, wherein EU assumes an encouraging job for between state moves. Albeit a between state move or dispersion exists among states through even, state-to-state move forms occurring freely of the presence of the EU, the EU gives the field to between state correspondence or assistance of such level procedures. It accept that the EU is the direct or the roundabout supplier of an important motivation for local change in that it speaks to a lot of rules and a digressive structure prompting household change. Henceforth, the EU fills in as a facilitator of talks and rules in the political field of the district between and among part states.

American Revolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

American Revolution - Essay Example The transformation occurred because of gathered complaints which the American individuals had enough of. They were likewise challenging the different demonstrations that had been built up by England and which were to their drawback. A model was the Stamp Act of 1765 which forced that each American was to pay charges to England so as to counterbalance the expenses of running the British Military Organization. There was the cash demonstration of 1764 that disallowed issuance of lawful delicate cash and this threated to destabilize the mechanical economy. The quartering demonstration of 1765 additionally added to the unrest as it expected colonialists to house troops from Britain and even flexibly them with their well deserved food. The contention that happened among England and the states was essentially achieved by the provinces conflicts with the standards acquainted with them by their British chiefs. These standards sabotaged them further and kept them from being autonomous and they were worn out and irate about this. They in this way began with revolts in a portion of the provinces which were at last replicated and rehashed in the remainder of the states and this thusly prompted the upheaval which occurred over various years. They were completely restricted to these approaches and they began joining against the British colonialists as they realized that once join together, they could without much of a stretch get their autonomy. The settlements additionally quit giving cash to the British government. The British government had spent the vast majority of its assets and even amassed obligation from the war and they required cash from the states to recoup which was not approaching (Morton 41). They began revolting and mass fights to decline the new approaches England was conferring on them thus giving trouble to the colonialists. The final turning point was reached in 1763 after the seven year’s war. At this crossroads, enough was sufficient with the persecution and the various Acts and

Borderline Personality Disorder Causes, Symptoms and Treatments

Borderline Personality Disorder Causes, Symptoms and Treatments Borderline Personality Disorder can be a traumatic experience not only for the patient but also for his relatives and loved ones. A person suffering from Borderline Disorder considers each and every of his actions as perfect and appropriate. However, these actions can cause havoc in his life without him even understanding what is really happening.He seems that all of his behaviors and feelings are justified. But such behaviors and feelings actually create a lot of problems for him in the long run.Borderline personality disorder is one of the most prevalent personality disorders in the world. According to an estimate, 1-4% of total world population has borderline personality disorder. Similarly, women are more prone to the disorder as compared to men. As a matter of fact, out of 100 patients of borderline personality disorder, 75 are women.Symptoms actually start to appear during late childhood or early adolescence. Furthermore, any kind of personality disorder including borderline di sorder can range from mild to severe. The good news is that most of the patients fully recover after the diagnosis and effective treatment. WHAT IS BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER?In the days gone by, experts believed that the person suffering from borderline personality disorder is literally at the border between two mental conditions.Neurosis: A mental condition in which a person can differentiate between the reality and imagination despite being mentally distressed.Psychosis: A condition in which a mentally distressed person cannot differentiate between the reality and imagination. Such a person may also experience delusions such as strong belief in something that cannot really happen or is totally implausible.However, this is the most inaccurate description of the disorder according to modern medical science. The borderline disorder is a disorder of interpersonal functions (how one interacts with others and his environment) and mood. A patient of borderline disorder behaves impu lsively, reacts extremely or inappropriately to certain situations and usually has unstable relationships in addition to showing many other symptoms.Suffering from the disorder happens to be a painful circle marked with reckless behaviors, emotional volatility and the tendency of getting irritated by pretty small things. It is pertinent to note that many people struggling with borderline disorder will attempt suicide or at least try to self-harm.   In fact, almost 80% of patients do attempt suicide out of which 10% eventually succeed in killing themselves.In simple terms, borderline personality disorder is a type of emotional disorder which makes it difficult for you to think and feel properly about yourself and others.COMMON MYTHS ASSOCIATED WITH BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER Before we talk about the causes and treatments of the disorder, it is imperative to debunk some of the most common myths associated with it.People Do it for AttentionThis is a common myth about borderline pe rsonality disorder especially when the patients show suicidal behaviors. You need to keep in mind that patients often try to communicate their feelings through self-injury even if they are not trying to commit suicide. Therefore, you need to consider their behavior as legitimate and valid. Most often, they don’t do it for attention.It is a Variation of Bipolar DisorderIt is not a variation of bipolar disorder but a completely different disorder altogether. They are two distinct illnesses despite the fact they have similar symptoms and treatments.It is UntreatableBorderline personality disorder is treatable. In fact, most patients fully recover and return to normal life after timely diagnosis and effective treatment.Only Women Suffer from BPDIt is a fact that women are more commonly diagnosed with BPD but men do suffer from the disorder as well.Only Bad People Suffer from BPDThis is one of the most common and popular myths about the borderline personality disorder. In fact, they ar e not bat but are simply patients of a disorder that totally ruins their life and makes it difficult for them to recognize what is right and what is wrong. As discussed above, they return to normal life after necessary treatment.All Patients are Victims of Child AbuseChild abuse can lead to the development of BPD in adolescence. However, it is totally wrong to say that all victims of BPD experience child abuse early in their life. There are many causes of BPD and child abuse is only one of them.SYMPTOMS OF BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER A patient of borderline personality disorder can display a myriad of symptoms.In fact, the disorder can manifest in many different ways. According to mental health professionals, all the symptoms of the disorder generally fall into nine major categories which are explained as under.Impulsive and Destructive BehaviorsPatients of BPD have the tendency to behave impulsively. You may engage in many different types of self-destructive and harmful activit ies especially if you are upset or angry. Some of the activities you can indulge in include shop lifting, reckless driving, unprotected or dangerous sex, binge eating, and spending money mindlessly and drug overdose etc. These risky behaviors may seem totally appropriate at the moment but will actually create a lot of problems for you and those you love.Self-HarmIf you have borderline personality disorder, you can exhibit many dangerous symptoms as well. You can attempt suicide or try to harm yourself at any time. Similarly, you keep thinking about suicide and even make suicidal threats and gestures, keeping people around you on their toes. On the other hand, you can do many other things such as burning and cutting to self-harm yourself when you are not actually thinking about committing suicide.Fear of AbandonmentPeople suffering from this particular personality disorder often fear that their loved ones will abandon them. You become horribly terrified even when someone goes out for a weekend or returns home late from work. Such innocuous things are enough to fill you heart with intense fear. You may try desperately to keep those you love close to you at any cost. You may even resort to begging, tracking their movements, jealousy, fighting or even forcefully preventing them from leaving the house. Unfortunately, you actually drive others away instead of bringing them closer by displaying such behaviors.Unstable or Unclear Self-ImageYou normally have unclear or distorted self-image when you are suffering from borderline disorder. You even start looking yourself as evil or. You may even go to the extent of hating yourself. Sometimes, you do feel good about yourself but such occurrences are few and far between. You don’t have any idea of what your life goals are or who you are in the first place. As a result, you don’t normally hold to anything including your lovers, jobs, homes, friends, goals, values and even your religion and sexual identity for long.Unsta ble RelationshipsPeople having BPD usually don’t have happy relations. Mostly, their relationships are short-lived and intense. Such people consider every new person they meet as their messiah and fall in love with him almost instantly, only to be disappointed later on. There are only two extremes of your relationships. They are either horrible or perfect without anything in between. Your rapid swings between hate and anger as well as idealization and devaluation can also land an emotional blow to members of your family, friends and everyone else you truly love.Extreme Emotional SwingsUnstable emotions and frequent mood swings are an indispensible part of borderline personality disorder. You frequently move between the state of happiness and the state of despondence. You can go to an emotional tailspin due to little things other people simply do not pay any attention to. In BPD, mood swings are typically intense but pass relatively quickly as compared to that of bipolar disorder o r depression. They normally last from few minutes to few hours.Explosive AngerBorderline personality disorder can also instill explosive anger in your personality. In fact, short temper and explosive anger are two of the biggest symptoms of the disorder. You may also find it really difficult to control or stop yourself when you are really angry. Subsequently, anger totally consumes you and you start yelling, throwing things and indulge in complete madness without any fear of the consequences.Chronic Feelings of EmptinessPatients of borderline personality disorder have a chronic feeling of emptiness. Some of them even claim that they have a deep void or hole somewhere inside them. In most extreme cases, you start considering yourself as “nobody.” You try to get rid of this uncomfortable feeling by resorting to sex, food and drugs. However, the feeling prevails and nothing seems to alleviate the intense pain.You do not Recognize RealtyYou can also struggle with paranoia if you hav e borderline personality disorder. You start getting suspicious about other people’s routine activities as well as their “hidden motives.” You may even fail to differentiate between imagination and reality when you are too stressed, the phenomenon commonly known as Dissociation. You also feel spaced out, foggy and you think that you are outside your body.Many normal people also exhibit any or all of the above mentioned symptoms due to different reasons. However, a patient of borderline personality disorder experiences them regularly during his adulthood before seeking treatment.CAUSES OF BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER     Most mental experts believe that there are more than one causes of borderline personality disorder. In fact, the disorder is the result of combination of different factors such as genetic factors, environmental factors, neurotransmitters and neurobiology. Following lines explain these factors one by one.NeurotransmittersA normal adult has a certain level of neurotransmitter, a substance called serotonin, in his brain. On the other hand, there is reduced amount of serotonin in the brain of a BPD patient or he fails to respond to serotonin correctly. It has also been scientifically proved that inability to control self-destructive behaviors, aggression and depression are directly associated with the low levels of serotonin in the brain.It is worth mentioning that low levels of other two important neurotransmitters, called noradrenaline and dopamine, can result in emotional instability and thus, also supposedly cause borderline personality disorder.NeurobiologyMental experts have spent years and years on studying brains of people suffering from borderline personality disorder with the help of MRI scans. These scans produce extremely detailed images of body interior through radio waves and strong magnetic fields.Some of the MRI scans revealed that unusual activity in three different parts of brain can lead to development of the disorder. S imilarly, these same parts are smaller in size in people having BPD as compared to that of normal people. These parts are as under.The Amygdala: The amygdala is responsible for regulating emotions including anxiety, aggression, fear and all other negative emotions.The Hippocampus: The hippocampus is responsible for regulating self-control and related behaviors.The orbitofrontal Cortex: The orbitofrontal cortex plays an important role in decision making and planning.You are very likely to show the symptoms of borderline personality disorder if one or all of these parts of brain malfunction.Your early upbringing has a lot to do with the proper or improper development of these parts of brain. They also regulate your mood which precisely explains why people having borderline disorder struggle to form long lasting relationships.Genetic FactorsGenetic problems may also lead to the development of borderline personality disorder in individuals. Studies being done on twins present the strong est evidence that genetics can actually cause borderline disorder. One of the studies reveals that there are two in three chances that an identical twin will develop the disease if the other twin already has the disorder.However, there has been no conclusive evidence that humans have a gene for disorder. People do inherit certain personality traits such as the tendency to be emotionally unstable or aggressive from their parents.However, it does not mean that they are going to develop borderline personality disorder as well. Similarly, identical twins share many environmental factors because they grow up in the same family environment and household. That is why they display similar character traits and behaviors.Environmental FactorsPeople suffering from borderline personality disorder share a lot of environmental factors such as:They can be victims of sexual, emotional or physical abuse.They experienced distress or chronic fear when they were children.One or both parents neglected t hem when they needed them the most.They grow up with another member of the family with serious mental condition such as severe drug abuse, depression or bipolar disorder.Different people see the world and interact with other people differently depending upon the nature of their relationship with their parents and rest of the family. You can develop variety of distorted thinking patterns in adulthood due to chronic distress, anger and unresolved fear from your childhood.Some of these behaviors include behaving as a child even in the adulthood, expecting others to bully you or act as a parent to you and idealizing others etc.TREATMENTS OF BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER There are different types of treatments for borderline personality disorder depending upon how serious your condition is. Following lines explains some of the most popular treatments for BPD.Care Program Approach (CPA)You will become a part of treatment method commonly known as Care Program Approach if the symptoms are moderate to severe. The CPA ensures that you do get the right treatment for your condition. There are actually four stages of CPA which are as under.Experts will assess you condition and social needs.The second stage is to create a care plan incorporating your social needs and the treatments for your condition.Thirdly, you will be assigned a care coordinator. He is usually a nurse or social worker. It is actually he who introduces you to other members of the community.Finally, experts regularly review your progress and make necessary changes to your care plan if required.PsychotherapyDifferent types of psychological therapies also help in treatment of borderline personality disorder. You need to keep in mind that all types of psychotherapies take some time (normally 12-18 months) to improve your condition and help you better understand who you are and how to see the world and behave with people.Your psychotherapist will listen to all of your problems and issues and subsequently, su ggest ways to improve your attitude and behavior. In some cases, he will advise practical solutions to your problems as well.The main aim of psychotherapy is to help patients regain control of their thinking, feelings and thoughts. Keep in mind that you should get such treatment only from a trained professional such as psychotherapist, psychiatrist or other mental health professionals with years of experience.Depending upon your condition, your doctor can recommend any of the following types of psychotherapies.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).  This type of therapy helps you get rid of negative perceptions you might have about yourself as well as all types of negative thoughts and emotions, unhealthy beliefs and self-destructive behaviors. You learn healthy ways to respond to the feelings of suicide, anxiety, insecurity and aggression.Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT).  Dialectal behavioral therapy has especially been designed to treat only borderline personality disorder. DBT treats the disorder by doing two things. Firstly, it instills a belief in you that all your emotions are real and valid, a process commonly known as Validation. Secondly, experts teach you the ways about how to be open to opinions and ideas that contradict yours, the process called as Dialectics. The therapists will normally try to bring positive change to your personality and behavior by trying both of these methods.Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT).  Mentalization based therapy is another type of psychotherapy to treat borderline personality disorder. The concept behind the therapy is very simple that is people having BPD cannot “mentalize” properly due to their reduced mental capacity. The therapist will encourage you to examine your own beliefs and thoughts. Subsequently, you will assess whether they are based on realty and are really useful or not.Another aspect of MBT is to recognize other people’s thought, beliefs, wishes, emotions and needs as well. You also need to re member that you may not correctly interpret their mental states. Finally, you must recognize how your actions can impact other people’s lives. If you manage to do all this properly, you will eventually get rid of borderline personality disorder forever.MedicationYou need to remember that medication does not fully cure borderline personality disorder. Medicines only alleviate the pain and relieve symptoms for a short period of time. In fact, you need to take medicines for co-occurring problems such as anxiety and depression.Your therapist may decide if you need medication in addition to psychotherapy after assessing your condition. For example, they may prescribe any or all of the following medicines.antipsychotics to treat aggressive symptomsantidepressants to treat depressionantianxiety medications to treat anxietyHospitalizationYour therapist can also recommend you to enter a hospital for treatment if your condition is severe and shows no signs of improvement. You can also go to hospital for suicidal thoughts and behaviors as well as after attempts to commit suicide or harm yourself or others.IMPLICATIONS OF BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDERBorderline personality disorder can affect your life in many different ways. There are many implications of the disease which can transform your life into a nightmare.Apart from showing standard symptoms of the disease, you can also develop related disorders such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse etc. In addition, borderline disorder also considerably increases the risk of the following.Not completing your educationMultiple legal issues such as serving jail timeSexually transmitted infectionsProblems at office or workRelationship problemsUnplanned pregnanciesBe a part of abusive relationship where you become either an abused or abuserIncreased chances of self-injury and suicideGetting into accidents of different typesGetting into physical fights. Indulging in violent crimes or becoming a victim of oneCONCLUSIONSuffering from borderline personality disorder is a horrible experience. It not only makes life difficult for the patient but for his family and friends as well. Therefore, you and your family need to seek help as soon as you are diagnosed with BPD. Prolonged undetected illness can cause multiple problems for you including attempts to self-harm and suicide.You also need to involve your family once your diagnosis is confirmed because your condition directly affects their lives. By telling them what you are going through, you will actually make your treatment more effective because they will be in better position to identify behaviors that indicate you are in a crisis and desperately need help.No matter whatever you do, just keep in mind that BPD is fully treatable. You only have to find the right psychotherapist and take all his advises. Only then you will be able to return to normal and happy life.

