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In the environment of smart cities, human facial age estimation has become an important research topic due to its wide applications. Although a variety of methods are proposed to depict facial biologic attributes, the underlying relationships between facial appearance and its biological aging process have not been fully explored. Although relationship learning methods have been constructed in terms of modeling either the facial representations or the facial attributes, none of them model the relationships simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a unified model to explore these relationships simultaneously, coined as JREAE. In JREAE, two covariance matrices are symmetrically constructed to capture the underlying correlations from both aspects of input facial features and output age labels. In this way, the potential relationships of both feature and label are not only modeled definitely, but also explored adaptively from the training data, which is significantly different from those methods that define the relationships manually. Then, we extend the JREAE model with deep convolutional architecture (deep-JREAE) for more powerful discrimination. In addition, we present optimization algorithms to solve the proposed models with theoretical convergence and complexity proof. Finally, through extensive experiments, we not only validate the effectiveness and superior of the proposed methods in performance, but also visualize and analyze the resulting relationships.

Extraction of various distinct features from speech, Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) have been employed as classifiers. Age estimation performance has been inferred by employing excitation source features (LPCCs). The detected age of a speaker is deemed to belong to any of the 9 age groups of 5–10, 10–15, 15–20, 20–25, 25–30, 30–35, 35–40, 40–45 and 45–50. An age group speech corpus has been collected in this work by recording voice of speakers of Hindi language of different age groups and dialects using ten text prompts in neutral speech. Textually neutral Hindi words have been used to construct text prompts which have been recorded in neutral emotion. Different age group has been characterized by using these texts prompt. The average age performance of multispeaker (male + female) is around 94%. In this research, classification of different group of speakers has been done on the basis of excitation source in human speech.

Summary Introduction The hyoid bone is of great importance in forensic medicine and it has been studied for various forensic purposes. However, there have been few studies dealing with age and sex estimation using the hyoid bone, especially the radiographic methods. Objective To analyze the relationship between age, sex and metric parameters of hyoid bone in Tunisian population sample, using CT scan. Materiel and methods A prospective study was conducted in the department of Forensic Medicine of Fattouma Bourguiba Hospital of Monastir-Tunisia during 4 years. A total of 240 samples of hyoid bone were studied. The age of cases ranged from 18 days to 81 years. The specimens were collected only from the deceased of known age. Once dried, each hyoid bone was scanned using CT scan. For each specimen, 10 measurements were taken using a computer program. The measurements consisted of 6 lengths and 4 widths. A regression analysis was used to estimate the relationship between age, sex and different measurements. For age estimation, a multiple logistic regression was carried out for samples ≤ 35 years. For sex determination, ROC curve was performed. Discriminant value finally retained was based on the best specificity with the best sensitivity. Results The correlation between real age and estimated age was good (r2 = 0.72) for samples aged 35 years or less. The unstandardized canonical function equation was estimated using three variables: maximum length of the right greater cornua, length from the middle of the left joint space to the middle of the right joint space and perpendicular length from the center point of a line between the distal ends of the right and left greater cornua to the center point of the anterior view of the body of the hyoid bone. For sex determination, the ROC curve analysis reveals that the area under curve was at 81.8%. Discriminant value was 0.451 with a specificity of 73% and sensibility of 79%. The equation function was estimated based on two variables: maximum length of the greater cornua and maximum length of the hyoid bone. Conclusion The findings of the current study suggest that metric analysis of the hyoid bone may predict the age ≤ 35 years. Sex estimation seems to be more reliable. Further studies dealing with the fusion of the hyoid bone and the current study could help to achieve more accurate age estimation rates.

The chemical profiling of bloodstains is essential to link the suspect with the crime. The current study proposed a proof-of-concept methodology for the investigation of bloodstains by utilizing advanced ATR-FTIR spectroscopy coupled with new generation chemometric methods. Current study provides encouraging data to allow discrimination between human and animal blood though with small sample size. In this study, different models for the age estimation of human bloodstains are developed from the trained data sets of 1–175 days old bloodstains. The models such as curve estimation (CE), multiple linear regression (MLR), and partial least squares regressions (PLSR) are developed to determine the best prediction model for aged human bloodstains. The obtained results on the dating of bloodstains are very encouraging and also tested for unknown samples. The maximum dating errors are observed in the curve estimation models whereas, the other models MLR, PLSR show excellent age estimation of unknown bloodstains. These models represent an error of ~3 ± 1 days and ~4 ± 1 days in actual and estimated date, respectively, which is lowest ever reported so far. The present methodology is expected to provide a valuable insight into forensic society and hence, to the law enforcement community. The present methodology can further be explored for an ideal model by including all other external variables/factors and for more longer aging time.

Summary The teeth are considered as a reliable indicator of age and provide several parameters for age estimation. Age estimation from dental radiographs is a non-destructive and straightforward method to obtain information. This preliminary study aimed to establish a relationship between chronological age and the tooth/pulp area ratio in a central Indian population. The digital dental X-ray- OPGs of 46 randomly selected consenting subjects belonging to the age group 18 to 60 years were examined. The tooth area and pulp area of upper maxillary right permanent canine were calculated. A Graph was also plotted on the scattered points to get a linear trend line and equation of the relationship between chronological age and tooth/pulp area ratio. Statistical analysis shows a significant strong positive correlation (R2= 0.99) between age and tooth /pulp area ratio. Linear Regression equation was derived for estimation of age, i.e., y = 6.6554x - 22.578 (where y is the estimated age and x is the tooth-pulp area ratio). The estimated age was accurate up to ± 2 years of the actual age. The result of this preliminary study shows that the tooth/pulp area ratio of the canine may serve as a reliable tool for estimation of age.

