Overview of reported R&D activities by ENFHEX member organisations
How to report R&D activities One of the objectives of ENFHEX is to survey ongoing and projected R&D projects in order to co-ordinate efforts and prevent unintended duplication. Therefore we would like to call on you (full as well as affiliate members) to report planning and results of any R&D activities in the field of handwriting to the steering committee. It is our intention to regularly publish this survey on our website. We kindly request to report your R&D activities to the ENFHEX secretary, Tony Stockton, by sending an email through our contact form. Please state clearly who your message is addressed to.
Update 2008 From the minutes of the Steering Committee Meeting April 2008: "The NFI is preparing a project aimed at making the handwriting verification process more objective. This project is part of a sequence of projects following a major project on the objective interpretation of fingerprints. Its goal is to obtain and implement a system that computes objective interpretation of handwriting verification that can be used in at least 50% or more of the daily casework. The way scores and likelihood ratios are affected by the quality and the quantity of forensic material will be studied. The method to be developed should include movement order aspects of the human writing process, because these are considered essential for the forensic analysis of handwriting. For the latter purpose, on- and off-line mapping of handwriting has to be incorporated, as well as the possibility to retrace handwritten shapes to indicate the observed movement order in the static image. Also at the NFI, a master student of Forensic Sciences, University of Amsterdam, is conducting a research titled Analysis of the signing process. This study, done in collaboration with prof. Katrin Franke of the NISLab in Norway, elaborates on earlier studies of Found & Rogers et. al. on signature complexity. The aims of the study are (1) to explore whether objective measures of signature complexity correlate with complexity ratings given by handwriting examiners, and (2) to test the hypothesis that signatures are more difficult to simulate as their complexity increases. A project in Finland is underway on the effects of a hangover form alcohol on handwriting – volunteers were easy to find apparently ! Marianne Conrad’s paper on handedness will soon be published in ASQDE Tony Stockton to send out a letter to members to see if any further work is being carried out."
Update 2007 From the minutes of the Steering Committee meeting May 2007: "A spin off project from WANDA known as "Trigraph" is continuing to be piloted with the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI). More information on the Trigraph project can be found on the ENFHEX website under the "Research & Development Projects" page. NFI has put forward a proposal for a project to provide a scientific base for the weight of evidence in forensic handwriting analysis. They are also looking at the “Write-on” system, particularly to find out in what way this system might be made more user-friendly. Julio reported that a project is underway in the Complutense University of Madrid to examine how metrics can be applied to handwriting examination; however there may be some issues regarding funding with the project. The project is known as “Biografo”. We are hoping to capture further information and put this on to the website. Julio also reported a project which is looking at the differences between handwriting samples produced spontaneously (course of business) and handwriting samples produced by dictation or from copies. Examiners at the Criminalistic Service of the Guardia Civil in Spain are learning to read and use Arabic language and are developing expertise in the examination of Arabic handwriting and signatures.They offer their services to other government and police organisations as well in cases where Arabic handwriting is involved. Rolf reported that in Sweden there is work going on looking at signatures on passport applications compared to signatures written during more normal conditions - the signature to get a passport is normally written on a special surface and inside a small frame."
Update 2006 From the minutes of the Steering Committee Meeting April 2006: "A spin off project from WANDA known as "Trigraph" has been piloted with the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI). The Artificial Intellicence institute of the University of Groningen (AI-RUG) managed to get a 3 years grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research to work on this project. Partners in this project are AI-RUG, NICI (the Nymegen Institute for Cognition and Information of the University of Nymegen) and NFI. (...) Both the FSS (UK) and the NFI (Netherlands) have developed an electronic database of anonymous letters." Ralph Niels from the NICI institute of the Radboud University Nijmegen gave a presentation on the Trigraph project at the ENFHEX Conference in Budapest, November 2005. Click the icon below for the paper of Niels, Vuurpijl & Schomaker. 
Partners in the Trigraph project are the department of AI of the University of Groningen, the NICI institute of the Radboud University Nijmegen, and the Netherlands Forensic Institue. For more information check the KNAW site or the AI-RUG site.