Immigrant Women And American Consumer Culture - 980 Words

Immigrant women were susceptible to the American consumer culture as soon as they stepped foot on American soil. One aspect of consumer culture some immigrant women partook in was the consumption of silent pictures, which were accessible to immigrant women who could not speak English. Silent pictures provided immigrant women with exposure to American culture without the necessity for understanding the English language; in this scenario pictures were louder than words. Immigrant women also benefited from silent pictures as being a guide for assimilation into American culture, as films displayed the American way of life. However, the first generation, the mothers would have been resistant to the movies because they did not come from the community or the family; the only two entities the immigrant mother trusted. Elizabeth Ewen in â€Å"City Lights: Immigrant women and the Rise of the Movies† states that for the second generation of immigrant women, The price of admission to new culture was the negation of old-world notions of womanhood; needs appeared for clothing, hairstyles, and makeup necessary to assume the external appearance of an ‘American,’ for forms of economic and sexual independence away from maternal authority. The second generation of immigrant women sought to assimilate into American society by changing their appearance to fit with American culture. This made the second-generation immigrant woman a consumer of the latest fashion trends that would help them blendShow MoreRelatedEwens Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars Essay1013 Words   |  5 PagesEwens Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars Throughout history, the concept of Americanization has been studied in order to better understand the effects of a mass culture on immigrants. 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Reducing Gender Inequality In Hiv Health And Social Care Essay Free Essays

Globally, there has been a alteration in the tendency of infection among the sexes. Initially at the oncoming of the disease, the prevalence of the disease was higher among the males than the females due to the fact that the disease was concentrated among homophiles and drug users. However as the cuticular continues to turn there has been a progressive displacement to heterosexual transmittal with an addition in the figure of females being infected. We will write a custom essay sample on Reducing Gender Inequality In Hiv Health And Social Care Essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now The planetary pandemic of HIV/AIDS is now in its 3rd decennary, with adult females now at the epicenter of the pandemic, globally accounting for about 50 % of all HIV instances aged 15 and older, including about 60 % of all grownups populating with HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the figure of females populating with the disease in every part of the universe continue to increase. ( UNAIDS, 2009 ) The feminization of the pandemic is precipitated by biological and socio-cultural factors ; However although adult females are more vulnerable to the disease because of their biological makeup, there is grounds that gender norms play an built-in portion in act uponing an person ‘s exposure to the infection, entree to wellness attention services, sexual behavior and attitude, every bit good as entree to intervention and support when infected. ( WHO, 2003 ) The present tendency of the disease transmittal reveals that the epidermic is being aggravated by gender based exposures, stressing the importance of mainstreaming gender into HIV/AIDS programmes as an built-in effort to commanding farther spread of the disease. ( UNFPA, 2008 ) The Importance of Gender on the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: In most communities, gender determines how much information males and females are expected to hold approximately sexual affairs. Females are supposed to be nescient about sexual affairs as a mark of celibacy ; therefore doing them nescient about preventative schemes and doing it hard for them to be proactive in negociating safer sex. Different set of cultural norms apply to the males, they are frequently expected to hold more information and cognition about sexual affairs, be expericienced, and led as determination shapers in sexual issues. These make them vulnerable to being infected, prevents them from seeking information or acknowledging their limited information about sexual affairs. ( Carovano, 1992 ) . Social norms of virginity for single adult females besides increase her exposure ; it besides limits her information about sexual affairs to avoid being thought of as being sexually active. Puting her at a hazard of colza and sexual coercion. Research has besides shown that these immature misss practise other sexual behaviors such as anal sex, therefore increasing their hazard of undertaking the disease. ( Weiss et al.,2000 ) . Besides, because of the social norms of virginity accessing wellness installations for the intervention of sexually transmitted diseases is frequently stigmatising for both immature and big females. ( Weiss et al.,2000 ) . In many societies, maternity, merely like virginity is seen as being ideal, therefore utilizing preventives or barrier methods to guarantee safer sex is seen as a important quandary for adult females. ( Heise and Elias, 1995 ) . Research have shown that economic dependance of adult females increases their likeliness of interchanging sex for money, with no dialogue for safe sex, accompanied with their inability to go forth these dealingss even when they perceive them to be hazardous because of its fiscal additions. ( Heise and Elias,1995 ) . A reappraisal of literature done by Heise et Al ( 1999 ) showed it was more likely for persons who had been sexually abused to hold multiple sex spouses, engage in insecure sex and exchange sex for money or favor. Harmonizing to Societal norms, work forces are supposed to show their male power through force against adult females, lending both straight and indirectly to a adult female ‘s exposure to the disease. ( Heise and Elias, 1995 ) . A survey conducted in a voluntary HIV guidance and proving Centre in Tanzania by Maman et Al ( 2000 ) suggested that adult females who expericienced sexual force were at a hazard of HIV/AIDS. It was noticed that those who were HIV positive were 2.6 times more likely to hold expericienced sexual force in an confidant relationship. Social norms expect a adult male to hold several sexual spouses, for sufficient sexual release, herewith beliing the preventative message that emphasizes fidelity in relationships. ( Heise and Elias, 1995 ) . Social norms of maleness, which affirm males holding sexual laterality over females, as a characteristic of manhood, frequently lead to stigmatisation of work forces who have sex with work forces, thereby taking to secrecy of their sexual behavior, increasing the exposure of their sexual spouses, both males and females. ( UNAIDS, 1999 ) . Overall, the influence of social norms is frequently associated with addition in an person ‘s exposure of undertaking the disease. ( Courteney, 1998 ) Analysis of WHO ‘s Policy on Gender Mainstreaming in HIV/AIDS Programme: The guidelines on gender mainstreaming resulted from a WHO ‘s meeting held in Geneva in 2002 on incorporating Gender into HIV/AIDS. The demand to bring forth guidelines was emphasized as a agency to guaranting realisation of set ends. The present edition was developed by World Health Organization in concurrence with inputs from advisers peer reviewed by external referees, relevant proficient staff in the World Health Organization every bit good as research experience from old programmes that addressed the gender dimensions in HIV/AIDS and other wellness programmes. The intent of the guidelines is to increase consciousness of how gender inequalities affects a adult female ‘s ability to entree HIV/AIDS programmes and services, it besides offers practical ways on how to integrate gender into assorted types of HIV/AIDS programmes and services. Four specific countries were covered HIV proving and reding, Prevention of female parent to child transmittal ( PMTCT ) , HIV intervention and Home based attention for people populating with HIV/AIDS. The guidelines were formulated chiefly for programmes directors, wellness attention suppliers in the public and private sector involved in instituting, implementing or measuring HIIV/AIDS programmes. The guidelines are consistent and reinforced through assorted international understandings and declarations such as Beijing declaration and platform for action of the 1995 Fourth World conference on adult females ( FWCW ) and 1994 International conference on population and development. The United Nations General Assembly declarations of the committedness on HIV/AIDS besides emphasized the importance of turn toing gender equality as a agency to commanding the epidermic. This policy compliments old attempts done on incorporating gender into HIV/AIDS programmes with the purpose of bettering entree, informing and authorising clients, and besides taking to wellness equity and societal justness. However the guidelines focused chiefly on adult females.it did non offer equal chances to work forces, although the Beijing platform for action besides considered work forces ‘s concerns, guaranting that adult females and work forces benefit every bit from the ultimate end of accomplishing gender equality. The guidelines did non besides see the multi-sectoral attack ; it focused chiefly on the wellness sector attack to cut downing gender inequality. ( Beginning: World Health Organization ‘s guidelines on intergrating gender into HIV/AIDS Programmes within the wellness sector, 2007 ) Measuring the execution of this policy at the international and national degree. Following the 1995 United Nations conference on adult females, assorted developmental establishments, international organisations and states adopted the thought of gender mainstreaming. These International Organizations and development Institutions developed and endorsed gender mainstreaming Policies in HIV/AIDS ; nevertheless rating show restraints in execution, these policies have been slow in interpreting from policy into action. ( Moser, 2005 ) . This can be attributed to the fact that some development practicians in NGO ‘s continue to see gender issues as a distraction to the developmental issues they have to turn to, accordingly those involved in gender cyclosis are non in places to do determinations and alterations to these programmes. Since the Congress, gender mainstreaming in HIV/AIDS have been adopted and endorsed by assorted authoritiess, gender advocators in these states have successed in integrating gender issues into their national strategic programs for HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS programmes. The challenges in these states have been the execution of these policies and strategic programs at the territory degree. In a survey done in Botswana, it was observed that although gender had been incorporated into its national response to HIV/AIDS, with purposes to authorising the adult females, therefore cut downing the exposure of females in undertaking the disease, the intercessions focused on adult females, pretermiting the work forces, therefore gestating gender as a adult female ‘s issue. In Malawi, important efforts have been made, assorted programmes have been formed, and the National HIV/AIDS policy recognized that gender issues had to be considered, to guarantee effectual response to HIV/AIDS intercessions. However on rating it was noticed that bulk of the staffs in the NGO ‘s understood the construct in the European context, which was non applicable to their ain cultural norms and values, furthermore, the exposure of work forces was non considered sabotaging the proportion of drug users and homophiles in the population. The Zimbabwe ‘s national Aids Policy, showed committedness to gender inequality, acknowledging that adult females were more vulnerable, and prosecuting authorization of adult females as a agency to undertaking gender inequality, it besides developed schemes to guarantee the engagement of work forces in gender affairs. However rating showed that despite these schemes nidation of these policies at the grass-root degree have been impossible. ( Boom et al. , 2000 ) The national strategic program of South-Africa accepted adult females, and work forces who have sex with work forces, as portion of those who were vulnerable to the disease, and provided assorted intercessions to turn to gender related causes of exposure. It emphasized the difference in the prevalence of the disease in the age groups ( 20-29 ) , saying that adult females were more vulnerable due to social norms. Acknowledging that really small attending had been given to work forces who have sex with work forces, and drug users. It emphasized that the execution of these schemes were to suit both the demands of adult females and work forces. Evaluation nevertheless noted that commercial sex workers were discriminated and that gender force played an built-in portion in adult females ‘s exposure in South-Africa was non addressed therefore haltering the execution of these schemes. The Multi-sectoral HIV/AIDS strategic program of Switzerland recognized that harmful gender norms played a function in fuelling the cuticular, and that to guarantee long -term effects in schemes aimed at commanding the disease gender inequality had to be considered. This led to the National Emergency Response Council, developing schemes to steer the execution of these HIV/AIDS programmes. However it was noticed that gender was conceptualized as biological sex instead than gender, and its programmes were targeted at adult females, pretermiting work forces who had sex with work forces and other vulnerable groups such as drug users. On rating an addition in the incidence of mew infections was noticed among homophiles, showing that these groups played an of import function in commanding the disease. Discussion: Assorted International Organizations and Countries have integrated gender into their assorted policies, schemes and HIV/AIDS Programmes. The inquiry arising is why are these policies, schemes and plans non being implemented at the grass root degree? Decision: Gender norms influence an person ‘s exposure to undertaking the disease, therefore stressing the importance of Gender mainstreaming and adult females authorization in commanding the spread of the disease. Gender mainstreaming intercessions in assorted degree should acknowledge the functions work forces play in adult females ‘s expericiences, therefore gender related restraints of both males and females should be considered in HIV/AIDS Programmes. Training and support should be offered to HIV/AIDS programme directors and their staffs about gender issues to enable them implement policies turn toing gender inequality and HIV/AIDS. How to cite Reducing Gender Inequality In Hiv Health And Social Care Essay, Essay examples

Correct fighting free essay sample

The English poems read rain, rain go away come again another day, but with the presence of rain suits there is a possibility of reversing the poem itself. Having a ride through every possible rain conditions, the best part of it is obviously having a motor cycle rain suit and on the other hand to ride after the rain stops which show the cleanliness of Mother Nature Just getting out of the shower. Especially in the scenario, in which the chances of downpour is high and strong, the non-availability of the rain suit with any errors at the time of down pour makes it a very tough situation .Similarly, the motorcyclist on the other hand can have a feeling of the sky not only crying out rain but also laughing at them, without a rain gear. The chances of getting soaked in the rain are impossible with the presence of motor cycle rain suits being manufactured in different varieties and designs . We will write a custom essay sample on Correct fighting or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Carrying one all the time in the motor cycle is not a hassle, as the prediction of rain is not possible at all given situations. Riding in teen the drops of rain may be a fun for some people, but the possibility of increase in their monthly budget can happen in the form of doctors visit or medicines.So, the presence of different motor cycle rain suits is to keep everyone covered, dry and comfortable. Similarly, the motor cycle rain suits must also have some specifications that must be suitable for pleasant and luxury rain Journey. The specification maybe in the form of high collared, full hands, light weight rain Jacket and well fitted one. High collared: it stops the water from dripping inside as it would e tightly sealed at the neck.Full sleeves: The full sleeves and tight seal like type around the wrist part will stop the water coming through the wrist part. Light weight: A light weight Jacket is easy to carry and dont feel the weight on your body. Well fit: Correct fighting motor cycle rain suits to avoid the uneasiness of wearing during down pour. So, to conclude the motor cycle rain suits are good and suited if there is a good downpour. They are also not expensive ones but clothing made of PVC to suit the heavy rain fall.

