Chapter 2

THEORY GUIDING THE STUDY

The proponents considered the theory behind the operation of a pulse oximeter in order to
successfully implement the research. According to the principle of pulse oximetry, the amount of
oxygen in the blood can be measured using an infrared source and a sensor. Light is emitted from
infrared LEDs which goes across the pulse oximeter probe and reaches the light detector. If a
finger is placed in between the light source and the light detector, the light will now have to pass
through the finger to reach the detector. Part of the light will be absorbed by the finger and the
part not absorbed reaches the light detector. It is an application of Beers Law in physics which
states that the amount of light absorbed is proportional to the concentration of the light absorbing
substance. Hemoglobin (Hb) is a substance present in the blood that absorbs light. The amount of
light absorbed is proportional to the concentration of Hb in the blood vessel.
Using this knowledge, the device operation can be configured to capture hand vein
pattern instead of measuring oxygen by replacing the light detector with an infrared sensitive
camera. The application of infrared light will visibly emphasize the network pattern of veins on
the back portion of the hand to the infrared sensitive camera because the deoxygenated
hemoglobin present in the hand vein absorb infrared light and will reduce reflection rate sot that
veins appear dark.

Review of Related Literature

The review of related literature shows the significance of designing a biometric ATM
using hand vein pattern by presenting the need of high data security for financial institutions.
Also, in order to design the system the proponents need to consider different technological
concepts to guide the implementation of the proposed system.

LOCAL LITERATURE
ARMM Government to Use Biometrics to Check Absentees, Ghost Employees
COTABATO CITY Governor in-charge Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in
Muslim Mindanao announced plans to deploy a time monitoring system using biometrics in the
regions various offices to combat absenteeism and ghost employees. In batting for biometrics,
he said, that no two individuals shared the same profile. The biometrics system also does not
allow duplicate profiles to be stored. Hataman announced the plan as he admitted that the
problem on non-existent employees in particular was serious. In the regions Department of
Education (DepEd) alone, Hataman said documents provided to him gave a birds eyeview of
how serious the problem was. He said, for example, that the DepEd documents, such as payroll
sheets, have names of teachers without addresses and schools of assignment. He said he wanted
to push the biometric system, initially for employees of the Office of the Regional Governor and
then for the regions almost 20,000 teachers. Hataman said he was also considering establishing a
databank system for ARMM.

Whos gonna stop ATM fraud?

ATM fraud is a reality that has threatened to plague its 14 million users in the Philippines for too
long a time. With its many conveniences offered, ATM cards have become indispensable to

customers. Because of this, users are a popular target prey of a growing number and
sophisticated type of syndicates just lying in wait to steal, pinch, swipe or even coerce
unauthorized withdrawals of hard-earned money. Among the scams being used by ATM gangs,
the "Lebanese Loop" is probably the most popular. Used in other countries since last year, this
scam has now reached Philippine shores. This often involves stealing bankcards by the syndicate
that has installed devices in ATM machines to capture the cards. There is a particular Bank of the
Philippine Islands (BPI) ATM outlet located along Sucat road that is reportedly a favorite hunting
ground of the "Lebanese Loop" gangs. Information gathered from informers is that several ATM
users have already been victimized in that outlet. As described by a victim, when he put his card
in, the machine knows it is there but cannot read it prompting an error message to come up
onscreen. The frustrated cardholder leaves the "stuck" card, which apparently will then be
retrieved by the syndicate operator. Because the pin number has been keyed in, unauthorized
withdrawal starts. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is now pushing for the Electronic
Banking Act of 2000 that aims to enhance existing electronic banking services to serve the
rapidly evolving needs of clients. Part of the proposed law is the responsibility of banks to
educate and inform their clients of how to protect themselves against fraud initiatives while
instituting measures to protect cardholders and account holders from such fraudulent elements of
society.

