International Journal of Legal Medicine最新文献

The DNA analysis of aged human skeletal remains is pivotal to forensic genetics, forensic anthropology, and archaeology. Using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny, we analyzed 982 publications from the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection to evaluate publication trends, key contributors, influential journals and articles, and the thematic evolution of the field through co-authorship networks, keyword co-occurrence, and temporal overlay mapping. The results indicate the publication in this field began in 1989 and peaked at 72 articles in 2021. The most prolific countries were the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain. Leading institutions included the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the University of Ljubljana, and the University of Copenhagen. High-impact contributors included Pääbo, Svante; Willerslev, Eske; Krause, Johannes; and Pajnič, Irena Zupanič. The most active journals were Forensic Science International, Journal of Forensic Sciences, Forensic Science International: Genetics, International Journal of Legal Medicine, and American Journal of Physical Anthropology. The most highly cited article was "Hofreiter, 2001, Nat Rev Genet". Keywords co-occurrence highlighted "ancient DNA (aDNA)", "human skeletal remains", "mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)", "forensic science", and "human identification" as dominant themes. Recent trends underscore the integration of aDNA into forensics workflows, increasing reliance on mtDNA and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) profiling, and massively parallel sequencing (MPS) applications for degraded DNA. Collectively, the findings highlight the transformative impact of technological innovation and international collaboration on the field's evolution. Continued global cooperation is essential to drive innovation, optimize resources, and accelerate forensic genetics research.

Background: Although Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is gaining momentum in forensic and post-mortem settings, its exact role in forensic investigations is yet to be determined. The current review aims to chart current and potential roles of MRI in forensic investigations, providing an overview of existing pertinent scientific literature.

Methods: A mapping review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines. Medline, Web of Science, Embase and the Cochrane Library were searched using database-specific syntaxes. Eligible articles included reviews, original research, case reports, letters, laboratory studies, and dissertations written in English. Articles not mentioning MRI, involving only functional MRI, and non-forensic clinical post-mortem examinations were excluded. Articles were categorised using thematic analysis. Data extraction included first-author country of origin, year of publication, level of evidence, and mention of MRI-protocol.

Results: The initial search yielded 16,184 papers, 525 of which were included. Main focus of forensic MRI research is in medicolegal examination (n = 285), identification (n = 158), and process optimisation (n = 155); 73 articles were multi-categorical, and myriad subcategories were identified (foetus/child/adult, living/postmortem, anatomical regions, practice/guidelines/infrastructure, etc.). Articles were published over a 34-year period, originating from 34 countries. There were 235 level C-, 289 level B-, and 2 level A-evidence articles. 268 articles mentioned MRI protocols.

Conclusion: The extensive amount of research across myriad subcategories highlights vast potential of MRI in forensic investigation. However, the overall level of evidence at this time is low, lacking standardisation. Further organization, standardization, and high-quality research are needed to clarify how best to apply MRI in forensic settings.

Introduction: Violence against women (VaW) is a form of gender-based violence (GBV), a violation of human rights, and a public and global health issue. VaW leaves short and long-term sequelae on the health of survivors and necessitates correct clinical and forensic management. Victims of GBV can access care through the emergency department (ED), which is often the setting where disclosure of abuses occurs. This study aimed at documenting the epidemiology of patients accessing the ED for cases of VaW, as well as to understand the best practices and issues encountered in different health facilities in North-East Piedmont, Italy. This could contribute to documenting local data on the characteristics of survivors of VaW accessing emergency care, as well as to understanding the challenges encountered by healthcare staff in managing and documenting these cases at the ED level.

Methods: A retrospective, cross sectional study covering the years 2017-2020 in different hospitals in North-East Piedmont (Novara, Borgomanero, Biella, Verbania-Cusio-Ossola) was conducted. Data on adult female patients (age > 18) was extracted in anonymized form from health facilities' databases and analyzed using Stata18. Descriptive statistics summarized the characteristics of the pool of users and access to the ED.

Results and conclusions: Patients accessing care in different EDs in North-East Piedmont described in many cases episodes of physical or physical and psychological violence perpetrated by partners in their homes. Many cases of minors witnessing violence were reported. Data from the years 2017-2020 showed that improvements were still needed in the management of GBV survivors in the ED, especially for what concerned assignment of triage color codes, proper documentation of the dynamics of violence, of the physical lesions, and other health sequelae.

What is already known: Victims of gender-based violence may access care through the Emergency Department. Healthcare providers in Emergency Departments are often the first professionals to whom victims disclose violence. They should be trained to identify victims of gender-based violence following existing guidelines and referrals to specialists should be available. Violence against women is a recognized public health issue that can lead to serious clinical and social consequences for women.

What this paper adds: This paper describes the characteristics of patients accessing emergency care for cases of violence against women in Northeast Piedmont. This paper demonstrates that the triage, documentation of injuries, and referral practices regarding victims of gender-based violence in the Emergency Department need improvement. This paper shows the issues connected with documentation of the sequelae of gender-based violence in Emergency Departments.

DIP-STRs are genetic markers that combine low mutation deletion/insertion polymorphisms (DIP) with closely associated high mutation short tandem repeats (STRs). These were initially developed for targeting the minor donor in imbalanced two-person mixtures but have recently been explored as ancestry informative markers due to their combination of fast- and slow-evolving polymorphisms. This study aimed to evaluate for the first time the performance of a small set of 10 DIP-STR markers in predicting the ancestry of 100 individuals of self-reported African American, European American, East Asian American, and Southwest Hispanic origin. To characterize the genetic structure of the four populations of interest in STRUCTURE software, 557 previously genotyped HGDP-CEPH samples for the same 10 DIP-STR markers were used as major reference populations for the four major U.S. populations tested. Overall, haplotype diversity was observed among the four population groups for the 10 DIP-STR markers, reporting a total of 116 haplotypes, with 44.8% present across the groups. Common haplotypes were identified for each DIP-STR, as well as unique haplotypes observed only in specific population groups. The tested African American, European American, and East Asian American samples clustered into their respective African, European, and East Asian populations, albeit with some noise, while the Southwest Hispanic group exhibited admixture, as expected. These findings align with results from HGDP-CEPH reference samples, emphasizing that this small set of 10 informative DIP-STR markers can effectively distinguish the four U. S. population groups studied.

