Analogs of Ridge Skin and Papillary Patterns in the Nature and the Significance of Their Study for Forensic Science and Forensic Examination

Patterns similar to the papillary patterns of human fingers, palms, and soles can be found in living and inanimate nature. Studying such patterns and the structure of the ridged skin of humans and primates in comparison with similar formations on other objects is necessary for forensic science, forensic traceology, fingerprinting, and biometric identification. The article analyzes the history of the study of the ridged skin of humans, primates, and other animals by forensic scientists, zoologists, anthropologists, and representatives of other sciences.The author proposes systemizing and classifying the information about the analogs of papillary patterns and ridged skin on such grounds as the genus and type of carrier objects, relief structure, degree of comparability with the papillary pattern of human hands and soles.The article presents the most indicative varieties of analogs of papillary patterns in mammals, birds, fish, insects, corals, plants, and fungi. The author has studied and systemized structural features of the striped pattern of the skin of tigers and zebras, crests and stripes in corals, stripes and ridged patterns in fish. The data obtained on ridge formations, which are similar in structure and shape to the papillary patterns of human fingers and palms, will help to avoid expert errors during fingerprinting examination or erroneous placement of images of such formations in forensic databases.Knowledge of the structural features and properties of striped patterns of skins of specially protected wild animals, as well as the crest surface of paleontological museum objects, should be used for their identification by photo and video images in cases of embezzlement, smuggling, illegal hunting, and illegal trafficking.

Match me if you can: Evidence for a domain-general visual comparison ability

Visual comparison—comparing visual stimuli (e.g., fingerprints) side by side and determining whether they originate from the same or different source (i.e., “match”)—is a complex discrimination task involving many cognitive and perceptual processes. Despite the real-world consequences of this task, which is often conducted by forensic scientists, little is understood about the psychological processes underpinning this ability. There are substantial individual differences in visual comparison accuracy amongst both professionals and novices. The source of this variation is unknown, but may reflect a domain-general and naturally varying perceptual ability. Here, we investigate this by comparing individual differences (N = 248 across two studies) in four visual comparison domains: faces, fingerprints, firearms, and artificial prints. Accuracy on all comparison tasks was significantly correlated and accounted for a substantial portion of variance (e.g., 42% in Exp. 1) in performance across all tasks. Importantly, this relationship cannot be attributed to participants’ intrinsic motivation or skill in other visual-perceptual tasks (visual search and visual statistical learning). This paper provides novel evidence of a reliable, domain-general visual comparison ability.

Estimation of an Individual Stature Using Foot, Foot Outlines and Footprint Measurements in Adult Saudi Population

Identification of an individual is considered one of the fundamental challenges for forensic scientists, especially from dismembered and mutilated body parts. To limit the pool of conceivable suspects in the forensic investigation process, footprints and foot outlines found at the crime scene are used to ease estimation of stature. The current study aimed to estimate individual stature using foot, foot outline and footprint measurements in a Saudi Arabian population. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out on two hundred healthy medical students from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. Stature measurements and eight foot, foot outline and footprint measurements were taken from both sides. Saudi adult males were significantly taller than Saudi females. All measurement values were significantly higher in adult males than in adult females. Most measurements were considered to be positively correlated with stature in both sexes. Regression equations and multiple regression equations for stature determination from all measurements in both male and females on both sides were created. This study has demonstrated the reliability and utility of foot, foot outline and footprint measurements in stature estimation in a Saudi Arabian population that comparable standards developed from foot bones.

Hygienic assessment of risk factors and health of forensic scientists

The objective of the study was to develop and implement the system of hygienic measures eliminating (mitigating) the impact of risk factors in the work of forensic scientists and to estimate effectiveness of these measures and the program aimed at improvement of employment terms for forensic scientists [1, 2]. Forensic scientists were compared to a control group of other doctors. The following researches were carried out: survey of 303 forensic scientists, analysis of their employment terms based on employment terms special evaluation (2,736 materials of employment terms special evaluation), examination of forensic scientists’ health compared to other doctors by analyzing medical examination results (309 health records). Protection and promotion of working population’s health is the state priority. Its purpose is to preserve labor potential and create conditions for economic development of the country. Medical workers are exposed to a combined, complex, and associated effect of working environment conditions and parameters [3, 4]. Industrial and social factors can result in a rising incidence, reduction in life expectancy, ill health and medical staff performance increment, and require preventive measures. Those working for forensic expert organizations constitute a special population due to a large number of professional, medical and organizational, and social risk factors [5].

