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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Forensic evidence'
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1
Shanmugam, Karthikeyan. "Validating digital forensic evidence." Thesis, Brunel University, 2011. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/7651.
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This dissertation focuses on the forensic validation of computer evidence. It is a burgeoning field, by necessity, and there have been significant advances in the detection and gathering of evidence related to electronic crimes. What makes the computer forensics field similar to other forensic fields is that considerable emphasis is placed on the validity of the digital evidence. It is not just the methods used to collect the evidence that is a concern. What is also a problem is that perpetrators of digital crimes may be engaged in what is called anti-forensics. Digital forensic evidence techniques are deliberately thwarted and corrupted by those under investigation. In traditional forensics the link between evidence and perpetrator's actions is often straightforward: a fingerprint on an object indicates that someone has touched the object. Anti-forensic activity would be the equivalent of having the ability to change the nature of the fingerprint before, or during the investigation, thus making the forensic evidence collected invalid or less reliable. This thesis reviews the existing security models and digital forensics, paying particular attention to anti-forensic activity that affects the validity of data collected in the form of digital evidence. This thesis will build on the current models in this field and suggest a tentative first step model to manage and detect possibility of anti-forensic activity. The model is concerned with stopping anti-forensic activity, and thus is not a forensic model in the normal sense, it is what will be called a “meta-forensic” model. A meta-forensic approach is an approach intended to stop attempts to invalidate digital forensic evidence. This thesis proposes a formal procedure and guides forensic examiners to look at evidence in a meta-forensic way.
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Delport, Waldo. "Forensic evidence isolation in clouds." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/33490.
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Cloud computing is gaining acceptance and also increasing in
popularity. Organisations often rely on cloud resources as an
effective replacement for their `in-house' computer systems. In the
cloud, virtual resources are provided from a larger pool of resources,
these resources being available to multiple different clients.
When something suspicious happens within a digital environment, a
digital forensic investigation may be conducted to gather information
about the event. When conducting such an investigation digital
forensic procedures are followed. These procedures involve the steps
to be followed to aid in the successful completion of the
investigation. One of the possible steps that may be followed involves
isolating possible evidence in order to protect it from contamination
and tampering.
Clouds may provide a multi-tenancy solution across multiple
geographical locations. When conducting an investigation into physical
equipment the equipment may be isolated. This may be done, for
example, by placing a cell phone in a Faraday bag in order to block
signals or unplugging a computer's network cable to stop the computer
from either sending or receiving of network traffic. However, in the
cloud it may not be applicable to isolate the equipment of the cloud
because of the multi-tenancy and geographically separated nature of
the cloud. There is currently little research available on how
isolation can be accomplished inside the cloud environment.
This dissertation aims at addressing the need for isolation on the
cloud by creating new methods and techniques that may be incorporated
into an investigation in order to isolate cloud resources. Isolation
can be achieved by moving the unnecessary evidence to a different
location and retaining the required evidence or by moving the required
evidence in such a manner that the evidence would not be contaminated.
If isolated evidence were to be moved to a digital forensic
laboratory, the question arises as to whether it would be possible to
create such a laboratory on the cloud utilise the benefits of cloud
computing and enable the investigation to be conducted on the cloud
without moving the isolated evidence from the cloud. The dissertation
will develop various models of isolation. These models are then tested
in experimental conditions. The experiments were conducted on Nimbula
Director 1.0.3 and VMware vSphere 5.0.
The models were successfully applied in the experiments. It was found
that investigations could benefit from the use of the proposed models
for isolation. However, the experiments also highlighted that some of
the models are not applicable or that a combination should be used.
The experiments also indicated that the methods to be used would
depend on the circumstances of the investigation. A preliminary "cloud
laboratory" was designed and described in terms of which a digital
forensic laboratory can be created on the cloud resources, thus
enabling an investigation to be conducted inside the cloud
environment.<br>Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2013.<br>Computer Science<br>unrestricted
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Freeman, Michael. "The role of forensic epidemiology in evidence-based forensic medical practice." Doctoral thesis, Umeå universitet, Rättsmedicin, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-81434.
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Objectives This thesis is based on 4 papers that were all written with the same intent, which was to describe and demonstrate how epidemiologic concepts and data can serve as a basis for improved validity of probabilistic conclusions in forensic medicine (FM). Conclusions based on probability are common in FM, and the validity of probabilistic conclusions is dependant on their foundation, which is often no more than personal experience. Forensic epidemiology (FE) describes the use and application of epidemiologic methods and data to questions encountered in the practice of FM, as a means of providing an evidence-based foundation, and thus increased validity, for certain types of opinions. The 4 papers comprising this thesis describe 4 unique applications of FE that have the common goal of assessing probabilities associated with evidence gathered during the course of the investigation of traumatic injury and death. Materials and Methods Paper I used a case study of a fatal traffic crash in which the seat position of the surviving occupant was uncertain as an example for describing a probabilistic approach to the investigation of occupant position in a fatal crash. The methods involved the matching of the occupants’ injuries to the vehicular and crash evidence in order to assess the probability that the surviving occupant was either the driver or passenger of the vehicle at the time of the crash. In the second and third papers, epidemiologic data pertaining to traffic crash-related injuries from the National Automotive Sampling System-Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS) was used to assess the utility and strength of evidence, such as vehicle deformation and occupant injury of a particular severity and pattern, as a means of assessing the probability of an uncertain issue of interest. The issue of interest in Paper II was the seat position of the occupant at the time of a rollover crash (similar to Paper I), and the association that was investigated was the relationship between the degree of downward roof deformation and likelihood of a serious head and neck injury in the occupant. The analysis was directed at the circumstance in which a vehicle has sustained roof deformation on one side but not the other, and only one of the occupants has sustained a serious head or neck injury. In Paper III the issue of interest was whether an occupant was using a seat belt prior to being ejected from a passenger vehicle, when there was evidence that the seat belt could have unlatched during a crash, and thus it was uncertain whether the occupant was restrained and then ejected after the seat belt unlatched, or unrestrained. Of particular interest was the relative frequency of injury to the upper extremity closest to the side window (the outboard upper extremity [OUE]), as several prior authors have postulated that during ejection when the seat belt has become unlatched the retracting seat belt would invariably cinch around the OUE and cause serious injury. In Paper IV the focus of the analysis was the predictability of the distribution of skull and cervical spine fractures associated with fatal falls as a function of the fall circumstances. Swedish autopsy data were used as the source material for this study. Results In Paper I the indifferent pre-crash probability that the survivor was the driver (0.5) was modified by the evidence to arrive at a post-test odds of 19 to 1 that he was driving. In Paper II NASS-CDS data for 960 (unweighted) occupants of rollover crashes were included in the analysis. The association between downward roof deformation and head and neck injury severity (as represented by a composite numerical value [HNISS] ranging from 1 to 75) was as follows: for each unit increase of the HNISS there were increased odds of 4% that the occupant was exposed to >8 cm of roof crush versus <8 cm; 6% for >15 cm compared to <8 cm, and 11% for >30 cm of roof crush compared to <8 cm. In Paper III NASS-CDS data for 232,931 (weighted) ejected occupants were included in the analysis, with 497 coded as seat belt failures, and 232,434 coded as unbelted. Of the 7 injury types included in the analysis, only OUE and serious head injury were found to have a significant adjusted association with seat belt failure, (OR=3.87, [95% CI 1.2, 13.0] and 3.1, [95% CI 1.0, 9.7], respectively). The results were used to construct a table of post-test probabilities that combined the derived sensitivity and (1 - specificity) rates with a range of pre-crash seat belt use rates so that the results could be used in an investigation of a suspected case of belt latch failure. In Paper IV, the circumstances of 1,008 fatal falls were grouped in 3 categories of increasing fall height; falls occurring at ground level, falls from a height of <3 meters or down stairs, and falls from ≥3 meters. Logistic regression modeling revealed significantly increased odds of skull base and lower cervical fracture in the middle (<3 m) and upper (≥3 m) fall height groups, relative to ground level falls, as follows: (lower cervical <3 m falls, OR = 2.55 [1.32, 4.92]; lower cervical ≥3 m falls, OR = 2.23 [0.98, 5.08]; skull base <3 m falls, OR = 1.82 [1.32, 2.50]; skull base ≥3 m falls, OR = 2.30 [1.55, 3.40]). Additionally, C0-C1 dislocations were strongly related to fall height, with an OR of 8.3 for the injury in a ≥3 m fall versus ground level. Conclusions In this thesis 4 applications of FE methodology were described. In all of the applications epidemiologic data resulting from prior FM investigations were analyzed in order to draw probabilistic conclusions that could be reliably applied to the circumstances of a specific investigation. It is hoped that this thesis will serve to demonstrate the utility of FE in enhancing evidence-based practice in FM.
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Johansson, Åsa, and Teresé Stattin. "Footwear Impression as Forensic Evidence - Prevalence, Characteristics and Evidence Value." Thesis, Linköping University, Department of Mathematics, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-11805.
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<p>Den forensiska vetenskapen innefattar en mängd olika vetenskaper som tillämpas för att bistå och besvara frågor av intresse för rättsväsendet. Skoavtrycksjämförelser har använts sedan slutet av 1700-talet för att bistå i brottsutredningar. Genom att undersöka egenskaper hos ett skoavtryck kan en forensiker ge utredaren värdefull information om skon och ibland även om bäraren. I bästa fall är skoavtrycket så unikt att det kan individualiseras och identifieras till en specifik sko.</p><p>För att underlätta och förbättra den forensiska bevisvärderingen är det av stort intresse att statistiskt erhålla förekomsten av ett bevis. Genom att samla in data gällande sulmönster och sedan etablera en databas kan styrkan hos ett specifikt skoavtryck fastställas. I denna studie samlades 687 avtryck in slumpmässigt och lades in i ett visualiserat databasklassificeringssystem, SIMSALAPIM, varpå en statistisk utvärdering utfördes.</p><p>Resultatet i denna studie visar på att ett specifikt sulmönster generellt förekommer endast en gång i databasen, varför det kan sägas att ett skoavtryck tillför en viss styrka/värde som forensiskt bevis även om det inte besitter några individualiserande detaljer. Vidare, genom ytterliggare statistiska utvärderingar, kunde även ett samband mellan ålder och typ av sko ses.</p><br><p>The Forensic Science comprises a variety of sciences that are applied in order to assist and answer questions of interest to the legal system. Since the end of the 18th century footwear impression comparison has been applied to assist in crime investigations. By examining the characteristics of a footwear impression the forensic scientist may provide the investigator with valuable information about the footwear and sometimes even about the wearer. Ultimately, the footwear impression is so unique that it can be individualized and identified to a specific shoe.</p><p>In order to facilitate and improve the forensic evidence evaluation it is of great interest to statistically establish the prevalence of evidence. By collecting data of outsole patterns and then recording it in a database the strength of a specific footwear impression can be determined. In this survey 687 impressions were randomly collected and recorded in a visualised database classification system, SIMSALAPIM1, whereupon a statistical evaluation was performed.</p><p>The result of this survey indicates that a specific outsole pattern typically only occurs once in the database, wherefore it can be stated that any footwear impression provides some strength/value as forensic evidence even though there are no individual characteristics present. Moreover, through additional statistical evaluations, a relation between age and shoe type also was revealed.</p>
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Sinfield, Laura Nancy. "Use and usefulness of forensic archaeology and forensic anthropology in Great Britain." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/10054.
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This thesis explores the extent to which forensic archaeology and forensic anthropology are utilised within Great Britain and to what extent they aid, or do not aid, medico-legal investigation of death. Chapter One introduces the topic and considers the need for an exploration of these issues. In Chapter Two, the differences between the American and British situations are examined and an explanation for the differences proposed, based on the development of the academic ‘parent’ disciplines during the last century. Chapter Three explores issues around accreditation and registration in the UK. The role of the courts in maintaining standards of expert evidence is examined. National and European schemes are considered. After considering the practitioners in this way, Chapter Four looks at the methods, and how the practitioners’ experience informs their choice of method. One specific topic for each discipline is discussed in depth and the complexity of choice illustrated. The difficulty in assessing the full scope for use of forensic archaeology and forensic anthropology are detailed in Chapter Five, with the marked lack of available research data. The problems inherent in media-derived data are considered. The scope for use of the two disciplines is discussed and illustrated with examples from the Media Derived Case List In Chapter Six, a complex multiple-burial multiple-murder case is discussed; and interviews across one police force area are discussed. These illustrate the use and usefulness of forensic archaeology in practice. Conclusions are drawn in Chapter Seven, and radical recommendations are made.
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Kohn, Michael Donovan. "Integrated digital forensic process model." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/25433.
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The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) environment constitutes an integral part of our daily lives. Individual computer users and large corporate companies are increasingly dependent on services provided by ICT. These services range from basic communication to managing large databases with corporate client information. Within these ICT environments something is bound to go wrong for a number of reasons, which include an intentional attack on information services provided by an organisation. These organisations have in turn become interested in tracing the root cause of such an incident with the intent of successfully prosecuting a suspected malicious user. Digital forensics has developed signi cantly towards prosecuting such criminals. The volumes of information and rapid technological developments have contributed to making simple investigations rather cumbersome. In the digital forensics community a number of digital forensic process models have been proposed encapsulating a complete methodology for an investigation. Software developers have also greatly contributed toward the development of digital forensics tools. These developments have resulted in divergent views on digital forensic investigations. This dissertation presents the IDFPM - Integrated Digital Forensic Process Model. The model is presented after examining digital forensic process models within the current academic and law enforcement literature. An adapted sequential logic notation is used to represent the forensic models. The terminology used in the various models is examined and standardised to suit the IDFPM. Finally, a prototype supports a limited selection of the IDFPM processes, which will aid a digital forensic investigator.<br>Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2012.<br>Computer Science<br>unrestricted
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Smith, Lisa L. "The role of pre-trial attitudes about forensic science evidence : developing and testing a forensic evidence evaluation bias scale." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/9896.
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The unique decision making task entrusted to lay juries in adversarial legal systems has attracted the attention of legal psychologists for decades, but more recently technological advances in forensic science have highlighted the importance of understanding how jurors perceive this often ambiguous and complicated type of evidence. This thesis begins by investigating the forensic awareness of lay participants, and the ability of mock jurors to discriminate between varying probative values of forensic evidence. The findings suggest that the perception of weak forensic evidence is affected by contextual information, and there was wide disagreement among participants about the probative value of weak evidence. In an effort to explain the variance in perceived evidence strength, a measure of pre-trial attitudes about forensic science was developed (the Forensic Evidence Evaluation Bias Scale – FEEBS) and administered to 446 participants ranging from students, to jury eligible members of the public, to actual jury venire persons. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified two distinct clusters of attitudes measured by the FEEBS, which correspond conceptually to the hypothesised juror beliefs described in the CSI Effect literature. These attitudes were found to have a significant indirect effect on verdict preference, for trial vignettes describing murder, robbery, and sexual assault scenarios containing weak (or absent) forensic DNA evidence. The implications of these findings for voir dire hearings are discussed, with reference to the cognitive models of juror decision making and the CSI Effect literature.
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Etow, Tambue Ramine. "IMPACT OF ANTI-FORENSICS TECHNIQUES ON DIGITAL FORENSICS INVESTIGATION." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för datavetenskap och medieteknik (DM), 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-97116.
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Computer crimes have become very complex in terms of investigation and prosecution. This is mainly because forensic investigations are based on artifacts left oncomputers and other digital devices. In recent times, perpetrators of computer crimesare getting abreast of the digital forensics dynamics hence, capacitated to use someanti-forensics measures and techniques to obfuscate the investigation processes.Incases where such techniques are employed, it becomes extremely difficult, expensive and time consuming to carry out an effective investigation. This might causea digital forensics expert to abandon the investigation in a pessimistic manner.ThisProject work serves to practically demonstrate how numerous anti-forensics can bedeployed by the criminals to derail the smooth processes of digital forensic investigation with main focus on data hiding and encryption techniques, later a comparativestudy of the effectiveness of some selected digital forensics tools in analyzing andreporting shreds of evidence will be conducted.
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Moffa, Morgan S. "The evidence and expert judgments of their relative importance in confession adjudication /." View thesis online, 2008. http://docs.rwu.edu/psych_thesis/1/.
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Schatz, Bradley Lawrence. "Digital evidence : representation and assurance." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2007. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/16507/1/Bradley_Schatz_Thesis.pdf.
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The field of digital forensics is concerned with finding and presenting evidence sourced from digital devices, such as computers and mobile phones. The complexity of such digital evidence is constantly increasing, as is the volume of data which might contain evidence. Current approaches to interpreting and assuring digital evidence rely implicitly on the use of tools and representations made by experts in addressing the concerns of juries and courts. Current forensics tools are best characterised as not easily verifiable, lacking in ease of interoperability, and burdensome on human process.
The tool-centric focus of current digital forensics practise impedes access to and transparency of the information represented within digital evidence as much as it assists, by nature of the tight binding between a particular tool and the information that it conveys. We hypothesise that a general and formal representational approach will benefit digital forensics by enabling higher degrees of machine interpretation, facilitating improvements in tool interoperability and validation. Additionally, such an approach will increase human readability.
This dissertation summarises research which examines at a fundamental level the nature of digital evidence and digital investigation, in order that improved techniques which address investigation efficiency and assurance of evidence might be identified. The work follows three themes related to this: representation, analysis techniques, and information assurance.
The first set of results describes the application of a general purpose representational formalism towards representing diverse information implicit in event based evidence, as well as domain knowledge, and investigator hypotheses. This representational approach is used as the foundation of a novel analysis technique which uses a knowledge based approach to correlate related events into higher level events, which correspond to situations of forensic interest.
The second set of results explores how digital forensic acquisition tools scale and interoperate, while assuring evidence quality. An improved architecture is proposed for storing digital evidence, analysis results and investigation documentation in a manner that supports arbitrary composition into a larger corpus of evidence.
The final set of results focus on assuring the reliability of evidence. In particular, these results focus on assuring that timestamps, which are pervasive in digital evidence, can be reliably interpreted to a real world time. Empirical results are presented which demonstrate how simple assumptions cannot be made about computer clock behaviour. A novel analysis technique for inferring the temporal behaviour of a computer clock is proposed and evaluated.
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Schatz, Bradley Lawrence. "Digital evidence : representation and assurance." Queensland University of Technology, 2007. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/16507/.
