Forensic Sci., Volume 3, Issue 3 (September 2023) – 9 articles

This technical note aims to characterize and contextualize the creation of a new collection of identified skeletons stored in the University Institute of Health Sciences—CESPU. This project presents unique and innovative pedagogical opportunities, with students actively involved in the cleaning and processing of the bones and antemortem/postmortem information gathering, as well as in anthropology research projects. This XXI Century Identified Skeletal Collection is composed of 98 complete adult skeletons of both sexes and is still expanding, being the 10th contemporary collection available in Portugal. The skeletons consist exclusively of Portuguese nationals who died between 1946 and 2007, and the 42% that have been processed so far are in good preservation. Comparative learning outcomes after implementing this active learning strategy are not yet available. Improvements are expected since more participation and enthusiasm in classes and research were perceived. Full article

Forensic entomology is primarily focused on using carrion blow flies and beetles (Diptera and Coleoptera) to estimate the time since death. However, insect artefacts, such as footprints, defecations, regurgitations, and splatters are also considered within the disciplines of bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA), and ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) have been studied in forensic pathology for their potential to alter bodies. Although ant activity has been mostly reported as “dry marks” (abrasions) on decomposing bodies, their colonisation of congested or hypostatic anatomical regions can produce alterations that mimic active or recent haemorrhages. Therefore, if a body exhibits external haemorrhage/s without any apparent origin, artefacts caused by insects, such as ants, should be considered. This study describes ten cases of post-mortem ant activity observed in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (India), and analyses the resulting external haemorrhagic artefacts, which exhibit different patterns of morphology, distribution, and location. The study proposes a classification system to aid in identifying bloodstain patterns caused by ant activity, assisting in determining the mechanism/s of the lesions, the original position of the body, and any subsequent interactions with the surrounding environment. Ultimately, this classification can improve the accuracy of reconstructing the events that occurred during the early post-mortem period, as well as the circumstances surrounding death. Full article

Assessing the timing of skeletal trauma significantly impacts the reconstruction of events surrounding death and deposition in forensic cases. However, there are no absolute time frames in which the characteristics of wet bone (peri-mortem) fractures transition to dry (post-mortem) fractures. The aim of this study was to attempt to identify a point within the post-mortem interval in which the characteristics of bone change from wet to dry bone properties. A total of 32 deer ribs were placed in a laboratory burial environment and a set of three were fractured with blunt force trauma every week during a ten-week period. All samples and the inflicted trauma effects were documented and analysed by macroscopic observation, scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis, thermal analysis, biomechanical analysis, and attenuated total reflectance–Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). No significant difference was found in the macroscopic, microscopic, thermal, and biomechanical analyses of the trauma inflicted over the 10-week period. A significant difference was only found in the carbonate-to-phosphate ratio in analytical chemistry. The results suggest that interpreting wet bone characteristics in forensic anthropology as having been inflicted during the peri-mortem period (around the time of death) should also consider that these, in fact, could be inflicted well after death (post-mortem) as wet bone properties as this study has shown persist at least 10 weeks after death in a burial environment. Full article

Background: Online attention is a relevant research feature that can be related to its societal impact. Online attention in the field of legal medicine was explored as well as the relation between citation count and the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS). Methods: A search was performed, through the free Dimensions app, during September 2020, on the journals related to legal medicine listed in the 2019 edition of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). The 200 published items with the highest AAS were retrieved and screened for bibliometric data. Articles with related citations were gathered from Web of Science (WOS), Scopus, and Dimensions. Results: Seventy-five percent of the articles were published by five of the selected journals. Twitter and news outlets were the most prevalent Altmetric resources. Additionally, 73.5% of the articles were published between 2013 and 2020. The most frequent topics were the ones related to toxicology and pharmacology, followed by criminalistics and law and bioethics. A poor correlation was found between the citations in WOS, Dimensions, and Scopus and the AAS. Conclusions: The online attention on legal medicine-related topics can be considered high on social media. The high number of news outlets is a distinctive feature of the most discussed articles in legal medicine. In this field of medicine, citation-based metrics combined with Altmetric can allow a broader evaluation of research findings but it should be underlined that, when measuring very different aspects of a published item, the scores in classic citation databases and Altmetric do not have a direct relation. Full article

