A high-frequency heating extraction method was developed for drug analysis of human nails. A nail sample was placed in a glass tube with an extraction solvent and the glass tube was sealed. A ferromagnetic alloy was spirally placed around the glass tube. By applying high-frequency for 3 min, the temperature around the glass tube rose immediately to the Curie temperature of ferromagnetic alloy. After filtration, the extraction solvent was determined by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. Amlodipine and caffeine were detected from a nail of a hypertension patient by using this method. The extraction amounts of amlodipine and caffeine were 3 times higher than a conventional ultrasonic irradiation extraction method (30 min). This extraction method was successfully applied and detected probucol and cilostazol from the finger nails of volunteers. These results showed applicability of this method for drug screening of nail samples. It was thought that the drugs incorporated not only on the surface, but also on the center of nails, were effectively extracted by this extraction method. The characterization of drug pharmacokinetics of nails was carried out by comparing the results from two extraction methods, because drugs on the surface layer of nails can be extracted by the ultrasonic irradiation method. Some considerations about the pathways have also been described in this paper.

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  When printed materials are used to commit crimes, such as threatening letters, font identification is used to estimate the equipment that was used in their production. To identify the font of printed materials, comparison testing with a print reference sample is required. As retrieving the target print sample from a huge volume of samples requires significant time and effort, a method for automatically searching the font is required. In this paper, we propose a similarity measure using SIFT features, which are invariant local features to the zoom and rotation of the character, and a method of retrieving fonts using the similarity measure. Retrieval experiments were performed using 102 font types with 2,230 types of characters for each. The proposed method is effective for retrieving fonts, even when the character size of the query image and the database is different. Furthermore, we propose a method of retrieving fonts at high speed through dimension reduction using principal component analysis. We show that through the proposed speeding up method, the retrieval time can be reduced to one-quarter of the previous speed without lowering retrieval performance.

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  Handgun bullets fired toward the windshield of an automobile sometimes ricochets. In such a case, we must estimate the type of bullet and direction of shooting from the damaged windshield. The purpose of this study is to obtain a method to estimate the fired direction of a handgun bullet from the fractured windshield. We test fired bullets to an automobile windshield with various incidence angles. The thickness of the windshield is slightly different from model to model of the automobiles. In the beginning, we examined the strength of the automobile windshield of various car models. First, we examined the static failure strength of the windshield by an indentation test. In this test, fracture load and the amount of indentation were measured on windshield samples cut from ten models of Japanese automobiles. Next, we test fired a handgun in order to examine the relation between the trajectory of a bullet and the collision marks on the windshield. The cartridges used in these test firings were 38SPL. lead round nose (LRN) bullet and full metal cased (FMC) bullet. In the results of static indentation test for different car models, there was found to be almost no differences in the relationship between fracture load and indentation depth. With the LRN bullet, bullets perforated the windshield when the incidence angle was less than 45 degrees and ricocheted when the incidence angle was greater than 60 degrees. In these cases, a characteristic damage was left on the windshield. On the other hand, FMC bullets of 38SPL. perforated the windshield when the incidence angle was less than 60 degrees and ricocheted when the incidence angle was greater than 70 degrees. Based on these results, we proposed a method to estimate the direction of shooting in criminal cases in which a bullet was fired on an automobile windshield.

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  When traffic accidents happen, investigators observe the state of the vehicle at the crash site of the accident. Here the energy conservation law can be used to estimate the vehicle collision speed. Since the collision speed of the vehicle can be estimated from the energy of its deformed volume, investigators observe and measure the vehicle's crash state. However, when a vehicle collides into traffic signs, both the vehicle and sign will be deformed. Consequently, to estimate correctly the vehicle collision speed, the energy absorption capacity of the signs should be taken into account with the vehicle deformation after the crash.
  In this study, to improve the estimation of the collision speed of the vehicle, the drop weight tests were done to examine the absorption energy of the signs. The traffic signs used in this test are a road sign, a road mirror and a guard-rail on the roadside. From test results, it can be concluded that the input energy is linearly proportion to the deformed angle of the sign. Also from this test, the relationships between energy and deformed angle of the signs can be formulated. Identification for estimating the vehicle collision speed at an accident hereafter can be done properly with ease.

