Development of an Artificial Intelligence Method for the Analysis of Bloodstain Patterns

Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (BPA) is a forensic discipline that plays a crucial role in reconstructing the events at a crime scene (Acampora, 2014). The shape, size, distribution, and location of bloodstains can help infer the potential murder weapon, the origin of the attack, and if the body has been moved or relocated from the original crime scene. Commonly, errors in identifying blood spatter evidence arise when the crime scene has large amounts of bloodstains which can yield less information during analysis. This study aims to utilize artificial intelligence (A.I.) algorithms to assist the analyst in the analysis of bloodstain patterns. To date, BPA relies on a manual analysis process; therefore, it is imperative to have forensic analysts who can accurately produce reliable results (Hoelz, 2009). However, human error is unavoidable, and analyst error can result in inaccurate conclusions that can jeopardize casework. The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report on Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison Methods brought to light the shortcomings of many forensic disciplines, including BPA. To improve the field of BPA, automated and computer-assisted methods of analysis are needed. In this study, we used A.I. to estimate the angle of impact from simulated crime scene samples. Our A.I.-assisted approach was determined to be accurate for 78.64% of all data analyzed. This study focused on the analysis of photos taken from a single impact angle as the primary input data. Bloodstain patterns were experimentally constructed using controlled conditions, and a single variable altered at a time

An efficient image classification and segmentation method for crime investigation applications

The field of forensic science is experiencing significant growth, largely driven by the increasing integration of holographic and immersive technologies, along with their associated head-mounted displays. These immersive systems have become increasingly vital in resolving critical crimes as they facilitate communication, interaction, and collaboration. Given the sensitive nature of their work, crime investigators require substantial technical support. There is a pressing need for accurate documentation and archiving of crime scenes, which can be addressed by leveraging 3D scanned scenes to accurately represent evidence and expected scenarios. This study aims to develop an enhanced AR. system that can be deployed on hologram facilities such as the Microsoft HoloLens. The proposed system encompasses two main approaches, namely image classification and image segmentation. Image classification utilizes various deep learning models, including lightweight convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and convolutional Long-Short Term Memory (ConvLSTM). Additionally, the image segmentation approach is based on the fuzzy active contour model (FACM). The effectiveness of the proposed system was evaluated for both classification and segmentation tasks, utilizing metrics such as accuracy, sensitivity, precision, and F1 score. The simulation results indicate that the proposed system achieved a 99% accuracy rate in classification and segmentation tasks, positioning it as an effective solution for detecting bloodstain patterns in AR applications

Forging a Stable Relationship?: Bridging the Law and Forensic Science Divide in the Academy

The marriage of law and science has most often been represented as discordant. While the law/science divide meme is hardly novel, concerns over the potentially deleterious coupling within the criminal justice system may have reached fever pitch. There is a growing chorus of disapproval addressed to ‘forensic science’, accompanied by the denigration of legal professionals for being unable or unwilling to forge a symbiotic relationship with forensic scientists. The 2009 National Academy of Sciences Report on forensic science heralds the latest call for greater collaboration between ‘law’ and ‘science’, particularly in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) yet little reaction has been apparent amid law and science faculties. To investigate the potential for interdisciplinary cooperation, the authors received funding for a project: ‘Lowering the Drawbridges: Forensic and Legal Education in the 21st Century’, hoping to stimulate both law and forensic science educators to seek mutually beneficial solutions to common educational problems and build vital connections in the academy. A workshop held in the UK, attended by academics and practitioners from scientific, policing, and legal backgrounds marked the commencement of the project. This paper outlines some of the workshop conclusions to elucidate areas of dissent and consensus, and where further dialogue is required, but aims to strike a note of optimism that the ‘cultural divide’ should not be taken to be so wide as to be beyond the legal and forensic science academy to bridge. The authors seek to demonstrate that legal and forensic science educators can work cooperatively to respond to critics and forge new paths in learning and teaching, creating an opportunity to take stock and enrich our discipline as well as answer critics. As Latham (2010:34) exhorts, we are not interested in turning lawyers into scientists and vice versa, but building a foundation upon which they can build during their professional lives: “Instead of melding the two cultures, we need to establish conditions of cooperation, mutual respect, and mutual reliance between them.” Law and forensic science educators should, and can assist with the building of a mutual understanding between forensic scientists and legal professionals, a significant step on the road to answering calls for the professions to minimise some of the risks associated with the use of forensic science in the criminal process. REFERENCES Latham, S.R. 2010, ‘Law between the cultures: C.P.Snow’s The Two Cultures and the problem of scientific illiteracy in law’ 32 Technology in Society, 31-34. KEYWORDS forensic science education legal education law/science divid

2020-2021 Graduate Catalog

Annual publication of degrees offered and their requirements for all graduate students enrolled at the University of Central Oklahoma

2021-2022 Graduate Catalog

Annual publication of degrees offered and their requirements for all graduate students enrolled at the University of Central Oklahoma

Applying anthropological perspectives in criminal procedures involving murder in Port Elizabeth, 2000-2016

