Journal of Forensic Medicine

Background: The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is diagnosed by default when it is not possible to identify the cause of infant death after a complete study including forensic autopsy and death scene investigation. However, Colombia does not mandate a complete study of these deaths, and only some of these cases meet that standard. This research will show the results of those forensic autopsy performed of post neonatal infants deaths in Bogota', Colombia, in 2010, to call attention of the national sanitary authority to the importance of conducting a comprehensive study to conclude what caused the death of these children, who, without it, generally remain reported as "under study" or "indeterminate".

Objective: To describe the findings in the forensic autopsy performed in post neonatal subjects at the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences (INMLCF) in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2010, in order to characterize and describe what could be compatible with SIDS or other sudden and unexpected infant deaths (SUID) meeting international standards.

Methods: The information collected by the INMLCF of all post neonatal deaths that were the subject of medicolegal autopsywas reviewed; the infant case population was characterized by age, sex, cause and manner of death, and the other variables available for study, including the known risk factors for SIDS.

Results: We studied 150 cases of neonatal and post neonatal deaths with medico legal autopsy. In 36 cases the cause of death was determined including two cases of stillbirth. The remaining 114 cases were reviewed and characterized individually, using all available information; 95 deaths were considered compatible with SIDS/SUDI.

Conclusions: It is necessary to have a standard protocol to study infant deaths in Colombia to quantify the SIDS/ SUDI problem. However, with the available information it is possible to estimate a baseline that reflects the magnitude of the problem and contribute to its solution.

Accurate and efficient identification have become a vital requirement for forensic application due to diversities of criminal activities. A recent advancement in biometric technologywhich is equipped with computational intelligence techniques is replacing manual identification approaches in forensic science. Biometrics is a fundamental verification mechanism that identifies individuals on the basis of their physiological and behavioral features. These biometric expansions are easily observable in different forensic identification areas, e.g. face, fingerprint, iris, voice, handwriting, etc. The effectiveness of biometricssystem lies in different recognition processes which include feature extraction, feature robustness and feature matching. The emergence of forensic biometrics covers a wide range of applications for physical and cybercrime detection. Forensic Biometrics also overcomes the loopholes of traditional identification system that were based on personal probabilities. It is considered as a fundamental shift in the way criminals are detected. The present study describes the contribution and limitations of biometric science in the field of forensic identification.

Introduction: Although the important concert about partner homicides, there are no scientific studies in Spain. The main aim of this study is to analyze differences in Spanish partner homicides between aggressor's sex with a) crime perpetration: attempted or completed and b) criminal process: pre-crime, offence and post-crime behavior.

Method: We used Basa Data "Protocolo de Análisis del Crimen Violento en Homicidios Familiares", composed by firmed sentences of family homicides in Spain. Specifically, we analyzed a sample of 323 partner homicide firmed sentences, mostly men.

Results: The results show that attempted crimes are more associated with men, and completed homicides with women. Regarding pre-crime behaviors, the existence of previous conflict and previous break up are more associated with men. In criminal context, instrumental behaviors are more related with women while expressive behaviors don't show relation with aggressor's sex; to strangle the victim is more associated with women. Finally, none of post-criminal behaviors show relation with aggressor's sex.

Discussion: The results regarding pre-crime and post-crime behaviors are consistent with precedents studies in other countries, also the predominance of expressive behaviors in both, men and women. Concerning to crime perpetration, it hasn't been found previous studies comparing it with offender's sex in partner homicides.

Globally drowning remains a leading cause of unintentional mortality. Low and middle-income countries have the highest rates of drowning; and island countries surrounded by water have considerable attribution of deaths due to drowning.

This study uses the records of the Forensic Pathology Unit in Fiji to establish trends and ascertain high-risk groups associated with drowning mortality. In addition, the medical cause of death certificates (MCDC) from the Ministry of Health and Medical Services were utilized to provision validations and provide additional foresight where epidemiological trends needed to be established.

In this study many high risk groups and patterns were identified. The high risk groups identified included the age group from 0 to 29 years of age, the male gender group and the iTaukei and the Fijians of other Descent, also emphasis on water safety and drowning prevention for the Eastern and Western division of Fiji to reduce the high fatal drowning rates. Drowning remains a preventable cause of mortality and everyone must be involved in the prevention of fatal drowning.

There are a great number of complex suicides in the literature. It is so interesting to expand the list and to publish more cases of complex suicide which are examined by forensic worldwide. It’s interesting to know the maximum of method that can be used by suicidal individuals. We present a case of a complex suicide of a young woman by using ingestion of paraphénylène Diamine associated with self-strangulation by a link. Self-strangulation is probably used to accelerate death or to reduce pain caused by the first method. Forensic autopsy and further tests confirmed the voluntary intoxication by PPD and showed signs of strangulation by a loose link. The circumstances of the facts and the judicial inquiry were in favor of self-strangulation without the intervention of another person. This case illustrates an example of complex suicide. To our knowledge, it is the first case of complex suicide involving intoxication PPD and self-strangulation.