Forensic DNA Challenges: Replacing Numbers with Names of Fosse Ardeatine’s Victims*

Abstract: The Fosse Ardeatine massacre was a mass execution carried out in Rome on March 24, 1944 by Nazi German occupation troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for a partisan attack conducted on the previous day in central Rome. The 335 civilians were taken to the “Cave Ardeatine” and they were shot. Only 323 corpses out of 335 have been identified. The aim of this work is the genetic and anthropological analysis of the remains exhumed from grave number 329 of Fosse Ardeatine’s Shrine to assess their identity. So far, such remains have been supposed to belong to MM but mitochondrial analysis excluded a biological relationship to two living maternal relatives. Our analysis indicated that remains recovered in grave number 329 do not belong to MM. This result suggests that genetic analysis of the remains should be also applied to the other 12 unknown corpses to elucidate their identity.     

Annullable bonuses and penalties

An annullable penalty is a sanction that is applied unless monitoring takes place and the agent is found non-shirking. An annullable bonus is a bonus that the agent receives unless he has been monitored and found shirking. Annullable penalties and bonuses stand in contrast with normal penalties and bonuses, which are only applied if monitoring has taken place. While real-life examples of annullable penalties are rare (an example is a sanction for which the burden of proof is reversed), there is a clear and oft-discussed example of annullable bonuses: efficiency wages. Under efficiency wages all employees receive a bonus (an overpayment), except for those who have been monitored and found shirking.This paper analyzes under what conditions annullable bonuses or penalties make economic sense. On the one hand, annullable bonuses and penalties have a degree of ineffectiveness that is absent in their normal counterparts: the penalty paid by or the bonus paid to non-monitored agents does not improve their incentives. Not only does this ineffective part make the expected sanction or bonus higher than necessary but it also creates an implicit tax on low monitoring levels and hence distorts monitoring choices. On the other hand, the annullable variants may change the ex post incentives of the agents (to come up with evidence) and the principal (to monitor as promised). As a result, annullable bonuses (such as efficiency wages) can be rational choices when the principal cannot credibly commit to paying bonuses with a certain probability, and annullable penalties can make sense when the agent needs an incentive to reveal information.     

The Limits of Normative Power Europe in Asia: The Case of Human Rights in China

In recent years an increasing number of works on EU international actorness have begun to focus on notions of “normative, value-driven external policy”. However, the majority of these works tend to uncritically analyse EU foreign policy without considering its internal complexity and the existing national, supranational and intergovernmental dynamics. This paper first sheds light on these issues by proposing an original theoretical and analytical framework to study European, rather than merely EU, normative foreign policy. Secondly, this paper attempts to empirically apply such a framework in the specific case of European human rights promotion in China. What emerges is that in the case of China, and Asia more broadly, Europe appears more as a normative trap, where the interaction of EU institutions and member states originate policies not in line with the EU human rights normative basis.     

Nitrous Oxide Determination in Postmortem Biological Samples: A Case of Serial Fatal Poisoning in a Public Hospital*

Abstract: In a public hospital, eight cases of fatal poisoning by nitrous oxide (N₂O) occurred under oxygen administration, due to an erroneous swapping of the lines in the gas system. The aim of the study was to clarify the factors involved in asphyxia by characterizing gases from different lines and measuring N₂O concentrations in postmortem biological samples from bodies exhumed. Analyses carried out on the gas system confirmed the erroneous substitution of O₂ line with N₂O and air line with O₂. Consequently, high N₂O amounts were revealed in several tissues and gaseous biological samples. All specimens were analyzed by headspace gas chromatography technique. A rigorous quantitative analysis was possible only in blood (11.29–2152.04 mg/L) and urine (95.11 mg/L) and in air samples from stomach and trachea (from 5.28 to 83.63 g/m³). This study demonstrates that N₂O can be detected in biological samples even 1 month after death.     

Analysis of 11 tetrameric STRs in wild boars for forensic purposes

STR profiling of animal species has a wide range of applications, including forensic identification, wildlife preservation, veterinary public health protection and food safety. We tested the efficacy of a multiplex PCR-based assay including 11 porcine-specific tetrameric STRs in a population sample of wild boars (n = 142) originating from Piedmont (North West Italy). Multiple deviations from Hardy–Weinberg expectations were observed, mostly due to a reduction in observed heterozygosity indicative of a high degree of inbreeding. A value of θ of 0.046 and an inbreeding coefficient of 0.089 were estimated. Combined power of discrimination and probability of exclusion values for the STR panel were 0.9999999999996 and 0.99989. In order to test the suitability of the method for meat traceability purposes, a domestic pig reference sample (n = 412), consisting of commercial lines commonly used in the meat production process, was also typed. A Bayesian cluster analysis carried out using the observed genotypes, showed a percentage of correct subspecies assignment of individual samples of 0.974 for wild boars and 0.991 for pigs, thus demonstrating the usefulness of the multiplex STR-typing system for discrimination purposes.     