Cybercrime presents a significant threat to global society. With the number of cybercrimes increasing year after year and the financial losses escalating, law enforcement must advance its capacity to identify cybercriminals, collect probative evidence, and bring cybercriminals before the courts. Arguably to date, the approach to combatting cybercrime has been technologically centric (e.g., anti-virus, anti-spyware). Cybercrimes, however, are the result of human activities based on human motives. It is, therefore, important that any comprehensive law enforcement strategy for combatting cybercrime includes a deeper understanding of the hackers that sit behind the keyboards. The purpose of this systematic review was to examine the state of the literature relating to the application of a human-centric investigative tool (i.e., profiling) to cybercrime by conducting a qualitative meta-synthesis. Adhering to the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, this systematic review focuses specifically on cybercrime where a computer is the target (e.g., hacking, DDoS, distribution of malware). Using a comprehensive search strategy, this review used the following search terms: “cybercrime”, “computer crime”, “internet crime”, “cybercriminal”, “hacker”, “black hat”, “profiling”, “criminal profiling”, “psychological profiling”, “offender profiling”, “criminal investigative analysis”, “behavioral profiling”, “behavioral analysis”, “personality profiling”, “investigative psychology”, and “behavioral evidence analysis” in all combinations to identify the relevant literature in the ACM Digital Library, EBSCOhost databases, IEEE Xplore, ProQuest, Scopus, PsychInfo, and Google Scholar. After applying the inclusion/exclusion criteria, a total of 72 articles were included in the review. This article utilizes a systematic review of the current literature on cyber profiling as a foundation for the development of a comprehensive framework for applying profiling techniques to cybercrime—described as cyber behavioral analysis (CBA). Despite decades of research, our understanding of cybercriminals remains limited. A lack of dedicated researchers, the paucity of research regarding human behavior mediated by technology, and limited access to datasets have hindered progress. The aim of this article was to advance the knowledge base in cyber behavioral sciences, and in doing so, inform future empirical research relating to the traits and characteristics of cybercriminals along with the application of profiling techniques and methodologies to cybercrime. Full article

Illicit PDE-5 inhibitors are frequently encountered by regulatory agencies. Self-medicating with substandard and falsified (SF) PDE-5 inhibitors could be dangerous as they are likely taken without any medical supervision and might be of poor quality which could result in adverse reactions. In order to provide an overview of the quality deficiencies present in recently seized illicit PDE-5 samples that may pose health risks, we set out to identify the products’ different chemical and/or biological risks. Our results indicate that 38% of the samples harbored a chemical risk including the significant exceedance of the maximum recommended dosage, a large heterogeneity in API content between the different tablets in the same package or blister and the presence of only 40% of the claimed dosage. Moreover, our results also demonstrate that 16 of the 32 samples were not compliant with the internationally set microbiological quality standards. Startlingly, two samples were severely contaminated with potentially pathogenic bacteria, which could result in a gastrointestinal illness upon oral intake. Full article

This research article investigates the effectiveness of digital forensics analysis (DFA) techniques in identifying patterns and trends in malicious failed login attempts linked to public data breaches or compromised email addresses in Microsoft 365 (M365) environments. Pattern recognition techniques are employed to analyze security logs, revealing insights into negative behavior patterns. The findings contribute to the literature on digital forensics, opposing behavior patterns, and cloud-based cybersecurity. Practical implications include the development of targeted defense strategies and the prioritization of prevalent threats. Future research should expand the scope to other cloud services and platforms, capture evolving trends through more prolonged and extended analysis periods, and assess the effectiveness of specific mitigation strategies for identified tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Full article

The eyelids, external nose, and lips play an important role in individual identification and facial recognition; however, they are excluded from tissue marker points, and are reconstructed based on generic methods for 3D facial reconstruction or facial approximation. Therefore, this study focused on nasal dimensions and evaluated whether Krogman’s widely used formula for estimating the dimensions of an external nose, regardless of sex, race, and body physique, can be applied to Japanese adults. A total of 146 postmortem CT images of Japanese adult cadavers (64 males and 82 females, aged 58–105 years old) were retrospectively analyzed. The total nasal projection (TNP) among Japanese adults was estimated using the formula, TNP = 1.9 × the anterior nasal spine projection (ANSP) + the mid-philtrum depth (MPD), which differed significantly from the coefficient (3.0) in the conventional formula, regardless of sex, race, and body physique, and therefore needed modification for Asians. Although there was no positive relationship between the total nasal width (TNW) and the maximum width of the anterior nasal aperture (ANAW), the TNW could be estimated by adding soft tissue that varies by sex and body physique to both sides of the nearly constant ANAW. Therefore, we determined a simple and practical formula to estimate nasal dimensions among Japanese adults for conventional 3D facial reconstruction and manual 3D facial sculpture. Full article

Many tools of clinical medicine, such as clinical chemistry and diagnostic imaging, are prioritized for clinical diagnosis over post mortem diagnosis. Indeed, it is reasonable that the assessment of a patient’s functional status should take priority over the post mortem, cross-sectional use of diagnostic tests and laboratory equipment. In addition, these tools are sometimes expensive, and their use does not always have a reasonable cost–benefit ratio. However, some post mortem observations, such as inflammation, pulmonary edema, or infiltration and cerebral swelling, cannot be explained without using immunohistochemical markers for post mortem diagnosis. Introducing blood-based biomarkers into post mortem care could significantly reduce the rates of inconclusive post mortems and discrepancies in autopsy findings and clinical diagnoses. This is particularly relevant in relation to vascular pathology, considering the significant burden that vascular diseases represent for overall mortality. Expanding traditional autopsies with blood-based (circulating) biomarkers to avoid invasive post mortem examination would have cultural, religious, and potentially economic advantages. All of the target molecules were discussed in the context of the processes they up-regulate or down-regulate, which turned out to be the final cause of death. Ultimately, it is evident that further studies are needed to provide concrete validation for using a combination of markers for each case to reach a post mortem diagnosis with or without clinical records. Full article