Medicine, Science and the Law最新文献

{"title":"Changes in the characteristics of suicide in Japan in the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of continued suicide prevention measures.","authors":"Ken Inoue, Yasuyuki Fujita, Noriyuki Kawano, Masaharu Hoshi, Tatsushige Fukunaga","doi":"10.1177/00258024231165432","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258024231165432","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10064176/pdf/10.1177_00258024231165432.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9228258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Transnational comparison of the impact of COVID-19 on medicolegal death investigations and the administration of justice: Early stages of the pandemic.","authors":"Vienna C Lam, Steff King, Sheryl C Fabian, Gail S Anderson","doi":"10.1177/00258024231182361","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258024231182361","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on arguably every sector of our criminal justice system. To assess the impact that this global health crisis has had on our medicolegal investigations and administration of justice during the early stages of the pandemic, this research aims to give voice to the lived experiences of medicolegal death investigators (coroners, medical examiners and pathologists). This research involved in-depth interviews and follow-ups with experienced personnel from Canada (3), Italy (1), the United Kingdom (1) and the United States (4). Results suggest that despite facing similar challenges, each individual office has had to develop their own strategies to overcome obstacles during the early stages of the pandemic. These results help identify overlapping areas for constructive policy and procedural changes, including recommendations for workflow adaptations, strategic partnerships and other approaches to best prepare for subsequent health crises.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10285361/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9709420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The relationship between biological parameters and facial soft tissue thickness measured by ultrasound and its forensic implications.","authors":"Petra Švábová, Mária Matláková, Radoslav Beňuš, Mária Chovancová, Soňa Masnicová","doi":"10.1177/00258024231182360","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258024231182360","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Facial soft tissue thickness (FSTT) data are currently widely used in forensic and medical science. In the forensic sciences, they form the basis for craniofacial reconstruction and identification methods. Since there are few FSTT data in the Slovak population, this study aims to enrich the data in well-defined age categories, taking into account differences between sexes and body mass index (BMI). The sample consisted of 127 participants aged 17 to 86 years from Slovakia. In addition to biological sex and age information, stature and body weight were recorded to calculate BMI. Subsequently, 17 facial anthropometric landmarks were used to measure FSTT using a noninvasive General Electric LOGIQe R7 ultrasound device. The mean values of FSTT were greater in the mouth region in males and in the zygomatic and eye regions in females. Differences between males and females, regardless of sex and BMI, were significant only at two landmarks. When BMI and age were taken into account, there were differences in 12 of 17 landmarks. Linear regression results showed the strongest correlation of most landmarks with BMI, followed by age and sex. When the FSTT was estimated in association with sex/age/BMI, landmarks in the zygomatic, mandibular, and frontal regions were the best regressors. The results of the present study demonstrate that B-mode ultrasound measurements of FSTT can be used in facial reconstruction as a function of BMI, age, and sex of the subject. Furthermore, the present regression equations can help practitioners in the forensic/medical field to calculate individual tissue thickness.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9717856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assigned sex estimation with the clavicle and scapula: A study in a Portuguese reference sample.","authors":"Francisco Curate, Inês Alves, Tomás Rodrigues, Susana J Garcia","doi":"10.1177/00258024231174822","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258024231174822","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The estimation of biological sex is a critical step in the assessment of the biological profile of an anonymous skeletonized individual. In certain recovery circumstances, the most dimorphic skeletal areas, such as the pelvis, are absent or fragmented; in that case, other bones of the skeleton, including the clavicle and scapula, can be used to predict sex. The purpose of this research is to generate new models for the estimation of sex with clavicular and scapular measurements using a study-sample of 129 individuals with clavicle (65 males and 64 females) and 112 individuals with scapula (50 males and 62 females) from the Lisbon Identified Skeletal Collection (Portugal). A decision tree classifier (C4.5) and logistic regression (LR) were employed to create univariable and multivariable sex prediction models. Accuracy under cross-validation of the classification models is high (up to 93.8%), with minimal bias (<5%), particularly in the multivariable models. The proposed LR models facilitate the probabilistic estimation of biological sex, accounting for the significant overlap in the expression of sexual dimorphism.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9451967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"British Academy of Forensic Sciences - President's new year message.","authors":"Peter Watson","doi":"10.1177/00258024231211246","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258024231211246","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71412909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Methamphetamine use in homicide victims.","authors":"Luzern Tan, Lilli Stephenson, Roger Byard","doi":"10.1177/00258024231165433","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258024231165433","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Methamphetamine use is increasing in the Australian population. It has a known association with violent and erratic behaviour and with an increased risk of unnatural deaths. To determine whether victims of homicide have significant exposure to methamphetamine 100 randomly selected de-identified homicide cases from 2012 to 2021 were accessed from the Forensic Science SA (FSSA) Pathology Database to determine the type of homicide and whether methamphetamine was detected in the blood. A total of 76 males and 24 females were found (M:F = 3:1). Of these, 30 victims (30%) had methamphetamine detected in blood, consisting of 26 males and 4 females (M:F = 6:1; male age range 18-53 years, average 36.8 years; female age range 28-63 years average 44.8 years). Levels of methamphetamine ranged from 0.02 to 3.3 mg/L with an average of 0.64 mg/L, with the highest numbers of positive cases occurring in victims of gunshot wounds (45.5%), and the lowest in those with lethal blunt force trauma (23.5%). This study has demonstrated that victims of homicide in an Australian population are more likely to have used methamphetamine than members of the general population. The reasons for this remain unclear although involvement in a drug selling environment may be an important determinant.