Forensic Science and Technology Commons^™

Confirmation Bias: The Pitfall Of Forensic Science, Scott Moser

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

As it stands, forensic science and its practitioners are held in high regard in criminal court proceedings due to their ability to discover irrefutable facts that would otherwise go unnoticed. Nevertheless, forensic scientists can fall victim to natural logical fallacies. More specifically, confirmation bias is “a proclivity to search for or interpret additional information to confirm beliefs and to steer clear of information that may disagree with those prior beliefs” (Budlowe et al., 2009, p. 803). To restore the integrity of the forensic sciences, the sources of confirmation bias need to be identified and eliminated. Accordingly, empirical studies have given …

Comparison Of Liquid-Liquid Extraction And Solid Phase Extraction Of Mephedrone, Brittany Simone Love

Master's Theses

Legal high drugs are modified scheduled drugs. As with any new drug, researchers have to conduct studies to gather information about the drug. The problem with obtaining accurate information on new drugs is that by the time information is gathered, drug abusers and street chemists have developed new ones. Comparing designer drugs to their illegal counterparts is often helpful in that it can provide a starting point. Mephedrone is a new designer drug that has become a problem over the past few years. Often marketed as bath salts and plant food, mephedrone has become the knockoff replacement for amphetamines. This …

Comparing Wearer Dna Sample Collection Methods For The Recovery Of Single Source Profiles, Corissa J. Harris, Amanda J. Cardenas, Steven B. Lee, Brooke Barloewen

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Wearer DNA is the deposit of epithelial cells on clothing worn by an individual. Detection of the last individual to handle or wear an item is often an important and desirable determination in forensic science. The most commonly used collection methods for wearer DNA include swabbing and scraping. These often result in mixture profiles. Recently, adhesives have been introduced as a possible reliable method for the collection of biological evidence. The goal of the research was to compare the current collection methods of swabbing and scraping with a gel film called Gel-Pak ‘0’ which shares similar properties with adhesives. Gel-Pak …

Comparison Of Stated Iron Concentrations Between Name Brand And Generic Children's Multivitamins, Ashlea Nicole Pettengill

Master's Theses

The mineral iron is one of the most common minerals on Earth; not only is iron found in the atmosphere, water, and plants, it is an essential mineral needed for the human body. Children need iron at a young age to ensure proper growth and development of myelin, to promote oxygen transportation within red blood cells, and to assist in Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and Ribonucleic acid (RNA). With iron readily available in children's multivitamins, iron toxicity can become an issue when taking too many tablets. With two types of brands, generic and name brand, parents should be aware of the …

Isolation Of Secreted Micrornas (Mirnas) From Cell-Conditioned Media, Claire L. Glynn, Sonja Khan, Michael J. Kerin, Roisin M. Dwyer

Forensic Science Publications

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been found to be stable in the circulation of cancer patients raising their potential as circulating biomarkers of disease. The specific source and role, however, of miRNAs in the circulation is unknown and requires elucidation to determine their true potential. In this study, along with primary tissue explants and primary stromal cells, three breast cancer cell lines were employed, including T47D, MDA-MB-231 and SK-BR-3. Tissue explants were harvested in theatre, with informed patient consent, and included tumour, tumour associated normal, and diseased lymph node samples. Cell-conditioned media containing all factors secreted by the cells were harvested. MiRNAs …

Effect Of Fluctuating Temperatures On The Development Of A Forensically Important Blow Fly, Protophormia Terraenovae (Diptera: Calliphoridae), Jodie-A. Warren, Gail S. Anderson

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Experiments were conducted to compare the immature development of Protophormia terraenovae (Robineau-Desvoidy) at fluctuating temperatures of 4-28 and 9-23°C to their mean constant temperature, 16°C. Overall development was fastest at the greater fluctuation and slowest at the constant temperature but showed similar percentages of development time in each stage. The rate summation effect is suspected to have caused this difference in development rate because fluctuations above the mean increase the rate relatively more than temperatures below the mean can lower the rate.

