Eric and Glenn discuss their holiday parties and preparations, play another round of "Where in the Whorld?", and then interview a guest all the way from Sydney, Australia.  Teneil Hannah, a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), joins the podcast to talk about some of her recently presented research on fingermark grading/quality scales.  These are scales used by practitioners or researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of potentially new processing and visualization techniques to develop latent fingerprints.  Whenever a laboratory is deciding to adopt a new treatment or change an existing one, the lab is expected to perform testing to evaluate the technique.  There are a number of scales available to assess latent prints.  Teneil walks us through what the most common scales are, who is using what, why are these scales important, and what modifications can be made to existing scales to improve their wide spread adoption and usage.

References from Episode:

CAST Scale
Bandey, H.L. and Gibson, A.P., The Powders Process, Study 2: Evaluation of Fingerprint Powders on Smooth Surfaces, in Fingerprint Development and Imaging Newsletter. 2006.

UNIL Scale
Becue, A., Moret, S., Champod, C., and Margot, P., Use of quantum dots in aqueous solution to detect blood fingermarks on non-porous surfaces. Forensic Science International, 2009. 191: p. 36-41.

UC Scale
McLaren, C., Lennard, C., and Stoilovic, M., Methylamine Pretreatment of Dry Latent Fingermarks on Polyethylene for Enhanced Detection by Cyanoacrylate Fuming. Journal of Forensic Identification, 2010. 60: p. 199-222.

IFRG Guidelines
International Fingerprint Research Group, Guidelines for the assessment of fingermark detection techniques. Journal of Forensic Identification, 2014. 64: p. 174-197.

Hockey, D; Dove, A; Kent, T.  Guideline for the use and statistical analysis of the Home Office fingermark grading scheme for comparing fingermark development techniques.  For Sci Intl 318 (2021) 110604.

Hanna, T; Chadwick, S; Moret, S.  Fingermark quality assessment, a transversal study of subjective quality scales.  For Sci Intl 350 (2023) 111783.

Double Loop Podcast

Episode 262 - Teneil Hannah Interview

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray spent the past few months traveling to conferences far and wide. This episode they catch up with each other on recent travels, stories from the road, and some of the presentations that they saw over the past few months. It's a laid-back episode, so join us for as we catch up with each other. (There's also a big reveal in this episode. Can you figure it out before Eric does?)

Episode 261 - Fall Travel Catchup

In this episode, Eric and Glenn interview Caitlin Rough, a Masters student at the University of Western Sydney.  Glenn saw Caitlin present at the IAFS conference back in November 2023.  She comes onto the podcast to discuss her research project involving the interactions of latent prints (sebaceous residues) and blood.  This work is near and dear to Glenn because of his previous work with Praska (see reference below).  Caitlin discusses her observations with blood and a new twist of applying blood through various blood stain pattern mechanisms, such as swipes, spatter, pooling, and dripping.  She observed the blood’s lipophobic reaction to the sebaceous ridge detail, which re-distributes the blood (often into the furrows of the mark).  She also observed intermittent reactions of the blood with unknown components in the residue (as Glenn and Praska previously did).  The guys discuss the implications of the research and next steps with Caitlin.

Praska, N. and G. Langenburg. “Reactions of latent prints to exposed blood.” Forensic Science. International. 2013. (224): 51-58. 77

Bloody fingermark training available at www.EvolveForensics.com
https://learn.evolveforensics.com/product-category/webinars/

Episode 263 - Caitlin Rough Interview

Glenn and Eric start by talking about their Christmas plans, followed by a game of “Where in the Whorld”.  They then welcome their guest, Dr. Bethany Growns, a lecturer and psychologist at the University of Canterbury, in New Zealand.  Bethany joins the show to discuss her research on matchers, super-matchers, and research she has conducted with novices (lay people), fingerprint, firearms, and facial recognition experts.  She discusses the advantages of natural ability v. trained expertise and how it impacts one’s ability to perform matching tasks in the expert’s domain v. other domains.  The guys ask questions about how to utilize this research to impact training programs.  Finally, they discuss more aspects of the IAFS conference where Glenn met Bethany.