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The field of digital forensics is concerned with finding and presenting evidence sourced from digital devices, such as computers and mobile phones. The complexity of such digital evidence is constantly increasing, as is the volume of data which might contain evidence. Current approaches to interpreting and assuring digital evidence rely implicitly on the use of tools and representations made by experts in addressing the concerns of juries and courts. Current forensics tools are best characterised as not easily verifiable, lacking in ease of interoperability, and burdensome on human process. The tool-centric focus of current digital forensics practise impedes access to and transparency of the information represented within digital evidence as much as it assists, by nature of the tight binding between a particular tool and the information that it conveys. We hypothesise that a general and formal representational approach will benefit digital forensics by enabling higher degrees of machine interpretation, facilitating improvements in tool interoperability and validation. Additionally, such an approach will increase human readability. This dissertation summarises research which examines at a fundamental level the nature of digital evidence and digital investigation, in order that improved techniques which address investigation efficiency and assurance of evidence might be identified. The work follows three themes related to this: representation, analysis techniques, and information assurance. The first set of results describes the application of a general purpose representational formalism towards representing diverse information implicit in event based evidence, as well as domain knowledge, and investigator hypotheses. This representational approach is used as the foundation of a novel analysis technique which uses a knowledge based approach to correlate related events into higher level events, which correspond to situations of forensic interest. The second set of results explores how digital forensic acquisition tools scale and interoperate, while assuring evidence quality. An improved architecture is proposed for storing digital evidence, analysis results and investigation documentation in a manner that supports arbitrary composition into a larger corpus of evidence. The final set of results focus on assuring the reliability of evidence. In particular, these results focus on assuring that timestamps, which are pervasive in digital evidence, can be reliably interpreted to a real world time. Empirical results are presented which demonstrate how simple assumptions cannot be made about computer clock behaviour. A novel analysis technique for inferring the temporal behaviour of a computer clock is proposed and evaluated.
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Walnoha, Michael Anthony. "Shoeprint analysis a GIS application in forensic evidence /." Morgantown, W. Va. : [West Virginia University Libraries], 2006. https://eidr.wvu.edu/etd/documentdata.eTD?documentid=4639.
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Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2006.<br>Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 64 p. : ill. (some col.), maps (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-64).
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Curran, James Michael. "Forensic Applications of Bayesian Inference to Glass Evidence." Thesis, University of Auckland, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/2292/2454.
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The role of the scientist in the courtroom has come under more scrutiny this century than ever before. As a consequence, scientists must constantly look for ways to improve the validity of the evidence they deliver. It is here that the professional statistician can provide assistance. The use of statistics in the courtroom and in forensic science is not new, but until recently has not been common either. Statistics can provide objectivity to subjective assessments and strengthen a case for the prosecution or the defence, but only if is used correctly. The aim of this thesis is to enhance and replace the existing technology used in statistical analysis and presentation of trace evidence, i.e. all non-genetic evidence (hairs, fibres, glass, paint, etc.) and transfer problems.
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Forbes, Peter G. M. "Quantifying the strength of evidence in forensic fingerprints." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0915280a-22cc-429d-90dc-77f934d61dde.
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Part I presents a model for fingerprint matching using Bayesian alignment on unlabelled point sets. An efficient Monte Carlo algorithm is developed to calculate the marginal likelihood ratio between the hypothesis that an observed fingerprint and fingermark pair originate from the same finger and the hypothesis that they originate from different fingers. The model achieves good performance on the NIST-FBI fingerprint database of 258 matched fingerprint pairs, though the computed likelihood ratios are implausibly extreme due to oversimplification in our model. Part II moves to a more theoretical study of proper scoring rules. The chapters in this section are designed to be independent of each other. Chapter 9 uses proper scoring rules to calibrate the implausible likelihood ratios computed in Part I. Chapter 10 defines the class of compatible weighted proper scoring rules. Chapter 11 derives new results for the score matching estimator, which can quickly generate point estimates for a parametric model even when the normalization constant of the distribution is intractable. It is used to find an initial value for the iterative maximization procedure in §3.3. Appendix A describes a novel algorithm to efficiently sample from the posterior of a von Mises distribution. It is used within the fingerprint model sampling procedure described in §5.6. Appendix B includes various technical results which would otherwise disrupt the flow of the main dissertation.
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Omeleze, Stacey Angela. "Digital forensic evidence acquisition to mitigate neighbourhood crime." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/62787.
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Mobile devices form an integral part of our daily lives and have the potential to be used as tools to curb crime. In recent years, many criminal activities have gone unsolved due to a lack of sufficient evidence to convict the perpetrators. Together with recent developments and advances in research, technology such as mobile devices (popularly known as ’smart phones’) is now capable of acting as devices for capturing real-time potential digital evidence. The continued advancement in the features of mobile devices such as photos, as well as video and voice-recording options, has enhanced their applicability as capturing devices for real-time potential digital forensic evidence. In digital forensic investigation, one of the challenges that law enforcement agencies encounter is to corroborate the findings at the crime scene with digital evidence of the crime. By using a mobile and portable device as a tool for acquiring real-time potential digital evidence in the form of photos or video and voice recordings, this challenge can be greatly overcome. The problem is that it is difficult to ascertain, the integrity of the captured digital evidence of a crime scene when using the advanced capabilities of these mobile and portable devices. The research in hand proposes an online neighbourhood watch (ONW) system that can overcome these challenges. The ONW system is a tool that can be used to acquire potential digital evidence (PDE) and preserve the integrity of the captured PDE. Access to the stored PDE in an ONW system’s repository is strictly monitored and controlled in order to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of the PDE. The ONW system enables members of a community in South Africa to upload PDE of a crime scene in the form of audio, video and digital images to the ONW repository. The PDE is then made available to the law enforcement agents and digital forensics analysts to assist them in furthering investigations or in solving the crimes involved. The ONW system balances public safety with the privacy rights of the PDE generators and the possible offenders whose images have been captured. It takes into consideration the privacy policies, laws and ethics that may apply due to the devices’ generated metadata of users’ personal details, especially during a digital evidence presentation in a court of law.<br>Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2017.<br>Computer Science<br>MSc<br>Unrestricted
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Maric, Mark. "Chemical characterisation and classification of forensic trace evidence." Thesis, Curtin University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/704.
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Automotive paint, in the form of paint chips and/or smears, is one of the most commonly encountered forms of forensic trace evidence located at automotive related incidents. There is an increasing demand for more scientifically rigorous approaches to the interpretation of such evidence. This dissertation presents studies examining the use of a suite of spectroscopic techniques in conjunction with multivariate statistics, in order to develop analytical and interpretational protocols for automotive paint evidence.
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Sanyamahwe, Tendai. "Digital forensic model for computer networks." Thesis, University of Fort Hare, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1000968.
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The Internet has become important since information is now stored in digital form and is transported both within and between organisations in large amounts through computer networks. Nevertheless, there are those individuals or groups of people who utilise the Internet to harm other businesses because they can remain relatively anonymous. To prosecute such criminals, forensic practitioners have to follow a well-defined procedure to convict responsible cyber-criminals in a court of law. Log files provide significant digital evidence in computer networks when tracing cyber-criminals. Network log mining is an evolution of typical digital forensics utilising evidence from network devices such as firewalls, switches and routers. Network log mining is a process supported by presiding South African laws such as the Computer Evidence Act, 57 of 1983; the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act, 25 of 2002; and the Electronic Communications Act, 36 of 2005. Nevertheless, international laws and regulations supporting network log mining include the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Bribery Act of the USA. A digital forensic model for computer networks focusing on network log mining has been developed based on the literature reviewed and critical thought. The development of the model followed the Design Science methodology. However, this research project argues that there are some important aspects which are not fully addressed by South African presiding legislation supporting digital forensic investigations. With that in mind, this research project proposes some Forensic Investigation Precautions. These precautions were developed as part of the proposed model. The Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) Theory is the framework underpinning the development of the model and how it can be assimilated into the community. The model was sent to IT experts for validation and this provided the qualitative element and the primary data of this research project. From these experts, this study found out that the proposed model is very unique, very comprehensive and has added new knowledge into the field of Information Technology. Also, a paper was written out of this research project.
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Heinrich, D. P. "The 'chain of evidence' : a critical appraisal of the applicability and validity of forensic research and the utility of forensic evidence." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2015. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1473198/.
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In the past ten years the scientific basis of forensic science has been challenged, its reliability and validity in court contested and commercialisation of forensic provision introduced in England and Wales. In light of this there is the need for increased research into establishing a sound body of knowledge for forensic science, which supports the requirements of its end- users. This requires an increase in resources for forensic research, as well as evidence-based direction that is centred on the use of forensic evidence by law enforcement. This thesis explored the applicability and reliability of forensic research and investigated the impact forensic evidence has in court. By means of a case study, experimental findings regarding the effects of fire on sharp force trauma in bone highlighted the prevalence of assumptions made in forensic research. The results demonstrated the need to ensure that experimental studies within the forensic domain incorporate ‘forensic reality’ into experimental design in order to ensure findings are applicable to casework. The role of experimental research within the forensic sciences is crucial; however, frameworks must be created to enable research to be undertaken in collaboration with end-users to ensure results are applicable and implementable. Subsequently, using a mixed-methods approach, 115 homicide cases in London were analysed to assess the efficacy of forensic evidence in court. Medical evidence, CCTV, voice recognition and defence witnesses had the greatest effect on the adjudication of these cases. The findings provide law enforcement with empirical evidence of which types of evidence are most prevalent and have the greatest impact in a criminal trial. Understanding the utility of forensic evidence also provides support to forensic researchers and policy makers for directing research and resources. By conducting research that analyses both forensic research and evidence, this thesis demonstrates the benefits of a unified approach to forensic science.
