title: A comparison of efficiency of manual and automatic fibres search with the Maxcan fibre finder.
abstract: The aim of this work was to study the efficiency of automatic fibre searching with the Maxcan fibre finder (Cox Analytical Systems, Sweden) in comparison to manual searching. The influence of some parameters (color, thickness, background noise) on the results of a fibre search was considered. Eighteen experimental tapes with different target fibres and different background noises were prepared in the laboratory. Searching of fibres was performed manually and with the Maxcan fibre finder by different operators from four European laboratories. Two laboratories have the Maxcan fibre finder system and the two instruments were used and compared in this study. The results show that searching with the Maxcan is generally as efficient as manual searching, except for very pale or very dark fibres. Note that the tapes used for these experiments were prepared in laboratory, and are not completely representative of the tape that could be obtained in real cases. To generalize the results obtained, further research on real case samples would be necessary.
authors.affiliation: Ecole de Sciences Criminelles, Institut de Police Scientifique, University of Lausanne, BCH/UNIL, CH-1015 Dorigny, Switzerland. Florence.MonardSermier@unil.ch
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Monard Sermier
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Massonnet
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Buzzini
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fortini
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gason
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: De Wael
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rovas