Building individual brain networks form the single volume of anatomical MRI is a challenging task. Furthermore, the high-order connectivity of morphological networks remains unexplored. This paper aimed to investigate the individual high-order morphological connectivity from anatomical MRI. Towards this goal, a unified framework based on six feature distances (euclidean, seuclidean, mahalanobis, cityblock, minkowski, and chebychev) was proposed to derive high-order interregional morphological features. The test-retest datasets and the healthy aging datasets were applied to analyze the reliability and the inter-subject variability of the novel features. In addition, the predictive models based on these novel features were established for age estimation. The proposed six neuroanatomical features exhibited significant high-to-excellent reliability. Certain connections were significantly correlated to biological age based on the six novel metrics (p .05, FDR corrected). Moreover, the predicted age were significantly correlated to the original age in each regression task (r 0.5, p 10

Introduction The purpose of this study was to compare the methods of Willems et al. (WI and WII) in estimating the forensic age in Venezuelan children. Material and methods A retrospective and observational study was performed on 516 orthopantomographs of individuals of both genders (6–18 years) in order to evaluate the stages of dental maturation described by Demirjian et al. Using the dental age (DA) in the seven left inferior teeth, DA was calculated using the WI and WII methods. The mean difference between the chronological age (CA) and DA was calculated using a paired-sample t-test. Results The under-estimation of age by both methods (0.17 ± 1.75 years) was observed, with the CA–DA difference being statistically significant (p = .04). Considering all age groups, WII showed the smallest difference between CA–DA (0.05 ± 1.40 years) in girls, while a smaller difference was found for WI (0.04 ± 0.54 years) for boys. In a subsample up to the age of 16, there was an under-estimation of age in females for WI (0.03 ± 1.23 years) and an over-estimation for WII (−0.18 ± 1.24 years). In the males both methods over-estimated the age (W1 = −0.21 ± 1.17 years, WII = −0.06 ± 1.20 years). Conclusions The accuracy of the methods varied according to gender and age group: however, both were applicable to the studied sample.

Human age has been treated as an important biometric trait in many practical applications. In this paper, we propose an Attribute-Region Association Network (ARAN) to tackle the challenging age estimation problem. Instead of performing prediction from a global perspective, we delve into the relationship between face attributes and regions. First, the proposed network is guided by the auxiliary demographic information, as different demographic information (e.g., gender and ethnicity) intrinsically correlates to human age. Second, different face components are separately handled and then involved in the proposed ensemble network, as these components vary differently along with human age. To explore both global and local information, the proposed network consists of several sub-network, each of them takes the global face and a face sub-region as input. Each sub-network leverages the intrinsic correlation between different face attributes (i.e., age, gender, and ethnicity), and it is trained in a multi-task manner. These attribute-region sub-networks are associated to yield the final predictions. To properly train and coordinate such a complex network, a new hierarchical-scheduling training method is proposed to balance the learning complexity in the multi-task learning. In this way, the performance of the most difficult task (i.e., age estimation) can be significantly improved. Extensive experiments on the MORPH Album II and FG-NET show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art age estimation methods by a significant margin. In particular, for the challenging age estimation, the Mean Absolute Errors (MAE) are decreased to 2.51 years compared to the state-of-the-arts on the MORPH Album II dataset.

Aging is a complex process and is associated with various molecular regulations on DNA or RNA levels. In forensic science, accurate age estimation of an unknown individual can be of extremely important. Recent years, age-related molecular biomarkers have been proposed as indicators of chronological age. There were studies showing that circular RNAs (circRNAs) change significantly during aging. Here, the correlation of circRNAs expression levels and age was investigated by detecting circRNA levels in peripheral whole blood utilizing next-generation RNA sequencing (RNA-seq). We suggest that circRNA can be a novel biomarker for forensic age estimation.

Age estimation is considered a crucial and challenging issue in forensic casework. Costal cartilage appears a potential mortal remain in age-at-death estimation attributable to its correlative alteration in color based on pigment accumulation with the advancing age. In this study, samples from the second costal cartilage were collected in a Chinese Han population, and the cross sections were subsequently scanned and digitalized in a standard way. Color change was quantified using mean gray value (MGV), which was measured by Photoshop CS5. After the exclusion of samples with factors which could impair the quality of images and the accuracy of values, a high correlation was demonstrated between age and MGV in samples. A linear regression model (AGE = 173.425–0.755*aveMGV) was established for age prediction, with its performance evaluated using both samples from the training set and the blind test set, in which a mean absolute deviation of 4.42 years and 3.57 years was obtained, respectively. Altogether, MGV could be reckoned as a precise quantification of pigmentation in costal cartilage and an excellent indicator of age prediction in the age interval from 20 to 60 years. Moreover, our strategy appears more user-friendly and accurate, thus exceedingly practical for age estimation in forensic anthropology.

The Kvaal method as a non-invasive method for age estimation based on the changes of pulpal size caused by secondary dentin deposition has been applied to different ethnics. However, its results are often conflicting and its accuracy is relatively poor. This study aimed to verify the applicability of the Kvaal method to estimate the ages of the Chinese population using digital panoramic radiographs and to formulate specific regression equations for use in Chinese subjects. A sample of 360 digital panoramic radiographs from northern Chinese population were selected, from which the pulpal size and width of six tooth types (maxillary central incisor, lateral incisor, second premolar, mandibular lateral incisor, canine, and first premolar) were measured using Kvaal's method. Then, inter- and intra-observer reliabilities were calculated to evaluate the reproducibility of those measurements. The correlation between chronological age and measurements was also examined and the Chinese-specific equations for age estimation were conducted. After comparing the accuracy of the Chinese-specific equation with the original Kvaal equation, the age of the Chinese population was clearly overestimated by Kvaal's equation, and a Chinese-specific equation could ameliorate age prediction accuracy. In addition, the residuals of the Chinese-specific equation were significantly lower than that of the original Kvaal's method. Thus, we concluded that the original Kvaal equation cannot accurately estimate age in the Chinese population. Although accuracy improved using the Chinese-specific equation that was based on Kvaal's methodology, the standard deviation remained large. In view of the lack of accurate age estimation methods for adults, we propose finding more correlated variables or combining other age estimation methods to increase the accuracy for adult age estimation.

Several studies have indicated that the time of onset of specific age-related changes throughout the human skeleton differs between populations. In this study the well-known Suchey–Brooks pubic symphyseal age estimation method was investigated to assess its performance in a white South African population. A total of 184 well-preserved os coxae were subjected to blind phase analysis, using the Suchey–Brooks descriptions and pubic symphyseal casts. The method performed well in a white South African population with statistically significant moderate positive correlations and relatively low biases in both males and females. However, due to the underperformance of the method in older individuals, new age ranges for phases IV through VI were created that are specific to the South African white population. This study indicated that Suchey–Brooks method can be used in a white South African population using the age ranges for phases I through III provided by Brooks and Suchey (1990), and the population specific age ranges for phase IV and V provided in this study.

Age estimation is a challenging research topic in recent years. Existing approaches usually use only appearance features for age estimation. Personalized aging patterns, i.e., sequences of personal features, which have been shown as an important factor for improving age estimation accuracy, however, are not considered in their researches. We propose a novel model named recurrent age estimation (RAE), to make full use of appearance features as well as personalized aging patterns. RAE uses the CNN-LSTM architecture. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are trained to extract discriminative appearance features from face images, and long short-term memory networks (LSTMs) are employed to learn personalized aging patterns from sequences of personal features. Furthermore, we integrate the label distribution learning (LDL) scheme into LSTMs to exploit ambiguity from the real age and adjacent ages. The superiority of the RAE compared with existing approaches is shown by experimental results.

