Estimation of sex on the basis of radiographs of the calcaneus
Abstract
Lateral and anteroposterior radiographs of the ankles of 800 Central Europeans aged 20 to 79 were analyzed with regard to sexual dimorphism. All the distances, but not the angles, of the calcaneus were much larger in males than in females. Approximately 80% of the study sample could be sexed correctly by classifying all specimens greater than 86.0 mm in length as male and those less than 86.0 mm as female. The prevalence of os tibiale externum was 8.0 and 2.6% and the prevalence of plantar heel spur was 16.3 and 6.5% (increasing with age) for males and females, respectively, being significantly more frequent in females. On the other hand, the bone island frequencies were 9.1% in males and 4.8% in females. Our study suggests that radiographs of the ankle are a convenient, rapid, cheap and non-invasive means for estimating sex.
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Sex estimation in a contemporary Turkish population based on CT scans of the calcaneus
2017, Forensic Science InternationalBuilding a reliable biological profile from decomposed remains depends heavily on the accurate estimation of sex. A variety of methods based on every single skeletal element have been developed over the years for different populations employing both osteological and virtual methods. The latter seem to be a reasonable alternative in countries lacking osteological reference collections. The current study used 3D virtual models of calcanei from CT scans of living adults to develop a sex estimation method for contemporary Turkish. Four hundred and twenty eight calcanei CT scans were analysed. The sample was divided in two subsamples: an original (N = 348) and a validation sample (N = 80) with similar distribution of males and females. Nine classical measurements were taken using the 3D models of the calcanei and two different statistical methods (Discriminant function analysis and Binary logistic regression) were used. Classification accuracy ranged from 82% to 98% for the validation sample and it was consistently high using any of the two methods. Sex bias seems to be lower for most of the logistic regression equations compared to the discriminant functions. These results, however, need further testing to be verified. Based on the results of this study we recommend the use of both methods for sex estimation from the measurements of the calcaneus bone in a Turkish population.
Sex estimation from measurements of the calcaneus: Applications for personal identification in Thailand
2017, Forensic Science InternationalAs a coastal region, Thailand has been significantly affected by climate change. The impacts of climate change in Thailand – temperature increase, rising sea levels, and violent flooding – are predicted to multiply in both frequency and intensity in the next few decades, which may cause an increase in mass disasters and fatalities in the region. The 2004 tsunami catastrophe in Thailand demonstrated the lack of forensic anthropology expertise and the lack of population specific methods in the region. The goal of this research is to derive population specific discriminant functions from the calcaneus for sexing unidentified skeletal remains from a contemporary Thai population. Nine variables of the calcaneus were measured from 232 individuals (116 males and 116 females) of the Chiang Mai skeletal collection with age ranges from 22 to 96 years. All nine calcanei variables were sexually dimorphic. Multivariate and univariate discriminant function analyses were completed. The multivariate analyses showed accuracy rates from 81.5% to 87.7% in males and 84.0% to 87.7% in females. The accuracy rates from the univariate analyses ranged from 71.6% to 84.0% in males and 67.9% to 85.2% in females. Comparisons to other populations were made and the results demonstrated the need for population specific discriminant functions. Overall, the cross-validation accuracies ranged from 73.4% to 94.3% with males identified correctly more often than females. This study demonstrates that the calcaneus is useful for sex estimation in the contemporary Thai population.
Crime scene reconstruction—Sex prediction from blood stained foot sole impressions
2017, Forensic Science InternationalIt is often difficult to predict the sex of an individual based on bloody incomplete footprints. However, such prints/impressions are particularly common in a crime scene. Again variability in the texture, color of the target surface has an impact on the bloodstained impression formed. The study of bare foot, footprint, footwear (i.e. shoe, canvas etc.) within the legal context is referred to as forensic podiatry. Based on the fact that it is possible to predict the sex of an individual from footprint impressions, an automated model has been proposed in this paper for analyzing the sex of an individual from his/her broken/incomplete footprint impressions based on morphological features alone. Five male and female volunteers aged between 20 to 65 years participated in dataset development. Keeping the blood volume constant and having stepped on differently shaped porcine blood pools, the individuals were asked to walk on herbarium sheets. The footprints were recorded and documented in accordance with the guidelines in place for physical evidence documentation within the forensic domain. The morphological features that were extracted from each of the footprint impressions are footprint length, footprint breadth, angle of walking, approximated heel radius etc. Using exhaustive cross validation technique, the dataset was divided into training and test set. Non-redundant, relevant features that are particularly effective at sex prediction were marked out using the relief algorithm in coherence with the correlation metric. Supervised learning techniques were used on the dataset to predict the sex of the owner of an unknown footprint. The study concentrates on morphological features in order to deal with bloodstain footprint transfer stains formed on any non-porous/non-absorbent surfaces such as cemented floor, glass, mosaic floor space, colored and designed tiled floor spaces. Features such as the angle of walking and foot breadth were found to be particularly influential in sex prediction from incomplete bloodstained foot sole impressions. In comparison to a system for sex prediction from complete footprint impressions (82.2%), the automated system developed on incomplete foot impressions recorded an accuracy level of 83.47%.
