NEURAL TIME-OF-DEATH IDENTIFICATION GUIDE

The Application of Neural Networks to Inferring Time Since Death In Deer
By Espinoza, Edgard O., Mitchell, Stuart, and Stockdale, Michael

Immediately after death many physical changes occur. The body temperature of a carcass begins to decrease and is followed by rigor mortis. Eventually the different stages of decomposition reduce the carcass to its skeleton remains. In wildlife, Time Since Death (TSD) inferences have relied on:

1. body temperature,
2. rigor mortis,
3. chemical changes in the vitreous fluid,
4. physical changes in the eye,
5. electrical stimulus and
6. the succession of insects after death.

Wildlife officers commonly use carcass-cooling rates for inferring time since death (TSD).  Computer programs have been developed that use the deer carcass thigh temperature to estimate the time of death by applying quadratic equations and regression analysis. Recent investigations have shown that CompuTOD's  (a program written by some of these authors) underlying assumptions were erroneous.

This manuscript addresses:

1. the development of a computer program, called NeuralTOD, that uses Neural Networks for estimating TSD and
2. the problems associated with TSD inferences using CompuTOD or other statistical based computer programs.

• View the The Application of Neural Networks to Inferring Time Since Death In Deer white paper (PDF 94 KB)
• Download the NeuralTOD Application (zipped file, 1525 KB)
• Unzip the file and run setup.

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