Motivational Behavior Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Motivational Behavior - Essay Example A weak positive correlation was found to be significant (P=0.05, observed rho value=0.44, critical rho value=0.36, null hypothesis denied). The outcome of the study showed that people seek a partner that has a similar level of physical attractiveness as themselves. Interpersonal attraction is a fundamental component of human relationships. Psychologists and researchers have proposed many different theories in order to explain the role of physical attractiveness in intimate relationships. One view is the genetic similarity theory proposed by Rushton, Russell and Wells (1984). They posited that a person is more attracted to strangers that resemble themselves than those who are dissimilar in appearance. This would lead to offspring with not only the individual's genes but also genes like themselves (Rushton, Russell & Wells, 1984). Their research suggested that individuals are more attracted to genetically similar people. The matching hypothesis also proposed that people don't seek the most attractive mate, but instead are attracted to individuals that match themselves in terms of physical attractiveness. This compromise is necessary due to a fear of rejection from a more desirable partner and in order to achieve a balance between partners. Walster et al. (1966) tested this hypothesis with the "computer dance experiment". They proposed that when making dating and mating choices, people will choose someone of their own level of social desirability. Individuals will be influenced by both the desirability of the potential partner and the belief of the likelihood of obtaining a date with the partner (Walster et al., 1966). In the experiment, 752 students were randomly allocated partners to a dance. The participants were given an attractiveness rating based on a panel of judges. They were informed that a computer had determined their ideal partner. The experimenters found that whether a person liked their partner was closely related to physical attractiveness. This was the most important factor in liking, above qualities such as intelligence and personality (Walster et al., 1966). Though these findings did not support the matching hypothesis, Walster et al. (1969) conducted a follow up study to further test this hypothesis. The researchers repeated the dance and this time, the students were able to choose their partners. The matching hypothesis was confirmed as the students chose partners roughly the same attractiveness as themselves. The researchers explained that the participants attempted to avoid rejection and increase the possibility of finding a partner with a long-term commitment (Walster et al., 1969). Silverman (1971) conducted another experiment to test the Matching Hypothesis. He carried out an observational study on real-life couples in public settings. Observers independently rated the couples on a 5-point scale and discovered a high correlation between attractiveness ratings of both members of each couple (Silverman, 1971). In addition to this, the researcher found that there was a high correlation between similar levels of attractiveness and the happier the couple's rating in degrees of physical intimacy (Silverman, 1971). Another experiment by Murstein (1972) tested stimulus-value-role theory of marital choice. The researcher

Free

Freedom of speech Essay The phrase â€Å"freedom of speech† refers to an individual’s right to speak freely, or to express oneself without suppression from the others. In addition, the freedom of speech may refer to a person’s ability to seek, impart, or receive information without influences that may limit the freedom. People can express their opinion or views through the right of freedom to speech. This right is recognized by many nations’ governments, as well as both international and regional human rights organizations. For instance, the United States government protects the peoples’ right of freedom to speech through the First Amendment, which is found in the constitution. The freedom of speech though a right has and can be abused if it’s not limited, and the need to prevent the freedom of speech abuse has made it necessary for governments to put into place some limitations to this right. These limitations are adopted so that cases of abuse through speech such as obscenity and use of insults are curbed. All over the world, the abuse of the freedom of speech has become a common phenomenon. The right to freedom of speech can be dangerous when abused (Andrew, 2005, p. 65). Discussion The freedom of speech can become abused when it’s used to create conflicts, disagreements, and in some cases war. Speech involves the use of words and phrases to express one’s opinion about an issue. These phrases or words can be used to express feelings of hatred, dislike, and dissatisfaction. As human beings, it is very natural for us to go through tragic and painful experiences . These experiences may trigger feelings of hatred and dislike towards those we may perceive as having contributed to our misfortunes. For example, unfair treatment of a person by the others may create negative feelings towards the others. These feelings can be expressed by our actions, deeds, or speech. When negative feelings are expressed through speech, they may lead to the abuse of the freedom . A good example is the use of insults or inappropriate language towards other people. The words that may be used in speech can be insensitive and are most likely to violate the rights of the other people. This no doubt proves that freedom of speech can be used to abuse freedom. It is every person’s right to be respected, and the use of abusive language against a person should not be tolerated. However, many individuals and human rights activists advocate for freedom of speech without any limitations. It is a fact that the use of speech is one of the best ways through which people can express how they feel, as well as their views about different issues (Lee, 1988, p. 24). But the question that we need to ask ourselves is, to what extent should the freedom of speech be allowed? The human nature triggers people to exploit opportunities for their own benefits, which make them abuse the right to speech for their selfish needs. So many conflicts, disagreements, and wars emanate from the abuse of the freedom of speech. The use of feelings and emotions that promote hatred triggers conflicts, which have resulted to loss of human life or injuries. The individuals or a group of people that is insulted tends to retaliate the attacks . It is no wonder then that a single instance of abuse leads to many more successive cases of abuse. Another way through which the freedom of speech can be abused is by suppressing the freedom to speak in other people so that they do not express themselves as they would desire. This occurs when speech is used to manipulate people, or to make them submit to the selfish desires of one person. Such cases of abuse are often experienced in the political world. Individuals or groups may use speech to manipulate and threaten people, so that they do not interfere with their political interests. The people are prevented from making independent decisions through threatening statements. Since we all belong to a certain political system in our respective nations, we are likely to experience political influences. Democracy has nowadays become a common feature in the political systems. This has given the citizens the right to speak freely about the political evils and illegal actions that may exist in the society (Sunstein, 1995, p 63). This is a positive way of using the freedom of speech. However, it becomes tragic when the same right is used to suppress the rights of the others. The people are coerced not to use their freedom to speech, since it’s considered to threaten some selfish needs. The freedom of speech is also abused when people speak to defy the social morals and ethics. For instance, the use of obscene language goes against many societies’ ethics and morals. The modern technology through the Internet is one of the communication channels that people use to exploit the freedom of speech for the wrong reasons. The Internet is currently causing devastating effects on the morals and ethics of the societies. Through this form of communication, the right to speak is being abused through inappropriate use of language, with the websites giving the people an opportunity to exploit the freedom of speech for the wrong reasons. There is no argument that the internet is of great benefits to the people. However, it is being used by the people to offend and to promote hatred against the others. The freedom to speak freely has its merits and demerits. This right to speech is abused through dishonesty. For many of us, we cannot count the number of times that we have used this right to give misleading or false information as a way of protecting our selfish interests. When this information is received by the others, it creates room for more abuse. Any action or deed that goes against the virtues and the ethics of the society can be termed as abuse of the human rights, freedom of speech included. The present day business world is very competitive, and all business enterprises are now capitalizing on marketing their products for maximum returns. Through advertising, many corporate bodies use false information to woo consumers, a situation that represents the abuse of freedom of speech . The freedom of speech then becomes dangerous when it’s abused. Conclusion The freedom of speech is a human right which allows us to express our feelings and opinion. When properly used, it is of great importance. On the other hand, this right can be abused for various reasons. This becomes very dangerous, a situation that brings out the negative side of free speech in people. In order to prevent this, limitations need to be adopted so that this right is used for the good of the people. Works Cited Andrew, Puddephatt. Freedom of Expression: The essentials of Human Rights, Hodder Arnold, pg. 127, 2005 Lee, Bollinger. The Tolerant Society. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988 Sunstein, Cass. Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech. Publishing Research Quarterly 11 (4): 58–72, 1995

A Separate Peace :: Free Essay Writer

What point of view does each character show in regards to their attitude to the war? The war is a symbol of how things are not always what they seem. Recruiting posters and propaganda to join the army convinced many boys into thinking the war is an exciting adventure. â€Å"The characters Gene, Finny, and Leper are used as opposing forces struggle between that cold reality of war and a separate peace†(Brian, Gatten), A peace away from the real war and all the terrible things that come. The attitudes towards war of Finny, Gene and Leper reflect their approach to life. Finny does not face the reality in life nor the war, Leper (stands on the sidelines) is isolated from life and the war, while Gene is a follower in life and the war. Finny does not face the reality in life nor the war by, finny first begins to create games. Because Phineas cannot face the reality of the real war. For him, these games are representative of the war. Finny made up these games and he made it so that he could be in control. This is just like Finny ‘s world of separate peace. Also finny does not fully understand the impact of war on people. He does not understand that war kills people physically and mentally. He also does not understand how it affects a person’s life. Finny is not present for the beginning of the fall session at Devon and as a result, the statement â€Å"Peace had deserted Devon†(knowles, pg. 132). Is true indicates the lack of peace†¦Ã¢â‚¬ the peace that the school had come to know when finny was present.†(Brian, Gatten) â€Å"With the lack of this peace, the door is open for the reality that is war, to enter†. (Brian, Gatten) Finny has his own reality, about the war. That is why he created the games to the substitute for the war. Leper’s attitude towards to the war is that he feels that was does not affect him. Leper is much like Finny because of his innocent, romantic view of the world, he loves nature and especially skiing during the winter. Leper is not popular at Devon due to his oddities, but he does not give any attention to such things. He joins the army after seeing a film about their ski troops although he is not even fighting is the war; he is shocked to find military life to be much different from what he expects.

