Quality Fingerprint Research Articles

Recent Progress in Amine Gas Sensors for Food Quality Monitoring: Novel Architectures for Sensing Materials and Systems.

The increasing demand for food production has necessitated the development of sensitive and reliable methods of analysis, which allow for the optimization of storage and distribution while ensuring food safety. Methods to quantify and monitor volatile and biogenic amines are key to minimizing the waste of high-protein foods and to enable the safe consumption of fresh products. Novel materials and device designs have allowed the development of portable and reliable sensors that make use of different transduction methods for amine detection and food quality monitoring. Herein, we review the past decade's advances in volatile amine sensors for food quality monitoring. First, the role of volatile and biogenic amines as a food-quality index is presented. Moreover, a comprehensive overview of the distinct amine gas sensors is provided according to the transduction method, operation strategies, and distinct materials (e.g., metal oxide semiconductors, conjugated polymers, carbon nanotubes, graphene and its derivatives, transition metal dichalcogenides, metal organic frameworks, MXenes, quantum dots, and dyes, among others) employed in each case. These include chemoresistive, fluorometric, colorimetric, and microgravimetric sensors. Emphasis is also given to sensor arrays that record the food quality fingerprints and wireless devices that operate as radiofrequency identification (RFID) tags. Finally, challenges and future opportunities on the development of new amine sensors are presented aiming to encourage further research and technological development of reliable, integrated, and remotely accessible devices for food-quality monitoring.

Robust Fingerprint Minutiae Extraction and Matching Based on Improved SIFT Features

Minutiae feature extraction and matching are not only two crucial tasks for identifying fingerprints, but also play an eminent role as core components of automated fingerprint recognition (AFR) systems, which first focus primarily on the identification and description of the salient minutiae points that impart individuality to each fingerprint and differentiate one fingerprint from another, and then matching their relative placement in a candidate fingerprint and previously stored fingerprint templates. In this paper, an automated minutiae extraction and matching framework is presented for identification and verification purposes, in which an adaptive scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) detector is applied to high-contrast fingerprints preprocessed by means of denoising, binarization, thinning, dilation and enhancement to improve the quality of latent fingerprints. As a result, an optimized set of highly-reliable salient points discriminating fingerprint minutiae is identified and described accurately and quickly. Then, the SIFT descriptors of the local key-points in a given fingerprint are matched with those of the stored templates using a brute force algorithm, by assigning a score for each match based on the Euclidean distance between the SIFT descriptors of the two matched keypoints. Finally, a postprocessing dual-threshold filter is adaptively applied, which can potentially eliminate almost all the false matches, while discarding very few correct matches (less than 4%). The experimental evaluations on publicly available low-quality FVC2004 fingerprint datasets demonstrate that the proposed framework delivers comparable or superior performance to several state-of-the-art methods, achieving an average equal error rate (EER) value of 2.01%.

Multiresolution synthetic fingerprint generation

Public access to existing high-resolution databases was discontinued. Besides, a hybrid database that contains fingerprints of different sensors with high and medium resolutions does not exist. A novel hybrid approach to synthesise realistic, multiresolution, and multisensor fingerprints to address these issues is presented. The first step was to improve Anguli, a handcrafted fingerprint generator, to create pores, scratches, and dynamic ridge maps. Using CycleGAN, then the maps are converted into realistic fingerprints, adding textures to images. Unlike other neural network-based methods, the authors’ method generates multiple images with different resolutions and styles for the same identity. With the authors’ approach, a synthetic database with 14,800 fingerprints is built. Besides that, fingerprint recognition experiments with pore- and minutiae-based matching techniques and different fingerprint quality analyses are conducted to confirm the similarity between real and synthetic databases. Finally, a human classification analysis is performed, where volunteers could not distinguish between authentic and synthetic fingerprints. These experiments demonstrate that the authors’ approach is suitable for supporting further fingerprint recognition studies in the absence of real databases.

