Article / This work proposes a biometric identification system that works together with a palm vein reader sensor and a hand-clenching support, designed to perform the capture the back of the hand. Several processing steps were performed: extraction of the region of interest, binarization, dilation, noise filtering, skeletonization, as well as extraction and verification of patterns based on the measurment of coincidence of vertical and horizontal displacements of skeletonized and dilated images. The proposed method achieved the following results: processing time post capture of 1.8 seconds, FRR of 0.47% and FAR of 0,00%, with a referential database of 50 people from a total of 1500 random captures.

The goal of many human disease-oriented studies is to detect molecular mechanisms different between healthy controls and patients. Yet, commonly used gene expression measurements from any tissues suffer from variability of cell composition. This variability hinders the detection of differentially expressed genes and is often ignored. However, this variability may actually be advantageous, as heterogeneous gene expression measurements coupled with cell counts may provide deeper insights into the gene expression differences on the cell type-specific level. Published computational methods use linear regression to estimate cell type-specific differential expression. Yet, they do not consider many artifacts hidden in high-dimensional gene expression data that may negatively affect the performance of linear regression. In this dissertation we specifically address the parameter space involved in the most rigorous use of linear regression to estimate cell type-specific differential expression and report under which conditions significant detection is probable. We define parameters affecting the sensitivity of cell type-specific differential expression estimation as follows: sample size, cell type-specific proportion variability, mean squared error (spread of observations around linear regression line), conditioning of the cell proportions predictor matrix, and the size of actual cell type-specific differential expression. Each parameter, with the exception of cell type-specific differential expression (effect size), affects the variability of cell type-specific differential expression estimates. We have developed a power-analysis approach to cell type by cell type and genomic site by site differential expression detection which relies upon Welch’s two-sample t-test and factors in differences in cell type-specific expression estimate variability and reduces false discovery. To this end we have published an R package, LRCDE, available in GitHub (http://www.github.com/ERGlass/lrcde.dev) which outputs observed statistics of cell type-specific differential expression, including two-sample t- statistic, t-statistic p-value, and power calculated from two-sample t-statistic on a genomic site- by-site basis.

D'une manière générale, la biométrie a pour objectif d'identifier des individus, notamment à partir de leurs caractéristiques biologiques. Cette pratique tend à remplacer les méthodes traditionnelles de vérification d'identité des individus ; entre autres, les mots de passe et les codes de sécurité. Au quotidien, la biométrie trouve de vastes applications et la recherche de nouvelles méthodes biométriques est d'actualité. L'objectif de notre thèse consiste à développer et d'évaluer de nouvelles modalités biométriques basées sur des caractéristiques infalsifiables, ne pouvant être modifiées volontairement. Dans ce contexte, les signaux physiologiques sont pris en considération. Ainsi, nous avons proposé trois méthodes d'identification biométriques. La première méthode utilise l'électrocardiogramme (ECG) comme signature individuelle, alors que la deuxième est basée sur l'utilisation des signaux électromyographiques (EMG) de surface en réponse à une force d'intensité fixe. Enfin, la dernière technique explorée, utilise les réponses motrices obtenues suite à une stimulation électrique. Ces méthodes consistent d'abord à acquérir les signaux physiologiques chez des personnes saines. Ces signaux sont modélisés par des réseaux d'ondelettes afin d'en extraire des caractéristiques pertinentes. La phase d'identification automatique est effectuée par des réseaux de neurones. D'après les résultats obtenus suite à des expériences effectuées, les méthodes proposées conduisent à des performances d'identification intéressantes. La première méthode, utilisant le signal électro- cardiographique, permet d'obtenir un taux de reconnaissance de 92%, alors que l'identification par les signaux EMG, en réponse à une force d'une intensité fixe, permet une identification correcte à 80%. Enfin, une performance de 95% est obtenue par l'identification par réponse motrice. Pour ces trois techniques explorées, la robustesse par rapport au bruit à été étudiée / In