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Wheate, Rhonda Marie Physical Environmental & Mathematical Sciences Australian Defence Force Academy UNSW. "Jury comprehension and use of forensic science." Awarded by:University of New South Wales - Australian Defence Force Academy. School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/38644.
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The ability of jurors and juries to comprehend and utilise scientific evidence in Australian criminal trials has been examined. From mock jury surveys relating to DNA profiling evidence, it was determined that most respondents were able to comprehend some basic and applied statistics, although their ability was in part related to their knowledge of English and their level of education. The point at which mock jurors were prepared to convict an accused solely on the basis of DNA profiling evidence was examined and found to be low compared with the strength of DNA profiling evidence commonly presented in Australian courts. Mock jurors also demonstrated the ability to process evidence that was presented in a Bayesian framework; commencing with prior odds, introducing new information and culminating in posterior odds. From a survey of Australian forensic scientists, including fraud investigators, it was found that most practitioners' concerns could be addressed by greater pre-trial consultation between experts and legal advocates. Improved knowledge within the legal profession concerning the jargon, principles, procedures, limitations and conclusions to be drawn from different scientific disciplines, prior to presenting this evidence in court, is recommended as the means by which complex evidence can be better adduced from expert witnesses and better presented to juries in criminal trials. Finally, from interviewing actual jurors in criminal trials in the Australian Capital Territory it was determined that where jurors' expectations of scientific evidence, particularly DNA profiling evidence, are not met, high levels of juror frustration and speculation may culminate in hung juries. The adversarial setting of criminal proceedings was also found to produce an environment in which jurors felt that information that would assist them in reaching a verdict was being deliberately withheld. The ability of the jury to ask questions and the allowed nature of those questions were also examined, with the resultant recommendation that juries be given more explicit information at the commencement of trials to inform them about their rights and obligations when asking questions.
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Saks, Michael J., Thomas Albright, Thomas L. Bohan, et al. "Forensic bitemark identification: weak foundations, exaggerated claims." OXFORD UNIV PRESS, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/622734.
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Several forensic sciences, especially of the pattern-matching kind, are increasingly seen to lack the scientific foundation needed to justify continuing admission as trial evidence. Indeed, several have been abolished in the recent past. A likely next candidate for elimination is bitemark identification. A number of DNA exonerations have occurred in recent years for individuals convicted based on erroneous bitemark identifications. Intense scientific and legal scrutiny has resulted. An important National Academies review found little scientific support for the field. The Texas Forensic Science Commission recently recommended a moratorium on the admission of bitemark expert testimony. The California Supreme Court has a case before it that could start a national dismantling of forensic odontology. This article describes the (legal) basis for the rise of bitemark identification and the (scientific) basis for its impending fall. The article explains the general logic of forensic identification, the claims of bitemark identification, and reviews relevant empirical research on bitemark identification-highlighting both the lack of research and the lack of support provided by what research does exist. The rise and possible fall of bitemark identification evidence has broader implications-highlighting the weak scientific culture of forensic science and the law's difficulty in evaluating and responding to unreliable and unscientific evidence.
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WURSTEN, APRIL. "THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND PSYCHIATRIST IN COURT: PERCEIVED EXPERTNESS AND INFLUENCE." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/183929.
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An analog study was devised to examine perceived differences between psychiatrists and psychologists in providing expert testimony on the insanity defense. The effects of issue involvement and initial attitude were also assessed. Subjects who had been exposed to the differences in training between the professionals were used. In a pilot investigation, subjects were exposed to identical testimony from a defense expert identified either as a psychiatrist or psychologist. Medical bias, as measured by the tendency to concur with the expert recommendations and endorse attitudes consistent with the M.D., was confirmed. This finding was especially strong among pro insanity defense subjects with low issue involvement. The failure to find a similar pattern among anti-insanity defense subjects with low issue involvement was thought to be an artifact of the absence of opposing testimony. The overall failure of highly involved anti insanity defense subjects to reach verdicts consistent with their initial attitudes, was also thought to result from the lack of opposing testimony. The primary study was designed to clarify the findings of the pilot investigation and to approximate a more authentic court situation by including an opposing expert. Witness credentials were manipulated while testimony remained constant. Some subjects were exposed to the Ph.D. for the defense and M.D. for prosecution and others to the M.D. for the defense and Ph.D. for the prosecution. Medical bias was evident in this study, again measured by the tendency to follow the recommendations of the M.D. and endorse attitudes consistent with those recommendations. Additionally, subjects tended to evaluate the psychiatrist more favorably than the psychologist. Subjects with low issue involvement were more susceptible to the influence of the medical expert. Highly issue involved subjects maintained their initial attitudes. Attitudes, issue involvement and credentials seemed to affect memory for facts of the case. In some instances, initial attitudes became stronger when mock jurors were exposed to the opposing view (polarization). Implications and limits of these findings were explored.
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Rhodes, Richard William. "Assessing the strength of non-contemporaneous forensic speech evidence." Thesis, University of York, 2012. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3935/.
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The aim of this thesis is to assess the impact of long term non-contemporaneity on the strength of forensic speech evidence. Speakers experience age-related changes to the voice over long delays and this time also presents the opportunity for social factors to vary. These changes are shown to impact on speech parameters used in forensic analyses. Using longitudinal data from the Up documentary series, this thesis analyses the effects of aging on forensically useful acoustic parameters in eight speakers at five seven-year intervals between ages 21 and 49. The investigation reveals significant age-related changes in real-time across adulthood. Frequencies of the first three formants in monophthongs /i: ɪ e a ɑ: ʌ ɒ ʊ & u:/ and diphthongs /eɪ & aɪ/ show comprehensive reduction. For monophthongs, F1 exhibits mean change of 8.5%, greater than F2 and F3 at 3.7% and 2.2% respectively. Vowel quality also impacts on magnitude of change in each formant. Estimations based on this data suggest that vocal tract extension and restricted articulator movement are probable drivers for acoustic change, operating on different timelines. Counter-examples to this aging pattern can generally be explained by social factors, as a result of mobility or in accordance with mainstream changes in a variety. Strength of evidence estimates for these non-contemporaneous data are calculated using a numerical likelihood ratio (LR) approach. Age-related changes result in weaker and fewer correct LRs with greater length delays. Cubic coefficients of diphthong formants are investigated in line with a formant dynamic approach. These LR tests show promising results and resilience to aging, especially in F1; tentatively suggesting that, for these speakers, some speaker-specific behaviour pervades in spite of physiological changes. This analysis raises several questions with regards to applying an overtly numerical LR approach where there is apparent mismatch between forensic samples. The effect of aging on an ASR system (BATVOX) is also tested for six male subjects. The system measures Mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC) parameters that reflect the physical properties of the vocal tract. Predicted degradation of the system’s performance with increasing age is apparent. The reduction in performance is significant, varies between speakers, and is striking in longer delays for all speakers. The degradation in strength of evidence for acoustic data from monophthongs and formant dynamic coefficients, as well as that for the ASR system, demonstrates that aging presents a real problem for forensic analysis in non-contemporaneous cases. Furthermore, aging also presents issues for speech databases for the purpose of assessing strength of evidence, where further research into distributions of parameters in different age groups is warranted.
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Marrington, Andrew Daniel. "Computer profiling for forensic purposes." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2009. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/31048/1/Andrew_Marrington_Thesis.pdf.
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Computer forensics is the process of gathering and analysing evidence from computer systems to aid in the investigation of a crime. Typically, such investigations are undertaken by human forensic examiners using purpose-built software to discover evidence from a computer disk. This process is a manual one, and the time it takes for a forensic examiner to conduct such an investigation is proportional to the storage capacity of the computer's disk drives. The heterogeneity and complexity of various data formats stored on modern computer systems compounds the problems posed by the sheer volume of data. The decision to undertake a computer forensic examination of a computer system is a decision to commit significant quantities of a human examiner's time. Where there is no prior knowledge of the information contained on a computer system, this commitment of time and energy occurs with little idea of the potential benefit to the investigation. The key contribution of this research is the design and development of an automated process to describe a computer system and its activity for the purposes of a computer forensic investigation. The term proposed for this process is computer profiling. A model of a computer system and its activity has been developed over the course of this research. Using this model a computer system, which is the subj ect of investigation, can be automatically described in terms useful to a forensic investigator. The computer profiling process IS resilient to attempts to disguise malicious computer activity. This resilience is achieved by detecting inconsistencies in the information used to infer the apparent activity of the computer. The practicality of the computer profiling process has been demonstrated by a proof-of concept software implementation. The model and the prototype implementation utilising the model were tested with data from real computer systems. The resilience of the process to attempts to disguise malicious activity has also been demonstrated with practical experiments conducted with the same prototype software implementation.
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Bridge, Candice. "DISCRIMINATION OF FORENSIC TRACE EVIDENCE USING LASER INDUCED BREAKDOWN SPECTROSCOPY." Doctoral diss., University of Central Florida, 2007. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/2906.
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Elemental analysis in forensic laboratories can be tedious and many trace evidence items are not analyzed to determine their elemental composition. Presently, scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) is the primary analytical tool for determining the elemental composition of trace evidence items. However, due to the time it takes to obtain the required vacuum and the limited number of samples that can be analyzed at any one time, SEM-EDS can be impractical for a high volume of evidence items. An alternative instrument that can be used for this type of analysis is laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). While LA-ICP-MS is a very precise and quantitative analytical method that determines elemental composition based on isotopic mass measurements; however, the instrumentation is relatively expensive and therefore is budgetarily prohibitive for many forensic laboratories. It is the purpose of this research to evaluate an inexpensive instrument that can potentially provide rapid elemental analysis for many forensic laboratories. Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an analytical method that meets these requirements and offers information about the elemental composition based on ionic, atomic and diatomic molecular emissions.<br>Ph.D.<br>Department of Chemistry<br>Sciences<br>Chemistry PhD
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Lalla, Himal. "E-mail forensic authorship attribution." Thesis, University of Fort Hare, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10353/360.