Three-dimensional imaging has improved the method of analysis in many forensic science investigations. The study aimed to derive regression equation for age estimation by investigating the relationship between chronological age and surface area of the developing mandibular 3rd molars apices. Furthermore, other predictor variables: ethnicity (Malay and Chinese), gender and status of the root development completion (open/closed apices) were also investigated in terms of fit to the age estimation model. One hundred and twenty eight training and 55 validation samples of intact mandibular 3rd molars were selected from 183 CBCT scans. The samples comprised of 93 Malays and 90 Chinese, ranging in age from 13 to 24 years. Three-dimensional image modeling and surface area analysis of the developing mandibular 3rd molars apices were performed using Mimics and 3-Matics software. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to derive age estimation model using chronological age as a dependent variable and surface area of the apices, ethnicity, gender and status of the root development completion (open/closed apices) as predictor variables. A strong inverse correlation (r = 0.95, SD = 1.144) was observed between chronological age and all the predictor variables. The results showed that 89.6% of the variation in age can be explained by the predictor variables. Mean absolute error (MAE) value of 0.8223 was observed when the derived regression equation was tested on the independent validation sample. In conclusion, three-dimensional surface area analysis of the developing mandibular 3rd molars apices can be used as a reliable method for age estimation.

Unsupervised Linkage Threshold (ULT) method was applied for the analysis of ballpoint pen inks with the purpose of estimating the date on which manuscripts were launched on documents. In order to verify ink degradation patterns over time, manuscript samples were removed from forensic expert reports produced along the years ranging from 1962 to 2014, and which had been stored in the archives of the National Institute of Criminalistics (NIC) of the Brazilian Federal Police. A total of 505 ink samples were analyzed by Electron Spray Ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry, and these showed a significant variation in the ink formulation over time. From the normalized mass spectrometry peak areas, the ULT method was employed in the correlation analysis of ink manuscripts using the cosine squared function as a similarity measure. The method allowed a simple, fast and reliable determination of threshold correlation values as well as ink dating confidence intervals for each kind of formulation studied. It has been observed that dye stability may change drastically depending upon the chemical group (methyl or ethyl) lost in the degradation process. Due to its statistical nature, the developed method does not rely upon prior knowledge of factors such as storage conditions or initial dye formulation. This feature can be an advantage in real forensic applications since this type of information is not usually available to forensic experts.

Sprat is a pelagic species of increasing commercial interest in European waters, yet little is known about its biology or the drivers of its population fluctuations. As a result, the species is currently without an analytical assessment or forecast across much of the North East Atlantic. The objectives of this study were to: verify otolith-based age estimation of sprat; assess the precision, bias and reproducibility of these age estimates; and, determine the age structure of sprat within one North East Atlantic management unit (Celtic Seas ecoregion). Samples were collected over three years (2011, 2013 & 2014) from both commercial catches and scientific surveys. Counts of daily increments in otoliths were used to establish when the first annulus was formed. The seasonal development of annuli was validated using marginal increment analysis. Age estimates were found to be both accurate and reproducible with no intra-reader bias and limited inter-reader bias (average coefficient of variation 2.7%). The age estimates indicate that the stock is comprised primarily of age 0, 1 and 2 year olds. This study has provided previously unavailable information on the biology and age structure of this species which is required to improve assessment and sustainable management of the species.

Age estimation in adults based on aspartic acid racemization (AAR) provides fewer errors and higher precision than that based on bone morphology for the identification of cadavers. The technique has been established in some labs as a routine method. However, as the essential requisites for the technique, a wide age range of teeth of the same type as the target tooth must be collected for calibration for each examination. We investigated whether dentin standard samples could be prepared by increasing the AAR rate via heat. Powdered dentin was prepared from a maxillary first premolar (13 years) and heated for 0-72 h at 110 °C. The extent of AAR increased significantly with heating time and the correlation was strong (r = 0.913; p 0.01). Similar results were found for a mandibular canine (24 years, r = 0.948; p 0.01) and a maxillary third molar (20 years, r = 0.944; p 0.01). We attempted to estimate the age of four maxillary first premolars of persons aged 25-58 years by using the heated samples (18 years, 12 h to 7 days). The differences between the actual and estimated ages were within ±5 years. The stability of the AAR rates in the powdered dentin during storage at 22-25 °C, 4 °C, and -30 °C was examined after 1 year and no significant changes had occurred. We were able to prepare dentin standard samples and created a calibration curve. This is a pilot study that needs to be validated before it can be used in forensic practice.

Several characteristics of very small impact craters of lunar surface have recently been improved by high resolution datasets. Lunar impact craters with diameter below 100 m and especially below 10 m were surveyed and compared at mare and terra surfaces in this work, altogether at 0.6 km2 area with 4866 craters there. The surface density values (of all craters/km2) at the mare regions were 1.5–2.0 times larger than at the terra regions, and this difference came mainly from There is an ongoing debate on the reliability and usage of small craters for age estimation ( Xiao and Strom, 2012 ), this work provides some further information to evaluate this aspect. No correlation was found between the areal density values of craters and ages determined from size-frequency distributions, confirming (using examples of smaller craters than analysed in most earlier works), that large sized craters dominate the age estimation despite the larger number of

The estimation of bloodstain age is an important factor in forensic analysis. Previously, we have reported a smartphone-based colorimetric system for age estimation of bloodstain, in which Whole blood and EDTA whole blood were dropped on 4 different materials (700 μL) and captured using a smartphone for 72 h. In order to enhance sensitivity and accuracy of the previous system, the current work is dedicated towards the application of pattern recognition and classification of bloodstain images based on a smartphone. Three detection methods (blood pool, crack ratio, and colorimetric analysis) in terms of 6 steps of drying process of the bloodstain (coagulation, gelation, edge desiccation, center desiccation, crack propagation, and final desiccation) were applied to estimate age of the bloodstain accurately. Three parameters from the bloodstain images were then classified as comparing to those of stored reference images with similar trends in database. The bloodstain age was successfully determined by 9 h, 18 h, and 48 h with respect to the three detection methods mentioned above, respectively. The differences in bloodstain images were clearly distinguished every hour by using smartphone-based pattern recognition analysis. Therefore, our system is expected to shed a light on the field of forensic science by estimating bloodstain age in real time.