Growns B, Dunn JD, Mattijssen EJAT, Quigley-McBride A, Towler A. Match me if you can: Evidence for a domain-general visual comparison ability. Psychon Bull Rev. 2022 Jun;29(3):866-881. doi: 10.3758/s13423-021-02044-2. Epub 2022 Jan 7. PMID: 34997551; PMCID: PMC9166871.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9166871/

Other publications by Growns https://www.bethanygrowns.com/publications

Are you a super-matcher?  Test your skills!
Sign up to participate in studies by Dr. Growns:
https://canterbury.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_038MorkGlc9SDoW

Episode 265 - Dr. Bethany Growns Interview

Eric and Glenn respond to the recent allegations that a computer science undergraduate at Columbia University, using Artificial Intelligence, has “proven that fingerprints aren’t unique” or at least…that’s how the media is mischaracterizing a new published paper by Guo, et al.  The guys dissect the actual publication (“Unveiling intra-person fingerprint similarity via deep contrastive learning” in Science Advances, 2024 by Gabe Guo, et al.).  They state very clearly what the paper actually does show, which is a far cry from the headlines and even public dissemination originating from Columbia University and the author.  The guys talk about some of the important limitations of the study and how limited the application is to real forensic investigations.  They then explore some of the media and social media outlets that have clearly misunderstood this paper and seem to have little understanding of forensic science.  Finally, Eric and Glenn look at some quotes and comments from knowledgeable sources who also have recognized the flaws in the paper, the authors’ exaggerations, and lack of understanding of the value of their findings.

Gabe Guo et al. ,Unveiling intra-person fingerprint similarity via deep contrastive learning.Sci. Adv.10, eadi0329(2024). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adi0329

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi0329

https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/news/ai-discovers-not-every-fingerprint-unique

https://for-sci-law.blogspot.com/

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/12/world/fingerprints-ai-based-study-scn/index.html

Episode 264 - Fingerprints Proven by AI to Not Be Unique!

In this post-New Year’s Eve 2023-2024 episode, the guys start by discussing their New Year’s Eve and play another round of Where in the Whorld.  They then introduce their guest from the New South Wales Police Force, Andrew Chapman.  Glenn had the benefit of seeing Andy’s presentation at IAFS in Sydney.  Andy presented on a fingerprint black box error rate study conducted with laypeople, trainees, and experts in New South Wales, Australia.  The guys discuss various statistics in the study, especially when comparing across the participant groups.  The Aussie data are very similar to U.S. examiner data and the guys draw some parallels to other research.  The guys also discuss some novel aspects to the study design that make this one such a fascinating study.

Episode 266 - Andy Chapman Interview - Aussie Black Box Study

Eric and Glenn host another guest from Australia in today’s episode.  After another round of Where in the Whorld and a few stories from Eric’s childhood, the guys welcome Chloe George from New South Wales Police Force, Australia.  Glenn saw Chloe present at IAFS, where her presentation on phalange pattern classification won best Oral (Presentation).  Chloe introduces a system of phalange pattern classification first described by Marie Ploetz-Radmann in 1937.  She walks us through the system and the 12 general pattern types in phalanges and then also shares her personal data and testing that she performed.

A copy of her IAFS presentation can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yrUsOFM5alJV1rQcrTGXiQkDb-3DuWUO/edit#slide=id.p5

Episode 267- Chloe George Interview - Research on Phalange Patterns

Eric Ray and Glenn Langenburg sit down for a chat with Steve Johnson about face examiners, face comparisons, and the IAI. Steve's background includes latent prints, forensic art, face comparison, crime scene, and many positions with the IAI. He shares the future of the face discipline and how the IAI is working towards a certification process.

Episode 268 - Steve Johnson Interview

Glenn and Eric are joined by Angela Hilliard to discuss her experiences with a cold case from the Pacific Northwest. Genetic genealogy provided a suspect's name from a cold case double homicide, and a latent palm print was left on the victim's van. Angela walks us through her initial erroneous exclusion, the subsequent identification, court testimony, and the resulting press coverage. A must-listen episode for examiners on how to handle erroneous conclusions, even in high-profile cases. (Apologies for the audio in this episode. We did not realize until later that some of audio was poorer quality than normal.)

Episode 273 - Angela Hilliard Interview - Erroneous Exclusions

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray review two articles from Cell that focus on the genetic basis for ridge development and pattern formation. 'The developmental basis of fingerprint pattern formation and variation' by Glover, et al., and 'Limb development genes underlie variation in human fingerprint patterns' by Li, et al. Our understanding of these complex processes continues to grow, and these papers further support our field and our conclusions.

Episode 283 - DNA & Patterns

Whether you're a practicing Latent Print Examiner or you're interested in forensics and true crime, the Double Loop Podcast is a weekly show featuring Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray discussing latent print topics, current events in forensic science, the newest research articles, interesting guests, and analysis of notable cases from a forensic scientist perspective.

New tracks tagged #Glenn Langenburg