Title
Automated pollen identification system for forensic geo-historical location applications
Date Issued
01 December 2013
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
conference paper
Author(s)
Hwang G.M.
Riley K.C.
Christou C.T.
Jacyna G.M.
Woodard J.P.
Ryan R.M.
Bush M.B.
McMichael C.N.H.
Punyasena S.W.
Masters D.L.
Florida Institute of Technology
Publisher(s)
MassportGovernment Technology and Services Coalition (GTSC)IEEE Boston Section
Abstract
The use of pollen grain analysis for forensic geo-historical location has been explored for several decades, yet it is not widely adopted in the United States. We confirmed significant improvement in geographic precision, i.e., from 2.5×107 to 1.2×105 km2, by simultaneously applying flowering plant data from four different taxa at the genus and species levels. Moreover, when we calculated precision using collected pollen data, we found that co-occurring, pairwise genus-level distinctions based on expert-provided indicator taxa resulted in average precision values of 4° and 4.5° in latitude and longitude, respectively - corresponding to roughly 1.8×105 km2. We also applied computer vision techniques to identify morphologically similar pollen grains, which resulted in grain-identification error rates of 2.18% and 6.24% at the genus and species levels, respectively, surpassing previously published records. Collectively, our results demonstrate that algorithmic identification of species-specific pollen morphology, founded on established computer vision techniques, when combined with species-level pollen distribution, has the potential to revolutionize the scope, accuracy, and precision of forensic geographic attribution. © 2013 IEEE.
Start page
297
End page
303
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Ingeniería, Tecnología
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84893222355
Resource of which it is part
2013 IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security, HST 2013
ISBN of the container
9781479915354
Conference
13th IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security, HST 201312 November 2013through 14 November 2013
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus