Devidas S. Bhagat

Ink analysis is one of the most important and keydimension of forensic document examination (FDE). It is performed to compare, identify, characterize and discriminate different kinds of inks present on questioned document. It becomes key evidence in forensic document examination. In the present work, thirty-eight blue gel pens are discriminated using visible spectroscopy coupled with chemometric techniques. The recorded spectra were visually compared followed by chemometric techniques of principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Discriminating power for visual comparison, PCA and LDA are 58.18%, 100% and 100% respectively. Developed PCA model is validated and 100% accuracy, precision, sensitivity and specificity are achieved. Blue gel pen inks were 100% correctly differentiated on the basis of their brands using PCA followed by LDA. The utilized approach is fast and provides reproducible results. The results of present work demonstrate that potential utility of conventional and cost-effective visible spectroscopy can be improved by coupling it with these chemometric techniques. Major advantage of present research is the minimum damage caused to document. This study establishes a method which provides proof of concept discrimination of the gel pen samples. The methodology adopted in present work can be applied in the alteration cases in examination of suspected documents. 

This review focuses on the current trends in the use of doped metallic nanomaterials in forensic science for the development and detection of latent fingerprints (LFPs) on various surfaces which provide better fingerprint image quality. The advantages and important results of studies conducted on latent fingerprints detection with various doped metallic nanomaterials are critically discussed. We also glimpse on fluorescent nanoparticles that have succeeded in producing high-quality fingerprint images which lead to the extraction of all three levels of fingerprint features. A few metallic nanomaterials used for latent fingerprints detection did not produce high-quality fingerprint images failing extraction of all three levels of fingerprint features. To overcome this forensic problem more research is needed to improve the latent fingerprint detection abilities of doped metallic nanomaterials.