general, biometrics aims to identify individuals from their biological characteristics. This practice tends to replace the traditional methods of identity verification of individuals, among others, passwords and security codes. Nowadays, biometrics found wide application and research of new biometric methods is topical. The objective of this thesis is to develop and evaluate new biometric methods based on tamper-proof characteristics that can not be changed voluntarily. In this context, the physiological signals are considered. Thus, we proposed three methods of biometric identification. The first method uses the electrocardiogram (ECG) as individual signature, while the second is based on the use of surface electromyography signals (EMG) in response to a force of fixed intensity. The final technique explored, uses the motor responses obtained after electrical stimulation. These methods consist first to acquire the physiological signals in healthy people. These signals are modeled by wavelets networks to extract relevant features. The identification phase is performed automatically by neural networks. According to the results obtained from experiments performed, the proposed methods lead to interesting performance identification. The first method, using the electro-cardiographic signal, achieves a recognition rate of 92%, while the identification by EMG signals, in response to a force of a fixed intensity, allows a correct identification of 80 %. Finally, a performance of 95% is obtained by identification by motor response. For these three techniques explored, the robustness to noise ratio was studied

Student Number : 9901877H MSc Dissertation School of Electrical and Information Engineering Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / algorithm. The origins of handwriting idiosyncrasies and habituation are explained using systems theory, and it is shown that the 2/3 power law governing biomechanics motion also applies to handwriting. This leads to the conclusion that it is possible to derive handwriting velocity profiles from a static image, and that a successful forgery of a signature is only possible in the event of the forger being able to generate a signature using natural ballistic motion. It is also shown that significant portion of the underlying dynamic system governing the generation of handwritten signatures can be inferred by deriving time segmented transfer function models of the x and y co-ordinate velocity profiles of a signature. The prototype algorithm consequently developed uses x and y components of pen-tip velocity profiles (vx[n] and vy[n]) to create signature representations based on autoregression-with-exogenous-input (ARX) models. Verification is accomplished using a similarity measure based on the results of a k-step ahead predictor and 5 complementary metrics. Using 350 signatures collected from 21 signers, the system’s false acceptance (FAR) and false rejection (FRR) rates were 2.19% and 27.05% respectively. This high FRR is a result of measurement inadequacies, and it is believed that the algorithm’s FRR is approximately 18%.

Notre travail s’inscrit dans le cadre de la biométrie par la rétine. La rétine est la couche sensorielle de l’œil, elle présente une texture riche et unique même chez les jumeaux. Ses propriétés ont fait de la biométrie par la rétine un axe de recherche actif. En effet, de nombreuses méthodes ont été proposées pour les différentes étapes de la méthode biométrique allant du prétraitement de l’image rétinienne à son analyse, en passant par sa caractérisation, afin d’identifier et authentifier un individu. Nous nous intéressons dans ces travaux de thèse, à l’étude, la conception, le développement et l’évaluation d’une nouvelle méthode biométrique basée sur la rétine. Notre première contribution réside dans la conception d’une méthode d’analyse d’image rétinienne saine et pathologique, suivie d’une sélection d’une région d’intérêt autour du disque optique. Cette méthode améliore la qualité de l’image rétinienne et extrait une région d’intérêt la plus stable de la rétine afin de maintenir une densité d’information satisfaisante, pour assurer une meilleure qualité de reconnaissance. Notre deuxième contribution porte sur la proposition d’une nouvelle méthode d’extraction de caractéristiques locales basée sur le descripteur standard SIFT. Elle applique une nouvelle approche reposant sur la suppression des points d’intérêt non informatifs extraits par le descripteur standard SIFT. Cette nouvelle méthode d’extraction des caractéristiques locales réduit le nombre des points d’intérêt redondants tout en maintenant la qualité de la description. Nous avons validé, la méthode biométrique proposée sur différentes bases comprenant des images saines et pathologiques. Les résultats obtenus montrent des performances encourageantes. Ces résultats indiquent, que la méthode que nous