Diverse routes to expertise in facial recognition

Facial recognition errors jeopardize national security, criminal justice, public safety and civil rights. Here, we compare the most accurate humans and facial recognition technology in a detailed lab-based evaluation and international proficiency test for forensic scientists involving 27 forensic departments from 14 countries. We find striking cognitive and perceptual diversity between naturally skilled super-recognizers, trained forensic examiners and deep neural networks, despite them achieving equivalent accuracy. Clear differences emerged in super-recognizers’ and forensic examiners’ perceptual processing, errors, and response patterns: super-recognizers were fast, biased to respond ‘same person’ and misidentified people with extreme confidence, whereas forensic examiners were slow, unbiased and strategically avoided misidentification errors. Further, these human experts and algorithms disagreed on the similarity of faces, pointing to differences in their face representations. Our findings reveal there are multiple types of facial recognition expertise, some of which are better suited to particular real-world facial recognition roles than others.

A data transformation process for using Benford’s Law with bounded data

Benford’s Law is an empirical observation about the frequency of digits in a variety of naturally occurring data sets. Auditors and forensic scientists have used Benford’s Law to detect erroneous data in accounting and legal usage. One well-known limitation is that Benford’s Law fails when data have clear minimum and maximum values. Many kinds of education data, including assessment scores, typically include hard maximums and therefore do not meet the parametric assumptions of Benford’s Law. This paper implements a transformation procedure which allows for assessment data to be compared to Benford’s Law. As a case study, a data quality assessment of oral language scores from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten (ECLS-K) study is used and higher risk data segments detected. The same method could be used to evaluate other concerns, such as test fraud, or other bounded datasets.

Features of the national development of possibilities forensic diagnostics of the gunshot injuries

This article shows the role and contribution of individual forensic scientists and famous forensic academies in the development of learning gunshot injuries. The article presents an analysis of the national literary sources concerning development of possibilities and methods of forensic diagnostics of the main traumatic factor of gunshot injuries. The role of up-to-date digital technologies, particularly the method of three-dimensional spatial reconstruction of the gunshot wounds, which can empower possibilities of forensic diagnostics of the main traumatic factor of gunshot injuries are shown. Aim of the work. To analyze the development of diagnostic methods of a kind of the main traumatic factor of gunshot injuries in forensic medicine, to find the up-to-date and most diagnostically valuable methods for further investigation and implementation into experts’ practical work. Conclusions. Analysis of national forensic experts’ studies shows that forensic medical examination of gunshot body wounds has always been of current interest and become more and more actual. In every period of forensic medicine development new instrumental and laboratory methods of examination of gunshot wounds have appeared. One of the most topical and promising methods are means of the three-dimensional spatial reconstruction. It can improve the possibilities of forensic medical diagnostics of a kind and characteristic of the main traumatic factor of gunshot wounds.

Microbiome Forensic Biobanking: A Step toward Microbial Profiling for Forensic Human Identification

In recent years many studies have highlighted the great potential of microbial analysis in human identification for forensic purposes, with important differences in microbial community composition and function across different people and locations, showing a certain degree of uncertainty. Therefore, further studies are necessary to enable forensic scientists to evaluate the risk of microbial transfer and recovery from various items and to further critically evaluate the suitability of current human DNA recovery protocols for human microbial profiling for identification purposes. While the establishment and development of microbiome research biobanks for clinical applications is already very structured, the development of studies on the applicability of microbiome biobanks for forensic purposes is still in its infancy. The creation of large population microbiome biobanks, specifically dedicated to forensic human identification, could be worthwhile. This could also be useful to increase the practical applications of forensic microbiology for identification purposes, given that this type of evidence is currently absent from most real casework investigations and judicial proceedings in courts.

Problems of determining the subjective side of crimes related to harm to life and health during sports competitions and sports

The article analyzes the various approaches of scientists criminologists presented in the legal literature and its criminal-legal component to the problem of sports injuries. Further, an attempt is made to determine the criminal legal boundaries of causing physical harm (injury) in the process of sports, training. Particular emphasis is placed on the content of the subjective side of the actions of the wrecker. The authors analyze various approaches of forensic scientists to the problem of sports injuries and its criminal-legal component, presented in the legal literature, make an attempt to determine the criminal-legal boundaries of causing physical harm (injury) in the process of sports competitions, training. Special emphasis is placed on the content of the subjective side of the harm done by the inflictor. Proposals are formulated for law enforcement practice in terms of accounting for deliberate or careless violation of the rules of sports competitions. At the same time, special attention is paid to the problems of law enforcement, the existence of which is due to optional signs of the subjective side of crimes, which regulate responsibility for causing harm to life and health in the course of sports and sports. The authors come to the logical conclusion that when developing the criminal-legal content of lawful harm during sports, it is necessary to pay more attention to subjective elements and signs that characterize the internal attitude of the perpetrator to the actions he has committed and the consequences that have occurred as a result of these actions in situations of lawful harm.