Medieval European Sports

Sports in the Middle Ages The sports of medieval Europe were less-well-organized than those of classical antiquity. Fairs and seasonal festivals were occasions for men to lift stones or sacks of grain and for women to run smock races (for a smock, not in one). The favourite sport of the peasantry was folk football, a wild no-holds-barred unbounded game that pitted married men against bachelors or one village against another.The violence of the game, which survived in Britain and in France until the late 19th century, prompted Renaissance humanists, such as Sir Thomas Elyot, to condemn it as more likely to maim than to benefit the participants. The nascent bourgeoisie of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance amused itself with archery matches, some of which were arranged months in advance and staged with considerable fanfare. When town met town in a challenge of skill, the companies of crossbowmen and longbowmen marched behind the symbols of St.George, St. Sebastian, and other patrons o f the sport. It was not unusual for contests in running, jumping, cudgeling, and wrestling to be offered for the lower classes who attended the match as spectators. Grand feasts were part of the program, and drunkenness commonly added to the revelry. In Germanic areas a Pritschenkoenig was supposed to simultaneously keep order and entertain the crowd with clever verses. The burghers of medieval towns were welcome to watch the aristocracy at play, but they were not allowed to participate in tournaments or even, in most parts of Europe, to compete in imitative tournaments of their own. Tournaments were the jealously guarded prerogative of the medieval knight and were, along with hunting and hawking, his favourite pastime. At the tilt, in which mounted knights with lances tried to unhorse one another, the knight was practicing the art of war, his raison d’etre.He displayed his prowess before lords, ladies, and commoners and profited not only from valuable prizes but also from ra nsoms exacted from the losers. Between the 12th and the 16th century, the dangerously wild free-for-all of the early tournament evolved into dramatic presentations of courtly life in which elaborate pageantry and allegorical display quite overshadowed the frequently inept jousting. Some danger remained even amid the display. At one of the last great tournaments, in 1559, Henry II of France was mortally wounded by a splintered lance.Peasant women participated freely in the ball games and footraces of medieval times, and aristocratic ladies hunted and kept falcons, but middle-class women contented themselves with spectatorship. Even so, they were more active than their contemporaries in Heian Japan during the 8th to 12th centuries. Encumbered by many-layered robes and sequestered in their homes, the Japanese ladies were unable to do more than peep from behind their screens at the courtiers’ mounted archery contests

Affirmative Action: The Nation’s continuing battle for racial equality

Affirmative action is a policy of the State which has for its goal the elimination of historically rooted discrimination against men and women of colour. This is an active response of the State to the overwhelming concern of racial discrimination happening in the country and around the Globe. The existence of different nationality, race and ethnicity is a fact that has been long recognized. The looming problem in our society is determined by the equality of opportunities and the degree of acceptance. By acceptance it means the openness of firms, companies, and other institutions to hire men and women of colour. One need not look too far beyond to see how self-interest has been the ruling factor that has caused all development and transformation in the world. The formation of human rights seem to be the perfect illustration to this as it has been primarily geared towards the conscious regard to the political rights of the people. Through time, the ancient civilizations sought for more responsive policies then for more progressive ones as these clamours push for the commencement of social and cultural rights as well as economic rights respectively. This relative expansion in the coverage of human rights is not limited to narrow scope of the international sphere. This improvement transcends all the aspects of a political man. That is, in consideration of the triumvirate of goods or the different active determinants in the life of an individual â€Å"the political events, economic situation as well as the societal condition all lend a hand in the establishment of a singular prototype that would shape an individual. As a result, the manner and level by which an individual’s need would be catered to is the final cause of human advancement. This means that all growth and evolution depends on the intensity of human involvement to achieve what he wants. As a corrective measure, Affirmative action’s primary purpose is to cure defects in the government and other sectors of society. These defects are mainly caused by social strife, injustices, violation and discrimination in areas that include business, education and the military. This has been seen by the state as a necessary meant to tip the scale in favor of those who have been disadvantaged over the years. Protection of every citizen is the primary goal and objective of its citizens. This entails not only the protection from physical harm but also the assurance that the citizen is not disadvantaged in terms of work opportunities. Affirmative action is a means of the State to promote the welfare of the people. However, the real question is â€Å"can racial equality be achieved in business, education and the military without the use of policies that promote Affirmative Action?† On the other hand, it would appear that the primary objective of every individual is of getting those that he needs which would ultimately result in the progress of the entire society. This situation typifies the idea of self-interest as the governing factor that qualifies international growth and transformation. There is nothing inherently wrong with this; however, in this day and age, much of the development in the field of Politics should be and has been generally focused on policy-making and procedural re-awakening aimed in attempting to legislate policies that would make a more peaceful international community shared by men and women. Racial equality is an old issue but it remains to be of great national concern given the fact that existence of affirmative action is a way to remind us of the importance of recognizing and respecting individual rights of persons, regardless of race.   

Management and Leadership Style Essays

Management and Leadership Style Essays Management and Leadership Style Essay Management and Leadership Style Essay Is a measure of an organizations ability to meet its current debt obligations. Profitability Liquidity Leverage Activity 12. This team leader role requires leaders to try to get the best out of their team. Troubleshooter Liaison Coach Conflict manager 13. The path goal theory sees the Job of an effective leader as Proving clear instructions for the followers Defining goals for followers Helping followers understand their goals 14. Value is any aspect of a product that customers Notice Will pay for 15. The transformation process transforms Inputs into goods and services Inputs into service only Goods and services into products Materials into goods only 16. Visionary leaders are leaders who guide by The force of their personality Inspiring followers Articulating a vision of the future Offering rewards to followers 17. An example of nonverbal communication is A voice mail An email A smile a whisper A whisper in the product. 18. When an auto executive fails to notice an important demographics report in her overstuffed inbox before going to a meeting. She 19. Motivation NOT A process that leads to a goal Something that requires a direction Something that varies from situation to situation A permanent personal trait Avoid work unless rewards were high Just want to collect a paycheck Love their Jobs more than the money they make Avoid responsibility for their actions 21 . Jargon can be very useful for communication Within a specialized close-knit group Between males and females Outside of a specialized close-knit group Between people who speak different languages 22. Which of the following in NOT a key component of emotional intelligence (E)? Social skills Active imagination Empathy Self-awareness Assumes that employees have little ambition, dislike work, and avoid responsibility Theory X Belongingness needs theory Self-actualization needs theory Theory Y 24. Service organization Produce physical outputs only Produce nonphysical outputs only Require nonphysical inputs only Produce physical and nonphysical outputs 25. Which communication sequence is correct? Sender-encoding-channel-decoding-receiver Sender-channel-medium-recoding-receiver Sender-decoding-channel-encoding-receiver Source-sender-encoding-encoding-receiver 26. Ammonias boss allows her any decision she thins is important on the spot without Laissez-fairer style Democratic style Hands on style Automatic style 27. Ross can create web pages that are accessible only to remember of his organization on An interchange An ethanol A videoconferencing An electronic data interchange 28. If a trait theory of leadership were true, then all leaders would possess Charisma The same traits Different traits Seven traits 29. Setting goals definitely seems so Increases performance and motivation Decreases motivation and performance Increases motivation but not performance Decreases performance but increase motivation 30. The is the series of work actions that value to a product as it is being transformed from inputs to finished product. Supply chain Input chain Output chain Value chain 31 . Which three needs are recognized in Miscellanys three-needs theory? Achievement-power-affiliation Achievement-power-security Security-self-interest- affiliation Power-comfort-stimulation Developing empathy with the speaker Focusing on the speaker Understanding the full meaning of the speakers message Avoiding premature Judgment or interpretations of the speakers message 33. Mallows theory is a hierarchy because All needs are equal Needs are satisfied sequentially All needs are important Needs are never truly satisfied 34. The human reactions view of conflict states that conflict Is necessary for successful group performance Must be avoided Is natural and inevitable Should be ignored 35. What was your favorite thing we discussed this semester relating to current events? Why? 36. Transformation leaders are leaders who guide by Articling a vision for followers 37. According to Herbert. What controls satisfaction and motivation? Intrinsic factors Both intrinsic and extrinsic factors Extrinsic factors Extrinsic and security factors 38. Two horizontal bars that identify the _ represent each work activity in a Gaunt chart. Goal and actual progress Actual progress and managers name The date and the managers name 39. A major part of the controlling function of management is to Formulate strategies Set standards Correct performance problems 40. The first step in the control process s to Measures actual performance Compare a standard against an ideal Take action Compare performance against a standard 41. Is the deliberate manipulation of information by the sender to make it appear more favorable to the receiver. Selective perception Filtering Information overload Jargon 42. What are the benefits and drawbacks of both written and verbal communication? How do nonverbal cues affect communication? 43. The key to the fierier contingency model of leadership is to match Leader and leadership style Leader and follower Leadership style and follower Leadership style and situation 44. MBA stands for management by Walking round Written action Work area 45. Early leadership trait research looked to find characteristics that might Different leaders from mainlanders Define charisma Distinguish ordinary leaders from great leaders Identify the physical traits or leaders 46. The second step in the control process is to Compare a standard against an idea Measure actual performance

