Objective
Background:
Handwriting examination or identification is frequently used in crime investigation and in the prosecution and conviction of criminal offenders. Increasing collaboration between the European forensic science institutes has led to a greater need for harmonisation of their working methods and techniques. Delegates from the forensic science institutes of Germany, England, Finland, The Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Scotland and Sweden have therefore taken the initiative to form a European Network of Forensic Handwriting Experts (ENFHEX), specifying a number of objectives to achieve the desired harmonisation and validation of handwriting identification procedures.
Objectives:
The main objectives are to create an infrastructure for internal communication; to bring together and make available databases of:
1) literature on handwriting examination and adjacent disciplines;
2) handwriting samples and;
3) copybook models used in various countries in different periods; to survey and evaluate methods and procedures to help harmonise working practices; to survey ongoing and projected R&D projects in order to co-ordinate efforts and prevent unintended duplication; to work out a procedure for running European quality assessment trials (proficiency tests); to organise mutual three day working visits of groups of handwriting experts from the participating institutes (exchange of expertise); to publish a bulletin; and to organise the biennial European Conference for Police and Government Handwriting Experts.
Work programme:
The Standing Committee of ENFHEX, consisting of delegates from forensic science institutes from the above-mentioned European countries, has divided the tasks among its members. Members will report and discuss activities at ENFHEX meetings, which will be held twice a year. Discussions will eventually give rise to adjustments to the work programme. Links, visits and activities will finally result in reports, surveys, recommendations or proposals for implementation. Each participant will organise a three-day visit to their laboratory with up to three experts from other organisations in ENFHEX participating. The Standing Committee will report its activities to 'The European Conference of Police and Government Handwriting Experts' from which it originates. In order to ensure information flow, ENFHEX will publish a bulletin after each meeting and present a progress report at each conference.
State of progress:
The commencement date of the project was 1st November 1998. A bulletin is now in preparation containing a report of the last meeting of the Standing Committee of ENFHEX held in Scotland, July 1998, during the 6th European Conference for Police and Government Handwriting Experts. Surveys of existing literature data- bases, databases of handwriting samples, R&D projects and existing systems of QA trials/proficiency tests are in progress. Available copybook models are now being converted into digital images and a system has been developed to consult this growing database in a well- structured way.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- social sciencesmedia and communicationsgraphic design
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdatabases
- medical and health sciencesother medical sciencesforensic sciences
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