Expert reconstruction of the true circumstances of the shooting of the Emperor Nikolai II, members of his family, and those who accompanied them into exile at Ekaterinburg

Analysis of the materials of the criminal case, historical, archive, and forensic medical documents permitted for the first time to reconstruct the circumstances of the shooting of Emperor Nikolai II, members of the royal family, and those who chose to accompany them into exile in the house of the engineer N.N. Ipatiev, Ekaterinburg, on the night of 16-17th July (Grigorian calendar) 1918. The results of the study allowed the true picture of the assassination to be reconstructed including the mutual positions of the victims and the executors in the semi-basement room No 2, the total number of participants, the number and direction of shots, the types of the weapons used, and the sequence of actions of each person involved in the event. It was shown, that in the beginning most shots had been fired at the emperor and tsarevich Alexei.     

Characteristic of mortality in the Russian Federation

The objective of the present work was to estimate the overall mortality in the Russian Federation and to elucidate the structure and characteristics of violent and non-violent mortality in this country. The study is largely based on the materials of reports on the activities of local bureaus of forensic medical expertise for the period from 2003 to 2008; in addition, the data from the official demographic and statistical yearbooks issued by the Russian State Statistical Committee (Goskomstat) in 2008-2009 were used. It is shown that cardiovascular pathology appears to be currently the leading cause of general mortality in the Russian Federation. A substantial fraction in the structure of general mortality is constituted by mechanical injuries most of which are inflicted in car accidents. More than half of the fatal cases caused by external factors and around one third of the deaths from cardiovascular diseases are associated with alcohol intoxication. Statistical treatment of the results of analysis conducted in the present study provided materials for the development of recommendations designed to improve the demographic situation in the Russian Federation.     

Micro-insurance through corporate–NGO partnerships in West Bengal: opportunities and constraints

This Practical Note examines the nascent micro-insurance sector in West Bengal, paying particular attention to the corporate–NGO partnership model for micro-insurance distribution, which has been enabled by India's unique regulatory framework. We challenge the popular construction of this model as a ‘win–win’ for all parties by analysing conflicting understandings of micro-insurance schemes and their purposes by insurance companies, NGOs, and poor villagers. The article also considers the role of the specific political context of West Bengal in constricting corporate–NGO micro-insurance.     

Problematising the community-contribution requirement in participatory projects: evidence from Kyrgyzstan

This article examines the extent to which the World Bank-funded Village Investment Project in Kyrgyzstan promoted empowered participation of citizens in co-financing arrangements. It is based on in-depth qualitative interviews and focus-group sessions in 16 rural communities. The study found that the poor and marginalised did not always have the ability to engage in the processes of consensus building, influencing local decision making, and exercising free choice with regard to the contribution requirement. Participatory projects must carefully design arrangements and operational procedures for the co-financing component of the project, in order to support citizen empowerment and democratic inclusion.     

Sexual offenders with serious mental illness: prevention, risk, and clinical concerns

Individuals with serious and persistent mental illness who have also engaged in illegal sexual behavior present a unique challenge for our legal and clinical systems. Frequently, these individuals may engage in problematic sexual behaviors which result in hospitalization rather than incarceration, and an overburdened and resource-deficient public community mental health system is ill-equipped to address the seriousness of these sexual behaviors. We have a rather limited understanding of how prevention programs, intervention strategies, and risk assessment would work with this population. Here we evaluate data from a sample of 245 inpatient psychiatric sexual offenders in a forensic mental health setting and compare these with what information has already been presented in some of the literature. Through an examination of seriously mentally ill sexual offenders and their clinical presentation, legal history, and risk management concerns, we illustrate a variety of tertiary prevention needs. Future directions in the area of prevention and risk management for seriously mentally ill sexual offenders are also discussed.     

