Dad Tim Gallego feels like a new man after having his face rebuilt from different parts of his body. Financial adviser Tim, 46, had 16 operations to reshape his face after he was hit with disfiguring mouth cancer. Bones from his ribs and hips were used to form a new nose and jaw. Arteries from his legs were moved to his neck and skin from his wrists was grafted on to his lower face.
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Dad Tim Gallego feels like a new man after having his face rebuilt from different parts of his body. Financial adviser Tim, 46, had 16 operations to reshape his face after he was hit with disfiguring mouth cancer. Bones from his ribs and hips were used to form a new nose and jaw. Arteries from his legs were moved to his neck and skin from his wrists was grafted on to his lower face.
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Guest blog by Pavi Mehta, Volunteer Coordinator
Open source champion Mozilla.org kicked off seven days of service earlier this month: September 14-21st thousands of people donated over 6000 hours of their time to good causes in their communities as part of Mozilla Service Week.
Through one of our engineering volunteers, Aravind Gottipatti, Benetech/Bookshare received an invitation to help them kick-off the week. Betsy Beaumon, Carrie Karnos, Rick Costa and I visited the terrific Mozilla offices in Mountain View last Monday to give the team a big picture view of what Benetech does and present a range of volunteer projects that they could dive into right away. Workstations were set up in their spacious lounge and through the course of the afternoon volunteers swung by to help type in children’s books for our collection (pre-selected books that for various reasons are easier to transcribe than scan). The following Friday a team from Mozilla paid Bookshare a visit and after a brief tour and exciting demos of our legendary Chopper-Scanner and various reading tools they sat down to do more transcribing for us, also pitching in with a backlogged data entry project! Over the week their volunteers helped us put in several reviews, added a dozen books to the collection, received a basic Bookshare proofreading tutorial and learned more about our engineering volunteer opportunities – several expressed interest in staying involved past the end of Service week.
As evidenced from their comments on the site and a couple of blog posts they enjoyed the experience of “Getting to know the Neighbors” as much as we did.
“On Monday, Benetech Bookshare came to Mozilla and did a great brown bag info session about their program. I then spent a few hours (along with some other fellow Mozillians) transcribing children’s books. It give me a warm fuzzy feeling to think about the children that will be able to read some of these books now because I was able to volunteer a few hours of my time.”
Blog posts: An afternoon at Bookshare.org « Week in the Nee ; Its easy to help bookshare.org « Jane’s Ramblings
All in all a great start to a new way of partnering with organizations in the community and opening up our volunteer opportunities to more and more interested, talented and generous people in the area!
Guest blog by Pavi Mehta, Volunteer Coordinator
Open source champion Mozilla.org kicked off seven days of service earlier this month: September 14-21st thousands of people donated over 6000 hours of their time to good causes in their communities as part of Mozilla Service Week.
Through one of our engineering volunteers, Aravind Gottipatti, Benetech/Bookshare received an invitation to help them kick-off the week. Betsy Beaumon, Carrie Karnos, Rick Costa and I visited the terrific Mozilla offices in Mountain View last Monday to give the team a big picture view of what Benetech does and present a range of volunteer projects that they could dive into right away. Workstations were set up in their spacious lounge and through the course of the afternoon volunteers swung by to help type in children’s books for our collection (pre-selected books that for various reasons are easier to transcribe than scan). The following Friday a team from Mozilla paid Bookshare a visit and after a brief tour and exciting demos of our legendary Chopper-Scanner and various reading tools they sat down to do more transcribing for us, also pitching in with a backlogged data entry project! Over the week their volunteers helped us put in several reviews, added a dozen books to the collection, received a basic Bookshare proofreading tutorial and learned more about our engineering volunteer opportunities – several expressed interest in staying involved past the end of Service week.
As evidenced from their comments on the site and a couple of blog posts they enjoyed the experience of “Getting to know the Neighbors” as much as we did.
“On Monday, Benetech Bookshare came to Mozilla and did a great brown bag info session about their program. I then spent a few hours (along with some other fellow Mozillians) transcribing children’s books. It give me a warm fuzzy feeling to think about the children that will be able to read some of these books now because I was able to volunteer a few hours of my time.”
