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Application of photogrammetry in forensic pathology education of medical students in...
As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic forced universities to switch to distance online education, there was an urgent need to find some virtual/digital alternatives in order to continue teaching. Opportunities such as watching pre‐recorded autopsy videos or creating...
President’s Spotlight—What a Year! What a Meeting!
Carl McClary takes over as President of the AAFS for the 2021-22 year and introduces new Vision, Mission, and Value statements.
Visualizing shed skin cells in fingerprint residue using dark‐field microscopy
This proof‐of‐concept study shows that dark‐field microscopy provides sufficient contrast for cell visualization in fingerprints with high sebum content. Although the application is limited to smooth surfaces that do not scatter light, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), it...
Determining the chronological sequence of inks deposited with different writing and...
Determining the sequence of inks in a questioned document is important in forensic science. Conventional and micro beam‐based ion beam analysis using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) and particle‐induced X‐ray emission were employed to study the depth distribution of ...
Are forensic scientists too risk averse?
Fingerprint examiners maintain decision thresholds that represent the amount of evidence required for an identification or exclusion conclusion. As measured by error rate studies (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2011;108(19):7733–8), these decision thresholds currently exhibit a preferen...
Predictors of varying levels of risks posed by fixated individuals to British public...
Concerning approaches and communications to the Royal Family and other British public figures are relatively numerous. This paper examines over 2000 such cases logged over a three‐year period in the United Kingdom. Using police and health data, the paper conducts a series of biva...
Suicidal iron overdose: A case report and review of literature
Acute iron toxicity in adults is rare, usually occurring due to intentional ingestion in suicide attempts. Few cases of the clinical and autopsy findings in acute iron toxicity have previously been reported in the literature. Ingestion of large amounts of iron salts can lead to h...
Effects of yarn size and blood drop size on wicking and bloodstains in textiles
Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) for stains found on non‐porous surfaces has matured into a powerful forensic science tool based on fluid mechanics principles. The same cannot be said when bloodstains are found on porous substrates, such as textiles. This is partially due to the...
Comparing footwear impressions that are close non‐matches using correlation‐based...
Forensic activities related to footwear evidence may be broadly classified into the following two categories: (1) intelligence gathering and (2) evidential value assessment. Intelligence gathering provides additional leads for investigators. Assessment of evidential value, as pra...
Non‐destructive DNA recovery from handwritten documents using a dry vacuum technique
Investigations of many crimes such as robberies, kidnappings, and terrorism are often associated with the recovery of a paper document which has been written by the perpetrator. Paper can provide a variety of forensic evidence such as DNA, latent fingermarks, and indented writing...
A comparison of the international protocols for the forensic assessment of conflict...
International protocols for forensic investigations are often created by committee and in isolation. When field tested, the results of such tests are rarely reported to the wider forensic community. This study presents a comparative study of one such protocol, the International P...
Evaluation of plasma cleaning as an approach for the preparation of soil minerals for...
Although organic material is often used for forensic analysis, a substantial portion of the data gathered for determination of common origin of forensic soil samples is the inorganic, mineralogical composition of the sample, which may be obscured by the presence of soil organic m...
The case for “investigate all”: Assessing the cost‐effectiveness of investigating no CODIS...
An increasing number of US jurisdictions have begun to submit their previously untested sexual assault kits (SAKs) for DNA testing. However, best practices for what should happen after testing are not well established. Should all cases be investigated regardless of the testing ou...
Self‐reported levels of occupational stress and wellness in forensic practitioners:...
While there is extensive research into wellness and mental health risks for police officers and other first responders, a smaller portion of research has considered how forensic practitioners are affected. This study surveyed 211 forensic practitioners from the American Academy o...
The influence of Close Non‐Match fingerprints similar in delta regions of whorls on...
Fingerprint identification errors may be due to the high similarity of fingerprints from different sources, especially when queries are conducted in a large database with the application of the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). In this study, a database of ten‐p...
Evaluation of a fluorescent dye to visualize touch DNA on various substrates
A wide variety of items are submitted as evidence in a forensic investigation. Identifying the location of DNA on such items is central to maximizing DNA profiling success and thus the ability to link a person of interest to a particular item or crime. Recent publications describ...
Comparison of DNA typing success in compromised blood and touch samples based on sampling...
Sample collection at the crime scene can introduce variations in DNA recovery based upon the substrate from which a sample is collected, the material of the collection device used, or the storage conditions after collection. There are many factors during this process that can deg...
Cognitive bias in forensic pathology decisions
Forensic pathologists' decisions are critical in police investigations and court proceedings as they determine whether an unnatural death of a young child was an accident or homicide. Does cognitive bias affect forensic pathologists' decision‐making? To address this que...
Sexing the bony labyrinth: A morphometric investigation in a subadult and adult Belgian...
In forensic anthropology, sex estimation is a fundamental step in assessing individual biological profiles when analyzing human skeletons. Yet, current methods are not reliable enough to allow an accurate sex identification of highly fragmented, burnt, or subadult remains. This p...
Modeling allelic analyte signals for aSTRs in NGS DNA profiles
We describe an adaption of Bright et al.'s work modeling peak height variability in CE‐DNA profiles to the modeling of allelic aSTR (autosomal short tandem repeats) read counts from NGS‐DNA profiles, specifically for profiles generated from the ForenSeq™ DNA Signature Prep K...