The Importance of Blind Forensic Odontology Analyses

Forensic odontology cases examined from 2012 to 2019 at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) laboratory were reviewed. Five cases from World War II and the Korea War were selected. Three of the cases presented involve dental assemblages, which were built by previous analysts. Postmortem radiographic analyses at the DPAA laboratory of these cases were complicated by the use of an older version of a digital x-ray program and the assumption that teeth placed in the parent bone (maxilla and mandible) did not fully articulate due to the presence of debris at their root apices. Conflicting mitochondrial DNA test results for the submitted teeth and previously believed to be parent bone indicated these elements were not from the same individual. The remaining two cases are examples of how knowledge of findings from other disciplines may sway an opinion and could possibly lead to the rendering of erroneous opinions by the forensic odontologist. Having knowledge of previous examinations or results from other scientists, disciplines, and lines of evidence may lead to a bias in findings or opinions. If not careful, even the best-intended scientist may fall victim to a bias in their opinion/analysis. The forensic odontologist should perform all analysis in the blind, not knowing any information which may bias their opinion, and utilize current versions of digital x-ray software available and their tools when performing their examinations.     

Rethinking the political: Ottoman women as feminist subjects

This article examines late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Muslim Ottoman women’s journals. Drawing attention to the historical and social phenomenon of Ottoman Muslim women’s print culture, the author argues that women’s writings and activism around these journals functioned as a significant feminist public sphere that built a community of women’s discourse. Women’s journals established a real community of intellectual women writers and readers who overtly promoted a feminist agenda in the public sphere. Thus, they envisioned and created alternative roles for upper middle class and middle class Ottoman women. Contrary to the conventional narrative of Turkish feminism that identifies its origin with the Republican period, it was Ottoman women’s periodicals and associations that laid the groundwork for future feminists in the Republican period. In providing an analysis of these magazines, the author explores a class of now nearly forgotten publications that, she argues, created a feminist discourse in their time.     

News Media and Peace Building in Asymmetrical Conflicts: The Flow of News between Jordan and Israel

This study explores the role of the news media in asymmetrical conflicts after countries have signed a peace agreement. While most research has focused on the inherently negative role the press plays in attempts to bring peace, this study attempts to look at this issue using a more dynamic perspective. The theoretical argument focuses on how political factors affect the quantity and quality of the news flow and some of the ways in which leaders can sometimes overcome the obstacles they face in promoting encouraging news about peace. The model considers two political factors that have a major impact on media performance: the relative level of political power of the two sides and the varying amount of hostility. To illustrate the importance of these factors we focus on the flow of news between Jordan and Israel between 1999 and 2002. The major findings from content analyses of news articles ( N  = 859) appearing in both countries show that while Jordanians are exposed to massive amounts of mostly negative information about Israel, the Israeli public reads almost nothing about Jordan. Despite all this, it was also found that the initiation of diplomatic relations between the former enemies allowed for the creation of important 'news slots' that were previously unavailable. This development created space for less threatening types of news and also allowed leaders from both Jordan and Israel to initiate some positive stories about peace, even during some of the darkest periods.     

COVID-19 Infodemic: A study on the Fragile Five countries

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many rumors and conspiracy theories spread in various media outlets. The purpose of this study is to reveal the nature of the misinformation detected by fact check platforms that spread in the Fragile Five countries. To determine the themes of misinformation about COVID-19 and from which media it is disseminated are a possible way to prevent it. The data of the study were obtained from International Fact-checking Network's CoronaVirusFacts database. One thousand seven hundred thirty-four piece of misinformation collected by web scraping method during the period January 24, 2020 to November 14, 2020 and analyzed with MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020. As a result of the research, it was found that rumors (96.3%) spread more in the Fragile Five countries than conspiracy theories (3.7%). While the main theme of the rumors is about illness (26.9%) and diagnosis-treatment (25%), conspiracy theories are mostly related to the cause of the disease (68.8%). 53.06% of misinformation was spread through the Facebook platform. 15.32% on Twitter; 13.34% on WhatsApp. Misinformation has been heavily false (85.12%) in both rumor and conspiracy theories. In the second place, misleading (10.09%) news spread.     

