International Journal of Legal Medicine最新文献

Judicial authorities are increasingly concerned by determining the age of unaccompanied adolescents or young adults under suspicion. When other approaches are considered insufficient, courts demand appropriate medical tests. Part of those tests aim at determining the civil age through skeletal age. However, this determination is subject to a large uncertainty and it is difficult to assess its amount of accuracy. To a large extent the problem is statistical and the previous statistical proposals suffer from serious drawbacks. For instance, they rest, at least partially, on assumptions or conventions rather than actual data or use the name of Bayes without implementing a genuine Bayesian procedure. Instead, we present an actual Bayesian procedure resting not only on reference data (as all previous proposals) but also on data that permit to estimate the age distribution of the subjects submitted to examination in a given context. The method provides estimates of the civil age with their precision under the form of a probability density. It is ethic since it estimates the global behaviour of the examined subjects without prejudging anything about it (e.g. with respect to the alleged age). The method is illustrated by a real-life case (data gathered in the Department of Forensic Medicine, Jean-Verdier Hospital, Bondy, France, from 2017 to 2020). We used data from hand/wrist radiographs but the presented approach could be applied to data from any other anatomical site.

With greater availability of post-mortem computed tomography (PMCT), the Brooks and Suchey method is frequently applied in medico-legal contexts using 3D reconstructions of the pubic symphysis. The scientific literature contains reference samples constructed from either dry bones (autopsy series) or 3D reconstructions (virtual samples). This study aims to evaluate the impact of reference sample nature (dry bone vs. virtual bone) on age estimation, based on an analysis of the pubic symphysis from different origins (dry bone vs. 3D reconstruction). This study involved a test sample of pubic symphyses, from which 3D reconstructions were obtained by scanning. We estimated the age of these individuals by comparing their pubic symphyses (derived from both dry bones and 3D reconstructions of the same individuals, and staged accordingly) against two distinct reference samples: the original Bone Reference Sample (BRS) by Brooks and Suchey, and a more recently published Virtual Reference Sample (VRS). The percentages of correct age estimates suggest no significant influence from the reference sample's nature. For younger individuals, inaccuracy values reveal a lower age estimation error when utilizing the BRS reference sample. Furthermore, bias values show an overestimation. For older individuals (> 40), the nature of the reference sample does not seem to improve the estimation. However, according to age groups, bias values seem to be less underestimated with the VRS reference sample. We can conclude that, regardless of the nature of the specimen, the BRS sample appears to improve age estimation for younger individuals. However, there seems to be no benefit to using a virtual sample for a 3D specimen. Furthermore, the age structure of the reference samples is an important factor to consider.

The attribution of taxonomic and/or demographic parameters based on the analysis of interlandmark linear measurements remains a widely used approach in both anthropology and zoology, despite the availability of more sophisticated techniques. Especially in forensic contexts, linear measurements are commonly employed for the estimation of sex and/or ancestry to facilitate identification. In the present study we evaluate the potential of applying a resampling-based approach that uses a newly developed R function to efficiently compute interlandmark distances from their Cartesian coordinates and allows identification of which distances are robustly associated with a biological factor; specifically sex. Following the identification of significant dimorphic measurements, we evaluate their associated sex classification accuracy. Furthermore, we demonstrate how results from a training dataset can be applied to novel cases using a rarely implemented, yet straightforward and effective, graphical method. When limited to two variables, this technique involves generating a scatterplot overlaid with interpolated contour lines representing posterior probabilities. By plotting new observations within this data space, users can visually classify sex and its associated probability, without requirement for further computation, analogous to how elevation is estimated on a topographic map using contour lines. We discuss the advantages and limitations of this novel approach and its statistical reproducibility. Broader application of this method could enhance understanding of population specificity in sexually dimorphic cranial measurements and support the development of contour-based tools for the rapid and accurate estimation of skeletal sex in unidentified human remains.

Since 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has regulated personal data within the scope of the European Union. With the exponential technological advancements in mobile photography, it is crucial to expose forensic professionals to this body of law to maintain good practices for fieldwork and scientific research in this field. GDPR, as far as its application in forensic photography, can be broken down into four pillars: informed consent of the subject, acceptable image capture practices (data), data storage and security at rest, and data transfers and security in transit. All these pillars have different approaches currently in use by forensic professionals. However, only some of them are permitted under the law. We present the appropriate ways to proceed with smartphone photography while remaining in compliance and maintaining the ability to share data critical to fieldwork and scientific research. In addition, some of the common pitfalls are described. An algorithm is proposed to facilitate compliance with European regulations relating to personal data, as applied to mobile forensic photography. The same flow chart can be used in other countries with different regulations concerning health data, privacy, and security issues.