Organizations as Machines and Systems of Political Activity

An effective leader should understand major principles of organizational change, development and behavior. Morgan (2006) introduced (and provided an in-depth analysis of) certain metaphors to use to evaluate organizations’ effectiveness.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Organizations as Machines and Systems of Political Activity specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More These metaphors help analyze effectiveness of the organizational structure and behavior; it can also help evaluate performance of the company and each employee (Renz, 2009). It is possible to consider two metaphors to illustrate this point. Organizations as machines and organizations as systems are two metaphors which can be used to evaluate different aspects of the organization. Organization as a machine is a metaphor that depicts the organization as a machine where all systems work according to some algorithms (Morgan, 2006). Departments are seen a s different subsystems of a single machine. The major focus is made on productivity and performance. Such concepts as bureaucracy and technocracy become central. In terms of this metaphor, organizations function according to a plan with no deviation (Morgan, 2006). This metaphor can help evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy chosen. When seeing an organization as a machine, it is rather easy to trace deviations from the plan if any. Performance can also be easily evaluated as it is rather easy to check whether the organization or a particular employee reaches goals set (or even starts working on time) or not. Nonetheless, there is a drawback in this metaphor which prevents leaders from evaluating interpersonal relationships within the company. However, effective leaders should be aware of the relationships existing in the company (Kinicki Kreitner, 2009). The use of this metaphor is also ineffective when concentrating on the change and development of new creative ideas as mach ines do not create, they only perform. Another metaphor can help focus on relationships within the organization. Unlike the metaphor considered above, the present one does not focus on performance or efficiency. According to Morgan (2006), it is possible to consider the organization as a system of political activity. Thus, such concepts as leadership, power, conflict and relationships come to the fore. In terms of this theory, the leader can trace a variety of links between employees and departments. This can help the leader understand needs and aspirations of the employees, which, in its turn, will help to develop proper approaches applicable in various situations with different individuals.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More However, this organizational metaphor prevents the leader from properly evaluating efficiency and performance of the employees and the entire company. It is hardly possible to trace development of innovative ideas. This metaphor is rather ‘narrow’ as it focuses on a particular aspect of organizational behavior. Remarkably, the two metaphors focus on different concepts and are somewhat ‘narrow’. Nevertheless, when used together, these metaphors can help evaluate performance of the organization. More so, leaders should exploit all the metaphors revealed by Morgan (2006) as they reflect a particular facet of organizational development. The use of these metaphors will help the leader get a complete analysis of an organization. In conclusion, it is possible to note that Morgan’s metaphors are helpful when it comes to analysis of organizational behavior. Each metaphor focuses on a particular facet and, hence, it is important to use all the metaphors to have all the necessary data to develop proper approaches and leadership strategies. More so, it is vital to switch between the metaphors in different period s of the organization’s lifetime as sometimes leaders should pay more attention to particular concepts. Reference List Kinicki, A., Kreitner, R. (2009). Organizational behavior. Burr Ridge, ILL: McGraw Hill. Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Renz, L.M. (2009). Metaphor: Imagery devices used by Morgan to describe organizations as culture and psychic prisons. Emerging Leadership Journeys, 2(1), 54-65. This essay on Organizations as Machines and Systems of Political Activity was written and submitted by user Nancy L. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Free Essays on Skylab

12/4/00 Skylab was America's first space station. It was built and designed by McDonnell Douglas aeronautics. It cost approximately 2.6 billion dollars to finance the entire project (Cromie, 138). Skylab proved that humans could survive, long term, in space. The Skylab program was also used to survey the Earth for natural resources. The program was also monitored the Sun. It also tested human's endurance in weightlessness. The 100-ton Skylab was almost the size of a small house. The interior of the station measured 11334 feet in volume (Yenne,170). The dimensions of the station were 21.6feet at its widest point, and 48.1feet long. The Skylab consisted of four units. Three of these units sustained life. The orbital workshop (OWS) contained crew quarters and work areas. The OWS was divided into two stories. The upper story had food storage and space suits. The lower story contained crew quarters and places for experiments. The airlock module (AM) contained the station's control and monitoring center. The AM also allowed access to the outside of the station. The Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) a solar observatory. The multiple docking adapter (MDA) contained docking ports for the Apollo spacecraft. When docked, the Apollo module acted as part of the station. Skylab 1 was launched on May 14,1973. Using a modified SATURN V rocket the station was sent into orbit (Cromie, 13). Skylab was set at an orbit of 270 miles (Cromie, 13). During the launch the meteorite shield was torn off. This shield not only protected against meteorites, it was coated with a special paint to resist heat. It acted as a shield from the Sun's heat. Also during the launch one of the Skylab's solar arrays was damaged. This would prove problems for the Skylab program. The crew of Skylab 2 included Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul J. Weitz. The Skylab 2 mission was launched on May 15,1973. This mission's objectives included repairing the space sta... Free Essays on Skylab Free Essays on Skylab 12/4/00 Skylab was America's first space station. It was built and designed by McDonnell Douglas aeronautics. It cost approximately 2.6 billion dollars to finance the entire project (Cromie, 138). Skylab proved that humans could survive, long term, in space. The Skylab program was also used to survey the Earth for natural resources. The program was also monitored the Sun. It also tested human's endurance in weightlessness. The 100-ton Skylab was almost the size of a small house. The interior of the station measured 11334 feet in volume (Yenne,170). The dimensions of the station were 21.6feet at its widest point, and 48.1feet long. The Skylab consisted of four units. Three of these units sustained life. The orbital workshop (OWS) contained crew quarters and work areas. The OWS was divided into two stories. The upper story had food storage and space suits. The lower story contained crew quarters and places for experiments. The airlock module (AM) contained the station's control and monitoring center. The AM also allowed access to the outside of the station. The Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) a solar observatory. The multiple docking adapter (MDA) contained docking ports for the Apollo spacecraft. When docked, the Apollo module acted as part of the station. Skylab 1 was launched on May 14,1973. Using a modified SATURN V rocket the station was sent into orbit (Cromie, 13). Skylab was set at an orbit of 270 miles (Cromie, 13). During the launch the meteorite shield was torn off. This shield not only protected against meteorites, it was coated with a special paint to resist heat. It acted as a shield from the Sun's heat. Also during the launch one of the Skylab's solar arrays was damaged. This would prove problems for the Skylab program. The crew of Skylab 2 included Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul J. Weitz. The Skylab 2 mission was launched on May 15,1973. This mission's objectives included repairing the space sta...

Child Labor in America Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Child Labor in America - Essay Example Traditionally, slavery has been considered as a means for promoting the interests of specific groups of the society. In the long past, slavery was considered as part of most countries’ social and economic life. The development of international law has led many people to believe that slavery would be significantly limited, a target that, even today, seems quite difficult to be achieved. In accordance with a report of 2000, the people suffered from slavery globally are estimated to 27 million (New York Times 2000).Moreover, it has been proved that the terms of slavery have been changed. People with significant economic or social power are no more, at least not exclusively, responsible for the development of slave. People of average income are likely to force other people to slavery. At the same time, slavery is no more an issue of race; rather people of all races are forced to slavery, in various forms, a fact that proves the severe gaps of national and international laws in reg ard to the specific issue. Particular emphasis should be given on child labor, which is highly developed worldwide. In USA, about 45,000 women and children are forced to non-decent jobs annually, as reported by the Central Intelligence AgencyIt seems that the promotion of slavery worldwide has supported the increase of child labor under terms which can be characterized as quite unfair and cruel, taking into consideration the fact that children who are forced to work do not have, usually, access to education, as other children worldwide. The modern forms of slavery are analyzed in the article of Lehoczky (2000); the above researcher notes that, today, slavery is more expanded and more difficult to be controlled than in the past. At the next level, Lehoczky (2000) refers to the view of Bales who noted that today slaves exist not only in countries of the Third World, but also ‘in London and Paris’ (Lehoczky 2000). In such environment, child labor has been significantly exp anded. An example of the extension of the particular phenomenon is the following one, as described by Bales, the views of whose on slavery have been incorporated in the article of Lehoczky: a North African girl was taken, as a child, by a France family, who ensured that they were going to pay for her studies, under the terms that the girl would work for them (Bales, in Lehoczky 2000). The result was that the girl was forced to work, being also abused, at such level that when she grew up her level of consciousness was that of a child (Bales, in Lehoczky 2000). The above example shows the potential effects, and the cruelty, of child labor even in developed countries, where, normally, no such phenomena would be expected to exist. Kevin Bales, ‘a professor of sociology at Roehampton University in London’ (Vision Media 2007), has been trying, for many years, to combat slavery. In accordance with Bales, slavery has been traditionally based on economics, meaning that people ar e likely to force others to slavery in order ‘to make a profit’ (Vision Media 2007). At the next level, Bales notes that the control of slavery is often quite difficult, being covered under processes which seem to be legal; an indicative example is the provision by Japan of about ‘100,000 entertainer – visas annually’ (Vision Media 2007). As a result, thousands of young girls have entered Japan, being promised that they were going to work; in practice, these girls end up in slavery (Vision Media 2007). Specifically, regarding the child labor, Bales notes that the problem has become major not just in developing countries, but also in developed countries, even in USA where significant efforts have been made for controlling the particular phenomenon. In fact, it seems that in USA children work in the production line of well known brands, such as GAP and NIKE (Bales 1999, p.236). The expansion of child labor can be made clear

Role of Operations Management Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Role of Operations Management Paper - Essay Example Here I will provide a detailed overview of the operations management and handling. Here I have chosen the Tata Motors for the overall research and analysis of the corporate operations management. The subject of the operations management spotlights on cautious running the procedures to construct as well as allocate services and products. Typically, small industries do not speak regarding area of operations management and its implementation; on the other hand they carry out the actions that management schools normally linked through the expression the operations management (McNamara, 2009). Organizations are by and large involved in operational management for the reason that it gives deep insight into how well and competently the activities and operations of an organization to renovate input into useful products for the operation of business are working (Fisher College of Business, 2008). This research will provide the detailed analysis of the TATA MOTORS and its associated operation management. Here I will elaborate the different areas those are executed under this paradigm in a business. This analysis will offer a deep insight into the overall working and operations in opera tions management. Most important and on the whole tasks of an organization frequently consist of manufacturing goods or production and their distribution. These tasks are as well linked by means of service and product management. However, product management is typically in view to one or additional directly linked goods that is, a manufactured goods line (McNamara, 2009). Operations management is in observation to the entire processes inside the business. Linked tasks and actions encompass organizing acquiring, record control, excellence control, logistics, storage as well as assessments. A huge deal of ideas is on competence as well as efficiency of procedures. Consequently, operations management frequently comprises considerable capacity assessment as well as investigation of interior

