Optical and mechanical characterization of human tissue with a special focus on forensic applications

Determining the age of injuries on a victim's body is an important aspect of forensic medicine, for example in cases of abuse. Visual assessment is most commonly used to estimate the age of a bruise. However, interpretation of the finding is purely subjec tive and relies strongly on the skills and experience of the observer, and might be disturbed by factors like e.g. ambient lighting or photo quality. The uncertainty in the result is therefore comparatively large. Thus, there is a need for an objective, e asily manageable method to date bruises. This study has been initiated to develop such a method based on optical methods for tissue diagnostics, e.g. reflectance spectroscopy, combined with mathematical models developed to describe the temporal developmen t of a bruise. To construct such a method it is important to have a thorough knowledge about how human tissue responds to a traumatic incident. Skin thickness and diffusion properties in human skin are required parameters to determine the age of a bruise. The first phase of this project will focus on establishing the technology necessary to acquire the model parameters. The second phase will focus on development and testing of the mathematical algorithms on experimental data. This study will be of an inte rdisciplinary nature and will require a combined effort from electrical engineering, physics, biomechanics, medicine and forensic science. The project has a large commercial interest and a preliminary patent application has been filed in cooperation with the NTNU Technology transfer office.