Morphometric criteria for sexing juvenile human skeletons using the ilium

Previous attempts to sex juvenile skeletons have focused on the application of qualitative or semi-quantitative techniques. This study applies a variety of geometric morphometric methods, including eigenshape analysis, to this problem. Six metric criteria for the ilia were tested with the aim of investigating previous ideas concerning sexually diagnostic characters. This study uses 25 ilia from juveniles of known age and sex from Christ Church, Spitalfields, London. Ninety-six percent of juvenile ilia were correctly identified as male or female using the shape of the greater sciatic notch. Identification accuracy is shown to improve with age for several criteria. Males were identified to a higher accuracy than females. Application of geometric techniques improves the understanding of the relationship between age, sex, and shape and the clarity with which these relationships can be quantified. Archaeological and forensic relevance of the results are discussed with recommendations for future application.     

Heteroplasmies detected in an amplified mitochondrial DNA control region from a small amount of template

When mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) heteroplasmies are detected, they often confound forensic identification, especially if they are the result of poor biological sampling. In this study, we determined the ratio of heteroplasmy in samples that were amplified from a very small amount of template mtDNA or a few cells using a highly sensitive nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) procedure and a direct sequencing analysis. As a result, more than half of the detected sequences (i.e., 17/20, 15/20, and 14/20) showed homoplasmy derived from a variation in the heteroplasmy proportion when only 10 copies of template mtDNA samples were amplified and analyzed. Additionally, with products amplified from one or several white blood cells (WBCs), several previously undetected heteroplasmies were detected. These results indicate the risks associated with using highly sensitive mtDNA techniques in forensic investigations because of the variable proportions of heteroplasmy or nucleotide substitutions that can possibly be detected from a very small biological sample.     

刑法中的消极义务与积极义务：对刑法管辖权根据的思考

将犯罪视为法益侵害的一般理论对社会规范结构的理解过于肤浅,这种理论既无法把握积极履行的义务,又无法为刑法区分作为与不作为的义务提供根据,而且在价值上也毫无意义。作为一种保证人义务,每个人的组织领域必须保证交往的安全,因此保证人地位的预设不仅是不作为,而且还是作为。消极义务是每个人的义务,它可以通过作为来实现,也可以通过不作为来违反,这与义务人组织自己的组织领域有关。积极义务旨在用其他组织领域的成就来弥补另一个组织领域的不足,尽管该义务只影响负有特殊义务的人;但由于其属于重要意义的协助义务,任何人都可能参与该义务的违反。在负有特殊义务的人非但没有协助受益人,甚至还干扰了受益人的组织领域的场合,违反积极义务可能与违反消极义务同时发生。     

Criminal recidivism in sexual homicide perpetrators

Forensic psychiatric reports on 166 sexual homicide perpetrators in Germany were retrospectively analyzed for criminal risk factors. Follow-up information about release and reconvictions from federal criminal records was available for 139 offenders; 90 (64.7%) had been released. The estimated recidivism rate (Kaplan-Meier analyses) for 20 years at risk was 23.1% for sexual and 18.3% for nonsexual violent reoffences. Three men (3.3%) were reconvicted for attempted or completed homicide. Only young age at the time of sexual homicide resulted in higher sexual recidivism, whereas increased nonsexual violent recidivism was related to previous sexual and nonsexual delinquency, psychopathic symptoms, and higher scores in risk assessment instruments. Increased recidivism with any violent reoffence was associated with age-related factors: young age at first sexual offence, at homicide, and at release and duration of detention. The impacts of the results for risk assessment, relapse prevention, and supervision are discussed.     

Life and death

Advances in science are altering what it means to be human. So why aren't the candidates talking about it?