Sex and stature estimation are critical components in determining the biological profile in forensic anthropology. This study aimed to estimate sex and stature using machine learning (ML) algorithms based on the morphometric data of the triticeal cartilage (TrC) obtained from autopsied cases. A prospective examination of the TrC was conducted on 137 autopsied cases (72 male, 65 female), aged between 18 and 90 years, at the Tokat Forensic Medicine Institution. A total of 209 TrC samples, located on the right and left sides of the neck, were measured for length, width, depth, and weight. Additionally, the cases were categorized into three groups based on stature (< 164 cm, 164-176 cm, and > 176 cm) for further analysis. These measurements were used as input features in ML models to predict sex and stature. As a result of the ML input of the obtained measurements, the highest accuracy rate of 97% was obtained with the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) algorithm for sex estimation. The accuracy rates of other algorithms ranged between 91% and 96%. Regarding stature, the highest accuracy rate was 90% with the Random Forest (RF) algorithm. The accuracy rates of the other algorithms were found to vary between 82% and 89%. SHAP (Shapley Additive Explanations) analysis applied to MLP and RF algorithms showed that the TrC length parameter had the highest effect on sex and stature prediction, respectively. The results of our study showed that TrC has high accuracy and precision in sex and stature prediction.

Sexual assault offences are a global issue prominent across various communities, often involving vaginal, oral or anal penetration with a penis. Challenges are often presented to forensic scientists in court regarding how DNA got to the collection point, when evaluating penile samples taken in association with sexual assault offences. These challenges are the result of a lack of research addressing prevalence and persistence of self and non-self-DNA on a penis following everyday activities. This research investigated the prevalence of self- and non-self-DNA on penises following everyday activities, with no imposed conditions. Forty-one adult participants self-collected samples from the head and shaft of their penis, using wet and dry swabbing. Reference samples from the donors and volunteering co-habitants or partners were collected to establish the source of self- and non-self-DNA detected. The RSID^TM-Saliva immunochromatographic test was used to assess the prevalence of saliva on the shaft samples prior to DNA analysis. Profiles were produced from all samples using standard methodologies. Non-self-DNA was detected in 36% of head samples and 64% of shaft samples. All mixed profiles revealed two contributors, except one three-person mixture from a shaft sample. The donor was the major contributor in all but thirteen samples. Donor age, the presence of a co-habitant or partner, sample timing, time since sexual activity and the presence of saliva were found to significantly affect the total, self- and non-self-DNA amounts detected. These findings produce valuable data for the evaluation of self- and non-self-DNA amounts detectable on penises following everyday activities, considering both intimate and non-intimate contact.

Drowning remains a major public health problem reportedly accounting for more than 4.000 annual deaths in the European Union. Factors influencing water-related fatalities are extending from intoxication through alcohol, pharmaceuticals and narcotic drugs to person-related medical conditions and the geography of the drowning environment. Consequently, cases suspected of drowning present a high variability in age, sex, seasonality, type of drowning, recovery site and state of body preservation by the time of recovery. All these factors affect the manifestation of drowning signs, which are investigated to enable a valid diagnosis of drowning. These drowning signs all result from physiological changes during the drowning process but are often non-specific in that they vary in abundance and severity of manifestation, also being prone to subsequent change by resuscitation efforts and decomposition processes, leaving the diagnosis of drowning as one of the most difficult tasks in forensic practice. By re-evaluating geographic, demographic, person-related and body condition data as well as diagnostic results of 158 water-related fatalities in Upper Austria and Salzburg from 2015 to 2022, this retrospective study reappraises the predictive strength of the drowning signs currently used in forensic practice, together with the influences acting on their formation and persistence. While some results are consistent with and affirm those of other studies with similar approaches, new relations were found regarding the differences in incidence rates between accident locations and water body types. Moreover, the main results identify that some drowning signs are of clearly higher predictive significance than others, and that predictive power increases with the number of signs coincidentally present but decreases with advancing decomposition. These findings underline the importance of a timely body recovery and in cases where not feasible, the need for additional alternative diagnostic measures.

The identification of victims from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) has been a subject of historical research and familial interest in locating lost relatives since the late twentieth century in Spain. Acquiring well-preserved postmortem samples from these individuals is crucial for subsequent genotyping and identification, and this proves challenging with low-template DNA samples. Through the utilization of the GlobalFiler™ IQC PCR Amplification Kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific) in 490 samples from 245 cadaveric individuals, we have conducted a study on factors that may affect or serve as indicators of the quality of the autosomal electropherogram and the effectiveness of obtaining a complete reliable profile. The most significant factor in the samples has proven to be the site of extraction, namely, the archaeological sites. The conservation of the samples has been positively and negatively influenced by environmental conditions. Regarding the type of sample, we obtained better results in dental samples than in bones, and when only bones were able to be used, the phalanges produced better results in complete profiles, except for the petrous portion of the temporal bones, which were carried out in a very poorly preserved site. Concerning the obtained electropherograms, the presence of artifacts (stutters), has been analyzed as an indicator of profiles with an acceptable quantity and quality of DNA, in contrast to the presence of drop-outs, which are associated with the impossibility of obtaining a complete profile.