Argument Analysis Essay 2

Argument Analysis Essay 2 Argument Analysis Essay 2 Bryant & Stratton College Buffalo Campus PHIL 310: Logic and Reasoning Winter 2015 W 6:20pm-9:00pm Brandon Rudroff Argument Analysis Essay 2 PHIL 310 Course Outcomes Assessed 2. Relate the importance of basic logical concepts such as validity, soundness and consistency to reasoning practice. 3. Apply analytical and thinking skills through syllogistic, symbolic and informal logic scenarios. 5. Translate, formalize and evaluate simple arguments in categorical and propositional form. 6. Combine theory and practice to communicate logical arguments orally and in written form. 7. Construct and defend arguments for ones’ self. 8. Critically assess the argument of others. For this final essay, you will provide a critical analysis of the inherent value of logic and reasoning (for life) as well as its contributory (utility) value for your own specific expected career, future educational interests, or life interests. To help support your findings, make connections to topics discussed in class, use references from the textbook, and locate research from reliable sources to help validate and enhance your perspective. To provide some structure to your completion of the assignment, please follow these directions: Introductory Paragraph: Introduce the reader to the paper topic and include a sentence or more that summarizes your main point (thesis) that you will defend in the paper. While this assignment is reflective in nature, it should still have a clear position that you will defend. Body paragraphs: Be sure to address the following: Describe the roles of your expected career, future educational interests, or life interests. Explore the underlying reasons for these decisions. Use logical and reasoning concepts discussed in class this term and reference these concepts from the textbook and class notes. Explore the value of logic and reasoning in relationship to fulfilling these roles in your expected career, future educational interests, or life interests. To help support your ideas, make connections to topics discussed in class, use references from the textbook, and locate research from reliable sources to help validate and enhance your perspective. Explore the value of logic and reasoning in relationship to the happy life in general. To help support your ideas, make connections to topics discussed in class, use references from the textbook, and locate research from reliable sources to help validate and enhance your perspective. You

Tips for Working on Group Projects in Business School

Tips for Working on Group Projects in Business School Group projects are designed to help you improve your ability to lead and work as part of a team. But as anyone who has ever worked in a team atmosphere knows, completing a project as a group can be difficult. Every group member has different ideas, temperaments, and schedules. And theres always at least one person who doesnt want to commit to doing the work. You can cope with these difficulties and others by employing some of the group project tips below. Tips for Working on Group Projects If you have the opportunity to choose members for your group, choose carefully and consider everyones skills and abilities before making your decision.Hold a meeting to discuss the project and the desired results in detail before getting started.Make assigned tasks and progress reports visible to everyone. This will keep members motivated and on point.  Make sure that work is equally distributed among the group.Make sure that everyone (including yourself) understands their personal responsibility.Create an online calendar and task list so that everyone can easily keep track of project progress, important dates, and other essential information.  Take advantage of these useful  Mobile Apps for MBA Students  to help you create common virtual spaces, share files, communicate and network with your peers.Try to meet at a time that is convenient for everyone in the group.Create a group communication plan and stick with it.Track communications and request that others acknowledge emai ls and other communications so that nobody can claim later on that they didn’t receive instructions or other information. Stay on top of deadlines throughout the project so that the final deadline doesnt create a lot of stress for the group.Follow through on your commitments and encourage other people to do the same. What to Do When You Dont Get Along with Group Members Remember that you dont need to like someone to work with them.Do not let your differences interfere with the project or your grade. It is not fair to you or the other group members.Try to concentrate on what other people are trying to say versus how they are saying it. Some people are naturally abrasive and do not realize the effect it has on others.Do not get angry with people who are not following through on commitments. Be the bigger person: find out what the problem is and how you can help.Dont sweat the small stuff. It sounds cliche but it is a good motto to employ when working on a group project.Try to communicate with the people you are having problems with. Feel free to share your feelingsbut do not lose your temper.Dont expect other people to change their personality for your benefit. The only behavior that you can control is your own.Lead by example. If others see you acting respectably and responsibly, they will be more likely to do the same.Consider yourself lucky. The op portunity to work with difficult people in business school will give you the practice you need to deal with difficult co-workers in the post-graduation world.

Account for decision maker Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Account for decision maker - Essay Example Interpretation of these statements is vital for a successful investment. The relation between the different elements of the financial statements is important to understand as it reflects the performance of the company and the management can take proper decision pertaining to any strategic change. The external and internal financial statements are prepared in order to fulfil a set of objectives. The external statements highlight the external reporting only and it is mostly used by the tax authorities, investors, suppliers, creditors and public. These statements are usually prepared at an interval of one year and the period is defined by the individual company or the accounting standards they follow. Internal financial statements are flexible in nature and have excellent analytical components. These reports are prepared for the internal use i.e. for the management and its employees. These statements are prepared weekly or even quarterly (Will, Subramanyam and Robert, 2001). For a layman financial statement of an organisation or financial institution is the only source of information pertaining to its financials. This financials are essential for the layman investors who try to decide whether the company is worth investing or not. The liquidity, profitability and solvency are checked by the investors however, for a layman it is difficult to analyze so he/she actually concentrates on the net profit and sales revenue of the company to assess its financial position. Thus, this investor has the opinion that these financial statements are accurate enough to analysis and take any investment decision. The financial statements have a number of components which are very important for a number of individuals. These individuals include company, shareholders, creditors, stakeholders and general public (Stickney, 1993). The components of the financial statement are described

Curriculum review circle Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Curriculum review circle - Research Paper Example The reviews may think they have all the time and end up taking a lot of time in the review process. Another major problem that is still notable with the LaCrescent-Hokah School District Curriculum Improvement Plan is the fact that the various stages at some point seem to overlap one another. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (1999) explained on the need to be able to distinguish the various stages in the review process. However for LaCrescent-Hokah School District, stages five and six seems to be similar. Almost same activities are carried out with the only distinction being the two parts. This makes it not so easy to distinguish which stage the review has reached. This may become difficult to determine the progress of the review. A look at the three programs however shows that there is some similarity in the way they are structured. The initial stages involve the determination of what is there at present. This is the data collection. The information obtained is then analyzed and reviewed to determine what needs to be added onto the curriculum. It’s tested for what is working and what is not with proper revision made on them. Then the proposals are implemented as planned. While this is taking place, issues that may arise are dealt with. What does not work is avoided while any revision necessary are made. Then full implementation is ensured. For the success of any change to be implemented in any organization or sector proper involvement of the stakeholders is absolutely import. The same case applies to the implementation of the Curriculum Review Cycle. The various stakeholders as identified by Office for standards in education (OFSTED), (1995) must all be brought on board the development and implementation process. The teachers whole are the leading implementers in the review process must be all provide with the knowledge,

