Digital Library

Vol. 8, No. 3, Sep. 2012  

1. Texture Comparison with an Orientation Matching Scheme
   Nguyen Cao Truong Hai, Do-Yeon Kim, Hyuk-Ro Park
   Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 389-398, Sep. 2012  
   https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.389
   Details
   Keywords: Orientation Matching, Texture analysis, Texture Comparison, k-Means Clustering
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   Texture is an important visual feature for image analysis. Many approaches have been proposed to model and analyze texture features. Although these approaches significantly contribute to various image-based applications, most of these methods are sensitive to the changes in the scale and orientation of the texture pattern. Because textures vary in scale and orientations frequently, this easily leads to pattern mismatching if the features are compared to each other without considering the scale and/or orientation of textures. This paper suggests an Orientation Matching Scheme (OMS) to ease the problem of mismatching rotated patterns. In OMS, a pair of texture features will be compared to each other at various orientations to identify the best matched direction for comparison. A database including rotated texture images was generated for experiments. A synthetic retrieving experiment was conducted on the generated database to examine the performance of the proposed scheme. We also applied OMS to the similarity computation in a K-means clustering algorithm. The purpose of using K-means is to examine the scheme exhaustively in unpromising conditions, where initialized seeds are randomly selected and algorithms work heuristically. Results from both types of experiments show that the proposed OMS can help improve the performance when dealing with rotated patterns.


2. A Vision-Based Method to Find Fingertips in a Closed Hand
   Ankit Chaudhary, Kapil Vatwani, Tushar Agrawal, J.L. Raheja
   Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 399-408, Sep. 2012  
   https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.399
   Details
   Keywords: Hand Shape Parameters, Fingertips Detection, Skin Filter, Natural Computing, Corner detection
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   Hand gesture recognition is an important area of research in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). The geometric attributes of the hand play an important role in hand shape reconstruction and gesture recognition. That said, fingertips are one of the important attributes for the detection of hand gestures and can provide valuable information from hand images. Many methods are available in scientific literature for fingertips detection with an open hand but very poor results are available for fingertips detection when the hand is closed. This paper presents a new method for the detection of fingertips in a closed hand using the corner detection method and an advanced edge detection algorithm. It is important to note that the skin color segmentation methodology did not work for fingertips detection in a closed hand. Thus the proposed method applied Gabor filter techniques for the detection of edges and then applied the corner detection algorithm for the detection of fingertips through the edges. To check the accuracy of the method, this method was tested on a vast number of images taken with a webcam. The method resulted in a higher accuracy rate of detections from the images. The method was further implemented on video for testing its validity on real time image capturing. These closed hand fingertips detection would help in controlling an electro-mechanical robotic hand via hand gesture in a natural way.


3. A Method for Learning Macro-Actions for Virtual Characters Using Programming by Demonstration and Reinforcement Learning
   Yunsick Sung, Kyungeun Cho
   Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 409-420, Sep. 2012  
   https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.409
   Details
   Keywords: Reinforcement Learning, Monte Carlo Method, Behavior Generation Model, Programming B y Demonstration, Macro-Action, Multi-Step Action
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   The decision-making by agents in games is commonly based on reinforcement learning. To improve the quality of agents, it is necessary to solve the problems of the time and state space that are required for learning. Such problems can be solved by Macro-Actions, which are defined and executed by a sequence of primitive actions. In this line of research, the learning time is reduced by cutting down the number of policy decisions by agents. Macro-Actions were originally defined as combinations of the same primitive actions. Based on studies that showed the generation of Macro-Actions by learning, Macro-Actions are now thought to consist of diverse kinds of primitive actions. However an enormous amount of learning time and state space are required to generate Macro-Actions. To resolve these issues, we can apply insights from studies on the learning of tasks through Programming by Demonstration (PbD) to generate Macro- Actions that reduce the learning time and state space. In this paper, we propose a method to define and execute Macro-Actions. Macro-Actions are learned from a human subject via PbD and a policy is learned by reinforcement learning. In an experiment, the proposed method was applied to a car simulation to verify the scalability of the proposed method. Data was collected from the driving control of a human subject, and then the Macro- Actions that are required for running a car were generated. Furthermore, the policy that is necessary for driving on a track was learned. The acquisition of Macro-Actions by PbD reduced the driving time by about 16% compared to the case in which Macro-Actions were directly defined by a human subject. In addition, the learning time was also reduced by a faster convergence of the optimum policies.


