医学会从事医疗损害鉴定之合法性研究

本文回顾了我国医疗纠纷鉴定体制发展历程,分析了医学会鉴定与司法鉴定的优缺点。在此基础上。认为在现阶段,医学会参与医疗损害鉴定具有一定的、但并不充分的法律依据,具有相对的合法性,医学会应属“准”法定鉴定部门。可以通过最高人民法院制定司法解释或卫生部制定规章的方式使其尽快“转正”。尽管如此,医学会作出的鉴定结论并不具有必然的证明力,其鉴定程序和鉴定书形式等亦应符合法律规定．而鉴定人署名并出庭接受质证是其鉴定结论被法院采信的前提条件。     

Parties and their Leaders. Does it matter how they match? The German General Elections 2009 in comparison

The ‘personalization of politics’ hypothesis assumes that personalization takes place in election campaigns, in the mass-media, and in the calculus of voting. We claim that the distinction between person/leader and organization implicitly assumed by the personalization hypothesis does not capture how voters observe politics. In contrast, our hypothesis is that evaluation criteria regarding parties and leaders are not in competition but reinforcing. This hypothesis is investigated by looking at the relevance of party and leader evaluations for vote choice in the German Federal Elections in 1998, 2002, 2005, and 2009. The results show that party evaluation matter more than leader evaluation and, more importantly, a match of parties and their leaders with regard to general evaluations determine vote choice as good as single evaluations together.     

No Identification Without Representation: Constraints on the Use of Biometric Identification Systems

The human species is again becoming nomadic. Each year, about two billion persons move across large geographic distances (not to mention people in “virtual mobility” through information and communication technology). Many of these people have weak or unreliable identification documents—and many poorer people in developing countries do not even have these documents. In 2000, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) calculated that 50 million babies (41% of births worldwide) were not registered at birth. In this scenario, a personal identification scheme based on birth registration and state‐issued passports is less and less tenable. Biometrics appears to offer a viable technological solution. However, the technology itself is subject to popular critique, warning of dystopian futures of overwhelming surveillance and loss of privacy. The best answer to those who fear an Orwellian future is to engage with the technology and seek to ensure that biometric identification systems are developed in positive ways. We suggest that identification schemes become problematic when the reciprocity of identification goes unnoticed, forgotten, or (what is worse) is intentionally bypassed. The dynamics of identification should be reciprocal, dialogical, and involving mutual recognition. In the traditional political domain, this is the recognition by the state of a citizen and by the citizen of the state. In the digital age, identification systems must increasingly transcend geopolitical borders. A globally recognized identification scheme is therefore a necessity. However, it is merely the nature of the borders that has changed here—not the nature of identification. Our call will be: no identification without representation.     

Trace Evidence Potential in Postmortem Skin Microbiomes: From Death Scene to Morgue

Microbes can be used effectively as trace evidence, at least in research settings. However, it is unknown whether skin microbiomes change prior to autopsy and, if so, whether these changes interfere with linking objects to decedents. The current study included microbiomes from 16 scenes of death in the City and County of Honolulu and tested whether objects at the scenes can be linked to individual decedents. Postmortem skin microbiomes were stable during repeated sampling up to 60 h postmortem and were similar to microbiomes of an antemortem population. Objects could be traced to decedents approximately 75% of the time, with smoking pipes and medical devices being especially accurate (100% match), house and car keys being poor (0%), and other objects like phones intermediate (~80%). These results show that microbes from objects at death scenes can be matched to individual decedents, opening up a new method of establishing associations and identifications.     