Strategic Implementation and Alignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Strategic Implementation and Alignment - Essay Example Harrison-Keyes is currently facing numerous problems in its internal operations and from its various stakeholders. One of the most pressing concerns is the dual publication as a part of its strategy of diversifying into e-publishing. As opposed to its traditional operations, Harrison-Keyes will not only undertake publications of books but is going to enter the rapidly expanding e-publishing segment. This requires publishing an e-book in three months amidst the company's growing concern on the underperformance of Asia Digital Publishing, the service provider outsourced to format the e-books to be published. The company is also worried about the promotion and sales of their new products. Even though e-publishing is the current trend in the industry and the industry experts have expressed with optimism the forecasted growth in the sector, Harrison-Keyes' board are still filled with skepticism and are cautious of publishing books in digital media. Harrison-Keyes is also concerned about t he problems of security and infrastructure as a result of venturing into e-commerce. Another problem is the unpleasant response that the company is getting from its writers especially Will X. Harper. Amidst from this, Harrison-Keyes have yet to improve its image as they are bombarded with appalling publicities which cannot only damage their reputation but can significantly contribute to the crash of their stock price. Other issues are the company's control over production. This section will address the company's problems such as the dual publishing issue, producing an e-book in three months time, marketing the company's products, and control over production. Harrison-Keyes should pursue its e-publishing strategy in order to take advantage of the emerging industry trend in the shortest possible time. It is very essential that Harrison-Keyes conquer the e-publishing segment at the shortest possible time in order to reap the first-mover advantage (First Mover Advantage, 2001). The prod uction of traditional products won't be a problem as it is already the primary operation of Harrison-Keyes. The publication of the e-book will be the main concern as there are problems with the service providers from India. The e-book should be published in three months time and that leaves the company a very short period for the boot processes.  

Fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga - Essay Example The essay "Fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga" discusses the live and work of this talented designer majoring mostly in part of his successful designing career. His history began in sort of a legend when it became very apparent that this young man by then was destined to for Couture. When he was thirteen years old, Cristobal astounded the Marquise of CASA TORRES with remarkable comments on her elegance. Upon spotting his intriguing interest in Couture as well as his aesthetic potential, she permitted Cristobal to design a copy of the Haute Couture she was wearing at that moment. Driven by trembles, Cristobal did his piece of work so elegantly that she awarded him by putting it on. A year later, Cristobal travelled to France where in daze devoured DRECOLL, WORHT, and DOUCET among others. When he returned at age sixteen, he opened his first fashion design workshop in San Sebastian where he started designing the Parisian Style for Spanish women. This facilitated his rise into his suc cessful journey of becoming one of the most respected fashion designers in the world. In 1915, San Sebastian witnessed opening of the first fashion designing shop under his BALENCIAGA name. He travelled to Madrid in 1920 where he opened his second fashion design workshop but had to leave the country when the Civil War broke out. He went ahead to establish himself in Paris where he grew to become the icon to beat in the fashion industry. The most tremendous transformation in his line of career was in 1937.

Organisational purposes and swot analysis Essay

Organisational purposes and swot analysis - Essay Example 3 Mission, Vision and objective of the company 3 SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats) analysis 4 Strategic recommendations 7 8 Conclusion 8 References 9 Introduction Established in 1945, Tata Motors is one of the leading vehicle manufacturers of India with consolidated revenue of $32.5 billion in the financial year 2011-2012. The company is a leader in passenger and commercial vehicles and is also the fourth largest bus and truck manufacturer in India. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and manufactures approximately 7.5 million vehicles annually (TATA Motors, 2013a). Mission, Vision and objective of the company The vision of the company is to develop the TATA Motors into a world class vehicle manufacturer which believes in manufacturing superior and innovative value vehicles. TATA believes that it can be a world class manufacturer by giving the cars a product appeal at a lower ownership cost (TATA Motors, 2013b). The mission and objectives of Tata Mot ors are stated below 1) To create shareholder’s value by generating revenue in excess or equal to WACC (Weighted Average Cost of Capital) during the business downfall. 2) To strengthen the brand value of the company and build an everlasting relationship with the customers by working closely with the business partners. 3) It believes in creating an organization which believes in innovation, excellence and complying with the core values of the company. 4) The company believes in enhancing and developing a long lasting relationship with the vendors and channel partners of the company that would ultimately benefit the customers and stakeholders in the long run. 5) The company believes in promoting the economic growth and development by initiating environment protection and awareness measures (TATA Motors, 2013c). TATA Motors believes that a company can achieve efficiency only if it practices ethical and transparent policies and develops a congenial working atmosphere which believ es in excellence, integrity, passion for work, innovation, concern for the environment (TATA Motors, 2013g). SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats) analysis The results derived from the SWOT analysis helps in accomplishing the mission of the company by utilizing the opportunities and strength of the company, avoiding the threats and rectifying the weakness of the company (Griffin, 2011). Strength Research and Development: The company is the leader in the manufacturing of light commercial vehicles in each segment and among the top three in passenger vehicles in India. The company owes its credit to the exquisite research and development team. The engineering and research centre of the company was established in the year 1966 and is equipped with more than 4500 engineers and scientists (TATA Motors, 2013b). Currently, the research and development team of the company has emerged with a Hybrid series car named TATA Manza which was displayed at the Auto Expo exhibition in Del hi. The research and development team is also planning to manufacture fuel efficient buses, the program will be supported by the government of India. The company has spent 15.49 billion in research and development activities during in the year 2011 (TATA Motors, 2013d). Globalization: The company has acquired several foreign brands to increase its presence globally and has a strong presence in UK, South Korea, Thailand, Spain, South Africa and Argentina and further plans to set up its plant in Turkey, Eastern Europe and Indonesia (TATA Motors,

Crime fiction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Crime fiction - Essay Example Violence in the media is not confined only to fictional shows and does not serve only the purpose of shock value. Rather, as people face greater and greater exposure to the outside world at an earlier and earlier age and as they get more and more conditioned to learn through all five senses rather than just one, suddenly, being told about a murder isn’t enough. We need to see the murderer to be able to visualize it and have it feel real. If that fails to get the message through, we need to see the site of the crime and the people affected and the way it was done. It is less sadism as it is natural in us to want to grasp the full reality of something, and as the definition of that reality has changed over time, so have the depictions we are shown.News channels and television shows alike rely on graphic details to illustrate the full impact of a crime. Crime shows will often show gruesome depictions of these crimes through highly realistic make-up and body models, with these cri mes being described in highly intricate details. The problem however is that crime fiction isn’t classified as specifically for adults of a certain age and therefore these shows are shown in time slots where even children can have more or less unrestricted access to them. Violence on television isn’t as the same taboo as perhaps nudity or drug use might be, despite studies showing that it has negative effects just at par with them. Since property offences have no mass appeal, they are replaced by the more gory and exciting crimes of violence. Studies (Barker & Petley, 2001) have shown explained the popularity of crimes in these shows by the fact that it depicts life in a far more exciting light. Two men arguing are shown to resort to fist fights rather than drawing out legal orders through a long tedious process. Things happen faster and with exaggerated emotion and magnitude, exactly as we fantasize but never actually do. Television violence plays into these subconsci ous desires and fantasies and plays out for us in visual detail what fails to form into concrete thoughts in our minds.