Proportional Representation in the Welsh Assembly

The proposed rule for electing members to the Welsh Assembly gives each voter two votes, to cast at the Parliamentary constituency level, and at the bigger European constituency level. Half of the members are to be elected for the Assembly by a form of proportional representation, where party support is calculated by aggregating the two votes. The voters will be allowed to cast the second vote for a different party than the one for which they voted at the parliamentary level. This additional degree of freedom can frustrate the objective of obtaining better correspondence between party support and the number ofseats.     

Potential for error when assessing blood cyanide concentrations in fire victims.

The present study explores toxicologic significance of blood cyanide concentrations in fire victims. Headspace gas chromatography was used for cyanide detection. Analysis of blood samples from ten fire victims (postmortem interval = 8 h to 3 to 5 d) detected zero to 11.9 mg/L of cyanide and a large difference in cyanide concentrations among victims. Carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) saturation was in the range of 24.9 to 84.2%. To examine the effects of methemoglobinemia and postmortem interval on blood cyanide concentrations in fire victims, an experiment was carried out using rabbits as the animal model. The rabbits were sacrificed by intramuscular injection of 1 mL/kg 2% potassium cyanide 5 min after intravenous injection of 0.33 mL/kg of 3% sodium nitrite (Group A, n = 3) or physiological saline (Group B, n = 6). Average methemoglobin contents immediately before potassium cyanide administration were 6.9 and 0.8% in Groups A and B, respectively. Average cyanide concentrations in cardiac blood at the time of death were 47.4 and 3.56 mg/L, respectively. When blood-containing hearts of the rabbits (n = 3 for Group B) were left at 46 degrees C for the first 1 h, at 20 to 25 degrees C for the next 23 h and then at 4 degrees C for 48 h, approximately 85 and 46% of the original amounts of blood cyanide disappeared within 24 h in Groups A and B, respectively. After the 72-h storage period, 37 and 10%, respectively, of the original amounts of cyanide remained in the blood. When the other three hearts in Group B were left at 20 to 25 degrees C for the last 48 h without refrigeration, cyanide had disappeared almost completely by the end of the experiment. The present results and those published in the literature demonstrate that the toxic effects of cyanide on fire victims should not be evaluated based solely on the concentration in blood.     

A method for forensic identification of vegetable oil stains--rapid analysis of carboxylic acids with methyl esterification using purge-and-trap gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.

A simple method using purge-and-trap gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (P&T-GC/MS) for forensic examination of oil stains was studied. Carboxylic acids, chosen as target components for discrimination of oil samples, were extracted from stains with ether, methyl esterified by tetramethylammonium hydroxide, and analyzed by P&T-GC/MS. Vegetable oils were discriminated according to their carboxylic acid compositions. Carboxylic acid composition was independent of the substrate material of the stain. Although the carboxylic acid composition of the oil changed on exposure to sunlight, identification of oil was possible for oil stains that had been in the shade, if analysis was made within 20 days.     

Sudden death of an infant with 'an early epileptic encephalopathy'.

This article reports an autopsy case of sudden death of an infant with an infrequent encephalopathy involving epileptic episodes. The infant was a 1-year and 10-month-old boy, who had a history of the first convulsive seizures in the third month after birth. The clinical diagnosis was described as 'an early infantile epileptic encephalopathy with suppression-bursts' (Ohtahara syndrome). On a winter day, he was collapsed following a high fever and was already dead on the arrival at a hospital. The body was small for the age and poorly nourished. The autopsy and postmortem magnetic resonance imaging scan (MRI) of formalin-fixed brain revealed advanced unsymmetric brain atrophy with cortical dysplasia, which were prominent in the left temporal and right occipital lobes, and sclerotic atrophy of the parahippocampal gyri, additionally showing a feature of the olivo-ponto-cerebellar atrophy. However, the cause of death was pathologically and microbiologically determined as bacterial bronchopneumonia following pulmonary infection of the influenza A virus. In sudden death cases of physically handicapped infants, the investigation of viral infection in consideration of an epidemiological survey is important even when the death can be pathomorphologically explained.