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Bio:Julia Pierce is a freelance science journalist based in Cornwall. She haswritten for titles including the New Scientist, the Independent, the Daily Mailand The Engineer.

SOFTWARE ON CRIME

When it comes to the fight against crime, new technologies are provingessential in helping police and security forces identify suspiciousindividuals as well as actual perpetrators, aiding their prosecution. Britishuniversities are at the forefront of developing such systems, ranging fromenhanced close circuit television (CCTV) units to new forensic techniques- and even ways of spotting people acting suspiciously before a crimeoccurs.

At Portsmouth University, researchers are using sound cues to identify potentialcrimes in progress. If a particular noise is identified, this can trigger CCTVcameras to turn towards the source, making sure any crime is captured andalerting control room operators. While CCTV surveillance can help identifycriminals after a crime has occurred, perhaps recording someone making theirescape down a nearby road, cameras do not always catch the act in progress.By modifying software currently used to identify visual patterns, the researchersat Portsmouth aim to allow the technology to pick out unusual noises and traincameras in this direction. We are looking at sound and the signatures in sound -you can identify an abnormal noise such as a scream by looking at the shape ofthe sound wave, explained Dr David Brown of Portsmouth's Institute of IndustrialResearch, who is leading the project.

Over the next three years the university will create software that will fit an artificialintelligence or AI template to the waveform and use fuzzy logic if the fit is notexact. For example, the sounds of a car window or a bottle breaking havedifferent waveforms but the same generic shape.

The software will work alongside CCTV-based human-motion-analysis systemsthat have been developed at the same institute. These can identify movementssuch as whether a person is punching another or simply reaching for somethinginstead. The potential market for software incorporating the algorithm createdfrom the research could include local councils, private security firms, car parks,shopping centres, football stadiums and public transport. Eventually, the team

hopes to have generated algorithms that can be incorporated into a commercialsoftware suite, with each generation of algorithms becoming more sophisticatedas the project progresses. The system could one day become so intelligent thatcertain words would trigger the cameras response.

Gun fighting

Elsewhere, Brunel, Cranfield, Brighton, Surrey and York universities are creating

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a new bullet-tagging technology to give forensic teams a new tool in the fightagainst gun crime. The tags, which measure 30 microns in diameter, are appliedto gun cartridges by being embedded in special cartridge coatings. The tagsprimarily consist of naturally occurring pollen, a substance that evolution hasprovided with extraordinary adhesive properties, together with a cocktail of other

chemicals. The precise composition of the coating can be varied subtly from onebatch of cartridges to another, enabling a firm connection to be made between aparticular fired cartridge and its user. The coating attaches itself to the hands orgloves of anyone handling the cartridge and is said to be very difficult to wash off.Project partners include the Forensic Science Service and defence firm BAESystems.

The current success rates for DNA profiling using evidence from gun cartridgesare only around 10 per cent because of the difficulty in retrieving fingerprints orsignificant amounts of DNA from cartridge surfaces. However, the team has alsodeveloped a method of trapping forensically useful amounts of DNA on gun

cartridges. It involves increasing the abrasive character of the cartridge case withmicro-patterned pyramid textures, or adding an abrasive grit, held in place by athin layer of resin, to the cartridge base. This rough surface is able to retain deadskin cells from a thumb as it loads a cartridge into a firearm. The technology hasbeen designed to avoid damage to the DNA captured that is caused bytemperatures generated as the gun is fired.

Self control

Finally, security at border control points is being tackled using a computer systemthat can detect guilt. Bradford University is working to develop a system

capturing facial expressions, eye movement and pupil changes that would thenbe analysed by computer-based intelligent algorithms to pick out potential drugssmugglers. It will also find out whether facial blood flow, which is hard to control,could also be used in the profiling system to pick out smugglers who are goodactors. The team is collaborating with the Home Office and HM Revenue andCustoms, as well as defence firm Qinetiq.

We will be visiting airports later this year to collect data on how border controlcheck are carried out, said Dr Hassan Ugail, head of visual computing researchat Bradfords School of Informatics. By doing this we will be able to see what sortof system is really needed.

Experienced officers often become good at spotting suspicious individuals basedon their behaviour. However, the sheer volume of people passing through portsand airports makes it difficult to closely examine each individual in turn, and upuntil now, teaching a machine to do this has been hard. If successful, the systemcould have potential far beyond border control applications. It might, for example,be used in police interrogations and interviews.

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Research into facial recognition taking place within the School of Informatics isfeeding into Ugails work. My reseach work mainly focuses on 3D facerecognition, says Xia Han, a student from Daqing, China, who is studying for aPhD in facial recognition technology at Bradford, and whose work will will aid thesystem in recognizing people efficiently despite different facial expressions.

Similar research is being carried out by another PhD student, Sokyna Al-Qatawnah, from Karak, Jordan. Face recognition research using automatictechniques emerged in the last two decades. One reason for this growing interestis the wide range of possible applications for face-recognition systems. Anotherreason is the emergence of affordable hardware, such as digital photography andvideo, which have made the acquisition of high-quality and high-resolutionimages much more ubiquitous, she said. I choose this field because I think theinterest in 3D face recognition will be increased in the near future, opening thedoor for my career.

As crime fighting becomes more futuristic, it is clear that universities are rising to

the task of making sure that the authorities are being given all the help that theycan in order to identify wrongdoers. Meanwhile, as governments continue toprioritise security, this looks set to be an area where research opportunities willgrow.