The use of bone mineral density (BMD) to predict age-at-death in skeletal remains provides a usable alternative to other methods because the values obtained are not observer-dependent. The aim of this study was to investigate the usability of BMD to estimate age in South African populations, and to assess inter-population variation and sex-specific differences in BMD values from the proximal end of the femur. In order to estimate age, regression analysis was done for the construction of population dependent formulae. The sample comprised of a total of 123 femora of black and white South Africans. DXA scans were performed using the Hologic Discovery system. Data analysis was done by employing independent-samples t-tests and correlation/regression analyses. The results indicated a statistically significant difference between black and white South Africans. Male groups were also significantly different from one another, but black and white females showed no significant differences. Linear regression analysis revealed a significant correlation between BMD values and age for the white population and the combined sample, but not for the black population. Bootstrapping were employed to confirm validity of the results. In conclusion, this study showed that the use of DXA measurements of the femur for estimating age may be used for the estimation of age-at-death in white South Africans, but more research is needed to better understand the relationship between bone mineral density and age in black South Africans.

WOS: 000459131600013, It may be necessary to determine the identity or gender of a person for any reason (disasters, inheritance etc.). In such cases, forensic medical institutions are asked for help. Forensic science institutions try to estimate the age of people's teeth and bones. In this study, a novel algorithm was developed to keep these predictions at the highest level and to obtain definite results. The data base of 162 different tooth classes is created manually. All image sizes are 150x150 pixels. First, image preprocessing techniques have been applied to teeth images. These preprocessing techniques were first applied to teeth images. After this process, the segmentation process of the teeth images was performed to extract the feature by novel segmentation algorithm. Segmentation can be done automatically and dynamically. Numerical data obtained as a result of feature extraction from dental images is presented as an inputs to Multi layer perceptron neural network. In application, feature reduction can be performed. Thanks to the originally developed algorithm, the highest success rates were obtained with the highest 99.9% (full segment) and 100% (notfull segment) classification. After classification, for many dental groups the age estimate is performed with zero error. Application was developed as a multidisciplinary study. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved., Selcuk University Scientific Research Projects Coordinatorship/Konya, Turkey, This work is supported by the Selcuk University Scientific Research Projects Coordinatorship/Konya, Turkey.

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the impacts of infant and elderly underenumeration and age estimation error on previously reported measures derived from the D0–14/D ratio, specifically total fertility rate and the rate of natural increase. This study used data from the United Nations database for the year 1960. A two-step approach was taken: to test the stability of the relationship we examined the correlation between the D0–14/D ratio and population dynamics of interest with data omitted or misclassified to simulate a range of sample underrepresentation and age estimation error scenarios. To evaluate the practical implications, we used our existing equations to estimate total fertility and natural increase rates using the simulated differentially represented samples and calculated the standard error of the estimate. Correlations remained robust until a small number of infants and the elderly were represented. Where both infants and the elderly were underrepresented, as much as 75% of these age categories could be removed before accuracy of the equations was significantly compromised. Where either infant underenumeration or elderly underenumeration is suspected, our palaeodemographic measures maintain accuracy when up to 25% of the sample is missing. Age estimation error had a negligible impact. These measures demonstrated robusticity in a range of sample underenumeration scenarios, particularly for sources of bias that impact both infants and the elderly equally, and age estimation error. Where either infants or the elderly have been significantly underrepresented or omitted from the burial site, alternative measures may be required.

During the last decade, deep learning and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have produced a devastating impact on computer vision, yielding exceptional results on a variety of problems, including analysis of medical images. Recently, these techniques have been extended to 3D images with the downside of a large increase in the computational load. In particular, state-of-the-art CNNs have been used for brain Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) imaging, with the aim of estimating the patients’ age. In fact, a large discrepancy between the real and the estimated age is a clear alarm for the onset of neurodegenerative diseases, such as some types of early dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. In this paper, we propose an effective alternative to 3D convolutions that guarantees a significant reduction of the computational requirements for this kind of analysis. The proposed architectures achieve comparable results with the competitor 3D methods, requiring only a fraction of the training time and GPU memory.

Listeners are able to very approximately estimate speakers’ ages, with a mean estimation error of around ten years. Interestingly, accuracy varies considerably, depending on a number of social aspects of both speaker and listener, including age, gender and native language or language variety. The present study considers the effects of four factors on age perception. It investigates whether there is a main effect of speakers’ native language (Arabic, Korean and Mandarin) even when speaking a second language, English. It also investigates a particular speaker-listener relationship, namely the degree of linguistic familiarity. Linguistic familiarity was expected to be greater between Mandarin and Korean than between Mandarin or Korean and Arabic. In addition, it considers the effect of the acoustic cues of mean fundamental frequency (F0) and speech rate on age estimates. Fifteen Arabic-accented, fifteen Korean-accented and twenty Mandarin-accented English speakers participated as listeners. They heard audio stimuli produced by forty-eight speakers, equally distributed between native Arabic, Korean and Mandarin speakers, reading a short passage in English. Listeners were instructed to estimate speakers’ ages in years. Listeners’ age estimates and reaction times were recorded. Results indicate a significant main effect of speaker native language on perceived age such that Mandarin speakers were estimated to be younger than Arabic speakers. There was also a significant effect of linguistic familiarity on age estimation accuracy. Age estimates were more accurate with greater linguistic familiarity, i.e., native Korean and Mandarin listeners estimated ages of speakers of their own native languages more accurately than native Arabic speakers’ ages and vice versa. In terms of acoustic cues, mean F0 and speech rate were significant predictors of age estimation. These effects suggest that in perception, age may be marked not only by biological changes that occur over the lifetime, but also by language-specific socio-cultural features.

