@article{ref1,
title="Benford's law for quality assurance of manner of death counts in small and large databases",
journal="Journal of forensic sciences",
year="2017",
author="Daniels, Jeremy and Caetano, Samantha-Jo and Huyer, Dirk and Stephen, Andrew and Fernandes, John and Lytwyn, Alice and Hoppe, Fred M.",
volume="62",
number="5",
pages="1326-1331",
abstract="To assess if Benford's law, a mathematical law used for quality assurance in accounting, can be applied as a quality assurance measure for the manner of death determination. We examined a regional forensic pathology service's monthly manner of death counts (N = 2352) from 2011 to 2013, and provincial monthly and weekly death counts from 2009 to 2013 (N = 81,831). We tested whether each dataset's leading digit followed Benford's law via the chi-square test. For each database, we assessed whether number 1 was the most common leading digit. The manner of death counts first digit followed Benford's law in all the three datasets. Two of the three datasets had 1 as the most frequent leading digit. The manner of death data in this study showed qualities consistent with Benford's law. The law has potential as a quality assurance metric in the manner of death determination for both small and large databases.<br><br>© 2017 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0022-1198",
doi="10.1111/1556-4029.13437",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.13437"
}