Is the Assessment of Dental Age by the Nolla Method Valid for Eastern Turkish Children?

The aim of this study was to investigate whether or not the Nolla method is appropriate for Turkish children for the determination of the dental age (DA). A group of 719 children between the ages of 6 and 18 years were included in the study. DAs from orthopantograms by the Nolla method were estimated. The results obtained were compared with chronologic age (CA). Paired t and the Wilcoxon tests were performed. Both genders were underestimated in dental maturity when compared with the reference samples in total (-0.3 years) (p<0.01). The differences in girls were statistically significant in total and in all groups except for 7-7.9. The differences in boys between the CAs and DAs were not statistically significant in total and in all groups except for 7-7.9 and 8-8.9. Although the accuracy of this method was suitable for boys, according to our findings, it was not suitable for girls.     

Pen guns in Turkey

This study describes the frequency and type of pen guns in Turkey by examining the cases sent to the Council of Forensic Medicine of Turkey between 2000 and 2004. In total, 32 cases and 61 pen guns were examined. These guns were evaluated in respect of the type of the gun, size and caliber, rifling, design, mechanism, fitness for use, legality, and geographical distribution. Fifty-nine percent of the guns were 22-gauge. Most commonly, they originate from South Eastern Anatolia. It is suggested that the guns are handmade.     

On Lie Detection “Wizards”

M. O'Sullivan and P. Ekman (2004) claim to have discovered 29 wizards of deception detection. The present commentary offers a statistical critique of the evidence for this claim. Analyses reveal that chance can explain results that the authors attribute to wizardry. Thus, by the usual statistical logic of psychological research, O'Sullivan and Ekman's claims about wizardry are gratuitous. Even so, there may be individuals whose wizardry remains to be uncovered. Thus, the commentary outlines forms of evidence that are (and are not) capable of diagnosing lie detection wizardry.     

Accuracy of different dental age estimation methods on Turkish children

Tooth development is widely used to estimate age or maturation. Dental age estimation is so important for various research works. Numerous methods have been described to estimate dental age based on the dental maturation. The aims of this study were to decide the best method to estimate dental age on Turkish children by reviewing several methods and to illustrate the differences among the methods and to assist future studies. The records of Turkish children between the ages of 7 and 13 years who visited the Department of Pediatric Dentistry of the Faculty of Dentistry of the Süleyman Demirel University in Isparta, Turkey were reviewed and a total of 425 healthy children with complete records, satisfactory panoramic radiographs, similar socio-economic background and ethnic origin were included. Panoramic radiographs were examined with Nolla's, Haavikko's and Demirjian's methods. Dental age was calculated for each method, and the differences between the estimated dental age and the chronological age were compared with paired t-test and Wilcoxon signed rank test. The accuracy of three methods was obtained with ICC (intraclass correlation coefficient). An under-estimation of the dental age was observed by using Nolla's and Haavikko's methods (boys -0.53±0.95, girls -0.57±0.91, both -0.54±0.93; boys -0.60±0.80, girls -0.56±0.81, both -0.58±0.80, respectively) and an over-estimation of the dental age was observed by using Demirjian's method (boys 0.52±0.86, girls 0.75±0.90, both 0.64±0.89). Haavikko's method was more accurate in the dental age estimation compared to the other methods. All of the three methods are not completely suitable for Turkish children and establishment of the population-specific standards is essential and crucial.     

Staff growth in international organizations: A principal-agent problem? An empirical analysis

The analysis covers 27 international organizations in the years 1950–2001. From the first to the last year, staff increased at a compound average rate of 3.2% per annum, while the number of member states rose by only 2.5%. The pooled analysis of 817 observations (including task proxies and organization dummies) reveals that (i) the elasticity of staff to membership is much larger than unity (1.36), (ii) United Nations organizations have significantly more staff, (iii) international organizations in the United States and Switzerland have significantly less staff, (iv) heterogeneity in terms of per capita income limits the size of an international organization and that (v) its staff is larger if its membership comprises many industrial or (former) communist countries. In a reduced sample, the financing share of the largest contributor in combination with the party or programmatic orientation of its government has a significantly negative effect on staff because the size of the largest financing share determines the incentive to monitor. U.S. exit from an international organization reduces its staff significantly. Most of these results depend on the condition that the non-stationary component of staff size is not taken account of by time dummies or trends.     