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E-mails have become the standard for business as well as personal communication. The inherent security risks within e-mail communication present the problem of anonymity. If an author of an e-mail is not known, the digital forensic investigator needs to determine the authorship of the e-mail using a process that has not been standardised in the e-mail forensic field. This research project examines many problems associated with e-mail communication and the digital forensic domain; more specifically e-mail forensic investigations, and the recovery of legally admissible evidence to be presented in a court of law. The Research Methodology utilised a comprehensive literature review in combination with Design Science which results in the development of an artifact through intensive research. The Proposed E-Mail Forensic Methodology is based on the most current digital forensic investigation process and further validation of the process was established via expert reviews. The opinions of the digital forensic experts were an integral portion of the validation process which adds to the credibility of the study. This was performed through the aid of the Delphi technique. This Proposed E-Mail Forensic Methodology adopts a standardised investigation process applied to an e-mail investigation and takes into account the South African perspective by incorporating various checks with the laws and legislation. By following the Proposed E-mail Forensic Methodology, e-mail forensic investigators can produce evidence that is legally admissible in a court of law.
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McCutcheon, James. "Validation of forensic images for assurance of digital evidence integrity." Thesis, McCutcheon, James (2014) Validation of forensic images for assurance of digital evidence integrity. Honours thesis, Murdoch University, 2014. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/24962/.
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The reliability of digital evidence is an important consideration in legal cases requiring sound validation. To ensure its reliability, digital evidence requires the adoption of reliable processes for the acquisition, preservation, and analysis of digital data. To undertake these tasks, the courts expect digital forensic practitioners to possess specialised skills, experience, and use sound forensic tools and processes. The courts require that the reliability of digital evidence can be verified with supporting documentation; notably acquisition process logs and a chain of custody register, confirming that the process of recovering and protecting the evidence was based on sound scientific principles.
In typical cases the digital evidence has been ‘preserved’ in a special file or ‘container’ that has been declared to be secure on the basis that it is not possible to tamper with the contents of the container or the information supporting the contents (metadata) without this act being discovered. However, through the use of a freely available open source library, libewf, it has been discovered that the most commonly used forensic container format, Encase Evidence File Format, also known by its file extension .E01, can be manipulated to circumvent validation by forensic tools. This digital forensic container contains an embedded forensic image of the acquired device and metadata fields containing information about the data that was acquired, the circumstances of the acquisition, and details about the device from which the forensic image was acquired. It has been found that both the forensic image and the metadata associated with that image can be freely altered using simple file editors and open source software.
Exploiting these weaknesses within the Encase Evidence File format results in a forensic container that can be altered but fails to provide any evidence that this has occurred. In practice the original device is often unavailable, damaged, or otherwise unable to provide independent validation of the data held in the container. In such situations, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to determine which of two forensic containers held the original record of the evidence.
As part of a proof of concept, existing libewf code was manipulated to allow for legitimate metadata to be attached to a compromised and altered forensic image with recalculated hashes and data integrity checksums. Without incontrovertible records of the original data’s hash value, this manipulation might only be detected by an independent third party holding a copy of the original forensic container’s metadata and hashes for comparison. While hashes and metadata held by an interested party could also potentially be altered or declared unreliable, an uninterested party would be able to provide a more reliable set of hashes that could be used to validate the unaltered container.
In order to add to the body of knowledge supporting digital forensics as a scientific discipline this research has brought into question a fundamental assumption about the reliability of a fundamental method currently used to collect and validate digital evidence. Further research is required to determine the whether processes can be designed to enhance the detection of contaminated images.
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Cupido, Danielle. "The assessment of the utility and impact of sexual assault evidence collection kits (SAECKS) as DNA evidence in suspected cases of rape." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/15457.
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The results from this study show the value of good basic medical practices in documentation of injuries, rather than more costly DNA evidence, in assisting courts in rape cases. However, the researchers do argue that in South Africa, as a middle-income country with a high percentage of non-intimate partner rapes, there would be an advantage in improving the system to collect and analyse DNA evidence rather than abandoning it completely. These results taken together suggest that DNA evidence can assist in signifying that sexual act has transpired however it is more likely that convictions will occur if evidence of physical injury is available, as DNA evidence cannot reveal if consent was obtained or not. As stated above South Africa has one of the highest rates of rape worldwide.
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Janse, van Rensburg Wilmari. "The impact of electronic evidence in forensic accounting investigations / Wilmari Janse van Rensburg." Thesis, North-West University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10394/11355.
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This study revolves around the admissibility of electronic evidence obtained during forensic accounting investigations. Electronic evidence is problematic for the forensic accountant, in that the courts have difficulties with the admissibility of electronic evidence. The research method used in this dissertation is a literature study or literature review.
Firstly, the study aims to define a forensic accountant. The need for the forensic accountant is determined, as well as the definition and the roles and responsibilities of the forensic accountant. The study further aims to establish how the forensic accountant is regulated in South Africa.
Secondly, this study aims to provide a historical overview of South African legislation that addresses electronic evidence. Applicable legislation is the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977, the Law of Evidence Amendment Act 45 of 1988, the Civil Proceedings Evidence Act 25 of 1965 and the repealed Computer Evidence Act 57 of 1983.
To determine the challenges that arise from electronic evidence, it is critical to understand how electronic evidence is classified in terms of the traditional forms of evidence. Documentary evidence, real evidence and evidence as the product of an apparatus, with specific reference to electronic evidence, is discussed for the purpose of this study.
Hearsay evidence, the originality of electronic evidence, as well as the authenticity and reliability of electronic evidence hamper the admissibility of electronic evidence. The impact of legislation on the aforementioned difficulties is considered in this study.
The problematic nature of electronic evidence already creates challenges during legal proceedings. The forensic accountant can follow certain steps and procedures to better the chances of the admissibility of electronic evidence. This study establishes how electronic evidence should be gathered, stored and analysed by the forensic accountant in order to be admissible legal proceedings.
Lastly, this study aims to determine how the UNCITRAL model, on which the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 has been based, compares to the act (25 of 2002) itself. The legislation addressing electronic evidence in Canada and Australia is also considered.<br>MCom (Forensic Accountancy), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014.
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Kling, Martin. "Unsecured sessions with ICQ : applying forensic computing." Thesis, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Institutionen för programvaruteknik och datavetenskap, 2003. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-4724.
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Digital evidence is becoming more and more frequent and important in investigations carried out by the police. To make the correct judgements, the police force needs to know what one can do with ICQ and in what ways it can be exploited. This thesis aims to point out weaknesses in ICQ that can aid the police in their work. But these weaknesses can not only be used by the police, also crackers can perform malicious acts with them. Therefore, I investigated if the use of ICQ resulted in non-secure sessions. To investigate ICQ’s security, I divided a session into an authentication phase, sending of messages, and the protection of stored messages in a history file. While investigating ICQ, I sniffed its Internet traffic and monitored files on the computer’s hard drive with MD5 checksums. I have investigated the following three ICQ applications: ICQ Pro 2003a, ICQ2Go and the Linux clone Licq. The result of the entire investigation showed that ICQ had a non-secured authentication phase, non-secured messages and no protection for stored messages. From these results the main conclusion was derived: The use of ICQ resulted in non-secure instant messaging sessions. Your ICQ account can be hijacked and another person can impersonate you and send messages that you dislike. Also, your messages can be intercepted on the Internet and their content can be read. If your computer is compromised, all your previous messages on ICQ Pro 2003a and Licq can be read.<br>Martin Kling Fältv 17 SE-291 39 Kristianstad martinkling@hotmail.com 0733691999
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Jordaan, Jason. "An examination of validation practices in relation to the forensic acquisition of digital evidence in South Africa." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016361.
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The acquisition of digital evidence is the most crucial part of the entire digital forensics process. During this process, digital evidence is acquired in a forensically sound manner to ensure the legal admissibility and reliability of that evidence in court. In the acquisition process various hardware or software tools are used to acquire the digital evidence. All of the digital forensic standards relating to the acquisition of digital evidence require that the hardware and software tools used in the acquisition process are validated as functioning correctly and reliably, as this lends credibility to the evidence in court. In fact the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 in South Africa specifically requires courts to consider issues such as reliability and the manner in which the integrity of digital evidence is ensured when assessing the evidential weight of digital evidence. Previous research into quality assurance in the practice of digital forensics in South Africa identified that in general, tool validation was not performed, and as such a hypothesis was proposed that digital forensic practitioners in South Africa make use of hardware and/or software tools for the forensic acquisition of digital evidence, whose validity and/or reliability cannot be objectively proven. As such the reliability of any digital evidence preserved using those tools is potentially unreliable. This hypothesis was tested in the research through the use of a survey of digital forensic practitioners in South Africa. The research established that the majority of digital forensic practitioners do not use tools in the forensic acquisition of digital evidence that can be proven to be validated and/or reliable. While just under a fifth of digital forensic practitioners can provide some proof of validation and/or reliability, the proof of validation does not meet formal international standards. In essence this means that digital evidence, which is preserved through the use of specific hardware and/or software tools for subsequent presentation and reliance upon as evidence in a court of law, is preserved by tools where the objective and scientific validity thereof has not been determined. Since South African courts must consider reliability in terms of Section 15(3) of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 in assessing the weight of digital evidence, this is undermined through the current state of practice in South Africa by digital forensic practitioners.
