Our goal is to share how CSAFE research directly impacts the forensic science community. To connect you with the latest advancements, our team publicizes research results in peer-reviewed scientific journals and at worldwide forensic science conferences.
Below you will find links to full publications resulting from center research, as well as copies of recent presentation slides. Looking for more CSAFE products? Find research tools and datasets in our resources section.
Materials By Research Area
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What’s in a Name? Consistency in Latent Print Examiners’ Naming Conventions and Perceptions of Minutiae Frequency
Type: Presentation Slides Research Area(s): Implementation and Practice,Latent Print
Published: 2023 | By: Heidi Eldridge
Fingerprint minutia types influence LPEs’ decision-making processes during analysis and evaluation, with features perceived to be rarer generally given more weight. However, no large-scale studies comparing examiner perceptions of minutiae frequency to empirical counts exist. Additionally, examiner naming conventions for…
An alternative statistical framework for measuring proficiency
Type: Presentation Slides Research Area(s): Forensic Statistics,Latent Print
Published: 2023 | By: Amanda Luby
Item Response Theory, a class of statistical methods used prominently in educational testing, can be used to measure LPE proficiency in annual tests or research studies, while simultaneously accounting for varying difficulty among comparisons. Using black box studies in latent…
Examiner variability in pattern evidence: proficiency, inconclusive tendency, and reporting styles
Type: Presentation Slides Research Area(s): Forensic Statistics,Latent Print
Published: 2023 | By: Amanda Luby
The current approach to characterizing uncertainty in pattern evidence disciplines has focused on error rate studies, which provide aggregated error rates over many examiners and pieces of evidence. However, decisions are often not unanimous and error frequency is likely to…
Statistical Interpretation and Reporting of Fingerprint Evidence: FRStat Introduction and Overview
Type: Presentation Slides,Short Courses Research Area(s): Forensic Statistics,Latent Print,Training and Education
Published: 2023 | By: Jeff Salyards
The FRStat is a tool designed to help quantify the strength of fingerprint evidence. Following lengthy development and validation with assistance from CSAFE and NIST, in 2017 the FRStat was implemented at the USACIL. FRStat is now freely available and…
A Gentle Introduction to the Likelihood Ratio: Basic Ideas, Implementation, and Limitations
Type: Presentation Slides Research Area(s): Forensic Statistics
Published: 2023 | By: Alicia Carriquiry
The workshop focuses on the likelihood ratio (LR) approach in forensic science. The LR, a one-number summary, quantifies how well the observations/results are explained by the prosecution’s versus the defense’s propositions. While the basic idea behind the LR is simple…
Shoeprint Alignment and Comparison using Maximum Cliques
Type: Presentation Slides Research Area(s): Footwear,Forensic Statistics
Published: 2023 | By: Gautham Venkatasubramanian
This presentation is from the 107th International Association for Identification (IAI) Annual Educational Conference, National Harbor, Maryland, August 20-26, 2023. Posted with permission of CSAFE.
An algorithm for source identification of footwear impressions—its application on pristine shoeprints and crime-scene like shoeprints
Type: Presentation Slides Research Area(s): Footwear,Forensic Statistics
Published: 2023 | By: Hana Lee
This presentation is from the 107th International Association for Identification (IAI) Annual Educational Conference, National Harbor, Maryland, August 20-26, 2023. Posted with permission of CSAFE.
Diagnostic Tools for Automatic Cartridge Case Comparisons
Type: Presentation Slides Research Area(s): Firearms and Toolmarks,Forensic Statistics
Published: 2023 | By: Joseph Zemmels
The following was presented at the Association of Firearm and Tool Mark Examiners (AFTE) 2023, Austin, Texas, May 21-26, 2023. Copyright 2023, The Authors. Posted with permission of CSAFE.
Algorithmic assessment of striation similarity between wire cuts
Type: Presentation Slides Research Area(s): Forensic Statistics
Published: 2023 | By: Yuhang Lin
The following was presented at the Association of Firearm and Tool Mark Examiners (AFTE) 2023, Austin, Texas, May 21-26, 2023. Copyright 2023, The Authors. Posted with permission of CSAFE.