A Fingerprint Matching Algorithm Using the Combination of Edge Features and Convolution Neural Networks

This study presents an algorithm for fingerprint classification using a CNN (convolutional neural network) model and making use of full images belonging to four digital databases. The main challenge that we face in fingerprint classification is dealing with the low quality of fingerprints, which can impede the identification process. To overcome these restrictions, the proposed model consists of the following steps: a preprocessing stage which deals with edge enhancement operations, data resizing, data augmentation, and finally a post-processing stage devoted to classification tasks. Primarily, the fingerprint images are enhanced using Prewitt and Laplacian of Gaussian filters. This investigation used the fingerprint verification competition with four databases (FVC2004, DB1, DB2, DB3, and DB4) which contain 240 real fingerprint images and 80 synthetic fingerprint images. The real images were collected using various sensors. The innovation of the model is in the manner in which the number of epochs is selected, which improves the performance of the classification. The number of epochs is defined as a hyper-parameter which can influence the performance of the deep learning model. The number of epochs was set to 10, 20, 30, and 50 in order to keep the training time at an acceptable value of 1.8 s/epoch, on average. Our results indicate the overfitting of the model starting with the seventh epoch. The accuracy varies from 67.6% to 98.7% for the validation set, and between 70.2% and 75.6% for the test set. The proposed method achieved a very good performance compared to the traditional hand-crafted features despite the fact that it used raw data and it does not perform any handcrafted feature extraction operations.

A trinity fingerprint evaluation system of traditional Chinese medicine

This study focused on developing a set of quality evaluation methods that can reflect the multi-levels and multi-characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Taking licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra L.) as the method development sample, the feasibility of multi-markers assay by monolinear method (MAML) was explored through the standard curve relationship among active components for the first time. Using glycyrrhizic acid as measurement marker, MAML can simultaneously quantify five components of licorice, including isoliquiritigenin, isoliquiritin apioside, liquiritigenin, liquiritin and liquiritin apioside. Comparing MAML and quantitative analysis of multi-components by single-marker (QAMS) to the external standard method (ESM) respectively, it was found that there was no significant difference in the content of components that were calculated by MAML and ESM (the relative error (RE) was generally less than 2.00%). However, the RE of the component content calculated by QAMS fluctuated greatly, indicating that the MAML was more accurate than QAMS. In addition, UV and THz quantum fingerprints were initiated by the interval erasure method. Taking the systematically quantified fingerprint method as the core, a "Trinity" fingerprint quality evaluation system based on HPLC, UV and THz was developed. The system successfully distinguished the quality differences of licorice samples from 13 producing areas and two ecological models by the comprehensive evaluation results. Simultaneously, the quality information of licorice at different technical levels was revealed. Finally, bivariate correlation analysis was used to examine the linkage between UV/HPLC and antioxidant spectrum efficacy, and the two-dimensional activity spectrum of licorice was provided. It may furnish a more thorough and objective analytical technique for licorice and even other TCMs in chemical fingerprint features, chemical bond vibration characteristics and biological activity information.

On restoration of degraded fingerprints

The state-of-the-art fingerprint matching systems achieve high accuracy on good quality fingerprints. However, degraded fingerprints obtained due to poor skin conditions of subjects or fingerprints obtained around a crime scene often have noisy background and poor ridge structure. Such degraded fingerprints pose problem for the existing fingerprint recognition systems. This paper presents a fingerprint restoration model for a poor quality fingerprint that reconstructs a binarized fingerprint image with an improved ridge structure. In particular, we demonstrate the effectiveness of channel refinement in fingerprint restoration. The state-of-the-art channel refinement mechanisms, such as Squeeze and Excitation (SE) block, in general, create SE- block introduce redundancy among channel weights and degrade the performance of fingerprint enhancement models. We present a lightweight attention mechanism that performs channel refinement by reducing redundancy among channel weights of the convolutional kernels. Restored fingerprints generated after introducing proposed channel refinement unit obtain improved quality scores on standard fingerprint quality assessment tool. Furthermore, restored fingerprints achieve improved fingerprint matching performance. We also illustrate that the idea of introducing a channel refinement unit is generalizable to different deep architectures. Additionally, to quantify the ridge preservation ability of the model, standard metrics: Dice score, Jaccard Similarity, SSIM and PSNR are computed with the ground truth and the output of the model (CR-GAN). An ablation study is conducted to individually quantify the improvement of generator and discriminator sub-networks of CR-GAN through channel refinement. Experiments on the publicly available IIITD- MOLF, Rural Indian Fingerprint Database and a private rural fingerprint database demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed attention mechanism.

Biometric recognition robust to partial and poor quality fingerprints using distinctive region adaptive SIFT keypoint fusion

Biometric recognition robust to partial and poor quality fingerprints using distinctive region adaptive SIFT keypoint fusion

A Review on Nanomaterials for Developing Latent Fingerprint

Forensics has become a more interesting scientific topic to investigate with the advancement in science and technology in which nanomaterials have attracted a lot of attention in the field of nano-forensic research. Fingerprints are important evidence in any crime scene, and nano-based techniques have a lot of potential in fingerprint investigations in the future. Fingerprints have often been and still are considered one of the most valuable types of physical evidence for personal identification. The prints left behind at a crime scene are usually latent (invisible) fingerprints and thus, the distinct ridge details of fingerprints can be obtained by applying different nanoparticles such as silver, zinc oxide, silicon dioxide, aluminium oxide, gold, carbon and silica on a variety of object surfaces, with gold being the most commonly used. The use of nanoparticles can improve the quality and stability of latent fingerprints. As a result, this review study focuses on the use of various nanomaterials in the development and detection of latent fingerprints.

A comparative study on scanned fingerprint after applying lubricants and without scanned fingerprint on porous surface; (white paper)

Specialists have concocted various ways for recognizing inert fingerprints on crime locations. The powder method is an exceptionally basic way of developing fingerprints. Fingerprinting is one of those fields, the modernized scanner displaced ordinary procedures for taking fingerprints. In daily life, individuals regularly apply oils, salves, hand sanitizers, at times on their hands. These restoratives and day by day use items influence the computerized recording of fingerprints, along these lines making it hard for measurable specialists to recognize the genuine wrongdoer in numerous cases. The study was to actually look at the impact of oils, creams, hand sanitizers, and ghee on the fingerprints. For this research, various lubricants were applied on the fingerprint of plain white paper. Lubricants were applied on fingers and were then scanned. 39 fingerprints were taken. These fingerprints were then recorded with the assistance of 20 secugen hamsters. The assessment and examination of finger impression were done. The presence of everyday use items influenced the quality of fingerprints. Different items caused various impacts depending on their properties. Engineered ghee, hand sanitizer, slick balm, and greasy oil ruined the fingerprint quality, resulting in massive differences in the finger impression photographs. Non-slick cream and alcohol-free hand sanitizer had less effect, whereas oil and regular ghee had no influence on the notion of fingerprints. The combination of lubricants added an extra layer to the fingers. This layer caused changes to the fingerprint impressions. As a result, fingerprints should be collected after proper hand washing.

Latent friction ridge analysis of developed fingerprints after treatment with various liquid materials on porous surface

Fingerprints is an important field of research in forensics. Because of its uniqueness and distinctiveness, a fingerprint becomes a person's identity. Experts have devised a number of ways for detecting latent fingerprints on crime scenes. This research study is based on the effects and extent of destruction of latent fingerprints using various lubricants, liquids, and solutions. For this study, 20 samples of various liquids and solutions were collected. Latent fingerprints were taken from 10 individuals on a white paper. These prints were treated with different lubricants, liquids, and solutions by spraying, spilling or submerging the paper. Each sample was dried and the fingerprint was developed with a powder method. This study shows that the type of lubricant or liquid affects the quality of fingerprints developed. In some cases like sanitizer, room fresheners, and other sprays and concentrated phenyl it was noticed that it completely destroyed the latent fingerprints, and in some cases; milk, saliva, tap water, etc results show that it is possible to develop high-quality prints. So, if any paper is recovered from a crime scene in this way then latent prints can be developed from these surfaces. Fingerprints can be obtained from surfaces treated with various liquids, lubricants, especially from milk, tea, coffee, tap water produced high-quality prints which can be analyzed for identification of a person. Future aspects can be so that substances that had destructive effects on the print can be tested for other techniques of development of fingerprints including other factors as well like different porous and non-porous surfaces, environmental effects on these. Because these liquids are a loophole as they are destructive for latent prints.

