Showing papers in "Forensic Science International in 2007"

TL;DR: Important considerations in analytical method validation will be discussed and may be used as guidance by scientists wishing to develop and validate analytical methods.

TL;DR: This work proposes a method to automatically detect and localize duplicated regions in digital images based on blur moment invariants, which allows successful detection of copy-move forgery, even when blur degradation, additional noise, or arbitrary contrast changes are present in the duplicates regions.

TL;DR: Validation experiments investigated reproducibility, heteroplasmy, mixed DNA, DNA template concentration, chemical treatments, substrate variation, environmental conditions and thermocycling parameters, and found that the COI gene consistently identifies species where authenticated reference sequence data exists.

TL;DR: The scientific literature was searched for articles dealing with postmortem aspects of ethanol and problems associated with making a correct interpretation of the results to help establish whether the deceased had consumed ethanol before death.

TL;DR: Findings on environmental and innate influences on face aging, facial soft tissue age changes, and bony changes in the craniofacial and dentoalveolar skeleton are presented.

TL;DR: This paper reviews the techniques of cheiloscopy and palatoscopy, and describes the different classifications and their advantages and limitations.

TL;DR: The relatively new role of the forensic anthropologist in the domain of identification of the living is described, although this area is still underrepresented as regards research activity: these studies concern the strive to devise methods for identifying faces.

TL;DR: It is found that it may be more complicated than previously reported to categorise a person as being either a ' good' or a 'bad' shedder and that if truly 'good' shedders exist they may be significantly rarer than some have estimated.

TL;DR: It is concluded that the amount of literature on estimating the time since death has a reverse correlation with its importance in practice, and the postmortem time course of any analyte must be studied without considering influencing factors and giving statistical parameters of the variability.

TL;DR: In this paper, a series of 525 medico-legal examinations performed in the year 2003 is presented, with the purpose to determine the value of CT-scanning prior to the post-mortem examination.

TL;DR: The most important issues regarding the selection and definition of typing systems both for paternity testing and for forensic identification, the criteria for technical and biostatistical validation, as well as the use of mitochondrial DNA analysis are summarized and discussed.

TL;DR: This study investigates how postmortem multislice computed tomography (MSCT) can contribute to the DVI process as proposed by Interpol and concludes that MSCT may be used as a valuable screening tool in DVI in the future.

TL;DR: The results of these studies demonstrated that soil conditions at these three burial sites has a marked effect on the condition of the buried body but even within a single site variation can occur; the process of soft tissue decomposition modifies the localised burial microenvironment in terms of microbiological load, pH, moisture and changes in redox status.

TL;DR: A strong correlation was found between third-molar development and chronological age and further statistical analysis was performed to determine the relation between sex, age and location.

TL;DR: The kinetics of ethanol and its metabolite ethyl glucuronide (EtG) in blood and urine during the whole time course of absorption and elimination is investigated to determine the time of ethanol ingestion in forensic cases.

TL;DR: MRI and CT showed forensically relevant findings not seen during autopsy in several cases, and have the power to play an important role in future forensic neuropathological examination.

TL;DR: This review focuses on basic aspects of method development and validation of hair testing procedures, namely mechanisms of drug incorporation and retention, novel analytical procedures, and the determination of THC-COOH in hair samples.

TL;DR: By applying the ENF Criterion in forensic audio/video analysis, one can determine whether and where a digital recording has been edited, establish whether it was made at the time claimed, and identify the time and date of the registering operation.

TL;DR: An approach to sudden infant death is outlined with discussion of appropriate tissue sampling, ancillary investigations and the use of controls in research projects to ensure optimal investigation of individual cases and enable international comparisons of trends.

TL;DR: It is inferred that large-scale statistically significant univariate differences are not a prerequisite for sex assessment, and discriminant functions were developed considering the possibility of missing teeth and/or jaws in forensic scenarios to facilitate sex classification.

TL;DR: The results indicated that metric traits of the talus and calcaneus are good indicators of sexual dimorphism and the validity of the discriminant function equations in an independent sample of individuals of different origin was tested.

TL;DR: The pattern of EtG concentration detected in the different hair segments matched with the drinking history of patients, displaying variations (increase and decrease) in alcohol consumption and also time of cessation.

TL;DR: The benefits of the 3D documentation and computer-assisted, drawn-to-scale 3D comparisons of the relevant injuries with the damages to the vehicle in the analysis of the course of accidents, especially with regard to the impact situation, are shown on two examined cases.

TL;DR: Several aspects of the mtDNA phylogeny that are particularly--but not exclusively--of interest to the forensic community are reviewed, including the usefulness of coding-region variation in a forensic context.

TL;DR: There were 13,176 roadside drug tests performed in the first year of the random drug-testing program conducted in the state of Victoria, and drugs targeted in the testing were methamphetamines and Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

TL;DR: This study is the first to look at insect succession on decomposing carcasses in the high altitude plains (Paramo) in Colombia, at 3035 m above sea level, and Compsomyiops boliviana is reported for the first time in Colombia.

TL;DR: Promising results using newly developed features and the application of nonlinear classifiers encourage the usage of these methods in forensic anthropology for identifying the sex of an individual from incomplete skeletons retaining at least one patella.

TL;DR: The aim of the present study was to determine the chronology of third molar mineralization and to establish Austrian reference data by evaluating 610 panoramic radiographs in order to assess the mineralization status of the mandibular third molars of Austrian male and female individuals between the ages of 12 and 24.

TL;DR: AFM is used for high-resolution imaging of erythrocytes in a blood sample and the detection of elasticity changes on a nanometer scale and the elasticity pattern showed a decrease over time, which are most probably influenced by the alteration of the blood spot during the drying and coagulation process.

TL;DR: An expert interpretation system (LoComatioN) is described which is the first expert system that can be used to rapidly evaluate numerous alternative explanations in a likelihood ratio approach, greatly facilitating court evaluation of the evidence.