An Anti-Fuzzing Approach for Android Apps
Type: Conference Proceeding,Publication Research Area(s): Digital
Published: 2023 | By: Chris Chao-Chun Cheng
One of significant mobile app forensic analysis problems is the app evidence extraction from the device. Given the fact that mobile apps could generate more than 19K files in a device [6], simply manually inspecting every file is time consuming…
Forensic Analysis of Android Cryptocurrency Wallet Applications
Type: Conference Proceeding,Publication Research Area(s): Digital
Published: 2023 | By: Chen Shi
Crypto wallet apps that integrate with various block-chains allow the users to make digital currencies transaction with QR codes. According to reports from financesonline [3], there is over 68 million crypto wallet app users in 2021. As new crypto wallets…
Variations and Extensions of Information Leakage Metrics with Applications to Privacy Problems with Imperfect Statistical Information
Type: Conference Proceeding,Publication Research Area(s): Digital,Forensic Statistics
Published: 2023 | By: Shahnewaz Karim Sakib
The conventional information leakage metrics assume that an adversary has complete knowledge of the distribution of the mechanism used to disclose information correlated with the sensitive attributes of a system. The only uncertainty arises from the specific realizations that are…
Camera Device Identification and the Effects of Underexposure
Type: Dissertation,Publication Research Area(s): Digital,Forensic Statistics
Published: 2023 | By: Seth Pierre
Technology today allows a photograph from a digital camera to be matched with the camera that took it. However, the matching software was created over 10 years ago using data that is not necessarily representative of today’s data. The objective…
Shifting decision thresholds can undermine the probative value and legal utility of forensic pattern-matching evidence
Type: Publication Research Area(s): Forensic Statistics,Implementation and Practice
Published: 2023 | By: William Thompson
Forensic pattern analysis requires examiners to compare the patterns of items such as fingerprints or tool marks to assess whether they have a common source. This article uses signal detection theory to model examiners’ reported conclusions (e.g., identification, inconclusive, or…
A statistical approach to aid examiners in the forensic analysis of handwriting
Type: Publication Research Area(s): Forensic Statistics,Handwriting
Published: 2023 | By: Amy Crawford
We develop a statistical approach to model handwriting that accommodates all styles of writing (cursive, print, connected print). The goal is to compute a posterior probability of writership of a questioned document given a closed set of candidate writers. Such…
Ensemble learning for score likelihood ratios under the common source problem
Type: Publication Research Area(s): Forensic Statistics
Published: 2023 | By: Federico Veneri
Machine learning-based score likelihood ratios (SLRs) have emerged as alternatives to traditional likelihood ratios and Bayes factors to quantify the value of evidence when contrasting two opposing propositions. When developing a conventional statistical model is infeasible, machine learning can be…
A method for quantifying individual decision thresholds of latent print examiners
Type: Publication Research Area(s): Forensic Statistics,Latent Print
Published: 2023 | By: Amanda Luby
In recent years, ‘black box’ studies in forensic science have emerged as the preferred way to provide information about the overall validity of forensic disciplines in practice. These studies provide aggregated error rates over many examiners and comparisons, but errors…
The q–q Boxplot
Type: Publication Research Area(s): Forensic Statistics
Published: 2021 | By: Jordan Rodu
Boxplots have become an extremely popular display of distribution summaries for collections of data, especially when we need to visualize summaries for several collections simultaneously. The whiskers in the boxplot show only the extent of the tails for most of…
A Study in Reproducibility: The Congruent Matching Cells Algorithm and cmcR Package
Type: Publication Research Area(s): Firearms and Toolmarks
Published: 2023 | By: Joseph Zemmels
Scientific research is driven by our ability to use methods, procedures, and materials from previous studies and further research by adding to it. As the need for computationally-intensive methods to analyze large amounts of data grows, the criteria needed to…
Forensic Science in Legal Education
Type: Publication Research Area(s): Training and Education
Published: 2021 | By: brandon Garrett
In criminal cases, forensic science reports and expert testimony play an increasingly important role in adjudication. More states now follow a federal reliability standard, following Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals and Rule 702, which call upon judges to assess the…
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