Organisational purposes and swot analysis Essay

Organisational purposes and swot analysis - Essay Example 3 Mission, Vision and objective of the company 3 SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats) analysis 4 Strategic recommendations 7 8 Conclusion 8 References 9 Introduction Established in 1945, Tata Motors is one of the leading vehicle manufacturers of India with consolidated revenue of $32.5 billion in the financial year 2011-2012. The company is a leader in passenger and commercial vehicles and is also the fourth largest bus and truck manufacturer in India. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and manufactures approximately 7.5 million vehicles annually (TATA Motors, 2013a). Mission, Vision and objective of the company The vision of the company is to develop the TATA Motors into a world class vehicle manufacturer which believes in manufacturing superior and innovative value vehicles. TATA believes that it can be a world class manufacturer by giving the cars a product appeal at a lower ownership cost (TATA Motors, 2013b). The mission and objectives of Tata Mot ors are stated below 1) To create shareholder’s value by generating revenue in excess or equal to WACC (Weighted Average Cost of Capital) during the business downfall. 2) To strengthen the brand value of the company and build an everlasting relationship with the customers by working closely with the business partners. 3) It believes in creating an organization which believes in innovation, excellence and complying with the core values of the company. 4) The company believes in enhancing and developing a long lasting relationship with the vendors and channel partners of the company that would ultimately benefit the customers and stakeholders in the long run. 5) The company believes in promoting the economic growth and development by initiating environment protection and awareness measures (TATA Motors, 2013c). TATA Motors believes that a company can achieve efficiency only if it practices ethical and transparent policies and develops a congenial working atmosphere which believ es in excellence, integrity, passion for work, innovation, concern for the environment (TATA Motors, 2013g). SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats) analysis The results derived from the SWOT analysis helps in accomplishing the mission of the company by utilizing the opportunities and strength of the company, avoiding the threats and rectifying the weakness of the company (Griffin, 2011). Strength Research and Development: The company is the leader in the manufacturing of light commercial vehicles in each segment and among the top three in passenger vehicles in India. The company owes its credit to the exquisite research and development team. The engineering and research centre of the company was established in the year 1966 and is equipped with more than 4500 engineers and scientists (TATA Motors, 2013b). Currently, the research and development team of the company has emerged with a Hybrid series car named TATA Manza which was displayed at the Auto Expo exhibition in Del hi. The research and development team is also planning to manufacture fuel efficient buses, the program will be supported by the government of India. The company has spent 15.49 billion in research and development activities during in the year 2011 (TATA Motors, 2013d). Globalization: The company has acquired several foreign brands to increase its presence globally and has a strong presence in UK, South Korea, Thailand, Spain, South Africa and Argentina and further plans to set up its plant in Turkey, Eastern Europe and Indonesia (TATA Motors,

PRACTISE PROPOSAL Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

PRACTISE - Research Proposal Example 1. To explore the attitudes and perceptions of patients in healthcare settings toward the options and support that they receive want to increase their protein levels; and To establish recommendations for future research along with implications for practice with regards to the training and support that is provided for medical practitioners in healthcare settings (Marshall, 2007). Literature Review Socrates once said. â€Å"There is only one good, knowledge and one evil, ignorance.†This thought should assist us in all what we do, particularly where our health is concerned. Several individuals don’t have any idea of how to maintain good health. When sickness is experienced, Individuals rely on medical practitioners for cure. What they fail to realize is that the cure comes from within. Nature has offered with wonderful immune system, and all we require to do is to take proper care of this internal healing force (Marshall, 2007). Several health stores are stained with the i rony that few of their products are in reality healthy, from herbs of unknown utility and purity of dietary supplements capitalizing on current patterns in hair gain or weight loss. Several supplements are top sellers in the market. But a growing research body indicates that one doesn’t need protein supplementation unless you are an athlete having intense training or gravely ill as a result of starvation or any wasting disease which in this case will call for the need ( Marshall, 2007). The new studies emphasize the fact that the most compassionate thing about protein supplements is a waste of money. You reap little advantage and instead put yourself at risk for bone, kidney and heart disease. Medical researchers have warned against protein supplements for several years for the average individuals. But several sports trainers keep on pushing them on amateur athletes since they don't know any better (Creswell, 2003). Individuals need proteins when exercising, especially when t hey try to build muscles by weightlifting or through other forms of resistance training. The muscle building process involves muscle filament damages and rebuilding them, this calls for more protein (Marshall, 2007). A study published recently, in the journal Nutrition, reviewed more than one thousand adults at fifty ordinary commercial gyms and established that nearly ? of the men were using dietary supplements, largely protein powders, with no direction. None required protein, the researchers concluded (Roberts, Perryman & Rivers, 2009). Correspondingly, a smaller research study by a master's thesis by Martin Frechette from University of Montreal investigated the diets of elite athletes, in part of the Canadian Sport Centre Dietary Research Study. Above 90% of these athletes were using dietary supplements, on recommendation of friend or trainers; only 25% could clarify why they were using it; and of those utilizing protein supplements, above 80% already had enough dietary protein intakes (Roberts, Perryman & Rivers, 2009). Description of design Research Approach My study will