avons proposée, localise correctement la région d’intérêt rétinienne. En mode identification, un taux d’identification correcte d’environ 99.8% est atteint. En mode vérification, nous avons obtenu un taux FRR de 0.12% quant aux taux FAR et EER (erreur), ils sont de 0%. L’étude comparative a montré que notre méthode est plus discriminative que d’autres méthodes de l’état de l’art, notamment celles basées sur la segmentation et l’extraction de l’arbre vasculaire / Our work is part of the retina biometrics. The retina is the sensory layer of the eye; it has a rich and unique texture even in twins. Its properties have made the retina biometrics an active research area. Indeed, numerous methods have been proposed for the various stages of the biometric method, from pretreatment of the retinal image to its analysis, through its characterization, in order to identify and authenticate an individual. We are interested in this work in these thesis works, the study, design, development and evaluation of a new biometric method based on the retina. This thesis presents our contributions for each stage of the proposed biometric method. Our first contribution lies in the proposition of a healthy and pathological retinal image analysis method, followed by a selection of a region of interest around the optical disc. This method improves the quality of the retinal image and extracts a more stable region of interest from the retina to maintain a satisfactory information density, to ensure a better quality of recognition. Our second contribution consists in proposing a new method for extracting local characteristics based on the standard SIFT descriptor. It applies a new method based on the removal of non-informative points of interest extracted by the standard SIFT descriptor. This new method of extracting local features reduces the number of redundant points of interest while maintaining the quality of the description. We validated, the proposed biometric method on different bases including healthy and pathological images. This biometric method has yielded encouraging results on healthy and pathological retinal images. The results obtained show encouraging performances. These results indicate that the method we have proposed, correctly locates the retinal region of interest. In identification mode, a correct identification rate of approximately 99.8% is reached. In verification mode, we obtained 0.12% as FRR error rate and 0% for the FAR and EER error rates. The comparative study showed that our method is more discriminative than other state-of-the-art methods, especially those based on segmentation and extraction of the vascular tree

Continuous authentication using behavioral biometrics can provide an additional layer of protection against online account hijacking and fraud. Mouse dynamics classification is the concept of determining the authenticity of a user through the use of machine learning algorithms on mouse movement data. This thesis investigates the viability of state of the art deep learning technologies in mouse dynamics classification by designing convolutional neural network classifiers taking mouse movement images as input. For purposes of comparison, classifiers using the random forest algorithm and engineered features inspired by related works are implemented and tested on the same data set as the neural network classifier. A technique for lowering bias toward the on-screen location of mouse movement images is introduced, although its effectiveness is questionable and requires further research to thoroughly investigate. This technique was named 'centering', and is used for the deep learning-based classification methods alongside images not using the technique. The neural network classifiers yielded single action classification accuracies of 66% for centering, and 78% for non-centering. The random forest classifiers achieved the average accuracy of 79% for single action classification, which is very close to the results of other studies using similar methods. In addition to single action classification, a set based classification is made. This is the method most suitable for implementation in an actual authentication system as the accuracy is much higher. The neural network and random forest classifiers have different strengths. The neural network is proficient at classifying mouse actions that are of similar appearance in terms of length, location, and curvature. The random forest classifiers seem to be more consistent in these regards, although the accuracy deteriorates for especially long actions. As the different classification methods in this study have different strengths and weaknesses, a composite classification experiment was made where the output was determined by the least ambiguous output of the two models. This composite classification had an accuracy of 83%, meaning it outperformed both the individual models.

