Drug and toxin-related deaths are common worldwide, making it essential to detect the postmortem concentration of various toxic substances at different stages of decomposition in a corpse. Indeed, determining the postmortem interval (PMI) and cause of death in an advanced stage of decomposed corpses has been a significant challenge in forensic investigations. Notably, the presence of drugs or toxins can have a significant impact on the microbial profile, potentially altering the succession of microbial communities and subsequent production of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which, in turn, affect insect colonization patterns. This review aims to highlight the importance of investigating the interactions between drugs or toxins, microbial succession, VOC profiles, and insect behavior, which can provide valuable insights into forensic investigations as well as the ecological consequences of toxins occurring in decomposition. Overall, the detection of drugs and other toxins at different stages of decomposition can yield more precise forensic evidence, thereby enhancing the accuracy of PMI estimation and determination of the cause of death in decomposed remains.

Indoor conflagration causes a large number of casualties and property losses worldwide every year. Yet existing indoor fire detection systems either suffer from short sensing range (e.g., ≤ 0.5m using a thermometer), susceptible to interferences (e.g., smoke detector) or high computational and deployment overhead (e.g., cameras, Wi-Fi). This paper proposes HearFire, a cost-effective, easy-to-use and timely room-scale fire detection system via acoustic sensing. HearFire consists of a collocated commodity speaker and microphone pair, which remotely senses fire by emitting inaudible sound waves. Unlike existing works that use signal reflection effect to fulfill acoustic sensing tasks, HearFire leverages sound absorption and sound speed variations to sense the fire due to unique physical properties of flame. Through a deep analysis of sound transmission, HearFire effectively achieves room-scale sensing by correlating the relationship between the transmission signal length and sensing distance. The transmission frame is carefully selected to expand sensing range and balance a series of practical factors that impact the system's performance. We further design a simple yet effective approach to remove the environmental interference caused by signal reflection by conducting a deep investigation into channel differences between sound reflection and sound absorption. Specifically, sound reflection results in a much more stable pattern in terms of signal energy than sound absorption, which can be exploited to differentiate the channel measurements caused by fire from other interferences. Extensive experiments demonstrate that HireFire enables a maximum 7m sensing range and achieves timely fire detection in indoor environments with up to 99.2% accuracy under different experiment configurations.

Accurate and prompt determination of fire types is essential for effective firefighting and reducing damage. However, traditional methods such as smoke detection, visual analysis, and wireless signals are not able to identify fire types. This paper introduces FireSonic, an acoustic sensing system that leverages commercial speakers and microphones to actively probe the fire using acoustic signals, effectively identifying fire types. By incorporating beamforming technology, FireSonic first enhances signal clarity and reliability, thus mitigating signal attenuation and distortion. To establish a reliable correlation between fire type and sound propagation, FireSonic quantifies the heat release rate (HRR) of flames by analyzing the relationship between fire-heated areas and sound wave propagation delays. Furthermore, the system extracts spatiotemporal features related to fire from channel measurements. The experimental results demonstrate that FireSonic attains an average fire type classification accuracy of $95.5\%$ and a detection latency of less than 400 ms, satisfying the requirements for real-time monitoring. This system significantly enhances the formulation of targeted firefighting strategies, boosting fire response effectiveness and public safety.

Accurate and prompt determination of fire types is essential for effective firefighting and reducing damages. However, traditional methods such as smoke detection, visual analysis, and wireless signals pose unavailability in identifying fire types. This paper introduces FireSonic, an acoustic sensing system that leverages commercial speakers and microphones to actively probe the fire using acoustic signals, effectively identifying indoor fire types. By incorporating beamforming technology, FireSonic first enhances signal clarity and reliability, thus mitigating signal attenuation and distortion. To establish a reliable correlation between fire types and sound propagation, FireSonic quantifies the Heat Release Rate (HRR) of flames by analyzing the relationship between fire heated areas and sound wave propagation delays. Furthermore, the system extracts spatiotemporal features related to fire from channel measurements. Experimental results demonstrate that FireSonic attains an average fire type classification accuracy of 95.5% and a detection latency of less than 400 ms, satisfying the requirements for real-time monitoring. This system significantly enhances the formulation of targeted firefighting strategies, boosting fire response effectiveness and public safety.

In a fire emergency, timely and precise firefighting and emergency response significantly rely on rapid fire source location and fire severity assessment. Yet existing fire detection methods have limitations such as environmental interference, inaccurate fire source location, and inability to assess fire severity. We propose UltraFlame, an innovative acoustic fire sensing system that combines the functionality of fire detection, source localization, and fire severity estimation. Our approach utilizes high-frequency ultrasound waves (40kHz) and involves a Two-Stage Sector Beamforming (TSSB) method for real-time fire localization. Additionally, we develop a mathematical model linking fire source distance and severity, enabling real-time fire severity estimation with limited computational complexity. The experimental results suggest that UltraFlame will provide accurate fire source localization and fire severity assessment.