Title: Exploring fingerprints using composite minutiae descriptors to determine hereditary relation across multiple generations

Authors: C. Karthikeyini; V. Rajamani; K. Bommanna Raja

Addresses: Centre for Research and Development, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, PSNA College of Engineering and Technology, Dindigul 624 622, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Vel Tech Multi Tech Dr.Rangarajan Dr.Sakunthala Engineering College, Chennai 600 062, Tamil Nadu, India ' Centre of System Design and Information Processing, Department of Biomedical Engineering, PSNA College of Engineering and Technology, Dindigul 624 622, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: This work proposes a new approach to identify the hereditary relation among intra- and inter-class family members using fingerprint minutiae descriptors. The fingerprint images are acquired across three generations, from 324 subjects of 54 families. The thinned ridge patterns are investigated using a number of minutiae points and location, minutiae density and inter-ridge width. The findings are impressive, wherein 85.19% families have similar and 14.81% families have dissimilar ridge patterns. Also, the minutiae points are located proximately for intra-class, which are further validated by clustering. In addition, minutiae density and inter-ridge width for intra-class get well associated compared to inter-class. The study shows that for intra-class members of three generations, the fingerprints are evidently associated. This strongly suggests that certain hereditary information get transmuted as inheritance characteristics and registered in fingerprints. The results obtained explore the possibility of using the fingerprints in various clinical and genetically related studies.

Keywords: fingerprints; fingerprint acquisition; fingerprint pre-processing; thinned ridge patterns; ridge patterns; minutiae descriptors; hereditary relationships; multiple generations; family members; inheritance characteristics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2014.064650

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2014 Vol.15 No.3, pp.224 - 242

Received: 08 Mar 2014
Accepted: 23 Jun 2014
Published online: 21 Oct 2014 *

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