Overview

A Case can be used to record information about a specific event. It may be a criminal event like a home burglary but it could also represent a missing persons case. It is any event with which you hope to use DNA to resolve. SmallPond allows you to record detailed information about your case including the individual(s) that is assigned to work the case.

While investigating a case, you may collect one or more physical DNA specimens.  These specimens may be buccal swabs from an arrestee, victim or family member of a missing person. They might also include a blood drop, a hat or other physical evidence left a crime scene. SmallPond allows you to capture detailed information about each specimen and link them to a case.

Once a specimen is collected they may shipped to a specialized DNA laboratory for processing or processed locally if you have access to a Rapid DNA instrument.  SmallPond's manifest process allows you to group and track the physical shipment of specimens to the laboratory.

A DNA Profile is the set of locus / allele values that have been identified from a given DNA sample. Profiles can be generated by specialized DNA laboratories or Rapid DNA instruments. In either case, profiles can include autosomal (STR), Y and SNP based loci depending on the multiplex kit used during processing.

A profile that is missing allele calls for one or more loci, usually due to a small sample quantity, is called a 'partial' profile. Profiles that contain DNA from more than one individual are termed "mixture" profiles. SmallPond can store and match both both partial and mixture profiles.

SmallPond supports manual profile entry as well as profile file upload from many common file formats including: CMF (CODIS XML), standard output formats from GeneMapper® and GeneMarker® as well as custom text file formats (.CSV).

A Pond represents a logical collection of DNA Profiles (in some systems, this is referred to as an “index”). Ponds can be used to group similar profiles together. Many of our clients create a pond to hold known reference samples and a separate pond to hold unknown evidence samples.  A pond could also be used to hold profiles from law enforcement officers, laboratory personnel and/or crime victims to be able to exclude their profiles when performing matches.

A Pool is used to group ponds together for cross-pond matching purposes.  As profiles are entered into the individual ponds within a pool, the SmallPond matching agent is constantly looking for matches based on the match stringency rules that you have defined.

There is no limit to the number of pools that can be defined, the number of ponds in a pool or the number of pools a pond can be included in.
 

When the SmallPond matching agent finds a match it will create a match report.  Individuals assigned to cases that include specimens for which a match has been found can be automatically notified via text or e-mail.