The high mobility group protein HMGA2 is an architectural transcription factor, which is expressed during embryogenesis. Aberrant expression causes benign and malignant tumor formation. The protein possesses three "AT hook" domains and an acidic Cterminal. HMGA2 is natively unstructured, however it forms a homodimer. In this study site-directed mutagenesis was used to create single methionine mutants, HMGA2Q37M, HMGA2I71M and HMGA2Q85M. These mutants were cross-linked using EDC and then cleaved using CNBr to determine which domains are involved in homodimer formation. Our results indicate that the second "AT hook" domain may interact with the C-terminal. We then labeled a peptide containing the C-terminal (CTP) with tetramethylrhodamine-5- maleimide (TRM). We found that the CTP-TMR binds to HMGA2Α95-108, which lacks the C-terminal. These results suggest that the C-terminal is required for homodimer formation. The techniques used within this study can be applied to forensics and with further research HMGA2 may have a forensic application.

Due to the threat of bioterrorist acts, there is a need to develop techniques that rapidly detect possible bioagents. Amplicon length heterogeneity-polymerase chain reaction (ALH-PCR) presumptively identifies eubacteria in samples by detecting differences between the lengths of the hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene. To study the efficiency, reproducibility, and reliability of the technique, sputum from cystic fibrosis (CF) patients has been chosen as the model system. There is an abundance of microorganisms in the sputum of the CF lung. Using ALH-PCR, the complex microbial diversity and vast community composition in the lungs of the CF patients were studied. Twenty-four out of twenty-six CF samples were presumptively identified to contain Pseudomonas aeurginosa, a known CF pathogen. Sputum profiles were also compared over time and ALH was able to demonstrate that the CF lung flora is a dynamic community and may be affected by antibiotics.

The purpose of this research was to develop a strategy for the DNA typing of Cannabis sativa. DNA typing was accomplished by using the Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) method. Cannabis (marijuana) was selected because it is an illegal substance grown across the United States and in other countries and the sourcing of this plant is of interest to law enforcement agencies. While some peaks may be shared, the overall peak profile is expected to contain some peak differences between individuals. The AFLP procedure was performed on 25 different cannabis samples using four different primer combinations. In all of the AFLP profiles, there were significant peak differences that allowed for all the samples to be distinguished. The samples that were genetically related displayed the same peak profiles in the electropherograms and the samples that were not related possessed unique profiles. The development and validation of the AFLP method would lead to the creation of a database that could then be used to link cloned samples and to track distribution networks and, ultimately, individual plants could be linked together.

The purpose of this research is to introduce a method for the forensic elemental analysis of cotton fibers for the purpose of increasing the discrimination between otherwise similar cotton evidence using microwave digestion Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and Laser Ablation- Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). A quadrupole ICP-MS and UV laser ablation (266nm) instruments were used for the analysis. A cotton standard reference material (IAEA V-9) was used to validate the developed methods producing good accuracy with typically 10 % bias and good precision (typically 5% RSD) for the element list: 25Mg, 27Al, 55Mn, 57Fe, 88Sr and 137Ba. It was found that the LA-ICP-MS method resulted in improved precision over the solution ICP-MS method. Twenty four (24) raw cotton samples and five white cotton T-Shirts were analyzed with the developed methods. It was also found that all the raw cotton samples from different sources were distinguishable from each other, as were all the cotton T-shirts resulting in zero type I errors and zero type II errors for the pairwise comparisons.

In order to explore south Arabia's role in the migratory episodes leaving Africa to Eurasia and back, high-resolution Y-chromosome analyses of males from the United Arab Emirates (164), Qatar (72) and Yemen (62) were performed. The distribution of specific haplogroups (E3bl-M35 and J1-M267) and their microsatellite-based age estimates in southern Arabia offer additional insight on their dissemination. With the exception of Yemen, southern Arabia displays high diversity in its Y-haplogroup substructure and share similarities with populations along the eastern coast of the Gulf of Oman, possibly serving as a coastal corridor for migrations. Elevated rates of consanguinity may have had an impact in Yemen and Qatar, which experience deficiencies in their ratios of observed to expected heterozygosity at 15 hypervariable autosomal STR loci. Higher diversity along the Gulf of Oman may be due to trade emanating from the kingdom of Oman involving East Africa, southern Pakistan and western India.