Working Image Types in Scilab

Digital images are used to share information. It is important to know what format to use in order
to preserve the quality of the image or to decrease the size of the image without sacrificing its
quality. The types of image are indexed, binary, grayscale, true color, high dynamic range, multi

or hyperspectral, 3D and video or temporal image. Indexed images contain two sets of data: one
for the image and the other for the color map. These images eats up less space on hard disk but
may be have lower quality. Binary images are composed of pixels containing values of either 0
or 1. These are often used in images where we seek to see only the line shape information.
Examples of these are fingerprints and signature. Gray scale images differ from binary image
since their gray levels range from black to white in fine steps. True color images are composed of
set of pixels with values for red, green and blue. Each specific area has designated pixel color
information.
High dynamic images are used for pictures that need more than 8-bit grayscale to understand.
Unlike other image types, multispectral image has more than three bands; it has bands in the
order of 10. On the other hand, 3D images stores spatial information. Lastly, temporal images or
videos are images in motion. Scilab is powerful program alternative to Matlab, with capabilities
for image and video processing. In these literature, it is demonstrated how to convert a true color
image into gray scale using and binary type image. A colored image can be converted into gray
scale using the gray_imread command while binary image uses theim2bw command. In the
binary image, the picture is converted into high contrast black and white shade. The example
presented shows an example of improving an image quality by converting it into binary image.
However, this is desirable only if the intention is to capture the details of pattern and shape.

FOREIGN LITERATURE
ATM Fraud and Security
This white paper published by an ATM security company Diebold contains a comprehensive
overview of ATM fraud, security, and consumer safety issues facing the self-service ATM
industry. It presented different criminal cases to affirm that ATM fraud is in global scale. One of

the case presented is the arrest of Russian police on 2006 of a group of criminals accused of
stealing $500,000 using stolen account information and PINs from organized crime groups in
US, Canada and France. However, the focus of the paper is to classify ATM fraud techniques
used by criminals. These are the card fraud, operation fraud, equipment fraud and digital fraud.
The card fraud occurs if the thief gains access to the ATM card through stealing or ATM card
cloning, and has knowledge of the victims PIN. On the other hand, operational fraud occurs
when ATMs are hacked to dispense more money than what should be withdrawn. The equipment
fraud is implemented using fake card readers or skimmers which scan the card data of the users
who used the machine. Lastly, the digital fraud occurs when virus or malicious program exploit
the ATM operating system to gather customers confidential transaction data.

Personal Identification through Biometric Technology

Biometrics refers to an automatic recognition of a person based on her behavioral and/or
physiological characteristics. Many business applications (e.g. banking) in the future will rely on
biometrics since using biometrics is the only way to guarantee the presence of the owner when a
transaction is made. The paper presented the different sources of biometric data with their
corresponding disadvantages which includes DNA, ear, face, fingerprints, hand & finger
geometry, iris scan, signature and voice. A DNA sample is easy to steal and have no real time
matching application because it is a complex process that requires experts skills. The use of ear
is disregarded because it is believed not to be distinctive. The use of facial recognition is also not
advised because people can use mask to hide identities. On the other hand, fingerprints are not
often read if the hand condition is very wet or very dry and are easily copied because they are
external. Using hand geometry is bulky and has problems with aging and health condition such

as arthritis. The disadvantage of using signature is the fact that people may not sign in consistent
manner. Lastly, the use of voice is limited because the person may have different voice if sick.

