Forensic Science and Technology Commons^™

Effective Laundering Conditions For Ignitable Liquid Decontamination Of Fire Scene Clothing Used By The Bureau Of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, And Explosives, Rebecca K. Whitney

Master of Science in Forensic Science Directed Research Projects

Ignitable liquids such as gasoline and diesel fuel are common accelerants encountered by Certified Fire Investigators (CFIs). These ignitable liquids can be identified by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy; the presence of particular peaks in appropriate abundances and patterns indicates the presence of compounds found in ignitable liquids. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) issues clothing to its CFIs for wear during fire scene investigation. Previous research has identified a method to decontaminate the tools used by CFIs, but no explicit protocol to decontaminate scene clothing has been determined. This study investigated the use of Tide Ultra Stain Release, …

Discrimination Of Colorless Fibers By Uv-Vis Microspectrophotometry And Microspectrofluorimetry, Kialani Killinger

Master of Science in Forensic Science Directed Research Projects

Fiber evidence is frequently encountered in forensic casework, and part of a typical fiber analytical scheme involves the detailed study of the color and other physical properties, optical properties, and chemical composition of the fibers in question. Microspectrophotometry (MSP) is commonly used to provide objective color measurements of fibers, eliminating subjectivity that may be present in visual color examinations. MSP can produce color measurements over the ultraviolet (UV) and visible (VIS) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as emission spectra from fluorescence measurements. In this research, colorless fibers were analyzed by MSP, using both transmission measurements in the UV-VIS …

Analysis Of Pellet Patterns And Gsr Produced From Judge Taurus Revolvers, Donald Poon

Master of Science in Forensic Science Directed Research Projects

The Taurus Judge is a five-shot revolver designed to fire both 410 Bore shotshells and caliber 45 (Long) Colt cartridges. It is marketed as a self-defense firearm by Taurus. As of 2010, the Taurus Judge was “quickly becoming a popular personal defense firearm”.¹ Although it has become somewhat popular, the Taurus Judge and its various models have not had many distance determination studies completed and there is still a dearth of information on how these handguns compare with shotguns when looking at range of fire determinations. This study focused on: how barrel length affected pellet spread patterns produced by …

Statistical Evaluation Of Randomly Acquired Characteristics On Outsoles With Implications Regarding Chance Co-Occurrence And Spatial Randomness, Nicole Richetelli

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Footwear evidence holds tremendous forensic value, owing to its ability to formulate linkages between victims, suspects and scenes. Naturally, the strength of these linkages is a function of the perceived clarity, quality and rarity of class, subclass and randomly acquired characteristics (RACs), which are the fundamental outsole features used to formulate source associations. In order to reach a conclusion when performing a footwear comparison, forensic examiners must assign value to the observed similarities and differences that exist between questioned crime scene and test impressions. Embedded within this process is an evaluation of the random association between unrelated shoes as a …

Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Crime Incidents For Forensic Investigation, Jamie Spencer Spaulding

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Crime analysis and mapping has been routinely employed to gather intelligence which informs security efforts and forensic investigations. Traditionally, geographic information systems in the form of third-party mapping applications are used for analysis of crime data but are often expensive and lack flexibility, transparency, or efficiency in uncovering associations and relationships in crime. Each crime incident and article of evidence within that incident has an associated spatial and temporal component which may yield significant and relevant information to the case. Wide variations exist in the techniques that departments use and commonly spatial and temporal components of crime are evaluated independently, …

Validation Of Fast Spectrochemical Screening Methods For The Identification Of Counterfeit Pharmaceutical Packaging, Emily Ann Haase

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are an actively developing health and economic threat worldwide. Particularly prevalent are counterfeit pharmaceuticals distributed in emerging nations and through internet pharmacies or e-pharmacies. Although technology has been developed that discourages anti-counterfeiting practices (such as optically variable devices, invisible ink, and track-and-trace technology), it remains somewhat novel and expensive to implement on a widespread scale.

In this study, Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) were proposed as fast and non-invasive tools for the identification of counterfeit pharmaceutical packages. The main objective of this research was to develop and evaluate the capabilities …

The Effects Of Household Substrates On The Evaporation Of Ignitable Liquids At Temperatures Up To 210℃, Caitlyn Wensel

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In fire debris analysis, ignitable liquid residues are commonly identified using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The detection and identification of an ignitable liquid can help arson investigators determine whether a fire was intentional or accidental. To assist with the identification of ignitable liquid residues, chromatograms of questioned samples are typically compared to those of known ignitable liquids that have been weathered (evaporated) to different extents. Practitioners typically perform such weathering at room temperature and to a limited number of extents of weathering, so their database of weathered residues is likely to deviate markedly from casework residues. The ultimate goal of …

Validation Of The 4-Aminophenol Chemical Test And Analytical Testing Scheme To Distinguish Marijuana And Hemp, Kenna Lewis

Master of Science in Forensic Science Directed Research Projects

With the passing of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp, law enforcement agencies and forensic laboratories needed a more efficient testing scheme to differentiate marijuana and hemp Cannabis plants. The validation of the 4-aminophenol chemical test and the subsequent analytical scheme allows for this differentiation to be performed. The evaluation of eighteen different cannabinoids, including acids, demonstrated that compounds with structures similar to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) produced a blue result and compounds with structures similar to cannabidiol (CBD) produced a pink result. Several titration curves with varying concentrations of cannabinoids indicated a pink result when the THC concentration was less …

Quantifying The Need For Supervised Machine Learning In Conducting Live Forensic Analysis Of Emergent Configurations (Eco) In Iot Environments, Victor R. Kebande, Richard A. Ikuesan, Nickson M. Karie, Sadi Alawadi, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Arafat Al-Dhaqm

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Author(s) Machine learning has been shown as a promising approach to mine larger datasets, such as those that comprise data from a broad range of Internet of Things devices, across complex environment(s) to solve different problems. This paper surveys existing literature on the potential of using supervised classical machine learning techniques, such as K-Nearest Neigbour, Support Vector Machines, Naive Bayes and Random Forest algorithms, in performing live digital forensics for different IoT configurations. There are also a number of challenges associated with the use of machine learning techniques, as discussed in this paper.