Investigation of Different Ways in Which the CODIS 7.0 May be Used in Mass Disaster Identification

DNA analysis is a key method for the identification of human remains in mass disasters. Reference samples from relatives may be used to identify missing persons by kinship analysis. Different methods of applying the CODIS in disaster victim identification (DVI) were investigated. Two searches were evaluated: (i) relating family relatives to a pedigree tree (FPT) and (ii) relating unidentified human remains to a pedigree tree (UPT). A joint pedigree likelihood ratio (JPLR) and rank were calculated for each search. Both searches were similar in average JPLR and rank. In exceptional cases, namely the existence of a mutation different from the CODIS model, a nonbiological father, a mistake in STR, or incorrect profile association, the UPT search returned one true rank, whereas the FPT search returned no results. This paper suggests a novel strategy to overcome these limitations and increase efficiency in conducting identification of mass disaster victims.     

The Status of Forensic Anthropology in Europe and South Africa: Results of the 2016 FASE Questionnaire on Forensic Anthropology

One of the goals of the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (FASE) is to map the existing education and practice opportunities in the field of forensic anthropology in order to support the development of the discipline and to optimize the training courses provided by the Society. To address this goal, an online questionnaire was sent to European and South African practitioners of forensic anthropology and related disciplines in 2016. The results of the questionnaire showed that the status and roles of forensic anthropologists vary depending on the national legal systems, education, and employment status of the practitioners. Despite the fact that the expertise of forensic anthropologists has been increasingly requested in a variety of investigations and the spectrum of tasks has become broader, including identification of living persons, specialized education in forensic anthropology is still restricted to a few graduate and postgraduate programs in European countries and to annual FASE courses.     

Effect of Heat on the Fluorescence Properties of Tooth‐Colored Restorative Materials and Their Forensic Implications

During antemortem and postmortem comparison of dental records of carbonized victims, restorations may be part of such records. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of heat on the fluorescence behavior of contemporary tooth‐colored restorative materials and natural tooth structure when subjected to range of temperatures, using illumination with 405 nm wavelength light. A total of 132 human extracted teeth restored with tooth‐colored restorative materials were exposed to heat (200, 500, 900, 1200°C) in an oven for 30 min. Samples were imaged before and after heat treatment. All tooth‐colored restorative materials underwent changes in color and in fluorescence properties, at each of the temperatures used. Resin‐based restorative materials still fluoresced at 200°C, and at 500°C underwent major color changes due to volatilization of resin. Materials containing inorganic fluorophores still fluoresced at 900°C, while at 1200°C, none of the materials tested in this study showed any fluorescence.     

Forensic Facial Approximation: Study of the Nose in Brazilian Subjects

Forensic facial approximation is an auxiliary method for human identification and allows facial recognition. The midface, that includes the nose, is vital for the recognition of a familiar face. The purpose of this study was to set hard tissue parameters to estimate nasal width, to test the method to estimate nasal width of Brazilians, and to analyze the relationship between nasal profile and facial type. A total of 246 computed tomography scans (183 females and 63 males) of adults were analyzed in Horos. Bone tissue measurements and facial type classification were performed on the skull scan. Nasal profile morphology was accessed through the tool 3D surface rendering. There was a difference around 3 mm from real to predicted nose through the method to estimate nasal width in Brazilians. So, the method may be used in forensic practice. Straight nose was associated with long face type.     

Prior knowledge influences interpretations of eyewitness confidence statements: ‘The witness picked the suspect,they must be 100% sure%

When an eyewitness identifies a suspect from a lineup, it is important to know how certain they are about the decision. Even though eyewitnesses are likely to express certainty with words, past research shows that verbal confidence statements (e.g. ‘I’m pretty sure’) are prone to systematic misinterpretation. Until now, no one has examined how an evaluator's prior knowledge, such as which lineup member is the police suspect, influences their interpretation of eyewitness confidence about a lineup identification. Experiments 1 and 3 show that participants perceived the identical statement of confidence as meaning a higher and lower level of certainty, respectively, when the eyewitness's selection either matched or mismatched the police's suspect. Experiment 2 shows that these effects generally persist when the bias manipulation is manipulated between-subjects. Finally, Experiment 3 finds that clarifying the witness's statement with numeric information (e.g. I’m 80% sure) does not eliminate the influence of biasing information.