U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Forensic Science

Search Publications

Search Title, Abstract, Conference, Citation, Keyword or Author
Published Date
Displaying 176 - 200 of 540

A Highly-enriched 244Pu Reference Material for Nuclear Safeguards and Nuclear Forensic Measurements

January 26, 2021
Author(s)
Richard Essex, Ross W. Williams, Kerri C. Treinen, Amelie Hubert, Marc A. Humphrey, Jeremy D. Inglis, William S. Kinman, Joel Maassen, Maxim V. Penkin, Robert E. Steiner
A highly-enriched 244Pu isotope dilution reference material has been prepared and characterized for metrologically traceable measurements of very small quantities of plutonium. The amount of plutonium in samples associated with nuclear safeguards and

A new highly enriched 233U reference material for improved simultaneous determination of uranium amount and isotope amount ratios in trace level samples

January 26, 2021
Author(s)
Richard Essex, Ross W. Williams, Kayron T. Rogers, Cole R. Hexel, Tashi Parsons-Davis, Kerri C. Treinen
A highly-enriched 233U reference material (>0.99987 n(233U)/n(U)) has been prepared and characterized for use as an isotope dilution mass spectrometry spike. An ion exchange separation was performed on 1 gram of high purity 233U to further reduce trace

An Interlaboratory Study Evaluating the Interpretation of Forensic Glass Evidence Using Refractive Index Measurements and Elemental Composition

January 12, 2021
Author(s)
Ruthmara Corzo, Tricia Hoffman, Troy Ernst, Tatiana Trejos, Ted Berman, Sally Coulson, Peter Weis, Aleksandra Stryjnik, Hendrick Dorn, Edward Chip Pollock, Michael Scott Workman, Patrick Jones, Brendan Nytes, Thomas Scholz, Huifang Xie, Katherine Igowsky, Randall Nelson, Kris Gates, Jhanis Gonzalez, Lisa-Mareen Voss, Jose Almirall
Seventeen laboratories participated in three interlaboratory exercises to assess the performance of refractive index, micro X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (µXRF), and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) data for the forensic comparison of glass

NIST Scientific Foundation Reviews

December 18, 2020
Author(s)
John M. Butler, Hariharan K. Iyer, Richard A. Press, Melissa Taylor, Peter Vallone, Sheila Willis
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a scientific research agency that works to advance measurement science, standards, and technology and that has been working to strengthen forensic science methods for almost a century. In recent

2018 Media Forensics Challenges (MFC18): Summary and Results

November 12, 2020
Author(s)
Yooyoung Lee, Amy Yates, Haiying Guan, Jonathan G. Fiscus, Daniel Zhou
The interest of forensic techniques capable of detecting many different manipulation types has been growing, and system developments with machine learning technology have been evolving in recent years. There has been, however, a lack of diverse data

Media Forensics Challenge Image Provenance Evaluation and State-of-the-Art Analysis on Large-Scale Benchmark Datasets

October 26, 2020
Author(s)
Xiongnan Jin, Yooyoung Lee, Jonathan G. Fiscus, Haiying Guan, Amy Yates, Andrew Delgado, Daniel F. Zhou
With the development of storage, transmission, editing, and sharing tools, digital forgery images are propagating rapidly. The need for image provenance analysis has never been more timely. Typical applications are content tracking, copyright enforcement

Two-temperature preparation method for PDMS-based canine training aids for explosives

October 8, 2020
Author(s)
William A. MacCrehan, Mimy Young, Michele M. Schantz, T C. Angle, Paul Waggoner, Terrance Fisher
Training aids based on vapor capture-and-release into a flexible polymer, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), have proven successful in canine detection of explosives that have volatile or semi- volatile odorants. To enhance the rate of odor capture for less

Firearm examination: Examiner judgments and computer-based comparisons

September 24, 2020
Author(s)
Erwin J. Mattijssen, Cilia Witteman, Charles Berger, Xiaoyu Alan Zheng, Johannes A. Soons, Reinoud Stoel
Forensic firearm examination provides the court of law with information about the source of fired cartridge cases. We assessed the validity of source decisions of a computer-based method and of 73 firearm examiners who compared breechface and firing pin

NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Challenges

August 25, 2020
Author(s)
Martin Herman, Michaela Iorga, Ahsen Michael Salim, Robert H. Jackson, Mark R. Hurst, Ross Leo, Richard Lee, Nancy Landreville, Anand K. Mishra, Yien Wang, Rodrigo Sardinas
This document summarizes research performed by the members of the NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Working Group and aggregates, categorizes, and discusses the forensics challenges faced by experts when responding to incidents that have occurred in a

Decade(s) of Development in Forensic Science

July 15, 2020
Author(s)
John Butler
On November 12, 2019, at a special anniversary conference entitled "Forensic Science: A Decade of Developments" held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), I provided an overview of developments across the forensic science

NIST Media Forensic Challenge (MFC) Evaluation 2020 - 4th Year DARPA MediFor PI meeting

July 15, 2020
Author(s)
Jonathan G. Fiscus, Haiying Guan, Yooyoung Lee, Amy Yates, Andrew Delgado, Daniel F. Zhou, Timothee N. Kheyrkhah, Xiongnan Jin
The presentation slides summarize NIST Media Forensic Challenge (MFC) Evaluation, and present MFC20 evaluation reports in DARPA MediFor PI meeting. The slides contains five parts: Overview, Image Tasks, Video Tasks, Camera ID Verification Tasks, Provenance

Classification of STR allelic variation using massively parallel sequencing and assessment of flanking region power

July 12, 2020
Author(s)
Laurence Devesse, Lucinda Davenport, Lisa Borsuk, Katherine Gettings, Gabriella Mason-Buck, Peter Vallone, David Ballard
The application of massively parallel sequencing (MPS) to forensic genetics has led to improvements in multiple aspects of DNA analysis, however, additional complexities are concurrently associated with these advances. In relation to short tandem repeat

DNA mixture interpretation principles: insights from the NIST scientific foundation review

July 1, 2020
Author(s)
John Butler, Hariharan Iyer, Richard Press, Melissa Taylor, Peter Vallone, Sheila Willis
DNA mixture interpretation has become more challenging in recent years due to several factors including submission of more touch evidence samples to aid investigations and generation of more sensitive DNA test results with new STR typing kits. This

Visualizing Shed Skin Cells in Fingerprint Residue using Dark Field Microscopy

March 5, 2020
Author(s)
Shinichiro N. Muramoto, William Osborn, J Greg Gillen
The proof of concept study was able to show that dark field microscopy could be used to provide sufficient contrast for cell visualization in fingerprints with high sebum content. Although the application is limited to smooth surfaces that do not scatter

Forensic Handwriting Examination and Human Factors: Improving the Practice Through a Systems Approach

February 17, 2020
Author(s)
Melissa Taylor, Carolyne Bird, Brett Bishop, Ted Burkes, Michael P. Caligiuri, Bryan Found, Wesley P. Grose, Lauren R. Logan, Kenneth E. Melson, Mara L. Merlino, Larry S. Miller, Linton Mohammed, Jonathan Morris, John Paul Osborn, Nikola Osborne, Brent Ostrum, Christopher P. Saunders, Scott A. Shappell, H. David Sheets, Sargur N. Srihari, Reinoud D. Stoel, Thomas W. Vastrick, Heather E. Waltke, Emily J. Will
For some 6,000 years, humans have made an indelible mark on history through the loops, strokes, and other characters that constitute the written form of language - handwriting. The study of handwriting is also an important part of forensic science. By

NIST Ballistics Toolmark Research Database

January 27, 2020
Author(s)
Xiaoyu Alan Zheng, Johannes A. Soons, Robert M. Thompson, Sushama P. Singh, Cerasela Constantin
In 2009, a report by the National Academies called into question, amongst other issues, the objectivity of visual toolmark identification by firearms examiners. The National Academies recommended development of objective toolmark identification criteria

Results of the 2018 Rapid DNA Maturity Assessment

January 27, 2020
Author(s)
Erica L. Romsos, Peter Vallone
Three commercially available integrated rapid DNA instruments were tested as a part of a rapid DNA maturity assessment in the July of 2018. The assessment was conducted with sets of blinded single-source reference samples to gauge the typing success of the
Was this page helpful?