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Chung, Yuk-ka, and 鍾玉嘉. "On the evaluation and statistical analysis of forensic evidence in DNAmixtures." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2011. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B45983586.
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Belcher, Kelly Leigh. "Evidentiary Value of Condoms: Comparison of Durable Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Condoms." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2000. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2481/.
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Condom trace evidence must not be overlooked in sexual assault cases; understanding the chemical and physical characteristics of condoms is imperative if condoms are to be useful evidence. Previous research shows that condom identification is possible, but it is equally important to evaluate durability of condom residues versus time. Using FT-IR, this study examined vaginal swabs from subjects who self-sampled at intervals for up to 72 hours after having intercourse with a condom. This study investigated whether age and the stage of the menstrual cycle affected the durability of residues in the vagina over time. This study revealed that condoms containing nonoxynol-9, silicone-based lubricants, and particulates provide valuable information for identification, and that nonoxynol-9 specifically withstands the vaginal environment for up to 72 hours. Additionally, age and menstrual cycle both appeared to have an effect on the durability of residues although larger sample size is desirable.
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Malema, Smangele Benedictor. "Investigating the impact of Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kits (SAECKs) as evidence in rape cases prosecuted in the Western Cape High Court between 2012 and 2016." Master's thesis, Faculty of Health Sciences, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32407.
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Background: The Republic of South Africa (RSA) is facing a rape crisis, with women and children being the most vulnerable. DNA evidence is used to aid in suspect identification and to confirm sexual contact. The collection of biological forensic evidence after a rape incident is routine in RSA, however, its contribution to the outcome of rape cases is still unclear. This study aimed to investigate the use of Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kits (SAECKs) and their impact on the outcome of rape cases. Methods: Data for this study was collected by conducting a retrospective review of rape cases (n=98) prosecuted and finalised at the Western Cape High Court between 1st January 2012 and 31st December 2016. Court dockets were examined, and data was collected using a set of predefined variables. Backward logistic regression was used to analyse whether there is an association between the accused being found guilty and the use of SAECKs and the presentation of DNA evidence. Main findings: In 61% (n=60/98) of the cases a SAECK was used during the medical examination and a DNA report was generated and available for use in 77% (n=46/60) of these cases. There was a higher conviction rate when a SAECK was used (88%, n=53/60) in comparison to when it was not used (53%, n=8/15). Contrary to our expectation, the use of SAECKs was not found to be positively associated with the conviction when using backward logistic regression. This means the use of a SAECK decreased the odds of finding the defendant guilty of rape, albeit by a small degree (OR=0.196, p-value=0.040). DNA was not associated with the case outcome. The majority of cases were stranger rapes (64%,n=63/98), that occurred outdoors (64%,n=61/95)and mostly in the township locations such as Khayelitsha, Philippi, Nyanga, areas located on the Cape Flats, with only a single perpetrator. Injuries were documented in 50% of the cases (n=49)and almost 48% (n=46/95) of the victims were coerced and threatened with a weapon. Our binary model found only the location of incidence (p-value= 0.006) to be significantly associated with case outcome with an odds ratio of 19.827. Conclusions: The findings from this study are significant as they point out that health care practitioners are adequately trained and equipped to provide quality health care responses and to work effectively with police officers. SAECKs are utilised routinely during rape investigations. However, there are various factors relating to the victim, perpetrator and assault characteristics that influence the judge's verdict. This study raised questions relating to how those factors are measured or weighed and are predictive of case outcome. Although we found no positive associations between the variables investigated (except the location of the incident) and court outcome, future research, including larger sample size, should investigate these variables in order to obtain true significance, especially concerning the use of SAECKs and its impact on the court outcome.
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Kinchla, Brendan. "Forensic recovery of evidence from deleted VMware vSphere Hypervisor virtual machines." Thesis, Utica College, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1587159.
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<p> The purpose of this research was to analyze the potential for recovering evidence from deleted VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) virtual machines (VMs). There exists an absence of scholarly research on the topic of deleted VM forensic recovery. Research dedicated to forensic recovery of ESXi VMs and VMware’s VM file system (VMFS) is nearly non -existent. This paper examined techniques to recover deleted ESXi VMs to a state where examination for forensic artifacts of user activity can occur. The paper examined the disk-provisioning methods for allocation of virtual disk files and the challenges for forensic recovery associated with each disk-provisioning type. The research determined that the two thick-provisioned virtual disk types provided the best opportunity for complete recovery, while certain characteristics of thin-provisioned virtual disk files made them less likely to recover in their entirety. Fragmentation of virtual disk files presented the greatest challenge for recovery of deleted VMs. Testing of alternate hypotheses attempting to reduce the likelihood of fragmentation within the virtual disk file met with mixed results, leaving fragmentation of virtual disk files as a significant challenge to successful VM recovery. The paper examined the techniques for recovering deleted files from VMFS volumes. Due to a lack of forensic tools with the ability to interpret the VMFS filesystem, forensic recovery focused on data stream searching through the VMFS volume image and file carving from consecutive disk sectors. This method proved to be inefficient, but ultimately successful in most of the test cases. </p><p> Keywords: Cybersecurity, Professor Cynthia Gonnella, virtualization, VMDK.</p>
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Silva, Alexandre Alberto Gonçalves da. "A perícia forense no Brasil." Universidade de São Paulo, 2009. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/3/3142/tde-11082010-152328/.
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Este trabalho apresenta um olhar sobre a atividade forense começando no antigo Egito, berço da civilização ocidental, passando pela colonização portuguesa e sua influência, até chegar ao Brasil atual, trazendo os elementos interdisciplinares característicos da perícia em cada período histórico. Dado a este caráter interdisciplinar, o trabalho tenta demonstrar quais foram as bases legislativas em cada época. O objetivo foi identificar os problemas que surgiram ao longo do tempo para o exercício da perícia como auxiliar da Justiça, assim como destacar elementos que possam melhorar a relação entre peritos, juízes e partes, tendo em vista o resultado de seu trabalho: o laudo pericial.<br>This work presents a look at the forensic activity starting in ancient Egypt, the cradle of Western civilization, through the Portuguese colonization and their influence, until getting to Brazil nowadays, with the aim to bring the characteristic elements of interdisciplinary expertise in every historical period. Given its interdisciplinary character, this essay attempts to point which legislative bases had experts to carry out their activities. The aim was to identify the elements which analyzed the problems that have arisen over time to the exercise of skill as an activity assistant, as well as to highlight areas that may assist the improvement of the activity for forensics, judges and parties, as well as the final result of his work: the expert report.
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Crawford, C. "The emergence of English forensic medicine : Medical evidence in common-law courts, 1730-1830." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.381838.
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Sonnekus, Michael Hendrik. "A comparison of open source and proprietary digital forensic software." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017939.
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Scrutiny of the capabilities and accuracy of computer forensic tools is increasing as the number of incidents relying on digital evidence and the weight of that evidence increase. This thesis describes the capabilities of the leading proprietary and open source digital forensic tools. The capabilities of the tools were tested separately on digital media that had been formatted using Windows and Linux. Experiments were carried out with the intention of establishing whether the capabilities of open source computer forensics are similar to those of proprietary computer forensic tools, and whether these tools could complement one another. The tools were tested with regards to their capabilities to make and analyse digital forensic images in a forensically sound manner. The tests were carried out on each media type after deleting data from the media, and then repeated after formatting the media. The results of the experiments performed demonstrate that both proprietary and open source computer forensic tools have superior capabilities in different scenarios, and that the toolsets can be used to validate and complement one another. The implication of these findings is that investigators have an affordable means of validating their findings and are able to more effectively investigate digital media.
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Kasu, Mohaimin. "The validation of forensic DNA extraction systems to utilize soil contaminated biological evidence." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/5921.
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Katireddy, Harshitha Reddy, and Sreemanth Sidda. "A Novel Shoeprint Enhancement method for Forensic Evidence Using Sparse Representation method." Thesis, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Institutionen för tillämpad signalbehandling, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-15620.
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Shoeprints are often recovered at crime scenes and are the most abundant form of evidence at a crime scene, and in some cases, it is proved to be as accurate as fingerprints. The basis for shoeprint impression evidence is determining the source of a shoeprint impression recovered from a crime scene. This shoeprint evidence collected are often noisy and unclear. To obtain a clear image, the shoeprint evidence should be enhanced by de-noising and improving the quality of the picture. In the thesis, we introduced a novel shoeprint enhancement algorithm based on sparse representation for obtaining the complete dictionary from a set of shoeprint patches which allows us to represent them as a sparse linear combination of dictionary atoms. In the proposed algorithm, we first pre-process the image by SMQT method, and then Daubechies first level DWT is applied. The SVD of the image is computed, and Inverse Discrete Wavelet Transform(IDWT) is applied. To the singular value decomposed image, l1-norm minimization sparse representation employed by the K-SVD algorithm is computed where the image is divided into predefined shoeprint image patches of size 8 by 8. Shoeprint images of three different databases with different image quality are tested. The performance of the algorithm is assessed by comparing the original shoeprint image and the image obtained after proposed algorithm based on objective and subjective parameters like PSNR, MSE, and MOS. The results show the proposed method gives better performance in terms of contrast (Variance) and brightness (Mean). Finally, as a conclusion, we state that the proposed algorithm enhances the image better than the existing method DWT-SVD.
