1,720,960 research outputs found
Postmortem artifacts made by ants and the effect of ant activity on decompositional rates.
No full textAnts belong to the family Formicidae of the order Hymenoptera and they are one of the world's dominant insect groups. Ants can be present at all stages of carrion decomposition as they are typically observed shortly after death or during the early postmortem period, but even later once the fly maggots had left the body. Their role in the faunal succession varies from predator on the eggs and larvae of other insects (mainly Diptera), thus reducing significantly the rate of decomposition, to scavenger on the flesh or exudates from the corpse itself. As they can deeply affect the occurrence of cadaver entomofauna, the presence or absence of ants should be taken into account in every case involving postmortem interval estimates based on entomological evidence. In fact, the effects of ants on carrion reduction seem to be mainly dependent on species, on their amount or abundance, and on geographic area. The feeding action of ants can cause many irregular, serpiginous, scalloped areas of superficial skin loss, and small punctate and scratch-type lesions may be often observed on the body, which are the result of postmortem ant bites. Usually ant injuries are orange-pink to yellow in color and diffusely scattered over the skin surface. These injuries consist of small and rather shallow gnawed holes that can be easily misinterpreted as antemortem abrasions or resulting from strong acids. No bleeding is associated with such skin lesions but sometimes considerable hemorrhage can take place, especially where removal of superficial layers of skin occurs in congested parts of the body. As ants attack the uncovered areas of the body, ant bites can frequently give rise to suspicion especially if located on the neck mimicking antemortem injuries. They are also occasionally misinterpreted as patterned abrasion due to the imprinted effect of a blunt or offending object. On closer inspection, artifacts made by ants can be immediately apparent especially when the ants are identified upon the body, but final diagnosis can be only confirmed at the autopsy by gross and microscopic analysis. The features of such lesions will be illustrated in detail by reviewing some interesting forensic cases
Sudden cardiac death and myocardial ischemia indicators: a comparative study of four immunohistochemical markers
No full textThe postmortem diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction represents a current challenge for forensic pathologists, particularly when death occurs within minutes to a few hours after the ischemic insult. Among the adult population the single most important cause of sudden cardiac death (SCD) is the well-known atherosclerotic coronary artery disease, commonly asymptomatic or unrecognized. The recognition of early myocardial damage using routine hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining is possible only if death has occurred at least 6 hours after the onset of the ischemic injury. The usefulness of immunohistochemical markers to the diagnosis of early myocardial damage has been recently suggested because most of them can be visible even serologically as early as few minutes
after the beginning of the symptoms. To evaluate the usefulness of plasma and cellular antigens, their distribution patterns have been studied among a group of 18 SCD cases in which a myocardial ischemia was strongly suspected. For the present study, 4 markers have been selected on the basis of their different diagnostic potential
as follows: among the plasma markers the C5b-9 and fibronectin, among the cellular markers the myoglobin and cardiac troponin. The results show that only the study of multiple markers such as those selected can provide enough evidence of myocardial ischemia and/or necrosis, supporting the final diagnosis of SCD. No single
immunohistochemical staining is ideal for diagnosing early myocardial ischemia but a set of markers can improve the ability of forensic pathologists to detect ischemic areas when no macroscopic or microscopic evidence of necrosis is available. However, the interpretation of data obtained in each individual cannot be isolated from
the overall assessment of the factors (cardiopulmonary resuscitation and/or agonal artifacts) that can affect the expression of each marker
A serial killer of elderly women: analysis of a multi-victim homicide investigation
No full textBetween 1995 and 1997, in the territories of Southern Italy, there were fifteen murders of elderly women over the age of 70 years old. Initially, however, not all the murders were attributed to a single serial killer. The majority of the victims were stabbed multiple times in the neck, except for three cases in which the cause of death was manual strangulation. There was evidence of sexual assault in only one of the cases. All the victims were discovered in their own apartments, which were located on the ground level, with no signs of forced entry. In most of the cases, the offender stole money and/or jewellery. A multidisciplinary team reviewed the cases during the investigation and created a profile of the killer. The team determined that the method of operation was completely unusual for the local criminal element. They suggested that the perpetrator could be an immigrant, who committed the murders for sexual motivation and who may have been arrested previously for sex-related incidents. On 15th September 1997, a suspect was arrested. He was identified as Ben Mohamed Ezzedine Sebai, a 35-year-old white male, originally from Tunisia. He was charged and convicted of four of the murders and was given a life sentence. In 2005, Sebai confessed to the murders of four additional elderly women, for which nine other people had already been previously tried and convicted, among them, a man who committed suicide in jail. In 2007, Sebai finally confessed to committing fifteen murders that occurred between 1995 and
1997. Sebai also admitted to experiencing sexual gratification at every homicide scene, even though there was no physical proof at most of the crime scenes. The goal of this article is to illustrate a littleknown but noteworthy case concerning a serial sexual killer of elderly women that occurred in Southern Italy, highlighting the method of operation, the victim selection process, and the injuries inflicted. The article will also discuss his motivation, the mental health history of the offender, his clinical diagnosis, and his self-reported childhood abuse
An immunohistochemical study of pulmonary surfactant apoprotein A (SP-A) in forensic autopsy materials
No full textSP-A is the most prevalent protein component of pulmonary surfactant which is essential to maintain alveolar stability. SP-A can be detected by immunohistochemistry and in such form it has been previously reported as a useful tool to distinguish aspyxial deaths from other hypoxic cases. The present immunohistochemical study shows the SP-A staining distribution among a selected forensic material to evaluate the effect of fluid accumulation in the lung interstitium and alveoli commonly related to pulmonary edema. A total of 48 cases were examined histologically and immuno-histochemically based on the presence/absence of pulmonary edema and survival time: 10 cases of acute cardiac deaths (ACDs) in which death occurred rapidly, in a few minutes from the beginning of the symptoms and without signs of pulmonary edema, 18 cases of drowning (12 in saltwater and 6 cases in freshwater), 20 cases of narcotic deaths (6 by cocaine and 14 by opiates) with gross pulmonary edema. The results suggest that edema fluid can produce some kind of molecular alterations of SP-A affecting immunostaining expression. The results show also that SP-A immunostaining patterns alone do not meet the requirements for general diagnostic use and cannot differentiate among fatalities. The SP-A expression needs to be preferably associated with the presence and intensity of histological signs according to suspected cause of death as well as type and amount of edema fluid commonly related to cardiac and/or respiratory failure (cardiogenic and non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema)
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
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