Preserved brains from the Spanish Civil War mass grave (1936) at La Pedraja 1, Burgos, Spain
During the excavation of the Spanish Civil War mass grave at La Pedraja (Burgos, Spain), 104 individuals were found interred within it, 45 of which displayed brains that were preserved but dehydrated and reduced in size. This exceptional finding has resulted in the formation of a multidisciplinary team, with the aim of obtaining as much information as possible and to primarily understand the taphonomic phenomena that has led to the preservation of these brains. The following types of analyses were undertaken on three of these brains: macroscopy, histology, radiology, chemical-toxicology, genetics, chemical analysis of the ...
Source: Science and Justice - August 15, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Fernando Serrulla, Lourdes Herrasti, Carmen Navarro, Jose Luis Cascallana, Ana Maria Bermejo, Nicholas Marquez-Grant, Francisco Etxeberria Source Type: research
Analysis of transferred fragrance and its forensic implications
Perfumes are widely used by many people in developed countries, and a large number of both men and women wear perfumes on a daily basis. Analysis of perfume trace materials from clothing is not commonly employed within forensic casework, yet as a form of trace evidence it has the potential to provide valuable intelligence. In order to appreciate the value of trace evidence there is a fundamental need for an evidence base that can both offer insight into how a trace material behaves under different scenarios and activities, and from which inferences can be made. (Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - August 10, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Simona Gherghel, Ruth M. Morgan, Christopher S. Blackman, Kersti Karu, Ivan P. Parkin Source Type: research
Open call for papers: Responses to position papers
(Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - August 7, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Source Type: research
Determination of fluoxetine in Dermestes maculatus (Coleoptera: Dermestidae) by a spectrophotometric method
The aims of this study were to detect and quantify fluoxetine, an antidepressant, from entomological samples. Larvae, pupae and adults of Dermestes maculatus (Coleoptera, Dermestidae) were reared on pig muscle previously treated with fluoxetine. The concentration selected, 2000mg/kg, emulates a fluoxetine overdose lethal to humans and laboratory animals. Thirty larvae on the fourth and fifth stages, 50 adults and several exuviae were analyzed for fluoxetine content. Detection of fluoxetine was performed by UV spectrophotometry at 270 and 277nm. (Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - August 1, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Noelia I. Zanetti, Adriana A. Ferrero, N éstor D. Centeno Source Type: research
Age of fusion of the distal radial and ulnar epiphyses from hand radiographs —A study in Kashmiri population
Age estimation is a crucial parameter involved in investigations pertaining to civil and criminal procedures. It also aids in various examinations in forensic medicine, pediatrics, endocrinology and radiology. One of the important methods for skeletal age estimation is the age of fusion of the epiphyses. But there occur variations in the skeletal ages due to environmental, hormonal, ethnic and other factors. Hence, there arises the need for separate standards of ossification for different regions. (Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - July 29, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Nida Hassan, Farida Noor, Shabir Ahmad, Khalid Majid Fazili Source Type: research
Admitting to uncertainty in the LR
In this paper I argue that, given our current state of knowledge, reporting uncertainty in the likelihood ratio is best practice. This may in time be replaced by reporting a Bayes factor, but we are currently unable to do this in all but the simplest of examples. (Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - July 28, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: James M. Curran Tags: Position paper Source Type: research
What should a forensic practitioner's likelihood ratio be?
We argue that forensic practitioners should empirically assess and report the precision of their likelihood ratios. Once the practitioner has specified the prosecution and defence hypotheses they have adopted, including the relevant population they have adopted, and has specified the type of measurements they will make, their task is to empirically calculate an estimate of a likelihood ratio which has a true but unknown value. We explicitly reject the competing philosophical position that the forensic practitioner's likelihood ratio should be based on subjective personal probabilities. (Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - July 28, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Geoffrey Stewart Morrison, Ewald Enzinger Tags: Position paper Source Type: research
Reframing the debate: A question of probability, not of likelihood ratio
Evidential value is measured by a likelihood ratio. This ratio has two components, the probability, or probability density, of the evidence if the prosecution proposition is true and the probability (density) of the evidence if the defence proposition is true. It takes the form of a single value, even if these probabilities are subjective measures of belief of the reporting forensic scientist. (Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - July 28, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: A. Biedermann, S. Bozza, F. Taroni, C. Aitken Tags: Position paper Source Type: research
The LR does not exist
More than 40years ago, De Finetti warned that probability is a misleading misconception when regarded as objectively existing exterior to the mind. According to De Finetti, probabilities are necessarily subjective, and quantify our belief in the truth of events in the real world. Given evidence of a shared feature of a trace and an accused, we apply this framework to assign an evidential value to this correspondence. Dividing 1 by the objectively existing proportion of the population sharing that feature would give that evidential value − expressed as a likelihood ratio (LR) − only if that proportion were known. (Sourc...