Vascular Development: From Precursor Cells to Branched Arterial and Venous Networks
The smallest vessels of the vascular system, the capillaries, are composed solely of endothelial
cells and are surrounded by a basement membrane. Larger vessels have additional layers
constituting the vessel wall, which are composed of a muscular layer, an outer connective tissue
layer and nerves. The cardiovascular system is the first organ system to develop during early
embryonic development. It starts with differentiation of the endothelial cells into mesoderm germ
layer from the cells of the early embryo. The posterior and lateral mesoderms develop into blood
cells and blood vessels. The further development of blood vessels is affected by hemodynamic
forces and signaling molecules which labels the early blood vessel as an artery or vein. Other
factors identified neural guidance receptors are implicated in establishment of cell boundaries
and in the guidance of developing axons because it was found out that the patterning of
developing arteries in the limb skin of embryos has been shown to depend on interactions with
nerves. It can thus be said that the inter-variability of individual vascular structures is high,
although they will all be influenced by similar factors and satisfy on the aim of optimality. So far,
no resource has reported the existence of similar hand vein patterns, not in the right and left hand
of one person, not in fingers of the same hand, and not between identical twins.

Hemodynamics of Large and Small Vessels in Peripheral Vascular Disease

The only variation in vascular structure reported is the variation due to growth. During life the
human skeleton grows in the first phases and shrinks in the last phases. The vascular networks
function is to provide oxygen to all places in the body, and therefore adapts to the size of the

body. It will extend and evolve throughout life, with major changes before 20 and minor changes
during the ageing process from 20 years on. Other natural vascular changes are due to weather
conditions, physical activity and alcohol intake. But in pathological conditions vascular changes
can also occur. Vascular remodelling under hypertension results in thickening or thinning of the
vessel wall, in both lumen and external diameter. Formation of new vessels occurs during
angiogenic processes associated with tumour growth. This can lead to a whole new network of
vessels around a tumour.

Principles of Pulse Oximetry Technology

An oximeter is a device which measures the oxygen level in the patients blood. The principle of
pulse oximetry is based on the red and infrared light absorption characteristics of oxygenated and
deoxygenated hemoglobin. Oxygenated hemoglobin absorbs more infrared light and allows more
red light to pass through. Deoxygenated (or reduced) hemoglobin absorbs more red light and
allows more infrared light to pass through. Red light is in the 600-750 nm wavelength light band.
Infrared light is in the 850-1000 nm wavelength light band. Pulse oximetry uses a light emitter
with red and infrared LEDs that shines through a reasonably translucent site with good blood
flow. Typical adult/pediatric sites are the finger, toe, pinna (top) or lobe of the ear. Infant sites are
the foot or palm of the hand and the big toe or thumb. Opposite the emitter is a photodetector that
receives the light that passes through the measuring site.

Infrared Thermal System for Whole-Body Regenerative Radiant Therapy

What exactly is radiant heat? No need to worry it has nothing to do with either ultraviolet
radiation (which gives a sunburn and damages skin) or atomic radiation (the kind from a nuclear

bomb). Radiant heat is simply a form of energy that heats objects directly through a process
called conversions, without having to heat the air in between. Radiant heat is also called Infrared
Energy (IR). The sun is the principal source of radiant energy that people experience daily. Our
bodies radiate infrared energy out through the skin at 3 ~ 50 microns, with most of their output at
9.4 microns. Our palms emit infrared energy at between 8 ~ 14 microns.

Relevance to the Present Study

The review of related literature greatly helped the proponents to get motivation and
derive essential core concepts for the design and implementation of the hand vein scanning
system for the proposed biometric ATM. These core concepts include:

1) The recent occurrence of ATM fraud attacks is financially crippling the banking institutions as
their customers lose confidence to have business transaction with them.
2) The vulnerability of present biometric technologies to fraud attacks particularly of fingerprint
motivated the proponents to search for a secure source of biometric data not accessible for
duplication by the thieves.
3) The proponents would like to utilize the uniqueness of the hand vein pattern of each individual
as a tool for biometric identification instead of using ATM card for financial transaction.

4) The principle behind the operation of the pulse oximeter illustrates that the hand vein pattern
can be made detectable and be captured using an infrared light source and an infrared level
sensitive device.
5) The knowledge about the source and effect of infrared radiation guided the researchers to
assess the safety of the proposed system to the health of the ATM users.
6) The use of Scilab for digital image processing is essential for the extraction and processing of
raw captured image into a digital form suitable for biometric matching and identification.