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Tapp, James M. "Investigating the evidence base for interventions in high secure forensic inpatient hospitals." Thesis, University of Surrey, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.582856.
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High secure forensic inpatient hospitals provide a wide range of interventions in a restricted environment. Patients referred to high security will have both a serious and enduring mental disorder and have committed an offence of interpersonal violence with significant impact. The task of these services is to restore mental health well-being and reduce risk to prevent further harm to others. Evidence to demonstrate whether this task is achieved is limited, which has a number of implications for those who deliver care, those who receive it and the wider public. To develop a clearer understanding of the effectiveness of high secure hospital treatment three different approaches were taken to investigate the evidence base for this setting. A systematic review of existing outcome research from high secure hospitals was undertaken to establish its scope and rigour. Patients who were preparing to move on from high security were interviewed to explore perceived values of care that contributed to reaching this stage. A consultation of professional experts was conducted to determine what essential elements of high secure care were required to improve patient outcomes. Clinical evidence from the best available outcome research demonstrates that a range of interventions can improve the clinical and social functioning of patients. Pharmacological practices can help symptom reduction in patients with enduring schizophrenia and reduce aggression where violence is associated with symptoms. Psycho education can improve insight in patients with schizophrenia and cognitive behavioural therapies enhance coping skills for managing intense emotions, lowering risk of violence and preventing re-offending. Patient and professional perspectives on the values of treatment aligned with some of these benefits and also identified additional key processes for rehabilitation. Developing safe relationships with peers and therapeutic alliances with professionals was seen as essential in gaining insight into personal difficulties and promoting change. The use of clinical evidence, practitioner's experiences and patient's values demonstrates the contribution each source of information can make to uncovering and understanding a system of care. To establish how the sum of the high secure treatment parts impact on rehabilitation, and identify which package of treatment is best for whom, ideographic investigations that closely and longitudinally monitor change are recommended.
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Counsil, Tyler I. "Real-time RNA-based amplification allows for sensitive forensic blood evidence analysis." Virtual Press, 2008. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1391475.
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The purpose of this experiment was to determine if nucleic acid sequence based amplification (NASBA) is a suitable application for the differentiation of body fluids that might comprise a forensic evidence sample. NASBA is a sensitive RNA transcription based amplification system. NASBA could theorhetically be used for bodily fluid identification based upon amplification of tissue-specific mRNA transcripts present in a given forensic sample.Amplification of both Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and Matrix Metalloproteinase 1 1 (MMPmRNA transcripts were used to determine that NASBA could amplify body fluid transcripts and whether it could distinguish between menstrual and non-menstrual blood, respectively. GAPDH is a housekeeping gene that is constituently expressed and its mRNA transcripts could therefore be used to determine whether non-menstrual blood could be amplified using the NASBA procedure. MMP 11 is a menstrual cycle-specific gene associated with endometrial breakdown. Using the mRNA transcripts from MMP 11, NASBA could be utilized for menstrual blood identification. In this study, non-menstrual and menstrual blood samples were analyzed with NASBA both in the presence and absence of chemical contamination. Contaminants utilized ranged from commercial automotive wax, transmission fluid, brake fluid, artificial tears, hand soap, 10% bleach, and the luminol blood detecting reagent. Non-menstrual blood was aliquoted onto a 1 cm x 1 cm cotton cloth for contamination, while menstrual blood was provided on a 1 cm x 1 cm area of sterile menstrual pad. All samples underwent Tri reagent extraction to obtain RNA samples for NASBA amplification.With respect to NASBA amplification data, non-menstrual blood data (from extracted RNA and unextracted blood samples) revealed the highest levels of amplification as shown in relative fluorescence units (RFU). Uncontaminated menstrual blood revealed the second highest amplification data. In the presence of chemical contamination, high levels of amplification were observed when samples were contaminated with brake fluid and commercial hand soap. Moderately low amplification was observed with samples contaminated with transmission fluid, 10% bleach, and artificial tears. NASBA amplification was completely inhibited in the presence of automotive wax and luminol. Cycle threshold (CO values for each amplification result were also obtained from each reaction. Smaller Ct values correspond to a higher NASBAreaction efficiency and therefore larger amplification values. The Ct values obtained for each amplified sample correlate strongly with the amount of amplification observed from reaction. Based upon the results of this experiment, NASBA should be considered as a novel tool for forensic evidence analysis.<br>Department of Biology
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Hegazy, Sarah. "Exploring the forensic accounting practice in the UK : evidence from the profession." Thesis, Middlesex University, 2015. http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/18869/.
Full textAbstract:
Since the recent accounting scandals, policy makers and regulators have been developing strict measures coupled with continuous improvements in corporate governance practices to protect the economy from corruption and fraudulent acts. Forensic accounting has emerged in an effort to detect and prevent these financial crimes. This research focuses on investigating the practice of forensic accounting in the UK and the role of the accounting profession in the professionalisation of forensic accounting. Drawing from Abbott’s (1988) thesis of a system of professions, the study sets out to examine the problem that has initiated the need for this professional work; how the accounting profession’s subjective interpretation of this problem has impacted their legitimation of the forensic accounting practice; the professional work that the accounting profession has managed to legitimise through such subjective interpretation; the abstract and professional knowledge needed to legitimise, strengthen and extend the accounting profession’s expertise into new jurisdictions of the forensic accounting practice; and the regulatory role to protect the boundaries of professional work from competitors; and, the internal and external disturbances that have shaped the forensic accounting practice. Those disturbances result in professional rivalry, competition and eventual jurisdictional settlement, areas also investigated in this study. Although recent studies in the field of forensic accounting have focused on issues relating to the emergence of its practice, much literature remains silent with respect to the role of the accounting profession in the professionalisation process of forensic accounting, which has lead to the emergence and recent boom of this area of expertise. Furthermore, the role of social actors such as the big four accounting firms in the professionalisation process is invisible in the accounting literature. This is because very little mainstream accounting research focuses on the social construction of the accounting practice. Therefore, the contribution of this study is two-fold. First, it adds to the rare forensic accounting literature by providing in-depth account of the features and functions of forensic accounting. Second, it provides empirical evidence on the role of the accounting profession in the professionalisation process of forensic accounting. The author has, therefore, employed an interpretive approach that considers the political and social factors influencing the current outlook of the forensic accounting practice. A multiple case study design was employed, where three subjects of investigation were chosen, namely Big Four firms, specialist forensic investigative firms, and accounting professional bodies. Employing a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches; interviews, documentation analysis and postal-survey questionnaires were chosen as the appropriate methods for an in-depth investigation of the development of forensic accounting. The findings of this study highlight that forensic accounting professionalisation has been greatly influenced by the subjective interpretation of the accounting profession, where powerful legitimacy and marketing strategies have been employed by the accounting profession to legitimise the forensic accounting practice. The accounting profession was able to claim, strengthen and extend its legitimacy in almost all practice areas of forensic accounting, thus becoming the main provider of forensic accounting services. The study finds that state regulation, the technological explosion, globalisation and the economic downturn have all contributed to the accounting profession success in claiming such status. The study further finds that intra-professional competition plays a major role in shaping the dynamics of the forensic accounting practice. Such competition, together with the relative lack of regulating standards within the forensic accounting practice, had shed light on a new form of professionalisation, where the big four accounting firms had a major role in regulating the market. This latter point is of importance to policy makers and standard setters.
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Sauzier, Georgina Yasmin. "Applications of chemometrics to the analysis and interpretation of forensic physical evidence." Thesis, Curtin University, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2065.
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Forensic investigations often rely upon items of physical evidence. However, current interpretation protocols for such evidence are subjective, leading to potential bias in forensic examinations. Chemometric techniques may be used to develop more objective methods for assessing evidential significance, as well as establishing statistically validated evidential procedures. This dissertation describes the application of chemometrics to various aspects of physical evidence examination, with a specific focus on textile fibres, pen inks and explosive residues.
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Rule, Samantha Elizabeth. "A Framework for using Open Source intelligence as a Digital Forensic Investigative tool." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017937.
Full textAbstract:
The proliferation of the Internet has amplified the use of social networking sites by creating a platform that encourages individuals to share information. As a result there is a wealth of information that is publically and easily accessible. This research explores whether open source intelligence (OSINT), which is freely available, could be used as a digital forensic investigative tool. A survey was created and sent to digital forensic investigators to establish whether they currently use OSINT when performing investigations. The survey results confirm that OSINT is being used by digital forensic investigators when performing investigations but there are currently no guidelines or frameworks available to support the use thereof. Additionally, the survey results showed a belief amongst those surveyed that evidence gleaned from OSINT sources is considered supplementary rather than evidentiary. The findings of this research led to the development of a framework that identifies and recommends key processes to follow when conducting OSINT investigations. The framework can assist digital forensic investigators to follow a structured and rigorous process, which may lead to the unanimous acceptance of information obtained via OSINT sources as evidentiary rather than supplementary in the near future.
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Thompson, Marcus A. "An exploratory forensic acquisition and analysis of digital evidence on the Amazon Kindle." Thesis, Purdue University, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1565358.