High Throughput Screening (HTS) Assays: Uses and Formats

High Throughput Screening (HTS) Assays: Uses and Formats The increasing demands placed upon the pharmaceutical industry to produce a rapid turnaround of new drugs is a driving factor in the automation of the processes at the initial screening stage of drug discovery. This has lead to the development of numerous high throughput screening (HTS) assays, with the increasing miniaturization of the whole process (1). An explosion in genomic and proteomic studies in recent decades has lead to the generation of large numbers of functional protein molecules. The physiological function of these proteins has yet to be elucidated, but many could be important future drug targets, such as receptors or enzymes involved in disease pathogenesis (2). These ‘orphan receptors’ can be studied by high throughput screens of small molecules, which may be potential ligands. These chemicals can be sourced from existing drugs, pharmaceutical company chemical compound libraries or from natural products, such as plants or animals (figure 1; 3). Chemical l ibraries are now vast, since the advent of combinatorial chemistry, which produces novel compounds by high throughput methods. These mixtures can then be assessed for biological activity against a specific target molecule (most commonly a protein), either as a mixed chemical pool, or in parallel. A positive/active interaction, or ‘hit’, can then be further explored. Numerous assay detection formats that are suitable for automation have been developed to detect such receptor – ligand and enzyme – substrate interactions, to allow the potential drug molecule to be further explored. Each assay has advantages and problems and the most commonly applied techniques are discussed in this review. As research progresses these processes become modified to overcome problems created by the progressive automation and miniaturization of the assays. Use of computation to analyse the interactions and extract more information from them is also increasing (4). Recent advances in the literature suggest that future development of HTS is likely to result in ultra-HTS assay formats, which may be within closed systems such as glass capillaries, or on silicon wafer chips. References Fonseca MH List B (2004) Curr Opin Chem Biol, 8, 319-326. Gilchrist A (2004) Expert Opin Ther Targets, 8, 495-8. Bleicher KH, Bohm HJ, Muller K, Alanine AI (2003) Nat Rev Drug Disc 2, 369-378. Kato R, Nakano H, Konishi H, Kato K, Koga Y et al. (2005) J Mol Biol, 351, 683-92. Techniques in molecular biology, chemistry and their associated branches are advancing at a rapid rate. This has enabled the mechanisms underlying many diseases to be explored at the molecular level. The ever-increasing sophistication of proteomic and genomic research procedures are producing an explosion in the number of possible drug targets. Until the development of high throughput screening (HTS) assays, the time taken to evaluate the potential bioactivity and usefulness of compounds to act on target molecules and become drugs to act to ameliorate symptoms or even cure or prevent a disease from occurring, was a rate-limiting factor. Since the automation of a number of suitable assays for HTS the trend has led to the number of compounds available for testing against targets becoming the limiting factor. This has spurned the growth of combinatorial chemistry, to such an extent that many consider it to be a branch of chemistry in itself. HTS can be defined as an automated method of conducting a large number of in vitro assays on a small scale (Patrick 2005). Most commonly, 96-well plates of 0.1ml are used for a number of bioassays to detect the biological activity of compounds which have the potential to be developed as drugs. These may interact with the target, as a ligand-receptor interaction, or may involve inhibition of an enzyme or interaction with a nucleic acid macromolecule. The reaction produces a detectable output change, which can be detected and/or measured. Thousands of chemicals can easily and quickly be screened this way, and only active compounds taken to the next stage of testing to find out if it has the potential to become marketed as a drug. There is increasing pressure on drug companies to produce new drugs to keep pace with developments in medical research, as well as an increasingly demanding public and share holders. HTS technology is a crucial to meeting these demands, and continues to be dev eloped to produce faster, cheaper and more efficient ways of screening compounds during the initial stages of the drug discovery process. ROLE OF HIGH THROUGHPUT SCREENING IN DRUG SCREENING Molecular biology techniques are allowing us to understand more about the mechanisms of disease, thus providing biomacromolecular targets for potential drugs to interact with. Such targets include receptors, enzymes and nucleic acids and may require inhibition (enzymes) or agonistic/antagonist receptor ligand binding to produce the desired pharmaceutical effect. In addition, studies using proteomic and genomic techniques are revealing more and more ‘orphan receptors’; these are proteins (predominately), lipids and nucleic acids (and to some extent carbohydrates) that are now known to be produced by the body, but their messenger and function is unknown. Using these as targets against which to screen compounds will help to elucidate their function, and more importantly, may turn out to be drug target interaction sites which will be beneficial in disease. As the function of these targets is unknown, there are no lead compounds that could be used as a starting point for exploration, so HTS is particularly beneficial for screening vast numbers of compounds in the hope that at least one will interact with the mystery target. The number of potential drugs to be screened is vast; pharmaceutical companies have libraries of 0.5-2 million synthetic compounds (King 2002) that have not made it through screening to become marketed drugs. There are also commercially available libraries of compounds, such as the Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) registry file, which contains 39 million compound (Abraham 2003). Intermediates in synthetic processes to make another drug should also be screened, as they may have the desired pharmaceutical properties. Isoniazid is an intermediate and has now been developed into an effective anti-tuberculosis drug. Existing drugs are also worth screening, as their biological activity may stretch beyond that for which they are intended. For example, cyclosporin A was isolated from soil and had been intended for use as an antibiotic, until its immune-suppressive properties were observed and for which it is now sold. The body’s own endogenous chemical messengers, such as morphine, whi ch has similar activity to released endorphins, could also be screened as they may provide a lead compound that can be modified to enhance activity. Combinatorial synthetic processes can also be used to generate vast numbers of novel compounds, which is crucial to prevent the availability of new compounds being a limiting factor in drug development, as HTS is able to screen them so quickly (Carell et al. 1995). It is common for combinatorial synthesis to produce mixtures of compounds, which can be tested as a chemical pool or batch by HTS for biological activity against a specific target macromolecule. This means that thousands of compounds can be screened in a very short time and only pools containing biologically active constituents screened further. This usually involves deconvolution processes (such as micromanipulation, recursive deconvolution or sequential release from resin beads used for the synthetic process) to identify exactly which component(s) of the pool is/are active, so that they can be isolated and screened further for drug potential (Wilson-Lingardo et al. 1996). It is now being superseded by production of new c ompounds in parallel, with a single component in each well. Potential drug molecules can also be derived from natural sources, such as plant extracts, but these are less abundant as isolation and purification take time. They are often novel, complex molecules and can produce unexpected interactions. An example is artemisinin, an effective antimalarial drug developed from extracts from a Chinese plant; it has a highly unstable trioxane ring (Ploypradith 2004). There are so many compounds to be tested against a large range of potential drug targets that high throughput methods are essential to test the numerable combinations of drug and target interaction to find those that are biologically compatible. HIGH THROUGHPUT SCREENING ASSAYS In theory any assay that can be performed on the laboratory bench could be automated and scaled up to be used for HTS. In practice, however, some assays are intrinsically more suitable than others. High throughput screens require the automation of the entire process. This is best achieved if there are as few steps as possible in the assay; ideally the test should be able to be performed in a single well, with addition of the test sample the last key step. Obviously, it is important that the reaction between a target and biologically active compound must be readily detectable. It should ideally be detectable with high sensitivity while the products are still mixed together in the well, rather than needing further steps to separate or purify components of the reaction mixture. This can be difficult to achieve with automation and will increase the time taken per test, so becoming less efficient and cost effective. Assays used for chemical screening can be cell-free or cell-based (Silverman et al. 1998). Cell-free assays use solutions of relatively pure protein targets, such as receptors or enzyme substrates, which minimizes the number of steps required. It also allows for easy detection of biological activity in the wells of reaction mixture. Cell-based assays have the advantage that they are a closer representation of the normal physiology of the chemical environment inside a cell. Receptor-ligand interactions and enzyme inhibition reactions are more likely to be indicative of what will happen in vivo (Silverman et al. 1998), especially if ligand-gated ion channels are involved. Cell assays also allow specific processes to be studied and the output can be measured. Indirect effects of small molecule/protein binding which trigger secondary messenger systems, such as calcium ions or cAMP, can also be observed in their biological context. Cells can be manipulated to express target molecules on t he surface, so that they are available to bind to novel ligands, which may be tagged for detection. Cell assays can also provide additional information about cytotoxicity and bioavailability of a potential drug. Mammalian cells are expensive and can be difficult to culture in automated HT systems, but yeasts can provide a suitable alternative. Microorganisms such as yeasts are easy to propagate and have been demonstrated to have some homologous chemical processes, or can be easily genetically modified to express human processes accurately (Klein Geary 1997). HTS ASSAYS AND DETECTION FORMATS Fluorescence Fluorescence occurs when a fluorophore molecule absorbs a high-energy photon (often in the ultraviolet range) and emits a lower energy photon, which is typically in the visible range of the spectrum. There are many naturally occurring substances which have this intrinsic property, such as luciferin in fire-flies. There are a number of fluorescence – based assays available for use in HTS, to detect whether an interaction has occurred between target and potential drug molecule during random screening. Fluorescence assays are generally sensitive, versatile, stable, safe and easy to perform, which gives them a great advantage in automated systems for HTS. They have the disadvantage that quenchers can be present in the sample which dampen the light emission. There may also be background autofluorescence from free reagents in the reaction mixture (Grepin Pernelle 2000). Many of the assays have developed protocols that take these problems into account. Energy transfer formats: Homogeneous time resolved fluorescence (HTRF) uses the ion of the rare earth metal lanthamide (Eu3+ ), bound to crypate as a donor molecule. Following laser excitation (at a wavelength of 337nm), energy is transferred from this complex to an allophyocyanin (APC) acceptor molecule. This results in emission of light of 665nm, over a long period (milliseconds), which is recorded in a time resolved fashion so that any background fluorescence from free APC or media is not recorded. Peak emission of light occurs at 620nm for unbound Eu-cryptate, so the ratio of 620:665nm emissions can be used to quantify biological complexes in solution (see Figure 1). This technique can be widely applied to screening programs and has already been developed into a 1,536 well plate HTS, with plans to expand this to become ultra HTS (uHTS) and for use in cell-based assays. Figure 1: HRTF schematic explanation (from: Grepin Pernelle 2000) Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a slightly different form of detection, using the principle that excitation energy can be transferred between two fluorophore molecules. These can be different types of green fluorescent protein (GFP) or other bioluminescent molecules, such as luciferase (Hu et al. 2005). from: Becker et al. 2004 Fluorescence polarization (FP) FP can be used as the basis for homogeneous HTS assays for enzymatic and ligand-receptor binding interactions. The principle behind this detection assay is that when polarized light hits a small molecule that is binding to a larger (target) molecule, there will be rotational diffusion of the light beam. This change induced by binding can be detected by measuring the light emitted in orthogonal and normal planes of the polarized light. There is no interference from absorptive compounds in complex mixtures, as can occur with other fluorescence based techniques, and FP is quick and easy. Because of this it is used widely in high-throughput screening systems. Kim and colleagues (2004) developed a FP assay for the molecular chaperone Hsp90 (heat-shock protein), which is believed to have a role in cancer. They validated the assay for a high throughput format using molecules known to bind Hsp90, such as geldanamycin. The assay can now be used to screen for novel inhibitors of Hsp90, which m ay lead to a cancer drug being developed. Stricher and others (2005) have developed a high throughput FP assay for the CD4 binding site of HIV-1 glcoproteins, such as gp120, which are crucial targets to protect against HIV infection. Their assay used a 384-well plate and CD4M33, a mimic of host cell receptor antigen CD4, found on T helper lymphocytes. Some studies indicate that FP assay technology can also be developed as part of a HT structure-activity (SAR) study. Newman Josiah (2004) showed that FP is sufficiently sensitive to differentiate between high-affinity small molecule inhibitors interacting with the target and low-affinity ones, with Src kinase activity as a model. FP can also be used in cell-based assays, in conjunction with confocal microscopy (Heilker et al. 2005), as it shows high sensitivity even at minute volumes of reaction mixture, down to femtolitres. This type of assay can be described as fluorescence intensity distribution anaylsis (FIDA) and measures the absolute concentration of both bound and unbound ligand, thus providing the data with its own internal control. FIDA has been used to explore ligands which bind to G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR), which are widespread throughout the body and involved in signal transduction for numerous cell processes. They are therefore important therapeutic pharmaceutical targets, and can be studied in association with membrane fragments from cells over-expressing GPCR or associated with virus-like particles. Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) FCS uses a two-photon excitation to measure the relative fluorescence of different molecules within a homogeneous mixture, from which the amount of each can be calculated. The technique can be applied to measure the relative amounts of ligand bound versus unbound receptor molecules, or cleaved versus intact enzyme substrates. FCS can be conducted using minute reaction volumes, less than 1 femtolitre (fl) is adequate for this sensitive, fast assay, which can study interactions of single molecules (Sterrer Henco 1997). FCS can also be used to study ligand-receptor interactions in live cells (Pramanik 2004), which allows reactions to be assessed, and to some extent the properties of the interaction quantified, in their biological context. The use of such live cell assays in a high throughput format will provide a wealth of information not observable in chemical solutions alone. Many applications of FCS are conducted in conjunction with confocal microscopy, which allows interaction kinetics to be examined on a molecular level, by the changes in diffusion patterns of the excitation. Confocal microscopy uses a high numerical aperture lens to focus the laser, to provide excitation and produces minimal background excitation, which allows such minute quantities to be studied. It can be used to detect spatial and temporal interactions in live cells, increasing the amount of information that can be obtained and used for drug development (such as interactions with other cell components or pH effects within the cell; Zemanova et al. 2003) The dual-colour cross- correlation spectroscopy method of FCS uses two different, spectrally separated, fluorophore molecules, which are attached to each of, for example, a receptor and possible ligand, or potential substrate to be cleaved. The two colours will be observed to fluoresce together if an interaction occurs, or separately if a substrate has been cleaved and the kinetics of this can then be assessed (Kettling et al. 1998). This can be demonstrated using, a DNA strand that has a red fluorophore molecule attached to one and and a green one to the opposing end. The strand is cleaved by restriction endonuclease enzyme ecoRI, which is detected by spectroscopy as a decrease in the quantity of DNA molecules with fluorescence at both ends. The method was shown to be suitable for this type of enzyme kinetics study, by accurate detection of catalytic activity down to an enzyme concentration of 1 pM (pico molar) and proper description of the reaction by the Michaelis-Menten equation. This method, dual-colour FCCS, therefore has great potential for HTS of enzyme and ligand binding reactions. Biomolecular fluorescence/reporters There are numerous molecules produced by plants and animals naturally that produce fluorescence, or what is sometimes called bioluminescence. Some of these have been adopted as research tools, such as green fluorescent protein (GFP), which produces green light at 509nm following excitation by blue light (Arun et al. 2005). The gene that encodes for this fluorescent protein has been elucidated and is now commonly inserted into the genomes of genetically modified microrganisms and cell lines. It is then expressed under the control of desired promoters, often as a fusion protein. In this way patterns of gene expression can be observed and changes in transcription detected. HTS for new drugs use this technology to detect changes in transcription that occur via secondary messenger systems following receptor-ligand binding in a live cell. For example, Changsen and others have validated a GPF microplate assay, using an acetamidase promoter associated with the gfp gene, to screen for antitub erculosis drugs (2003), and found it to be suitable for HTS for novel drugs. GFP reporter technology requires a detection system and most of those described for detecting fluorescence from synthetic fluorophores can also be applied, such as FRET (Zhang 2004), FCS and confocal microscopy. FITC (fluorescein – 5- isothiocyanate) FITC can be bound to other molecules as a marker and the fluorescence measured robotically in HTS systems. For example, FITC bound to heparin sulphate (HS) has been used to screen for heparanase inhibitors in a HT assay: 384-well microtitre plates are used, which are coated with fibroblast growth factor (FGF). This captures the FITC-HS, and labelled fragments are only released into the media when cleavage by heparanase has occurred. This is quantitatively measured by robotic detection of the amount of fluorescence in solution. Heparanase is believed to have roles in inflammation, tumour angiogenesis and metastasis, so is an important drug target in the treatment of cancer (Huang et al. 2004). Chemiluminescence Some assays using chemiluminescence have been adapted to use HT formats. These rely on chemical reactions to produce light emission as a side-product, which can be detected. One such HTS uses coupled reactions involving the enzymes acetylcholinesterase, choline oxidase and horse-radish peroxidase, in 96 and 384-well plate formats, to screen for novel acetylcholinesterase inhibitors to become new drugs to treat Alzheimer’s Disease (Andreani et al. 2005). Scintillation proximity assay (SPA) Scintillation proximity assays are used for quantitatively studying binding reactions. The receptor/target is bound to a surface such as a plastic bead. The ligand is labelled with radioactive isotype (typically H3 or I125 ) and emit electrons with a short range of about 10um. A scintillation counter under the surface to which the target is bound detects the ligand only when it is bound. When it is free in solution the media absorbs the electrons and they are not counted. This allows binding interactions to be quantified whilst at equilibrium. Zheng and others (2004) have used SPA as part of a HTS and have identified several novel inositol monophosphatase inhibitors, which may be developed as drugs fro bipolar disorder. Mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry is currently a popular option for HTS, as it is sensitive, selective and easily automated. It allows the activity, molecular weight (most drug-like molecules are 150-400 Da), elemental composition and structural features of a test compound to be analysed. This wealth of information is of great use for exploring the molecular interactions between target and potential drug compounds. A very high throughput can be achieved using flow injection analysis, which does not require any sample preparation. Solutions of the samples are sprayed, using electrospray or APCI (atmospheric pressure chemical ionization), which ionises the molecules in the sample, prior to analysis by the mass spectrometer. Sometimes tandem mass spectrometers are employed, to glean more structural information and elemental composition. The advantage of these techniques are that as well as being very high precision they can be conducted on the original sample, without the need the separate the compound out from a mixture. For LC-MS (liquid chromatography mass spectrometry), semipreparative HPLC (High Peformance Liquid Chromatography) is often used before the HTS to verify the structure and purity of each compound to be tested, especially those from a combinatorial library. Improving purity in this way facilitates more accurate observation of any biological interactions that occur between the target and the test compound, as well as easing interpretation of structural information about the test molecule or changes induced by the interaction (Abraham 2003). HPLC is easily automated and involves detection of a UV signal above a threshold level, which triggers collection of the fraction. Several fractions may be obtained from one sample, or the computers controlling sample collection can be programmed to detect only at peaks of desired molecular ions, following ionisation by a suitable technique, such as electrospray or MALDI (matrix-associated laser desorption/ionisation), which can be used as a gentle way of ionising more fragile molecules (Hillenkamp et al. 1991). LC-MS can be slower than other approaches but is sometimes necessary. Further developments to speed up the automated process include parallel LC-MS, in which multiple HPLC columns are interfaced to a single mass spectrometer (Kenseth Coldiron 2004), and fast HPLC. NMR NMR is a useful technique for exploring the 3-dimensional structure of biomacromolecules, in a concentrated solution. It is limited by the small size of molecule amenable to this technique; typically below 30kDa, so is more useful for small drug-like molecules than the molecular target they interact with. Structure-activity relationships (SAR) can be studied by observing alterations in a protein’s NMR spectrum. This not only indicates that ligand binding has occurred, but can give an indication of the location of the binding site (Shuker et al. 1996). X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography enables the 3-dimensional structure of protein molecules to be studied, with resolution to the atomic level. The technique requires the molecule to be studied in its crystalline form, which is not a problem for the majority of biomacromolecules that are drug targets. Protein crystallization technology has also had to adapt to high throughput methods, so as not to become a bottleneck. Some fully automated systems can now produce as many as 2,500 to 140,000 crystallization experiments a day (Kuhn et al. 2002). Studying the 3-D structure of the target often produces clues to the type of ligand that will bind, which speeds up the time taken to find lead compounds in drug discovery. An example of this is the development of antiretroviral drugs used to treat AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), such as amprenavir (‘Agenerase’), which followed from the study of the structure of the drug target, HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) viral protease. Another drug developed from such structure based studies is zanamivir (‘Relenza’); a flu treatment based on the crystal structure of the surface glycoprotein, neuraminidase, which is crucial for viral infectivity (Varghese 1998). This is likely to be an important weapon in the fight against an influenza pandemic. In X-ray crystallography, the macromolecular 3-D crystal is bombarded with X-rays, by a rotating-anode X-ray generator or a synchrotron, and the diffraction pattern produced is detected. Multiple measurements of diffracted waves generate much data, which can be analysed using calculations, such as Fourier synthesis and a structure revealed (Blundell et al. 2002). Advances in the structure determination process have aided the resolution of structures, for example, multiple-wavelength anomalous dispersion (MAD), in which selenomethionine is incorporated into proteins that are overexpressed by genetically modified micro-organisms, which simulates isomorphous replacement and allows the phases to be calculated (Hendrickson et al. 1990). Low-affinity binding reactions between ligand and target may have important properties and provide leads that would be missed by other HTS methods. Development of high throughput X-ray crystallography, by increased automation at all stages of the procedure, has lead to its growing use in lead discovery as well as its more traditional role in lead optimisation (Abola et al. 2000). This enables the technique to screen compound libraries, including those from combinatorial synthesis. Crystallographic screening for novel ligands in this way has already had some success; for example, a new class of urokinase inhibitors have been discovered, for treating cancer (Nienaber et al. 2000). Co-crystallization of receptor-ligand complexes allows the interaction between the molecules to be studied and conformational changes in the target, upon binding, to be discovered. This approach is known to be used by several industrial laboratories and has the capacity to compare the interactions of ‘hit’ ligands in the generation of a lead series. It also decreases the time taken to explore hits, which is a crucial factor for the pharmaceutical industry (Abraham 2003). Another way of achieving crystallized receptor-ligand interactions is to soak the ligand, often as molecular fragments dissolved in DMSO (dimethyl sulphoxide), into the receptor protein crystal (Nienaber et al. 2000), and observe changes in electron densities indicative of interaction. Structure based drug design in silico Three-dimensional structures can also be used in computer modelling programs to predict which ligands might bond/interact with targets or receptors, as an initial stage of drug design. This is truly a high throughput method as computing power allows the rate at which ligand-receptor interactions can be virtually screened to be incomparable to even the fastest high throughput methods involving physical experimentation. This is often termed virtual ligand screening (VLS), or in silico screening (Klebe 2000). Perrakis and his colleagues (1999) combined automated protein model building with iterative structure refinement, using ARP (automatic pattern recognition), which has been crucial for structure based drug design (SBDD). Diffraction data is fed directly into the computer program and a protein crystallization model produced automatically. Various programs have been developed to assess docking of virtual ligands into known target receptor sites and scoring of their suitability and fit, determined by energy. Some algorithms seem to have some bias towards certain chemical families; this can be reduced by using multiple docking algorithms simultaneously (Charifson et al. 1999). Software programmers and chemical modellers must remember to take into account the natural properties of protein molecules, as they are more flexible and accommodating of small changes than the rigidity suggested by traditional computer programs, although some programs now attempt to recreate this (Schapira et al 2000). Optimal results for structure based drug design are likely to be achieved by combining virtual and experimental methods, such as ‘SAR-NMR’ technology advocated by Shuker, Fesik and colleagues (1996). Microarrays DNA microarrays have been constructed following the sequencing of the human genome, using cDNA to study thousands of genes. From this has stemmed the growth of proteomics and protein biochips, as these are the functional molecules encoded by the genome. Protein arrays/biochips consist of immobilized proteins, which can be used, in the drug development context, to study ligand-receptor interactions (Lueking et al. 2005). Interactions of known pharmaceutical chemicals with proteins can also be explored. For example, Leflunomide (an isoxazole derivative) has been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties in vivo. Analysis of protein interactions using an array revealed that it was not only interacting with the suspected mitochondrial enzyme, but a number of other proteins in the cell, such as pyruvate kinase (Mangold et al. 1999). As the majority of drug targets are proteins, and many of the drugs themselves proteins too, protein arrays are likely to become more popular, as well as hig her throughput. CONCLUSION CHOOSING THE BEST HTS ASSAY: The literature reveals numerous modifications and validated systems of all the possible assays that are suitable for adaptation to high throughput screening in drug discovery. Many of the traditional weak points of each assay have therefore been addressed in this way, making critici

