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A paper co-authored by Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics Michael E. Schuckers and Yordan Minev '07 won third prize at the International Conference on Biometrics, held in Korea in August. Much of the research conducted by Minev for the paper also was part of his senior-year experience, for his degree in economics/mathematics.

The paper is titled "Curvewise DET Confidence Regions and Pointwise EER Confidence Intervals Using Radial Sweep Methodology"; its third author is Andy Adler, on the faculty at Carleton University in Ottawa. The abstract states, "One methodology for evaluating the matching performance of biometric authentication systems is the detection error tradeoff (DET) curve. The DET curve graphically illustrates the relationship between false rejects and false accepts when varying a threshold across a genuine and an imposter match score distributions. This paper makes two contributions to the literature on the matching performance evaluation of biometric identification or bioauthentication systems. First, we create curvewise DET confidence regions using radial sweep methods. Second we use this same methodology to create pointwise confidence intervals for the equal error rate (EER). The EER is the rate at which the false accept rate and the false reject rate are identical. We utilize resampling or bootstrap methods to to estimate the variability in both the DET and the EER. Our radial sweep is based on converting the false reject and false accept errors to polar coordinates. Application is made of these methods to data from three different biometric modalities and we discuss the results of these applications."

An expert in biometrics, Schuckers has been awarded a number of grants for his research.

More information: Science at St. Lawrence

The International Conference on Biometrics Web site

The award-winning paper (.pdf format)

Posted: September 6, 2007