Saflink bucks industry ‘bad news’ trend

Biometric middleware vendor Saflink has bucked the biometric industry’s current ‘bad news’ trend with a spate of good news stories which mark a turnaround in the company’s fortunes. Not so long ago the vendor had been on the brink of financial disaster but it has managed to pull itself around, even getting re-listed on Nasdaq’s SmallCap market at the end of April — a feat accomplished by very few in recent times.This is a short news story only. Visit www.compseconline.com for the latest computer security industry news.     

Saflink wins $500,000 pharmaceutical order

Biometric middleware provider Saflink Corporation has received a purchase order from a major pharmaceutical company for approximately US$500,000. The order is for software development and other services, and will see the integration of its biometric authentication software into the pharmaceutical company’s production management infrastructure at a designated plant.This is a short news story only. Visit www.compseconline.com for the latest computer security news.     

Selling biometrics to the retail sector

The retail sector is a potentially ‘hot’ application area for the biometrics industry. Fraudulent transactions and identity theft are rising at unprecedented levels causing unacceptable losses to retailers. Biometric technology is proving successful in fighting these sorts of crimes, and is attracting attention from some of the world’s major retailers. This attention has not yet matured into contracts, however, so for now the use of the technology is confined to small chains of stores, which are using the technology primarily for secure cheque cashing.     

Saflink revenues drop

Biometric middleware developer and integrator Saflink Corporation has announced disappointing financial results for its second quarter ended 30 June 2003.Visit www.compseconline.com for the latest computer security industry news     

Real-life biometric testing

During 2000, leading international practitioners on testing matters made a range of solicited contributions to the UK Biometric Working Group (UK BWG), a part of the UK Government Communications and Electronics Security Group (CESG). Beginning with the publication of a guideline document outlining Best Practices in Testing of Biometric Devices (“Best Practices”), the efforts of the UK BWG led directly to a carefully structured trial. Looking at seven biometric systems this trial was conducted over six months by the Centre for Mathematics and Scientific Computing at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the UK.     

Are condition factors powerful proxies of energy content in wild tropical tunas?

The “condition” is used as an indicator of fish health and is generally equated with the quantity of energy reserves. Biometric condition factors have been widely used and preferred over costly and time-consuming biochemical condition. Here, we investigated the relevance of four common condition factors based on biometric measurements (Le Cren’s index, girth-length index, gonado-somatic index and hepato-somatic index) and of size- and weight-based empirical models to describe the physiological condition of tropical tunas. Biometric condition factors of bigeye (Thunnus obesus), skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis) and yellowfin (Thunnus albacares) tunas sampled throughout 2013 in the western Indian Ocean region were assessed against benchmark biochemical indices (lipid content, protein content, triacylglycerol:sterol ratio and energy density) estimated in tissues with different physiological functions, i.e. red muscle, white muscle, liver, and gonads. Our findings suggest that tropical tunas do not store lipids in white muscle and that protein content is less variable than lipid content, which largely varies with ontogeny and the seasons according to tissue and species. This variability induced inconsistency between biometric factors, including the empirically adjusted ones, and biochemical indices, with the exception of the gonado-somatic index that fitted well to the composition of the gonads in the three species, and especially in females.     

On Hunting Animals of the Biometric Menagerie for Online Signature

Individuals behave differently regarding to biometric authentication systems. This fact was formalized in the literature by the concept of Biometric Menagerie, defining and labeling user groups with animal names in order to reflect their characteristics with respect to biometric systems. This concept was illustrated for face, fingerprint, iris, and speech modalities. The present study extends the Biometric Menagerie to online signatures, by proposing a novel methodology that ties specific quality measures for signatures to categories of the Biometric Menagerie. Such measures are combined for retrieving automatically writer categories of the extended version of the Biometric Menagerie. Performance analysis with different types of classifiers shows the pertinence of our approach on the well-known MCYT-100 database.     

New associations formed in Europe and Asia

Two new associations have been established to represent the biometrics industry in Europe and in Asia. The European Biometric Forum was launched in July and will be headquartered in Dublin, while the Biometrics Security Consortium was launched in Japan in June.This is a short news story only. Visit www.compseconline.com for the latest computer security industry news.     

A new Laelius species (Hymenoptera: Bethylidae) from China with a key to the species in Eastern Palaearctic region

A new species of Laelius (Hymenoptera: Bethylidae) from China is described and illustrated. Biometric measurement data are also included. Laelius jilinensis Lim and S. Lee sp. nov. is characterized by ‘having mandible with four teeth, the propodeal disc with five discal carinae and the pronotum slightly wider than long’ from other congeneric species. A key to the species of the genus Laelius from the Eastern Palaearctic region is also provided.     

