Keywords

Absorption spectra, Discriminant analysis, Dyes and dyeing -- Textile fibers, Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, Forensic sciences, Mass spectrometry, Microspectrophotometry, Multivariate analysis, Nonparametric statistics, Principal components analysis, Textile fibers -- Analysis

Abstract

The National Academy of Sciences recently published a report which calls for improvements to the field of forensic science. Their report criticized many forensic disciplines for failure to establish rigorously-tested methods of comparison, and encouraged more research in these areas to establish limitations and assess error rates. This study applies chemometric and statistical methods to current and developing analytical techniques in fiber analysis. In addition to analysis of commercially available dyed textile fibers, two pairs of dyes are selected based for custom fabric dyeing on the similarities of their absorbance spectra and dye molecular structures. Visible absorption spectra for all fiber samples are collected using microspectrophotometry (MSP) and mass spectra are collected using electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry. Statistical calculations are performed using commercial software packages and software written in-house. Levels of Type I and Type II error are examined for fiber discrimination based on hypothesis testing of visible absorbance spectra using a nonparametric permutation method. This work also explores evaluation of known and questioned fiber populations based on an assessment of p-value distributions from questioned-known fiber comparisons with those of known fiber self-comparisons. Results from the hypothesis testing are compared with principal components analysis (PCA) and discriminant analysis (DA) of visible absorption spectra, as well as PCA and DA of ESI mass spectra. The sensitivity of a statistical approach will also be discussed in terms of how instrumental parameters and sampling methods may influence error rates.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2010

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Sigman, Michael

Degree

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Chemistry

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0003454

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0003454

Language

English

Release Date

December 2010

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Sciences, Sciences -- Dissertations, Academic

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Chemistry Commons

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