In the research literature intelligence is commonly described as a risk or protective factor for crime and violence, depending on its level. In mostly exploratory analysis presented in this study, authors primarily focused on determining how socioeconomic factors and comorbidity disorders influence relationship between intelligence level and violence of risk. In total, 101 patients participated in the study, all of them were male, Polish detainees at three psychiatric hospitals with forensic psychiatry wards: the S. Kryzan Hospital for the Nervously and Mentally Ill in Starogard Gdański, the State Hospital for Mental Diseases in Rybnik, and the Józef Babiński Psychiatric Hospital in Kraków. Statistical analysis of the collected data confirmed positive relationship between level of intelligence and historical risk factors summary of HCR20v3. It was observed that no source of income is an important moderator between low intelligence and historical risk factors. Additionally, in the group of patients with primary or middle education, intelligence level above average is a significant factor that minimalizes historical risk. Comorbidity disorder was identified as aspect that minimalizes protective influence of medium or high level of intelligence in the dynamic, clinical scale of HCR-20v3. Besides that, intelligence level above average was a protective factor in the group of schizophrenic patients without personality disorders. Knowledge of the way in which analyzed moderators influence relationship between intelligence level and risk of violence can improve the risk management process by enabling the identification of protective factors that are specific to subtypes of perpetrators of violence with mental disorders.

This paper addresses the psychological assessment of victims and the credibility of their statements in cases of child sexual abuse. With reference to the presence of manifestations of stress and to how victims behave when giving a statement, it discusses issues associated with assessment in such cases. It then considers existing inventories of possible physical and psychological consequences of sexual abuse and the frequency of PTSD symptoms among victims, before examining how these manifestations are modified by the context of the abuse, the characteristics of the offender, the characteristics of the victim, and how those in the victims’ life contexts react to disclosure of the abuse. Finally, the paper presents a case study illustrating these issues.

The article describes the current possibilities of forensic medicine in the diagnosis of death by drowning, as well as reflects the different views of the authors and the evolution of approaches to this issue. Despite the constant interest of scientists in the topic of drowning and extensive research on this issue, there are still many white spots. Researchers are trying to identify more specific changes characteristic of drowning and possible methods to detect them.

The main evidence based method of diagnosing drowning at present is the detection of diatomic plankton in the tissues of isolated kidneys by light optical microscopy. However, microscopic examination and identification of diatomic plankton require a lot of time and accurate taxonomic examination. Also, a disadvantage of this method is that the methods of processing the material sent for research, as a result of the use of concentrated acids for the destruction of organs, greatly complicates and sometimes eliminates the possibility of detection of diatomic plankton. In some cases, the presence of diatoms during drowning is so small that it is impossible to detect them by microscopy. In such cases, the presence of phytoplankton DNA detected by PCR in tissues during drowning is almost the only method for diagnosing drowning. Nowadays there has been a lack of research in the field of forensic medicine related to the use of evidence-based medicine, especially in the field of drowning.

This review focuses on the current trends in the use of doped metallic nanomaterials in forensic science for the development and detection of latent fingerprints (LFPs) on various surfaces which provide better fingerprint image quality. The advantages and important results of studies conducted on latent fingerprints detection with various doped metallic nanomaterials are critically discussed. We also glimpse on fluorescent nanoparticles that have succeeded in producing high-quality fingerprint images which lead to the extraction of all three levels of fingerprint features. A few metallic nanomaterials used for latent fingerprints detection did not produce high-quality fingerprint images failing extraction of all three levels of fingerprint features. To overcome this forensic problem more research is needed to improve the latent fingerprint detection abilities of doped metallic nanomaterials.

Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the Center of Research for Development (CR4D) and Parul Institute of Applied Sciences, Parul University, Limda, Waghodia, Vadodara, Gujarat, India.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the novel kits – Investigator 26plex QS and SureID PanGlobal in forensic analysis and confront with commonly applied NGM PCR Amplification Kit. The internal validation study involved sensitivity, reliability, stochastic, DNA mixtures, inhibition parameters analysis and 15 casework samples extracted from blood, saliva, semen, tooth, bones, soft tissue and epithelial cells. The sensitivity experiments were performed on a total of 24 samples from seven serial dilutions of 007 control DNA. Mixture analysis was performed for two persons in different proportions using 9947 and 007 control DNA. Inhibition effect was tested using PCR inhibitor – humic acid. Among three compared kits the highest sensitivity was noted for Investigator 26plex QS considering the total number of the markers in each system, as well as the shared set of markers. However, low PCR efficiency of D6S1043 locus was observed with aforementioned kit. Mixture analysis performed with Investigator 26plex QS, SureID Pan Global and NGM kits, considering shared set of markers revealed that NGM Kit is the most sensitive for detecting minor components in a mixture. Similarly, we demonstrated that NGM is the most successful in the analysis of challenging forensic samples. The internal validation showed that the Investigator 26plex QS and SureID PanGlobal have weaker performance for routine forensic application in comparison to NGM Kit. However, thanks to increased number of markers, these systems could be helpful in analysis of complex cases in paternity testing and kinship analysis, in which standard genetic analysis is insufficient.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS