Michele Nappi

Bio: Michele Nappi is an academic researcher from University of Salerno. The author has contributed to research in topics: Biometrics & Facial recognition system. The author has an hindex of 30, co-authored 231 publications receiving 3904 citations. Previous affiliations of Michele Nappi include Institut Eurécom & University of Naples Federico II.

2D and 3D face recognition: A survey

Abstract: Government agencies are investing a considerable amount of resources into improving security systems as result of recent terrorist events that dangerously exposed flaws and weaknesses in today's safety mechanisms. Badge or password-based authentication procedures are too easy to hack. Biometrics represents a valid alternative but they suffer of drawbacks as well. Iris scanning, for example, is very reliable but too intrusive; fingerprints are socially accepted, but not applicable to non-consentient people. On the other hand, face recognition represents a good compromise between what's socially acceptable and what's reliable, even when operating under controlled conditions. In last decade, many algorithms based on linear/nonlinear methods, neural networks, wavelets, etc. have been proposed. Nevertheless, Face Recognition Vendor Test 2002 shown that most of these approaches encountered problems in outdoor conditions. This lowered their reliability compared to state of the art biometrics. This paper provides an ''ex cursus'' of recent face recognition research trends in 2D imagery and 3D model based algorithms. To simplify comparisons across different approaches, tables containing different collection of parameters (such as input size, recognition rate, number of addressed problems) are provided. This paper concludes by proposing possible future directions.

Mobile Iris Challenge Evaluation (MICHE)-I, biometric iris dataset and protocols

Abstract: A new dataset of iris images acquired by mobile devices can support researchers.MICHE-I will assist with developing continuous authentication to counter spoofing.The dataset includes images from different mobile devices, sessions and conditions. We introduce and describe here MICHE-I, a new iris biometric dataset captured under uncontrolled settings using mobile devices. The key features of the MICHE-I dataset are a wide and diverse population of subjects, the use of different mobile devices for iris acquisition, realistic simulation of the acquisition process (including noise), several data capture sessions separated in time, and image annotation using metadata. The aim of MICHE-I dataset is to make up the starting core of a wider dataset that we plan to collect, with the further aim to address interoperability, both in the sense of matching samples acquired with different devices and of assessing the robustness of algorithms to the use of devices with different characteristics. We discuss throughout the merits of MICHE-I with regard to biometric dimensions of interest including uncontrolled settings, demographics, interoperability, and real-world applications. We also consider the potential for MICHE-I to assist with developing continuous authentication aimed to counter adversarial spoofing and impersonation, when the bar for uncontrolled settings raises even higher for proper and effective defensive measures.

Improving the Prediction of Heart Failure Patients’ Survival Using SMOTE and Effective Data Mining Techniques

Abstract: Cardiovascular disease is a substantial cause of mortality and morbidity in the world. In clinical data analytics, it is a great challenge to predict heart disease survivor. Data mining transforms huge amounts of raw data generated by the health industry into useful information that can help in making informed decisions. Various studies proved that significant features play a key role in improving performance of machine learning models. This study analyzes the heart failure survivors from the dataset of 299 patients admitted in hospital. The aim is to find significant features and effective data mining techniques that can boost the accuracy of cardiovascular patient’s survivor prediction. To predict patient’s survival, this study employs nine classification models: Decision Tree (DT), Adaptive boosting classifier (AdaBoost), Logistic Regression (LR), Stochastic Gradient classifier (SGD), Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting classifier (GBM), Extra Tree Classifier (ETC), Gaussian Naive Bayes classifier (G-NB) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). The imbalance class problem is handled by Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE). Furthermore, machine learning models are trained on the highest ranked features selected by RF. The results are compared with those provided by machine learning algorithms using full set of features. Experimental results demonstrate that ETC outperforms other models and achieves 0.9262 accuracy value with SMOTE in prediction of heart patient’s survival.

FIRME: Face and Iris Recognition for Mobile Engagement

Abstract: Mobile devices, namely phones and tablets, have long gone “smart”. Their growing use is both a cause and an effect of their technological advancement. Among the others, their increasing ability to store and exchange sensitive information, has caused interest in exploiting their vulnerabilities, and the opposite need to protect users and their data through secure protocols for access and identification on mobile platforms. Face and iris recognition are especially attractive, since they are sufficiently reliable, and just require the webcam normally equipping the involved devices. On the contrary, the alternative use of fingerprints requires a dedicated sensor. Moreover, some kinds of biometrics lend themselves to uses that go beyond security. Ambient intelligence services bound to the recognition of a user, as well as social applications, such as automatic photo tagging on social networks, can especially exploit face recognition. This paper describes FIRME (Face and Iris Recognition for Mobile Engagement) as a biometric application based on a multimodal recognition of face and iris, which is designed to be embedded in mobile devices. Both design and implementation of FIRME rely on a modular architecture, whose workflow includes separate and replaceable packages. The starting one handles image acquisition. From this point, different branches perform detection, segmentation, feature extraction, and matching for face and iris separately. As for face, an antispoofing step is also performed after segmentation. Finally, results from the two branches are fused. In order to address also security-critical applications, FIRME can perform continuous reidentification and best sample selection. To further address the possible limited resources of mobile devices, all algorithms are optimized to be low-demanding and computation-light.

Moving face spoofing detection via 3D projective invariants

Abstract: Face recognition provides many advantages compared with other available biometrics, but it is particularly subject to spoofing. The most accurate methods in literature addressing this problem, rely on the estimation of the three-dimensionality of faces, which heavily increase the whole cost of the system. This paper proposes an effective and efficient solution to problem of face spoofing. Starting from a set of automatically located facial points, we exploit geometric invariants for detecting replay attacks. The presented results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed indices.

Machine learning

Abstract: Machine Learning is the study of methods for programming computers to learn. Computers are applied to a wide range of tasks, and for most of these it is relatively easy for programmers to design and implement the necessary software. However, there are many tasks for which this is difficult or impossible. These can be divided into four general categories. First, there are problems for which there exist no human experts. For example, in modern automated manufacturing facilities, there is a need to predict machine failures before they occur by analyzing sensor readings. Because the machines are new, there are no human experts who can be interviewed by a programmer to provide the knowledge necessary to build a computer system. A machine learning system can study recorded data and subsequent machine failures and learn prediction rules. Second, there are problems where human experts exist, but where they are unable to explain their expertise. This is the case in many perceptual tasks, such as speech recognition, hand-writing recognition, and natural language understanding. Virtually all humans exhibit expert-level abilities on these tasks, but none of them can describe the detailed steps that they follow as they perform them. Fortunately, humans can provide machines with examples of the inputs and correct outputs for these tasks, so machine learning algorithms can learn to map the inputs to the outputs. Third, there are problems where phenomena are changing rapidly. In finance, for example, people would like to predict the future behavior of the stock market, of consumer purchases, or of exchange rates. These behaviors change frequently, so that even if a programmer could construct a good predictive computer program, it would need to be rewritten frequently. A learning program can relieve the programmer of this burden by constantly modifying and tuning a set of learned prediction rules. Fourth, there are applications that need to be customized for each computer user separately. Consider, for example, a program to filter unwanted electronic mail messages. Different users will need different filters. It is unreasonable to expect each user to program his or her own rules, and it is infeasible to provide every user with a software engineer to keep the rules up-to-date. A machine learning system can learn which mail messages the user rejects and maintain the filtering rules automatically. Machine learning addresses many of the same research questions as the fields of statistics, data mining, and psychology, but with differences of emphasis. Statistics focuses on understanding the phenomena that have generated the data, often with the goal of testing different hypotheses about those phenomena. Data mining seeks to find patterns in the data that are understandable by people. Psychological studies of human learning aspire to understand the mechanisms underlying the various learning behaviors exhibited by people (concept learning, skill acquisition, strategy change, etc.).

Forecasting, Structural Time Series Models and the Kalman Filter

Abstract: In this book, Andrew Harvey sets out to provide a unified and comprehensive theory of structural time series models. Unlike the traditional ARIMA models, structural time series models consist explicitly of unobserved components, such as trends and seasonals, which have a direct interpretation. As a result the model selection methodology associated with structural models is much closer to econometric methodology. The link with econometrics is made even closer by the natural way in which the models can be extended to include explanatory variables and to cope with multivariate time series. From the technical point of view, state space models and the Kalman filter play a key role in the statistical treatment of structural time series models. The book includes a detailed treatment of the Kalman filter. This technique was originally developed in control engineering, but is becoming increasingly important in fields such as economics and operations research. This book is concerned primarily with modelling economic and social time series, and with addressing the special problems which the treatment of such series poses. The properties of the models and the methodological techniques used to select them are illustrated with various applications. These range from the modellling of trends and cycles in US macroeconomic time series to to an evaluation of the effects of seat belt legislation in the UK.

Robot vision

Abstract: A scheme is developed for classifying the types of motion perceived by a humanlike robot. It is assumed that the robot receives visual images of the scene using a perspective system model. Equations, theorems, concepts, clues, etc., relating the objects, their positions, and their motion to their images on the focal plane are presented. >