Constructing a "Four in One" Fingerprint Quality Evaluation System of Cistanche Herba

Constructing a "Four in One" Fingerprint Quality Evaluation System of Cistanche Herba

Papaya and pineapple juices facilitate rehydration of mummified dermal tissue for fingerprint capture.

Mummifiedremainspose an issue for forensic scientists as identification of the deceased can be difficult due to extreme shriveling of dermal tissue and a resulting lack ofqualityfingerprintfeatures. The typical protocolsusedto address this problem include corrosive chemicals that may further damage the already susceptible tissues.An alternative approach is found in the juice oftwo fruit species known to contain proteolytically active enzymes that tenderize soft tissues, thereby promoting water uptake. In this study, we saturated mummified fingers in papaya and pineapple juice treatments, followed bysyringe-facilitated finger volume distension. After juice saturation, the data showed statistically significant increases in mass and volume of the samples, (papaya: relative mass p<0.02833, relative volume p<0.008466; pineapple: relative mass p<0.01426, relative volume p<0.04182). The post-treatment tissues were then rehydrated through a hydraulic mechanism that exerted the required turgor for effective fingerprint capture. This novel protocol utilizes fruit-based reagents to rehydrate mummified fingers without risk of corrosive damage, allowing for the restoration of accurate fingerprints and the positive identification of decedents.The value of this protocol lies in its simple implementation, affordability, instrument availability,and time effectiveness.

Wooden‐based materials: Eco‐friendly materials for direct mass spectrometric analysis and microextraction

Lignocellulosic materials have arisen as a sustainable alternative in microextraction techniques during the last 10 years. As they are natural materials, their use fits into some of the principles of Green Analytical Chemistry. Their inherent porosity, narrow shape, and rigidity permit their use in ambient ionization mass spectrometry techniques. In particular, the combination of wooden-based materials and direct analysis gives birth to the so-called wooden-tip electrospray ionization mass spectrometry technique. This approach has been used for the direct analysis of complex samples, and as a streamlined tool for fingerprint quality analysis. Also, wooden-based materials can be superficially modified to boost the interaction with target compounds, allowing their isolation from complex samples. This review describes the potential and applicability of direct analysis using lignocellulosic materials, as well as other alternatives related to their use in microextraction.

Exploration of the profile-effect relationship of Siraitia grosvenorii aqueous extracts related to their laxative effect on the basis of gray correlation analysis

BackgroundSiraitia grosvenorii (binomial name Siraitia grosvenorii (Swingle) C. Jeffrey ex Lu et Z. Y. Zhang), also called Arhat Fruit or Monk’s Fruit, is a dried ripe fruit belonging to the Cucurbitaceae Family. S. grosvenorii has a long history of being used for constipation treatment in folk medicine. However, there are few studies where the laxative effect, related mechanisms, and active constituents of S. grosvenorii were investigated. This research explores the relationship between the common components and the laxative effect of aqueous extracts of S. grosvenorii from different habitats in China.MethodsThe fingerprints of S. grosvenorii aqueous extracts from different habitats were established by HPLC. The constipation mice model was used to investigate the laxative effect of S. grosvenorii aqueous extracts. The motilin (MTL) level in mice serum, and the water content of the large and small intestines in mice were determined. The profile-effect relationship of S. grosvenorii aqueous extracts was preliminarily clarified using gray correlation analysis.ResultsNine common peaks were identified from the fingerprint of aqueous extracts of S. grosvenorii. The aqueous extracts obviously shortened the incubation period of defecation, and significantly increased the number of defecations, and the wet and dry weight of defecation in constipated mice. The profile-effect relationship indicated that seven common peaks were highly correlated with the effect of the incubation period of defecation, the number of defecations, and the wet and dry weight of defecation in mice.ConclusionThis work provides a promising method for the fingerprint establishment, pharmacodynamic evaluation, and quality control of S. grosvenorii on the basis of its profile-effect relationship.

