Zeitschrift für forensische Forschung

Many aspects influence the decomposition process of a body and, as such, are important in forensic science for estimation of the post mortem interval. In a recent forensic case, a missing man was found buried in sea sand. The post mortem interval estimation as obtained at autopsy was quite different to the actual period this man was missing. In the present study, we have set up an artificial decomposition model to study the effect of sea soil and moisture, relevant to this particular case, on the decomposition mode.

Pig (Sus domesticus) legs were buried in 50 litres of sea sand and control sand (woodland sand) respectively, within containers for 1, 2 and 3 months. The sand was evaluated using routine pedological analysis. The legs were analysed using AZAN staining and microscopically scored for their decomposition grade. In the second part of the study, the effect of moisture hereon was analysed.

Pedological analysis did not show significant differences in composition between the sea- and woodland sand. Although an increase in decomposition grade was found in both soils over time, no differences in decomposition grade were found. In the second part of the study, however, we found a significant decrease in decomposition score in legs buried in wet, soaked sea sand compared to those buried in dry sea sand. Soaked means a small layer of water was seen on the container’s surface.

We have successfully developed an in vitro decomposition model in order to address taphonomic questions related to a forensic case and have found that moisture inhibited the process of decomposition in sea sand.

Formalin fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue specimens collected during surgery or autopsy, are an important source for retrospective diagnosis and identification purposes. Genomic DNA degradation or PCR amplification inhibition are the major cause of DNA amplification failure. Routinely, xylene is used to remove paraffin from paraffinembedded tissue sections. We tested methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), as an alternate organic solvent, which is less harmful for organism than xylene. Using different tissues (heart, kidney, liver) from randomly selected autopsies (n=10) we compared performance of MTBE and xylene for removal of paraffin during a preparation process compatible with automated staining equipment. All these extracted DNA samples were amplified and genotyped using human identification Identifiler multiplex. Our experiments points that there is no difference in the range of genotyped microsatellite loci, regardless MTBE or xylene dewaxing. The heart specimen has the highest number of successfully genotyped STR loci, followed by the kidney and the liver. For the genomic template above 260 base pairs of the length no products were obtain from the routinely collected autopsy material. It is worthy of note that MTBE is safer than xylene and according to the current European Community regulations no chemical fume hoods are required for MTBE handling. Thus, MTBE might be preferred to remove paraffin from tissue specimens in forensic or histopathology laboratories not equipped with systems of airborne exposure protection.

Introduction: Cranial suture closure is one trait that has been used since the 16th century for age estimation after 2nd decade of life. There exists considerable debate about its applicability and reliability in age estimation. Objective: To find out the pattern of cranial vault suture closure in relation to age in 3rd to 5th decades of life; to detect bilateral and bisexual variations in cranial suture closure; and to specify any relationship between progression of union of cranial suture and age.
Materials and method: Study design: Cross-sectional observational study. Study period: November 2008 to October 2009. Sample size: 70. All the autopsy cases, between 21 to 50 years of age were studied for relation between age and cranial suture closure. Ectocranial and endocranial closure pattern were studied for sagittal coronal and lambdoid sutures.
Results: Endocranial fusion of cranial suture was more regular than ectocranial fusion, and was observed as early as 21-30 years. Coronal suture was the first to fuse. Closure was found earlier in females compared to males. No definite correlation was found to exist between age and suture closures. Conclusion: With this study, we couldn’t find any possibility for suture closure to contribute substantially as one to the factors for age estimation.

Asphyxial death is a common incident in forensic practices, and determination of the manner of death that may be accidental, suicidal, homicidal, or natural is of utmost significance. In such deaths, a detailed and meticulous autopsy plays a major role to solve the case while the scene investigation and collection of samples have their own significance. Domestic violence plays a great role in suicidal and homicidal violent asphyxia deaths. Various epidemiological and demographical parameters of the study are described in the present study. Increasing deaths due to asphyxia are one of the most important causes in violent deaths. During the 4 year period from January 2008 to 31st December 2011, there were 542 asphyxial deaths autopsied conducted by the Department of Forensic Medicine, IMS-BHU Varanasi, India. Asphyxial deaths comprise 6.95% of all forensic autopsies; 35.79% of the cases are aged between 21-30 years; Males constitute 60.89% of all the cases. The most frequent method of asphyxiation death is hanging (283 cases, 52.21%), followed by drowning (45.02%) and suffocation (0.55%). More violent methods, such as ligature or manual strangulations, constitute 2.21% of all asphyxial deaths, respectively. Although it was varying according to the methods of asphyxiation, suicide was found to be the manner of death in the majority of the cases

A Fatal sepsis and multiple organ failure occurred in a 61-year-old man, seven days after the anti-tumoral instillation of bacillus Calmette-Guérin for bladder carcinoma treatment. Autopsy findings revealed uncommon diffuse miliary caseating granulomas involving lungs. Judicial Authority censured the urology surgical team for delayed diagnosis and incorrect therapeutical intervention, not applied when early local and systemic adverse effects arose, in absence of exhaustive information given to the patient on all post-operative complications.

The present study deals primarily with the arsenic contamination occur in ground water in all over India, its causes, effects and recommendation. Arsenic above permissible limit in ground water of phreatic younger alluvium of Ganga and Ghaghara rivers along meandering course and shallow aquifer, has reported as the main source of arsenic contamination. Several studies have been carried out on this context; which is still limited by a lack of data thus, a review study has been undertaken on the sources, causes and health prospective, arsenic is likely to disastrous effects on human. Due to excess of Arsenic in ground water people are reported to be suffering from diseases like skin cancer, ulcer and pigmentation in skin and hardening in palm skin. Different analytical methods have been proposed for further analysis to provide details to know the quantity of arsenic in water, its impact, identify the risk factors and possible to makes recommendation for the prevention and management of arsenic poisoning cases and study of probability of other heavy metals. This review work suggests that the arsenic concentration increase day by day through different channel. It’s directly and indirectly affecting human being; needs to be investigating thoroughly arsenic problem in India.

Short Tandem Repeat (STR) markers are moderately repetitious DNA segments serving efficiently as a core sequence for the human identification. Their use as identification markers involves many technical and statistical issues. DNASF (DNA Statistics for Forensics) is a package of statistical programs designed to analyze the STR distribution in a heterogeneous population. It includes software DNA Forensics GenePro and DNA Forensics and a Microsoft excel workbook DNA AF. They can compute a number of parameters used to estimate the forensic utility of STR loci, including genetic diversity, unbiased heterozygosity, Shannon information index, polymorphism information content, and probability of exclusion and power of discrimination. In these programs each individual/ subpopulation is defined on the basis of two variables namely paternal ethnicity and mother tongue. The options for the two variables consist mainly of Indian subcontinent ethnicities and native languages but it does not undermine the software utility for researchers working on other populations. The input data are CODIS STR genotype and allele frequency data for DNA Forensics GenePro and DNA Forensics respectively. DNA AF can calculate allele frequency and other descriptive statistics from genotype data. Each component of DNASF is user friendly and provided with a set of instructions. For validation studies genotype data of five Pakistani subpopulations and allele frequency data of fifteen world populations were used. Validation studies of DNASF made it a reliable and effective tool for forensic investigations.

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