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  We have developed three semi-automated programs using image geometric transformation which replaces typical works by manual operation.
  When performing height measurement or object discrimination using a security video image, the image is distorted by lens aberrations, and it may affect the measurement value. We have developed a program which corrects distorted images, semi-automatically. Distortion corrected images were obtained by the principal component analysis using a known straight line in an image.
  Running condition of vehicles in a traffic accident is often estimated by analyzing the tachograph chart. Since the chart is a circular coordinate, reading error may occur. We have developed a program which transforms circle coordinate into rectangle coordinate. Circular tachograph was transformed into rectangular as amplitude vs. angle by polar coordinate transformation.
  Perspective transformation of images to the correct position is often done in case of image measurement in order to facilitate subsequent measurement, because various value are conserved in correct position image. Although four precise coordinates were generally required for perspective transformation, we considered it became possible only by a length using characteristics of ellipse. We have developed a program which performed perspective transformation using an elliptic object in an image. The ellipse was fitted using the least squares method by singular value decomposition, and images of correct position were acquired by transformation from an ellipse to a circle.

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  When DNA analysis is applied to hairs left at a crime scene, their surface could be contaminated with various materials. In this study, we examined washing methods to remove the contaminations from hairs. Hair shafts cut into approximately 1 cm were dipped in blood, saliva or semen, and left at room temperature for one night to dry the contaminated body fluids. The hairs were then washed by vortexing in water or washed with three detergent methods: agitating at 56℃ in 5% Terg-A-Zyme, agitating at 56℃ in DNA Away, or ultrasonicating in DNA Away. The washed hair samples were examined with ABO blood test, short tandem repeat (STR) analysis and mitochondrial DNA analysis. In ABO blood test, we examined one scalp hair and one pubic hair from one individual. In STR test and mitochondrial DNA test, we examined three scalp hairs and three pubic hairs from three individuals.
  In ABO blood test using the immunohistochemical staining, only the ultrasonication in DNA Away was examined. This washing method effectively removed the contaminant, and showed only the blood type derived from the hair. In STR analysis using the Identifiler plus kit, when 150 RFU was used as a threshold value, the contaminant peaks were observed in 37/54 samples (68.5%) by the water wash, but in 2/162 samples (1.23%) in total by the three detergent methods. When 30 RFU was used as a threshold value, the contaminant peaks were observed in 46/54 samples (85.2%) by the water wash, but in 66/162 samples (40.7%) in total by the three detergent methods. This result indicated that the three detergent methods all could decrease the peaks contaminated from the blood, the saliva and the semen better than the water wash. In the mitochondrial DNA analysis, the water-washed samples provided the mixed sequences of the hair and the contaminants, while the detergent-washed samples provided only the peaks of the hair.
  The three detergent-washing methods examined in this study were all effective to remove the contamination. However, they could affect hair root and make the STR analysis difficult. Therefore, caution should be considered when applying the detergent-washing methods to hair root of plucked hair.

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  We selected a group of men who acknowledged sexual interest in prepubescent girls based on the Sexual Desire Scale for Males (SDS-M). Subjects were members of the general population aged 18 years and above who were not in prison (N=573). The relationship between acknowledging sexual interest in prepubescent girls and factors such as their experience of sexual offence, personality traits, cognition towards women and use of pornography were examined. It was estimated that 10% of survey subjects had acknowledged sexual interest in prepubescent girls. Statistical analysis showed that acknowledging sexual interest in prepubescent girls was significantly related to experience of sexual offence against women, some of sexual desire, some of personality traits and acceptance of sexual violence. A significantly higher proportion of men who acknowledged sexual interest in prepubescent girls had experience of sexual offence against women and of using child pornography compared to those who did not. The results of this study suggest that an understanding of sexual interest in prepubescent girls requires the perspectives of cultural and social learning.

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  The influence of liquid cleaners on the inner wall coating of aluminum bottle cans was examined by a combination of 20 cleaners and 21 bottles. The bottle cans were classified into three types by their inner resin coatings. The coatings were an epoxy resin, another type of epoxy resin and a polyester resin. After a small portion of liquid cleaners were dropped on the epoxy resin inner coatings of bottles, one of the cleaners generated hydrogen bubbles but the other 19 cleaners caused no effect. This phenomenon was not observed even after about twenty hours when using other liquid cleaners. A mixture of alkalis (NaOH and KOH) and a solvent (diethylene glycol mono-n-butyl ether) in the components of the liquid cleaner in question brought the same phenomenon, and the concentration of the solvent and the time taken to start bubbling were correlated. Therefore, we concluded that because the solvent denatured the inner resin coating of aluminum bottle cans, the alkalis were made accessible to aluminum and generated hydrogen bubbles as a result.

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