Showing papers in "Science & Justice in 2015"

TL;DR: A potentially more accurate and reliable methodology for determining fingerprint age based on quantitative kinetic changes to the composition of a fingerprint over time is proposed.

TL;DR: This paper draws together and evaluates all currently available methodologies for temperature estimation and vastly advancing the understanding of heat induced changes in bone, thus facilitating a more accurate interpretation.

TL;DR: The combination of fast CMV sampling, unambiguous organic compound identification with GC-MS and fast LIBS analysis provides the basis for a new comprehensive screening method for GSR.

TL;DR: Characteristic Pb isotope ratios coupled with inferred δ18O values of drinking water argue for a most probable place of origin for the unidentified individual in west and south Poland, south-east Slovakia and the region of Ukraine-Romania-Bulgaria, specifically the region associated with the Carpathian Mountains.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that the QIAamp® and QIAsymphony® DNA Investigator® Kits, and the DNA IQ™ system, exhibited a better effectiveness in DNA recovery amongst these methods and yielded extracts with higher success rate in subsequent DNA profiling.

TL;DR: It is suggested that, owing to the low levels of DNA deposition, when palmar marks are found at crime scenes, every effort should be made to recover friction ridge detail to use as an identification metric, with collection for DNA analysis performed afterwards.

TL;DR: The results of stable isotope analyses of body residues of two adults and a newborn found in Germany between 2010 and 2012 served as the basis for providing provenance constraints for the unidentified persons as requested by the police and prosecution.

TL;DR: According to the results of the present study, the fused epiphyseal plate of the distal radius provides potential maturation criteria which appear suitable for reliable monitoring of all relevant age limits in international football with the aid of magnetic resonance imaging.

TL;DR: An isotope study in teeth from the soldiers found in the area where the 1944-1945 Kapelsche Veer bridgehead battle took place in The Netherlands concluded that the tooth enamel isotope composition for both casualties matched with an origin from the United Kingdom.

TL;DR: Good agreement between results from CE-C(4)D and those with the confirmation method (GC-MS) was achieved, with correlation coefficients for the two pairs of data of more than 0.99.

TL;DR: A methodology for simultaneous identification and quantification in human blood of 109 highly toxic pesticides, operated in the mode of multiple reaction monitoring, has been developed and demonstrated in two recent cases involving one self-poisoning fatality and one non-fatal homicidal attempt.

TL;DR: Sr and Pb isotope systematics demonstrate their added value for detecting human mobility, but require further studies to better constrain the main sources and processes controlling their respective budgets in human hair for provenancing purposes.

TL;DR: Examples of cases where forensic scientists have difficulty with the formulation of propositions are presented and the usefulness of notation is emphasised to distinguish results that forensic scientists should evaluate from case information that the Court will evaluate.

TL;DR: The concept of utility of the clue is suggested as an internal evaluation indicator of forensic science in the investigation and the notion of expected utility that could be used as decision factor when choosing which traces to use, once they have been collected at the crime scene or from an object in the laboratory is introduced.

TL;DR: The purpose of this paper is to bring together communication theory and past research on the communication of forensic science to contribute to a deeper understanding of it, and to provide a coherent view of it overall.

TL;DR: The calcaneus was shown to be useful for sex determination in the twentieth century Greek population and generated discriminant function score equations for use in sex determination.

TL;DR: It is shown how Bayesian networks can be used to model different evidential structures that can occur when linking crimes, and how they assist in understanding the complex underlying dependencies.

TL;DR: This experiment conducted an experiment to characterize microbiological and chemical properties of decomposing swine carcasses on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, USA, during June 2013, and recommends that culturable postmortem and larval mass microbiology and chemistry be investigated in more detail.

TL;DR: There is compelling evidence that the correspondence between expert intentions and lay interpretations is low, while the potential for miscommunication is high, and further attention is required to facilitate the development of valid and reliable verbal conclusion scales which clearly communicate expert evaluative opinions.

TL;DR: The purpose of this paper is to share the well-established definitions of the fundamental parameters of gait, common to all professions, and advocate their use in forensic gait analysis to establish commonality.

TL;DR: The design considerations of the program, details of the tests, and the various ways the test results were and could be analyzed are described.

TL;DR: A detailed background of chemical analysis techniques focusing on elemental compositions that have been assessed for use in differentiating osseous, dental, and non-skeletal materials is provided.

TL;DR: Evidence is provided that compound-specific isotope ratio analysis has the potential to go beyond region-of-origin or geospatial movements of individuals-obtainable through bulk isotope measurements-to the provision of physical and characteristic traits about the individuals, such as age and BMI.

TL;DR: Regression equations for stature estimation using lumbar vertebral geometry from computed tomography scans appeared superior to current invasive procedures that use direct measurements of the vertebral body, in terms of reproducibility and time efficiency.

TL;DR: The results indicated that practitioners forwarded a higher percentage of insufficient fingermarks than is acceptable according to current laboratory guidelines, and discarded a number of marks that were of sufficient quality for analysis.

TL;DR: The use of colorimetry is described as a novel diagnostic tool that can assist DNA analysis from heat-treated bone and it is demonstrated that the color of bone, which serves as an indicator of the chemical processes that have occurred, can be correlated with the success or failure of subsequent DNA amplification.

TL;DR: The ability of the visible LIBS to differentiate among the different ink samples was successful compared to IR LIBS at the same laser pulse energy, which could be attributed to the IR absorption effects by the black ink.

TL;DR: Sg was recommended for the workflow procedure of semen investigation when sperm absence is expected either from azoos permic/oligospermic or normosperic semen, especially before/after ejaculation.

TL;DR: Digital image colourimetry was successfully applied in the semi-quantitative analysis of ammonium nitrate using Griess's test with zinc reduction and the results presented for five seized samples showed good correlations between the various imaging devices and spectrophotometer used to determine ammonium Nitrate concentrations.

TL;DR: In this study, samples coming from large seizures of cocaine which took place in Italian Customs areas during 2011 and 2012 were examined and most of them were compatible with Colombia as country of origin.