The potential of urinary androstdiene markers to identify 4-androstenediol (4-ADIOL) administration in athletes

Doping control laboratories accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) require criteria that allow endogenous steroids to be distinguished from their synthetic analogues in urine. Methodology based on "looking outside the metabolic box" was used in this study to identify diagnostic urinary markers of 4-androstenediol (4-ADIOL) administration. Androst-2,4-diene-17-one and androst-3,5-diene-17-one are proposed to be formed in urine from acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of 4-ADIOL sulfoconjugate, a major phase II metabolic product of 4-ADIOL. The presence of these markers in the routine gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) steroid screen was suitable to identify samples requiring confirmation by gas chromatography-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-C-IRMS) - to measure the carbon isotope ratio (δ(13)C) of the androstdiene markers and confirm their likely synthetic origin based on depleted (13)C content.     

Entomotoxicology, experimental set-up and interpretation for forensic toxicologists

Forensic entomotoxicology studies the usefulness of insects as alternative toxicological samples. Use of insects as alternative matrix for drug detection is well documented and recommended when conventional matrices such as blood, urine or internal organs are no longer available. However, several limitations of entomotoxicology have been highlighted, especially concerning interpretation of the drug concentrations in insects on human forensic cases. In addition, the lack of knowledge in pharmacokinetic of drugs in insects, large variability of experimental set-up and toxicological analysis compromise the utility of this science. This review focuses on the current knowledge of factors influencing drug detection in insects. Reasons for the current limitations, but also recommendations for future research are discussed and proposed in this paper.     

Validity of the mandibular canine index (MCI) in sex prediction: Reassessment in an Indian sample

The dentition's use in sex assessment has been explored and advocated owing to its strength and resistance to peri- and postmortem insults. Among the teeth, canines have shown the greatest sexual dimorphism; they are also known for greater resistance to pathological alterations and trauma. These factors have prompted some researchers to explore its use alone in sex prediction. Specifically the mandibular canine index (MCI), which is the ratio of the mesiodistal (MD) dimension of the lower right canine and the inter-canine arch width, was developed by Rao et al. [Forensic Sci. Int. 42 (1989) 249–254] who predicted sex correctly in ～86% of cases in a South Indian sample. These results were verified subsequently by other Indian researchers, both on southern and on northern Indians, although such success rates were not apparent in another South-Asian population as well as a European group. The present study re-examined the method in 203 Indians (103 males, 100 females) of age 19–32 years who originated from diverse states of the country, constituting all major religious and caste affiliations, and found relatively low sex estimation accuracy using the MCI (～51%). This is in spite of the MD dimension of canines as well as inter-canine arch width – the absolute measurements used for deriving the MCI – showing statistically significant sex differences (p < 0.05); also, the application of multivariate statistics, viz. logistic regression analysis, revealed higher accuracy levels of sex estimation for the absolute measurements (～62–66%) vis-à-vis the MCI (～50%). The results herein reinforce recent observations that ratios obtained from teeth, such as the MCI, do not reflect sexual dimorphism that may be present in absolute measurements. Furthermore, we believe that the basis for using MCI as a sex assessment tool is questionable, since it depends on the levels of sexual dimorphism between the absolute dimensions—low sexual dimorphism in one (e.g. MD measurement of canines) and proportionately high sexual differences in the other (e.g. inter-canine arch width), or vice versa, would lead to higher sex estimation accuracy of the MCI; on the other hand, relatively equal levels of sexual dimorphism in both would negate the ability of the MCI to accurately estimate sex. These suggest that the MCI has little utility in sex estimation and that its application should be restricted, if not discontinued altogether, in forensic and anthropological sex prediction.     

An autoethnography of hunting

To better understand why we do harm by killing and eating nonhuman animals, we engaged in autoethnography. We used reflections on our harmful behavior to understand harmful behavior more generally. Our method first and foremost was to be as honest as we know how to be. The process of reflecting on our behavior had us moving through a series of questions that organize the essay. We also referred to scholarly literature on violence and on hunting to challenge our thoughts. In this way we arrived at insights on aspects of doing harm, including the role of positioning the target in a certain way; not thinking about the harm and the institutional supports for not thinking; the particular lure of power through killing; and the problematic indictment of hunting by meat-eaters.