A cana-de-açúcar é uma das plantas cultivadas mais importantes no cenário econômico devido à produção de etanol, açúcar e subprodutos, sendo que o estado de São Paulo responde por 60% da produção nacional. Visto que a parte aérea da cana-de-açúcar é formada por colmos e estes contêm além de fibras e água, sólidos solúveis, destacando-se a sacarose, glicose e frutose, quando a planta cresce, o teor de sacarose aumenta nos entrenós mais velhos até a maturação; assim, as variedades se classificam em precoces, médias e tardias devido à época em que acumulam açúcar. A mobilização da sacarose envolve a atuação de enzimas invertases, as quais, através da hidrólise da sacarose, produzem glicose e frutose, disponibilizando às células carbono e energia para a respiração e síntese de compostos. Essas enzimas são importantes para caracterizar e avaliar o comportamento das variedades durante a safra agrícola. Para isso, estudou-se o comportamento de mini-toletes de cinco variedades de cana-de-açúcar, provenientes de gemas apicais, medianas e basais no colmo, durante as fases de emergência e perfilhamento, tendo como parâmetros a avaliação de caracteres fisiológicos como brotação de gemas, altura e diâmetro das plantas, perfilhamento, análises tecnológicas e a atividade de enzimas ligadas ao acúmulo de sacarose. Para a obtenção dos toletes, foi montado um viveiro no CTC Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira, na cidade de Piracicaba/SP, em abril de 2010 e após 10 meses, os colmos foram cortados e os mini-toletes foram separados de acordo com a origem da gema no colmo: apicais, medianas e basais. Em seguida, estes foram plantados em bandejas plásticas, em casa de vegetação, no CTC. Os tratamentos foram montados em blocos casualizados em fatorial, com 6 repetições, sendo os parâmetros biométricos avaliados semanalmente até os 45 dias após o plantio (DAP). As amostras foliares foram coletadas, armazenadas e congeladas. Em seguida, uma planta de cada repetição foi transferida para caixa plástica e o experimento foi conduzido até os 90 DAP, realizando-se avaliações fisiológicas semanalmente. Aos 90 DAP, novas amostras de folhas foram coletadas e congeladas para uso posterior. Os resultados foram submetidos a análise de variância pelo teste F e comparados pelo teste de Tukey a 5% de probabilidade. No experimento aos 45 DAP, as gemas apicais apresentaram maior brotação e maior altura de plantas. Além disso, CTC9 apresentou a maior porcentagem de brotação e maior altura de plantas, tal como a CTC2. Para o experimento conduzido dos 45 aos 90 DAP, CTC6 apresentou maior altura e diâmetro de plantas quando comparada as demais. Houve diferença significativa para a atividade da invertase ácida aos 45 e 90 DAP, ao nível de variedades e gemas. Comparando-se as análises realizadas aos 45 e 90 DAP, verifica-se que a atividade das invertases ácidas foi menor quando comparada a invertase neutra. A quantidade de açúcares redutores totais, açúcares solúveis totais e teor de proteínas aumentou no período avaliado, tanto para as variedades testadas quanto para a origem das gemas no colmo. / Nowadays, the sugarcane is one of the major important crops around the world, because of the production of ethanol, sugar and byproducts, and the state of Sao Paulo represents 60% of national production. Since the aerial part of the sugarcane is formed by stalks and besides fiber and water, they contain soluble solids, especially sucrose, glucose and fructose, when the plant grows, the sucrose content increased in the older internodes until it reaches ripeness, so the varieties are classified into early, mid and late season, according the sugar concentration. The mobilization of sucrose involves the action of invertase enzymes, which promotes the sucrose hydrolysis, producing glucose and fructose, providing carbon and energy for respiration and synthesis of cell compounds. They are important to characterize and evaluate the behavior of varieties during the growing season. For this, we studied the behavior of small stalks of five sugarcane varieties, from apical, middle and basal buds in the stem during the emergency and tillering, evaluating physiological parameters as sprouting, height and diameter of plants, tillering, technological analysis and activity of some sucrose accumulation enzymes. To obtain the stalks with one bud, an experimental field was planted in april 2010 at CTC Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira, Piracicaba/SP. After 10 months, the stalks were cut in singlebud stalks and separated according the origin of buds in the stem: apical, middle and basal. Then, these small stalks were planted in plastic trays in a greenhouse at the CTC. Experiments were conducted in a randomized factorial blocks with six replications, and biometric parameters were evaluated weekly until 45 days after planting (DAP). The leaf samples were collected, stored and frozen for analysis. Then one plant per replicate was transferred to plastic boxes and the experiment was conducted until 90 DAP, evaluating some physiological parameters weekly. At 90 DAP, others leaf samples were collected and frozen for later use determinations. The results obtained were subjected to analysis of variance by F test and compared by Tukey test at 5% probability. In the experiment conducted until 45 DAP, apical buds showed larger amount of buds and higher plant height. Moreover, CTC9 had the highest percentage of sprouting and higher plant height, such as CTC2. For the experiment conducted from 45 to 90 DAP, CTC6 showed higher plant height and diameter when compared to the others. Significant differences were observed for the acid invertase activity during 45 and 90 DAP, for varietis, buds and the effect of interaction varieties x buds. Comparing the analyzis carried out at 45 DAP and 90 DAP, it appears that the acid invertase enzyme activity was lower when compared to neutral invertase. The amount of reducing sugars, total soluble sugars and protein content increased in the study period for the varieties tested and the origin of the buds on the stem.

O objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver um algoritmo capaz de extrair medidas dos dedos e da palma das mãos. Essas imagens serão adquiridas através de um banco de imagens digitalizadas em um scanner de mesa, facilmente encontrado, e processadas para se obter uma curva do contorno da mão, permitindo assim que se extraia informações biométricas das mesmas. As imagens armazenadas no banco serão então associadas a um determinado usuário, visando em um estágio futuro, aplicações na identificação pessoal. / The object of this work is to develop an algorithm to extract fingers and hands palm measures. Those images will be acquired from a database of images digitalized by a scanner, easily founded, and processed to get the hand contour, allowing biometrics informations to be extracted. The images stored in the database will be associated with an user, aiming personal identification in a future stage.

A nogueira macadâmia se apresenta como uma importante alternativa para a fruticultura paulista, principalmente pela sua rusticidade e pelo valor alcançado pelos seus frutos. No entanto, estudos relacionados ao seu desenvolvimento e às suas características produtivas são necessários para a adequada escolha da variedade a ser cultivada. Com o objetivo de caracterizar o desenvolvimento, a produção e a produção de mudas para diferentes cultivares de nogueira macadâmia para o clima Cwa, conduziu-se diferentes experimentos instalados no município de Dois Córregos SP: Emergência de plântulas de 8 cultivares de nogueira macadâmia; Emergência de plântulas do porta-enxerto Aloha para nogueira macadâmia em diferentes temperaturas; Emergência de plântulas de sementes nogueira macadâmia submetidas à incisão e imersão em ácido giberélico; Enraizamento de diferentes tipos de estacas do porta-enxerto Aloha para nogueira macadâmia, tratadas com ácido indolbutírico; Alporquia em ramos do porta-enxerto Aloha para nogueira macadâmia, realizada em diferentes épocas e tratadas com diferentes concentrações de ácido indolbutírico; Fenologia da floração de oito cultivares de nogueira macadâmia em clima Cwa; Desempenho produtivo e biometria de frutos de cultivares de nogueira macadâmia; Teor e composição de óleo de diferentes variedades de nogueira macadâmia. Os resultados mostraram que para essas condições a maior porcentagem de emergência de plântulas é obtida pela cultivar Campinas-B, assim como a maior massa seca da parte aérea e do sistema radicular; Para a cultivar Aloha, a maior emergência de plântulas é obtida com a temperatura de 27,5 C; A incisão e a imersão em ácido giberélico de sementes de nogueira macadâmia não trazem benefícios à emergência e desenvolvimento das plântulas; A maior porcentagem de enraizamento é obtida com a cultivar 4-12 B; Estacas com duas folhas inteiras apresentam maior porcentagem de enraizamento; Os melhores resultados para a alporquia da cultivar Aloha são obtidos em dezembro; Observouse 13 estádios fenológicos, com o entumescimento de gemas entre maio e junho, antese entre julho e agosto e queda de frutos entre fevereiro e março; A cultivar 816 apresenta os maiores valores para as variáveis diâmetro da noz e da amêndoa e massa da amêndoa; As cultivares 344, 1-21 e 4-12 B apresentam maior produção. Para a taxa de recuperação de amêndoa (TR), os melhores resultados são obtidos pelas cultivares 344, 660 e Aloha; As cultivares 660, 4-20 e 1-21 apresentam as maiores porcentagens de óleo e cultivar 344 apresenta óleo de melhor qualidade / The macadamia cultivation presents itself as an important alternative for fruit growers of the State of São Paulo, mainly because of its rusticity and the value reached by their fruits. However, studies related to their development and characteristics of production are essential for the correct choice of the variety to be cultivated. In order to characterize the development and the fruit and nursery trees production for different macadamia cultivars in the Cwa climate, different experiments have been carried out in the city of Dois Córregos, State of São Paulo: Seedling emergence of eight macadamia cultivars; Seedling emergence of macadamia rootstock Aloha at different temperatures; Seedling emergence from seeds treated with incision and immersion in gibberellic acid; Rooting of different types of cuttings of macadamia rootstock Aloha treated with indolbutyric acid; Air layering in branches of macadamia rootstock Aloha, done at different periods and treated with different concentrations of indolbutyric acid; Flowering phenology of eight macadamia cultivars in Cwa climate; Production performance and biometry of different macadamia cultivars and oil content and composition of different macadamia cultivars. The results have shown that under these conditions the highest percentage of seedling emergence was achieved by the cultivar Campinas-B, as well as higher dry mass of shoot and root system; Regarding the Aloha cultivar, the highest seedling emergence was achieved by a temperature of 27.5 C. The incision and immersion of seeds in gibberellic acid brought no benefits to the seedling emergence and development; The highest rooting percentage was obtained with the cultivar B 4-12; Cuttings with two leaves provided a higher rooting percentage; The best results for the air layering propagation were obtained on December; 13 phonology stages have been observed, with the swelling of buds between May and June, anthesis between July and August and fruit drop between February and March; The 816 cultivar presented the highest values for the nut and almond diameter and for the almond weight; Cultivars 344, 1-21 and 4-12 B had the biggest production. For the kernel recovery (KR) rate, the best results were obtained with cultivars 344, 660 and Aloha; Cultivars 660, 4-20 and 1-21 presented the highest oil percentages, and cultivar 344 the best oil quality.

Na emergente busca por sistemas automáticos que realizem o reconhecimento de faces humanas, pesquisadores têm agrupado diferentes técnicas para obterem resultados que possam ser cada vez mais robustos e ágeis. Essa preocupação não se restringe aos meios acadêmicos, também existe interesse legal comercial em utilizar sistemas que reconheçam faces humanas como por exemplo, que locais em que seja difícil a identificação de pessoas pelos seres humanos. Diante dessa constante preocupação, este trabalho teve como objetivo desenvolver um sistema de reconhecimento automático de faces, por intermédio de suas proporções, aplicando uma técnica inovadora, em que por meio de um algoritmo genético, que tem como entrada o número de segmentos áureos encontrados na face, é possível determinar as proporções existentes e, assim, encontrar a face desejada. Os resultados demonstram que a razão áurea, utilizada desde a antiguidade por pintores e escultores, está presente nas proporções das faces humanas e que fornece um meio de medida biométrica que permite a identificação de um indivíduo, mesmo com expressões faciais. / There has been an emerging pursuit of automatic systems that provide the recognition of human faces. Seeing that, scientists have gathered different techniques in order to obtain more and more positive and concrete results. This pursuit is not of academic concern only, but there is also legal and commercial interest in using systems that can recognize faces in places where it is difficult for humans to locate a person, that is when it is necessary to locate outlaws in crowded places. That being so, this work aims at developing a system for the automatic recognition of human faces using proportions and applying an innovative technique that implements a Genetic Algorithm. This algorithm uses the number of facial golden proportion sections as its input, so it is possible to determine the existing proportions and consequently, to locate the desired face no matter the person\'s facial expression. The results show that the golden ratio, which has been used since the earlier times by painters and sculptors, is present in human facial proportions and is a biometric measurement that enables to identify an individual even when facial expressions are worn.