Semester
Spring
Date of Graduation
2011
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MS
College
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department
Forensic and Investigative Science
Committee Chair
Keith B. Morris
Committee Member
Suzanne Bell
Committee Member
Carl Necker
Abstract
When entering cartridge case exhibits into the Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS®), examiners have the ability to manually manipulate three parameters: lighting intensity, ring selection and exhibit orientation. User guidelines for these settings are subjective, and the effect of examiner variation is largely unknown. If examiner variation negatively affects the returned correlation scores, the ability of the system to return true positives will be compromised. By entering cartridge cases into IBIS® 88 separate times, using 88 different combinations of parameter settings, the effect of these variables was determined. Analysis of variance testing revealed that no variable has a statistically significant effect on average true positive combined correlation scores or results list position. This did not change when the parameters were tested individually or in combination. Results indicate that examiner variability of cartridge case image acquisition has no effect on the outcome of IBIS®. The system’s matching algorithm is robust enough to handle exhibit entry and data collection without the intervention of human input. For this reason, acquisition could be completely automated, allowing examiners to focus on the decision making stage of cartridge case comparison.
Recommended Citation
Scicchitano, Kristine M., "The Effect of Examiner Variation in Cartridge Case Acquisition on IBIS® Correlation Scores and the Ability of the System to Return a True Positive" (2011). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 13171.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/13171