MEPROCS framework for Craniofacial Superimposition: Validation study.

Craniofacial Superimposition (CFS) involves the process of overlaying a skull with a number of ante-mortem images of an individual and the analysis of their morphological correspondence. The lack of unified working protocols and the absence of commonly accepted standards, led to contradictory consensus regarding its reliability. One of the more important aims of 'New Methodologies and Protocols of Forensic Identification by Craniofacial Superimposition (MEPROCS)' project was to propose a common framework for CFS, what can be considered the first international standard in the field. The framework aimed to serve as a roadmap for avoiding particular assumptions that could bias the process. At the same time, it provides some empirical support to certain practices, technological means, and morphological criteria expected to facilitate the application of the CFS task and to improve its reliability. In order to confirm the utility and potential benefits of the framework use, there is a need to empirically evaluate it in CFS identification scenarios as close as possible to the reality. Thus, the purpose of this study is to validate the CFS framework developed. For that aim 12 participants were asked to report about a variable number of CFS following all the recommendations of the framework. The results are analysed and discussed according to the framework understanding and fulfilment, the participants' performance, and the correlation between expected decisions and those given by the participants. In view of the quantitative results and qualitative examination criteria we can conclude that those who follow the MEPROCS recommendations improve their performance.

Study on the performance of different craniofacial superimposition approaches (II): Best practices proposal.

Craniofacial superimposition, although existing for one century, is still a controversial technique within the scientific community. Objective and unbiased validation studies over a significant number of cases are required to establish a more solid picture on the reliability. However, there is lack of protocols and standards in the application of the technique leading to contradictory information concerning reliability. Instead of following a uniform methodology, every expert tends to apply his own approach to the problem, based on the available technology and deep knowledge on human craniofacial anatomy, soft tissues, and their relationships. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability of different craniofacial superimposition methodologies and the corresponding technical approaches to this type of identification. With all the data generated, some of the most representative experts in craniofacial identification joined in a discussion intended to identify and agree on the most important issues that have to be considered to properly employ the craniofacial superimposition technique. As a consequence, the consortium has produced the current manuscript, which can be considered the first standard in the field; including good and bad practices, sources of error and uncertainties, technological requirements and desirable features, and finally a common scale for the craniofacial matching evaluation. Such a document is intended to be part of a more complete framework for craniofacial superimposition, to be developed during the FP7-founded project MEPROCS, which will favour and standardize its proper application.

Study on the performance of different craniofacial superimposition approaches (I).

As part of the scientific tasks coordinated throughout The 'New Methodologies and Protocols of Forensic Identification by Craniofacial Superimposition (MEPROCS)' project, the current study aims to analyse the performance of a diverse set of CFS methodologies and the corresponding technical approaches when dealing with a common dataset of real-world cases. Thus, a multiple-lab study on craniofacial superimposition has been carried out for the first time. In particular, 26 participants from 17 different institutions in 13 countries were asked to deal with 14 identification scenarios, some of them involving the comparison of multiple candidates and unknown skulls. In total, 60 craniofacial superimposition problems divided in two set of females and males. Each participant follow her/his own methodology and employed her/his particular technological means. For each single case they were asked to report the final identification decision (either positive or negative) along with the rationale supporting the decision and at least one image illustrating the overlay/superimposition outcome. This study is expected to provide important insights to better understand the most convenient characteristics of every method included in this study.

Dispersion assessment in the location of facial landmarks on photographs.

The morphological assessment of facial features using photographs has played an important role in forensic anthropology. The analysis of anthropometric landmarks for determining facial dimensions and angles has been considered in diverse forensic areas. Hence, the quantification of the error associated to the location of facial landmarks seems to be necessary when photographs become a key element of the forensic procedure. In this work, we statistically evaluate the inter- and intra-observer dispersions related to the facial landmark identification on photographs. In the inter-observer experiment, a set of 18 facial landmarks was provided to 39 operators. They were requested to mark only those that they could precisely place on 10 photographs with different poses (frontal, oblique, and lateral views). The frequency of landmark location was studied together with their dispersion. Regarding the intra-observer evaluation, three participants identified 13 facial points on five photographs classified in the frontal and oblique views. Each landmark location was repeated five times at intervals of at least 24 h. The frequency results reveal that glabella, nasion, subnasale, labiale superius, and pogonion obtained the highest location frequency in the three image categories. On the contrary, the lowest rate corresponds to labiale inferius and menton. Meanwhile, zygia, gonia, and gnathion were significantly more difficult to locate than other facial landmarks. They produced a significant effect on the dispersion depending on the pose of the image where they were placed, regardless of the type of observer that positioned them. In particular, zygia and gonia presented a statistically greater variation in the three image poses, while the location of gnathion is less precise in oblique view photographs. Hence, our findings suggest that the latter landmarks tend to be highly variable when determining their exact position.

