Individuals lacking ridge detail: A case study in adermatoglyphia

Adermatoglyphia is a very rare autosomal‐dominant condition that is genetically inherited and causes an individual to be born without conventional ridge detail on either their palmar or plantar surfaces (the fingers and palms of the hands and the toes and the soles of the feet). While adermatoglyphia has been the focus of medical and genetic research, no previous research has been conducted with regard to the forensic recovery and identification of marks from an adermatoglyphic individual. By observation of ridge detail donated by an adermatoglyphic subject, the study uses different methods in order to capture fingermarks (methods include: inked capture, livescan (biometric) capture, cyanoacrylate fuming, ninhydrin enhancement, and physical developer). Unusually, the purpose of this paper ends up presenting a number of examples of an absence of evidence; unsuccessful attempts made to capture and enhance fingerprint ridge detail. This is determined over a range of standard means including "live" donations by the adermatoglyphic subject onto the Livescan system, and enhancements of latent donations. The subject shows to leave either insubstantial fingermarks with no detail, or no mark whatsoever.     

Economic agendas old and new and chinese administrative reform

Facing new agenda economic development issues, China like other developing states is forced to coordinate policies regionally. As need for decentralization “downward” stretches to include delegation “outward,” Beijing must find its best response to the new trend. Four tests reveal no reason for China to stay aloof from simple Membership in Pacific-Asian regional organizations. Three tests reveal no problem with China taking an Activist role in such regional organizations. Three final tests reveal potential costs China would pay for seeking a regional Leadership role, especially before Beijing's post-succession direction is determined.     

What I Have Learned About Countering Terrorismϕ

As a counterterrorism officer of thirty years, I have a healthy respect for history. Yet I also know that hindsight changes what you think about what you once thought. My observations about terrorism trends and counterterrorism strategies over the years are not what they once were. What I think now is more aligned with how I feel, and therefore, much clearer. Until recently, I had always based my observations about national security in my experiences as a counterterrorism analyst. I have come to realize that the lessons I believe are the most valid are not a result of my career experiences but from allowing the rest of my life to shed light on my career.     

Cuticular hydrocarbons as a tool for determining the age of Chrysomya rufifacies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larvae

Calliphoridae are one of the most important insect groups encountered as evidence collected from a crime scene. Age determination of the immature stages of these necrophagous flies is an important step toward estimating the time of colonization and inferring a minimum postmortem interval (PMI_min) in most instances. To determine if the cuticular hydrocarbons could be used to establish whether the development stages yield characteristics profiles, allowing for age estimation, hydrocarbons were extracted from 1st and 2nd, as well as feeding and post‐feeding 3rd instar Chrysomya rufifacies, the hairy maggot blow fly. Extracted hydrocarbons were analyzed using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry with the aim to investigate the changes in chemical profiles of each larval stage. A total of 23 compounds were identified with most of them being alkanes (65%) with carbon chain lengths of 9–33 carbons, alkenes (18%), and methyl‐branched alkanes (17%). All the hydrocarbons except pentadecane (C15), hexadecane (C16), and nonacosane (C29) showed significant differences in their expression throughout larval development. For 1st instars, nonane was the most abundant (17% of the total hydrocarbons content) compound. Accounting for 11% and 10% of the cuticular hydrocarbons, tricosane and pentacosane, respectively, were the notable hydrocarbons in 2nd instars. For post‐feeding 3rd instars, hentriacontane and tritriacontane were present with relative abundances 18% and 15%, respectively. On average, there was a shift from low to high molecular weight hydrocarbons as the larvae aged. These results indicate the change in hydrocarbons makeup as larvae age and could potentially be used to determine the age of immature C. rufifacies and hence aid in PMI_min estimations. However, future research is needed to validate these results under natural conditions in the field.     

