Forensic Science and Technology Commons^™

Method Development And Validation For The Determination Of Designer Benzodiazepines In Blood By Lc-Ms/Ms, Victoria Mei

Student Theses

The misuse of designer benzodiazepines, as an alternative to prescription benzodiazepines and for drug-facilitated sexual assaults, has emerged as a growing threat, due in part to the ease of purchasing these drugs on the internet at low prices. Causing concern for safety, is the lack of dosage information resulting in users self-medicating, often leading to unintended overdoses, coma, or death at higher doses. With limited published data regarding quantification of designer benzodiazepines in forensic cases, a method was validated for the determination of thirteen and screening for two designer benzodiazepines in blood, in addition to a limited number of common …

The Forensic Analysis Of Children's Temporary Tattoos, Erika Bravo

Student Theses

While children’s temporary tattoos have been produced since the 20th century, there are few scientific studies that have evaluated their physical and chemical characteristics. Therefore, this thesis is a preliminary study done to evaluate the composition of children’s temporary tattoos and consider the importance of such traces in a forensic content.

Colored regions in children’s temporary tattoos, such as red, pink, yellow and orange, were found to fluoresce with the use of an alternative light source while the use of microscopy led to the identification of different printing patterns between temporary tattoos. However, limitations in the ability to determine the …

Quorum Blockchain Stress Evaluation In Different Environments, Daniel P. Mera

Student Theses

In today’s world, the Blockchain technology is used for different purposes has brought an increment in the development of different Blockchain platforms, services, and utilities for storing data securely and efficiently. Quorum Blockchain, an Ethereum fork created by JPMorgan Chase, has placed itself in one of the widely used, efficient and trustful Blockchain platforms available today. Because of the importance which Quorum is contributing to the world, it is important to test and measure different aspects of the platform, not only to prove how efficient the software can be but as well as to have a clear view on what …

Simultaneous Determination Of Fourteen Antipsychotic Drugs In Whole Blood By Solid Phase Extraction And Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry, Theresa M. Dawe

Student Theses

Anti-psychotic drugs are commonly prescribed to patients to treat several mental conditions, such as bipolar, schizophrenia, and manic-depressive disorder. The analysis of anti-psychotic drugs in blood is a common practice in clinical and forensic toxicology, to monitor drug treatment (therapeutic drug monitoring) or to explain the cause of the impairment or intoxication in human performance and in postmortem cases. However, most of the current studies have been performed in plasma, and a limited number in blood. We developed and validated a method to confirm and quantify a panel of commonly prescribed anti-psychotic drugs in whole blood using solid phase extraction …

Forensic Analysis Of Spy Applications In Android Devices, Shinelle Hutchinson, Umit Karabiyik

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Smartphones with Google's Android operating system are becoming more and more popular each year, and with this increased user base, comes increased opportunities to collect more of these users' private data. There have been several instances of malware being made available via the Google Play Store, which is one of the predominant means for users to download applications. One effective way of collecting users' private data is by using Android Spyware. In this paper, we conduct a forensic analysis of a malicious Android spyware application and present our findings. We also highlight what information the application accesses and what it …

Decomposition Of Pig Carcasses At Varying Room Temperature, Jacqueline Abad Santos

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

The goal of this study is to assess the qualitative scoring of decomposition scales with statistical analysis while also determining which indoor environment will decompose the fastest. When comparing the three indoor environments, water decomposition appears to be the fastest, but the method of analysis for this study determines that using decomposition scales to analyze such environments may produce statistically insignificant results. For this study, piglets were put in a dry steel tub, a water filled steel tub, and a suitcase. These were recorded using photographs for 25 days and then scored using decomposition scales. The total score was divided …

Scientific Evidence Admissibility: Improving Judicial Proceedings To Decrease Erroneous Outcomes, Leica Kwong

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

In the United States, Federal Rules of Evidence 702, the Frye and Daubert standards govern the admissibility of scientific evidence in the courtroom. Some states adopted Frye while others adopted Daubert, causing varying judicial outcomes. The verdicts in some cases may be erroneous due to a nationally used standard. Frye has broad criteria of requiring scientific evidence to be generally accepted. While Daubert contains more requirements for the evidence to be admissible, such as peer review, publication, and scientific principles. Daubert, alongside FRE 702, provides a thorough guideline for trial judges who have the gatekeeping role to decide admissibility aiming …

Physical Match: Uniqueness Of Torn Paper, Marilyn Aguilar

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

In the forensic science field, it is generally accepted that all tears and fractures are unique; however, there is limited scientific evidence to support this. This study tests the claim that all tears are unique, focusing on paper. One-hundred Office Depot brand 3” x 5” blank, white index cards were torn in half by hand. Six halves were randomly removed; the remaining 94 halves were mixed and then matched by a novice using end-match analysis. The removal of the 6 random halves left 44 matching pairs. Of the remaining halves, all 44 pairs were correctly matched. The results show that …