Computer vision and soft computing for automatic skull-face overlay in craniofacial superimposition.

Craniofacial superimposition can provide evidence to support that some human skeletal remains belong or not to a missing person. It involves the process of overlaying a skull with a number of ante mortem images of an individual and the analysis of their morphological correspondence. Within the craniofacial superimposition process, the skull-face overlay stage just focuses on achieving the best possible overlay of the skull and a single ante mortem image of the suspect. Although craniofacial superimposition has been in use for over a century, skull-face overlay is still applied by means of a trial-and-error approach without an automatic method. Practitioners finish the process once they consider that a good enough overlay has been attained. Hence, skull-face overlay is a very challenging, subjective, error prone, and time consuming part of the whole process. Though the numerical assessment of the method quality has not been achieved yet, computer vision and soft computing arise as powerful tools to automate it, dramatically reducing the time taken by the expert and obtaining an unbiased overlay result. In this manuscript, we justify and analyze the use of these techniques to properly model the skull-face overlay problem. We also present the automatic technical procedure we have developed using these computational methods and show the four overlays obtained in two craniofacial superimposition cases. This automatic procedure can be thus considered as a tool to aid forensic anthropologists to develop the skull-face overlay, automating and avoiding subjectivity of the most tedious task within craniofacial superimposition.

Performance of ceramic ultrafiltration membranes and fouling behavior of a dye-polysaccharide binary system.

Ultrafiltration membrane processes have become an established technology in the treatment and reuse of secondary effluents. Nevertheless, membrane fouling arises as a major obstacle in the efficient operation of these systems. In the current study, the performance of tubular ultrafiltration ceramic membranes was evaluated according to the roles exerted by membrane pore size, transmembrane pressure and feed concentration on a binary foulant system simulating textile wastewater. For that purpose, carboxymethyl cellulose sodium salt (CMC) and an azo dye were used as colloidal and organic foulants, respectively. Results showed that a larger pore size enabled more solutes to get adsorbed into the pores, producing a sharp permeate flux decline attributed to the rapid pore blockage. Besides, an increase in CMC concentration enhanced severe fouling in the case of the tighter membrane. Concerning separation efficiency, organic matter was almost completely removed with removal efficiency above 98.5%. Regarding the dye, 93% of rejection was achieved. Comparable removal efficiencies were attributed to the dynamic membrane formed by the cake layer, which governed process performance in terms of rejection and selectivity. As a result, none of the evaluated parameters showed significant influence on separation efficiency, supporting the significant role of cake layer on filtration process.

Study and optimization of the ultrasound-enhanced cleaning of an ultrafiltration ceramic membrane through a combined experimental-statistical approach.

Membrane fouling is one of the main drawbacks of ultrafiltration technology during the treatment of dye-containing effluents. Therefore, the optimization of the membrane cleaning procedure is essential to improve the overall efficiency. In this work, a study of the factors affecting the ultrasound-assisted cleaning of an ultrafiltration ceramic membrane fouled by dye particles was carried out. The effect of transmembrane pressure (0.5, 1.5, 2.5 bar), cross-flow velocity (1, 2, 3 ms(-1)), ultrasound power level (40%, 70%, 100%) and ultrasound frequency mode (37, 80 kHz and mixed wave) on the cleaning efficiency was evaluated. The lowest frequency showed better results, although the best cleaning performance was obtained using the mixed wave mode. A Box-Behnken Design was used to find the optimal conditions for the cleaning procedure through a response surface study. The optimal operating conditions leading to the maximum cleaning efficiency predicted (32.19%) were found to be 1.1 bar, 3 ms(-1) and 100% of power level. Finally, the optimized response was compared to the efficiency of a chemical cleaning with NaOH solution, with and without the use of ultrasound. By using NaOH, cleaning efficiency nearly triples, and it improves up to 25% by adding ultrasound.

Ultrafiltration technology with a ceramic membrane for reactive dye removal: optimization of membrane performance.

