Journal of Forensic Research

Consanguinity is a matrimonial behavior that is much perpetuated in the Arabo-Muslim world. This behavior contributes to the impoverishment of the genetic heritage of populations by increasing the genetic homogeneity, influencing, thus, the state of the public health. Belonging to the Arabo-Muslim world, the North population of Morocco has been partially studied to characterize this matrimonial behavior from an anthropo-genetic point of view.

Sample of 1588 couples belonging to the population of northern Morocco has been studied. The results showed a level of consanguinity very close to the national average (24.37%). Marriages between first cousins are most widespread among the other types of consanguineous unions (63.18%). Furthermore, specific features seem to characterize the practice of consanguinity in Morocco's northern region, which respond to many socioeconomic, cultural, historical and geographical factors.

The present study evaluated nutritional constituents of Cnidoscolus aconitifolius leaf and examined the effect of aqueous and ethanol extracts on selected biochemical parameters using male albino rats. Forty five male albino rats weighing (115-121 g) were used for the study. The rats were randomly divided into nine groups of five rats each. Group I served as the control while the other groups were administered 200, 400, 600 and 800 mg/kg body weight of aqueous and ethanol leaf extracts. Mineral, proximate and vitamin analysis showed that the plant leaf contains appreciable amount of vitamin and minerals analysed. Results showed significant difference (P<0.05) between the control and Cnidoscolus aconitifolius leaf extracts administered rats with respect to body weight changes, liver function indices and haematological parameters (White Blood Cells) in dose dependent ratio. From this study, aqueous leaf extract of Cnidoscolus aconitifolius at doses of 400, 600 and 800 mg/kg body weight showed evidence of cumulative toxicity. It is therefore suggestive to say that in order to ensure holistic safe utilization, bioactive constituents of Cnidoscolus aconitifolius leaf may be better extracted using ethanol as it has not shown any evidence of hepatotoxicity.

Introduction: Vertebro-medullary trauma and spinal cord injuries are a traumatic pathology commonly encountered in road accidents. The severity of the posttraumatic consequences is given by the magnitude of the meningo-medullary injuries and it is directly proportional to them.

Material and Method: A retrospective study on living persons of Bihor County was conducted at the Bihor County Forensic Service, Romania. It consisted of examining forensic documents regarding vertebro-medullary trauma caused by road accidents from the Bihor County Forensic Service archive during 2013-2015. After classifying the descriptive parameters, the obtained data was statistically analyzed and the final results were presented using tables and graphs.

Results and Discussions: A quarter of the road accidents occurred in Bihor County during 2013-2015 lead to vertebro-medullary trauma. Mostly, these road accidents occurred in the urban environment, during summer, on Mondays and Sundays, the victims being young male adults. The most exposed category of road traffic participants to spinal trauma is represented by passengers of four-wheeled vehicles (more often driver and the passenger on the right front place) followed by pedestrians. The vertebro-medullary injuries frequently involved the cervical segment, followed by the thoracic and lumbosacral segments, the spine having more frequently a unique lesion. The most noticed mechanism of lesions encountered is hyperextension/hyperflexia. Only one third of the study group had lesions of low intensity, the other cases being of medium or high severity with less or more sever neurological and vegetative symptoms associated.

Conclusions: Vertebro-medullary trauma is a major cause of tetraparesis and paraplegia, representing a public health issue. Correct and prompt diagnosis of spinal cord injuries is essential for a favorable prognosis. It is necessary to improve the measures of preventing road accidents.

The necessity of implementing of the project “Forensic Mental Healthcare – FMH” in Romania regards the alignment of the internal legislation to the international and European standards regarding the psycho-social and juridical protection of the psychiatric patients, of the family, and the community, as well as the development of the institutional and community practices within the forensic psychiatric field in relation with the field of the social psychiatry. The scope of the FHM project in Romania regards the modifying and fulfilling of the existent legal frame along with the development of the institutional capacity on the principal of sustainability and of the public-private partnership. The feasibility of the project FMH is based on the pre-existence of certain models of social-juridical action – the administration of the community sanctions correlated with the planning and the management of the sanctions and the custodial measures – based on the streamlining of the costs of the medical-legal services and of those pre-existent psycho-social, which would lead to the implementing of a system of interlocking psycho-social and medical services within the psychiatric hospitals continued by special programmes of surveillance and social rehabilitation, and taking the functional inter-institutional collaboration within the community as a leading principle.

Short tandem repeat (STR) loci have been successfully employed for forensic genetic, paternity and anthropological analyses in the admixed and Amerindian populations of Panamanian for several years. Nevertheless, reports indicate that the use of STRs might be limited in cases involving degraded DNA samples due to their PCR amplicon size and in paternity because of their relatively high mutation rates. Therefore, as a complement to STRs, markers with higher PCR efficiency, such as insertion/deletion (INDEL), have been developed. However, the genetic polymorphisms and distribution of INDELs in the Panamanian population was unknown. Using the Investigator® DIPplex kit (Qiagen), we report here for the first time the genetic profile of 30 INDEL markers in the Panamanian population. Gene admixture estimates and population structure indicated that the Panamanian population is differentially admixed highly polymorphic. Interestingly, admixture estimates where highly similar to our previous report using STR indicating Amerindian, African and European gene contributions. INDELs showed three gene clusters in these proportions: 0.46 (cluster 1), 0.24 (cluster 2) and 0.30 (cluster 3) versus 0.51 (Amerindian), 0.24 (African) and 0.25 (European) for STRs. We also found that both, INDELs and STRs indicated that ancestral gene distribution is heterogeneous among the provinces, across the country. Furthermore, allele frequency variation showed that all loci accomplished Hardy-Weinberg expectations and display high diversity as indicated by the average of observed heterozygosity (0.4477), expected heterozygosity (0.4553) and high similarity with reference U.S. and world populations. Additionally, forensic statistic parameters showed a strong significance in the combined power of discrimination (0.9999999999987) and the combined matching probability (1.27 × 10-12) but relatively lower significance in the combined power of exclusion (0.992655332). The forensic parameters calculated indicate that INDEL markers can be affectively applicable to the Panamanian population for forensic uses but should be complemented with additional markers, such as STRs for paternity analyses.

The case study involves the examination of puncture marks on a polyvinyl (PV) tubing of an industry pipelining wherein sabotage had occurred. The study carried out to individualize the characteristic and sub-class characteristic marks formed by the tool implemented and their unusual features formed are attempted. The paper also brings out differences in the characteristics of puncture marks on PV tubing resulting from the three knives/tools submitted by the investigating officer and the linking of one of the knives to the questioned tool marks on the tubing.

Ascaris lumbricoides is a nematode (roundworm), a parasite which inhabits the intestines of humans. This organism is responsible for the infective disease named ascariasis (a type of helminthiasis) which is prevalent in deprived areas where there is often a combination of poor sanitation and a host made vulnerable by iron-deficiency anaemia, malnutrition or impairment of growth. We present a violent death case; A child aged two, who died of mechanical asphyxia that followed airway obstruction by worms of the species Ascaris lumbricoides. Death was considered a forensic case because it occurred suddenly and the child was not known with pre-existing pathological conditions. We examined this case according to the information received from the criminalistics team correlated with the macroscopic autopsy findings and histopathological examinations with results being consistent and which indicated the diagnosis of death aforementioned. The literature cites such deaths which occurred consecutively to trauma or post general anesthesia, but in this situation a possible previous injury was infirmed by necropsy and according to the criminalistics team data the child never suffered a general anesthesia, which makes us consider this particular case as a rarely seen one.