Blog posts: An afternoon at Bookshare.org « Week in the Nee ; Its easy to help bookshare.org « Jane’s Ramblings
All in all a great start to a new way of partnering with organizations in the community and opening up our volunteer opportunities to more and more interested, talented and generous people in the area!
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Against the backdrop of last week’s Congressional hearing into the future of forensic science, researchers from the University at Buffalo’s Laboratory for Forensic Odontology Research in the School of Dental Medicine, have published a landmark paper on the controversial topic of bitemark analysis.
The Congressional hearing focused on the findings of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on the scientific basis of forensic disciplines. Among the pattern evidence fields (fingerprints, tool marks, etc.) that were reviewed in the NAS report, bitemark analysis received critical commentary. During the hearing, Innocence Project co-founder Peter Neufeld introduced Roy Brown, wrongfully convicted on bitemark evidence and later exonerated through DNA analysis.
In anticipation of the NAS report, the new UB study published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences challenges the commonly held belief that every bitemark can be perpetrator identified.
“Bitemark identification is not as reliable as DNA identification,” explains the study’s lead author Raymond G. Miller, D.D.S., UB clinical associate professor of oral diagnostic sciences.
“With DNA, the probability of an individual not matching another can be calculated,” he says. “In bitemark analysis, there have been few studies that looked at how many people’s teeth could have made the bite.”
Miller’s co-authors include UB’s Peter J. Bush; Robert Dorion, D.D.S., DABFO, UB adjunct professor of oral diagnostic sciences; and Mary A. Bush, D.D.S., UB assistant professor of restorative dentistry. Dorion is the editor of the only comprehensive textbook on the subject of bitemarks in forensic science, Bitemark Evidence: A Color Atlas and Text, and is currently the odontology section representative to the board of directors of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
The current study investigated three main questions: is it possible to determine biter identity among people with similarly aligned teeth; is it possible to determine how many individuals from a larger sample might also be considered as the biter; and, if there is bite pattern distortion, is it enough to rule out a specific biter while still including a non-biter?
To answer these questions, the researchers gathered 100 stone dental models (replicas of the dentition), which were measured and divided into 10 groups based upon the misalignment patterns of the teeth. After randomly selecting one model from each of the 10 groups, the researchers impressed bitemarks on cadaver skin. After the bitemarks were created, they were then photographed and the indentations were compared to the dentitions using overlays created with photographic software.
The authors are one of the first to use a human skin model rather than animal models or non-elastic biting substrate, such as wax or Styrofoam. Current human subject restrictions limit experimentation on living subjects.
“Living bitten tissue may bleed or bruise,” explains Miller. “The initial bitemark indentations rebound shortly after infliction often leaving a diffuse bruising that may be difficult to measure accurately. The indentations produced in our study represented the best conditions for measurement.”
The results indicated that when dental alignments were similar, it was difficult to distinguish which set of teeth made the bites. Distortion noted in the bitemarks allowed matches even from different alignment groups. Therefore, the researchers concluded that bitemarks should be very carefully evaluated in criminal investigations where perpetrator identity is the focus of a case.
As Miller notes, “In the past 10 years, the number of court cases involving bitemark evidence that have been overturned led us to question the reasons for the erroneous bitemark identification. It’s important to recognize the serious consequences of a misidentification for the accused, the victim, the families involved, the justice system and the possibility that the perpetrator is still at large.”
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Against the backdrop of last week’s Congressional hearing into the future of forensic science, researchers from the University at Buffalo’s Laboratory for Forensic Odontology Research in the School of Dental Medicine, have published a landmark paper on the controversial topic of bitemark analysis.
The Congressional hearing focused on the findings of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on the scientific basis of forensic disciplines. Among the pattern evidence fields (fingerprints, tool marks, etc.) that were reviewed in the NAS report, bitemark analysis received critical commentary. During the hearing, Innocence Project co-founder Peter Neufeld introduced Roy Brown, wrongfully convicted on bitemark evidence and later exonerated through DNA analysis.