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9169821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sex determination using the clavicle by deep learning in a Thai population.","authors":"Kewalee Pichetpan, Phruksachat Singsuwan, Pittayarat Intasuwan, Apichat Sinthubua, Patison Palee, Pasuk Mahakkanukrauh","doi":"10.1177/00258024231169233","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258024231169233","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Determining sex is a critical process in estimating biological profiles from skeletal remains. The clavicle is interesting in studying sex determination because it is durable to the environment, slow to decay, challenging to destroy, making the clavicle useful in autopsies and identification which can then lead to verification. The goal of this study was to use deep learning in determining sex from clavicles within the Thai population and obtain the accuracies for the validation set using a convolutional neural network (GoogLeNet). A total of 200 pairs of clavicles were obtained from 200 Thai persons (100 males and 100 females) as part of a training group. For the deep learning approach, the clavicle was photographed, and each clavicle image was submitted to the training model for sex determination. Training groups of 200 samples were made. Images of the same size were input into the training model. The percentage of the validation set accuracy was calculated from the MATLAB program. GoogLeNet was the best training model and get the result of validation set accuracy. The results of this study found accuracies for a validation set with the highest overall right lateral view of the clavicle with an accuracy of 95%. Accuracy from the validation set of each view of the clavicle can demonstrate the forensic value of sex determination. A deep learning approach with clavicles can determine the sex and is simple to utilize for forensic anthropology professionals.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9364754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Changes in suicide trends among young populations during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan and Taiwan.","authors":"Lien-Chung Wei","doi":"10.1177/00258024231173341","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258024231173341","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10130935/pdf/10.1177_00258024231173341.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9399660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Drug transfer during intimate moments: A key issue in doping control that can be documented by hair tests of the athlete and the partner.","authors":"Pascal Kintz","doi":"10.1177/00258024231173346","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258024231173346","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The presence of a prohibited substance or its metabolites or its markers in an athlete's sample constitutes the more frequent anti-doping rules violation. In the world anti-doping code, it is indicated (point 10.5) that if someone establishes in an individual case that the athlete bears <i>no fault or negligence</i>, then the otherwise applicable period of ineligibility shall be eliminated. The conditions that have to be met to fix the <i>no fault or negligence</i> evidence are described in several other points of the code. The following two points are of paramount importance: 1. the athlete or his/her legal representative must present verified circumstances of contamination and the source of contamination must be identified; and \u20282. there must be verified claims by the athlete about the fact that he/she did not knowingly take the prohibited substance, i.e., that the violation was not intentional.In recent years, several cases of contamination involving drug transfer during intimate moments have been reported. This later situation was first reported in 2009 with the Richard Gasquet case. Since that time, several athletes have been allowed to return to competition with no charge based on strong evidence that the source of contamination was drug transfer during intimate moments. As some of these cases are public and because the author performed hair tests for the majority of the international athletes involved in such procedures, the strategy of the defence and the scientific bases of discussion are reviewed in this article.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9444193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Creating a system to quickly determine cause of death, and efforts that should be made to elucidate the circumstances of suicides.","authors":"Ken Inoue,&nbsp;Yasuyuki Fujita,&nbsp;Noriyuki Kawano,&nbsp;Tatsushige Fukunaga","doi":"10.1177/00258024231154220","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258024231154220","url":null,"abstract":"In Japan, the first General Principles of Suicide Prevention (ver. 1.) was approved by the Cabinet in June 2007, and it has been reviewed every 5 years since, i.e., in August 2012 (ver. 2) and July 2017 (ver. 3). The latest/fourth version of the General Principles of Suicide Prevention (ver. 4) was approved by the Cabinet in October 2022. Suicide by women and young people has increased in recent years, and the fourth version of the General Principles proposes enhanced measures to prevent suicide among those populations. We have also cited the need to promote efforts measures to prevent suicide among people who live alone. All four versions of the General Principles of Suicide Prevention include a suggestion describing the need for \"research to elucidate the circumstances of suicide. Since version 3, the category “promoting research to help promote general principles of suicide prevention” has included “in conjunction with a system to determine the cause of death.” The first Plan to Promote Determination of the Cause of Death was approved by the Cabinet in June 2014, and the latest version of this Plan was approved in June 2021. In order to promote the determination of causes of death, accurate cause-of-death statistics must be obtained. Several years have passed since the suggestionwasmade to ascertain the circumstances of suicide in conjunction with a system to determine causes of death; however, sufficient preparations are yet to be made, and apparently more time is necessary until such a system is definitively implemented. In order to implement preventive measures in accordance with the circumstances of suicide, studies of suicide prevention measures that are based on motives for suicide are necessary, as such motives would be closely associated with the determination of the circumstances of suicide. Two sets of suicide statistics are published in Japan: statistics reported by the National Police Agency (NPA), and the Vital Statistics reported by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Only the statistics reported by the NPA list the motive for suicide. Prior to 2006, the NPA statistics provided a presumed motive for each suicide based on a suicide note or other corroborating documents, and since 2007 the NPA has provided up to three motives for suicide. The current statistics better reflect the reasons for suicide compared to the previous statistics, but the main motive for many suicides cannot be ascertained. It would thus be helpful to refer to both the currently reported statistics on suicide motives and previous statistics indicating the main motive in order to devise effective measures for the prevention of suicide. Urgently needed measures to prevent suicide could be devised by compiling a statistical report on the motives for suicide as reported by the NPA, and this compilation could be done promptly. In order to implement truly effective measures to prevent suicide, the medical system (social medicine, basic medicine, and clinical","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10215853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}