Attendance System

Student Attendance System Based On Fingerprint Recognition and One-to-Many Matching A thesis submitted in partial ful? llment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Computer Application in Computer Science by Sachin (Roll no. 107cs016) and Arun Sharma (Roll no. 107cs015) Under the guidance of : Prof. R. C. Tripathi Department of Computer Science and Engineering National Institute of Technology Rourkela Rourkela-769 008, Orissa, India 2 . Dedicated to Our Parents and Indian Scienti? c Community . 3 National Institute of Technology Rourkela Certi? cateThis is to certify that the project entitled, ‘Student Attendance System Based On Fingerprint Recognition and One-to-Many Matching’ submitted by Rishabh Mishra and Prashant Trivedi is an authentic work carried out by them under my supervision and guidance for the partial ful? llment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of Technology Degree in Computer Science and Engineering at National Institute of Techno logy, Rourkela. To the best of my knowledge, the matter embodied in the project has not been submitted to any other University / Institute for the award of any Degree or Diploma.Date – 9/5/2011 Rourkela (Prof. B. Majhi) Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 4 Abstract Our project aims at designing an student attendance system which could e? ectively manage attendance of students at institutes like NIT Rourkela. Attendance is marked after student identi? cation. For student identi? cation, a ? ngerprint recognition based identi? cation system is used. Fingerprints are considered to be the best and fastest method for biometric identi? cation. They are secure to use, unique for every person and does not change in one’s lifetime. Fingerprint recognition is a mature ? ld today, but still identifying individual from a set of enrolled ? ngerprints is a time taking process. It was our responsibility to improve the ? ngerprint identi? cation system for implementation on lar ge databases e. g. of an institute or a country etc. In this project, many new algorithms have been used e. g. gender estimation, key based one to many matching, removing boundary minutiae. Using these new algorithms, we have developed an identi? cation system which is faster in implementation than any other available today in the market. Although we are using this ? ngerprint identi? cation system for student identi? ation purpose in our project, the matching results are so good that it could perform very well on large databases like that of a country like India (MNIC Project). This system was implemented in Matlab10, Intel Core2Duo processor and comparison of our one to many identi? cation was done with existing identi? cation technique i. e. one to one identi? cation on same platform. Our matching technique runs in O(n+N) time as compared to the existing O(Nn2 ). The ? ngerprint identi? cation system was tested on FVC2004 and Veri? nger databases. 5 Acknowledgments We express our profound gratitude and indebtedness to Prof. B.Majhi, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, NIT, Rourkela for introducing the present topic and for their inspiring intellectual guidance, constructive criticism and valuable suggestion throughout the project work. We are also thankful to Prof. Pankaj Kumar Sa , Ms. Hunny Mehrotra and other sta? s in Department of Computer Science and Engineering for motivating us in improving the algorithms. Finally we would like to thank our parents for their support and permitting us stay for more days to complete this project. Date – 9/5/2011 Rourkela Rishabh Mishra Prashant Trivedi Contents 1 Introduction 1. 1 1. 2 1. 3 1. 4 1. 1. 6 1. 7 Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Motivation and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using Biometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What is ? ngerprint? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why use ? ngerprints? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using ? ngerprint recognition system for attendance management . . . Organization of the thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 17 17 18 18 19 19 19 21 21 22 23 24 24 30 30 33 33 33 35 35 36 36 2 Attendance Management Framework 2. 2. 2 2. 3 2. 4 2. 5 Hardware – Software Level Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Attendance Management Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On-Line Attendance Report Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Network and Database Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using wireless network instead of LAN and bringing portability . . . 2. 5. 1 2. 6 Using Portable Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison with other student attendance systems . . . . . . . . . . 3 Fingerprint Identi? cation System 3. 1 3. 2 How Fingerprint Recognition works? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fingerprint Identi? cation Sys tem Flowchart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Fingerprint Enhancement 4. 1 4. 2 4. 3 Segmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Normalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Orientation estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 CONTENTS 4. 4 4. 5 4. 6 4. 7 Ridge Frequency Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabor ? lter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Binarisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thinning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 38 39 40 40 41 41 42 42 43 44 45 45 45 46 47 47 50 51 53 53 54 54 55 56 57 59 59 59 59 60 5 Feature Extraction 5. 1 5. 2 Finding the Reference Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Minutiae Extraction and Post-Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 2. 1 5. 2. 2 5. 2. 3 5. 3 Minutiae Extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Post-Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Removing Boundary Minutiae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Extraction of the key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 3. 1 What is key? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Simple Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Complex Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Partitioning of Database 6. 1 6. 2 6. 3 Gender Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Classi? cation of Fingerprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Partitioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Matching 7. 1 7. 2 7. 3 Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Existing Matching Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One to Many matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. 3. 1 7. 4 7. 5 Method of One to Many Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performing key match and full matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time Complexity of this matching technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Experimental Analysis 8. 1 8. 2 Implementation Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fingerprint Enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 2. 1 8. 2. 2 Segmentation and Normalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Orientation Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 8. 2. 3 8. 2. 4 8. . 5 8. 3 CONTENTS Ridge Frequency Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabor Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Binarisation and Thinning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 60 61 62 62 62 63 64 64 64 64 65 66 66 Feature Extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 3. 1 Minutiae Extraction and Post Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . Minutiae Extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . After Removing Spuriou s and Boundary Minutiae . . . . . . . 8. 3. 2 Reference Point Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 4 Gender Estimation and Classi? ation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 4. 1 8. 4. 2 Gender Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Classi? cation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 5 8. 6 Enrolling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 6. 1 8. 6. 2 Fingerprint Veri? cation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Identi? cation Results and Comparison with Other Matching techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 70 73 74 75 75 79 8. 7 Performance Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Conclusion 9. 1 Outcomes of this Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Future Work and Expectations 10. 1 Approach for Future Work A Matlab functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . List of Figures 1. 1 2. 1 2. 2 2. 3 2. 4 2. 5 2. 6 2. 7 2. 8 3. 1 4. 1 4. 2 Example of a ridge ending and a bifurcation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hardware present in classrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Classroom Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Network Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ER Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Level 0 DFD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Level 1 DFD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Level 2 DFD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Portable Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fingerprint Identi? cation System Flowchart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Orientation Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (a)Original Image, (b)Enhanced Image, (c)Binarised Image, (d)Thinne d Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 1 Row 1: ? lter response c1k , k = 3, 2, and 1. Row 2: ? lter response c2k , k = 3, 2, and 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 2 5. 3 Examples of (a)ridge-ending (CN=1) and (b)bifurcation pixel (CN=3) 42 43 40 18 22 23 25 26 27 27 28 29 34 37 Examples of typical false minutiae structures : (a)Spur, (b)Hole, (c)Triangle, (d)Spike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 44 44 45 48 5. 4 5. 5 5. 6 6. 1 Skeleton of window centered at boundary minutiae . . . . . . . . . . Matrix Representation of boundary minutiae . . . . . . . . . . . . . Key Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gender Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 10 6. 2 6. 3 LIST OF FIGURES 135o blocks of a ? ngerprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fingerprint Classes (a)Left Loop, (b)Right Loop, (c)Whorl, (d 1)Arch, (d2)Tented Arch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. 4 7. 1 8. 1 8. 2 8. 3 8. 4 8. 5 8. 6 8. 7 8. 8 8. 9 Partitioning Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One to Many Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Normalized Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Orientation Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ridge Frequency Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Left-Original Image, Right-Enhanced Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Binarised Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thinned Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . All Extracted Minutiae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Composite Image with spurious and boundary minutiae . . . . . . . . Minutiae Image after post-processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 52 57 59 60 60 61 61 62 62 63 63 64 65 50 8. 10 Compo site Image after post-processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 11 Plotted Minutiae with Reference Point(Black Spot) . . . . . . . . . . 8. 12 Graph: Time taken for Identi? cation vs Size of Database(key based one to many identi? cation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 13 Graph: Time taken for Identi? cation vs Size of Database (n2 identi? cation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 14 Expected Graph for comparison : Time taken for Identi? cation vs Size of Database(1 million) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 69 71 List of Tables 2. 1 5. 1 8. 1 8. 2 8. 3 8. 4 8. 5 8. 6 8. 7 8. 8 Estimated Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Properties of Crossing Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 43 64 65 66 66 67 67 68 Average Number of Minutiae before and after post-processing . . . . Ridge Density Calculation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Classi? catio n Results on Original Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Classi? cation Results on Enhanced Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time taken for Classi? cation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Time taken for Enrolling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Error Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance of ours and n2 matching based identi? cation techniques on a database of size 150 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 11 List of Algorithms 1 2 3 4 Key Extraction Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gender Estimation Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Key Based One to Many Matching Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matching Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 49 55 56 12Chapter 1 Introduction 1. 1 Problem Statement Designing a student attendance management system based on ? ngerprint recognition and faster one to many ident i? cation that manages records for attendance in institutes like NIT Rourkela. 1. 2 Motivation and Challenges Every organization whether it be an educational institution or business organization, it has to maintain a proper record of attendance of students or employees for e? ective functioning of organization. Designing a better attendance management system for students so that records be maintained with ease and accuracy was an important key behind motivating this project.This would improve accuracy of attendance records because it will remove all the hassles of roll calling and will save valuable time of the students as well as teachers. Image processing and ? ngerprint recognition are very advanced today in terms of technology. It was our responsibility to improve ? ngerprint identi? cation system. We decreased matching time by partitioning the database to one-tenth and improved matching using key based one to many matching. 13 14 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1. 3 Using Biometrics Bi ometric Identi? cation Systems are widely used for unique identi? cation of humans mainly for veri? cation and identi? ation. Biometrics is used as a form of identity access management and access control. So use of biometrics in student attendance management system is a secure approach. There are many types of biometric systems like ? ngerprint recognition, face recognition, voice recognition, iris recognition, palm recognition etc. In this project, we used ? ngerprint recognition system. 1. 4 What is ? ngerprint? A ? ngerprint is the pattern of ridges and valleys on the surface of a ? ngertip. The endpoints and crossing points of ridges are called minutiae. It is a widely accepted assumption that the minutiae pattern of each ? ger is unique and does not change during one’s life. Ridge endings are the points where the ridge curve terminates, and bifurcations are where a ridge splits from a single path to two paths at a Y-junction. Figure 1 illustrates an example of a ridge en ding and a bifurcation. In this example, the black pixels correspond to the ridges, and the white pixels correspond to the valleys. Figure 1. 1: Example of a ridge ending and a bifurcation When human ? ngerprint experts determine if two ? ngerprints are from the same ? nger, the matching degree between two minutiae pattern is one of the most important factors.Thanks to the similarity to the way of human ? ngerprint experts and compactness of templates, the minutiae-based matching method is the most widely studied matching method. 1. 5. WHY USE FINGERPRINTS? 15 1. 5 Why use ? ngerprints? Fingerprints are considered to be the best and fastest method for biometric identi? cation. They are secure to use, unique for every person and does not change in one’s lifetime. Besides these, implementation of ? ngerprint recognition system is cheap, easy and accurate up to satis? ability. Fingerprint recognition has been widely used in both forensic and civilian applications.Compared with o ther biometrics features , ? ngerprint-based biometrics is the most proven technique and has the largest market shares . Not only it is faster than other techniques but also the energy consumption by such systems is too less. 1. 6 Using ? ngerprint recognition system for attendance management Managing attendance records of students of an institute is a tedious task. It consumes time and paper both. To make all the attendance related work automatic and on-line, we have designed an attendance management system which could be implemented in NIT Rourkela.It uses a ? ngerprint identi? cation system developed in this project. This ? ngerprint identi? cation system uses existing as well as new techniques in ? ngerprint recognition and matching. A new one to many matching algorithm for large databases has been introduced in this identi? cation system. 1. 7 Organization of the thesis This thesis has been organized into ten chapters. Chapter 1 introduces with our project. Chapter 2 explains t he proposed design of attendance management system. Chapter 3 explains the ? ngerprint identi? cation system used in this project.Chapter 4 explains enhancement techniques, Chapter 5 explains feature extraction methods, Chapter 6 explains our database partitioning approach . Chapter 7 explains matching technique. Chapter 8 explains experimental work done and performance analysis. Chapter 9 includes conclusions and Chapter 10 introduces proposed future work. Chapter 2 Attendance Management Framework Manual attendance taking and report generation has its limitations. It is well enough for 30-60 students but when it comes to taking attendance of students large in number, it is di? cult. For taking attendance for a lecture, a conference, etc. oll calling and manual attendance system is a failure. Time waste over responses of students, waste of paper etc. are the disadvantages of manual attendance system. Moreover, the attendance report is also not generated on time. Attendance report wh ich is circulated over NITR webmail is two months old. To overcome these non-optimal situations, it is necessary that we should use an automatic on-line attendance management system. So we present an implementable attendance management framework. Student attendance system framework is divided into three parts : Hardware/Software Design, Attendance Management Approach and On-line Report Generation.Each of these is explained below. 2. 1 Hardware – Software Level Design Required hardware used should be easy to maintain, implement and easily available. Proposed hardware consists following parts: (1)Fingerprint Scanner, (2)LCD/Display Module (optional), (3)Computer 16 2. 2. ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT APPROACH Table 2. 1: Estimated Budget Device Cost of Number of Total Name One Unit Units Required Unit Budget Scanner 500 100 50000 PC 21000 100 2100000 Total 21,50,000 (4)LAN connection 17 Fingerprint scanner will be used to input ? ngerprint of teachers/students into the computer softwar e.LCD display will be displaying rolls of those whose attendance is marked. Computer Software will be interfacing ? ngerprint scanner and LCD and will be connected to the network. It will input ? ngerprint, will process it and extract features for matching. After matching, it will update database attendance records of the students. Figure 2. 1: Hardware present in classrooms Estimated Budget Estimated cost of the hardware for implementation of this system is shown in the table 2. 1. Total number of classrooms in NIT Rourkela is around 100. So number of units required will be 100. 2. 2 Attendance Management ApproachThis part explains how students and teachers will use this attendance management system. Following points will make sure that attendance is marked correctly, without any problem: (1)All the hardware will be inside classroom. So outside interference will be absent. (2)To remove unauthorized access and unwanted attempt to corrupt the hardware by students, all the hardware ex cept ? ngerprint scanner could be put inside a small 18 CHAPTER 2. ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK cabin. As an alternate solution, we can install CCTV cameras to prevent unprivileged activities. (3)When teacher enters the classroom, the attendance marking will start.Computer software will start the process after inputting ? ngerprint of teacher. It will ? nd the Subject ID, and Current Semester using the ID of the teacher or could be set manually on the software. If teacher doesn’t enter classroom, attendance marking will not start. (4)After some time, say 20 minutes of this process, no attendance will be given because of late entrance. This time period can be increased or decreased as per requirements. Figure 2. 