Suicidal carbon monoxide poisoning in an automobile with the engine switched off

Report is made on a suicidal carbon monoxide poisoning through entrance of exhaust fumes into the interior of the vehicle. The situation of discovery (switched-off engine) occasioned experimental examinations. The result showed that fatal carbon monoxide concentrations can obviously remain in the interior of a vehicle over a long period of time.     

Suicide with sodium azide

A case report is presented of the suicide of a 27-year-old female laboratory assistant by means of sodium azide. Simple colorimetric and volumetric methods are present to detect and estimate the salt.     

Biostatistical basis of individualization and segregation analysis using the multilocus DNA probe MZ 1.3: results of a collaborative study.

A collaborative study using the multilocus minisatellite DNA probe MZ 1.3 was carried out to investigate segregation information, mutation rate, DNA fragment frequencies as well as band sharing characteristics. The fingerprint patterns of 393 children as well as 694 unrelated individuals were analysed after digestion of DNA with the restriction enzyme HinfI. A mutation rate of 1% per meiosis or 0.04% per band was found with a mean number of 26 bands/individual. It was shown that maternal and paternal fragments are inherited in equal proportions. Population frequencies of restriction fragments demonstrated a distribution with increasing frequencies in the small fragment size range below 10 kb as well as the absence of very common or very rare fragments. Our data can be used to calculate simple exclusion probabilities based on the number of non-maternal bands in the child.     

Report of a European collaborative exercise comparing DNA typing results using a single locus VNTR probe

A collaborative exercise was carried out in 1989 among 12 European forensic laboratories using the single locus VNTR probe pYNH24, the restriction enzyme HinfI, the same set of human genomic DNA samples, and a standardized DNA size marker. The objectives of the exercise were: (1) to study the degree of variation within and between laboratories, (2) to obtain information on requirements for technical standardization allowing the exchange of typing results and (3) to compare different approaches for the identification of allelic DNA fragments of unknown size. Each laboratory carried out up to 10 independent typing experiments using the same DNA samples. The results were analysed independently by two laboratories using three different methods. The results of the exercise demonstrate the correlation of typing that can be achieved within and between laboratories under conditions of minimal standardization.     

Commission's Action Plan to combat counterfeiting and piracy: right-holders, help yourself, and the Commission will help you!

The European Commission's Directorate General Taxation and CustomsUnion (DG TAXUD), in charge of the monitoring of border measuresunder Regulation 1383/2003, invited right-holders and otherinterested parties to an informal meeting in Brussels on 24February 2006.