Fig 1 - uploaded by Antinea Menéndez
Content may be subject to copyright.
Scatterplot from stature and bone length correlation in males and females. The graph show the fitted regression line according to OLS model.
Source publication
Stature estimation is an important step to create a biological profile for human identification of unknown individuals in forensic anthropological practice, and it is well known that the long bone length is highly correlated with this feature. The purpose of the present study is to develop formulae for height estimation, based on simple linear regr...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... are estimates of the true errors in the model, in significant and robust models the residuals follow a normal distribution. To verify the density of the residuals we used the normal probability plot from the raw residuals and empirically we evaluated the trends by assume goodness of fit (Supplementary Figure 1), in the same manner, the descriptive statistics of the residuals can help to evaluate their distribution, in a robust model the residuals should follow a normal distribution and the standardized predicted and observed values take mean zero and standard deviation one (Supplementary Table 1). ...
Context 2
... shows that all combinations of bone are correlated with stature. As can be seen, results show that correlations are higher in tibia for male sample (0.855) and femur for females (0.820). Nevertheless, the tibia in females have moderate correlation (0.708), despite this, all pairwise comparisons were statistically significant (p ≤ .001) ( Fig. 1 and Table ...
Similar publications
Bones are one of the body parts most tolerant towards various environmental conditions, especially as unidentified remains found in several circumstances: mass disaster, terrorism, war, and plague. Typically, the most complex and time-consuming part of the STR typing process is DNA extraction, with many different methods developed, such as organic...
Citations
... As such, estimating subadult stature using fragmentary remains is only possible if diaphyseal lengths are estimated [19], which could potentially compound error for the stature estimate [20]. Linear regression is widely used in adult stature estimation [e.g., 21,22], because the relationship between long bone lengths and stature is linear once skeletal maturity is reached. However, the fluctuating relationships between long bone lengths and stature complicate subadult stature estimation by necessitating nonlinear models [14,15]. ...
The present study introduces new regression formulae that address several challenges of current subadult stature estimation methods by 1) using a large, contemporary, cross-sectional sample of subadult skeletal remains; 2) generating regression models using both lengths and breadths; 3) utilizing both linear and nonlinear regression models to accommodate the nonlinear shape of long bone growth; and 4) providing usable prediction intervals for estimating stature. Eighteen long bone measurements, stature, and age were collected from computed tomography images for a sample of individuals (n = 990) between birth and 20 years from the United States. The bivariate relationship between long bone measurements and stature was modeled using linear and nonlinear methods on an 80% training sample and evaluated on a 20% testing sample. Equations were generated using pooled-sex samples. Goodness of fit was evaluated using Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests and mean absolute deviation (MAD). Accuracy and precision were quantified using percent testing accuracy and Bland–Altman plots. In total, 38 stature estimation equations were created and evaluated, all achieving testing accuracies greater than 90%. Nonlinear models generated better fits compared to linear counterparts and generally produced smaller MAD (3.65 – 15.90cm). Length models generally performed better than breadth models, and a mixture of linear and nonlinear methods resulted in highest testing accuracies. Model performance was not biased by sex, age, or measurement type. A freely available, online graphical user interface is provided for immediate use of the models by practitioners in forensic anthropology and will be expanded to include bioarchaeological contexts in the future.
... In addition, they [4] recommended that regression equations should be formulated at different time intervals in order to adapt to the effects of secular trend. As a result, their equations have since been revised [5] and similar population-and sexspecific regression equations have been generated for long bones of limbs in different parts of the world [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], including South Africa [16][17][18][19]. ...