2: Classroom Scenario 2. 3 On-Line Attendance Report Generation Database for attendance would be a table having following ? elds as a combination for primary ? ld: (1)Day,(2)Roll,(3)Subject and following non-primary ? elds: (1)Attendance,(2)Semester. Using this tabl e, all the attendance can be managed for a student. For on-line report generation, a simple website can be hosted on NIT Rourkela servers, 2. 4. NETWORK AND DATABASE MANAGEMENT 19 which will access this table for showing attendance of students. The sql queries will be used for report generation. Following query will give total numbers of classes held in subject CS423: SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT Day) FROM AttendanceTable WHERE SUBJECT = CS423 AND Attendance = 1 For attendance of oll 107CS016, against this subject, following query will be used: SELECT COUNT(Day) FROM AttendanceTable WHERE Roll = 107CS016 AND SUBJECT = CS423 AND Attendance = 1 Now the attendance percent can easily be calculated : ClassesAttended ? 100 ClassesHeld Attendance = (2. 1) 2. 4 Network and Database Management This attendance system will be spread over a wide network from classrooms via intranet to internet. Network diagram is shown in ? g. 2. 3. Using this network, attendance reports will be made available over in ternet and e-mail. A monthly report will be sent to each student via email and website will show the updated attendance.Entity relationship diagram for database of students and attendance records is shown in ? g. 2. 4. In ER diagram, primary ? elds are Roll, Date, SubjectID and TeacherID. Four tables are Student, Attendance, Subject and Teacher. Using this database, attendance could easily be maintained for students. Data? ow is shown in data ? ow diagrams (DFD) shown in ? gures 2. 5, 2. 6 and 2. 7. 2. 5 Using wireless network instead of LAN and bringing portability We are using LAN for communication among servers and hardwares in the classrooms. We can instead use wireless LAN with portable devices.Portable device will have an embedded ? ngerprint scanner, wireless connection, a microprocessor loaded with a software, memory and a display terminal, see ? gure 2. 5. Size of device could be small like a mobile phone depending upon how well the device is manufactured. 20 CHAPTER 2. ATT ENDANCE MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK Figure 2. 3: Network Diagram 2. 5. USING WIRELESS NETWORK INSTEAD OF LAN AND BRINGING PORTABILITY21 Figure 2. 4: ER Diagram 22 CHAPTER 2. ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK Figure 2. 5: Level 0 DFD Figure 2. 6: Level 1 DFD 2. 5. USING WIRELESS NETWORK INSTEAD OF LAN AND BRINGING PORTABILITY23 Figure 2. : Level 2 DFD 24 CHAPTER 2. ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK This device should have a wireless connection. Using this wireless connection, Figure 2. 8: Portable Device attendance taken would be updated automatically when device is in network of the nodes which are storing the attendance records. Database of enrolled ? ngerprints will be in this portable device. Size of enrolled database was 12. 1 MB when 150 ? ngerprints were enrolled in this project. So for 10000 students, atleast 807 MB or more space would be required for storing enrolled database. For this purpose, a removable memory chip could be used.We cannot use wireless LAN here because fetching data using wireless LAN will not be possible because of less range of wireless devices. So enrolled data would be on chip itself. Attendance results will be updated when portable device will be in the range of nodes which are storing attendance reports. We may update all the records online via the mobile network provided by di? erent companies. Today 3G network provides su? cient throughput which can be used for updating attendance records automatically without going near nodes. In such case, 2. 6. COMPARISON WITH OTHER STUDENT ATTENDANCE SYSTEMS 25 he need of database inside memory chip will not be mandatory. It will be fetched by using 3G mobile network from central database repository. The design of such a portable device is the task of embedded system engineers. 2. 5. 1 Using Portable Device In this section, we suggest the working of portable device and the method of using it for marking attendance. The device may either be having touchscreen input/display or buttons with lcd display . A software specially designed for the device will be running on it. Teachers will verify his/her ? ngerprint on the device before giving it to students for marking attendance.After verifying the teacher’s identity, software will ask for course and and other required information about the class which he or she is going to teach. Software will ask teacher the time after which device will not mark any attendance. This time can vary depending on the teacher’s mood but our suggested value is 25 minutes. This is done to prevent late entrance of students. This step will hardly take few seconds. Then students will be given device for their ? ngerprint identi? cation and attendance marking. In the continuation, teacher will start his/her lecture.Students will hand over the device to other students whose attendance is not marked. After 25 minutes or the time decided by teacher, device will not input any attendance. After the class is over, teacher will take device and will end the lecture. The main function of software running on the device will be ? ngerprint identi? cation of students followed by report generation and sending reports to servers using 3G network. Other functions will be downloading and updating the database available on the device from central database repository. 2. 6 Comparison with other student attendance systemsThere are various other kind of student attendance management systems available like RFID based student attendance system and GSM-GPRS based student attendance system. These systems have their own pros and cons. Our system is better because ? rst it saves time that could be used for teaching. Second is portability. Portability 26 CHAPTER 2. ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK has its own advantage because the device could be taken to any class wherever it is scheduled. While GSM-GPRS based systems use position of class for attendance marking which is not dynamic and if schedule or location of the class changes, wrong attendance might be marked.Problem with RFID based systems is that students have to carry RFID cards and also the RFID detectors are needed to be installed. Nonetheless, students may give proxies easily using friend’s RFID card. These problems are not in our system. We used ? ngerprints as recognition criteria so proxies cannot be given. If portable devices are used, attendance marking will be done at any place and any time. So our student attendance system is far better to be implemented at NITR. Chapter 3 Fingerprint Identi? cation System An identi? cation system is one which helps in identifying an individual among any people when detailed information is not available. It may involve matching available features of candidate like ? ngerprints with those already enrolled in database. 3. 1 How Fingerprint Recognition works? Fingerprint images that are found or scanned are not of optimum quality. So we remove noises and enhance their quality. We extract features like minutiae and others for matching. If the sets of minutiae are matched with those in the database, we call it an identi? ed ? ngerprint. After matching, we perform post-matching steps which may include showing details of identi? ed candidate, marking attendance etc.A brief ? owchart is shown in next section. 3. 2 Fingerprint Identi? cation System Flowchart A brief methodology of our Fingerprint Identi? cation System is shown here in following ? owchart. Each of these are explained in the later chapters. 27 28 CHAPTER 3. FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM Figure 3. 1: Fingerprint Identi? cation System Flowchart Chapter 4 Fingerprint Enhancement The image acquired from scanner is sometimes not of perfect quality . It gets corrupted due to irregularities and non-uniformity in the impression taken and due to variations in the skin and the presence of the scars, humidity, irt etc. To overcome these problems , to reduce noise and enhance the de? nition of ridges against valleys, various techniques are applied as following. 4. 1 Segmentation Image segmentation [1] separates the foreground regions and the background regions in the image. The foreground regions refers to the clear ? ngerprint area which contains the ridges and valleys. This is the area of interest. The background regions refers to the regions which is outside the borders of the main ? ngerprint area, which does not contain any important or valid ? ngerprint information.The extraction of noisy and false minutiae can be done by applying minutiae extraction algorithm to the background regions of the image. Thus, segmentation is a process by which we can discard these background regions, which results in more reliable extraction of minutiae points. We are going to use a method based on variance thresholding . The background regions exhibit a very low grey – scale variance value , whereas the foreground regions have a very high variance . Firstly , the image is divided into blocks and the grey-scale variance is calculated for each block in the image .If the variance is less than the global threshold , then the block is assigned to be part of background region or else 29 30 CHAPTER 4. FINGERPRINT ENHANCEMENT it is part of foreground . The grey – level variance for a block of size S x S can be calculated as : 1 V ar(k) = 2 S S? 1 S? 1 (G(i, j) ? M (k))2 i=0 j=0 (4. 1) where Var(k) is the grey – level variance for the block k , G(i,j) is the grey – level value at pixel (i,j) , and M(k) denotes the mean grey – level value for the corresponding block k . 4. 2 Normalization Image normalization is the next step in ? ngerprint enhancement process.Normalization [1] is a process of standardizing the intensity values in an image so that these intensity values lies within a certain desired range. It can be done by adjusting the range of grey-level values in the image. Let G(i, j) denotes the grey-level value at pixel (i, j), and N(i, j) represent the normalized grey-level value at pi xel (i, j). Then the normalized image can de? ned as: ? ? M + 0 N (i, j) = ? M ? 0 V0 (G(i,j)? M )2 V V0 (G(i,j)? M )2 V , if I(i, j) > M , otherwise where M0 and V0 are the estimated mean and variance of I(i, j), respectively . 4. 3 Orientation estimation The orientation ? eld of a ? ngerprint image de? es the local orientation of the ridges contained in the ? ngerprint . The orientation estimation is a fundamental step in the enhancement process as the subsequent Gabor ? ltering stage relies on the local orientation in order to e? ectively enhance the ? ngerprint image. The least mean square estimation method used by Raymond Thai [1] is used to compute the orientation image. However, instead of estimating the orientation block-wise, we have chosen to extend their method into a pixel-wise scheme, which produces a ? ner and more accurate estimation of the orientation ? eld. The steps for calculating the orientation at pixel i, j) are as follows: 4. 3. ORIENTATION ESTIMATION 31 1. Fi rstly , a block of size W x W is centered at pixel (i, j) in the normalized ? ngerprint image. 2. For each pixel in the block, compute the gradients dx (i, j) and dy (i, j), which are the gradient magnitudes in the x and y directions, respectively. The horizontal Sobel operator[6] is used to compute dx(i, j) : [1 0 -1; 2 0 -2;1 0 -1] Figure 4. 1: Orientation Estimation 3. The local orientation at pixel (i; j) can then be estimated using the following equations: i+ W 2 j+ W 2 Vx (i, j) = u=i? W 2 i+ W 2 v=j? W 2 j+ W 2 2? x (u, v)? y (u, v) (4. 2) Vy (i, j) = u=i? W v=j? W 2 2 2 2 ? (u, v) ? ?y (u, v), (4. 3) ?(i, j) = 1 Vy (i, j) tan? 1 , 2 Vx (i, j) (4. 4) where ? (i, j) is the least square estimate of the local orientation at the block centered at pixel (i, j). 4. Smooth the orientation ? eld in a local neighborhood using a Gaussian ? lter. The orientation image is ? rstly converted into a continuous vector ? eld, which is de? ned as: ? x (i, j) = cos 2? (i, j), ? y (i, j) = sin 2 ? (i, j), (4. 5) (4. 6) where ? x and ? y are the x and y components of the vector ? eld, respectively. After 32 CHAPTER 4. FINGERPRINT ENHANCEMENT the vector ? eld has been computed, Gaussian smoothing is then performed as follows: w? w? 2 ?x (i, j) = w? u=? 2 w? v=? 2 G(u, v)? x (i ? uw, j ? vw), (4. 7) w? 2 w? 2 ?y (i, j) = w? u=? 2 w? v=? 2 G(u, v)? y (i ? uw, j ? vw), (4. 8) where G is a Gaussian low-pass ? lter of size w? x w? . 5. The ? nal smoothed orientation ? eld O at pixel (i, j) is de? ned as: O(i, j) = ? y (i, j) 1 tan? 1 2 ? x (i, j) (4. 9) 4. 4 Ridge Frequency Estimation Another important parameter,in addition to the orientation image, that can be used in the construction of the Gabor ? lter is the local ridge frequency. The local frequency of the ridges in a ? ngerprint is represented by the frequency image. The ? st step is to divide the image into blocks of size W x W. In the next step we project the greylevel values of each pixels located inside each block along a direction perpendicular to the local ridge orientation. This projection results in an almost sinusoidal-shape wave with the local minimum points denoting the ridges in the ? ngerprint. It involves smoothing the projected waveform using a Gaussian lowpass ? lter of size W x W which helps in reducing the e? ect of noise in the projection. The ridge spacing S(i, j) is then calculated by counting the median number of pixels between the consecutive minima points in the projected waveform.The ridge frequency F(i, j) for a block centered at pixel (i, j) is de? ned as: F (i, j) = 1 S(i, j) (4. 10) 4. 5. GABOR FILTER 33 4. 5 Gabor ? lter Gabor ? lters [1] are used because they have orientation-selective and frequencyselective properties. Gabor ? lters are called the mother of all other ? lters as other ? lter can be derived using this ? lter. Therefore, applying a properly tuned Gabor ? lter can preserve the ridge structures while reducing noise. An even-symmetric Gabor ? lter in the spati al domain is de? ned as : 1 x2 y2 G(x, y, ? , f ) = exp{? [ ? + ? ]} cos 2? f x? , 2 2 2 ? x ? y (4. 11) x? = x cos ? + y sin ? , (4. 12) y? ? x sin ? + y cos ? , (4. 13) where ? is the orientation of the Gabor ? lter, f is the frequency of the cosine wave, ? x and ? y are the standard deviations of the Gaussian envelope along the x and y axes, respectively, and x? and y? de? ne the x and y axes of the ? lter coordinate frame respectively. The Gabor Filter is applied to the ? ngerprint image by spatially convolving the image with the ? lter. The convolution of a pixel (i,j) in the image requires the corresponding orientation value O(i,j) and the ridge frequency value F(i,j) of that pixel . wy 2 wx 2 E(i, j) = u=? wx 2 w v=? 2y G(u, v, O(i, j), F (i, j))N (i ? u, j ? v), (4. 4) where O is the orientation image, F is the ridge frequency image, N is the normalized ? ngerprint image, and wx and wy are the width and height of the Gabor ? lter mask, respectively. 34 CHAPTER 4. FINGERPRINT ENHANCEMENT 4. 6 Binarisation Most minutiae extraction algorithms operate on basically binary images where there are only two levels of interest: the black pixels represent ridges, and the white pixels represent valleys. Binarisation [1] converts a greylevel image into a binary image. This helps in improving the contrast between the ridges and valleys in a ? ngerprint image, and consequently facilitates the extraction of minutiae.One very useful property of the Gabor ? lter is that it contains a DC component of zero, which indicates that the resulting ? ltered image has a zero mean pixel value. Hence, binarisation of the image can be done by using a global threshold of zero. Binarisation involves examining the grey-level value of every pixel in the enhanced image, and, if the grey-level value is greater than the prede? ned global threshold, then the pixel value is set to value one; else, it is set to zero. The outcome of binarisation is a binary image which contains two levels of i nformation, the background valleys and the foreground ridges. . 7 Thinning Thinning is a morphological operation which is used to remove selected foreground pixels from the binary images. A standard thinning algorithm from [1] is used, which performs this operation using two subiterations. The algorithm can be accessed by a software MATLAB via the ‘thin’ operation of the bwmorph function. Each subiteration starts by examining the neighborhood of every pixel in the binary image, and on the basis of a particular set of pixel-deletion criteria, it decides whether the pixel can be removed or not. These subiterations goes on until no more pixels can be removed.Figure 4. 2: (a)Original Image, (b)Enhanced Image, (c)Binarised Image, (d)Thinned Image Chapter 5 Feature Extraction After improving quality of the ? ngerprint image we extract features from binarised and thinned images. We extract reference point, minutiae and key(used for one to many matching). 5. 1 Finding the Refer ence Point Reference point is very important feature in advanced matching algorithms because it provides the location of origin for marking minutiae. We ? nd the reference point using the algorithm as in [2]. Then we ? nd the relative position of minutiae and estimate the orientation ? ld of the reference point or the singular point. The technique is to extract core and delta points using Poincare Index. The value of Poincare index is 180o , ? 180o and 0o for a core, a delta and an ordinary point respectively. Complex ? lters are used to produce blur at di? erent resolutions. Singular point (SP) or reference point is the point of maximum ? lter response of these ? lters applied on image. Complex ? lters , exp(im? ) , of order m (= 1 and -1) are used to produce ? lter response. Four level resolutions are used here:level 0, level 1, level 2, level 3.Level 3 is lowest resolution and level 0 is highest resolution. Only ? lters of ? rst order are used : h = (x + iy)m g(x, y) where g(x,y) is a gaussian de? ned as g(x, y) = exp? ((x2 + y 2 )/2? 2 ) and m = 1, ? 1. Filters are applied to the complex valued orientation tensor ? eld image z(x, y) = (fx + ify )2 and not directly to the image. Here f x is the derivative of the original image in the x-direction and f y is the derivative in the y-direction. To ? nd the position of a possible 35 36 CHAPTER 5. FEATURE EXTRACTION Figure 5. 1: Row 1: ? lter response c1k , k = 3, 2, and 1. Row 2: ? ter response c2k , k = 3, 2, and 1. SP in a ? ngerprint the maximum ? lter response is extracted in image c13 and in c23 (i. e. ?lter response at m = 1 and level 3 (c13 ) and at m = ? 1 and level 3 (c23 )). The search is done in a window computed in the previous higher level (low resolution). The ? lter response at lower level (high resolution) is used for ? nding response at higher level (low resolution). At a certain resolution (level k), if cnk (xj , yj ) is higher than a threshold an SP is found and its position (xj , yj ) and the complex ? lter response cnk (xj , yj ) are noted. 5. 2 5. 2. 1Minutiae Extraction and Post-Processing Minutiae Extraction The most commonly employed method of minutiae extraction is the Crossing Number (CN) concept [1] . This method involves the use of the skeleton image where the ridge ? ow pattern is eight-connected. The minutiae are extracted by scanning the local neighborhood of each ridge pixel in the image using a 3 x 3 window. The CN value is then computed, which is de? ned as half the sum of the di? erences between pairs of adjacent pixels in the eight-neighborhood. Using the properties of the CN as shown in ? gure 5, the ridge pixel can then be classi? d as a ridge ending, bifurcation or non-minutiae point. For example, a ridge pixel with a CN of one corresponds to a ridge ending, and a CN of three corresponds to a bifurcation. 5. 2. MINUTIAE EXTRACTION AND POST-PROCESSING Table 5. 1: Properties of Crossing Number CN Property 0 Isolated Point 1 Ridge Ending Point 2 Continu ing Ridge Point 3 Bifurcation Point 4 Crossing Point 37 Figure 5. 2: Examples of (a)ridge-ending (CN=1) and (b)bifurcation pixel (CN=3) 5. 2. 2 Post-Processing False minutiae may be introduced into the image due to factors such as noisy images, and image artefacts created by the thinning process.Hence, after the minutiae are extracted, it is necessary to employ a post-processing [1] stage in order to validate the minutiae. Figure 5. 3 illustrates some examples of false minutiae structures, which include the spur, hole, triangle and spike structures . It can be seen that the spur structure generates false ridge endings, where as both the hole and triangle structures generate false bifurcations. The spike structure creates a false bifurcation and a false ridge ending point. Figure 5. 