An Objective Measure of Splitting in Parental Alienation: The Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire

Both clinicians and forensic practitioners should distinguish parental alienation (rejection of a parent without legitimate justification) from other reasons for contact refusal. Alienated children—who were not abused—often engage in splitting and lack ambivalence with respect to the rejected parent; children who were maltreated usually perceive the abusive parent in an ambivalent manner. The purpose of this study was to assess the usefulness of the Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ) in identifying and quantifying the degree of splitting, which may assist in diagnosing parental alienation. Results showed that severely alienated children engaged in a high level of splitting, by perceiving the preferred parent in extremely positive terms and the rejected parent in extremely negative terms. Splitting was not manifested by the children in other family groups. The PARQ may be useful for both clinicians and forensic practitioners in evaluating children of divorced parents when there is a concern about the possible diagnosis of parental alienation.     

Forensic Radiology Pitfalls: CT Imaging in Gunshot Wounds of the Head

Computed tomography (CT) imaging is increasingly used in emergency departments and trauma services and is being offered as a supplemental tool with autopsy in coroner's and medical examiner's offices throughout the United States. The availability of CT images in lieu of traditional X‐rays for medicolegal autopsies may lead to misinterpretation of images for forensic pathologists who are not familiar with these types of images. Forensic pathologists must become familiar with CT imaging, the basis of CT image formation and how to interpret CT images appropriately. We highlight potential pitfalls of CT image interpretation through two cases of fatal gunshot wounds of the head. Antemortem CT imaging available at the time of autopsy led to discrepancy between the initial image findings and the autopsy due to inexperienced manipulation of the images. With appropriate understanding of CT image interpretation and manipulation, forensic personnel should be able to avoid most sources of misinterpretation.     

Inclusive growth,human capital development and natural resource rent in SSA

This paper seeks to achieve two objectives. First, we argued for the increase in government expenditure on education and health to examine the possibility of achieving inclusive growth. Second, financing gap model was employed to estimate the potential growth in GDP per capita that is accruable to the economy if government use natural resource rent to finance increase in expenditure of education and health. Relying on dataset for 18 SSA countries, among the results obtained showed that both government expenditures are found to be significant for explaining growth in SSA. However, augmenting health expenditure with natural resource appears to be more significant for making growth process inclusive. Also, the results of the simulation exercise indicate that increasing government expenditure on health would increase GDP per capita growth by over 3.1 %. The policy implication of this is drawn based upon the results obtained.     

Parental Postconflict Explanations: Implications for Children's Adjustment Outcomes

The Post Conflict Explanations (PCE) scale is a compilation of behaviors commonly seen in parent‐child postconflict communications. Following exploratory factor analysis, the PCE emerged as a four‐dimension scale with adequate subscale internal consistency and intercorrelations: Dismissive (α = 0.86), Emotion Dysregulation (α = 0.85), Constructive (α = 0.97), and Blaming (α = 0.77). The PCE and its subscales were further validated through moderate‐to‐strong associations with established scales of family conflict, emotional security, and adjustment outcomes. The identification of these postconflict explanations represents a step forward in distinguishing constructive and destructive conflict behaviors.     

An Incidental Diffuse Midline Glioma Found at Autopsy

This case shows an unexpected midline glioma found at autopsy. Two siblings were riding on a single bicycle on the side of a road. The 13‐year‐old brother was seated and steering the bicycle, while the 14‐year‐old sister held onto the back. The bicycle veered left into traffic and was struck by a vehicle. The siblings were admitted to the local Level 1 trauma center, but both later succumbed to injuries. Autopsies were performed on the children, including brains for neuropathologic evaluation. The brother was found to have an infiltrating astrocytoma located in the left middle cerebellar peduncle, with extension to the pons and medulla. His hospital course included several imaging studies using CT and MRI modalities. However, this lesion was not identified until the postmortem neuropathologic examination. This rare case shows the continued need for postmortem autopsy and the current limitations of medical imaging.     

Recreational Sporting Activity Vehicle‐Related Deaths

Deaths occurring in the setting of nonprofessional, vehicle‐related, recreational sporting activities occurring on land or in water during warm or winter months represent a diverse group of cases. These deaths tend to involve scenarios where the participants are purposefully attempting to enjoy themselves prior to experiencing sudden, catastrophic accidents resulting in lethal outcomes. Ultimately, many of the deaths are related to the high speed at which these vehicle‐related activities normally occur. Three broad categories of factors may play contributory roles in death: human factors, vehicle factors, and environmental factors. A series of selected cases are presented, representing examples of varying activity types, involving motorized and nonmotorized vehicles, land and water activities, and warm weather and cold weather environments. For each case, the various human, vehicle and environmental factors believed to be contributory to the accident are considered, and strategies for prevention of these and similar deaths involving recreational sporting vehicles are presented.     

Fatal Complications of Aesthetic Techniques: The Gluteal Region

Cosmetic procedures are common and utilize many techniques to obtain aesthetically good outcomes for patient satisfaction with acceptable safety standards. Cosmetic procedures that involve the gluteal region are becoming increasingly popular as various procedures can target the gluteal region such as liposuction, tumescent liposuction, cosmetic filler injections, autologous fat transfer, depot drug delivery, and implants. Complications of cosmetic gluteal procedures can be localized or systemic with systemic complications being responsible for most deaths. These reported systemic complications include sepsis, thromboembolism, fat embolism with or without fat embolism syndrome, macroscopic fat embolism, anesthesia‐related and blood volume abnormalities. We herein report 10 deaths due to elective gluteal cosmetic procedures. Autologous fat transfer (fat grafting, lipoinjection) following liposuction resulted in 8 of 10 fatal outcomes of the gluteal aesthetic procedures. A comprehensive discussion of gluteal anatomy, gluteal contouring procedures, and the approach to such cases is presented along with the autopsy findings of the reported cases.     

Unusual Death of a Transvestite: Identification of Crime Weapon and Survival Time*

Abstract: The authors report a case of a transvestite found murdered near his automobile with several lacerated contused wounds to the face and cranial fractures. Autopsy revealed that the cause of death was a serious head trauma with subdural and subarachnoidal hemorrhages. In order to identify the crime weapon, a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used which revealed metallic residue on the skin fragments with the same molecular composition of the car paint. As for survival time, antibody anti‐beta‐amyloid precursor protein (APP) was applied to brain fragments and brainstem tissue, allowing for axonal varicosities (which form 2 to 3 h following death) to be observed under the optic microscope. So, by using SEM we understood that the fatal cranial‐encephalic lesions were the result of the victim’s head being repeatedly struck against the car door while anti‐betaAPP led to the understanding that the time elapsed between injury and death was less than 2 to 3 h.