Rehydration and restoration of fingerprint ridge detail in mummified post‐mortem tissue: Literature review and investigation of a simplified formulation

Mummified tissue presents challenges for fingerprinting due to rigidity, shrinkage, and other features obscuring epidermal ridge detail. A new cost-effective in-house solution was developed to obtain good quality fingerprints from mummified remains. The simplified procedure uses a sodium carbonate:sodium acetate mixture easily prepared using commonly available chemical products. An overview of the methods and solutions utilized to date for rehydration and restoration illustrates the main benefits of the developed formulation: the solution provided better tissue pliability and turgor than the sodium carbonate:ethanol formulation of Rüffer previously employed; the prepared solution proved stable for weeks at room temperature and poses minimum hazard risk to users. It functions as a weak base (pH 9.3) and is sufficiently corrosive to allow tissue softening over a flexible timeframe of 1-5days without causing any damage. The degree of effectiveness for rehydration of mummified tissue and restoration of ridge detail is attributed to three synergistic aspects: increased turgor as provided by a penetrating humectant and water; softening and pliability as a result of pH and any specific chemical interaction that affects calcium in collagen; ridge detail definition as a function of turgor and softening, with some secondary corrosive dependency related to the pH of a solution.

Influence of ink and smoke ATM security systems on dactyloscopy and subsequent DNA analysis after detonation

Automated Teller Machine bombings are an increasing societal problem that are often committed using Improvised Explosive Devices. The evolution in IEDs and the negative consequences for society require new security measures to prevent these crimes. Ink staining and security smoke devices are added to cash cassettes, in order to protect ATMs and prevent ATM bombings. Traces found at crime scenes, such as fingerprints and DNA, can contribute to the identification of perpetrators. However, the effect of ink staining and security smoke devices on dactyloscopy and DNA profiling is still unknown. In the current study, we demonstrate that procedures using Citrus Cleaner or sulfosalicylic acid were successful in removing ink and security smoke deposited on plastic plates but did result in the massive loss of fingerprint information as only a low number (4%) of good quality fingerprints were recovered after smoke contamination. Secondly, security ink Sun Blue ES2, but not SICPA Green and Sun Blue ES1, had a significant impact on DNA profiling success. DNA concentrations obtained from blood spiked swabs decreased with increasing ink concentration resulting in a complete loss of genotype information with the addition of ≥10 μl Sun Blue ES2. No noticeable PCR inhibition or DNA degradation was detected during quantification, but a decreased efficiency of DNA extraction could not be excluded. Security smoke, on the other hand, does not seem to have a significant influence on DNA analysis. Precautions must therefore be taken in order to avoid contaminating DNA swabs with ink during sampling. Thirdly, only a single negative impression of a glove in ink and a single glove print were able to be visualized with white fingerprint powder on detonated cash cassettes. In conclusion, the detection of glove prints and fingerprints is limited and security ink, contrary to smoke, after detonation can have a negative influence on downstream DNA analysis procedures.

Effects of oils, lotions, hand sanitizers, and mehendi on fingerprints captured through digital fingerprint scanner

BackgroundIn this modern era, advancement in technology is seen in every aspect of our life making it comparatively much easier. Likewise, in the field of fingerprinting, the digital scanners have replaced conventional methods of taking fingerprints, as it is accurate and less time-consuming. In daily life, people often apply oils, lotions, hand sanitizers, and occasionally mehendi on their hands. These cosmetic and daily use products affect the digital recording of fingerprints, thus making it difficult for forensic experts to identify the real offender in many cases. The purpose of the study was to check the effect of oils, lotions, hand sanitizers, and mehendi on the fingerprint pattern.ResultsThe present study was undertaken by taking 2700 fingerprints from 30 individuals. These fingerprints were recorded with the help of the SecuGen Hamster IV fingerprint scanner under controlled environmental conditions. The examination and comparison of fingerprint patterns were done on the basis of visibility (clarity and intensity). The presence of cosmetic and daily use products affected the visibility of digitally captured fingerprints. Different products caused different effects based on their properties. Synthetic mehendi, alcohol-based hand sanitizer, greasy lotion, and viscous oil caused significant differences in the fingerprint images by degrading the fingerprint quality. The non-greasy lotion and non-alcohol-based hand sanitizer showed less effect, whereas non-viscous oil and natural mehendi caused a minimal effect on the quality of fingerprint images.ConclusionThe application of cosmetic and daily use products added an additional layer on the fingers which is not present naturally. The additional layer caused alterations in the fingerprint pattern of an individual. So, digital fingerprints should be collected after proper washing of hands.

