A Very Unusual Accidental Mechanical Asphyxia of Choking with a Whole Solea Solea

The case here reported involves a schizophrenic 19‐year‐old girl under treatment with clotiapine, which was well tolerated except for a moderate dry mouth. The woman ingested a whole sole (Solea solea), which caused a very rapid death by choking. A complete autopsy was performed 24 h later, as well as histological and toxicological analysis. At autopsy, the sole was wedged in the esophagus causing a choking ab extrinseco. The fish had a length of 18 cm and a maximum width of 6 cm, weighing 188.7 g. Toxicological analysis detected 0.57 mg/L of clotiapine in blood, which falls within the therapeutic range. The peculiarity of this case is represented by two factors: one is the choking by fish and the second was the adverse affect caused by clotiapine, which induced a condition of dry mouth making the act of swallowing even more difficult, thereby contributing to a very rapid mechanical asphyxia and the death of the young woman.     

Improving automatic face recognition with user interaction

Face recognition systems aim to recognize the identity of a person depicted in a photograph by comparing it against a gallery of prerecorded images. Current systems perform quite well in controlled scenarios, but they allow for none or little interaction in case of mistakes due to the low quality of images or to algorithmic limitations. Following the needs and suggestions of investigators, we present a guided user interface that allows to adjust from a fully automatic to a fully assisted modality of execution, according to the difficulty of the task and to amount of available information (gender, age, etc.): the user can generally rely on automatic execution and intervene only on a limited number of examples when a failure is automatically detected or when the quality of intermediate results is deemed unsatisfactory. The interface runs on top of a preexistent automatic face recognition algorithm in such a way to guarantee full control over the execution flow and to exploit the peculiarities of the underlying image processing techniques. The viability of the proposed solution is tested on a classic face identification task run on a standard publicly available database (the XM2VTS), assessing the improvement to user interaction over the automatic system performance.     

Electoral alliances: Party identities and coalition games

The emergence of electoral alliances competing for plurality seats has been one of the main consequences stemming form the introduction of the new electoral laws for the Senate and the Chamber of deputies in Italy. This paper analyzes the politics of electoral alliances at the general elections of April 1996, focusing on two factors: the making of electoral alliances and their internal arrangements for coalition management. From both points of view, the elections have shown some important new developments, including a simplification in the number of coalitions. But although the centre–left alliance was able to broaden its range, the centre–right lost the Lega Nord and suffered the split of Movimento sociale–Fiamma tricolore on its right. Moreover, the centre–right alliance also suffered from a lack of cohesion, wasting its previous coalitional capability. As in the 1994 elections the politics of electoral alliances proved to be a key factor in the electoral competition.     

Arbeit, Strafe und der Freiraum der Subjekte*

Over the last decades labour has changed considerably; now individualization and personal enterprise are beginning to shape its character and meaning. In this way, labour has acquired a kind of narrative, which is shown in examples of online-recruiting by German companies. On the other hand, punishment nowadays does not focus on rehabilitation and is, it may be said, handled without any narrative. A comparison of both developments suggests significant changes in social integration and control.     

German and Italian Municipalities’ Internal Control Systems: Convergence to a Neo-Weberian Reform Pattern?

This article contributes to the debate on convergence/divergence of public management reforms toward the new public management (NPM) paradigm by analyzing the internal control systems (ICSs) in Germany and Italy. Specifically, the study describes the ICS established at the normative level in German and Italian municipalities and evaluates the extent of the decisional convergence to NPM, using the INTOSAI guidelines. Although similarities between the two ICSs and the INTOSAI guidelines emerged, decisional convergence is not demonstrated. Instead, these countries seem to converge to a Neo-Weberian reform pattern since they are cautious in the introduction of new managerial tools and they maintain their domestic original ICS.     

HPLC-DAD determination of mepivacaine in cerebrospinal fluid from a fatal case

A fatal case involving mepivacaine-induced epidural anesthesia is described. The pathological findings were typical of cardiac shock from ischemic origin. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was obtained several hours after death and mepivacaine was identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Its concentration was determined by high performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD). Extraction from CSF was performed by deproteinization with acetonitrile. The mepivacaine concentration in the sample was 264 microg/mL. Concentrations of mepivacaine in CSF following epidural anesthesia are not reported in literature to our knowledge. This is the first reported case of death in which the mepivacaine concentration in CSF has been determined.     

Markers of chronic alcohol use in hair: comparison of ethyl glucuronide and cocaethylene in cocaine users

Two direct ethanol metabolites, namely ethyl glucuronide (EtG) and cocaethylene (CE), in the hair of cocaine (COC) users were compared in this study. Hair samples (n=68) were submitted to the determination of EtG (by liquid chromatography-electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry) and of COC and metabolites, including CE (by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry). Quantitative and qualitative results were compared. No quantitative correlation was found between EtG and CE, as well as between EtG and the cocaethylene concentration divided by the concentration of COC and its metabolites (benzoylecgonine and ecgonine methylester, as COC equivalents). Nevertheless, many factors are supposed to affect the amount of the two substances incorporated in the hair matrix, such as the subject's habits in ethanol and COC use, genetic variability in the metabolism of both substances, and the different chemical and physical properties of EtG and CE. When establishing a cut-off of 4 pg/mg for EtG and of 200 pg/mg for CE, 47 samples tested positive for EtG and 41 samples tested positive for CE; 12 samples out of the 47 EtG-positives tested negative for CE (25%), whereas 6 samples out of the 41 CE-positives tested negative for EtG (15%). According to these data, EtG appears to be a more sensitive and specific marker of non-moderate alcohol users than CE.     

Allele frequencies of 15 autosomal STR loci in the Iraq population with comparisons to other populations from the middle-eastern region

Allele frequencies for the 15 autosomal STR loci included in the AmpFlSTR((R)) IdentifilerTM PCR Amplification Kit panel from Applied Biosystems (D3S1358, vWA, FGA, D8S1179, D21S11, D18S51, D5S818, D13S317, D7S820, TH01, TPOX, CSF1PO, D19S433, D2S1338, D16S539) and several statistical parameters were estimated from a sample of 103 unrelated individuals, mostly Shia and Sunni Arabs, living in most of central and southern Iraq provinces. We compared the allele frequency spectrum detected in the Iraqi population to allele frequencies from 11 other data sets from published studies of individuals from Turkey, Iraqi-Kurdistan, Saudi Arabia, Arab Emarates, Oman, Iran, Syria, and Jordan. Significant global differences in allele frequencies were detected in 9 of the 11 comparisons following sequential Bonferroni corrections. Comparisons with the two independent panels from Saudi Arabia were not significant after applying Bonferroni corrections, however, low P-values (P<0.05) associated with these two contrasts nonetheless suggested that at least slight genetic differences between populations may exist.     

Rights redistribution and COVID-19 lockdown policy

European Journal of Law and Economics - What is the tenet upon which the public policy of lockdown by fiat experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic is based on? The work approaches this question...