Fingerprint, palmprint, pores
Empreintes digitales, palmaires, pores

Fingerprints

Empreinte digitale, impressão digital (portugais), fingerprint (anglais), huella dactilar o huellas digitales (espagnol), linii papilarnych (polonais), impronte digitali (italien), Fingerabdrück (allemand), ...

What is a fingerprint?

Finger skin is made of friction ridges, with pores (sweat glands). Friction ridges are created during fœtal live and only the general shape is genetically defined. Friction ridges remains the same all life long, only growing up to adult size. They reconstruct the same if not too severe injury.
La peau des doigts est constituée des empreintes digitales, qui servent essentiellement à aggriper les objets par friction. Les crêtes ont des pores, les ouvertures des glandes sudoripares. Les empreintes digitales sont créées durant la vie fœtale, et seule l'allure générale est génétiquement définie. Les empreintes restent les mêmes toutes la vie durant, avec un simple accroissement jusqu'à la taille adulte. Elles se régénèrent si la blessure n'est pas trop importante.

Minutiae are the discontinuities of the ridges: Les minuties sont les discontinuités des crêtes: Endings, the points at which a ridge stops Bifurcations, the point at which one ridge divides into two Dots, very small ridges Islands, ridges slightly longer than dots, occupying a middle space between two temporarily divergent ridges Ponds or lakes, empty spaces between two temporarily divergent ridges Spurs, a notch protruding from a ridge Bridges, small ridges joining two longer adjacent ridges Crossovers, two ridges which cross each other The core is the inner point, normally in the middle of the print, around which swirls, loops, or arches center. It is frequently characterized by a ridge ending and several acutely curved ridges. Deltas are the points, normally at the lower left and right hand of the fingerprint, around which a triangular series of ridges center.

Twins have different fingerprints
Les jumeaux ont des empreintes différentes

While the overall appearence of monozygotic (identical) twins' fingerprints is often similar (a and c), they differ in the fine details (the locations of ridge starting and stopping); in addition, they are no more similar to each other than to some prints of unrelated individuals (b).
Bien que l'apparence globale des empreintes de jumeaux monozygotes soient souvent très similaires (a et c), elles diffèrent dans les détails (début et fin des lignes); de plus, elles ne sont pas plus similaires qu'avec des empreintes d'invidus sans liens de parenté (b).

Also, like twins, a clone is not a perfect copy, and fingerprints (and other non-genenic traits) will be different (recall this point when you see a movie such as The 6th day).
Un clone sera d'ailleurs aussi différent qu'un vrai jumeau peut l'être, et ses empreintes seront différentes de celles du donneur génétique (et rappelez-vous ce détail quand vous verrez un film comme A l'aube du 6ième jour).

Some people have unusual fingerprints
Certaines personnes ont des empreintes inhabituelles

Some people have some skin diseases which prevent normal formation of fingerprints, and we even know the case of one family which have no fingerprints (for genetic reason, probably). Also, the Magali (Naegeli) syndroma (a malfunction of a protein) prevents the formation of fingerprints. Born Without Fingerprint Patterns. Without a Trace: A Hand With No Fingerprints In Taiwan, the Huang-Tien family has no fingerprint for at least five generations. Certaines personnes ont une maladie de peau qui empêche une formation utilisable des empreintes, et on a même reporté le cas d'une famille qui n'avait pas d'empreintes digitales (une raison génétique, probablement). Le syndrome de Naegeli-Franceschetti-Jadassohn (causant un mauvais fonctionnement d'une proteine) empêche la formation des empreintes. A Taiwan, la famille Huang-Tien n'a pas d'empreintes digitales depuis cinq générations.

Travel warning with capecitabine (Annals of Oncology Advance Access published online on May 26, 2009)
Capecitabine has been shown to have single-agent activity in recurrent and metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma. In summary, patients taking long-term capecitabine may have problems with regards to fingerprint identification when they enter United States' ports or other countries that require fingerprint identification and should be warned about this.