Construction and Application of MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry for the Detection of Haemophilus parasuis.

To construct a protein fingerprint database of Haemophilus parasuis (H. parasuis), thus improving its clinical diagnosis efficiency. A total of 15 H. parasuis standard strains were collected to establish a protein fingerprint database of H. parasuis using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS), and the effects of different culture media and culture time on the quality and identification results of the protein fingerprint were investigated. The results showed that tryptone soy agar (TSA) and tryptone soy broth (TSB) media and different incubation times had no significant effect on the characteristic peaks of the protein profiles. In addition, 18 clinical isolates were used to compare the identification results of the self-built protein fingerprint database, PCR detection, and basic database. Only one strain was identified in the original VITEK-MS system database, while the self-made protein fingerprint database of H. parasuis was 100% accurate for the detection of 18 clinical isolate strains. The protein fingerprint database of H. parasuis built by our laboratory is suitable for rapid clinical diagnosis of H. parasuis, due to its high accuracy, efficiency, and strong specificity.

Evaluation of an inkless method for fingerprint recordings using hand sanitizer gel on thermal paper

The main objective of this project was to assess an inkless method to collect reference (exemplar) fingerprints as a low-cost, portable, and hygienic technique; for temporary storage and as an alternative to the conventional black ink method. The tested inkless approach requires alcohol-based hand sanitizer gel as the medium and thermal paper as the substrate. The final quality and clarity of fingerprints were examined and compared between the two methods, especially on the basis of medium/substrate and biological sex effects. Two different evaluation systems of visual quality (clarity) were conducted to provide more reliable results: a quality score scheme (QS) and metrics from the FBI’s Universal Latent Workstation (ULW). Fingerprints were obtained from 20 individuals (11 males and 9 females) between the ages of 20 and 40; a total of 240 impressions were evaluated. The results provide evidence that the inkless method produces identifiable fingerprints of equivalent quality to the standard ink method, although significantly better for males. The potential of the proposed technique as an alternative to the conventional ink method is proven and corroborated by the two independent systems of visual quality assessments.

Estimation of Personal Environment Via Fingertip Microbiome and Mobile Phone Surfaces.

Background: Fingerprints can serve to identify individuals, but fingerprint quality may be deteriorated, even to the point of eliminating fingerprints, due to the external environment.Objective: Poor fingerprint quality cannot be effectively used to identify individuals; hence, the need for other methods.Materials and Methods: We investigated the utility of bacterial communities and the only microorganisms present in the sample to identify internal and external factors in individuals. Samples included eight participants’ fingerprints and their mobile phone surfaces. Bacterial DNA in the samples was sequenced using next-generation sequencing to target the V3–V4 region in the 16S ribosomal RNA gene. The QIIME program was used to perform a taxonomic assignment and alpha diversity and beta diversity analyses based on the sequence data.Results: Until now, personal identification has only relied on microbial communities. However, this study identified microbial differences according to Korean mobile phones, fingertips, or gender, and confirmed the possibility of characterization of samples when it was difficult to identify individuals by the microbial community. The biodiversity and composition of individual bacterial communities were affected by internal and external environments. Bacteria from individuals and mobile phones were shared due to contact between mobile phone surfaces and fingertips. Of the eight Koreans, six of the fingertips and mobile phone samples matched each other for personal identification.Conclusions: This study confirmed that the bacteria from an individual could be matched with the contact object and could be used as forensic evidence. Such bacterial profiling of individuals may confer forensic evidence and serve as a basis for improving the accuracy of forensic verification.