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

A Simple Experiment With Microsoft Office 2010 And Windows 7 Utilizing Digital Forensic Methodology, Gregory H. Carlton

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital forensic examiners are tasked with retrieving data from digital storage devices, and frequently these examiners are expected to explain the circumstances that led to the data being in its current state. Through written reports or verbal, expert testimony delivered in court, digital forensic examiners are expected to describe whether data have been altered, and if so, then to what extent have data been altered. Addressing these expectations results from opinions digital forensic examiners reach concerning their understanding of electronic storage and retrieval methods. The credibility of these opinions evolves from the scientific basis from which they are drawn using …

The Advanced Data Acquisition Model (Adam): A Process Model For Digital Forensic Practice, Richard Adams, Val Hobbs, Graham Mann

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As with other types of evidence, the courts make no presumption that digital evidence is reliable without some evidence of empirical testing in relation to the theories and techniques associated with its production. The issue of reliability means that courts pay close attention to the manner in which electronic evidence has been obtained and in particular the process in which the data is captured and stored. Previous process models have tended to focus on one particular area of digital forensic practice, such as law enforcement, and have not incorporated a formal description. We contend that this approach has prevented the …

The Hermeneutics Of The Hard Drive: Using Narratology, Natural Language Processing, And Knowledge Management To Improve The Effectiveness Of The Digital Forensic Process, Mark Pollitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In order to protect the safety of our citizens and to ensure a civil society, we ask our law enforcement, judiciary and intelligence agencies, under the rule of law, to seek probative information which can be acted upon for the common good. This information may be used in court to prosecute criminals or it can be used to conduct offensive or defensive operations to protect our national security. As the citizens of the world store more and more information in digital form, and as they live an ever-greater portion of their lives online, law enforcement, the judiciary and the Intelligence …

Proceedings Of The Nebraska Academy Of Sciences: Aeronautics And Space Science

Nebraska Academy of Sciences: Programs and Proceedings

Variability on AGN Absorption Lines Based on Hubble Space Telescope/COS Data

BALQSO Kinetic Luminosity Determination with C III* Measurements

Brewster Angle Microscopy and Characterizations of Langmuir Films

Sorting Light’s Total Angular Momentum for Communication Systems

The Phosphorylation Pattern of RPA2, in Response to Double-strand Breaks, Differs Depending on the Location in the Cell and the Phase of the Cell Cycle

The Diophantine Equation Ax⁴ + By⁴ = Cz⁴ in Quadratic Fields

The SBML Standard to Share Computational Models of Biological Systems

High Speed Electro-discharge Drilling and Wire Electrode-discharge Machining of Titanium Alloys for Aerospace Applications

Routing over …

Proceedings Of The Nebraska Academy Of Sciences: Anthropology

Nebraska Academy of Sciences: Programs and Proceedings

Presentations

A Marxist Approach to US Historical Archaeology: A Review and Summary of the History and Application of Marxism on the Field of Historical Archaeology in the US

John Collier, Anthropology, and the Indian New Deal

Colonoware and Culture: The Changing Interpretation of 17th Century Ceramic Traditions in the South Eastern United States

Creole Cottages and Garden Estates: Space and Purpose in Early New Orleans

Quality Control for In-field Photography: Digital Curationa and Non-collections of Artifacts

Assesing Lithics through Color Metrics

Refitting of Stone Artifacts Using Colorimetric Analysis

The Restroer of the Republic: An Analysis of Augustus’s Social, Moral, and …

Program And Proceedings: Nebraska Academy Of Sciences 1880–2013, 133rd Anniversary Year, One Hundred-Twenty-Third Annual Meeting

Nebraska Academy of Sciences: Programs and Proceedings

Aeronautics and Space Science

Collegiate Academy: Biology

Biological and Medical Sciences

Nebraska Chapter, National Council for Geographic Education

Chemistry and Physics

Collegiate Academy: Chemistry and Physics

Junior Academy, Senior High Competition

Aeronautics and Space Science, Poster Session

Anthropology

Nebraska Wesleyan University Health and Sciences Graduate School Fair

Aeronautics and Space Science, Poster Session

Maiben Memorial Lecture: Making People Smarter Using "Habits of Mind," Bob Feurer, North Bend High School