Assignment Templates Essay Example for Free

Assignment Templates Essay Templates include correct APA format as well as the sections required for the assignment. Students should insure that all papers submitted have a header of their name and the assignment and include page numbers. It will save time and enhance grading for students to use these templates as guidance. License Requirements Research Your Name Liberty University COUN 521-B05 Spring 2012 â€Å"State Name† Licensed Professional Counselor Licensure Requirements This first section will be an introduction stating your plans and a summary of the general requirements for the license for your preferred state. This section should include the contact information and reference citation for the respective state licensure office. Education This section will describe the education requirements such as what degrees are acceptable, how many semester or quarter hours required, and any specific courses required. This section should also include any additional educational experience required. Work Experience Required This section will describe the work experience required for the specific license desired. The description should include number of hours required overall with specific hourly requirements such as number of hours of direct client service, number of hours of supervision, and any other hourly requirements. The work experience description should also include any  specifications on supervision, such as whether or not the supervisor has to be an approved supervisor by the state licensing board. Finally the work experience description should include any areas of practice that the state office requires to be included when applying for licensure. Examination This section should describe examination requirements by the specific state office. The description should include what examinations are required and any specific score requirements noted. Uses and Restrictions of Assessments This section should begin with a short summary of information provided by the specific state office. Uses of Assessments This section should address the acceptable use of assessments per the specific state office. Restrictions on Assessment Use This section should address any restrictions on use of assessments per the specific state office. References References should be per APA format and should match citations in the text. References should be included for each source of information used. Exploring Reliability and Validity – Values and Motives Inventory Your Name Liberty University Exploring Reliability and Validity – Values and Motives Inventory Types of Reliability and Validity In this section, explain the type of reliability and validity used in this inventory. Areas of Concern and Strength Begin this section with an introduction paragraph. Then provide a sub- section of discussion on concerns or weakness such as low coefficients and a sub-section of discussion on strengths such as high coefficients. Concerns Use this section to discuss the concerns/weaknesses that you note. Strengths Use this section to discuss the strengths that you note. Sample Size Use this section to discuss how the sample size may influence the constructs purportedly measured by the test. Include discussion of strengths in the sample size and weaknesses in the sample size. Nature of Population Use this section to discuss how the nature of the population may influence the constructs purportedly measured by the test. Include discussion of strengths in the nature of the population and weaknesses in the nature of the population. Opinion Use this section to discuss your opinion regarding the quality of the test. Summarize information in the report and then relate this to guidance per your course material about test quality. Remember that even though this is your opinion, keep your writing in third person. References Be sure to include all references that you have cited in your paper such as the inventory (example below) and course textbook reference. Your reference page should be a separate page at the end of the document. This is the correct reference for the inventory that you are examining: Values and motives questionnaire: The technical manual. (n.d.). Bedfordshire, UK: Psytech International. Project 1: Initial Interview Type a short paragraph (2-3 sentences) summarizing this assignment as an initial interview to conduct a mental status examination and assess â€Å"client’s name† for the reason indicated in the referral question that you have chosen. Identifying Information This section should provide the client’s identifying information in narrative form. Include the person’s name, address, phone number date of birth, gender, marital status, occupation, current work/school information, emergency contact, and date of your interview of the client. Referral  Question State that â€Å"client† was referred to assess him/her for â€Å"reason indicated in the referral question you choose from the 3 choices provided in the instructions. Physical Appearance Presenting Appearance In this section use narrative format to present age, sex, ethnicity, height and weight description of the client, description of clothing worn, and presence of any assistive devices such as glasses, cane, etc. Also include in this section a description of any physical deformity that is present. Basic Grooming and Hygiene Provide a brief description of the client’s grooming and hygiene and appropriateness or not for the interview setting. Approach and Coordination In this section use narrative format to describe the client’s behavioral approach to the interview and the client’s gait and motor coordination. Also describe the client’s eye contact, facial expressions, and rapport with you throughout the interview. Finally address the client’s degree of alertness and the mood and affect present during the interview. Present Level of Functioning in Work/School, Relationships, and Leisure Begin this section with a paragraph that addresses general functioning of the client in work and or school, in relationships, and in leisure. Then address the MSE information as follows: Language and Speech In this section present the MSE information in narrative format regarding expressive language, receptive language, and speech as outlined in the document provided for you on â€Å"How to Conduct a Mental Status Exam.† Orientation and Thought Processes In this section present the MSE information in narrative format regarding orientation times the five areas indicated in the instructions, client’s coherence, client’s concentration and attention throughout the interview, client’s thought processes, any hallucinations or delusions present (note if absent), intellectual ability, and abstraction skills. These areas are  outlined in the document provided for you on â€Å"How to Conduct a Mental Status Exam.† Medical History and Current Status In this section, use narrative format and discuss the client’s present health status(as described by the client) and date of last physical, any current health complaints or absence of these, general health history, any past or present health treatments, any current medications, other drugs, or supplements, client’s sleep pattern, client’s appetite level and any recent changes in appetite, and client’s exercise pattern. Past Counseling Experiences or Psychiatric History In this section use narrative format and discuss the client’s concerns addressed and type and length of treatment that client has received for any concerns addressed (if none, state this). If the client has received help for any concerns addressed, also discuss the types of outcome from the help received with discussion of positive results and discussion of unhelpful results. If the client has not received professional help for concerns addressed use this section to also note how client coped with these concerns up to the time of the interview. Include discussion in this section of any medications used to treat concerns addressed. This should include prescribed medications, over the counter medications, or self-selected substances used to treat concerns such as alcohol, tobacco, or drugs. Family Information In this section use narrative format to describe the client’s current marital status, number and ages of children living at home, number and ags of immediate family members not living at home, other people living at home, any violence or physical abuse in the family, family-of-origin make-up, influences of the family-of-origin on present problems, family history of psychiatric problems, and family history of substance abuse. NOTE: If there is not family history of psychiatric problems or substance abuse, state this. Social/Developmental History In this section, use narrative format to discuss any irregularities in development or indicate that the client had normal development with no  presence of any irregularities. This may include prior experiences in life that have framed the client’s general approach to life. Also indicate the client’s religious affiliation or so state if there is none. Discuss the client’s current social situation such as social networks or activities that client engages in. In this section include discussion of the client’s values that seem to frame life for them. Educational/Occupational History In this section include two paragraphs with one addressing educational history and one addressing occupational history. In the paragraph on educational history include client’s level of educational attainment and any specialized training, college majors, etc. that apply to the client. In the paragraph on occupational history include discussion of previous work experiences, reasons for any job changes or terminations, and any military background. Conclude this section with a paragraph of indication of the client’s report on overall satisfaction of any current job or school engaged in and any current stresses related to current educational or occupational experience. Cultural Influences In this section use narrative format to describe in general cultural factors present with the client that provide influence on issues discussed. These should include the client’s race and/or ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and any experiences of discrimination or perceived internal or external barriers that apply to the client (if none present, so state). Also use this section to discuss any other cultural influences that may be present for the client. Achievement Results Your Name Liberty University Achievement Results SAT Scores Use the first paragraph to summarize the case to the client as you understand  the client’s concerns. Use the second paragraph to discuss any additional information the client may not have considered. Use the third paragraph to discuss alternatives for the client at this time for the presenting issue with inclusion of client input in resolution decision. Incorporate discussion of causes, precipitants, or other possible influences on the case and any alternative explanations for the client’s concerns. Be sure to cite pertinent information from course material and from any additional professional resources used. Percentile Rank Use the first paragraph to summarize the case to the client as you understand the client’s concerns. Use the second paragraph to discuss any additional information the client may not have considered. Use the third paragraph to discuss alternatives for the client at this time for the presenting issue with inclusion of client input in resolution decision. Incorporate discussion of causes, precipitants, or other possible influences on the case and any alternative explanations for the client’s concerns. Be sure to cite pertinent information from course material and from any additional professional resources used. References NOTE: These are correct listings for your text references. Also include any other references that you use and cite above. Fischer, J., Corcoran, K. (2007). Measures for clinical practice and research: A sourcebook (4th ed., Vol. 1). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Whiston, S. C. (2009). Principles and applications of assessment in counseling (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole. Psychological Report NOTE: A sample report for Project 2 is located under Course Content in Assignment Instructions under â€Å"Project 2: Psychological Report.† This is titled â€Å"Project 2 Sample.† Use this as your template for the Project 2 assignment. Essay Questions: Name of Area for Your Essay Your Name Liberty University Essay Questions: Name of Area from Question You Choose to Discuss As this is an essay versus a paper you do not have to use headings. However, be sure to address each area within the essay question that you choose. For instance if you choose to address Essay Question 1, there are seven questions and you would need to discuss your answers to all seven of those questions. Do include a separate reference page as the example below. References NOTE: These are correct listings for your textbook references. Also include any other references that you cite in your paper. Fischer, J., Corcoran, K. (2007). Measures for clinical practice and research: A sourcebook (4th ed., Vol. 2). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Whiston, S. C. (2009). Principles and applications of assessment in counseling (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole. Test Critique: Name of the Test Your Name Liberty University Abstract Summarize your critique in accordance with guidelines on abstracts from the APA manual. Test Critique: Name of the Test There should be an introductory paragraph with a test description similar to that given in a vendor’s catalogue. In this paragraph also indicate that this critique will review both strengths and weakness of this test. General Information Basic Test Information In this section provide information in narrative format on title of the test, author (s), publisher and date of publication, cost, and availability or not  of an online version. Include information on the development of the test – full name of the test, when it was first developed, the population for which the test is appropriate, and its primary uses. Indicate whether the test is an objective or projective measure and whether it is more of an intelligence, achievement, or personality measure. Indicate whether or not this test has alternate forms, when these were created, and under what circumstances these are used. History of Test In this section discuss when and why the test was developed. Also discuss how the history of this test fits into the overall scheme as presented in the course text. Testing and Assessment Assumptions In this section discuss the assumptions of testing and assessment as they relate to this specific test. Test Description In this introductory section give a general description of the test in narrative format. This should include a description of the different sections and subsections of the test with indication of what each of these measure. This section should include some example items used to assess the construct of the test. This section should also describe how this test is used in the assessment setting. Test Content In this section describe the constructs, domains, or variables that the test measures. Discuss the unidimensionality or multidimensionality of the constructs. Also discuss the theoretical and/or empirical foundation of the test. Purpose of Test In this section describe the purpose and potential uses of the test. Also describe the population for whom the test is designed. Test Structure In this section indicate the length of the test and the number of items. Also describe any subscales that are in the test and the format used for the test items. Test Administration In this section describe the administration procedures for the test and the necessary administrator qualifications and/or training required for administration of this test. Also discuss any special testing conditions that must be considered and different versions of test administration such  as paper and pencil, online, computer administration, etc. Test Scoring In this section discuss the type of scoring or scaling used, the scores generated such as subscale, factor, or dimension scores, and the scoring procedures used such as hand scoring, mail-in scoring service, or computerized scoring via software or online. Technical Evaluation Standardization/Normative Sample This section includes narrative description of the size and demographics of the standardization sample, procedures followed in obtaining the sample, adequacy of the standardization sample, and adequacy of the norms provided. Reliability This section should discuss the types of reliability for which there is evidence and the adequacy of this evidence to support potential uses of the test. Validity This section should discuss the types of validity for which there is evidence and the adequacy of this evidence to support potential uses of the test. Practical Evaluation Quality of Test Materials In this section describe the quality of writing in the test, quality of graphic design and presentation of this in test materials, and other noted aspects of materials quality such as durability and attractiveness. Ease of Administration, Scoring and Interpretation This section should discuss the clarity and comprehensiveness of instructions, directions, or guidance provided. There should also be discussion of time and resources needed to administer, score, and interpret the test as well as any other practical aspects of administration, scoring, and interpretation. Summary Evaluation and Critique Strengths of the Test Use this test to describe the strengths of the test as compared to course guidance on what constitutes a good test. Weaknesses of the Test Use this test to critique the weaknesses of the test as compared to course  guidance on what constitutes a good test. Recommendations In this section indicate your recommendations for use of the test, for revisions, or updates, and for further study of the test. Although these are your recommendations, this should still be written in third person. References NOTE: Remember to include at least five references for this assignment with reference list and in-text citations matching and reference list in correct APA format.