Novice Ideas: Handwriting Comparisons Conducted By An Untrained Individual, Maia Lister

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Forensic analysis of questioned documents includes chemical analyses of paper and ink as well as handwriting comparisons. Several elements affect handwriting analyses, including the presence of discriminatory factors that can individualize a handwriting sample and whether the handwriting has been disguised. Five handwriting samples were gathered from six individuals comprising of one reference, three natural unknowns, and one disguised sample per person. A novice conducted analyses on every collected sample and conducted comparisons of the reference sample to the unknown and disguised samples in an attempt to correctly source the unknown and disguised samples. The novice showed a high level …

The Accumulation Of Wear On Footwear Pattern Analysis, Sarah Pawloski

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Wear is defined as the erosion of a shoe’s outsole or the loss of tread pattern, and it happens gradually over time with use. After a shoeprint is collected from a crime scene, it is questioned whether an individualization can be made if an exemplar is created after additional use of the shoe. The shoes of ten volunteers at San Jose State University were analyzed over a period of 40-45 days. Wear and Randomly Acquired Characteristics (RACs) were analyzed over time to determine if there were any observable changes or additions to the already present wear. It was hypothesized that …

Developing And Validating A Fast And Accurate Method To Quantify 18 Antidepressants In Oral Fluid Samples Using Spe And Lc-Msms, Sanghee S. Shin

Student Theses

Antidepressant drugs are one of the most widely used medicines for treating major depressive disorders for long time periods. Oral fluid (OF) testing offers an easy and noninvasive sample collection. Detection of antidepressants in OF is important in clinical and forensic settings, such as therapeutic drug monitoring and roadside testing for driving under influence. We developed and validated a comprehensive liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method for 18 antidepressants (amitriptyline, bupropion, citalopram, clomipramine, cyclobenzaprine, desipramine, desvenlafaxine, doxepin, duloxetine, fluoxetine, imipramine, mirtazapine, nortriptyline, paroxetine, sertraline, trazodone, trimipramine, venlafaxine) in oral fluid collected by Quantisal® oral collection devices. 0.5 mL of Quantisal® …

Multiple Contacts Of Drug Contaminated Fingermarks And Their Analysis With Raman Microspectroscopy, Victoria Deprimo

Master's Theses

This thesis research aimed to determine if substrate, enhancement technique, and multiple contacts affect the detection and identification of drugs in fingermarks using Raman Spectroscopy. It has the potential to be of great importance in forensic science as fingermarks are one of the most important traces left behind at crime scenes and illicit drugs are a significant criminal justice problem. Thus, being able to associate illicit drugs with a specific fingermark has great potential for forensic science, as it can put the drugs in the hands of a specific individual.

The ridges of fingerprints trap trace amounts of material that …

Examining Witness Testimony In Domestic Homicides, Hana Chae

Student Theses

The present study investigated the effects of varying witness testimony on mock jurors’ perceptions of a case where a woman utilizes self-defense as a reason for killing her husband during a domestic dispute. A 3 (expert witness) x 3 (child witness) design was used to examine the effects of two different forms of expert testimony (Battered Woman Syndrome [BWS] & Social Agency [SA]) and its interaction with presence of child witness [age 5 & age 8]. Jury eligible participants (N = 245) were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). It was hypothesized that the presence of an expert witness would …

Determination Of Intersex Humans In Human Remains, Audria Payne

CURCE Annual Undergraduate Conference

Currently, there isn’t much research on whether forensic anthropologists include the identification of intersex humans in human remains. Forensic anthropologists tend to have varied training that is related to identifying skeletal remains, but there isn’t much research about how to identify intersex humans after death or whether they have come across intersex in skeletal remains at all, besides those they have classified as ambiguous. In this paper, I will be researching various skeletal remains to see if the current identification methods of identifying sex are accurate in identifying intersex. I will also research ambiguous and undetermined remains to see if …

Forensic Characterization And Discrimination Of Manila Envelopes, María Isabel Sánchez Melo

Master's Theses

Envelopes can be found at crime scenes when ransom, threat letters or potentially harmful substances are sent to victims. Therefore, they are important probative items of evidence analyzed by forensic document examiners. Manila envelopes are commonly used in the United States to transport or send documents as they are made of thick and durable paper. Although there are many studies on the forensic analysis of office paper and paper-based banknotes, and only a few on white envelopes, there does not exist previously published research on the physical or chemical characterization of manila envelopes. The goal of this research was to …