3: Examples of typical false minutiae structures : (c)Triangle, (d)Spike (a)Spur, (b)Hole, 38 CHAPTER 5.FEATURE EXTRACTION 5. 2. 3 Removing Boundary Minutiae For removing boundary minutiae, we used pixel- density approach. Any point on the boundary will have less white pixel density in a window centered at it, as compared to inner minutiae. We calculated the limit, which indicated that pixel density less than that means it is a boundary minutiae. We calculated it according to following formula: limit = ( w w ? (ridgedensity)) ? Wf req 2 (5. 1) where w is the window size, Wf req is the window size used to compute ridge density. Figure 5. 4: Skeleton of window centered at boundary minutiaeFigure 5. 5: Matrix Representation of boundary minutiae Now, in thinned image, we sum all the pixels in the window of size w centered at the boundary minutiae. If sum is less than limit, the minutiae is considered as boundary minutiae and is discarded. 5. 3. EXTRACTION OF THE KEY 39 5. 3 5. 3. 1 Extraction of the key What is key? Key is used as a hashing tool in this project. Key is small set of few minutiae closest to reference point. We match minutiae sets, if the keys of sample and query ? ngerprin ts matches. Keys are stored along with minutiae sets in the database.Advantage of using key is that, we do not perform full matching every time for non-matching minutiae sets, as it would be time consuming. For large databases, if we go on matching full minutiae set for every enrolled ? ngerprint, it would waste time unnecessarily. Two types of keys are proposed – simple and complex. Simple key has been used in this project. Figure 5. 6: Key Representation Simple Key This type of key has been used in this project. Minutiae which constitute this key are ten minutiae closest to the reference point or centroid of all minutiae, in sorted 40 CHAPTER 5. FEATURE EXTRACTION order. Five ? lds are stored for each key value i. e. (x, y, ? , t, r). (x, y) is the location of minutiae, ? is the value of orientation of ridge related to minutia with respect to orientation of reference point, t is type of minutiae, and r is distance of minutiae from origin. Due to inaccuracy and imperfection of reference point detection algorithm, we used centroid of all minutiae for construction of key. Complex Key The complex key stores more information and is structurally more complex. It stores vector of minutiae in which next minutiae is closest to previous minutiae, starting with reference point or centroid of all minutiae.It stores < x, y, ? , t, r, d, ? >. Here x,y,t,r,? are same, d is distance from previous minutiae entry and ? is di? erence in ridge orientation from previous minutiae. Data: minutiaelist = Minutiae Set, refx = x-cordinate of centroid, refy = y-cordinate of centroid Result: Key d(10)=null; for j = 1 to 10 do for i = 1 to rows(minutiaelist) do d(i) Chapter 6 Partitioning of Database Before we partition the database, we perform gender estimation and classi? cation. 6. 1 Gender Estimation In [3], study on 100 males and 100 females revealed that signi? cant sex di? erences occur in the ? ngerprint ridge density.Henceforth, gender of the candidate can be estimated on the basis of given ? ngerprint data. Henceforth, gender of the candidate can be estimated on the basis of given ? ngerprint data. Based on this estimation, searching for a record in the database can be made faster. Method for ? nding mean ridge density and estimated gender: The highest and lowest values for male and female ridge densities will be searched. If ridge density of query ? ngerprint is less than the lowest ridge density value of females, the query ? ngerprint is obviously of a male. Similarly, if it is higher than highest ridge density value of males, the query ? gerprint is of a female. So the searching will be carried out in male or female domains. If the value is between these values, we search on the basis of whether the mean of these values is less than the density of query image or higher. 41 42 CHAPTER 6. PARTITIONING OF DATABASE Figure 6. 1: Gender Estimation 6. 1. GENDER ESTIMATION Data: Size of Database = N; Ridge Density of query ? ngerprint = s Result: Estima ted Gender i. e. male or female maleupperlimit=0; femalelowerlimit=20; mean=0; for image < femalelowerlimit then femalelowerlimit 43 if s < maleupperlimit then estimatedgender 44 CHAPTER 6.PARTITIONING OF DATABASE 6. 2 Classi? cation of Fingerprint We divide ? ngerprint into ? ve classes – arch or tented arch, left loop, right loop, whorl and unclassi? ed. The algorithm for classi? cation [4] is used in this project. They used a ridge classi? cation algorithm that involves three categories of ridge structures:nonrecurring ridges, type I recurring ridges and type II recurring ridges. N1 and N2 represent number of type I recurring ridges and type II recurring ridges respectively. Nc and Nd are number of core and delta in the ? ngerprint. To ? nd core and delta, separate 135o blocks from orientation image. 35o blocks are shown in following ? gures. Figure 6. 2: 135o blocks of a ? ngerprint Based on number of such blocks and their relative positions, the core and delta are found using Poincare index method. After these, classi? cation is done as following: 1. If (N2 > 0) and (Nc = 2) and (Nd = 2), then a whorl is identi? ed. 2. If (N1 = 0) and (N2 = 0) and (Nc = 0) and (Nd = 0), then an arch is identi? ed. 3. If (N1 > 0) and (N2 = 0) and (Nc = 1) and (Nd = 1), then classify the input using the core and delta assessment algorithm[4]. 4. If (N2 > T2) and (Nc > 0), then a whorl is identi? ed. 5.If (N1 > T1) and (N2 = 0) and (Nc = 1) then classify the input using the core and delta assessment algorithm[4]. 6. If (Nc = 2), then a whorl is identi? ed. 7. If (Nc = 1) and (Nd = 1), then classify the input using the core and delta assessment algorithm[4]. 8. If (N1 > 0) and (Nc = 1), then classify the input using the core and delta assessment algorithm. 6. 3. PARTITIONING 9. If (Nc = 0) and (Nd = 0), then an arch is identi? ed. 10. If none of the above conditions is satis? ed, then reject the ? ngerprint. 45 Figure 6. 3: Fingerprint Classes (a)Left Loop, (b)Right Lo op, (c)Whorl, (d1)Arch, (d2)Tented Arch . 3 Partitioning After we estimate gender and ? nd the class of ? ngerprint, we know which ? ngerprints to be searched in the database. We roughly divide database into one-tenth using the above parameters. This would roughly reduce identi? cation time to one-tenth. 46 CHAPTER 6. PARTITIONING OF DATABASE Figure 6. 4: Partitioning Database Chapter 7 Matching Matching means ? nding most appropriate similar ? ngerprint to query ? ngerprint. Fingerprints are matched by matching set of minutiae extracted. Minutiae sets never match completely, so we compute match score of matching. If match score satis? s accuracy needs, we call it successful matching. We used a new key based one to many matching intended for large databases. 7. 1 Alignment Before we go for matching, minutiae set need to be aligned(registered) with each other. For alignment problems, we used hough transform based registration technique similar to one used by Ratha et al[5]. Minutiae alignment is done in two steps minutiae registration and pairing. Minutiae registration involves aligning minutiae using parameters < ? x, ? y, ? > which range within speci? ed limits. (? x, ? y) are translational parameters and ? is rotational parameter.Using these parameters, minutiae sets are rotated and translated within parameters limits. Then we ? nd pairing scores of each transformation and transformation giving maximum score is registered as alignment transformation. Using this transformation < ? x, ? y, ? >, we align query minutiae set with the database minutiae set. Algorithm is same as in [5] but we have excluded factor ? s i. e. the scaling parameter because it does not a? ect much the alignment process. ? lies from -20 degrees to 20 degrees in steps of 1 or 2 generalized as < ? 1 , ? 2 , ? 3 †¦? k > where k is number of rotations applied.For every query minutiae i we check if ? k + ? i = ? j where ? i and ? j are orientation 47 48 CHAPTER 7. MATCHING parameters of ith minutia of query minutiae set and j th minutia of database minutiae set. If condition is satis? ed, A(i,j,k) is ? agged as 1 else 0. For all these ? agged values, (? x, ? y) is calculated using following formula: ? (? x , ? y ) = qj ? ? cos? sin? ? ? ? pi , (7. 1) ?sin? cos? where qj and pi are the coordinates of j th minutiae of database minutiae set and ith minutiae of query minutiae set respectively. Using these < ? x, ?y, ? k > values, whole query minutiae set is aligned.This aligned minutiae set is used to compute pairing score. Two minutiae are said to be paired only when they lie in same bounding box and have same orientation. Pairing score is (number of paired minutiae)/(total number of minutiae). The i,j,k values which have highest pairing score are ? nally used to align minutiae set. Co-ordinates of aligned minutiae are found using the formula: ? qj = ? cos? sin? ? ? ? pi + (? x , ? y ), (7. 2) ?sin? cos? After alignment, minutiae are stored in sorted order of their di stance from their centroid or core. 7. 2 Existing Matching TechniquesMost popular matching technique of today is the simple minded n2 matching where n is number of minutiae. In this matching each minutiae of query ? ngerprint is matched with n minutiae of sample ? ngerprint giving total number of n2 comparisons. This matching is very orthodox and gives headache when identi? cation is done on large databases. 7. 3 One to Many matching Few algorithms are proposed by many researchers around the world which are better than normal n2 matching. But all of them are one to one veri? cation or one to one identi? cation matching types. We developed a one to many matching technique which uses key as the hashing tool.Initially, we do not match minutiae sets instead we per- 7. 3. ONE TO MANY MATCHING 49 form key matching with many keys of database. Those database ? ngerprints whose keys match with key of query ? ngerprint, are allowed for full minutiae matching. Key matching and full matching ar e performed using k*n matching algorithm discussed in later section. Following section gives method for one to many matching. Data: Query Fingerprint; Result: Matching Results; Acquire Fingerprint, Perform Enhancement, Find Fingerprint Class, Extract Minutiae, Remove Spurious and Boundary Minutiae, Extract Key,Estimate Gender; M . 3. 1 Method of One to Many Matching The matching algorithm will be involving matching the key of the query ? ngerprint with the many(M) keys of the database. Those which matches ,their full matching will be processed, else the query key will be matched with next M keys and so on. 50 Data: Gender, Class, i; Result: Matching Results; egender CHAPTER 7. MATCHING if keymatchstatus = success then eminutiae 7. 4 Performing key match and full matching Both key matching and full matching are performed using our k*n matching technique. Here k is a constant(recommended value is 15) chosen by us.In this method, we match ith minutiae of query set with k unmatched minu tiae of sample set. Both the query sets and sample sets must be in sorted order of distance from reference point or centroid. ith minutia of query minutiae list is matched with top k unmatched minutiae of database minutiae set. This type of matching reduces matching time of n2 to k*n. If minutiae are 80 in number and we chose k to be 15, the total number of comparisons will reduce from 80*80=6400 to 80*15=1200. And this means our matching will be k/n times faster than n2 matching. 7. 5. TIME COMPLEXITY OF THIS MATCHING TECHNIQUE 51 Figure 7. : One to Many Matching 7. 5 Time Complexity of this matching technique Let s = size of the key, n = number of minutiae, N = number of ? ngerprints matched till successful identi? cation, k = constant (see previous section). There would be N-1 unsuccessful key matches, one successful key match, one successful full match. Time for N-1 unsuccessful key matches is (N-1)*s*k (in worst case), for successful full match is s*k and for full match is n*k. Total time is (N-1)*s*k+n*k+s*k = k(s*N+n). Here s=10 and we have reduced database to be searched to 1/10th ,so N matching technique, it would have been O(Nn2 ).For large databases, our matching technique is best to use. Averaging for every ? ngerprint, we have O(1+n/N) in this identi? cation process which comes to O(1) when N >> n. So we can say that our identi? cation system has constant average matching time when database size is millions. Chapter 8 Experimental Analysis 8. 1 Implementation Environment We tested our algorithm on several databases like FVC2004, FVC2000 and Veri? nger databases. We used a computer with 2GB RAM and 1. 83 GHz Intel Core2Duo processor and softwares like Matlab10 and MSAccess10. 8. 2 8. 2. 1 Fingerprint Enhancement Segmentation and NormalizationSegmentation was performed and it generated a mask matrix which has values as 1 for ridges and 0 for background . Normalization was done with mean = 0 and variance = 1 (? g 8. 1). Figure 8. 1: Normalized Image 52 8. 2. FINGERPRINT ENHANCEMENT 53 8. 2. 2 Orientation Estimation In orientation estimation, we used block size = 3*3. Orientations are shown in ? gure 8. 2. Figure 8. 2: Orientation Image 8. 2. 3 Ridge Frequency Estimation Ridge density and mean ridge density were calculated. Darker blocks indicated low ridge density and vice-versa. Ridge frequencies are shown in ? gure 8. 3. Figure 8. 3: Ridge Frequency Image 8. 2. 4Gabor Filters Gabor ? lters were employed to enhance quality of image. Orientation estimation and ridge frequency images are requirements for implementing gabor ? lters. ?x and ? y are taken 0. 5 in Raymond Thai, but we used ? x = 0. 7 and ? y = 0. 7. Based on these values , we got results which were satis? able and are shown in ? gure 8. 4. 54 CHAPTER 8. EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS Figure 8. 4: Left-Original Image, Right-Enhanced Image 8. 2. 5 Binarisation and Thinning After the ? ngerprint image is enhanced, it is then converted to binary form, and submitted to the thinni ng algorithm which reduces the ridge thickness to one pixel wide.Results of binarisation are shown in ? gure 8. 5 and of thinning are shown in ? gure 8. 6. Figure 8. 5: Binarised Image 8. 3. FEATURE EXTRACTION 55 Figure 8. 6: Thinned Image 8. 3 8. 3. 1 Feature Extraction Minutiae Extraction and Post Processing Minutiae Extraction Using the crossing number method, we extracted minutiae. For this we used skeleton image or the thinned image. Due to low quality of ? ngerprint, a lot of false and boundary minutiae were found. So we moved forward for post-processing step. Results are shown in ? gure 8. 7 and 8. 8. Figure 8. 7: All Extracted Minutiae 56 CHAPTER 8. EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSISFigure 8. 8: Composite Image with spurious and boundary minutiae After Removing Spurious and Boundary Minutiae False minutiae were removed using method described in earlier section. For removing boundary minutiae, we employed our algorithm which worked ? ne and minutiae extraction results are shown in table 8 . 2. Results are shown in ? gure 8. 9 and 8. 10. Figure 8. 9: Minutiae Image after post-processing As we can see from table 8. 2 that removing boundary minutiae considerably reduced the number of false minutiae from minutiae extraction results. 8. 4. GENDER ESTIMATION AND CLASSIFICATION 57 Figure 8. 0: Composite Image after post-processing Table 8. 1: Average Number of Minutiae before and after post-processing DB After After Removing After Removing Used Extraction Spurious Ones Boundary Minutiae FVC2004DB4 218 186 93 FVC2004DB3 222 196 55 8. 3. 2 Reference Point Detection For reference point extraction we used complex ? lters as described earlier. For a database size of 300, reference point was found with success rate of 67. 66 percent. 8. 4 8. 4. 1 Gender Estimation and Classi? cation Gender Estimation Average ridge density was calculated along with minimum and maximum ridge densities shown in table 8. . Mean ridge density was used to divide the database into two parts. This reduce d database size to be searched by half. Based on the information available about the gender of enrolled student, we can apply our gender estimation algorithm which will further increase the speed of identi? cation. 8. 4. 2 Classi? cation Fingerprint classi? cation was performed on both original and enhanced images. Results were more accurate on the enhanced image. We used same algorithm as in sec 6. 2 to classify the ? ngerprint into ? ve classes – arch, left loop, right loop, whorl and 58 CHAPTER 8.EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS Figure 8. 11: Plotted Minutiae with Reference Point(Black Spot) Table 8. 2: Ridge Density Calculation Results Window Minimum Maximum Mean Total Average Size Ridge Ridge Ridge Time Time Taken Density Density Density Taken Taken 36 6. 25 9. 50 7. 87 193. 76 sec 1. 46 sec unclassi? ed. This classi? cation was used to divide the database into ? ve parts which would reduce the database to be searched to one-? fth and ultimately making this identi? cation process ? ve times faster. Results of classi? cation are shown in table 8. 4, 8. 5 and 8. 6. 8. 5 EnrollingAt the time of enrolling personal details like name, semester, gender, age, roll number etc. were asked to input by the user and following features of ? ngerprint were saved in the database (1)Minutiae Set (2)Key (3)Ridge Density (4)Class Total and average time taken for enrolling ? ngerprints in database is shown in table 8. 6. MATCHING Table 8. 3: Classi? cation Results on Original Image Class No. of (1-5) Images 1 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 121 Table 8. 4: Classi? cation Results on Enhanced Image Class No. of (1-5) Images 1 8 2 3 3 3 4 6 5 112 59 8. 7. All the personal details were stored in the MS Access database and were modi? d by running sql queries inside matlab. Fingerprint features were stored in txt format inside a separate folder. When txt ? le were used, the process of enrolling was faster as compared to storing the values in MS Access DB. It was due to the overhead of connections, ru nning sql queries for MS Access DB. 8. 6 Matching Fingerprint matching is required by both veri? cation and identi? cation processes. 8. 6. 1 Fingerprint Veri? cation Results Fingerprint veri? cation is the process of matching two ? ngerprints against each other to verify whether they belong to same person or not. When a ? gerprint matches with the ? ngerprint of same individual, we call it true accept or if it doesn’t, we call it false reject. In the same way if the ? ngerprint of di? erent individuals match, we call it a false accept or if it rejects them, it is true reject. False Accept Rate (FAR) and False Reject Rate (FRR) are the error rates which are used to express matching trustability. FAR is de? ned by the formula : 60 CHAPTER 8. EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS Table 8. 5: Time taken for Classi? cation Image Average Total Taken Time(sec) Time(sec) Original 0. 5233 69. 07 Enhanced 0. 8891 117. 36 Table 8. : Time taken for Enrolling No. of Storage Average Total Images Type Tim e(sec) Time(hrs) 294 MS Access DB 24. 55 2. 046 60 MS Access DB 29. 37 0. 49 150 TXT ? les 15. 06 1. 255 F AR = FA ? 100, N (8. 1) FA = Number of False Accepts, N = Total number of veri? cations FRR is de? ned by the formula : FR ? 100, N F RR = (8. 2) FR = Number of False Rejects. FAR and FRR calculated over six templates of Veri? nger DB are shown in table 8. 8. This process took approximately 7 hours. 8. 6. 2 Identi? cation Results and Comparison with Other Matching techniques Fingerprint identi? cation is the process of identifying a query ? gerprint from a set of enrolled ? ngerprints. Identi? cation is usually a slower process because we have to search over a large database. Currently we match minutiae set of query ? ngerprint with the minutiae sets of enrolled ? ngerprints. In this project, we store key in the database at the time of enrolling. This key as explained in sec 5. 3 helps in 8. 6. MATCHING Table 8. 7: Error Rates FAR FRR 4. 56 12. 5 14. 72 4. 02 61 Figure 8. 12: G raph: Time taken for Identi? cation vs Size of Database(key based one to many identi? cation) reducing matching time over non-matching ? ngerprints. For non-matching enrolled ? gerprints, we don’t perform full matching, instead a key matching. Among one or many keys which matched in one iteration of one to many matching, we allow full minutiae set matching. Then if any full matching succeeds, we perform post matching steps. This identi? cation scheme has lesser time complexity as compared to conventional n2 one to one identi? cation. Identi? cation results are shown in table 8. 9. The graph of time versus N is shown in ? gure 8. 13. Here N is the index of ? ngerprint to be identi? ed from a set of enrolled ? ngerprints. Size of database of enrolled ? ngerprints was 150. So N can vary from