Analysis Of Tourism In Mozambique Tourism Essay

Analysis Of Tourism In Mozambique Tourism Essay The energy crisis and global recession, in 1973/4 highlighted the structural deficiencies in the third world economies. The need of foreign exchange and employment, along with the concerns of inequalities, leakages and constant levels of poverty (Sharpley Telfer, 2002). Even so, in the past two decades the Sub-Saharan Africa tourism has experienced a remarkable growth, a difference from 1.5% in 1970 to 4.5% in 2003 and is expected that the Africas share will increase to 5% of total international arrivals by 2020. Although, Mozambique tourism sector could not benefit from this recovery, because the two wars had occurred in between, a period that other nations including the neighbouring have managed to develop their own tourism industry. This essay is to explain the key factors that may contribute to the success or failure of tourism planning. Conscientious about planning different terminology and thoughts, a range of illustrations and description that applies to Mozambiques tourism p lan (history, political, economy, social and development), and its aims will help a better understanding around the topic. Planning The absence of planning may cause unregulations, leading to a range of negative socio-economic and environmental impacts. So, in order to create and respond to the tourism concerns it is important to include a rational plan (Mason, 2003). Different approaches of planning have been presented: Boosterism; Economic; Physical/Spatial; Sustainable; Community and so on. Kadt, (1979), noted that the consequences of tourism planning are a result of the nations overall political economy, because it is what will determine the equality in the distribution of tourism benefits. Nonetheless, planning is a process for anticipation and implementation of changes that would maximize positive developments (William, 1998, cited by Mason, 2003). However, Mason, (2003) argued that planning is a very complex term and can be applied in many contexts, for example: in relation to individuals, groups, organisations and governments, but at same time to different geographic areas (urban, rural), or as well at lo cal, regional and national levels. In accordance, Cullingsworth, (1997:5, cited by Hall, 2008) stated that planning is also, a sort of decision and policy making because they are connected and interrelated, planning is the process where goals are set and policies are made to implement them. However, it deals with interdependent and systematic decisions, rather than individual decisions. Many activities in the process cannot be isolated (bargaining, negotiation, politics, values) and the process of planning is only one part of the overall plan. Therefore, planning is more complex than Drors (1973) perspective of set of decisions for actions in future (Hall, 2008). Besides, various such as Mason, (2003); McCabe et al., (2000:235) argued that the important is the process element of the plan, as it provides direction by enabling individuals to indentify the path that is to be taken and the outcomes or end results. On the other hand, Gunn, (1998) argued that by focussing on the physical design, there is a risk of failure in recognising the key principles of the planning process; the fundamentals that originated its creations, but he also added that by focussing on the process of planning rather than considering the product itself may possibly lead to planning being considered vague and theoretical. Destination case study: Historical Tourism has been important to Mozambican economy since the Portuguese colonial period and was developed around three themes: sun and sea, wildlife and urban (dynamic environment). During the colonial period the Mozambique tourist arrivals were mainly from southern Africa and Portugal and were close to 400,000. However, since the colonial war conflict in 1973, tourism infrastructure and several animal species were destroyed, therefore the number of tourist and the tourism activity declined (Visser, 2004). After the peace-accord in 1992 initiatives to recovery the tourism industry has been applied (Sun, Sand and Sea, complemented by Eco-tourism; Culture; Water sports, Adventure and Urban Tourism). Political Frelimo has been in power since the countrys independence from Portugal in 1975 and has the majority of the parliamentary seats 191 out of 250. In 1990 a new constitution that provided for multipartysm was implement (www.news.bbc.co.uk, 2010). The country shift from one-party autocracy to multi-party democracy. Implemented institutional reforms for the re-schedulling of debt and loans; it open up to the markets by adopting adjustment measures of liberalisation which included public/private cooperation (Kulipossa, 2006). There was a shift from centralised government approach based in a dictator state where single decisions were made and all the infrastructure belonged to the state (horizontal policy coordination across Ministries), to a decentralised approach (vertical policy coordination between different levels of govern) where the power of management was shared with regional and local levels since they were better positioned to deal with local needs and more able to implement polic ies and integrating the communities as part of the process . The government decided to open the nation market to private sector as they were better financially to build and reconstruct the infrastructures that were in need and because of their ability to bring foreign exchange to the country. Even the govern of Mozambique being responsible for Tourism Policy and Implementation Strategy, is still fragile in experience and financial resources. To reduce the existing gap of linking policies with the actions, the nations government are dependent of foreign help, needing to defer the responsibility of tourism recovery, national or local economic development to the Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Associations, (Rylance in Spenceley, 2008). Economy According to Rylance in Spenceley, (2008:29), the nation economy varies from inefficiency, poor infrastructure and high levels of corruption, which discourage foreign investment. Nevertheless, between 1993-2004 there was a growth of 7.2 GDP, an annual average of 8 per cent over the last decade. Additionally, there was a decrease on annual inflation from more than 54 per cent in 1995 to 13.5 per cent in 2003 and 9.1 per cent in 2004. Despite the achievements Mozambique remains one of the poorest countries in the world. The per capita income in 2004 was equal to $320 (UNDO, 2004 cited by Rylance in Spencely, 2008:29). Furthermore, the country remains very dependent of international help through donations and is largely dependent of the agriculture sector which employs 83 per cent of the population and is responsible of 80 per cent of the exporters and for 26 percent of national GDP (SNV Mozambique, 2007:3 cited by Rylance in Spencely, 2008). The influence and power of negotiation is we akened by the nations vulnerability and dependency upon a greater number of foreign companies. On the other hand, Mozambique governments have been accused of problems of corruption on the legislation and collection of revenues. Critics assert that Mozambique is pursuing mega projects that do not generate social benefit (www.news.bbc.co.uk, 2010). Nonetheless, during 2006 the tourism sector generated revenues around US$ 144 million, it is expected that the industry will became one of the major foreign exchange earner as it is increasing in its foreign investment (Jossai, 2010). Social: It has been recognised that as an economic sector, tourism has both positive and negative impacts over the society. However, with an adequate anticipation and implementation of strategic plan tourism can be developed with reduced impact in the natural areas: the several benefits of the industry upon the society can be maximised, and the disadvantages can be minimised or even eliminated. With this understanding Mozambican policies and planning developers have adopted sustainable actions aspiring a balance in the tourism development, humans, animals and ecological communities. The focus was to reduce poverty by adopting tourism sector as a tool for development, either by local supply of services and goods to tourism enterprises or by enterprises employing the poor; plus providing the means for improvement of health, education and sanitary conditions. Though, it may be assumed that the government have failed to provide the right tools for local involvement as it was incapable to support people with training and knowledge to reduce the barriers of getting locals involved in the tourism economies, did not have option than lead it to the NGOs and associations that have started to do so (Rylance in Spenceley, 2008). This is due to the government lack of capacity and low involvement in implementing and manage policies. Moreover, the shortage of available finance for small enterprises and the time needed to start a business, discourages the majority of locals from contributing to the sector. For example: to open a business in Mozambique it takes on average 153 days (World Bank, 2004 cited by Spenceley, 2008). McEwan, (2004, p7) argues that local tourism enterprises are prevented from getting involved in the business and remain very dependent of foreign investment and international aid. In fact foreign investment involves 70 per cent of the Mozambique tourism projects and local borrowing from banks, has high costs 15 per cent interest in real terms (Rylance in Spenceley, 2008). Development As a reflection of predominance of business travellers, visiting friends/relatives and regional weekend trip of leisure segment, the average stay in Mozambique is around 2.3 days, comparatively low to Kenya 8.4 days average length. There are 2.030 tourist establishments in Mozambique which directly employed over 35.000 people. The southern borders are the visitors main entrance but investors are starting to show some interest in the northern areas (Pemba, Quiribas archipelago and Nacala). In 2001 the number of international tourist arrivals was just about parallel to the visiting numbers during the colonial period. The accommodation sector has a total of 12.000 beds, near 5,000 cope with the luxury standard or 3 star above on the international market. In compare, the city of Cape Town has something like 30,000 beds and Mauritius 19,600 beds. The national air lines are expensive and limited: operating three Boeing B737 which serves domestic connections from Maputo to the other main ci ties of the country (Beira, Nampula, Quelimane, Pemba, Lichinga, Chimoio and Tete) and regional routes to Johannesburg and Dares Salaam (Williams, 2006). The accommodations and tourism facilities (hotels, tourism resorts) are very expensive favourable for the wealthier customers. Furthermore, the human capital (residents, poor people) are mostly employed in low levels jobs such as cleaners and bar staff which reduces their chance of economic benefits as their wages and level is equally low (SNV Mozambique, 2006 cited by Rylance in Spenceley, 2008). The major investors of Mozambiques tourism industry have recognised the uniqueness of the country, that is the fact of being the only in the neighbours that do not have Anglo-Saxon colonial past since was colonized by Portugal, and from the fact of having a mix of cultural environment and rich heritage of Arabic, Swahali, Portuguese and African influences (Williams, 2006). Conversely, as the majority of tourist are English speakers, this advantages is also a barrier since tourist and locals have communication gaps. In addition, the nation has a limited offer of tourism products, constrained to the safaris games products. The investors and tour operates still reluctant in diversify and reach the unexploited areas by developing new tourism products and attract new markets. As a withdrawal affect the country competitiveness with exception of Malawi, is very low in comparison to the bordering neighbours (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Suazilandia, Zambia). Although, there are indications of economic improvement since the civil war: increase in the national GDP, reduction of inflation and levels of percentage of poverty however, the wealth distribution of income still irregular by favouring elite groups and elements of government. In addition the country continues dependent on food import and, also vulnerable to the global prices (EIU, 2010). One aspect of the tourism industry is the negative impact that it causes to the destinations. It, has been suggested by many, such as: Kadt, (1979); William, (1998); Mason, (2003); Hall, (2008); Spenceley, (2008), that the destination plan should encompass the tourism alternative approaches. Moreover, even the existence of different plan approaches or reasons of plan, it is assumed that they are imperative for the insurance of pathways to be taken as a mean to anticipate and correct possible events. In this basis, by adopting the national strategic plan for tourism, Mozambique allowed itself for any readjustments if necessary. The focus of the Strategic Plan for the Development of Tourism in Mozambique 2004-2013, (2004), was the business modern management approaches, tourism towards to product service quality and conservation, rehabilitation of wildlife in specific areas, co-operation with the neighbouring countries to consolidate and expand conservations areas, promote professional hunting industry and support communities to actively and effectively participate in tourism process, with the aim of four million arrivals per annum by 2025. The government priority was to reduce poverty and prevalence of HIV infection which even high is still lower than the regional average. This was intended to be done by building country prestige, broadcast possible investments, job opportunities, income generation, developing health and education (Ministry of Tourism, 2004). Seeing that, foreign currency plus capital investment into the tourist destination, permits a faster urban, social, economic regeneration and that worldwide tourism is the industry that employs most people and had shown some ability in adapting quickly to crises that have affected the world economy. Tourism was identified by Mozambique Government as a mean to promote local economic development (Gunn Var, 2002). To minimise the negative effects of the industry on environment and culture, while as well maximi ses the economic and community benefits, the tourism policy is guided by the Tourism Law. (2004) which regulates licensing, provides the basis for sustainable growth and criminalises child sexual tourism; Action Plan for Absolute Poverty Reduction (PARPA), (2006) which sets social policies and programs to promote economic growth through tourism; National Tourism Code of Conduct, (2007), elaborated between the Ministry of Tourism and the Mozambique Confederation of Business Association (CTA) (www.sustainabletourismnetwork.co.za, 2010). The objective was to generate new employments for the enhancement of people quality of life; increase the numbers of international visitors and investors by improving the balance of trade; fairly distribute the tourist benefits, and expand the industry in zones that present greatest potential, by providing a more equitable development of the nation, putting the emphasis on the relation between tourism and its environs; in addition for the tourism growt h and for the creation of benefits to its people, the country was seeking for greater national unity through tourism; in order to protect regional architecture, monuments, conserve resources, balance planning of areas, and incentive the development of handcrafts and folklore, the tourism strategic plan recommends protection of cultural and natural resources (Ministry of Tourism, 2004). Conclusion: An analysis of tourism in Mozambique, indicate that existing tourism mix are the beaches and unspoilt interior that offers greatest potential for the development of wildlife market. Conversely, the poor infrastructures contributes for low tourism products and, inhibits investment. Bearing in mind the nation natural resources as the tourism potential (2700 km of tropical coastline with diversity, rare ecological systems and rich historic cultural heritage), shall be said that the coastline is unplanned and uncontrolled becoming then, the biggest threat for the tourism sector. Moreover, the actions taken by the private business that are mainly interested in the immediate circumstances and profits, exclude factors of the market such as the preservation of public goods (parks, historic sites, beaches, infrastructures), externalities (simultaneous production and consumption of tourism, which restrict access to the coastal land, fishing and historic places) and external costs (not reflecte d like as the opportunity costs), causing the inability of the market system Market failures. Which prevent the nations achievement of the economic efficiency and reflect the social costs. The key factors for Mozambique tourism planning are political, economic and social. Its success or failure depends upon all organism together being able to share and achieve goals that would be difficult to achieve by themselves. Rylance in Spenceley, (2008) argues that there are differences between the policy and practices of tourism-led LED in Mozambique. Although, admits that there is a lack of statistical data for a firm conclusion. Nonetheless, the fact of government investment in megaprojects that do not generate social benefits may indicate a deviation from the key principle of the strategic plan: the business modern management approaches and the perspective of development first instead of tourism first (Burns, 1999). In conclusion, it may be said that tourism in Mozambique is in its early stages. It is very incipient, high levels of corruption, limited in air transport and road accesses, lack of experience and has expensive tourism services and facilities. Still, it can be sa id that it is hard to predict the directions it will take, and if the target arrivals by 2025 are realistic or not; so far there is potential, willingness and the initial steps were taken.