An ultrafiltration (UF) ceramic membrane was used to decolorize Reactive Black 5 (RB5) solutions at different dye concentrations (50 and 500 mg/L). Transmembrane pressure (TMP) and cross-flow velocity (CFV) were modified to study their influence on initial and steady-state permeate flux (J(p)) and dye rejection (R). Generally, J(p) increased with higher TMP and CFV and lower feed concentration, up to a maximum steady-state J(p) of 266.81 L/(m(2)h), obtained at 3 bar, 3m/s and 50mg/L. However, there was a TMP value (which changed depending on operating CFV and concentration) beyond which slight or no further increase in steady-state J(p) was observed. Similarly, the higher the CFV was, the more slightly the steady-state J(p) increased. Furthermore, the effectiveness of ultrafiltration treatment was evaluated through dye rejection coefficient. The results showed significant dye removals, regardless of the tested conditions, with steady-state R higher than 79.8% for the 50mg/L runs and around 73.2% for the 500 mg/L runs. Finally response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize membrane performance. At 50mg/L, a TMP of 4 bar and a CFV of 2.53 m/s were found to be the conditions giving the highest steady-state J(p), 255.86 L/(m(2)h), and the highest R, 95.2% simultaneously.

Influence of operating conditions on ceramic ultrafiltration membrane performance when treating textile effluents.

This work studies the performance of three commercial ceramic ultrafiltration membranes (ZrO(2)-TiO(2)) treating raw effluent from a textile industry. The effect of crossflow velocity at 3, 4 and 5 m s(-1) as well as membrane characteristics, such as molecular weight cut-off (30, 50 and 150 kDa), on process performance were studied. Experiments were carried out in concentration mode in order to observe the effect of volume reduction factor simultaneously. Results showed a combined influence of both crossflow velocity and molecular weight cut-off on flux performance. TOC and COD removals up to 70% and 84% respectively were reached. On the other hand, almost complete color (>97%) and turbidity (>99%) removals were achieved for all the membranes and operating conditions.

Identificación humana mediante superposición de imágenes. Una propuesta metodológica / Human identification by superimposition of images. A methodological proposal

Se presenta un nuevo método para la identificaciónhumana por medio de análisis de imágenes y superposiciónfotográfica. Se discuten las ventajas que aporta laincorporación de imágenes tridimensionales del cráneo,ya que, por un lado, facilitan la superposición y por otro,eliminan errores de escalado al estar el modelo 3D atamaño real. Este trabajo se ha desarrollado por un equipointerdisciplinar y su objetivo fundamental es proporcionaruna herramienta semiautomática de identificaciónhumana, basada en el reconocimiento craneofacial(AU)

We present a new method for human identificationby analysis of images and photographic superimposition.We discuss the advantages of including skull threedimensionalimages, that provide the overlap and eliminateerrors when scaling the 3D model in real size. This workwas developed by an interdisciplinary team and its goal is toprovide a tool for semi-automatic human identification,based on the craniofacial recognition(AU)

[Leptospirosis in children of Libreville: difficult diagnosis, apropos of 1 case]. / Leptospirose de l'enfant à Libreville: difficultés diagnostiques, à propos d'un cas.

Leptospirosis is a widespread zoonosis, which is diagnosed less frequently in children than might be expected from the level of exposure to hazards, especially in tropical areas. A 15 1/2-year-old Gabonese boy was admitted following five days of fever, headache, myalgia, abdominal pain, diarrhea, intestinal bleeding, jaundice and conjunctival suffusion. Laboratory data showed abnormal liver and renal function tests, and diagnosis of Plasmodium falciparum malaria was confirmed by thin blood smear. The patient did not clinically improve despite antimalarial treatment and then leptospirosis was suspected. Serologic tests were performed and leptospirosis was later confirmed. Antibiotic treatment (cefuroxim) was given. The outcome was good, liver and renal tests returned to normal in a few days. In tropical area, leptospirosis should be considered in children who are diagnosed with either an unexplained fever, a pseudo-influenza syndrome, or jaundice with hepatorenal involvement and gastrointestinal bleeding.

[Cutaneous lesions of bilharziosis. Report of fourteen cases (author's transl)]. / Les lésions cutanées de bilharziose. A propos de 14 observations.

The cutaneous localization of bilharziosis are infrequent. In a country of endemic disease, the Ivory Coast, where about 10 p. 100 of the population suffer from bilharziosis, it has been observed, between 1970 and 1980, 14 cases of cutaneous bilharziosis which have been diagnosed by micropathology. These lesions appear as papules or lichenoid plaques, usually clustering around umbilicus and upper dorsal regions. They require the presence of living eggs which induce the formation of a granuloma called "bilharziosis follicle", within which bilharziosis eggs are discovered. This reaction is explained by delayed hypersensitivity against soluble antigens of the eggs. The treatment is that of bilharziosis.