Body height estimation based on dimensions of sacral and coccygeal vertebrae

This study is to evaluate whether it is possible to predict living stature from sacral and coccygeal vertebral dimensions. Individual vertebral body heights, sacral height (SH), and sacrococcygeal height (SCH) were recorded from the magnetic resonance images of 42 adult males. Sum of the heights of five sacral vertebrae (sigmaS), the first four coccygeal vertebrae (sigmaC), and the total height of the sacral and the first four coccygeal vertebrae together (sigmaSC) were also recorded. Linear regression equations for stature estimation were produced using the above mentioned variables. The regression equations were constructed and tested by using jack-knife procedure. Statistical analyses indicated that the combined variables (SH, SCH, sigmaS, sigmaC, sigmaSC) were more accurate predictors of stature than the heights of individual vertebrae. The results of the study pointed out that the equations derived from sacrococcygeal dimensions perform somewhat better than ones based on foot and head variables, but worse than those based on long-bone length. As a conclusion, the dimensions of sacral and coccygeal vertebrae could be used for stature estimation when long bones are not available.     

Homicide in Adana, Turkey: a 5-year review

Violence is a significant public health problem. Thus, so as to prevent this problem, homicide, the severest form of violence depriving a human being of his right to live, deserves a detailed examination. This study is a retrospective research examining the 2951 cases of medicolegal autopsies in Adana during a period of 5 years (1997-2001). Among these cases, 620, which were determined to be homicidal, were taken into the scope of this study. The cases were examined with respect to sex, age groups, the method used during the act of homicide, the number and the localization of the wounds on the body. A total of 620 (21%) of the medicolegal autopsies conducted within this period were homicides. Of these cases, 515 (83.06%) were male and 105 (16.94%) female, and the rate of the males to females was 4.9; 72.74% of the victims were between the ages of 21 and 50. It was seen that 54.83% of the homicides involved firearms, while 35.16% of the victims were stabbed to death with a cutting object. It was also determined that the victims suffered a single wound in 47.35% of firearm-related murders and 29.35% of stabbings resulted in death. Alcohol was found in the blood of 7.58% of the homicide victims, while none had any illicit drugs.     

Childhood foreign body aspiration in Istanbul, Turkey

In this study, we present the data concerning 10 children (six boys, four girls) with a diagnosis of foreign body aspiration (FBA) amongst 19,951 cases that underwent autopsy between the years 1996-2002. Eight of the children were under 2 years old. All the incidents took place at home. One of the parents was in the company of the child at the time of incident. At least one of the risk factors was positive. Interestingly, all of the aspirated material was related to food except one. Only four cases had subpleural petechiae, whereas five of the seven subjects undergoing histopathological evaluation had edema, hyperemia or intra-alveolar fresh bleeding. The legal instructions, which regulate the standards of toy materials, came into force at the end of 2003. Even though the legal instructions regulating the size and consistency of toys are very important to prevent FBA, we believe that the education of the parents and carers in the prevention of food aspiration is of greater importance.     

A cross-sectional study on expression of anger and factors associated with criminal recidivism in prisoners with prior offences

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to determine demographical characteristics leading to crime recidivism and define anger levels and anger expression manners for those who re-commit crime. METHOD: All the literate inmates in Izmit Closed Penitentiary were included in this cross-sectional study. The prisoners were asked to respond to State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory. Their socio-demographic data were collected and a questionnaire was given to them to determine their state of imprisonment, sentence, nature of the crime in which they were involved, their criminal history, their relationship with inmates and prison staff and substance and alcohol use. RESULTS: Of the 438 prisoners, 302 (68.9%) responded to the questionnaires. Crime recidivism among the study cohort was observed to be 37.4%. Mean trait anger, anger out and anger in scores were significantly higher in prisoners with criminal recidivism in comparison with those who did not have prior criminal records. However, mean anger control scores for prisoners with or without criminal recidivism were similar. Unemployment, education level completed at secondary school or below, having committed a crime under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, having been involved in prison fights, having resisted police officers, caused damage in their vicinity when angry and violent crimes were all found to be possible causes of criminal recidivism. Educational level completed at secondary school or below, getting into fights with other prisoners, unemployment and resisting police officers were determined to be the strongest indicators to predict criminal recidivism when all variables were considered according to a logistic regression model. CONCLUSION: It can be proposed that those who have problems with officials or hostile towards others constitute a risk group for criminal recidivism. If prisoners with criminal recidivism can be helped to identify and control their anger, their risk of committing a new crime can be minimised.