The Industrialists :: essays research papers

The Industrialists   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Company observers and historians have never agreed on their judgment as to whether or not large business tycoons like Rockefeller, Gould, and Carnegie were ?captains of industry?, or ?robber-barons?. My opinion is that these men have only followed what every human has ever dreamed of in this free country, which is to succeed far above everyone else, so that they could live in luxury, with wealth that they hope can bring them happiness.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Being very smart and persuasive, through threats and or secret deals ?under the table?, they found ways to get their way, and win in any situation. In everything from controlling downsizing to manipulating stocks, these captains of industry have set a path that can be looked back upon as ingenious and very well thought and executed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jay Gould, in a partnership with Drew and Fisk, was so surprisingly great that he could foil a plan that his own teacher of the business world had conceived. He also went behind the backs of his friends, learned that the government was soon to sell gold at a lower price, and rather than tell his friends, he sold his gold before the market dropped the price. With his friends lying in ruins, he had made a $12 million dollar profit.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jim ?Jubilee? Fisk, was a man who was cheated, but managed to make it great while being cheated. When Gould had illegally dropped 50,000 new shares of the Erie railroad stock on the market, Fisk was able to bribe enough legislators in the state capital of Albany, to have Gould?s new stock legalized. Fisk also forced Drew out of the Erie after a betrayal concerning contempt charges. Soon, Fisk and Gould had the Erie under their complete control.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Andrew Carnegie, as an official for the Pennsylvania railroad, invested in the Pullman carts, and had profits soaring in his benefit. Taking every advantage of the low construction costs, he built a Bessemer process factory in Pittsburgh where the intersections of transportation lines met, coal from Pennsylvania and iron ore from Minnesota, with the minimum cost applied reducing production costs. He then achieved horizontal integration by owning everything that he needed to produce steel, and insured sufficient supplies at a stable price.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cornelius Vanderbilt, aka ?the Commodore?, began his career as a ferry boy, but soon made a fortune from steamship lines and stock speculations. He invested primarily in the railroad franchise, gaining complete control of three major railroads, the Hudson, traveling from New York City to Albany, the Harlem, which ran through New York City, and the New York Central, which went from New York City to Toledo.

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