Research Paradigm

O
PR
T
U
S
E
C
Figure 1 shows the input process output block diagram of the Biometric ATM using Hand

vein Pattern. The blocks are labeled as input, process and output. The input block enumerates the

necessary elements in order to implement the proposed system. These are the Medical and
Technological concepts, Hardware and Software. It is very important that the proponents know
the scientific and technological concepts because it is crucial for the implementation of the
proposed system. The said concepts are the following: human cardiovascular system, optics,
principle of oximetry, digital image processing, C programming, Scilab programming and
electronic circuits. The knowledge about the cardiovascular system of a human will help the
researchers to determine if the individual hand patterns are unique and if it could be used as
biometric identification. The principle of oximetry and optics will guide the proponents in
constructing hardware that is capable of extracting the hand vein pattern into digital form so that
it can be used as biometric identification, also, the knowledge on electronic circuits will help the
researchers in the construction of the electronic components of the said hardware. The
knowledge on digital image processing will help the researchers on constructing appropriate
image filter algorithms to remove the unwanted noisy image pixels on the captured raw image of
hand vein pattern. The knowledge on Scilab program will guide the researchers in constructing
appropriate program based on the formulated digital image processing algorithm while the
knowledge on C program will help the proponents in creating a program that compares the
processed digital image of the scanned hand vein pattern to the enrolled biometric.
The biometric ATM using hand vein pattern requires the following hardwares: array of
infrared LEDs, infrared sensitive webcam and computer. The array of infrared LEDs is
responsible for emphasizing the hand vein pattern while the infrared sensitive webcam captures
the darkened hand vein pattern caused by infrared light absorption. The computer holds the
necessary software programs in order to process the raw image of hand vein and compare it to
the enrolled biometric pattern.

The process block follows the following steps: design, develop and test. The design stage
considers all the mentioned medical and technological concepts in order for the computer to
successfully determine if the hand vein pattern is matched to an enrolled biometric pattern. After
designing, the proposal will be tested by enrolling a hand vein pattern and matching it with a
stored hand vein pattern in the database of the same individual.

Research Hypothesis
The implementation of the proposal is possible because the present technology can
provide all the necessary hardware and software components to build the system. The
construction of hand vein scanner can be constructed using array of infrared LEDs and an
infrared sensitive camera while the computer software can compare the scanned hand vein
pattern to the stored image in the data base and determine if the image are matched or
mismatched.

Operational Definition of Terms

Array of Infrared LEDs
This component illuminates the back of the hand in order to reveal the hand vein pattern
and be captured by the infrared sensitive camera.
C Program

The software is used implement the ATM process of financial transaction by verifying if
the user has account in the bank. The software looks for a match of the scanned hand vein pattern
from the database of stored biometric data for the transaction to continue.
Digital Image Processing
These are the digital signal processing techniques used to extract the vein pattern from
the raw image. It eliminates the unnecessary pixels and retains the vein pattern image.
False Acceptance Rate
It is the percentage in which the ATM allows a user with an unregistered vein pattern to
perform ATM transaction
False Rejection Rate
It is the percentage in which the ATM incorrectly blocks a user with registered vein
pattern from performing ATM transaction.
Hand Vein Pattern
It refers to the unique vascular network of an individual which is used to identify the
individual. The hand vein pattern is extracted from the back of the hand through infrared
illumination.
IR sensitive webcam
It refers to the device that captures hand vein pattern from the back of the hand
illuminated by infrared LEDs.
Oximetry
It is the principle of measuring the oxygen level in the blood by using the infrared
absorbing ability of deoxygenated hemoglobin.
PIN
Known as personal identification number, it is the security number entered in the ATM
machine which prevents unauthorized access to the bank account.
Scilab
The program is used for implementing the digital image processing like image noise
removal, filtering, segmentation and thresholding.