Methodological Improvements In The Mrna Profiling Assays For Incorporation Into Dna Casework Workflows, Paris Volk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Currently, DNA profiling is the gold standard to identify an individual. However, determining body fluid origin is important in criminal investigations, offering additional information surrounding the circumstances of a crime. However, crime labs can only definitively identify blood and semen and presumptively saliva using techniques that consume time and sample and do not simultaneously identify all forensically relevant body fluids. This causes many crime labs to want to bypass body fluid identification altogether. Therefore, advances into more definitive molecular-based body fluid methods are necessary. One such technique is mRNA profiling because it provides a highly sensitive and specific approach to …

Determining The Interference Of Lactate And Lactate Dehydrogenase In An Ethanol Enzyme Assay, Julia Liebl

Master's Theses

Enzymatic ethanol assays are widely used to determine blood alcohol content for individuals admitted to a hospital. In some instances, this hospital data is later used as evidence in a court of law, most commonly in DUI cases. As the enzymatic assay targets, but does not exclusively measure ethanol, it is theoretically possible that interference could occur and produce a falsely elevated result, leading to wrongful convictions or other consequences. This project examined the potential of clinically relevant levels of one potential interferant, lactate and the hepatic enzyme lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) to cause significant and falsely elevated results. Threshold levels …

Investigating The Masking Effects Of Blood On Organic Gunshot Residue Using Gc/Ms, Raman, And Atr-Ftir, Tyler Willits

Master's Theses

Gunshot residue (GSR) can be an indicator for determining the distance of a firearm discharge and linking potential suspects and witnesses to a shooting event. However, the evidentiary value of inorganic gunshot residue (IGSR), commonly used to detect GSR, has been called into question due to the potential for false negatives and false positives. Organic gunshot residue (OGSR) acts as supporting evidence; this increases the overall confidence of the examiner, as well as the value of gunshot residue evidence as a whole.

Current research has focused on three main areas for OGSR. The first is what compounds we should identify …

Dna Methylation Methods For Donor Age Prediction Using Touch Dna, Emily Neverett

Master's Theses

The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated over 30 million individuals fall victim to human trafficking each year, of which, 50% are children below the age of 16. In 2012, the ILO reported there to be 168 million child laborers worldwide, with many trafficked into hazardous conditions to manufacture consumer products that are sold in developed countries. This is a modern form of slavery with poor working conditions, no access to education, and low wages. The hidden nature of this crime, however, makes it extremely difficult to identify and locate victims of forced child labor, and thus making it challenging to …

Analysis Of Error Within Forensic Measurements And Photogrammetry Programs, Amy Douglas

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Digital images and photography have been considered commonplace in forensic science since the late 1990’s. Photogrammetry is a tool used in forensic science to measure objects within photographs that contain a scale or programs that are able to measure items in 3D images. Items at crime scenes often need to be measured and forensic scientists may not know what the best option is for their situation. This research will be conducted to show which type of measurement technique is most accurate, calculated against NIST traceable measurements, at various sizes of objects. The measurement techniques that will be tested are standard, …

The Forensic Analysis Of Skin-Safe Stamp Pad Inks, Swetha Rajagopal

Student Theses

Skin-safe stamp pad inks are currently being used at locations such as clubs, zoos and other events with the purpose of stamping individuals that visit the location. This is done in an attempt to monitor the number and activity of visitors. Ink manufacturing companies generally tend to experiment with a number of different combinations of the different components of ink, in order to obtain desirable properties. The combinations are usually proprietary and that very nature of the inks ends up making them, possibly unique and individual. The analysis, identification and possible individualization of the chemical composition of these inks could …

Detection Of Larval Aggregations Using A Drone Mounted Thermal Imaging Camera, Megan Descalzi

Master's Theses

When a body’s temperature reaches ambient temperature after death, remote detection of the body can become difficult. At this point, useful search tactics include the use of cadaver dogs, search parties and aerial imaging devices, all of which can be costly and time-consuming for every day law enforcement use. This study investigated the potential of a novel search technique in which a small, unmanned aerial system (drone) mounted with a forward-looking infrared radar (FLIR) was utilized to detect decomposing animal carcasses via the heat generated by associated Diptera larval aggregations. Hot water baths were utilized as analogs for larval aggregations …

Program And Proceedings: Nebraska Academy Of Sciences 1880–2019, 139th Anniversary Year, One Hundred-Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, April 12, 2019

Nebraska Academy of Sciences: Programs and Proceedings

Program

Aeronautics and Space Science

Collegiate Academy: Biology

Biological and Medical Sciences

Chemistry and Physics

Teaching and Learning the Dynamics of Cellular Respiration Using Interactive Computer Simulations Workshop

Life After College: Building Your Resume for the Future Workshop

Collegiate Academy: Chemistry and Physics

Aeronautics and Space Science, Poster Session

Maiben Memorial Lecture: David Swanson

Anthropology

Applied Science and Technology

Earth Science

Environmental Sciences

Teaching of Science and Math

Small Rna Sequencing And Rt-Qpcr Validation Of Forensically Relevant Body Fluids, Karly Johannsen

Master's Theses

Body fluid identification is an important aspect of forensic investigations because it assists with the reconstruction of crime scenes and can refute and/or support witness statements. Currently, there is no universal method for body fluid identification. Each body fluid has several tests for its identification, both presumptive and confirmatory. A universal method for body fluid identification that is sensitive, specific, efficient, and minimally destructive is necessary.

