It is arson awareness and here is our third blog for arson investigators. One of the most important parts of a successful arson investigation and potential conviction (other than having video or photographic evidence of the arsonist) is the collection of samples and identifying the presence of an ignitable liquid...
Don’t let matrix get in your way
We recently discussed the issue of matrix and how the other stuff in your fire debris sample can be problematic for the laboratory in identifying ignitable liquid residue in your evidence samples.
Matrix is your enemy – in fire debris collection for arson investigations
This week is arson awareness week. I have been working on arson investigations and the collection and analysis of fire debris samples for over 10 years. I was brought into the field of work by happenstance, and it has been an amazing experience applying legal and environmental forensic chemistry to the field of arson...
What does the Human Genome, every image on Google and your chemical data set all have in common?
High-dimensional data reduction using Machine Learning can help find the commonalities hidden in big data.
The ability to collect data is constantly exponentially evolving and there has a been a surge in exploring the world of ‘Big Data Analytics’ in environmental forensics. This coupled with the high-throughput and...
Tidy Data
As a teenager, I was notorious in my family for having the messiest of rooms. While I preferred to call it “organized chaos” rather than a mess, I cannot deny the amount of time and effort I spent (wasted) when needing to locate something in that chaos. The struggles I had in finding that missing sock, or my essay I...
Building trust in statistical models for environmental data
Models and modelling, I was never a big fan. I always thought that you could make models say whatever you want them to say. But, many years later, I have changed my tune, particularly for statistical models. Used right, models can provide convincing lines of evidence that you have the correct answer to your scientific...
Knowing vs. Knowledge
GI Joe was wrong!Knowing is nothalf the battle (in environmental work)!It is barely a tenth of the battle, at best.There is a lot of confusion in the environmental industry, maybe even misrepresentation of what a company or person is capable of doing and what they are actually qualified to do.Especially nowadays...
Want to find errors in your data? Start analyzing it.
It may be counter intuitive to start statistical analysis on a dataset that hasn’t been fully vetted, but that is exactly what can be done for environmental contaminant datasets. If you can QA-QC them, great. If not, dive right in and start analyzing them.
