Tissue concentrations of MDMA and its metabolite MDA in three fatal cases of overdose

The recreational use of amphetamine derivatives has become increasingly popular in our country in past recent years. Their use is especially common among young people participating in dance parties known as "raves." As a direct consequence of their increased use, the number of fatal cases in which these compounds have been involved have increased dramatically since the second half of the last decade. In our laboratory, we have registered 25 cases related to amphetamine derivatives use since 1996. Three of them were deeply studied and the results obtained are presented in this paper. This information may be useful for the interpretation of the results obtained in toxicological analysis in the cases in which death may be attributed to MDMA use.     

The classification and discrimination of glass fragments using non destructive energy dispersive X-ray microfluorescence

Frequency of analytical characteristics is best estimated on glass recovered at random. However, as such data were not available to us, we decided to use control windows for this estimation. In order to use such a database, one has to establish that the recovered fragment comes from a window. Therefore, elemental analysis was used both for classification and discrimination of glass fragments. Several articles have been published on the subject, but most methods alter the glass sample. The use of non destructive energy dispersive X-ray microfluorescence (microXRF) for the analysis of small glass fragments has been evaluated in this context. The refractive index (RI) has also been measured in order to evaluate the complementarity of techniques. Classification of fragments has been achieved using Fisher's linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and neural networks (NN). Discrimination was based on Hotelling's T2 test. Only pairs that were not differentiated by RI followed by the Welch test were studied. The results show that neural network and linear discriminant analysis using qualitative and semi-quantitative data establishes a classification of glass specimens with a high degree of reliability. For discrimination, 119 windows collected from crime scene were compared: using RI it was possible to distinguish 6892 pairs. Out of 129 remaining pairs, 112 were distinguished by microXRF.     

Comparison of Turkish Injury Scale (TIS) with the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS)

According to the Turkish Penal Code, Section 456, an assailant is punished in a correlation to the severity of the victim's injury. In this study, the injury scale used in Turkey in the basis code 456 is compared with Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS). For this aim, a total of 984 cases out of the total amount reported at the Traumatology Section of the Turkish Council for Forensic Medicine were randomly selected and evaluated retrospectively. In all, 40.7% of injuries were caused by blunt trauma, whereas 59.3% were caused by a penetrating trauma. According to the Turkish Injury Scale (TIS), 40.3% of the cases were scored to be of a first degree of injury, 15.6% as second degree and 44.1% as third degree. When compared, the score points 3, 4 and 5 in the AIS were seen to be nearly equivalent to the TIS of third degree. From this point of view, in the modified AIS 91.1% of first degree of injury, 51.2% of second degree and 97.2% of third degree of injury are harmonious with TIS. Generally, 83.2% of the cases are harmonious with the AIS system. The purpose of this study is to determine what was the source of differences and to focus on particular traumatic lesions in order to determine a possible rearrangement of the Turkish Injury Scale.     

STR data for 09 autosomal STR markers from Rio Grande do Sul (southern Brazil)

Allele frequencies for 09 STR autosomal loci (D3S1358, D5S818, D7S820, D8S1179, D13S317, D18S51, D21S11, FGA and VWA) included in the AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus were obtained from a sample of unrelated individuals from Rio Grande do Sul (southern Brazil).     

Building bridges between the parole officer and the families of serious juvenile offenders: a preliminary report on a family-based parole program

Responding to a model of juvenile offender case supervision that called for a new intervention paradigm to guide the work of probation and parole officers, the present article reports on the use of a family-based parole initiative known as the Growing Up FAST program. Developed in part as a tool for use within this new intervention paradigm, the Growing Up FAST parole program targets serious youthful offenders who have been released from juvenile correctional facilities and their families. Based on elements contained within the "what works" literature and the Balanced and Restorative Justice model, this program recognizes the central role that field staff can play in rehabilitation efforts. Demographic information and formative data regarding the first set of families to participate in this program are presented, then program limitations and lessons learned as part of the initial offering of this parole initiative are discussed.     

"Ancient" protocols for the crime scene? Similarities and differences between forensic genetics and ancient DNA analysis

We provide a short overview on some current issues in the fields of forensic genetics and ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis. We discuss about the existence of the possible points of contact between the two disciplines, in terms of open problems and the inherent approach to their solution. We mainly focus on the problem of results authentication, its theoretical and technical aspects.