根据足跟皮肤角化程度判断人体年龄的研究

经常行走的人,脚跟的皮肤表面存在一个角化程度较为显著的区域,它的大小随着年龄的增长增大,通过测量和计算,可以推断人体年龄.     

中国汉族女性腰椎的身高推断

测量中国汉族女性腰椎,建立腰椎推断身高的方法。按人体骨骼测量方法,对第一至第五腰椎的10项指标进行测量,并将各腰椎的测量数据与身高进行相关分析,建立中国汉族女性腰椎推断身高的回归方程。获得的推断身高的5个回归方程,其相关系数(r)和标准差(s)分别为 r_1=0.751,s=45.0171;r_2=0.698,s=48.2804;r_3=0.758,s=43.3508;r_4=0.497,s=56.0890;r_5=0.606,s=53.3158。本研究建立的方法误差小,可以用于中国汉族女性腰椎的身高推断。     

Learning Pain: Poetry in Emotion

This paper asks the question; is a poetic response to law and suffering legitimate? It reflects upon Robert Duncan's poem Persephone and imagines the (dis)connections between law, literature and poetry. It muses upon the “Trauma” of the poem and the “wound” considered in the context of both public and private law and considers the politics of sentimentality, dominant within the political agenda of the 21st century. The article uses the poem as a lens which reveals that the law fails to address the question of suffering as the wound of the poem is used by the poet as a pedagogical argument to teach us about loss.

     

Sexing and stature estimation criteria for Balkan populations

Abstract:  Two standard measurements, maximum femur length and head diameter, were collected by International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) anthropologists. Only Kosovans had both femur dimensions for both sexes. Antemortem stature data were available only for Kosovan and Croatian males. Despite these limitations, the data offer the opportunity to examine ethnic variation and to present sex and stature estimation criteria for these groups. Additional data from Croatians and from American Whites were used for comparison in certain parts of the analysis. Femur variation was considerable. Kosovans can be characterized as short and robust, Bosnians as tall and less robust, and Croatians are tall and gracile, resembling American Whites more than the other groups. Some limited antemortem data on stature was also available, allowing stature estimation equations to be estimated for Croatians and Kosovans. Antemortem stature estimates were obtained from interviews with relatives and are shown to overestimate actual stature. We argue that equations predicting height obtained from relatives is the most realistic in this case because that is the height to which an estimate obtained from bone lengths will be compared. Kosovans were also shown to have experienced slight secular increase in femur length over the past 70 years.     

New formulae for estimating age-at-death in the Balkans utilizing Lamendin's dental technique and Bayesian analysis

The present study analyzed apical translucency and periodontal recession on single-rooted teeth in order to generate age-at-death estimations using two inverse calibration methods and one Bayesian method. The three age estimates were compared to highlight inherent problems with the inverse calibration methods. The results showed that the Bayesian analysis reduced severity of several problems associated with adult skeletal age-at-death estimations. The Bayesian estimates produced a lower overall mean error, a higher correlation with actual age, reduced aging bias, reduced age mimicry, and reduced the age ranges associated with the most probable age as compared to the inverse calibration methods for this sample. This research concluded that periodontal recession cannot be used as a univariate age indicator, due to its low correlation with chronological age. Apical translucency yielded a high correlation with chronological age and was concluded to be an important age indicator. The Bayesian approach offered the most appropriate statistical analysis for the estimation of age-at-death with the current sample.     

A new approach to amino acid racemization in enamel: testing of a less destructive sampling methodology

Aspartic acid racemization has been found to be an accurate measure of age at death for recent forensic material. This paper examines the practicality of using acid etching of the tooth surface to extract amino acids from the enamel for racemization analysis. By serial etching of the tooth and contamination of the teeth with bovine serum albumin prior to etching, the ability of etching to remove contamination was assessed. The destructiveness of the method was visualized and quantified using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). By bleaching the teeth and by deeper etching it was possible to obtain more consistent values. While etching had little effect on the enamel at the macroscale, it did have an impact at the microscale. The quantities of enamel removed varied depending upon the tooth morphology, but were not large. Acid etching of enamel thus appears to be a promising new method for extracting proteins for amino acid racemization age estimation noninvasively.     

