Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/S57839/01
Title:	Modal Analysis For Exact Forensic Comparison of Handwritten Documents
Principal Investigator:	Solomon, Dr CJ
Other Investigators:	Fairhurst, Professor MC
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:	Forensic Science Service Ltd Home Office Michael Ansell VisionMetric Ltd
Department:	Sch of Physical Sciences
Organisation:	University of Kent
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 February 2004	Ends:	31 January 2005	Value (£):	58,714
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Image & Vision Computing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Creative Industries Information Technologies
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
This proposal is a 12 month feasibility study concerned with the exploration and development of a radically new approach to hand-written forensic document examination. The project aims to demonstrate a methodology which offers significant advantages over existing techniques - in particular, offering more accurate and objective methods of analysis and permitting exact likelihood measures to be given for the matching of two handwriting samples for the first time. Major objectives of the project are ) Self-consistent strategies for landmarldng of control points in letter sequences. ii) PCA (modal) analysis on selected sequences to derive modes of variation. iii) Rigorous statistical analysis allowing enact probabilistic measures for matching. iv) Definifion d a new protocol for the presentation of forensic document evidence in a court of law.Achievement of these objectives requires investigation of a number of related technical issues - in particular, haw to landmark points on hand-written sequences in a consistent fashion over a population, the use of ran-uniform/ncn-linear weightings in Procrustes alignment prior to carrying out the modal analysis (thus avoiding the influence of cutliers/extremities in the data) and careful studies of the natural/environmental modal variation of individuals which effectively define the confidence limits for the new methodology which is proposed.
Key Findings
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Potential use in non-academic contexts
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Impacts
Description This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk Summary Date Materialised
Sectors submitted by the Researcher
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Project URL:
Further Information:
Organisation Website:	http://www.kent.ac.uk