For medico-legal forensic practitioners the identification of unknown remains is an important part of any investigation, often predicated on having accurate estimations of age and sex. In considering the specific skeletal elements available to facilitate such biological information, the cranium is frequently targeted for analysis, as it exhibits marked traits of sexual dimorphism, and also has a predictable pattern of growth. There are, however, instances where it may not be possible to estimate skeletal sex, especially in the juvenile skeleton. There is still considerable uncertainty surrounding the age at which the human cranium is quantifiably dimorphic. The aim of the present study is to explore age and sex variation in three-dimensionally reconstructed MDCT scans of the juvenile cranium. The study sample comprises 152 juvenile crania from a Western Australian population; a total of 52 three-dimensional landmarks are acquired and analyzed using Procrustean geometric morphometrics. Group discrimination is assessed between sexes and across age classes. Results demonstrate that sexual dimorphism and age variation is discernible through geometric morphometric analysis of form, size and shape. Relative to sex and age, size is found to be generally equivalent to, or even more accurate than, shape data. There is little quantifiable sexual dimorphism in individuals younger than 12years of age with most variation related to age; discrimination improves with increasing age, with average hit rate (HR) values increasing from just over 50% (52-58%) to more than 90% (93-94%) accuracy at 18years. In contrast, differences between contiguous age classes follow the opposite trend and tend to be larger in prepubertal groups, while becoming progressively smaller in older age classes. This study demonstrates that simple linear interlandmark distances describing overall cranial size may provide a simple option for preliminary classifications of age and sex in skeletal remains of forensic interest. However, although recombining size and shape to perform analyses using form generally does not appreciably improve predictive accuracy, it potentially contributes to increased confidence in group assessment (especially for sex) and thus offers a promising, albeit complex, type of information to discriminate groups based on cranial size and/or shape.

Objective With a specific focus on Italy, the aim of this paper was to assess the development of forensic imaging techniques, to determine which techniques have had a larger diffusion, and to identify the most relevant field of application. Materials and methods An online literature search was performed to identify Italian publications on forensic imaging between 1956 and February of 2018. For each publication included in the analysis, the following data were annotated: title and abstract, year of publication, type of article, and number and type of subjects examined. The selected publications were also categorized based on imaging modalities and the forensic field of investigation. Results A total of 44 Italian publications were included in the study. Publications of forensic imaging have increased in the last years. More than half of all manuscripts were related to post-mortem investigations (31/44; 70%). The majority of all post-mortem publications were focused on the documentation of injury or disease followed by identification and age estimation category (5/44; 11%). In cases of unnatural death, the principle issue of research was gunshot wounds, followed by asphyxia and drowning. The most commonly used imaging modality was computed tomography (CT). Conclusions The results of this study showed an increase of forensic imaging in Italy in the last years. However, a review of the literature demonstrated that imaging techniques are not yet exhaustively adopted by the Italian forensic community, and that further research is needed to provide information about the accuracy of forensic imaging techniques with respect to autopsy.

Computational facial models that capture properties of facial cues related to aging and kinship increasingly attract the attention of the research community, enabling the development of reliable methods for age progression, age estimation, age-invariant facial characterization, and kinship verification from visual data. In this paper, we review recent advances in modeling of facial aging and kinship. In particular, we provide an up-to date, complete list of available annotated datasets and an in-depth analysis of geometric, hand-crafted, and learned facial representations that are used for facial aging and kinship characterization. Moreover, evaluation protocols and metrics are reviewed and notable experimental results for each surveyed task are analyzed. This survey allows us to identify challenges and discuss future research directions for the development of robust facial models in real-world conditions.

Aim This study aims to evaluate the applicability of Willems method in a sample of Tunisian children. Panoramic x-ray photographs of 500 children (241 females, 259 males) aged between 5 and 15 years were examined. The mean absolute error (MAE) was performed to assess the accuracy of age estimation. The chronological age minus dental age (CA-DA) was determined for each age group and for each gender. Independent samples t-test was employed to compare the differences between genders. Methods Willems method underestimated the chronological age on the average, by 0.40 years for males and by 0.69 years for females. The discrepancy between the chronological age and the estimated age was most frequently observed for ages above 8 years. Results It is established that the Willems method could estimate the chronological age with acceptable accuracy in Tunisian children (MAE = 1.10 years, and 0.98 years for males and females, respectively).

The goal of this project is to validate the Cameriere's method applied to the upper and lower second premolars in a Portuguese population, regarding the forensic estimate of age. The applied sample consisted in 100 panoramic radiographs, of 60 males and 40 females, patients of the Faculty of Dental Medicine of the University of Lisbon, whose ages vary between 15 and 35 years old. Thus, a total of 400 teeth were investigated (200 upper second premolars and 200 lower second premolars). Each radiograph was analysed using draw and measurement tools featured in Adobe Photoshop, applying the Cameriere's method, and then the pulp/tooth ratio was computed for the 15, 25, 35 and 45 teeth. All data were statistically analysed with the SPSS program, using a significant level of 5%. It was not observed any kind of relation, linear or not linear, between age and the pulp/tooth ratio. Linear regressions with considerably low values for the coefficient of determination were achieved, which indicates a low reliability for these models. Accordingly, we conclude that the knowledge of the pulp/tooth ratio does not allow the identification of an individual based on the Cameriere's method, in the scope of a forensic age estimate applied to panoramic radiograph. Further investigations with larger samples and broader age groups are required in order to provide suitable evidence to the legal and social aspects of age estimate in Forensic Dentistry.

Age estimation is a crucial part of the forensic investigation of bruises in livestock pigs [1] , [2] , [3] . Currently, age estimations are based on histological evaluation of the lesions in the skin and underlying muscle tissue [2] . However, the intensity of inflammation and tissue damage depends not only on the age of bruises but also on sampling site, anatomical location and the speed, mass and force used to inflict the lesions [1] , [4] , [5] . Twelve experimental slaughter pigs were anesthetized and on each animal, four blunt traumas were inflicted on the back (area of impact Nos. 1–4). The pigs were euthanized at 2, 5 or 8 h after infliction. Skin and underlying muscle tissue were sampled from the center (B) and both ends of bruises (A, C) and evaluated histologically. Descriptive statistics were performed on the data obtained and presented in figures and tables. Differences (odds ratios) between sampling sites (A, B and C), object used to inflict bruises (plastic tube or iron bar), anatomical location (area of impact Nos. 1–4) and bruise age (2, 5 and 8 h) were evaluated using the GENMOD procedure in SAS Enterprise Guide 7.1 and presented in tables. In addition, the agreements (estimated as Cohen׳s kappa) between two observers evaluating the histological parameters were calculated and presented. Data have been further analyzed and discussed in a recent paper [1]

Age estimation is a key component in forensic analysis, be it in legal proceedings or archeological research. Current methods in forensic odontology are based on manual measurements of a wide array of morphometric parameters, typically from dental x-ray images, and occasionally from material remains. While those parameters follow a set progression during human development, thereby allowing current methods to precisely estimate the age of juveniles, estimation for adults and seniors proves to be more difficult. In this study, we explore the applicability of deep learning to the problem of chronological age estimation. We determine the best convolutional neural network model derived from state-of-the-art architectures, we determine the best performing model parameters using pretrained general-purpose vision model parameters as the starting point, and we perform ablation experiments to highlight which anatomical regions of the dental system contribute the most to the estimation. The proposed approach attains the lowest estimation error in literature for adult and senior subjects, which we verify on one of the largest datasets of panoramic dental x-ray images in literature. The dataset consists of 4035 panoramic dental x-ray images of male and female subjects with ages between 19 and 90 years. This study also evaluates the feasibility of the proposed model for age estimations of individual teeth, achieving an estimation error competitive with current methods while being fully automated. The estimation error is verified on our dataset of 76416 individual tooth images, which is the largest dataset to date in forensic odontology literature. Unlike current methods, dental alterations, decay, illnesses, or missing teeth do not pose a problem to the proposed model. With a median estimation error of 2.95 years for panoramic dental x-ray images and 4.68 years for individual teeth, and by deriving the model from state-of-the-art architectures, verifying those results on the largest dataset in forensic odontology literature and demonstrating the importance of different anatomical regions of the dental system for estimation, this study sets the baseline for future research of automated chronological age estimation in forensic odontology.