Source: Science and Justice - July 28, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Charles E.H. Berger, Klaas Slooten Tags: Position paper Source Type: research
Using sensitivity analyses in Bayesian Networks to highlight the impact of data paucity and direct future analyses: a contribution to the debate on measuring and reporting the precision of likelihood ratios
Bayesian networks are being increasingly used to address complex questions of forensic interest. Like all probabilities, those that underlie the nodes within a network rely on structured data and knowledge. Obviously, the more structured data we have, the better. But, in real life, the numbers of experiments that can be carried out are limited. It is thus important to know if/when our knowledge is sufficient and when one needs to perform further experiments to be in a position to report the value of the observations made. (Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - July 28, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Duncan Taylor, Tacha Hicks, Christophe Champod Tags: Position Paper Source Type: research
Posterior distributions for likelihood ratios in forensic science
Evaluation of evidence in forensic science is discussed using posterior distributions for likelihood ratios. Instead of eliminating the uncertainty by integrating (Bayes factor) or by conditioning on parameter values, uncertainty in the likelihood ratio is retained by parameter uncertainty derived from posterior distributions. A posterior distribution for a likelihood ratio can be summarised by the median and credible intervals. Using the posterior mean of the distribution is not recommended. An analysis of forensic data for body height estimation is undertaken. (Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - July 28, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Ardo van den Hout, Ivo Alberink Tags: Position paper Source Type: research
An argument against presenting interval quantifications as a surrogate for the value of evidence
In the various forensic science disciplines, recent analytical developments paired with modern statistical computational tools have led to the proliferation of adhoc techniques for quantifying the probative value of forensic evidence. Many legal and scientific scholars agree that the value of evidence should be reported as a likelihood ratio or a Bayes Factor. Quantifying the probative value of forensic evidence is subjected to many sources of variability and uncertainty. There is currently a debate on how to characterize the reliability of the value of evidence. (Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - July 28, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Danica M. Ommen, Christopher P. Saunders, Cedric Neumann Tags: Position paper Source Type: research
Feature proportion accuracy of hand-drawn facial approximation
Several studies have investigated the predictive accuracy of facial approximation methods for individual facial features, but few have investigated the ability of these methods to accurately predict the relative dimensions of these features. Photographs of 10 skulls from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection were used to create hand-drawn facial approximations following the guidelines presented in Taylor (2001). Measurements of the eyes, nose, and mouth were made and converted to ratios for comparison to their corresponding antemortem photographs. (Source: Science and Justice)
Source: Science and Justice - July 22, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Kristina B. Altes Tags: Research paper Source Type: research
Refining the relevant population in forensic voice comparison – A response to Hicks et alii (2015) The importance of distinguishing information from evidence/observations when formulating propositions
Hicks et alii [Sci. Just. 55 (2015) 520 –525. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2015.06.008] propose that forensic speech scientists not use the accent of the speaker of questioned identity to refine the relevant population. This proposal is based on a lack of understanding of the realities of forensic voice comparison. If it were impl emented, it would make data-based forensic voice comparison analysis within the likelihood ratio framework virtually impossible. We argue that it would also lead forensic speech scientists to present invalid unreliable strength of evidence statements, and not allow them to conduct the tes...
Source: Science and Justice - July 18, 2016 Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Geoffrey Stewart Morrison, Ewald Enzinger, Cuiling Zhang Tags: Letter to the Editor Source Type: research
