Maternal Filicide in Turkey

Filicide occurs in every socioeconomic stratum around the world. This study was conducted to evaluate motives, psychopathological aspects, and socio-demographic factors of 74 filicide cases of women in Turkey. Mean age of mothers, most of whom committed infanticide, was 26 years, and breakdown of criminal offenses are as follows: “to get rid of unwanted babies” (24.3%), “acute psychotic-type filicide” (21.6%), “fatal child abuse and neglect” (17.6%), “to get revenge” (12.2%), “protect the lonely child from the harm and badness after suicide” (10.8%), and “pity” (9.5%) motives. Results showed that maternal filicide cannot be reduced to only mental instability or environmental factors and indicates deficiencies in the capacity of the mothers' role in connecting with their child and with parenting skills. Finally, with regard to defendants' motives, similar factors that contribute to committing maternal filicide should be considered while making an assessment of the data and determining employee risk groups.     

Mixing Grand Strategies: Trump and International Security

ABSTRACT

When a new President is elected in the United States, the first thing analysts do is define that President’s grand strategy; yet, naming Donald Trump’s grand strategy was a difficult task as his pre-election speeches often contradicted traditional US foreign policy norms. Trump’s ambiguous grand strategy combines two US foreign policy strategies: nationalism in the sense that his preference is for unilateral policies prioritising American interests, and a traditional foreign policy approach, as seen in the moves taken against China and Iran. Surprisingly, this grand strategy unintentionally contributes to cooperation in Eurasia, as actors like Russia, China, Turkey, India and the European Union continue to try to balance the threat from the United States instead of competing with each other, while smaller countries are reluctant to challenge the regional powers due to mistrust towards Trump.     

Automated region segmentation on cartridge case base

One of the significant problems encountered in criminology studies is the successful automated matching of fired cartridge cases, on the basis of the characteristic marks left on them by firearms. An intermediate step in the solution of this problem is the segmentation of certain regions that are defined on the cartridge case base. This paper describes a model-based method that performs segmentation of the cartridge case using surface height image of a center fire cartridge case base. The proposed method detects the location of the cartridge case base center and specific circular contours around it iteratively by projecting the problem to a one-dimensional feature space. In addition, the firing pin impression region is determined by utilizing an adaptive threshold that differentiates impression marks form primer region surface. Letters on the cartridge case base are also detected by using surface modeling and adaptive thresholding, in order to render the surface comparison operation robust against irrelevant surface features. Promising experimental results indicate the eligibility of the proposed method to be used for automated cartridge case base region segmentation process.     

Application of Kvaal et al.'s age estimation method to panoramic radiographs from Turkish individuals

Age estimation of living adult individuals can be accomplished with limited methods. Radiographic dental methods based on the pulpal narrowing with secondary dentin formation have been presented. In the present study, Kvaal et al.'s method, one of the radiographic dental age estimation methods, was applied to panoramic radiographs from Turkish individuals. The correlation between chronological and estimated ages was examined and the feasibility of length and width measurements of pulp cavity was evaluated for age estimation. The study population consisted of 123 patients with ages ranging from 14 to 57 years. The measurements of the length and width of six types of teeth on digitized panoramic radiographs were performed, and the ratios between tooth and pulp cavity measurements were calculated. Age was estimated using the linear regression models presented by Kvaal et al. and Paewinsky et al. High differences were observed between chronological and estimated ages. Measurement ratios showed no significant or weak correlation with age. The linear regression models were derived using variables that were significantly correlated with age. The determination coefficients of the models varied from 0.035 to 0.345. In conclusion, a difference of more than 12 years in the chronological and estimated ages derived using regression models in literature was found on panoramic radiographs in Turkish individuals. The length and width of the pulp cavity, measured according to the method of Kvaal et al. using panoramic radiographs, were insufficient to precisely estimate the age of Turkish individuals.     

Public Perceptions of White-Collar Crime in Turkey and Some Comparisons with the United States

This study examined public perceptions of white collar crime in Turkey. The authors utilized a nationwide household sample that was extracted from the whole population of Turkey by employing a stratified multi-stage cluster sampling technique. The results indicate that Turkish citizens consider white collar crime nearly as serious as traditional crimes. But when these results are compared with contemporary research findings in the United States, the results reveal that Americans are more likely to rate white collar crime as a more serious offense than their Turkish counterparts.     

Coincidence of Nicolau Syndrome and Rhabdomyolysis: Report of a Forensic Autopsy Case and Review of the Literature

Nicolau syndrome (NS) is a dermatological adverse reaction of intramuscular injections and is caused by several mechanisms. The etiopathogenesis remains unclear, and several hypotheses have suggested a vascular origin. Rhabdomyolysis (RM) is the destruction of striated muscle, with the subsequent release of muscle cell contents into circulation. NS and RM diagnoses may overlap. Herein, we present the autopsy findings of a 40‐year‐old female with NS complicated with RM. On clinical follow‐up, creatine kinase (CK) was 7146 IU/L, and urea and creatinine levels were elevated on the third day after intramuscular diclofenac injection. Possible ischemic process triggered the RM and subsequent acute renal failure. The opportunity for an early diagnosis was missed because the patient delayed seeking medical aid. The prognosis worsened, and the patient died due to secondary sepsis. Early diagnosis of NS before the occurrence of complications is the most important issue in patient education and can be life‐saving.     

Three-dimensional surface reconstruction for cartridge cases using photometric stereo

In forensic science, automated firearms identification is an important and yet unsolved problem. On the way to the solution, one of the most important phases is data acquisition. To be able to identify firearms in a reliable way, all the striated and impressed marks on metallic surfaces of cartridge cases should be visible. But two-dimensional images of cartridge cases are very sensitive to the type and direction of the light source(s). Depending on illumination conditions, the images of marks change drastically and sometimes they simply disappear. But, if the three-dimensional (3D) topography of the surface is obtained, the geometry of the marks, which is independent of the illumination, is available. Thus, by providing illumination independent features that can be used for automated matching, 3D data have the potential to make automated matching much reliable. In the literature on data acquisition for automated firearms identification, a few different ways of three-dimensional surface extraction are described, like laser interferometry or laser profilometry. This study presents a real life application of another method, photometric stereo, for the acquisition of 3D topographic data for cartridge cases, which is the one used in BALISTIKA Ballistics Image Analysis and Recognition System. In order to construct 3D topographic data, first of all, two-dimensional images were acquired using a specially designed set-up. After the images were calibrated radiometrically, photometric stereo method was applied. In order to minimize the low-frequency errors in the final surface, a surface-fitting algorithm was used. The method uses low-cost equipment and image acquisition is not time-consuming. Results were compared to interferometric measurement values for error assessment.