Z-Transform Method for Pairwise Osteometric Pair-matching,

• Warnke-Sommer, Julia D. ^[1] ; Lynch, Jeffrey James ; Pawaskar, Sachin S. ^[1] ; Damann, Franklin E.
  1. [1] University of Nebraska
• Localización: Journal of forensic sciences, ISSN-e 1556-4029, ISSN 0022-1198, Vol. 64, Nº. 1, 2019, págs. 23-33
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • A new pairwise osteometric pair-matching approach based on the Z-transform method is presented. In contrast to previous methods that perform a global t-test on the summed skeletal element pair measurement distances, this approach performs t-tests on each individual distance, facilitating the capture of measurement-specific variation. This new approach is compared to published pairwise sorting methods using a standard reference dataset of postcranial remains maintained by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis indicates significantly improved performance for the clavicle and radius over all previous methods (p<0.01). The z-transform method weighted by the effect size outperformed the t-test (Byrd and Adams) and the mean t-test (Lynch) for all elements (p<0.01). The method performed better than the absolute value t-test (Lynch) for five elements (p<0.01) and performed at least as well for the remainder. To facilitate usability all methods are available at: https://github.com/spawaskar-cora/z-transform-method.