title: The use of either the nose or outer ear as a means of determining the postmortem period of a human corpse.
abstract: Presented in this paper are the initial results involving the use of the nose or outer ear as temperature measurement sites to determine the postmortem period of the human corpse. Simple mathematical models for both sites are developed based on cooling curves of five corpses. Analysis of errors between actual and calculated postmortem intervals suggest that in its present form, the described methods would not be suitable for use in accurately determining the time since death of human corpses.
authors.affiliation: Medical Systems Research Group, ELSYM, University of Wales College Cardiff, UK.
authors.forename: L D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Nokes
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Flint
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jaafar
authors.forename: B H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Knight
mesh_terms: D001831:Body Temperature; D004424:Ear Canal; D005554:Forensic Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008433:Mathematics; D009296:Nasal Cavity; D011180:Postmortem Changes