Cemetery headstones contain historical and genealogical information that is largely untapped and is difficult to access. We introduce a solution through computer vision and OCR that allows the user to take a photo of a headstone with a GPS smart phone, review and correct, if necessary, the regions recognized as text, and have the text, images, and GPS location from the headstone extracted, reco...

The aim of this contribution is to examine the effect of an indiscriminate epidemic on a population to assess whether or not a catastrophic event can be identified from examination of paleodemographic data. Using paleodemographic techniques, the death assemblage from the Royal Mint site, London, a Black Death cemetery dated 1349 AD, is compared with that from St. Helen-on-the-Walls, York, which...

Mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (mtDNA) polymorphisms were examinedin bone samples of individuals buried inan early Neolithic (c. 5800–4900 BCE) hunter-gatherer cemetery, Shamanka II, located atthe southwestern tip of Lake Baikal, Siberia. The mainobjective was to compare the mtDNA polymorphisms observed at Shamanka II to those previously reportedfrom the Lokomotiv (early Neolithic) and Ust...

Many approaches exist for alphanumeric data acquisition from images, however very few make mention of engraved text and none to the knowledge of the author make mention of cemetery headstones. The ability to extract the textual information found on headstones is of great importance due to the valuable historical information that is, in most cases, authoritative and unique to that stone. Multipl...

As of January 3, 2015, Ebola virus disease (Ebola) has killed more than 2,500 persons in Sierra Leone since the epidemic began there in May 2014. Ebola virus is transmitted principally by direct physical contact with an infected person or their body fluids during the later stages of illness or after death. Contact with the bodies and fluids of persons who have died of Ebola is especially common...