Huiqi Lu

M-Commerce Secured Using Web-Enabled Mobile Biometric Agents

M-commerce brings challenges for both individuals and society. The creation and maintenance of secure identities for online payment has emerged as an important priority of businesses and consumers. In order to address some of these challenges we implement an efficient biometric mobile payment authorization system combined with an embedded commercial barcode reader to provide a worldwide platform-independent mobile payment authentication and tracking system. Pixel oriented methods are implemented in our algorithms to facilitate this low- power computing application. As a result, a standard VGA sized iris image can be verified within 100 ms and the 1-Dimensinal or 2-Demensinal barcode can be real-time decoded while providing product information or payment instructions via a network connection. This combination of barcode reading and customer identity authentication provides a powerful tool for secure m- Commerce applications.

Automated segmentation of the choroid in retinal optical coherence tomography images

The choroid is a tissue layer at the back of the eye, which can be imaged by optical coherence tomography (OCT). Choroidal thickness has been proven to be correlated to several ophthalmic diseases in several studies. In this paper we proposed a novel segmentation technique to address this challenge. This technique firstly automatically segments the inner boundary of the choroid using a two-stage fast active contour model. It secondly allows a real-time human-supervised automated segmentation on the outer boundary of the choroid. Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) was used to evaluate the agreement between manual annotation and our automated measurements on 30 images captured from patients diagnosed with diabetes. The mean DSC value is 92.7% (standard deviation 3.6%) in the range of 85.5% to 98.1%. Results show that this new technique can achieve choroid segmentation with high accuracy.

Iris Recognition on Low Computational Power Mobile Devices

The growth in the use of smart mobile phones and PDAs, see Figure 1, for business transactions incorporating high performance cameras has created the possibility for developing camera and image processing applications for identity verification using handheld devices. The objective is to create a reliable, portable way of identifying and authenticating individuals. Another objective is to investigate the low power computing technology and establish a real-time biometrics software application. Improved, optimized and application specific image processing techniques are required to adapt to the currently available computing power on mobile phones.

Standardization of choroidal thickness measurements using enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography

AIM To describe and evaluate a standardized protocol for measuring the choroidal thickness (ChT) using enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI OCT). METHODS Single 9 mm EDI OCT line scans across the fovea were used for this study. The protocol used in this study classified the EDI OCT images into four groups based on the appearance of the choroidal-scleral interface and suprachoroidal space. Two evaluation iterations of experiments were performed: first, the protocol was validated in a pilot study of 12 healthy eyes. Afterwards, the applicability of the protocol was tested in 82 eyes of patients with diabetes. Inter-observer and intra-observer agreements on image classifications were performed using Cohens kappa coefficient (κ). Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland-Altmans methodology were used for the measurement of the ChT. RESULTS There was a moderate (κ=0.42) and perfect (κ=1) inter- and intra-observer agreements on image classifications from healthy eyes images and substantial (κ=0.66) and almost perfect (κ=0.86) agreements from diabetic eyes images. The proposed protocol showed excellent inter- and intra-observer agreements for the ChT measurements on both, healthy eyes and diabetic eyes (ICC>0.90 in all image categories). The Bland-Altman plot showed a relatively large ChT measurement agreement in the scans that contained less visible choroidal outer boundary. CONCLUSIONS A protocol to standardize ChT measurements in EDI OCT images has been developed; the results obtained using this protocol show that the technique is accurate and reliable for routine clinical practice and research.

Dynamics of a rotating shaft—disc under a periodic axial force

Abstract Under a periodic axial force, a rotating Timoshenko shaft with a rigid unsymmetrical disc was modelled as a parametrically excited system using the finite-element method. Using a harmonic balance method, dynamic stability of the system was checked, steady-state response, undamped resonance condition, and disc centre orbit were solved analytically and discussed numerically. Furthermore, the time history response was calculated to verify the efficiency of the solutions. The discussion shows that the fluctuating part of the axial force results in system dynamic instability, and the parameter regions of dynamic instability are enlarged with increasing amplitude of the fluctuation; the disc centre orbit of the system steady-state response is limited to an annular region, and the orbit width is increased by the axial force fluctuating amplitude; besides the neighbourhood of the system critical speed, the shaft—disc system can undergo some additional resonances due to the fluctuating axial force.

An agent-oriented mobile payment system secured using a biometrics approach

The significant market growth of mobile commerce brings challenges for individuals, society and technology. The creation and maintenance of secure identities for online payment has emerged as an important priority for business and consumers. In order to address some of these challenges, an agent-oriented Biometric Mobile Payment (BMP) system is developed to provide a platform-independent payment system compatible with mobile phones. This system combines two elements: a mobile two-dimensional barcode reader and a Mobile Biometric Identification (MBI) system. In this application, mobile phone users can use the two-dimensional barcode reader to scan the barcodes of products or a bill that they would like to purchase or pay, and make payments via the mobile phone using the MBI system. By using this approach, fraud committed by impostors and the risks for financial institutions and mobile phone operators can be greatly reduced. By adopting the agent-oriented system design, the MBI system and mobile two-dimensional barcode reader can be used as stand-alone tools or they can collaborate seamlessly as a BMP system. The reusability of the software agents also allows more applications to use the MBI and BMP systems in future applications.

Vibration of a rotating flexible ferromagnetic disc subjected to a solenoid electromagnet

A rotating flexible ferromagnetic annular disc with initial unstressed transverse runout subjected to a solenoid electromagnet is modelled and investigated. The total transverse deflection of the steady-state response of the rotating disc is analysed, and the condition of undamped resonance induced by the initial transverse runout and the stiffness of the electromagnetic force is evaluated. A quadratic eigenvalue problem is obtained and employed to study natural frequency and dynamic stability of the rotating disc. Analytical results show that the solenoid electromagnet can cause not only dynamic instability but also system resonance of the rotating disc if it has the initial transverse runout; the instability and resonance tend to occur at a lower rotational speed with the increase of the stiffness of the electromagnetic force.

A symbian based mobile user authorization system using mobile networks

Authorization means using techniques to establish identity, based on the knowledge and information you know, have or are. A user name and a password is the knowledge people know, for example. Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card in your mobile or a security ID card is what people have. Biometrics information, such as iris, fingerprint or face structure are what people are. The main theme of this paper is using a mobile authorization application to demonstrate using an integrated Symbian development environment to support wireless network connections and protect information security. In this paper, a Mobile Biometric Identification (MBI) system is introduced. This application was developed using Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) on a UIQ2.1 platform, executed on a Sony Ericsson P800 mobile phone.