Profiling and imaging of forensic evidence – a pan-European forensic round robin study part 1: document forgery

The forensic scenario, on which the round robin study was based, simulated a suspected intentional manipulation of a real estate rental agreement consisting of a total of three pages. The aims of this study were to (i) establish the amount and reliability of information extractable from a single type of evidence and to (ii) provide suggestions on the most suitable combination of compatible techniques for a multi-modal imaging approach to forgery detection. To address these aims, seventeen laboratories from sixteen countries were invited to answer the following tasks questions: (i) which printing technique was used? (ii) were the three pages printed with the same printer? (iii) were the three pages made from the same paper? (iv) were the three pages originally stapled? (v) were the headings and signatures written with the same ink? and (vi) were headings and signatures of the same age on all pages? The methods used were classified into the following categories: Optical spectroscopy, including multispectral imaging, smartphone mapping, UV-luminescence and LIBS; Infrared spectroscopy, including Raman and FTIR (micro-)spectroscopy; X-ray spectroscopy, including SEM-EDX, PIXE and XPS; Mass spectrometry, including ICPMS, SIMS, MALDI and LDIMS; Electrostatic imaging, as well as non-imaging methods, such as non-multimodal visual inspection, (micro-)spectroscopy, physical testing and thin layer chromatography. The performance of the techniques was evaluated as the proportion of discriminated sample pairs to all possible sample pairs. For the undiscriminated sample pairs, a distinction was made between undecidability and false positive claims. It was found that none of the methods used were able to solve all tasks completely and/or correctly and that certain methods were a priori judged unsuitable by the laboratories for some tasks. Correct results were generally achieved for the discrimination of printer toners, whereas incorrect results in the discrimination of inks. For the discrimination of paper, solid state analytical methods proved to be superior to mass spectrometric methods. None of the participating laboratories deemed addressing ink age feasible. It was concluded that correct forensic statements can only be achieved by the complementary application of different methods and that the classical approach of round robin studies to send standardised subsamples to the participants is not feasible for a true multimodal approach if the techniques are not available at one location

Smartphone snapshot mapping of skin chromophores under triple-wavelength laser illumination

Abstract Chromophore distribution maps are useful tools for skin malformation severity assessment and for monitoring of skin recovery after burns, surgeries, and other interactions. The chromophore maps can be obtained by processing several spectral images of skin, e.g., captured by hyperspectral or multispectral cameras during seconds or even minutes. To avoid motion artifacts and simplify the procedure, a single-snapshot technique for mapping melanin, oxyhemoglobin, and deoxyhemoglobin of in-vivo skin by a smartphone under simultaneous three-wavelength (448–532–659 nm) laser illumination is proposed and examined. Three monochromatic spectral images related to the illumination wavelengths were extracted from the smartphone camera RGB image data set with respect to crosstalk between the RGB detection bands. Spectral images were further processed accordingly to Beer’s law in a three chromophore approximation. Photon absorption path lengths in skin at the exploited wavelengths were estimated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The technique was validated clinically on three kinds of skin lesions: nevi, hemangiomas, and seborrheic keratosis. Design of the developed add-on laser illumination system, image-processing details, and the results of clinical measurements are presented and discussed

Riga Group’s recent results on laser applications for skin diagnostics

240th ECS Meeting (October 10-14, 2021)The laser-related activities are reviewed of the Biophotonics Laboratory at UL Institute of Atomic Physics and Spectroscopy following the previous ICSQE-2018 conference. Four recent research projects are considered, including one EC Horizon-2020 project, two European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) projects and one project funded by the Latvian Council of Science (LCS). The projects are generally aimed at developing new optical methods and technologies for non-invasive in-vivo skin assessment to facilitate the early diagnostics of skin malformations (including cancers). Most of the projects explore novel approaches of camera-based biomedical imaging to the clinical diagnostics and recovery monitorin

Towards combined multispectral, FLIM and Raman imaging for skin diagnostics

To explore challenges for further improvement of diagnostic performance, a project aimed at development of technology for tri-modal skin imaging by combining multispectral, fluorescence lifetime and Raman band imaging was initiated. In this study, each of the mentioned imaging modalities has been preliminary tested and updated. Four different multispectral imaging devices were tested on color standards. Picosecond laser-excited fluorescence lifetime imaging equipment was examined on ex-vivo skin samples. Finally, a new Raman spectroscopy setup with 785 nm laser was launched and tested on cell cultures and ex-vivo skin. Advantages and specific features of the tri-modal skin imaging are discussedUniversity of Latvi