Collegiate Academy: Biology

Teaching of Science and Math

Applied Science and Technology

Junior Academy, Junior High Competition

Information Security Challenge Of Qr Codes, Nik Thompson, Kevin Lee

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The discipline of information security must adapt to new technologies and methods of interaction with those technologies. New technologies present both challenges and opportunities for the security professional, especially for areas such as digital forensics. Challenges can be in the form of new devices such as smartphones or new methods of sharing information, such as social networks. One such rapidly emerging interaction technology is the use of Quick Response (QR) codes. These offer a physical mechanism for quick access to Web sites for advertising and social interaction. This paper argues that the common implementation of QR codes potentially presents security …

Measuring Inconsistency Methods For Evidentiary Value, Fred Cohen

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Many inconsistency analysis methods may be used to detect altered records or statements. But for admission as evidence, the reliability of the method has to be determined and measured. For example, in China, for evidence to be admitted, it has to have 95% certainty of being correct,1 and that certainty must be shown to the court, while in the US, evidence is admitted if it is more probative than prejudicial (a >50% standard).2 In either case, it is necessary to provide a measurement of some sort in order to pass muster under challenges from the other side. And in most …

Technology Corner Visualising Forensic Data: Evidence (Part 1), Damian Schofield, Ken Fowle

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Visualisation is becoming increasingly important for understanding information, such as investigative data (for example: computing, medical and crime scene evidence) and analysis (for example: network capability assessment, data file reconstruction and planning scenarios). Investigative data visualisation is used to reconstruct a scene or item and is used to assist the viewer (who may well be a member of the general public with little or no understanding of the subject matter) to understand what is being presented. Analysis visualisations, on the other hand, are usually developed to review data, information and assess competing scenario hypotheses for those who usually have an …

How Often Is Employee Anger An Insider Risk I? Detecting And Measuring Negative Sentiment Versus Insider Risk In Digital Communications, Eric Shaw, Maria Payri, Michael Cohn, Ilene R. Shaw

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This research introduced two new scales for the identification and measurement of negative sentiment and insider risk in communications in order to examine the unexplored relationship between these two constructs. The inter-rater reliability and criterion validity of the Scale of Negativity in Texts (SNIT) and the Scale of Insider Risk in Digital Communications (SIRDC) were established with a random sample of email from the Enron archive and criterion measures from established insiders, disgruntled employees, suicidal, depressed, angry, anxious, and other sampled groups. In addition, the sensitivity of the scales to changes over time as the risk of digital attack increased …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Technology Corner: Visualising Forensic Data: Evidence Guidelines (Part 2), Damian Schofield, Ken Fowle

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Visualisation is becoming increasingly important for understanding information, such as investigative data (for example: computing, medical and crime scene evidence) and analysis (for example, network capability assessment, data file reconstruction and planning scenarios). Investigative data visualisation is used to reconstruct a scene or item and is used to assist the viewer (who may well be a member of the general public with little or no understanding of the subject matter) to understand what is being presented. Analysis visualisations, on the other hand, are usually developed to review data, information and assess competing scenario hypotheses for those who usually have an …

How Often Is Employee Anger An Insider Risk Ii? Detecting And Measuring Negative Sentiment Versus Insider Risk In Digital Communications–Comparison Between Human Raters And Psycholinguistic Software, Eric Shaw, Maria Payri, Michael Cohn, Ilene R. Shaw

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This research uses two recently introduced observer rating scales, (Shaw et al., 2013) for the identification and measurement of negative sentiment (the Scale for Negativity in Text or SNIT) and insider risk (Scale of Indicators of Risk in Digital Communication or SIRDC) in communications to test the performance of psycholinguistic software designed to detect indicators of these risk factors. The psycholinguistic software program, WarmTouch (WT), previously used for investigations, appeared to be an effective means for locating communications scored High or Medium in negative sentiment by the SNIT or High in insider risk by the SIRDC within a randomly selected …