Shane Tobe

Thirteen years after the first edition, Saferstein's Forensic Science Handbook Volume III comes this second edition. The second edition compromises nine chapters which cover a diverse range of topics from analysis of dust (Chapter 2), applications of IR spectroscopy (Chapter 3) and microscopy (Chapter 4) thru DNA (Chapter 7) and Y-STRs (Chapter 8), and firearm discharge residue (Chapter 9). The quality of the images within this edition is far superior to that of the first edition in terms of size and clarity. This is especially evident in Chapter 7. I will review this book in two ways: as an overall review and; as a comparison to the first edition...

Bayesian Networks: A Practical Guide to Applications is set out in 22 chapters including an introduction to Bayesian Networks and a concluding chapter. It covers a wide range of topics including medical diagnosis, economics, environmental issues and risk management (among others) demonstrating the wide applicability of the technique. The introduction provides a comprehensive description of the benefits, as well as the drawbacks, of probabilistic modelling. Bayesian Networks are introduced in detail and examples are given. A previous statistical background is needed to fully understand and appreciate the introduction as well as the rest of the text...

This is a very comprehensive book on the process of PCR primer design using, for the most part, commercially available software. The text states it would be useful to organizations, companies, individual scientists and more (students perhaps?). By its own description it describes “basic approaches for PCR primer design in addition to specialized methods”. I find this to be an accurate description of the text. Some basic principles such as how to obtain and download sequence information are not addressed. Therefore, I feel this text will be useful for those having previous experience in primer design...