Computerized Dental Comparison: A Critical Review of Dental Coding and Ranking Algorithms Used in Victim Identification

Comparison of antemortem and postmortem dental records is a leading method of victim identification, especially for incidents involving a large number of decedents. This process may be expedited with computer software that provides a ranked list of best possible matches. This study provides a comparison of the most commonly used conventional coding and sorting algorithms used in the United States (WinID3) with a simplified coding format that utilizes an optimized sorting algorithm. The simplified system consists of seven basic codes and utilizes an optimized algorithm based largely on the percentage of matches. To perform this research, a large reference database of approximately 50,000 antemortem and postmortem records was created. For most disaster scenarios, the proposed simplified codes, paired with the optimized algorithm, performed better than WinID3 which uses more complex codes. The detailed coding system does show better performance with extremely large numbers of records and/or significant body fragmentation.     

Dating hot spot to fraud hot spot: Targeting the social characteristics of romance fraud victims in England and Wales

Research Summary

We found that romance fraud was rising year-on-year across every region in England and Wales, increasing 55% during the 3 years between October 2018 and October 2021. Fifty percent of all the romance fraud victims in the period resided in 17% of the places where romance fraud had occurred. A total of 439 locations (outward postcode areas) were identified as the “power few” in the first year of the data set. Of these 439 locations, 162 of them recurred in both of the following years, becoming chronic “hot spot” locations containing more than one in six of all reported romance fraud victims. The demography of victims in repeat locations differed considerably, but hot spots were more frequently predominantly populated by less affluent populations.

Policy Implications

We conclude that the current national one-size-fits-all fraud prevention approach may not be the most efficient or effective way to reach those victims who most require crime prevention advice. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, based in the City of London Police, could adopt a tailored approach to providing preventative information to local police forces based on the year-to-year patterns in crime and the associated intelligence provided by sociodemographic data sources such as Acorn.     

Meaning in Life Moderates Relations between Personality and Temperament and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Hospitalized Adolescents

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Previous research indicates that sensation seeking, emotion dysregulation, and impulsivity are predictive of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). A body of research...     

FIM: A Business Information System for Intelligence

Three to Read and Keep

S. Steven Powell: Covert Cadre: Inside The Institute for Policy Studies Green Hill Publishers, Ottawa, Ill., 1987, 469 p., $29.95.

James Adams: Secret Armies: Inside the American, Soviet and European Special Forces Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 1987,440 p., $19.95.

Steven Emerson: Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1988, 256 p., $17.95.

Dangerous Dossiers

Herbert Mitgang: Dangerous Dossiers: Exposing the Secret War Against America's Greatest Authors Donald I. Fine, New York, 1988, 331 p., $18.95.

Crossing Paths in Belgium

Paul Thomas: Le KGB en Belgique Editions J. M. Collet, Brussels, 1987, 207 p., PB.     

Analysing multimodality in an interactive digital environment: software as a meta-semiotic tool

The present paper discusses issues arising from the use of an interactive digital software tool to analyse multimodal communication. The focus is on the ways in which such technical resources and associated techniques enable the analyst of social semiosis to apply different types of analysis, and provide the site for critical reflection upon the results of such analyses. The aim is to present an argument for the use of an interactive digital software application as a meta-semiotic tool. Three major challenges for scholars engaged in multimodal social semiotics are addressed in pursuing this aim, specifically with reference to the development of digital interactive analytical resources. Firstly, scholars are faced with the task of not only accounting for an increasing range of semiotic resources, but also for the way different semiotic phenomena interact to produce meaning. Secondly, the multimodal semiotician has a broad range of analytical approaches potentially relevant to any task to draw upon. Thirdly, the nature of contemporary media forms offer challenges themselves in terms of access, analysis and presentation of analysis.     

A Set of Handwriting Features for Use in Automated Writer Identification,

A writer's biometric identity can be characterized through the distribution of physical feature measurements (“writer's profile”); a graph‐based system that facilitates the quantification of these features is described. To accomplish this quantification, handwriting is segmented into basic graphical forms (“graphemes”), which are “skeletonized” to yield the graphical topology of the handwritten segment. The graph‐based matching algorithm compares the graphemes first by their graphical topology and then by their geometric features. Graphs derived from known writers can be compared against graphs extracted from unknown writings. The process is computationally intensive and relies heavily upon statistical pattern recognition algorithms. This article focuses on the quantification of these physical features and the construction of the associated pattern recognition methods for using the features to discriminate among writers. The graph‐based system described in this article has been implemented in a highly accurate and approximately language‐independent biometric recognition system of writers of cursive documents.     

Forensic Evidence and Criminal Investigations: The Impact of Ballistics Information on the Investigation of Violent Crime in Nine Cities,

We explore the impact of information from ballistics imaging hit reports on the investigation into violent crimes. Ballistics imaging hits link two crimes involving the same firearm by forensically matching tool marks on the fired bullets or cartridge cases. Interview data collected from detectives who received a hit report were used to explore the relationship between the presence of a hit report and outcomes in 65 gun‐related violent crime investigations in nine U.S. police agencies. Findings indicate hit reports rarely contribute to identification, arrest, charging, or sentencing of suspects, because of delays in producing hit reports. On average, hit reports were completed 181.4 days after the focal crime. This delay forces investigations to proceed without the benefit of information from ballistics analysis. Additionally, hit reports rarely contained detailed information that was immediately useful to investigators. Instead, hit reports required additional research by the investigator to unlock useful information.