4. A New Approach to Fingerprint Detection Using a Combination of Minutiae Points and Invariant Moments Parameters
   Sarnali Basak, Md. Imdadul Islam, M. R. Amin
   Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 421-436, Sep. 2012  
   https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.421
   Details
   Keywords: Random Variable, Skewness, Kurtosis, Invariant Moment, Termination And Bifurcation Points, Virtual Core Point
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   Different types of fingerprint detection algorithms that are based on extraction of minutiae points are prevalent in recent literature. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm to locate the virtual core point/centroid of an image. The Euclidean distance between the virtual core point and the minutiae points is taken as a random variable. The mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis of the random variable are taken as the statistical parameters of the image to observe the similarities or dissimilarities among fingerprints from the same or different persons. Finally, we verified our observations with a moment parameter-based analysis of some previous works.


5. Using an Adaptive Search Tree to Predict User Location
   Sechang Oh
   Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 437-444, Sep. 2012  
   https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.437
   Details
   Keywords: Location Prediction, Learning System, Search Tree, Context-Awareness
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   In this paper, we propose a method for predicting a user’s location based on their past movement patterns. There is no restriction on the length of past movement patterns when using this method to predict the current location. For this purpose, a modified search tree has been devised. The search tree is constructed in an effective manner while it additionally learns the movement patterns of a user one by one. In fact, the time complexity of the learning process for a movement pattern is linear. In this process, the search tree expands to take into consideration more details about the movement patterns when a pattern that conflicts with an existing trained pattern is found. In this manner, the search tree is trained to make an exact matching, as needed, for location prediction. In the experiments, the results showed that this method is highly accurate in comparison with more complex and sophisticated methods. Also, the accuracy deviation of users of this method is significantly lower than for any other methods. This means that this method is highly stable for the variations of behavioral patterns as compared to any other method. Finally, 1.47 locations were considered on average for making a prediction with this method. This shows that the prediction process is very efficient


6. Iris Recognition Using Ridgelets
   Lenina Birgale, Manesh Kokare
   Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 445-458, Sep. 2012  
   https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.445
   Details
   Keywords: Ridgelets, Texture, Wavelets, Biometrics, features, Database
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   Image feature extraction is one of the basic works for biometric analysis. This paper presents the novel concept of application of ridgelets for iris recognition systems. Ridgelet transforms are the combination of Radon transforms and Wavelet transforms. They are suitable for extracting the abundantly present textural data that is in an iris. The technique proposed here uses the ridgelets to form an iris signature and to represent the iris. This paper contributes towards creating an improved iris recognition system. There is a reduction in the feature vector size, which is 1X4 in size. The False Acceptance Rate (FAR) and False Rejection Rate (FRR) were also reduced and the accuracy increased. The proposed method also avoids the iris normalization process that is traditionally used in iris recognition systems. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method achieves an accuracy of 99.82%, 0.1309% FAR, and 0.0434% FRR.


7. Web-Based Computational System for Protein- Protein Interaction Inference
   Ki-Bong Kim
   Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 459-470, Sep. 2012  
   https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.459
   Details
   Keywords: Protein-Protein Interactions (PPIs), WASPI (Web-based Assistant System for Protein-protein interaction Inference), InterPro, InterProScan, BLAST
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   Recently, high-throughput technologies such as the two-hybrid system, protein chip, Mass Spectrometry, and the phage display have furnished a lot of data on protein-protein interactions (PPIs), but the data has not been accurate so far and the quantity has also been limited. In this respect, computational techniques for the prediction and validation of PPIs have been developed. However, existing computational methods do not take into account the fact that a PPI is actually originated from the interactions of domains that each protein contains. So, in this work, the information on domain modules of individual proteins has been employed in order to find out the protein interaction relationship. The system developed here, WASPI (Web-based Assistant System for Protein-protein interaction Inference), has been implemented to provide many functional insights into the protein interactions and their domains. To achieve those objectives, several preprocessing steps have been taken. First, the domain module information of interacting proteins was extracted by taking advantage of the InterPro database, which includes protein families, domains, and functional sites. The InterProScan program was used in this preprocess. Second, the homology comparison with the GO (Gene Ontology) and COG (Clusters of Orthologous Groups) with an E-value of 10-5, 10-3 respectively, was employed to obtain the information on the function and annotation of each interacting protein of a secondary PPI database in the WASPI. The BLAST program was utilized for the homology comparison


8. Performance Evaluation of Multi-Hop Communication Based on a Mobile Multi-Robot System in a Subterranean Laneway
   Qing-Ling Liu, Duk-Hwan Oh
   Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 471-482, Sep. 2012  
   https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.471
   Details
   Keywords: multi-hop communication, Wireless Sensor Network, Multi-Robot System, Disaster Exploration, ZigBee Technology, Underground Environment
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   For disaster exploration and surveillance application, this paper aims to present a novel application of a multi-robot agent based on WSN and to evaluate a multihop communication caused by the robotics correspondingly, which are used in the uncertain and unknown subterranean tunnel. A Primary-Scout Multi-Robot System (PSMRS) was proposed. A chain topology in a subterranean environment was implemented using a trimmed ZigBee2006 protocol stack to build the multi-hop communication network. The ZigBee IC-CC2530 modular circuit was adapted by mounting it on the PS-MRS. A physical experiment based on the strategy of PS-MRS was used in this paper to evaluate the efficiency of multi-hop communication and to realize the delivery of data packets in an unknown and uncertain underground laboratory environment