Background Accurate estimation of nestlings’ age is essential in avian demography studies as well as in population ecology and conservation. For example, it can be useful for synchronizing nest visits with events of particular interest, such as the age at which young can be safely ringed, or in choosing the best period to attain the most accurate calculation of laying or hatching dates. Methods We constructed a photographic guide for aging European Bee-eaters (Merops apiaster) nestlings to 3-day age classes and evaluated the aging method by performing a validation exercise with several observers with no previous experience in aging bee-eater nestlings. Results The aging guide for bee-eater nestlings allowed estimating age to within 3 days with an average accuracy of 0.85. We found the optimal period for aging nestlings was between days 13‒18 (with accuracy between 0.94 and 0.99), during which the status of feather development was more easily distinguishable from the preceding and subsequent age classes. During the first 3 days after hatching, nestlings could also be aged with high accuracy (0.93). The small size of the nestling in relation to the eggs and the nestling’s inability to raise its head during these first days allowed for good discrimination from the subsequent age class. Between days 25 and 28, nestlings were correctly aged in only half of assignments (0.55 sensitivity) and nestlings belonging to class 7 (days 7‒9) were the least correctly identified (0.38 sensitivity). However, by visiting the nests at 12 days intervals it is possible to achieve the highest accuracy in age estimation with the smallest disturbance and logistic investment. Conclusions This study highlighted how indirect methods and a simple protocol can be established and employed to quickly estimate nestling age in cases where handling nestlings is challenging or impossible, while minimizing disturbance in and around the nest.

Objective The auricular surface of the ilium is often found preserved in both archaeological and forensic contexts. In the final manuscript of this three-part series, the features used by biological and forensic anthropologists to estimate adult skeletal age from the auricular surface are tested on volume-rendered images (VRIs) generated from CT scans of cadavers. Materials and methods CT scans of 420 cadavers from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine were selected (age range 20–79 years). Siemens syngo.via software was used to view the DICOM images and create the VRIs. The Lovejoy et al. auricular surface method of age estimation was assessed for use on VRIs and a new method for VRIs was created. Results and conclusion Most of the features described by Lovejoy et al. could not be observed on the VRIs, and as previously established by Villa et al. (2013) [13], the Buckberry and Chamberlain method cannot be used on VRIs. Features such as transverse organization, surface texture, and microporosity are not visible on VRIs; however, features of the auricular surface and retroauricular area were seen to progress in a manner similar to that described by Lovejoy and colleagues, and a revised auricular surface method for use on VRIs was developed. The revised method is strongly correlated with age, and over 70% of the sample was placed within one standard deviation of the mean of the correct phase. This revised method should be tested on more populations using different CT settings and software.

Objective CT scans have become a standard part of autopsy procedures in large medical-legal facilities, and forensic anthropologists are increasingly asked to contribute their knowledge of skeletal anatomy to volume-rendered images (VRIs) generated from CT scans. However, it is not clear if the age estimation methods created using skeletal remains can be reliably applied to VRIs. This study, along with the other two in this series, examines the applicability of three commonly used sites for adult skeletal age estimation on VRIs generated from CT scans of cadavers. Part I focuses on the fourth rib. Materials and methods CT scans of 420 cadavers from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine were selected (age range 20–79 years). Siemens syngo.via software was used to view the DICOM images and create the VRIs. The Iscan et al. and Hartnett fourth rib methods of age estimation were used to create a revised method for VRIs. Results and conclusion Several features described by both Iscan et al. and Hartnett could be observed on the VRIs; however, features such as porosity inside the sternal rib and bone weight could not be assessed. A revised fourth rib method for use on VRIs was created. Significantly more individuals were placed in the correct age phase using the revised method compared to the Iscan et al. and Hartnett methods, and overall the revised method had significantly improved inaccuracy and bias scores. The revised method is reliable and should be tested on other populations using different software.

Ordinal metric learning (OML) is an important research branch of metric learning and has attracted increasing attention due to its wide applications where there typically exists a global order (i.e., ordinal) relationship among the data classes, such as human age estimation and head pose recognition, etc. Although several works have been proposed to perform OML, they suffer from two critical drawbacks: 1) only the local ordinal relationships among classes rather than the global one are considered, and 2) the very time-consuming semi-definite programming is commonly involved. To avoid these shortcomings, in this paper we propose a novel OML approach, named ordinal space projection learning (OSPL) by representing one class with its neighbor classes whose representation weights are proportional to their class distance (i.e., absolute label difference), in which the neighboring ordinal class similarities are taken into account in their reconstruction. Then, we present an alternating optimization algorithm to solve the proposed method to learn an ordinal distance space. Finally, extensive experiments on ordinal estimation tasks demonstrate effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.

Age estimation plays an important role in clinical and forensic dentistry. Cameriere's 2007 open apices method for age estimation was applied in a sample of 612 digital panoramic orthopantomographs from Brazilian subadult individuals of known age and sex. The sample was composed of 290 males and 322 females individuals aged between four and 16 years of age from São Paulo metropolitan area who had undertaken radiographs for clinical purposes. Participant's ethnicity data was not available. An open code computer-aided drafting software (ImageJ) was used to measure the variables according to the author's published guidelines. Subjects' age was firstly estimated under the application of the European formula (2007) showing under-estimation (-1.24yr). On the other hand, the linear regression analysis modeled for this specific population was able to explain 91.2% of the chronological age variation with a standard error of 0.91yr. Residual analyses confirmed independent errors and a normal distribution. In conclusion, the present results support Cameriere's method for age estimation in Brazilian subadults to be a reliable method, although correlations may vary between specific groups and, hence, specific formulae may be useful for an accurate prediction.