Sexual dimorphism of the calcaneus in contemporary Cretans
2017, Forensic Science InternationalDuring the past decade, several studies have been carried out using the calcaneus bone for sex estimation. This paper collected data using ten variables for metric characteristics of the calcaneus of 144 modern Cretans and examined their correlation with known sex. Secondly, the formulae developed by Peckmann et al. (2015) for modern Athenians was put to the test in order to investigate if it could be applied to this modern Cretan sample as well. Results showed a high correlation between the calcaneus metrics and the known sex of the individuals, however the formulae for Athenians do not seem to be suitable for the Cretans due to the high sex bias reported in this study. Thus, new standards were created for sex estimation from the calacanei in our sample. Bilateral asymmetry was noted in the majority of cases, thus formulae were developed for left, right and mean values. Maximum width (MAXW) was the variable that performed the best in the Cretan sample. Overall, the cross-validated accuracies for univariate and multivariate equations reached 84.2% with males most often correctly identified. The calcaneus was proved to be useful for sex estimation in this modern Cretan population. Further work will explore the suitability of the produced standards for other regions of mainland Greece and islands.
Sex identification and reconstruction of length of humerus from its fragments: An Egyptian study
2016, Egyptian Journal of Forensic SciencesThe aim of this study was to calculate the total length of the humerus and identify the sex from its fragments in Egyptians. One hundred and fifty dry adult right humeri (75 male and 75 female) were studied. The humeri were divided into seven fragments according to specific anatomical landmarks. Data obtained was subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. The longest fragmentary portion revealed a good result with closest proximity to the total length of humerus. All fragments showed significant sexual differences (P < 0.001) between males and females except H2. Total length of humerus revealed the highest percentage of accuracy (93.3%) followed by H4 (86.7%) and H7 (83.3%) for sex identification. Finally, from measurements of different humeral fragments in Egyptian population; the length of the humerus can be estimated and the sex can be identified.
Determination of sex from radiographic measurements of the humerus by discriminant function analysis in Saudi population, Qassim region, KSA
2015, Forensic Science InternationalDiagnosis of sex from skeleton or individual bone plays an important role in identifying unknown bodies, parts of bodies or skeletal remains for forensic purposes. This study aims to examine the applicability of the measurements taken from the humerus to assess sex, and to contribute to establishing discriminant function equations for Saudi populations for medico legal applications.
Archived X-ray radiographs of humerus for 387 patients (216 males & 171 females) who attended the orthopedic clinics at Suleiman Al-Habib Hospital, Qassim region, KSA in the period from January 2011 to December 2013 were reviewed and analyzed. Five dimensions, including maximum length, vertical head diameter, diameter of head + greater tubercle, right–left diameter at midshaft, and epicondylar breadth were taken and subjected to Univariate and multivariate discriminant function analysis.
The studied radiographic dimensions of the humerus indicate that there are significant differences (p < 0.05) between the males and females measurements while the difference between right and left measurements was not significant. The findings revealed that the proximal part of the humerus has greater diagnostic accuracy than distal and middle parts. Accuracy of correct classification varies between 68.0% (epicondylar breadth) and 90.4% (vertical head diameter) for univariate analyses. When the multivariate analyses were conducted, three functions were produced, with the accuracy of ranging between 88.4% and 94.3%.
These findings suggested that the dimensions of the humerus, especially the measurements taken from the proximal parts, could be used successfully for sex diagnosis.