Gait recognition

The fact that an individual's identity is expressed not only by the way he/she looks or sounds, but also by the manner of walking is a relatively new discovery of in biometrics.

Unlike the more fully developed biometric technologies whose scrutiny is directed at stationary parts of the body, gait recognition has the added difficulty of having to sample and identify movement. Scientists at the University of Southampton, UK (http://www.isis.ecs.soton.ac.uk/research/gait/) have developed a model which likens the movement of legs to those of a pendulum and uses hip inclination as a variable.

Another model considers the shape and length of legs as well as the velocity of joint movements. The objective is to combine both models into one, which would make gait recognition a fully applicable biometric technology.

Given that gait recognition is applied to "moving preambulatory subjects" it is a particularly interesting technology for surveillance. People can no longer hide their identity by covering themselves or moving. Female shop lifters who pretend pregnancy will be detected because they walk differently than those who are really pregnant. Potential wrongdoers might resort walking techniques as developed in Monty Pythons legendary "Ministry of Silly Walks" (http://www.stone-dead.asn.au/sketches/sillwalk.htm)

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Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein joined the revolutionary Baath party when he was a university student. In 1958 he had the head of Iraq, Abdul-Karim Qassim, killed. Since 1979 he has been President of Iraq. Under his reign Iraq fought a decade-long war with Iran. Because of his steady enmity with extreme Islamic leaders the West supported him first of all, until his army invaded Kuwait in August 1990, an incident that the USA led to the Gulf War. Since then many rumors about a coup d'état have been launched, but Saddam Hussein is still in unrestricted power.

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