The large Sima de los Huesos sample provides for the first time the opportunity of performing a paleopathological study of a Middle Pleistocene population. A high frequency of bilateral temporomandibular arthropathy has been observed. We found an ear hyperostosis in Cranium 4, that probably caused deafness that we consider to be of infectious origin. Three osteomata were found in the cranial co...

Deep inside a mountain on the island of Spitzbergen within the Arctic Circle, the world's first Global Seed Vault was launched last month as the ultimate in safe repository for plant material from seed stores around the world that may be subject to climate change or other unpredictable catastrophies. Every nation has been invited by the Norwegian government to place seeds in its vault. The seed...

Biometric template protection is indispensable to protect personal privacy in large-scale deployment of biometric systems. Accuracy, changeability, and security are three critical requirements for template protection algorithms. However, existing template protection algorithms cannot satisfy all these requirements well. In this paper, we propose a hybrid approach that combines random projection...

Pneumocephalus is defined as an intracranial gas collection which can be localized in the epidural, subdural, subarachnoid, intraventricular or intraparenchymal spaces. Pneumocephalus has numerous causes, including barotrauma, neoplasms, and spinal anesthesia. However, the majority of pneumocephalus cases are traumatic or iatrogenic in nature. A review of 295 patients with pneumocephalus by Mar...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to review retrospectively the functional and anatomic outcomes of women who underwent vaginal repair of enterocele and vault prolapse with the use of an intraperitoneal suspension of the vaginal vault to the uterosacral ligaments in conjunction with fascial reconstruction of the anterior and posterior vaginal wall. STUDY DESIGN Two hundred two women wit...

The authentication based on biometric information has several advantages compared to solely password-based systems, which has led to a growing interest of industry and of public authorities in biometric-based systems. To meet the high security standards concerning biometric data, template protection systems such as the fuzzy vault are indispensable to maintain the secrecy of the critical inform...

The fuzzy vault is an error tolerant authentication method that ensures the privacy of the stored reference data. Several publications have proposed the application of the fuzzy vault to fingerprints, but the results of subsequent analyses indicate that a single finger does not contain sufficient information for a secure implementation. In this contribution, we present an implementation of a fu...

Major vault protein (MVP) is the major component of the vault particle whose functions are not well understood. One proposed function of the vault is to serve as a mechanism of drug transport, which confers drug resistance in cancer cells. We show that MVP can be found in cardiac and smooth muscle. In human airway smooth muscle cells, knocking down MVP was found to cause cell death, suggesting ...