Current forensic comparisons of soil most often rely upon physical characterizations. We hypothesized that bacterial community profiles obtained by Amplicon Length Heterogeneity-Polymerase Chain Reaction (ALH-PCR) of the 16S rRNA genes would provide discriminating data for soil comparisons. Dual extractions and replicate amplifications were performed on each soil. Chemical characterization by elemental analysis, pH, moisture content, percent Carbon and percent Nitrogen were performed. Supervised classification of the microbial community profiles using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) learning tool was over 95 % accurate labeling a microbial community profile to its originating soil type. By comparison, the chemical analysis data yielded accuracies between 40 and 77 %. The results of this study support the application of this method in the comparison of casework size soil samples. Results of this study may also justify the future development of a database of microbial community profiles for inferring the possible origin of unknown soil samples.

The drugs studied in this work have been reportedly used to commit drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA), commonly known as "date rape". Detection of the drugs was performed using high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection (HPLC/UV) and identified with high performance-liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS) using selected ion monitoring (SIM). The objective of this study was to develop a single HPLC method for the simultaneous detection, identification and quantitation of these drugs. The following drugs were simultaneously analyzed: Gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB), scopolamine, lysergic acid diethylamide, ketamine, flunitrazepam, and diphenhydramine. The results showed increased sensitivity with electrospray (ES) ionization versus atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) using HPLC/MS. HPLC/ES/MS was approximately six times more sensitive than HPLC/APCI/MS and about fifty times more sensitive than HPLC/UV. A limit of detection (LOD) of 100 ppb was achieved for drug analysis using this method. The average linear regression coefficient of correlation squared (r2) was 0.933 for HPLC/UV and 0.998 for HPLC/ES/MS. The detection limits achieved by this method allowed for the detection of drug dosages used in beverage tampering. This method can be used to screen beverages suspected of drug tampering. The results of this study demonstrated that solid phase microextraction (SPME) did not improve sensitivity as an extraction technique when compared to direct injections of the drug standards.

Ascertaining the genetic relationships between Austronesian populations is pivotal to understanding their dispersal throughout the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The Austronesian expansion dates to approximately 6,000 years ago and from the linguistic and archeological evidence, the origin of this dispersal appears to be Taiwan. In this study, six polymorphic point mutation loci were studied in Taiwanese aborigines and compared with 32 other populations. The genetic relationships were characterized by maximum likelihood analysis, principal component maps, centroid gene flow plots, expected heterozygosities, power of discrimination values and pair wise G-tests. Following these analyses, it was apparent that genetic similarities existed between the Atayal and the Chinese, whereas the Ami displayed similarities with the Native Americans. Thus, the Atayal have little or no affinity for the Ami and other Austronesian populations. The large genetic differences between the two groups most likely arise from genetic isolation, and/or small population sizes.

This study evaluates the use of commercially available instruments for locating and collecting accelerants in the field. Electronic noses can be used to scan a fire scene for the possible presence of an accelerant. The TLV Sniffer® was found to be able to detect accelerants at low levels but did alert to some burned matrix alone. When subjected to a proficiency test designed for canines, the TLV Sniffer® was able to locate accelerants in two of the three tests. The tpi®Pocket was found not to be sensitive or selective enough to be useful in locating accelerants. Once the location of possible accelerants has been determined, they can be collected by dynamic headspace sampling in the field with the Portable Arson Sampler (PAS). The PAS was found to be able to collect a broad range of compounds from ignitable liquids and had comparable efficiency to a conventional method.

The analysis of colors is omnipresent in forensics. While their use for macroscopic evidence such as soil sees a large amount of research, their correct handling is more challenging when observed under a microscope. Either for hairs or textile fibers, their color (from melanin, dyes or for birefringence analysis) is crucial in being able to compare between fibers found at a crime scene. Typically, color is quantified using a color space, such as RGB, XYZ, L*a*b*, and L*u*v*. Unfortunately, color is very subjective and often difficult to quantify accurately, even using digital detectors. Finding true matches of colors has been limited by factors including illumination, optics transmission function, and in many cases the human eye. The colors produced by the birefringence of fibers under analysis using polarized light microscopy (PLM) are known to provide quick information on the fiber identification. Nonetheless, the exact determination of the accurate colors is still either subjective to the operator or the correct calibration of the software. In this thesis, calibration of the color response of a polarizing light microscope was performed using a UV-Vis broadband spectrometer to characterize its illuminant and camera. All the color images obtained with the camera were then transformed from the common RGB encoding to L*a*b* color space using MATLAB. An empirical Michel-Lévy chart was also designed using a quartz wedge in order to calibrate retardation with empirical L*a*b* color values, also as a teaching tool for the UCF undergraduate class "Forensic Microscopy", and with a qualitative comparison with common textile fibers. The discriminatory power and uncertainty of color perception of the microscope camera and of human vision were measured and will be discussed.