Accurate estimates of stature play an important role in the personal identification of unknown decedents, however a drawback in the application of many stature estimation equations is the need for known sex and population, the assignment of which can be challenging. Researchers have formulated equations for stature estimation that are neither population- nor sex-specific and thereof the aim of this study was to assess the applicability of these stature estimation equations proposed by Albanese et al.. (2016) (Albanese J, Tuck A, Gomes J, Cardoso HFV (2016) An alternative approach for estimating stature for long bones that is not population- or group-specific. Forensic Sci Int 259:59–68). The physiological length of the femur, condylar malleolar length of the tibia and a combination of these measurements, collected from Magnetic Resonance Imaging Scanograms of adult (20–60 years) White South African males (n = 30) and females (n = 44) were used to assess the accuracy of the Albanese et al. (Albanese J, Tuck A, Gomes J, Cardoso HFV (2016) An alternative approach for estimating stature for long bones that is not population- or group-specific. Forensic Sci Int 259:59–68). sex-specific and generic stature estimation equations. The stature estimates were compared with measured living stature (LSM), using paired t-tests. Results indicated that the Albanese et al. (Albanese J, Tuck A, Gomes J, Cardoso HFV (2016) An alternative approach for estimating stature for long bones that is not population- or group-specific. Forensic Sci Int 259:59–68). equations underestimated living stature by between 1.1 and 5.0 cm. These underestimations were significantly different between the LSM and the sex-specific estimates for females and the LSM and the generic estimates for males and the tibia for sex-specific equation. All stature estimates however fell in between two standard error of estimates for the sex-specific equations for males and the generic equations for the females. Although, the equations by Albanese et al. (Albanese J, Tuck A, Gomes J, Cardoso HFV (2016) An alternative approach for estimating stature for long bones that is not population- or group-specific. Forensic Sci Int 259:59–68). can be used to estimate stature in White South Africans in certain cases, the use of sex/population-specific equations remains the method of choice.
... From a practical perspective of forensic anthropology, in order to obtain an accurate identification of unknown skeletal remains it is crucial to take into account some specific population's patterns and characteristics. This way it is possible to achieve precise estimation of age, sex, stature and even biological affinity or ancestry (6,7). Estimating the stature from a variety of bones is an important aspect of forensic work (8,9). ...
... Comparison of the present study with those of Zhang et al. [63] and Lee et al. [39] is complicated because the subjects are different, but our results were superior to those of Zhang et al. [63] and slightly inferior to those of Lee Although some reports provided stature estimation formulae using measurements of the lower part of the femur [29,44,64,65], no report has suggested that LAP is useful for stature estimation. The high values of SEE for LAP and the three measurements, C-ML, C-LAP, and C-MAP, were not negligible. ...
... This study has several limitations. The measurements useful in other reports, such as the femoral diaphysis length, physiological length, or bicondylar length [13,29,65,68,69], were not measured because the semi-automatic measurement application was not configured to measure them. Furthermore, the application was developed by Fujifilm, including measurements selection. ...
Stature estimation is one of the most basic and important methods of personal identification. The long bones of the limbs provide the most accurate stature estimation, with the femur being one of the most useful. In all the previously reported methods of stature estimation using computed tomography (CT) images of the femur, laborious manual measurement was necessary. A semi-automatic bone measuring method can simplify this process, so we firstly reported a stature estimation process using semi-automatic bone measurement software equipped with artificial intelligence. Multiple measurements of femurs of adult Japanese cadavers were performed using automatic three-dimensional reconstructed CT images of femurs. After manually setting four points on the femur, an automatic measurement was acquired. The relationships between stature and five femoral measurements, with acceptable intraobserver and interobserver errors, were analyzed with single regression analysis using the standard error of the estimate (SEE) and the coefficient of determination (R2). The maximum length of the femur (MLF) provided the lowest SEE and the highest R2; the SEE and R2 in all cadavers, males and females, respectively, were 3.913 cm (R2 = 0.842), 3.664 cm (R2 = 0.705), and 3.456 cm (R2 = 0.686) for MLF on the right femur, and 3.837 cm (R2 = 0.848), 3.667 cm (R2 = 0.705), and 3.384 cm (R2 = 0.699) for MLF on the left femur. These results were non-inferior to those of previous reports regarding stature estimation using the MLF. Stature estimation with this simple and time-saving method would be useful in forensic medical practice.
... La diversidad de la población mexicana (Kirkwood 2000) suma a las dificultades técnicas, la necesidad de investigar y desarrollar métodos de población dependientes. Existen trabajos de antropología forense en Instituciones como la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), la Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (ENAH) o colaboraciones con universidades extranjeras, que aportan metodologías y ecuaciones ajustadas a la población mexicana, en estimaciones como la edad de muerte (Cerezo-Román et al. 2014;Escorcia et al. 2015;Muñoz et al. 2018), el sexo (Sánchez-Mejorana et al. 2011;Spradley et al. 2015) o la estatura del individuo (Menéndez Garmendia et al. 2018). ...