Research on the local regional similarity of automatic fingerprint identification system fingerprints based on close non-matches in a ten million people database—Taking the central region of whorl as an example

The local regional similarity of fingerprints has always been a hot issue in the field of fingerprint research. With the increasing size of ten-print databases, the appearance of close non-matches (CNMs) in automatic fingerprint identification system (AFIS) candidate lists has attracted increasing attention from forensic science departments worldwide. In this study, three categories (high-, medium-, and low-level) of standards for CNMs were established and 60 whorl samples were marked with different numbers of minutiae to explore the occurrence and influencing factors of CNMs in AFIS candidate lists based on a ten million people database. The results showed that all prints could be found with their corresponding CNMs. The average occurrence rate of CNMs for every query was 52.7% in the top 100 lists, and the most similar CNM was exactly the same in the local area of 12 coincidence points. CNMs appeared more in the middle and lower parts of the central region of the whorl. Moreover, shorter C2C distances and the same finger number and hand led to more CNMs being inspected. CNMs with higher similarity required a more extensive regional area and smaller minutiae density. We concluded that CNMs have a high occurrence rate in large-scale databases and many factors are closely related to them. Fingerprint examiners and researchers need to strengthen their understanding of CNMs to avoid the occurrence of misidentification like the Madrid bombings.     

Heat and let dye: Part II – Rapid heat-fixing of blood traces

Blood-contaminated shoeprints and footmarks contain valuable operational information as they may bind an individual who stepped in the crime scene with the incident and not merely with the location. As determining the age of a bloodstain remains a challenge, while processing the scene, it is difficult to determine whether the blood is completely, or partially, dry. Thus, executing a dye staining protocol may wash these marks away as they might still be soluble. However, to meet this challenge, it is possible to fix blood marks using heat. This study aims to find a solution for floor surfaces covered by heavier blood traces (shoeprints and footmarks). For this purpose, a new pseudo-operating device was constructed for examining the blood-fixing process of both mentioned trace types. Two trials were performed with depletion marks. The results revealed that fully developed fresh and heavily blood deposits were obtained by heating to 200°C for 7.5 min using the fixing device, followed by a staining protocol using amido black solution. The achieved sharp resolution of the examined bloody prints demonstrates that in certain cases the dehydration mechanism of heating is preferred over precipitating the proteins attributed to 5-sulfosalycilic acid; thus, reducing the risk of washing blood evidence while processing the crime scene.     

Time for a national approach to donor conception in Australia

There is a growing recognition of the interests and rights of individuals conceived using donated gametes in assisted reproductive technology to information about their biological parentage. In Australia these rights vary between jurisdictions according to differing statutory provisions. In February 2011 the Senate's Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee published its report on Donor Conception Practices in Australia. The report recommended the development of a nationally consistent approach to donor conception and recommended the enactment of legislation in those Australian jurisdictions without legislation regulating donor conception. This editorial reviews the Senate Committee report and its recommendations and supports calls for a nationally harmonised approach to donor conception in Australia.     

A study of quantitative comparisons of photographs and video images based on landmark derived feature vectors

An abundunce of surveillance cameras highlights the necessity of identifying individuals recorded. Images captured are often unintelligible and are unable to provide irrefutable identifications by sight, and therefore a more systematic method for identification is required to address this problem. An existing database of video and photograhic images was examined, which had previously been used in a psychological research project; material consisted of 80 video (Sample 1) and 119 photograhic (Sample 2) images, though taken with different cameras. A set of 38 anthropometric landmarks were placed by hand capturing 59 ratios of inter-landmark distances to conduct within sample and between sample comparisons using normalised correlation calculations; mean absolute value between ratios, Euclidean distance and Cosine θ distance between ratios. The statistics of the two samples were examined to determine which calculation best ascertained if there were any detectable correlation differences between faces that fall under the same conditions. A comparison of each face in Sample 1 was then compared against the database of faces in Sample 2. We present pilot results showing that the Cosine θ distance equation using Z-normalised values achieved the largest separation between True Positive and True Negative faces. Having applied the Cosine θ distance equation we were then able to determine that if a match value returned is greater than 0.7, it is likely that the best match will be a True Positive allowing a decrease of database images to be verified by a human. However, a much larger sample of images requires to be tested to verify these outcomes.