A Mutation in a Skin-Specific Isoform of SMARCAD1 Causes Autosomal-Dominant Adermatoglyphia

(2011) Monogenic disorders offer unique opportunities for researchers to shed light upon fundamental physiological processes in humans. We investigated a large family affected with autosomal-dominant adermatoglyphia (absence of fingerprints) also known as the “immigration delay disease.” Using linkage and haplotype analyses, we mapped the disease phenotype to 4q22. One of the genes located in this interval is SMARCAD1, a member of the SNF subfamily of the helicase protein superfamily. We demonstrated the existence of a short isoform of SMARCAD1 exclusively expressed in the skin. Sequencing of all SMARCAD1 coding and noncoding exons revealed a heterozygous transversion predicted to disrupt a conserved donor splice site adjacent to the 3? end of a noncoding exon uniquely present in the skin-specific short isoform of the gene. This mutation segregated with the disease phenotype throughout the entire family. Using a minigene system, we found that this mutation causes aberrant splicing, resulting in decreased stability of the short RNA isoform as predicted by computational analysis and shown by RT-PCR. Taken together, the present findings implicate a skin-specific isoform of SMARCAD1 in the regulation of dermatoglyph development.

Some skin diseases such as psoriasis cause problems for proper fingerprint recognition. Certaines maladies de peau comme le psoriasis provoquent des problèmes pour l'identification par les empreintes

Scars produce some unusual patterns that are easily recognizable. Les cicatrices produisent des dessins inhabituels aisément reconnaissables.

(2006 Dec) A chinese thief born without fingerprint has taken advantage of this.

For more information:

History of fingerprints

Here are some links to know more about the history of fingerprints. It is unuseful for me to make a page about this!

Fingerprints and art

In some cases, fingerprints left by the artist enabled to clarify questions about authorship and dating.

Fingerprints and animals Not only humans have fingerprints: Primates (chimpanzee...): well, that was easy to guess, but don't you know that some primates have also fingerprints on their tail See also the Manfred Bromba's Biometric Animals page related to zebra, fish...

As shown by Henneberg & als from the Department of Anatomical Sciences, University of Adelaide, koalas have fingerprints.

from vokrugsveta

Fingerprint sensing techniques

Many sensing techniques to capture fingerprint have been developed. See the fingerprint sensors page to get more information about live fingerprint sensors, as well as links to sensor manufacturers.
De nombreuses techniques de capture d'empreintes ont été développées. Voir la page sur les capteurs d'empreintes digitales pour plus d'information sur les captures directes (live) à partir du doigt, ainsi que des liens vers les fabriquants de capteurs.

Fingerprint recognition

Many algorithms for fingerprint recognition have been developed. See the fingerprint algorithms page to get more information, as well as algorithm makers.
De nombreux algorithmes ont été développés. Voir la page sur les algorithmes de reconnaissance d'empreintes digitales pour plus d'information, ainsi que des liens vers des concepteurs d'algorithmes.

How old a fingerprint is?

(2010) Forensic Scientists at the University of Sussex determined that the fingerprint’s electrical activity decays over time. Imaging electrostatic fingerprints with implications for a forensic timeline Philip Watson, Robert J. Prance, Sam T. Beardsmore-Rust, Helen Prance / Centre for Physical Electronics and Quantum Technology, School of Engineering and Design, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QT, United Kingdom

Palmprint Friction ridges also exist on the palm, and can be used for authentication, as well as creases. La paume de la main est aussi formée d'empreintes digitales qui peuvent servir pour l'identification, ainsi que les "lignes de la main".

(2006 Oct) Rimax Contactless PalmScan Grupo CDW Contactless Rimax Staff On Time Palm Scan Distributed also by Datacab group's Contactless Rimax Staff On Time Palm Scan

Footprint In some countries, a footprint of each baby is collected for identification purpose. Dans certains pays, l'empreinte du pied des bébés est capturée à des fins d'identification.

Pores Position of the pores is also a distinctive features, but requires higher resolution scanner, typically 1000dpi, as a pores is about 60 microns, and regular fingerprint sensors are 500dpi which is 50 microns pitch. La position des pores est aussi considérées comme une caractéristiques bien particulière à chaque individu, mais requiert des lecteurs de plus haute résolution, environ 1000 points par pouce, car un pore fait environ 60 microns, et les capteurs d'empreintes digitales habituels font 500 points par pouce, soit un pas de 50 microns. There is no commercial systems using pore information for authentication, only some R & D. Aucun système commercial n'utilise les pores pour l'identification, c'est resté au niveau de la R & D. Automated system for fingerprint authentication using pores and ridge structure. Jonathan D. Stosz Lisa A. Alyea. SPIE 1994 Poroscopy: a method of personal identification revisited (2014) An interesting article about pores: Hydrochromic conjugated polymers for human sweat pore mapping. Some pores does not produce sweat!

(2014) An interesting article about pores: Hydrochromic conjugated polymers for human sweat pore mapping (Joosub Lee & als). Some pores do not produce sweat!

Standards:

See the standards page.

Biometrics visitors