Epidemiologic interference of virus populations

Summary There are a few simulation studies for interference models in the literature but the present paper discusses an analytical model for the competition of two interfering virus populations in a community. The mathematical model consist of eight coupled differential equations which have up to four equilibrium points. Criteria for local stability are given.This paper has been read at the workshop on Nonlinear Models in Biology and Medicine, 23rd Biometric Colloquium, German Region of the Biometric Society, Nuremberg, March 1977     

An ecological network analysis of the structure,development and sustainability of China’s natural gas supply system security

Mitigating the impacts of climate change and ensuring energy supply security has compelled China’s policy makers to maximise the use of alternative and low carbon fuels. Use and production of natural gas (an energy source with low carbon emissions) has experienced remarkable growth in China during the last decade, making China the third largest consumer and importer in the world. This study applied a powerful system-oriented ecological network analysis (ENA) technique to study China’s natural gas policies as they pertain to guarantee supply security. Several indicators based on the ENA were measured to analyse the degree of connectivity, the contributions of different compartments, resource utilisation (aggradation), development (ascendancy) and sustainability of China’s natural gas supply system. It was found that China’s source and route diversification policy have caused the natural gas supply system to exhibit considerable network complexity, demonstrating the high level of development, flexibility and diversity of China’s natural gas supply system. However, the policy also has caused a decrease in the aggradation and sustainability from the perspective of an ecological system network. The most important compartments in terms of their contribution to China’s natural gas supply system were found to be domestic natural gas production and transit compartments.     

基于改进TOPSIS-灰色GM(1,1)模型的张家界市旅游生态安全动态预警

旅游生态安全预警对旅游地协调生态环境保护与旅游产业快速发展的矛盾,推进区域社会经济持续健康发展具有重要意义.本文基于DPSIR模型,从驱动力、压力、状态、影响、响应5方面构建了张家界市旅游生态安全预警指标体系,在此基础上,运用改进TOPSIS法对2001—2014年张家界市的旅游生态安全警情格局进行评估,并运用灰色GM(1,1)模型对其2015—2020年的警情演变趋势进行预测.结果表明: 总体上,2001—2014年,张家界市的旅游生态安全贴近度呈略微上升态势,警度处于“中警”.就各子系统而言,2001—2014年,张家界市旅游生态安全驱动力系统和压力系统的警度呈上升趋势,由“轻警”演变成“重警”;状态系统和影响系统的警度变化不大,一直处于“中警”;响应系统的警度呈下降趋势,由“巨警”转变成“无警”.按现状发展态势,2015—2020年,张家界市的旅游生态安全贴近度将进一步上升,警度将由“中警”向“轻警”转变,但协调旅游发展与生态建设和环境保护关系的任务依然较艰巨.     

The impact of the spatial structure of hydromacrophytes on the similarity of rotifera communities (Budzyńskie Lake,Poland)

Hydrobiologia - The hydrobiological research was carried out on the shallow and macrophyte-dominated Lake Budzyńskie (Wielkopolski National Park, Poland). Biometric parameters (such as length...     

Amino-Oligosaccharide Promote the Growth of Wheat,Increased Antioxidant Enzymes Activity

Biology Bulletin - Wheat refers to a critical grain crop in China, and ensuring the stable, high quality, high yielding production of wheat is of significance to China’s food security....     

Assessing the Impacts of Agrobiodiversity Maintenance on Food Security Among Farming Households in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone

Farmers’ maintenance of agrobiodiversity is fundamental to global food security, particularly in a world increasingly affected by climate change. Biodiversity helps to buffer agroecosystems from stresses like climatic variability, and the crop genetic diversity conserved with biodiverse agroecosystems is critical for plant breeding both locally and globally. Yet, despite these benefits, few studies have directly assessed the implications of household–level agrobiodiversity maintenance on household food security. Drawing on survey data collected in Sri Lanka’s Hambantota District, we evaluated the plant diversity maintained by small–scale farming households in both homegardens and crop fields and determined the relationships between this diversity and their households’ food security. We also considered how a suite of additional demographic, household, community, and farm characteristics relate to both the plant diversity maintained by a household and their food security. Similar to previous studies, the age of the agricultural decision-maker and the age and size of households’ homegardens positively correlated with the overall species richness of farming systems. Older homegardens were also identified to be more evenly distributed in their species abundance, and market–oriented households had significantly higher species richness but lower Shannon Indices. Most notably, household socioeconomic status and material wealth were important to both agrobiodiversity maintenance and household food security, while no significant relationships between species richness and food security measures were detected. These findings suggest that effort aiming to increase the food security of small–scale farming households in Sri Lanka, and elsewhere, should target those farming households with a paucity of socioeconomic assets, as these households lack both agroecological and economic resources to overcome shocks, such as those associated with climate change.     

