Measuring Political Preferences: Ratings for Members of the Swiss National Council

Party affiliation as the standard measure of political preferences of Swiss legislators is associated with several problems. To overcome these problems the authors develop ratings for members of the National Council, based on roll-call votes. They discuss the construction of the ratings and their limitations in detail, and outline the importance of this kind of information for the participants of the political process, as well as some applications in empirical research.     

Minimum Criminal Penalties in the European Union: In Search of a Credible Justification

The EU has recently mooted the possibility of harmonising minimum penalties. ‘Minimum criminal penalties’ refers to the lowest sanction available for a judge in a concrete case. Calculating the actual penalty involves legal mechanisms that might mitigate that penalty. Comparative analysis reveals that a distinction needs to be made between minimum penalties included in national criminal codes (in abstracto penalty) and the lowest penalty that might be imposed (in concreto penalty). Although in abstracto minimum penalties are found in the criminal codes of most Member States, they are fiercely opposed in others. In concreto minimum penalties that constitute an absolute limit to the discretion of a judge are even more controversial. Against that background, this contribution reviews whether or not the EU should force the Member States to impose absolute, in concreto minimum criminal penalties. It examines the justifications presented in recent proposals in light of legal and criminological research.     

Refining Fingermark Development using Diacetylene Copolymers on Difficult Surfaces,

In further work investigating the intriguing application of diacetylene copolymers in fingermark detection, methods were developed to control (inhibit or enhance) the diacetylene polymerization reaction in fingermarks treated with a mixture of the monomers 2,4‐hexadiyne‐1,6‐bis‐(phenylurethane) (HDDPU) and 2,4‐hexadiyne‐1,6‐bis(p‐chlorophenylurethane) (HDDCPU) in acetone solution. These methods included the use of a humidity chamber to reduce the amount of background development while promoting development on the fingermark, subjecting developed fingermarks to freezing temperatures and using a solvent to remove unreacted monomer in order to inhibit the polymerization reaction. Developed fingermarks were enhanced by conventional lighting (white light, filtered light) and fast Raman mapping, which was shown to be advantageous over FTIR imaging. This study also demonstrated the applicability of diacetylene copolymer solutions in the covert detection of fingermarks on difficult surfaces. Furthermore, fingermarks were successfully developed with good ridge detail on pig skin (used as a model for human skin, a notoriously difficult surface on which to develop fingermarks).     

An Unusual Case Showing Fatal Rupture of a Gastric Ulcer or Gastromalacia? The Importance/Role of Histology for Differential Diagnosis

Gastromalacia is the acute autolytic erosion of the gastric wall. It generally occurs postmortem, and it appears as a slimy brownish black region of the wall which occurs principally in the gastric fundus. A 59‐year‐old woman died in the Emergency Department following a 2‐day period of mild abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. A forensic autopsy was performed which revealed a rupture of the gastric fundus that had caused leakage of gastric content into the abdominal cavity. There was no macroscopic evidence of peritonitis, and the stomach wall adjacent to the rupture site showed marked thinning. The gross appearance was typical of gastromalacia. In contrast, histological observations revealed the presence of an ulcer at the site of perforation and a severe acute inflammatory reaction indicating a robust reaction with an antemortem rupture.     

Gender Determination of Adult Individuals by Three‐Dimensional Modeling of Canines

Gender determination is a fundamental issue in forensic anthropology. Many techniques based on bone and dental remains have been proposed. It is not always possible to implement the techniques using bones, but teeth are often perfectly preserved. It has been demonstrated that the canine has the greatest sexual dimorphism, and the aim of this work was to provide an easy and accurate dental technique for determining the gender in the absence of other skeletal elements. The sample was composed of 210 CT scans with four healthy canines. The 840 canines were modeled using MIMICS^® 10.01 software. The total volume of each tooth was determined. Seven mathematical models were determined by binary logistic regressions and ranked in order of relative performance. The seven proposed predictive models thus performed (0.910 ≤ AUC ≤ 0.938), with overall rates of correct predictions between 82.38 and 85.24%. The 4‐canine model is the most powerful for predicting the gender.     

Estimation of Age Using Alveolar Bone Loss: Forensic and Anthropological Applications

The objective of this study was to utilize a new odontological methodological approach based on radiographic for age estimation. The study was comprised of 397 participants aged between 9 and 87 years. A clinical examination and a radiographic assessment of alveolar bone loss were performed. Direct measures of alveolar bone level were recorded using CT scans. A medical examination report was attached to the investigation file. Because of the link between alveolar bone loss and age, a model was proposed to enable simple, reliable, and quick age estimation. This work added new arguments for age estimation. This study aimed to develop a simple, standardized, and reproducible technique for age estimation of adults of actual populations in forensic medicine and ancient populations in funeral anthropology.