El hallazgo de fosas clandestinas se ha convertido en un hecho recurrente durante los últimos diez años en México, estimándose que podrían existir más de 2000 repartidas por todo el país (Guillen et al. 2018). Menos conocidas, reportadas y atendidas son las fosas comunes, localizadas en panteones municipales o estatales, que albergan cuerpos de personas no identificados y de las cuales no hay un censo oficial. Se estima que existen unos 26000 cuerpos en calidad de no identificados (SEGOB 2019a) y anualmente, tan solo en la Ciudad de México, son destinados a la fosa común cementerial casi 500. Se requieren proyectos integrales en ciencia forense, que mitiguen el alto porcentaje de cuerpos sin identificar, que coordinen la correcta inhumación de cuerpos y su registro en fosas comunes. La crisis humanitaria vigente y la complejidad del contexto precisan considerar las imbricaciones entre casos de desaparecidos y cuerpos no identificados, entre búsqueda e identificación.
... The diversity of the Mexican population (Kirkwood 2000), in addition to technical difficulties, makes it imperative to investigate and develop methods for dependent populations. There are projects in forensic anthropology in institutions like UNAM, the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) or collaborations with foreign universities, that provide methodologies and formulas adjusted to the Mexican population, for instance, in estimations of age at time of death (Cerezo-Román et al. 2014;Escorcia et al. 2015;Muñoz et al. 2018), or the sex (Sánchez-Mejorana et al. 2011;Spradley et al. 2015) or stature of the individual (Menéndez Garmendia et al. 2018). ...
The discovery of clandestine graves has become a recurrent event during the last ten years in Mexico, and there could be more than roughly 2000 distributed all over the country (Guillen et al. 2018). Mass graves specifically are less well-known, reported, and addressed; they are located in municipal or state cemeteries which house unidentified bodies and of which there is no official census. An estimated 26,000 bodies are considered unidentified (SEGOB 2019a), and every year in Mexico City alone almost 500 bodies are sent to the mass graves in cemeteries. Comprehensive efforts in forensic science are required to mitigate the high percentage of unidentified bodies and coordinate the correct burial and registration of bodies in mass graves. The ongoing humanitarian crisis and the complexity of the context require that investigators look at overlaps between cases of disappeared persons and unidentified bodies, and between searches and identification.
... The main purpose of current research on stature estimation is based on mathematical formulas that help the forensic field to improve stature estimation methods. The literature shows an interest in specific population research (Bosnian, Turkish, and Mexican populations, etc.) [10][11][12][13]. ...
... Thus, the lack of research in the field of forensic anthropology can be attributed to the lack of a postcranial skeletal collections. In this context, it becomes essential for research in the field of forensic anthropology to develop new methods using the bodies of deceased persons (cadavers), X-rays, or computer scans, which are validated as viable techniques that provide a wealth of information [10][11][12][13]. ...
... Unlike the anatomical method, the mathematical method uses regression formulas based on the correlation between the dimensions of individual skeletal elements and the measured stature (living stature) [19][20][21]. According to the existing literature, there are a lot of studies that use the mathematical method based on various and different materials and methods [10][11][12][13]. Table 4 shows comparative aspects between the studies from the literature and our study [10][11][12][13]. ...
The estimation of stature from bones plays an important role in identifying unknown bodies, body parts, or skeletal remains, as it is an important component of the biological profile in forensic identification. The objective of this study is to enhance the development of forensic anthropology in Romania by creating a new regression formula for stature estimation. This can be accomplished from the length of the tibia, taking into account sex and age, for the Romanian adult population. A total of 137 cases from a delimited territory of Romania were included in the study. The length of the tibia and the stature of the individuals were measured before autopsy. Statistical analysis was carried using (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) SPSS 23. Tibia length showed a high correlation with stature for males, females, and the total sample. Four regression formulae were created for stature estimation of Romanian males, females, and unknown sex. The results of the analysis are impressive and have a good applicability in a forensic anthropological context. The data used in this paper provide reliable results with a large applicability in the future for estimating stature from the tibia length for the Romanian adult population.
... Stature as a physical characteristic is one of the principal parameters of identification and assessment (1,2). Height is a fundamental health indicator especially used to assess the medicinal requirements of hospitalized patients. ...