In anticipation of the NAS report, the new UB study published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences challenges the commonly held belief that every bitemark can be perpetrator identified.
“Bitemark identification is not as reliable as DNA identification,” explains the study’s lead author Raymond G. Miller, D.D.S., UB clinical associate professor of oral diagnostic sciences.
“With DNA, the probability of an individual not matching another can be calculated,” he says. “In bitemark analysis, there have been few studies that looked at how many people’s teeth could have made the bite.”
Miller’s co-authors include UB’s Peter J. Bush; Robert Dorion, D.D.S., DABFO, UB adjunct professor of oral diagnostic sciences; and Mary A. Bush, D.D.S., UB assistant professor of restorative dentistry. Dorion is the editor of the only comprehensive textbook on the subject of bitemarks in forensic science, Bitemark Evidence: A Color Atlas and Text, and is currently the odontology section representative to the board of directors of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
The current study investigated three main questions: is it possible to determine biter identity among people with similarly aligned teeth; is it possible to determine how many individuals from a larger sample might also be considered as the biter; and, if there is bite pattern distortion, is it enough to rule out a specific biter while still including a non-biter?
To answer these questions, the researchers gathered 100 stone dental models (replicas of the dentition), which were measured and divided into 10 groups based upon the misalignment patterns of the teeth. After randomly selecting one model from each of the 10 groups, the researchers impressed bitemarks on cadaver skin. After the bitemarks were created, they were then photographed and the indentations were compared to the dentitions using overlays created with photographic software.
The authors are one of the first to use a human skin model rather than animal models or non-elastic biting substrate, such as wax or Styrofoam. Current human subject restrictions limit experimentation on living subjects.
“Living bitten tissue may bleed or bruise,” explains Miller. “The initial bitemark indentations rebound shortly after infliction often leaving a diffuse bruising that may be difficult to measure accurately. The indentations produced in our study represented the best conditions for measurement.”
The results indicated that when dental alignments were similar, it was difficult to distinguish which set of teeth made the bites. Distortion noted in the bitemarks allowed matches even from different alignment groups. Therefore, the researchers concluded that bitemarks should be very carefully evaluated in criminal investigations where perpetrator identity is the focus of a case.
As Miller notes, “In the past 10 years, the number of court cases involving bitemark evidence that have been overturned led us to question the reasons for the erroneous bitemark identification. It’s important to recognize the serious consequences of a misidentification for the accused, the victim, the families involved, the justice system and the possibility that the perpetrator is still at large.”
“Newegg has listed prices for OEM copies of Windows 7—technically intended for little computer building businesses, but there’s nothing stopping you buying them. And as long as you understand some mostly-minor limitations, you can save some serious money.”
This is a good way to get your hands on a copy of Windows 7. As long as you don’t need to call someone like Dell or HP for support.
I am using Windows 7 as my main computer these days, and I love it.
AlaskaJoe
“Newegg has listed prices for OEM copies of Windows 7—technically intended for little computer building businesses, but there’s nothing stopping you buying them. And as long as you understand some mostly-minor limitations, you can save some serious money.”
This is a good way to get your hands on a copy of Windows 7. As long as you don’t need to call someone like Dell or HP for support.
I am using Windows 7 as my main computer these days, and I love it.
AlaskaJoe
“Newegg has listed prices for OEM copies of Windows 7—technically intended for little computer building businesses, but there’s nothing stopping you buying them. And as long as you understand some mostly-minor limitations, you can save some serious money.”
This is a good way to get your hands on a copy of Windows 7. As long as you don’t need to call someone like Dell or HP for support.
I am using Windows 7 as my main computer these days, and I love it.
AlaskaJoe
“Newegg has listed prices for OEM copies of Windows 7—technically intended for little computer building businesses, but there’s nothing stopping you buying them. And as long as you understand some mostly-minor limitations, you can save some serious money.”
This is a good way to get your hands on a copy of Windows 7. As long as you don’t need to call someone like Dell or HP for support.
I am using Windows 7 as my main computer these days, and I love it.
AlaskaJoe