9. Face Recognition Based on PCA on Wavelet Subband of Average-Half-Face
   M.P. Satone, Dr. G.K. Kharate
   Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 483-494, Sep. 2012  
   https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.483
   Details
   Keywords: Face Recognition, Princ ipal Component Analysis, Subband, Wavelet transform
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   Many recent events, such as terrorist attacks, exposed defects in most sophisticated security systems. Therefore, it is necessary to improve security data systems based on the body or behavioral characteristics, often called biometrics. Together with the growing interest in the development of human and computer interface and biometric identification, human face recognition has become an active research area. Face recognition appears to offer several advantages over other biometric methods. Nowadays, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has been widely adopted for the face recognition algorithm. Yet still, PCA has limitations such as poor discriminatory power and large computational load. This paper proposes a novel algorithm for face recognition using a mid band frequency component of partial information which is used for PCA representation. Because the human face has even symmetry, half of a face is sufficient for face recognition. This partial information saves storage and computation time. In comparison with the traditional use of PCA, the proposed method gives better recognition accuracy and discriminatory power. Furthermore, the proposed method reduces the computational load and storage significantly


10. Designing an Efficient and Secure Credit Cardbased Payment System with Web Services Based on the ANSI X9.59-2006
    Chi Po Cheong, Simon Fong, Pouwan Lei, Chris Chatwin, Rupert Young
    Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 495-520, Sep. 2012  
    https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.495
    Details
    Keywords: Payment Protocols, Electronic commerce, set, X9.59, Web Services
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    A secure Electronic Payment System (EPS) is essential for the booming online shopping market. A successful EPS supports the transfer of electronic money and sensitive information with security, accuracy, and integrity between the seller and buyer over the Internet. SET, CyberCash, Paypal, and iKP are the most popular Credit Card- Based EPSs (CCBEPSs). Some CCBEPSs only use SSL to provide a secure communication channel. Hence, they only prevent “Man in the Middle” fraud but do not protect the sensitive cardholder information such as the credit card number from being passed onto the merchant, who may be unscrupulous. Other CCBEPSs use complex mechanisms such as cryptography, certificate authorities, etc. to fulfill the security schemes. However, factors such as ease of use for the cardholder and the implementation costs for each party are frequently overlooked. In this paper, we propose a Web service based new payment system, based on ANSI X9.59-2006 with extra features added on top of this standard. X9.59 is an Account Based Digital Signature (ABDS) and consumeroriented payment system. It utilizes the existing financial network and financial messages to complete the payment process. However, there are a number of limitations in this standard. This research provides a solution to solve the limitations of X9.59 by adding a merchant authentication feature during the payment cycle without any addenda records to be added in the existing financial messages. We have conducted performance testing on the proposed system via a comparison with SET and X9.59 using simulation to analyze their levels of performance and security.


11. Design and Development of m-Learning Service Based on 3G Cellular Phones
    Kwang Sik Chung, Jeong Eun Lee
    Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 521-538, Sep. 2012  
    https://doi.org/10.3745/JIPS.2012.8.3.521
    Details
    Keywords: m-Learning, e-Learning Service Platform, Mobile Education Device, Cellular Phone, 3G Networks, H.264
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    As the knowledge society matures, not only distant, but also off-line universities are trying to provide learners with on-line educational contents. Particularly, high effectiveness of mobile devices for e-Learning has been demonstrated by the university sector, which uses distant learning that is based on blended learning. In this paper, we analyzed previous m-Learning scenarios and future technology prospects. Based on the proposed m-Learning scenario, we designed cellular phonebased educational contents and service structure, implemented m-Learning system, and analyzed m-Learning service satisfaction. The design principles of the m-Learning service are 1) to provide learners with m-Learning environment with both cellular phones and desktop computers; 2) to serve announcements, discussion boards, Q&A boards, course materials, and exercises on cellular phones and desktop computers; and 3) to serve learning activities like the reviewing of full lectures, discussions, and writing term papers using desktop computers and cellular phones. The m-Learning service was developed on a cellular phone that supports H.264 codex in 3G communication technology. Some of the functions of the m-Learning design principles are implemented in a 3G cellular phone. The contents of lectures are provided in the forms of video, text, audio, and video with text. One-way educational contents are complemented by exercises (quizzes)