In recent years miRNAs have been heralded as novel biomarkers for the identification of body fluids. Several research groups across the US and internationally have been formed to determine which miRNAs are suitable for …

On Efficiency Of Artifact Lookup Strategies In Digital Forensics, Lorenz Liebler, Patrick Schmitt, Harald Baier, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

In recent years different strategies have been proposed to handle the problem of ever-growing digital forensic databases. One concept to deal with this data overload is data reduction, which essentially means to separate the wheat from the chaff, e.g., to filter in forensically relevant data. A prominent technique in the context of data reduction are hash-based solutions. Data reduction is achieved because hash values (of possibly large data input) are much smaller than the original input. Today's approaches of storing hash-based data fragments reach from large scale multithreaded databases to simple Bloom filter representations. One main focus was put on …

A Framework To Reveal Clandestine Organ Trafficking In The Dark Web And Beyond, Michael P. Heinl, Bo Yu, Duminda Wijesekera

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Due to the scarcity of transplantable organs, patients have to wait on long lists for many years to get a matching kidney. This scarcity has created an illicit market place for wealthy recipients to avoid long waiting times. Brokers arrange such organ transplants and collect most of the payment that is sometimes channeled to fund other illicit activities. In order to collect and disburse payments, they often resort to money laundering-like schemes of money transfers. As the low-cost Internet arrives in some of the affected countries, social media and the dark web are used to illegally trade human organs. This …

Determination Of Vehicle Speed From Recorded Video Using Reverse Projection Photogrammetry And File Metadata, Brandon Epstein, Bryce Westlake

Faculty Publications

The prevalence of security and in‐car video has increased the number of motor vehicle accidents captured on digital video. However, inconsistencies in how to accurately determine time and distance for vehicle speed has led to examinations with varying results. A potential solution for calculating time intervals is to use frame timing contained within many digital video file's metadata, recorded with 0.000001 sec precision. This paper examines a fatal motor vehicle accident where frame timing information was used with distance measurements from reverse projection photogrammetry to calculate vehicle speed. A margin of error was then calculated based on the accuracy in …

Immersive Virtual Reality Attacks And The Human Joystick, Peter Casey, Ibrahim Baggili, Ananya Yarramreddy

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

This is one of the first accounts for the security analysis of consumer immersive Virtual Reality (VR) systems. This work breaks new ground, coins new terms, and constructs proof of concept implementations of attacks related to immersive VR. Our work used the two most widely adopted immersive VR systems, the HTC Vive, and the Oculus Rift. More specifically, we were able to create attacks that can potentially disorient users, turn their Head Mounted Display (HMD) camera on without their knowledge, overlay images in their field of vision, and modify VR environmental factors that force them into hitting physical objects and …

Frameup: An Incriminatory Attack On Storj: A Peer To Peer Blockchain Enabled Distributed Storage System, Xiaolu Zhang, Justin Grannis, Ibrahim Baggili, Nicole Lang Beebe

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this work we present a primary account of frameup, an incriminatory attack made possible because of existing implementations in distributed peer to peer storage. The frameup attack shows that an adversary has the ability to store unencrypted data on the hard drives of people renting out their hard drive space. This is important to forensic examiners as it opens the door for possibly framing an innocent victim. Our work employs Storj as an example technology, due to its popularity and market size. Storj is a blockchain enabled system that allows people to rent out their hard drive space …

Construction Of A Reference Allelic Ladder For An Odocoileus Str Multiplex, Jolene Strand

Master's Theses

Odocoileus is a genus of Cervidae (deer) consisting of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus, Zimmerman, 1780), mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus, Rafinesque, 1817) and blacktailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus hemionus, Rafinesque, 1817). Hunting Odocoileus is only legal with proper permits according to laws that dictate when, where, how, and what can be hunted. Anything outside the legal limits is considered to be poaching. A useful tool for investigating poaching cases is Short Tandem Repeat (STR) DNA analysis. This is commonly used in human forensic casework to link DNA evidence found at crime scenes to either victims or suspects. In poaching cases, it can …