Age-related factors in the relationship between foot measurements and living stature and body weight

The measurements of feet and footprints are especially important in forensic identification, as they have been used to predict the body height and weight of victims or suspects. It can be observed that the subjects of forensic-oriented studies are generally young adults. That is to say, researchers rarely take into consideration the body's proportional changes with age. Hence, the aim of this study is to generate equations which take age and sex into consideration, when stature and body weight are estimated from foot and footprints dimensions. With this aim in mind, we measured the stature, body weight, foot length and breadth, heel breadth, footprint length and breadth, and footprint heel breadth of 516 volunteers (253 males and 263 females) aged between 17.6 and 82.9 years using standard measurement techniques. The sample population was divided randomly into two groups. Group 1, the study group, consisted of 80% of the sample (n = 406); the remaining 20% were assigned to the cross-validation group or Group 2 (n = 110). In the first stage of the study, we produced equations for estimating stature and weight using a stepwise regression technique. Then, their reliability was tested on Group 2 members. Statistical analyses showed that the ratios of foot dimensions to stature and body weight change considerably with age and sex. Consequently, the regression equations which include these variables yielded more reliable results. Our results indicated that age and sex should be taken into consideration when predicting human body height and weight for forensic purposes.     

Ossification of laryngeal structures as indicators of age

As the role of forensic anthropologists expands to the medical examiner setting, their expertise is being applied beyond the traditional dry skeletal material. In such scenarios radiographic techniques can be applied when maceration is not appropriate. This study explores the use of radiographic analysis of laryngeal structures for age-at-death determination. Isolated human laryngeal structures (n = 104) from individuals between the ages of 15 and 89 were removed at autopsy and radiographically examined. The cricoid and individual regions of the thyroid cartilage were scored according to degree of ossification, and the relationship between age and degree of ossification statistically examined. A previously published study on age-determination from thyroid ossification by Cerny was assessed for accuracy. The results of the study indicate that although a consistent sequence in the ossification of laryngeal structures exists, variations in timing does not permit narrow age range estimates. Consequently the method presented by Cerny is inaccurate and should not be used in the forensic setting.     

年龄推断的研究现状

推断年龄目前主要依据人体骨骼、软组织、细胞和生物大分子,以及组织中各类物质的物理和化学特性等随年龄增长的时序性变化。由于生物体各组织器官生长发育的生理性变化及其影响因素极为复杂,不同推断年龄的方法均有其应用价值,但也都存在一定的局限性,在法医学实际检案中如果能综合运用,可提高年龄推断的准确性。本文回顾国内外年龄推断现状,并对各种推断方法进行讨论。     

皮肤烧伤愈合过程中磷酸化JNK的变化

目的观察烧伤后人皮肤磷酸化JNK（p-JNK）的变化特点,初步探讨烧伤后创面愈合的分子机制。方法取12例烧伤后住院植皮患者的烧伤周边区皮肤为烧伤周边皮肤组;另取正常皮肤12例为正常皮肤组。应用免疫组织化学方法和常规HE染色检测p-JNK在皮肤烧伤周边区和正常皮肤组织中的变化情况。结果正常皮肤组织中表皮基底层细胞的胞浆和胞核内有p-JNK阳性着色,阳性细胞率为（8.8±1.3）%。在烧伤周边皮肤组中,p-JNK阳性着色主要定位于表皮细胞和部分炎症细胞中,阳性细胞率上升至（31.2±3.3）%,明显高于正常皮肤组织（P〈0.01）。结论烧伤后人皮肤p-JNK的变化可能与创面愈合有关。