Objectives Because of methodological biases and statistical issues, individual age estimation has been considered too imprecise in reconstructing valid palaeodemographic mortality profiles. Recently, the standardized procedure of cementochronology (the tooth cementum annulations method) has reduced technical biases, thus increasing the accuracy of age estimates. This study aims to test the reliability of cementochronology in estimating the age distribution of an archaeological sample to then build the corresponding abridged life table to assess demographic parameters of the living population. Materials and methods By combining cementochronology with probability density analysis, we assessed the cumulative probabilistic age-at-death distribution of 109 adults buried between the 16th and 18th centuries in Notre-Dame-du-Bourg Cathedral (France). We compared biological results to the age-at-death structure of the 1382 adults buried in the cathedral, calculated with historical sources from local death registers, and to a model life table specifically established for preindustrial populations. Results Cementochronology is reliable for estimating the mortality profile of young and middle adult age categories but underestimates older age categories. Discussion Taphonomy mainly explains the underestimation in elderly individuals. Although some issues remain to be addressedin order to properly implement the method and improve reliability, cementochronology makes a major contribution to palaeodemography, as it provides relatively reliable mortality profiles with a precision never attained before, thus offering new prospects for studying the mortality of past populations.

The National Forensic Service (NFS) of Korea is a government agency responsible for examining and evaluating evidence obtained at crime scenes. The Section of Forensic Odontology of the Medical Examiner's Office conducts forensic odontological analyses of human remains, and mainly criminal cases are handled. In this study, 588 forensic odontological cases referred to NFS during 2011-2015 were analyzed for referral pattern, evidence material, examination criteria, and other factors and were compared with respective data from 2007 to 2010. Majority of the requests were internal (further dental examinations after autopsy) rather than external (direct requests from other agencies such as police departments). Regarding evidence materials, "Teeth" (including teeth and resected jaws) were dominant evidences. Due to the seasonal effects in Korea, the highest number of requests was in September of each year, but the number of requests in April has recently increased. Evidence materials were mostly found in suburban and rural area, especially in mountainous area due to the geographic characteristics of Korea. Regarding specific examinations, profiling, including age estimation, accounted for majority of the requests; this number had increased relative to the findings of a previous study, whereas the number of requests for dental identification and bite mark analysis had decreased. With this analysis, trends in forensic odontology can be observed, and we expect that these trends would be served as a reference for designing study and making training protocol for forensic odontology.

Age has always been an important attribute of identity. It also has been an important factor in social interaction. The posture, vocabulary, facial wrinkles and the intonation are all elements that facilitate the prediction of the user's age. Age estimation from the face by numerical analysis finds many potential applications such as the development of intelligent human-machine interfaces and improvement of safety and protection in various sectors such as transport, security and medicine. In many works, researchers are particularly interested in the face's features to regress the age. Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and particulary Deep Learning (DL) techniques increase motivations to use this methods to estimate age. In this work, we present a novel method for age estimation from a facial images based on autoencoders. Autoencoder is an artificial neural network used for unsupervised learning of efficient coding. Its aim is to learn a representation for a set of data. The purpose of this work is to exploit the performance of autoencoders to learn features in a supervised manner to estimate user's age. We use MORPH, FG-NET datasets to test the performance of our proposed method. Experimental results show the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed method through the MAE (Men Average Error) rate showing a value of 3.34% for MORPH dataset and 3.75% for FG-NET.

Not only does the Bayesian approach offer a rational and logical environment for evidence evaluation in a forensic framework, but it also allows scientists to coherently deal with uncertainty related to a collection of multiple items of evidence, due to its flexible nature. Such flexibility might come at the expense of elevated computational complexity, which can be handled by using specific probabilistic graphical tools, namely Bayesian networks. In the current work, such probabilistic tools are used for evaluating dental evidence related to the development of third molars. A set of relevant properties characterizing the graphical models are discussed and Bayesian networks are implemented to deal with the inferential process laying beyond the estimation procedure, as well as to provide age estimates. Such properties include operationality, flexibility, coherence, transparence and sensitivity. A data sample composed of Italian subjects was employed for the analysis; results were in agreement with previous studies in terms of point estimate and age classification. The influence of the prior probability elicitation in terms of Bayesian estimate and classifies was also analyzed. Findings also supported the opportunity to take into consideration multiple teeth in the evaluative procedure, since it can be shown this results in an increased robustness towards the prior probability elicitation process, as well as in more favorable outcomes from a forensic perspective.

Age estimation is critical in forensic science, in competitive sports and games and in other age-related fields, but the current methods are suboptimal. The combination of age-associated DNA methylation markers with skeletal age (SA) and dental age (DA) may improve the accuracy and precision of age estimation, but no study has examined this topic. In the current study, we measured SA (GP, TW3-RUS, and TW3-Carpal methods) and DA (Demirjian and Willems methods) by X-ray examination in 124 Chinese children (78 boys and 46 girls) aged 6-15 years. To identify age-associated CpG sites, we analyzed methylome-wide DNA methylation profiling by using the Illumina HumanMethylation450 BeadChip system in 48 randomly selected children. Five CpG sites were identified as associated with chronologic age (CA), with an absolute value of Pearson's correlation coefficient (r)>0.5 (p

Age assessment from images is of high interest in the forensic community because of the necessity to establish formal protocols to identify child pornography, child missing and abuses where visual evidences are the mostly admissible. Recently, photoanthropometric methods have been found useful for age estimation correlating facial proportions in image databases with samples of some age groups. Notwithstanding the advances, newer facial features and further analysis are needed to improve accuracy and establish larger applicability. In this investigation, frontal images of 1000 individuals (500 females, 500 males), equally distributed in five age groups (6, 10, 14, 18, 22 years old) were used in a 10 fold cross-validated experiment for three age thresholds classifications (10,14,18 years old). A set of novel 40 features, based on a relation between landmark distances and the iris diameter, is proposed and joint mutual information is used to select the most relevant and complementary features for the classification task. In a civil image identification database with diverse ancestry, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to verify accuracy, and the resultant AUCs achieved 0.971, 0.969, and 0.903 for the age classifications (10,14,18 years old), respectively. These results add support to continuing research in age assessment from images using the metric approach. Still, larger samples are necessary to evaluate reliability in extensive conditions.

