Medico-Legal Journal最新文献

Background: Increasing numbers of cyber attacks threaten us personally and professionally. Cyber crimes include obtaining sensitive information (medical or financial) but may extend to organising heinous crimes including murders and aggravated sexual assaults. A major vector of cyber crimes is brute force attacks on secured shell servers.

Aim of study: This research highlights the prevalence of the intensity of brute force attacks on secured shell servers via quali-quantitative analysis of cyber attacks.

Methodology: The brute force attacks were recorded over a period of 20 days with the help of logs taken from five dedicated servers installed in a production environment.

Results: There were a minimum of 6470 and maximum of 22,715 attacks on a server per day. The total number of attacks on all the servers during the study period was 1,065,920. The brute force attacks were mainly targeted at the service network accounts.

Conclusion: Growth of the field of cyber forensics is the optimal solution to prevent the malicious use of internet services and the commissioning of crimes by this means.

Many physicians, particularly neurosurgeons, face malpractice claims during their career. The aim of this paper is to identify which factors increase the risk of litigation and influence legal outcomes relating to cerebrospinal fluid shunt management. Westlaw, an online legal database, was used to identify all medico-legal cases pertaining to cerebrospinal fluid shunts. Information regarding plaintiff demographics, defendant specialties, reasons for litigation, and trial outcomes were analysed. Thirty-six cases met criteria for inclusion. Most cases returned a defence verdict (44.4%), with delayed treatment or failure to appropriately treat patients with shunts the most common reason for litigation (66.7%). The average plaintiff verdict payout was $4,888,136.75 and average settlement $1,362,307.69. Delay or failure to treat resulted in the largest average payouts for plaintiff verdicts and settlements ($5,329,299.14 and $1,531,500.00, respectively).

Transformative processes generally occur singly and jointly involving the whole body. Rarely, they appear simultaneously as distinct transformative phenomena. The case study relates to a corpse found inside a storage tank in a rather unusual position, during the winter months. On external examination carried out at the crime scene, both legs and feet were out of the well bending over the storage tank and showing skeletonisation and tissue defects due to biting inflicted by the environmental macrofauna. The thighs were also skeletonised, inside the well but not immersed in the water, as was the torso which, however, was entirely corified. The colliquated shoulders, head and upper limbs were fully immersed into the water as well as the macerated hands. The corpse was exposed simultaneously to three different environmental conditions: the external setting with changes in temperature, rainfall and the action of the macro fauna, the unventilated and humid setting inside the tank, and lastly the stored water. The corpse, lying in a specific position and being exposed to different atmospheric conditions, underwent four post-mortem changes at the same time, making it challenging to estimate the time of death, based only on the available data and macroscopic findings.

In cases of traumatic deaths, accurate assessment of injuries is essential for both legal and medical purposes. This case report compares the findings of post-mortem computed tomography with conventional autopsy methods in assessing abdominal stab wounds. A 34-year-old woman with multiple stab wounds in the abdomen underwent post-mortem examination, including computed tomography imaging. Computed tomography revealed specific breaches in the skin's continuity and internal injuries, including perforation of the stomach. A conventional autopsy confirmed the presence of multiple stab wounds and associated injuries to internal structures. However, additional injuries to major blood vessels, such as the abdominal aorta and inferior vena cava, were only detected during manual exploration of the peritoneal cavity. This case highlights the complementary roles of post-mortem computed tomography and conventional autopsy in evaluating traumatic injuries. While computed tomography imaging offers non-invasive visualisation of injuries, manual examination remains essential for identifying certain injuries, particularly those affecting major blood vessels. The integration of computed tomography imaging with traditional autopsy methods enhances the accuracy and reliability of forensic assessments in cases of traumatic deaths, particularly in complex cases involving multiple injuries. Understanding the strengths and limitations of these techniques is crucial for improving forensic investigations and ultimately enhancing medico-legal outcomes.

We report an unusual and undetected case of primary central nervous system lymphoma presenting as multiple lesions in the periventricular occipital lobe in an immunocompetent host, which had manifested as a stroke. The neoplastic diagnosis was made only after death following a thorough autopsy and histopathological examinations which enabled the diagnosis of a rare cancer (primary cerebral lymphoma) which remained undetected and undiagnosed during life.

Septic cerebral venous sinus thrombosis is a rare but often fatal complication caused by bacterial meningitis and paranasal sinusitis.We report a particular case of the sudden and unexpected death of a six-day-old infant from unrecognised acute meningitis that caused a thrombotic occlusion of the venous sinuses (with the particular involvement of the torcular Herophili at the confluence of sinuses) resulting in subdural haemorrhage.This case report alerts paediatricians and neonatologists to the importance of promptly considering a possible diagnosis of meningitis without delay to avoid the fatal complications described here. As in all cases of sudden infant death our case study underlines the need for a thorough autopsy, accompanied by histological analysis, in order to identify the causes of the underlying pathological mechanisms causing death and to ensure an adequate differential diagnosis.

The phenomenon of suicide contagion: some individuals, especially vulnerable young people, exhibit increased susceptibility to suicidal ideation when exposed to the suicide of other people. Significant research suggests that exposure to media portrayals, suicide groups and peer suicides may lead to suicide contagion. Prevalent psychosocial and cultural factors in Nepal such as interpersonal conflict, domestic violence, gender inequity and social exclusion probably contribute to suicidal behaviour. This case study investigates a high school student in a rural mountainous community in Nepal, who attempted suicide by hanging following his girlfriend's suicide, and demonstrates how peer suicide exposure prompts imitative behaviour in a vulnerable young person and confirms suicide grief as an underrepresented risk factor. Prompt, supportive interventions for high-risk grievers and societal prevention strategies tailored to adolescents are essential to curb imitative deaths.

The use of non-lethal weapons has spread worldwide, being introduced as an alternative to firearms in many countries such as the United States or the United Kingdom. Among non-lethal weapons, conducted electrical weapons have been adopted worldwide, to control unruly suspected criminals or to neutralise violent situations. The stun gun belongs to this category and is the most widely available, with more than 140,000 units in use by police officers in the field in the US, and an additional 100,000 electrical stun guns owned by civilians worldwide. In Italy, the use of conducted electrical weapons by law enforcement has only recently been introduced, with private use and commercialisation still prohibited, mainly due to controversies related to the potential dangers of such devices.Before the official adoption, several experiments had to be carried out, with mechanisms that reproduced the ballistics of the stun gun. Here we present the case of a man who suffered a self-injury trauma to his hand during a ballistics exercise with a crossbow loaded with stun gun probes.