Study on the performance of different craniofacial superimposition approaches (I)

Ibáñez O 1 , Vicente R 2 , Navega DS 2 , Wilkinson C 3 , Jayaprakash PT 4 , Huete MI 5 Show all authors , Briers T 6 , Hardiman R 7 , Navarro F 5 , Ruiz E 8 , Cavalli F 9 , Imaizumi K 10 , Jankauskas R 11 , Veselovskaya E 12 , Abramov A 13 , Lestón P 14 , Molinero F 14 , Cardoso J 15 , Çağdır AS 16 , Humpire D 17 , Nakanishi Y 3 , Zeuner A 3 , Ross AH 18 , Gaudio D 19 , Damas S 20

Affiliations 

  • 1 European Centre for Soft Computing, Mieres, Spain; Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
  • 2 Forensic Sciences Centre (CENCIFOR), Coimbra, Portugal; Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
  • 3 Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
  • 4 Science Program, School of Health Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian, Malaysia
  • 5 Physical Anthropology Laboratory, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
  • 6 South Africa Police Service, Pretoria, South Africa
  • 7 Melbourne Dental School, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
  • 8 Legal Medicine School, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
  • 9 Research Unit of Paleoradiology and Allied Sciences, Ospedali Riuniti di Trieste, Trieste, Italy
  • 10 National Research lnstitute of Police Science, Japan
  • 11 Department of Anatomy, Histology and Anthropology, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
  • 12 Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia
  • 13 Main Department of Criminalistics Investigation Committee of Russia, Moscow, Russia
  • 14 Department of Identification - Criminalist Services, Civil Guard, Madrid, Spain
  • 15 Crime scene investigation section, Forensic Laboratory, Portuguese Criminal Police, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 16 Council of forensic medicine, Istanbul, Turkey
  • 17 Public Ministry, Lima, Peru
  • 18 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA
  • 19 Laboratorio di Antropología e Odontologia Forense, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
  • 20 European Centre for Soft Computing, Mieres, Spain. Electronic address: sergio.damas@softcomputing.es
Forensic Sci Int, 2015 Dec;257:496-503.
PMID: 26060056 DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2015.05.030

Abstract

As part of the scientific tasks coordinated throughout The 'New Methodologies and Protocols of Forensic Identification by Craniofacial Superimposition (MEPROCS)' project, the current study aims to analyse the performance of a diverse set of CFS methodologies and the corresponding technical approaches when dealing with a common dataset of real-world cases. Thus, a multiple-lab study on craniofacial superimposition has been carried out for the first time. In particular, 26 participants from 17 different institutions in 13 countries were asked to deal with 14 identification scenarios, some of them involving the comparison of multiple candidates and unknown skulls. In total, 60 craniofacial superimposition problems divided in two set of females and males. Each participant follow her/his own methodology and employed her/his particular technological means. For each single case they were asked to report the final identification decision (either positive or negative) along with the rationale supporting the decision and at least one image illustrating the overlay/superimposition outcome. This study is expected to provide important insights to better understand the most convenient characteristics of every method included in this study.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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