The human element plays a critical role in forensic science. It is not limited only to issues relating to forensic decision-making, such as bias, but also relates to most aspects of forensic work (some of which even take place before a crime is ever committed or long after the verification of the forensic conclusion). In this paper, I explicate many aspects of forensic work that involve the hum...

Recently digital forensics has become a prominent activity in crime investigation since computers are increasingly used as tools to commit crimes. During forensic investigation the digital devices such as desktops, notebooks, smart phones etc. found at the crime scene are collected for further investigation. Investigators have to go through humongous amount of data stored on these devices to ga...

The inclusion of crime scene behavior in actuarial risk assessment so far is insufficient, unsystematic, and neglecting factors theoretically relevant to sexual recidivism. Therefore, the goal of the current study was to develop a brief actuarial risk scale based on crime scene characteristics. The development sample consisted of data (police databases, paper records, and the National Convictio...

We consider a hypothetical series of cases in which the DNA profile of a crime-scene sample is found to match a known profile in a DNA database (i.e., a "cold hit"), resulting in the identification of a suspect based only on genetic evidence. We show that the average probability that there is another person in the population whose profile matches the crime-scene sample but who is not in the dat...

Using this technique, a robot can operate in an environment without a priori knowledge of a map and its location in the world. This is a critical skill that can be utilized in a wide range of applications that require a robot to be able to explore a region and return to its starting location, learn different paths to key locations in a world, and to traverse a region completely. Such applicatio...

The CSI-Effect (Crime Scene Investigation Effect) proposes that jurors tend to acquit suspects when forensic evidence doesn’t exist (or when existing technology fails to reveal sufficient forensic evidence). This study surveyed 71 students in Computer and Information Systems-related degree programs. Specifically, the survey attempted to answer two questions: 1) Does the technology portrayed in ...

have often said that the lupus erythematosus (LE) cell is the most important cell in all of medicine. Th is judgment does not refl ect the cell's putative function in auto-immunity but rather the insights it has provided into the mechanisms of autoimmunity. Discovered fortuitously by Hargraves and colleagues (see Suggested reading below) at the Mayo Clinic, the test to detect this cell is very ...