title: Forensic examination of ink by high-performance thin layer chromatography--the United States Secret Service Digital Ink Library.
abstract: Forensic examinations of ink have been performed since the beginning of the 20th century. Since the 1960s, the International Ink Library, maintained by the United States Secret Service, has supported those analyses. Until 2009, the search and identification of inks were essentially performed manually. This paper describes the results of a project designed to improve ink samples' analytical and search processes. The project focused on the development of improved standardization procedures to ensure the best possible reproducibility between analyses run on different HPTLC plates. The successful implementation of this new calibration method enabled the development of mathematical algorithms and of a software package to complement the existing ink library.
authors.affiliation: Forensic Science Program, Eberly College of Science, The Pennsylvania State University, 107 Whitmore Lab, University Park, PA 16802, USA. cedric.neumann@me.com
authors.forename: Cedric
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Neumann
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ramotowski
authors.forename: Thibault
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Genessay
mesh_terms: D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D002855:Chromatography, Thin Layer / Q000379:methods*; D044707:Forensic Sciences / Q000379:methods*; D007281:Ink; D035846:Law Enforcement; D046609:Libraries, Digital; D014481:United States