Articles Related to forensic science

Most forensic investigations are done based on the forensic expert’s level of expertise.

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The emergent threat of terrorism activities has caused an urgent need of improved forensic explosive analysis. Complex matrices, limited samples, and confusing interpretations serve as challenges for a forensic chemist in order to link the evidence to the perpetrator of the crime.

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Following the rise in popularity of forensic science, fueled by the media and perhaps necessity, comes the demand for an effective and productive approach to advising students interested in a career in this vast area. Forensic science is a large-scale umbrella term encompassing a multitude of disciplines. Whereas “forensic” means legal, any discipline that has an application to law or the legal system may be considered a “forensic science”. With the seemingly ever-increasing lure of forensic science as a career option, the question arises as to how best to assist students in making a dream job a reality. The purpose of this research is twofold: (1) summarize findings from forensic science job listings in the United States and (2) provide a framework, derived largely from Systems Theory, for understanding the advisee skillset, and suggest a model for a step by step career decision-making and curricular planning approach for professionals working in an advising capacity.

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Combating counterfeit medicines requires a new and unique crime scene investigation and forensic science approach. The “crime scene” is both at the production of the counterfeit product anywhere in the world and simultaneously at the packaged product in a consumer’s hand.

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Sudden death has varied causes, and autopsy is usually required to determine cause of death. Sarcoma involvement is very infrequent, and detailed pathological evaluation is needed for correct diagnosis.

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Hair evidence is one of the most common types of evidence encountered in criminal investigations. The present preliminary study is aimed to investigate the racial discrimination through hair morphology viz. inner cuticle margin, cuticle thickness and medulla pattern among Malay, Chinese and Indian in Malaysia.

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As a criminal defense attorney and criminology professor, I am amazed and excited that so many Americans have an interest in forensic science. When striking juries, I used to ask how many jurors watched television shows like CSI, Law and Order, and Forensic Files.

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The evidential and investigative value of a latent fingerprint with insufficient characteristics to identify can sometimes be an issue of debate. In this report the authors present the case of a latent fingerprint bearing details in agreement with no visible discrepancies, but with insufficient information to identify.

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Anthropometry is a systematic study of measurements on man and it involves scientific techniques for taking various measurements and somatic observations on the living man. As crime rate is increasing day by day, issue for human identification is of prime note. A forensic anthropologist would attempt to answer the following key questions relating to origin, age, sex, height and race after examining the remains.

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Cephalofacial measurements and indices are used to estimate sex and race. The aim of this is to document the craniofacial characteristics and sex differences from cephalic index and facial index of the studied groups.

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Use of gas chromatography (GC) combined with time-of –flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) with soft ionization generated with three different plasma gases (i.e., Xe, Kr, Ar) was evaluated for the identification of several pyrrolidinophenone-type designer drugs that are commercially available.

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Present trend of the crimes in India reveals that a wide variety of firearms including factory /country made are illegally used in crimes like murder, armed robbery, riot, poaching etc. Out of the total firearms received in Tripura State Forensic Science Laboratory, Agartala for the last ten years, about 30% of the firearms are observed to be belonging to country made pistol/pipe guns.

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Human origin determination is an important aspect of blood grouping analysis in forensic science laboratories. In the present study, protein extractants like gel buffer, ammonia and saline employed for origin determination were evaluated and compared qualitatively and quantitatively for their role in the extraction of proteins from dried blood stained materials of human origin at regular time intervals.

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This paper discusses the psychosexual correlations and psychological consequences related to torture and behavioral acts that are fundamentally torturous. The influence of participation by learning and the relationship of acts to thought and thought to acts are further discussed to raise awareness to the effects of torture on the torturer. Theories from multiple disciplines are presented in an integrated context to examine the correlation between fundamental psychological principles associated with acts that are torturous in nature and, therefore, innately evil.

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Programming scripts were written for the statistical analysis of genetic data from simple cases and complex cases of undetermined paternity. The methods presented here involve algorithms constructed with R, an open-source and increasingly popular programming language used for calculations and statistics; these methods also involve conditional probability analysis, Bayes’ Theorem, and pedigree analysis.

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Human odor detection technologies have drawn attention due to the wide possibility of potential applications they open up in areas such as biometrics, criminal investigation and forensics, search for survivors under rubble, and security checkpoint screening. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) has been the most successful and powerful analytical approach developed to date for human odor analysis, and hundreds of human odorants have been identified using this tool.

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The application of electronic-nose (E-nose) technologies in forensic science is a recent new development following a long history of progress in the development of diverse applications in the related biomedical and pharmaceutical fields. Data from forensic analyses must satisfy the needs and requirements of both the scientific and legal communities. The type of data collected from electronic-nose devices provides a means of identifying specific types of information about the chemical nature of evidentiary objects and samples under investigation using aroma signature profiles of complex gaseous mixtures containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from manufactured products and parts of the human body. E-nose analyses also provide useful qualitative information about the physicochemical characteristics and metabolic conditions of human subjects without the need for time-consuming analyses to identify all chemical components in human-derived volatile mixtures.

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Carbon nanotube (NT) based electronic vapor sensors were tested against synthetic sweat solutions, consisting of 13 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in saline, in order to probe the device ability to analyze and differentiate vapors derived from complex biological samples.

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The collection of human odor volatiles is of interest to forensic applications as a path to investigate canine scent discriminations in legal investigations. A study using a selected array of previously identified human odor compounds has been conducted to determine the retention and release capabilities of five (5) natural and synthetic fabric types, cotton (mercerized fabric and gauze matrix), polyester, rayon and wool.

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