Background: Height is an important factor for medical, nutrition, and forensic sciences; nevertheless, measuring proves to be a challenging task in some cases. In this respect, an alternative immediate, accurate, and possible anthropometric evaluation is needed. Objectives: This study was set to find a proper formula to estimate height from the lengths of the ulna and tibia in Iranian adults. Methods: A total of 500 healthy males and females aged 20-40 years were randomly selected from the volunteers’ pool for this cross-sectional study. Ulna and tibia lengths and standing heights were measured according to standard protocols. Ulna and tibia lengths were applied to find a reliable equation to predict stature accurately. Data were statistically analyzed by SPSS version 17 using regression, curve estimation, and linear model. Results: The mean (SD) heights of male and female participants were 176.45 (11.98) cm and 161.29 (10.11) cm, respectively, while the right and left ulna and the right and left tibia were 29.05 (1.63) cm, 29.03 (1.44) cm, 38.86 (1.33) cm, and 38.88 (1.25) cm, respectively. The correlation coefficients of r = 0.80 and r = 0.69 for males and females participants’ right ulna, respectively, showed a significant correlation with height. Hence, the new formula provided reliable results for stature estimation for northern Iran subgroups. Conclusions: Equations based based on right ulna length are more reliable and accurate for height prediction in both genders. It should be considered that these equations could be different among ethnically diverse populations, even in the northern Iranian population.
... To our knowledge, there are no studies in the literature that analyzed and correlated orbital cavity measurements with stature or proposed an equation model to assist the forensic investigation. Several studies have been conducted in different countries to establish reliable parameters for stature estimation from bones, most of them in Europe and more recently in Central and South America (Belmonte et al., 2011;Mbbs & Mbbs, 2012, Animale, 1993Giannecchini et al., 2008;Menéndez et al., 2018). However, there are no reliable standards for stature estimation from bones in Brazil. ...
... The relation between an individual's height and measures of bones is largely used for forensic purposes [2][3][4]. Usually, long diaphyseal bones such as the femur and tibia are used to estimate the individual's body height [2,4,5,17,18] because these bones are great contributors to body height; thus, they provide a more accurate estimation than do other bones [5,6]. However, in many forensic cases, these long bones may not be available, and therefore [18], the correlation between small bones and height is also important [3,7]. ...
... The relation between an individual's height and measures of bones is largely used for forensic purposes [2][3][4]. Usually, long diaphyseal bones such as the femur and tibia are used to estimate the individual's body height [2,4,5,17,18] because these bones are great contributors to body height; thus, they provide a more accurate estimation than do other bones [5,6]. However, in many forensic cases, these long bones may not be available, and therefore [18], the correlation between small bones and height is also important [3,7]. ...
... A strong correlation between the distal tibia width and body height was expected, as anthropometric studies have shown a strong correlation between height and the tibial longitudinal length [2,4,5]; in addition, longer tibias are expected to be larger in diameter [23]. On the other hand, the second metatarsal had low correlation with height in men and a moderate correlation in female, which is inconsistent with the results of the few existing studies [10,11]. ...
Anthropometric information, such as bone and soft tissue length correlations with body height, is obtained from forensic science and biomechanical studies. Generally, studies on the relation between body height and measures of bones require access to long bones, which are not always available. Footprint size is traditionally used to determine height, but little is known about the relation between foot bones and height. In this study, we evaluated 138 ankle MRI and X-ray scans and compared the measures of four structures (the talus, distal tibia, second metatarsal and Achilles tendon) with body height. The measures of the talus and distal tibia correlated moderately with height (Pearson`s correlation coefficients of 0.58 and 0.57), and the length of the second metatarsal correlated weakly with height (Pearson`s coefficient of 0.42). The following regression equation was observed: height (m) = 0.993 + 0.013 x talar length (mm) (+/− 7 cm). The Achilles tendon (AT) had low correlation with height (Pearson`s coefficient of 0.19). A sex difference was observed: all three bone structures had a weak correlation with height in female; in male, the length of the talus had a moderate correlation with height (Pearson`s coefficient of 0.56), and the length of the second metatarsal had a low correlation (Pearson`s coefficient of 0.16). This is one of the few studies that studied a Latin American population and proposed a regression equation for body height as a function of the length of foot bones. The sex difference observed in the proportions of the forefoot and hindfoot that correlated with body height might explain some of the differences in foot biomechanics between male and female.
