1,720,956 research outputs found
Drug-facilitated sexual assault followed by femicidal chloroform poisoning and suffocation: A case-report of criminal responsibility
No full textIntroduction: Criminal responsibility evaluation represents one of the most controversial and debated issues in forensic psychiatry. Although clear procedures have been recommended, little research exists on decision-making process by forensic psychiatrists. We present a case assessing the criminal responsibility of a murderer who committed femicide as a result of chloroform poisoning and suffocation after a drug-facilitated sexual assault. Materials and methods: A.S., a 30-year-old female, was found dead in the home of S.P., a 50-year-old male. S.P. recounted killing A.S. by forced inhalation of chloroform, when the woman had experienced sensory clouding following unintentional ingestion of Zolpidem, a hypnotic agent. A multidisciplinary approach was taken to resolve the case. Autopsy, histological, genetic, and toxicological examinations were performed by a forensic pathologist, while a digital forensic examiner analysed electronic devices. A pool of three forensic psychiatrists and two psychologists was asked to assess the mental state of S.P. at the time of the crime. Results and conclusions: The cause of death of A.S. was identified as a lethal chloroform intoxication in altered consciousness caused by Zolpidem, while homicidal suffocation was also described. Mobile forensics demonstrated that S.P. had videotaped the crime scene, clearly revealing that A.S. had been sexually assaulted by S.P. before dying. Criminal responsibility of S.P. was evaluated through various psychological tests and seven interviews with the accused, each lasting an average of 180 min. Specialists concluded that S.P. could not be exempted from being responsible for the homicide
A promising microbiological test for the diagnosis of drowning
No full textA number of biological and chemical tests have been developed over the years to determine whether a person was drowned. This study focuses on the potential of a microbiological test for detecting common bacterial markers of water faecal pollution such as faecal coliforms (FC) and faecal streptococci (FS) as possible indicators of drowning. A promising previous study was carried out on central and peripheral blood samples of 42 drowned victims (20 cases in saltwater and 22 cases in freshwater) and 30 not drowned bodies. To improve the accuracy of our previous results and also in order to investigate a possible cause of a false positive due to pulmonary passive diffusion and subsequently endogenous or exogenous bacterial invasion of the blood in the post-mortem interval (PMI), the FC and FS test was applied to bodies submerged in water but died from causes other than drowning. In the present study, blood samples collected from the left ventricle (LV), right ventricle (RV), femoral artery (FA) and, femoral vein (FV) of 10 drowned victims (5 cases in freshwater and 5 cases in seawater) and 3 not-drowned individuals with bodies submerged in water for a while after death have been analysed. Preliminary
results are in agreement with other reports dealing with diatoms and marine bacteria that suggest to exclude the hypothesis of a passive penetration of sufficient quantities of drowning medium into circulation after death or during the agonal period. Based on our results there is also no evidence of a relevant dissemination of endogenous micro-flora from the gastrointestinal tract affecting the FS and FC test. There are still several other factors that could influence the applicability of post-mortem FS and FC cultures for the diagnosis of drowning and they need further investigations. The present article provides only a glimpse of the potential of the FS and FC test as bacteriological method for the diagnosis of drowning
Post-mortem investigation into a death involving doping agents: The case of a body builder
Full text linkIntroduction: A young male was found dead on the bed of a hotel room. He was expected to take part in a bodybuilding competition the day after. During the site inspection, drugs of different types were found. The next day, an autopsy was performed. The evidence of cardiomegaly with organ congestion involving lung, liver, kidneys, adrenal glands, spleen and brain was confirmed by both the autoptic and the histopathological exam. However, the cause of death needed to be investigated. Methods: A thorough toxicological investigation was undertaken by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) and liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) on samples of urine, blood and hair. Results and discussion: Clenbuterol, a long-acting selective beta2 agonist, was found in both blood (1 ng/ml) and urine (1 ng/ml), and evidence of its use was provided by the analysis of the 3-cm hair (25 pg/mg). The main metabolite o..
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
- …