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<p> The Amazon Kindle is becoming a popular e-book reader. This popularity will lead criminals to use the Kindle as an accessory to their crime. Very few Kindle publications in the digital forensics domain exist at the time of this writing. Various blogs on the Internet currently provide some of the foundation for Kindle forensics. For this research each fifth generation Kindle was populated with various types of files a typical user may introduce using one method, the USB interface. The Kindle was forensically imaged with AccessData's Forensic Toolkit Imager before and after each Kindle was populated. Each file was deleted through the USB interface. Files were retrieved and recovered through the USB interface before and after file deletion. These two sets of files were compared to the original set of files. All files retrieved before deletion matched their original counterpart. Not all files recovered after deletion matched their original counterpart. These steps and procedures followed a similar methodology developed by Leshney (2008) for virtual machines. </p>
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Corzo, Ruthmara. "Elemental Characterization of Printing Inks and Strengthening the Evaluation of Forensic Glass Evidence." FIU Digital Commons, 2018. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3814.
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Improvements in printing technology have exacerbated the problem of document counterfeiting, prompting the need for analytical techniques that better characterize inks for forensic analysis. In this study, 319 printing inks (toner, inkjet, offset, and intaglio) were analyzed directly on the paper substrate using Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) and Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). As anticipated, the high sensitivity of LA-ICP-MS resulted in excellent discrimination (> 99%) between ink samples originating from different sources. Moreover, LA-ICP-MS provided ≥ 90% correct association for ink samples originating from the same source. SEM-EDS resulted in good discrimination for toner and intaglio inks (> 97%) and excellent correct association (100%) for all four ink types. However, the technique showed limited utility for the discrimination of inkjet and offset inks.
A searchable ink database, the Forensic Ink Analysis and Comparison System (FIACS), was developed in order to provide a tool that allows the analyst to compare a questioned ink sample to a reference population. The FIACS database provided a correct classification rate of 94-100% for LA-ICP-MS and 67-100% for SEM-EDS.
An important consideration in forensic chemistry is the interpretation of the evidence. Typically, a match criterion is used to compare the known and questioned sample. However, this approach suffers from several disadvantages, which can be overcome with an alternative approach: the likelihood ratio (LR). Two LA-ICP-MS glass databases were used to evaluate the performance of the LR: a vehicle windshield database (420 samples) and a casework database (385 samples). Compared to the match criterion, the likelihood ratio led to improved false exclusion rates (< 1.5%) and similar false inclusion rates (< 1.0%). In addition, the LR limited the magnitude of the misleading evidence, providing only weak support for the incorrect proposition.
The likelihood ratio was also tested through an inter-laboratory study including 10 LA-ICP-MS participants. Good correct association rates (94-100%) were obtained for same-source samples for all three inter-laboratory exercises. Moreover, the LR showed a strong support for an association. Finally, all different-source samples were correctly excluded with the LR, resulting in no false inclusions.
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Makasa, Innocent. "Evaluating the role of DNA evidence in sexual offence cases in Zambia between 2007 and 2014." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/24477.
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Zambia has reported high incidences of sexual abuse against women and children in recent years. Zambian law categorises sexual offences into; rape, defilement, incest and others, with defilement constituting the majority of the cases (>89%). Between 2010 and 2012, only <39% of defilement cases were taken to court, and convictions were achieved in only 13% of the cases reported to the police. Literature was reviewed to determine factors which contributed towards the resolution of criminal cases, and it was found that DNA evidence was prominent in resolving crimes, specifically as an identification tool in sexual offences. Currently there is no empirical evidence describing how DNA evidence has been used in resolving sexual crimes in Zambia. The causes of low prosecution and conviction rates have also not been investigated. A retrospective study was therefore conducted to evaluate the role of DNA evidence in sexual offence cases in Zambia, reported to eight major police stations in Lusaka between 2007 to 2014 (n=1154). Sexual offence cases comprised rape (n=74, 6.4%), defilement of a child under the age of sixteen years (n=1028; 89.1%), incest (n=7; 0.6%) and others (n=45; 3.9%). Only 14 (0.1%) of the cases had forensic samples collected in the form of a vaginal swab for the sole purpose of determining the presence of semen. In all cases where a suspect was identified (60%), identification was based on the witness/victim testimonies, and in no case was forensic DNA evidence used to assist in identification or corroborate the testimonies. Overall, 28.1% cases were taken to court and the conviction rate was 12.4%. If no injuries were observed on a victim aged between 0 - 5 years, the case was not taken to court. It was also observed that the younger the victim, the more likely the accused was not identified (p < 0.001), victims did not know the date of occurrence (p < 0.001), and the case was closed due to insufficient evidence. These findings support the use of employing forensic DNA evidence in sexual offence cases to aid the identification of suspects, either in the absence of witness/victim testimonies or alongside as corroborative evidence, which is hypothesised to increase the number of cases prosecuted in Zambia. At the time of this study there was no standardised protocol for the forensic investigations of sexual offences in Zambia, which to some extent, led to numerous missing data. Development and use of the national protocol and use of a validated sexual assault evidence collection kit may help mitigate the deficiencies and inconsistencies witnessed during this study.
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Gallo, Jenny M. "Elemental analysis of cotton fiber evidence for use in the field of forensic science." FIU Digital Commons, 2009. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3440.
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The purpose of this research is to introduce a method for the forensic elemental analysis of cotton fibers for the purpose of increasing the discrimination between otherwise similar cotton evidence using microwave digestion Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and Laser Ablation- Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). A quadrupole ICP-MS and UV laser ablation (266nm) instruments were used for the analysis. A cotton standard reference material (IAEA V-9) was used to validate the developed methods producing good accuracy with typically 10 % bias and good precision (typically 5% RSD) for the element list: 25Mg, 27Al, 55Mn, 57Fe, 88Sr and 137Ba. It was found that the LA-ICP-MS method resulted in improved precision over the solution ICP-MS method. Twenty four (24) raw cotton samples and five white cotton T-Shirts were analyzed with the developed methods. It was also found that all the raw cotton samples from different sources were distinguishable from each other, as were all the cotton T-shirts resulting in zero type I errors and zero type II errors for the pairwise comparisons.
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Coleman, Charlotte Rachel. "The temporal evidence of children : temporal understanding and questioning strategies in the forensic interview." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.541697.
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Briody, Michael, and n/a. "The Effects of DNA Evidence on the Criminal Justice Process." Griffith University. School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2005. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20050818.155533.
Full textAbstract:
This research examines the effects of forensic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence on decisions in the courts and on the conduct of criminal investigations. To assess effects on court decisions, quantitative analyses were conducted using primary data from the State of Queensland. A control-comparison method was used to assess the effects in court, and this was made within a context of other evidentiary and extra-legal factors that had a bearing on case outcomes. These other factors included defendant confessions, independent witness testimony and fingerprint and photographic evidence. A sample of 750 cases referred by police for prosecution and finalised past the appeal stage in court, was selected for examination. Half of these cases utilised DNA evidence, while the other half, as a control group, did not. Cases were selected in four categories: sexual offences, serious assaults, homicides and property crime. Data on the cases were analysed using advanced statistical methods and predictor models were developed to demonstrate how, given case configurations, the addition of DNA evidence could potentially alter court outcomes. Results for the three serious offence types were that DNA evidence emerged as a positive predictor that prosecutors would pursue cases in court, and it demonstrated a powerful influence on jury decisions to convict. Incriminating DNA evidence demonstrated no significant effect on inducing guilty pleas from defendants for serious crimes against the person. However, it did correlate significantly to cases reaching court and to guilty pleas being entered for property offence cases. The analysis of the effects on investigations relies on data from jurisdictions other than Queensland. Secondary data and the literature were used to assess the potential for strategically using forensic intelligence, along with dedicated investigative resources, to reduce property crimes like burglaries and car thefts. In the one study available that employed adequate research methods, three patrol areas in New South Wales, where a police operation was trialled, were compared to other areas that acted as a control. The police operation aimed at 100% attendance at property crime scenes, the use of intelligence from DNA and fingerprint identifications and specialised investigative resources to reduce crime levels. While the operation failed to achieve its goal, it did provide some valuable lessons. The effectiveness of the national criminal DNA database in the UK, reputed to lead the world, was then evaluated in relation to domestic burglaries. Its Australian CrimTrac counterpart did not commence operations until March 2003, and by 2004 was not operating at maximum capacity. Because no published studies were located that measured any effects of the UK database on crime levels, the criterion selected to measure performance was the proportion of convictions achieved through the database to reported crime. For domestic burglaries, this ratio was calculated from secondary official data to be close to one percent (0.01), a figure that included the additional convictions achieved through the intelligence that the database provided. The research also examined forensic DNA in relation to issues of privacy and civil liberties. Privacy issues are discussed beginning with an historical background to the use and misuse of genetic data. This includes the searches for a 'criminal gene' and for genetic links to criminal behaviour. DNA databases are contrasted with databanks, and it is questioned, since we leave our DNA wherever we go, whether it really is private. Civil liberties issues that are discussed include whether providing DNA is a form of self-incrimination; how DNA has helped exonerate the convicted innocent; wrongful convictions based on flawed DNA evidence; whether occasional 'mass screenings' with DNA are a reversal of the onus of proof; concerns with DNA databases and 'function creep', and the planting or 'forgery' of DNA evidence including the use of amplicon contamination. In the final chapter, a balance is sought between on one hand, the goal of police and government to provide a safe society, and on the other, the rights to privacy and civil liberties expected by individuals in Western liberal democracies. The chapter addresses the issues of concern raised in the earlier chapter about privacy and civil liberties, and makes recommendations on how these may be resolved. The general approach favoured is to increase police powers in specific situations, but to couple these with the protection of individual rights through greater regulation of those powers. The research also developed a case prioritising system aimed at helping clear laboratory backlogs.