The value of fruit security for the conservation of a neotropical frugivore in human-dominated landscapes

Understanding which habitat elements are critical for species’ persistence in the human-dominated landscape is a fundamental challenge of conservation biology. In human-altered lands fruit can be less reliably available compared to intact forest, but it is unclear whether this affects generalist frugivores, the primary providers of the important ecosystem service of seed dispersal. Does the habitat element of fruit constancy influence the persistence of these species in human-altered lands? Radio-telemetry, foraging patterns and species incidence frequencies of a representative generalist frugivore, the Blue-throated Toucanet (Aulacorhynchus caeruleogularis) were used to examine the effect of fruit security, measured by a site’s annual constancy of fruit energy availability (FEA). Toucanets were detected 20–30% more often in shade-grown coffee plantations with high fruit security (<40% of months with <1000 fruit calories). Despite the large size of this generalist frugivore, home range size was <2 ha, when estimated by the a-LoCoH method, regardless of whether the initial capture site was forest, coffee plantation with high fruit security or coffee plantation with low fruit security. However, home range size was larger for birds captured in low fruit security coffee plantations. Furthermore, birds captured in low fruit security coffee plantations spent more time in forest patches and windbreaks, while birds captured in high fruit security coffee plantations spent more time in coffee shade trees. The results of this study emphasize the important role that a tree species’ contribution to annual FEA should be given in conservation applications within the tropical regions.     

Cost cuts at Precise Biometrics

Precise Biometrics has announced steps to reduce the company’s current overheads. The programme of cost cuts are designed to help the company achieve positive cash flow more quickly, but will also lead to 10 of the company’s 47-strong workforce losing their jobs. These jobs will be lost at the company’s head office in Lund, Sweden, and will be spread across the supplier’s administration, sales, management and support departments.This is a short news story only. Visit www.compseconline.com for the latest computer security industry news.     

IPad: ID-based public auditing for the outsourced data in the standard model

Cloud storage is an important cloud computing service, it allows data users to store and access their files anytime, from anywhere and with any device. To ensure the security of the outsourced data, it also must allow data user to periodically verify integrity of the data which was outsourced to an untrusted cloud server at a relatively low cost. To solve this problem, most recent auditing protocols are mainly based on the traditional-public key infrastructure. In this infrastructure, the auditor must validate the certificates of data user before auditing data integrity. Thus, it results in a large amount of computation cost and is not suitable to the multi-user setting. To overcome this problem, in this paper, we propose two efficient ID-based public auditing protocols for the outsourced data by combing Water’s signature and public auditing for the outsourced data. And the two protocols are provably secure in the standard security model. Especially, our optimized protocol has constant communication overhead and computation cost. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first ID-based auditing for data integrity in the standard security model. By comparison with Wang et al.’s scheme and Tan et al.’s scheme, our protocols have the large advantages over the other two schemes in terms of communication cost and computation cost. Simulation results show that our proposed ID-based auditing protocols are the most efficient among three schemes in terms of computation cost.     

Trust-driven and QoS demand clustering analysis based cloud workflow scheduling strategies

Due to the restrictions that most traditional scheduling strategies only cared about users’ quality of service (QoS) time or cost requirements, lacked the effective analysis of users’ real service demand and could not guarantee scheduling security, this paper added trust into workflow’s QoS target and proposed a novel customizable cloud workflow scheduling model. In order to better analyze different user’s service requirements and provide customizable services, the new model divided workflow scheduling into two stages: the macro multi-workflow scheduling as the unit of cloud user and the micro single workflow scheduling. It introduced trust mechanism into multi-workflow scheduling level. And in single workflow scheduling level, it classified workflows into time-sensitive, cost-sensitive and balance three types according to different workflow’s QoS demand parameters using fuzzy clustering method. Based on it, it customized different service strategies for different type. The simulation experiments show that the new schema has some advantages in shortening workflow’s final completion time, achieving relatively high execution success rate and user satisfaction compared to other kindred solutions.     

The pedigree of the International Biometric Society

On the 60th anniversary of the International Biometric Society, a look back is taken to the view of biometry held by the first president, R. A. Fisher, as reflected in notes taken in a lecture course he gave in 1935-1936.