Measuring horizontal fiscal imbalance: the case of Italian municipalities

In the literature on fiscal federalism, vertical fiscal imbalance has been widely studied, while the theme of horizontal fiscal imbalance and inequality among local governments, due to differences in their fiscal capacities, has been less explored. This article contributes to fill the gap. A new method to compute fiscal capacities based on regression analysis is proposed, which can overcome some of the drawbacks of traditional methods such as the representative tax system. This new approach is then employed to evaluate the fiscal capacities of Italian municipalities over the period 2002–2010. Finally two global measures of the horizontal fiscal imbalance are used to evaluate the equity implication of a major policy change occurred in 2008 in Italian municipal finance.     

Pursuing Private or Public Accountability in the Public Sector? Applying IPSASs to Define the Reporting Entity in Municipal Consolidation

Private-sector accounting systems have often been heralded as superior to public-sector ones and suggested as solutions to the shortcomings of the latter. Our article aims at contributing to this debate by looking at the adoption of business-like practices where the public and private sectors intersect. Our analysis shows that the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs), strongly inspired by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), might not ensure the expected disclosure. Municipalities adopting IPSASs for preparing consolidated financial statement do not necessarily increase accountability because some relevant public service providers are not included in the reporting entities.     

A New Robust Epigenetic Model for Forensic Age Prediction

Forensic DNA phenotyping refers to an emerging field of forensic sciences aimed at the prediction of externally visible characteristics of unknown sample donors directly from biological materials. The aging process significantly affects most of the above characteristics making the development of a reliable method of age prediction very important. Today, the so-called “epigenetic clocks” represent the most accurate models for age prediction. Since they are technically not achievable in a typical forensic laboratory, forensic DNA technology has triggered efforts toward the simplification of these models. The present study aimed to build an epigenetic clock using a set of methylation markers of five different genes in a sample of the Italian population of different ages covering the whole span of adult life. In a sample of 330 subjects, 42 selected markers were analyzed with a machine learning approach for building a prediction model for age prediction. A ridge linear regression model including eight of the proposed markers was identified as the best performing model across a plethora of candidates. This model was tested on an independent sample of 83 subjects providing a median error of 4.5 years. In the present study, an epigenetic model for age prediction was validated in a sample of the Italian population. However, its applicability to advanced ages still represents the main limitation in forensic caseworks.     

Gender,Weather Shocks and Welfare: Evidence from Malawi

This paper explores the gender-differentiated effects of weather shocks on households’ welfare in Malawi using panel data aligned with climatic records. Results show that temperature shocks severely affect household welfare, reducing consumption, food consumption and daily caloric intake. The negative welfare effects are more severe for households where land is solely managed by women, a finding that sheds light on the gender-unequal impact of temperature shocks. Our evidence also suggests that women’s vulnerability to temperature shocks is linked to women’s land tenure security, as temperature shocks significantly impact women’s welfare only in patrilineal districts, where statistics show that investment in agricultural technologies is lower.     

Supine Hypotensive Syndrome as the Probable Cause of Both Maternal and Fetal Death

Abstract: Supine hypotensive syndrome is characterized by severe supine hypotension in late pregnancy, whose clinical presentation ranges from minimal cardiovascular alterations to severe shock, resulting from inferior vena cava compression by gravid uterus. We report a case of a 41‐year‐old 39‐week‐pregnant woman found dead supine. Autopsy revealed the following: cyanosis of the limbs; congestion of the jugular and subclavian veins; abundant abdominal subcutaneous fatty tissue; uterus displacing intestine and diaphragm; collapsed inferior vena cava; both femoral veins dilated and filled with blood; edematous and congested lungs; and placenta 790 g, fetus 3475 g, amniotic fluid 800 cm³. The diagnosis of supine hypotensive syndrome as the probable cause of death is supported by the position of the body and autopsy findings. This syndrome can be considered as the first stage of the physio‐pathological mechanism that led to death in the case presented herein and should be considered by pathologists as a cause of sudden death.