Importance of radiological diagnosis applied to necroscopy

The authors evaluate the consequences of incomplete necroscopic examinations wherein it was impossible to apply radiological resources to locate firearm projectiles. The study includes 8185 reports from the Instituto Médico-Legal Afranio Peixoto in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, representing the totality of corpses processed from January to December 2001; of these, 3122 were gunshot victims, 309 of which were buried with unremoved projectiles, being liable to future judicial reappraisal. During the same period, there were 23 exhumation requests by police authorities, 12 of them querying the existence of projectiles. The authors looked into the formal reasons assumed by the medico legal experts to conclude their reports from incomplete examinations, and suggest that gunshot necroscopic examinations should follow specific protocols, as incomplete autopsies will require further exhumations, at unnecessary additional costs.     

Can analysis of a small clod of soil help to solve a murder case?

Soil forensics utilizes extensive soil information to answer legal questions and test hypotheses. The main difficulty often is the determination of different variables from a small amount of soil sample collected on the suspect. We developed a sequential mineralogical and chemical analyses to assess a limited quantity of soil vestiges (0.5 g) from a suspect's vehicle (adhered to the outside rear-view mirror and to the left front fender) involved in a murder case and compared them with the surface samples found at the victim's body disposal site at the Graciosa Road, Paraná State, Brazil. All results affirm that the suspect’s vehicle could have been in contact with the edge of the Graciosa Road, approximately the place where the victim’s body was located. As a result of the soil analysis and comparison, the results support the likely contact of the suspect’s vehicle with the crime scene.     

Synergies Amid Change

The book Xi Jinping: The Governance of China Volume Ⅲ assembles Chinese President Xi Jinping's 92 speeches and texts between October 18, 2017 and January 13, 2020, preceding the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease(COVID-19) epidemic. However, the ideas in the book are still relevant.     

Survival of submerged blowfly species and their parasitoids: implications for postmortem submersion interval

Pupal survival of three blowfly species, Chrysomya albiceps, Chrysomya megacephala, and Chrysomya putoria (Diptera: Calliphoridae) and the parasitoid species Nasonia vitripennis (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae) was studied after the pupae were experimentally submerged in water. Non-parasitized pupae at different developmental stages, 0, 24, 48, and 72 h, and parasitized pupae after 3, 8, 10, and 12 days of development were submerged for 6, 24, 48, or 72 h. Control groups for each pupal developmental stage (parasitized or not), which were not submerged, were also observed in order to compare the adult emergence rates. The survival of white pupae (0 h/age) decreased with time of submergence for all three blowfly species, showing the lowest rates compared with other experimental pupa groups. For the three blowfly species, non-parasitized pupae at 24 and 48 h of age showed survival rates above 60%. However, for pupae at 72 h of age, the survival rates decreased with increased underwater time, with less than 30% survival after 72 h in C. putoria and C. albiceps. The survival of parasitoids inside blowfly pupae that were submerged during their larval stage (3 days/age) decreased with the increase of submergence time. After the parasitoids reached the pre-pupal life stage, the survival was higher for all underwater periods. These observations can be useful in investigations of the decomposition of partially submerged bodies, or in cases of pupae found adhering to decaying flesh, hair, or clothes of corpses that were submerged after the larvae had developed and pupated.     

巴西--发展中大国及其国际战略

这是本刊增设的一个栏目。顾名思义,“大使论坛”就是大使们的论坛。它是由中国社会科学院国际合作局与社科院其他研究所主办的一个论坛,而2005年8月18日由中国社会科学院国合作局和拉美所主办的“巴西的大国地位与大国战略”是首届大使论坛。在首届大使论坛上,巴西驻中国大使路易斯·奥古斯托·德卡斯特罗·内维斯先生作了题为《巴西———发展中大国及其国际战略》的报告并回答了与会者提出的问题。     

Estimation of Opportunity Inequality in Brazil using Nonparametric Local Logistic Regression

Abstract

This article measured opportunity inequality in Brazil by combining a series of theoretical and empirical tools. The database was built using a two-sample instrumental variable (TSIV), developed by Angrist and Krueger. After that, the axiomatic approach put forward by O'Neill et al. was used, in which the estimation of children's income distribution function is conditional on their fathers' wages. The inference process was based on nonparametric local logistic regression. The results indicate that Brazil has a high level of opportunity inequality. In other words, in the context of intergenerational mobility, those whose fathers belong to lower income strata have to expend greater effort in order to attain a certain income level.     

The European Constitution: A Semiotics Analysis of Ideology, Identity and Global Commun in Present-Day Europe

This paper proposes an analysis of the European Constitution from the perspective of its conditions of possibility. The focus is on the conditions that subtend the European constitution, the conditions, the premises that make the European Constitution possible. In the present context of discourse “possibility” is understood in the sense of Kantian critique. But here critique is based on Reasonableness rather than on Reason—in fact a thesis orienting this essay is that the human being to survive and to survive well must quickly change from a rational animal into a reasonable animal. Is the European constitution possible? Where must we search for the necessary conditions that support the European constitution (1) in common historical and cultural traditions, in common practices, in common social behaviours or (2) merely in a shared decision, an accord, a contract, a convention? There exists a third possibility: the idea that Europe has no future without a European constitution founded on awareness that all European Nations participate in a common destiny, which in the era of globalization is the destiny the whole world, indeed of life over the whole planet. Such participation must be based on the logic of otherness and reasonableness of which the human being alone as a semiotic animal is capable. As a semiotic animal, that is, an animal capable of metasemiosis, reflection and critical consciousness, the human being is responsible for all of life over the planet.