Results of 1999 and 2000 surveys In 1999 Manfred Hecker sent questionnaires to 36 forensic laboratories within Europe (all ENFSI members) to supply information on both ongoing and future R&D projects in their institutes, asking for a brief half-page description of each project. Half of them returned the questionnaire; 8 % reported no activities. Catalogues of ongoing research projects exist in Germany and the UK. Organisations in other countries have just started to set up catalogues. Some participating organisations however are not able to carry out R&D projects due to a lack of manpower or funding. It was recognised that is was important that these organisations should at least have the opportunity to participate in the brainstorming about ongoing research projects. A summary of the reported R&D projects was made and published in the April bulletin of 2000. At the Conference in Cracow, September 2000, Manfred Hecker gave an overview of the R&D projects then going on in ENFSI-member institutes. Switzerland The Ecole de Sciences Criminelles (IPSC) of the University of Lausanne reports an experimental study entitled: Can one exclude the disguise of a signature? Bulgaria The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Institute for Information Technologies) reports a joint project (together with Italy and the UK) dealing with Computerised evaluation of the similarity/dissimilarity between an incriminated and a reference document, using the systems EXPERT and PRESS. The Netherlands The Netherlands Forensic Institute in Den Haag reports the further development of The copybook models database and reports a comparative study as to The efficiency of the computer-assisted handwriting classification systems FISH and SCRIPT, carried out by the "NICI Institute of the Nijmegen University". Germany The State Crime Laboratory of Berlin together with the Fraunhofer Institute reports a study dealing with Computation of writing dynamics from the static image. The State Crime Laboratory of Brandenburg reports a study on Densitometric evaluation of writing dynamics, by means of standard PC software tools. The BKA reports studies dealing with: - Measurement of the writing indentation by Laser Scanning Microscopy (LSC), investigating the correlations between on-line measured (digitizer) dynamic parameters, secondarily (off-line) measured indentations (LSC), densitometric data (off-line) and derived dynamic measures from the static image (Berlin/Brandenburg).
- Signature comparison by autocorrelation function (ACF), using this mathematical function to automatically create ranked lists of similarity between a disputed and a given set of authentic signatures.
- Quantification of the minimum information value as to the (certain) individualisation of handwriting.
- Role of expert opinions in the judicial system (police, prosecution, court).
- Frequency of feature combinations in large handwriting collections using the Mally-classification system.
Furthermore the BKA reports the work of a project group installed by the Police Working Group Handwriting, dealing with: Harmonisation and definition of conclusions, implementing the Bayes Theory Outside ENFSI, R&D is done by the AEEED (Académie Européenne des Experts en Ecriture et Documents) who report a study of Intervention of Graphic Reflexes in the Scriptural Act, and the ZKA (German Federal Customs Office) who report a study of Measuring Indentations (writing dynamics) with the Perthometer, including line sequence problems. An updated list of R&D projects was published in the November bulletin of 2000. The following additional projects were identified: - A German project called Probabilistische Schlussfolgerungen in Schriftgutachten by a group of 4 psychologists with a solid statistical background (handwriting experts) concerning the harmonisation of the use of scales of probability. The results have been reported and discussed at the German Police Handwriting Experts meeting in Berlin, 23-24 October 2001. The aim is to find a common base with all Landeskriminalämter (LKA's). Meanwhile, the German Committee of the Heads of the Forensic Science Laboratories has decided that the paper is free for publication. The report was translated into English as well (Probability conclusions in handwriting expertise). The results of this project concern all parties involved in interpretation of trace analysis (not just handwriting).
- Testing the “Lucia” system.
- Falsification of one’s own signature.
- The CAHA system.
- Comparison of course-of-business and request specimens.
- A complete re-design of the FISH system, developed by the BKA; comprehensive information on the re-design of the FISH system can be found in section 5.4 of the minutes of the October 2001 and April 2002 meetings and the minutes of the September 2002 meeting.
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