The accuracies of the original Demirjian, modified Demirjian and Willems dental age estimation methods were compared for a Black Southern African population to determine their usefulness for forensic and anthropological purposes. Data were collected using a community-based prospective study design. Panoramic radiographs of seven left mandibular teeth from 540 children aged 5–15.99 years were scored using the three methods. Obtained estimates were compared to the chronological ages and mean absolute errors were calculated. The original Demirjian method significantly overestimated ages (males 0.85 years, female 1.0 years; mean absolute errors of 1.1 years for both sexes), as did the modified Demirjian method (males 0.90 years, females 1.21 years; mean absolute errors of males 1.1 years, females 1.4 years). The Willems method was the most accurate for Black Southern Africans, with the lowest significant mean difference (males 0.2 years, females 0.3 years) between dental and chronological age, with the least mean absolute errors (males 0.70 years, females 0.68 years).

This paper analyses some of the epistemological frameworks that underpin diagnosis in palaeopathology. Currently, the dominant approach is comparative: relationships between skeletal lesions and disease in a reference group in which there is independent evidence of the diseases present in individuals are used to identify disease in unknown archaeological skeletons on the basis of the lesions present. This is essentially a reference sample - target sample approach, analogous to that used to develop methodology in other areas of biological anthropology (e.g. age estimation in palaeodemography). As well as considerable strengths, this approach also has significant weaknesses. Many of these arise from the nature of the reference material (mainly pathology museum and other skeletal collections, and published collations of medical imaging data) used to develop diagnostic criteria. There may also be a tendency toward over-emphasis on pattern-matching between reference and target material, and an under-emphasis on developing our understanding of the biology of bone lesions. Despite its shortcomings, the comparative approach is likely to remain the foundation of most palaeopathological work, but we should increasingly augment it with other diagnostic approaches, especially those grounded in the pathophysiology of bony responses to disease.

Erosion by tsunami waves represents an important issue when determining the age of a tsunami deposit, because the age is usually estimated using dating of sediments above and below the deposit. Dating of material within the tsunami deposit, if suitable material is obtainable, can be used to further constrain its age. Eroded sediments are sometimes incorporated within the tsunami deposits as rip-up clasts, which might therefore be used as minimum age dating material. However, the single calibrated 14 C age often shows a wide age range because of fluctuations in the calibration curve. Therefore, it remains uncertain whether rip-up clast measurements are useful to constrain the depositional age of tsunami deposits, or not. In this study, we carried out high-resolution 14 C dating of tsunami deposits, including rip-up clasts of peat, in Rikuzentakata, northeastern Japan, where numerous rip-up clasts were observed within a tsunami deposit. Sediments above and below the tsunami deposit and a 5 cm large rip-up clast were dated sequentially. Comparison of these dating results with the calibration curve revealed that the clast was inverted. Its age was better constrained based on the stratigraphic order, and we infer that the clast corresponds to approximately 100 years of sedimentation. The oldest age of the clast was consistent with the age of the peat immediately below the tsunami deposit, suggesting that surface sediments probably formed the rip-up clast at the time of the tsunami. Thus, the dating of the rip-up clast was useful to further constrain the depositional age of the tsunami deposit, as we narrowed the tsunami deposit age range by approximately 100 years. Results show that ignoring tsunami-related erosion might lead to overestimation of the tsunami deposit age. For this reason, an appropriate dating site, which is less affected by minor tsunami-related erosion with regards to the paleo-topography, should be explored. We therefore propose a more effective sampling strategy for better age estimation of tsunami deposits.

For the first time, the Upper Pleistocene Girkanian sediment subhorizon was recorded in the submarine boreholes of the northern Caspian Sea and its radiocarbon age was estimated. Girkanian beds lying at a depth of 25 m beneath the seafloor were studied by lithological, biostratigraphical, seismic and radiocarbon dating methods. They were distinguished based on the characteristic assemblage of Mollusca (Didacna subcatillus, D. cristata, Corbicula fluminalis, etc.). This assemblage is similar to its onshore analogue and differs from the fauna of the underlying Upper Khazarian (D. surahanica, D. nalivkini, etc.) and overlying Lower Khvalynian (D. ebersini, D. parallella, D. protracta, etc.) layers. Acoustic profiling indicates the ubiquity of the horizon in the northern Caspian Sea, as seen from the clear correlation between boreholes. AMS 14C dating has shown that the age of the Girkanian deposits exceeds 55 ka. Their real age haze to be about 80 ka. The obtained results on identification and age estimation of Girkanian beds are an important contribution to the verification of the Upper Pleistocene stratigraphy of the Caspian Sea region.

Much emphasis has been placed on challenges related to estimating ages of old fish, yet accurately estimating age for young individuals has proved equally challenging for some species. Indices of recruitment are often based on assigning ages to young fish to estimate the strength of a given year class. Similarly, growth is most commonly estimated using age-based methods and has been proposed as a metric for evaluating the quality of nursery habitats. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of information on the validity of age estimates for many fishes, and thus the accuracy of age-based metrics used to guide management of these species is unknown. To address such needs, we conducted a validation study of age and growth estimation methods for juvenile tarpon (Megalops atlanticus), using oxytetracycline to chemically mark otoliths and scales. Oxytetracycline marks were observed on all the otoliths of recaptured tarpon (n = 23), prior to a newly formed annulus, validating true age and that one annulus is deposited yearly. Marginal increment analysis indicated that annuli form in tarpon otoliths and scales during March–April. Annuli in scales were more easily identified by readers leading to more accurate and precise estimates of age from scales (100 % accuracy of age estimates for age-1 fish) compared to otoliths (88 % accuracy). Although annual age estimates were accurate, we observed substantial error and low accuracy for daily age estimates based on otoliths (10 % accuracy). Additionally, there was a poor relationship between otolith radius and tarpon length (R2 = 0.46), which resulted in inaccurate estimates of back-calculated length-at-age and growth rates. Our results indicate that scales can be used to differentiate between age-0 and age-1 tarpon, which will aid in conservation efforts by allowing for more accurate evaluation of the age structure within nursery habitats and the quality of these habitats. Further research is needed to better understand factors influencing daily age and growth estimates from otoliths.

The ability to detect pregnancies from archeological human teeth using Tooth Cementum Annulation (TCA) method continues to challenge bioarcheologists. We discuss the serious methodological limitations of the TCA technique when applied to studying fertility in the past. This discussion is prompted by a recent publication on these two topics (see Penezic et al., 2020) which we argue suffers from fundamental factual and methodological flaws. We suggest the claims made in that paper lack the level of supporting evidence required. We conclude that many serious published confounding difficulties exist and must be accounted for by researchers wishing to infer most life history parameters, especially fertility related ones, from archeological samples.