With the spike of annual reported murders in South Africa, the country is continuing to climb the global rank of the world’s most violent countries. In 2016 alone, there were over nineteen thousand reported murders, equalling over fifty murders per day, with the Eastern Cape holding position as the province with the highest murder rate. Studies indicate that Port Elizabeth is the hardest hit by crime, adding up to 60% of all reported crimes in the province and despite the use of a ‘catch and convict’ only approach in criminal proceedings, violence and crime are still highly prevalent. Thus, overall the situation suggests that it may be beyond law enforcement control and even though the South African Police Service have taken some progressive steps in reforming procedures, generally, these have been too little and too late, as the reforms introduced are piecemeal and crisis driven. This thesis, therefore, proposes that additional approaches may be needed to improve investigations of the most pernicious crimes. Here, the focus is on the role of culture and social life in ‘murder-scapes’ with a critical contribution of the ‘habitus’ of murder allowing for the meaningful engagement with criminal acts, policing, sentencing, imprisonment and probation. In this regard, perspectives drawn from anthropology can possibly assist law enforcement officials in their steps of investigating a murder by providing a more ethnographic, holistic and integrated narrative in all areas of a criminal proceeding. An efficacious and constructive interpretation of the different subcultures crime scene processing, profiles development, testimony documentation and participation production with the police force and task teams can assist in redirecting and reappraising current practises that prove incompetent. That is, in attempting to review the current procedures conducted by law enforcers to identify how and where anthropological and ethnographical knowledge can be applied and successfully utilised, an assessment may aid officials in better investigative practises which could have implications for wider lenses making use of action, investigation, containment, prevention and rehabilitation. By advancing a deep understanding of the issue of murder in the South African context, implications for a wider, equally modernising and equally troubled society in the global South can be inferred

Towards a Digital Epistemology

This Open Access book explores the concept of digital epistemology. In this context, the digital will not be understood as merely something that is linked to specific tools and objects, but rather as different modes of thought. For example, the digital within the humanities is not just databases and big data, topic modelling and speculative visualizations; nor are the objects limited to computer games, other electronic works, or to literature and art that explicitly relate to computerization or other digital aspects. In what way do digital tools and expressions in the 1960s differ to the ubiquitous systems of our time? What kind of artistic effects does this generate? Is the present theoretical fascination for materiality an effect or a reaction to a digitization? Above all: how can early modern forms such as the cabinets of curiosity, emblem books and the archival principle of pertinence contribute to the analyses of contemporary digital forms

Staying with the Trouble through Design: Critical-feminist Design of Intimate Technology

This dissertation explores staying with the trouble through design as a design theory of intimacy and intimate technology. To research and design with the subject of intimacy is to trouble and to ask for trouble, and by staying with the trouble of intimacy, to paraphrase Donna Haraway, I articulate and perform a way of designing not as a way out of trouble, but as a way of making trouble and staying with the trouble. I argue that by staying with the trouble, designers may learn to be “truly present” and respond to social, cultural and political issues of intimate technology.The methodology interweaves design research, feminist technoscience, critical theory and software studies into a critical-feminist design methodology. As a response to design and designing intimate technology I have engaged in Donna Haraway’s “Staying with the Trouble” (Donna J. Haraway 2016) and solutionism as a critique of technology development, as well as feminist theories on fantasies of “the good life” and gender and technology, and critical theories on the role of intimacy in digital culture.Within the field of interaction design research, this dissertation’s contribution can be divided into three parts: 1) an exploration of the role of intimate technologies in our everyday lives and ways of being, 2) a critical and feminist design methodology of staying with the trouble through design, and 3) design proposals that stay with the trouble of designing with intimacy.My design research has evolved through four design projects that interweave different intimate topics and technologies through varied design practices: 1. PeriodShare: an internet-connected menstrual cup. 2. Marcelle: a wearable sex toy reacting on wifi-activity. 3. Ingrid: a woman living with electromagnetic hypersensitivity. And 4. Intimate Futures: two digital personal assistants where one is pushing back on sexual harassment and the other is assisting with hormone level tracking.The main contribution of the dissertation is the design methodology staying with the trouble through design, which is an anti-solutionist approach to design that interweaves the situated, personal and political role of design. By responding to/with trouble, rather than designing solutions to problems, staying with the trouble through design aims to better understand the conflicts and responsibilities involved in complex social, cultural and political issues, in order to imagine and design still possible futures. The design methodology interweaves three practices that unfold the self-reflective, ethnographic and collaborative process of staying with the trouble through design. The first practice, the willful practice of Staying with the Wrong, is a continuous process of becoming a feminist designer and it includes actively learning to be present; question the given as given, stay with the feelings you wish would go away, continuously practice self-reflection on own positionality and using feminist humour when designing with taboos. The second practice, Curious Visiting, encourages the designer to go beyond their own positionality, by listening to stories of pleasure and pain and visiting ongoing pasts and alternatives nows. This challenges the designer’s notion of the present by interweaving fact and fiction, and it highlights that this practice is never innocent but involves risks. Lastly, the third practice Collective Imagining highlights how design by proposing future change can respond to and/or with trouble and how we collectively can engage with futures to rewrite collective imaginings and tell other possible stories within and across social and cultural contexts. Together, these three interwoven practices propose a way of staying with the trouble through design, as a feminist contribution to current critical approaches within interaction design.