A hopeless case?

In a hollow covered with earth, a herb gatherer discovered a severely decomposed corpse mutilated by scavenging animals. Only small areas of the skin had remained intact. A conspicuous tattoo could still be distinguished on the left upper arm. Despite concrete evidence of violence (fracture in the occipital bone, subdural hemorrhage with a volume of 20 ml), the exact cause of death could no longer be established. Police enquiries identified a person in whom such a conspicuous tattoo had been photographed in an earlier criminal case. Eventually, the deceased person could be identified by DNA analysis of a stored blood alcohol specimen. Considered together, the autopsy findings and the results of the investigation of traces of blood on the putative tool used in the crime indicated that the man had been struck dead and the body had afterwards been buried in the wood. Although the prospects of success had been initially slight, it was not only possible to identify the victim, but also to reconstruct the crime.     

How Exclusive is Assembly Democracy? Citizens' Assembly and Ballot Participation Compared

This paper analyses the difference between two specific forms of citizens’ involvements, namely whether a vote is cast by ballot or in a citizens’ assembly in which people gather in town halls to decide legislative questions in a deliberative manner. We show both theoretically and empirically how citizens’ assemblies and decisions at the ballot box substantially differ not only in terms of their underlying model of democracy, but also in their structural conditions and, thus, with respect to the social inequality of participation. We test our hypotheses in a Bayesian multilevel framework using real participation data collected from 15 political decisions made in a Swiss commune. Our results show that citizens’ assemblies are not only characterised by lower participation rates, but also by a particular composition of the electorate. While citizens’ assemblies are more equal regarding income groups, ballots favour a more equitable participation in terms of gender and age.     

The Appearance,Taste, and Concentrations of Zolpidem Dissolved in Still Water and Carbonated Beverages

Zolpidem is a sedative that could be used to drug victims, but its suitability to dissolve in drinks is unknown. In this small study, we added either crushed or whole tablets of zolpidem hemitartrate to carbonated beverages or still water to observe how this affected the taste and appearance. Also, concentrations were measured by ultra‐high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry at different time intervals. Two crushed tablets (20 mg) in cider (250 mL) lead to a maximum concentration of 84 mg/L zolpidem base after 30 min, while the corresponding concentration after adding fifteen tablets (150 mg) was 467 mg/L. There was little change in taste, but froth and turbidity were observed when adding high doses to carbonated beverages. Carbonated beverages spiked with 20 mg of crushed zolpidem hemitartrate tablets reached concentrations that could cause impairment. Spiking with 150 mg could possibly be lethal if several mouthfuls were ingested.     

Customizing a commercial laboratory information management system for a forensic genetic laboratory

The need for high-throughput laboratories to comply with regulatory requirements makes data management an important aspect of forensic genetics. A Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) enables efficient workflows and ensures traceability if designed and implemented properly. We customized a commercial LIMS to support STR typing of reference samples according to in-house defined requirements. The customization focused on data validity, traceability and automated solutions.     

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Standard Symptom Inventories for Asylum Seekers in a Psychiatric Hospital: Limited Utility Due to Poor Symptom Validity

We examined symptom validity in two samples (Ns = 27 and 35) of asylum seekers who had been admitted to a psychiatric facility. Considerable proportions over-endorsed atypical symptoms (63 and 83%, respectively) and underperformed on a simple forced-choice task requiring the identification of basic emotions (41 and 71%, respectively). Over-endorsement and underperformance were unrelated to Dutch language proficiency but were related to raised scores on standard symptom inventories commonly used to assess psychiatric symptoms of asylum seekers. This pattern of findings casts doubts on attempts to monitor symptom severity and treatment progress in psychiatric asylum seekers without taking symptom validity into account.