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Month: August 2017

Understanding and Evaluating Alienation in High-Conflict Custody Cases

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Since 1980, when Wallerstein and Kelly first wrote about children who refused visitation with a parent, there has been considerable controversy about this topic. Much of the controversy exploded after Gardner coined the phrase “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) in 1985. Since that time, scholars have debated whether or not there is a syndrome related to parental alienation. Some have argued that there is no syndrome and that this is mostly a creation of Gardner’s with no validity. Others have argued that PAS does exist and that it is damaging to children. Some have argued that the primary cause of children refusing to visit the other parent is found in the behavior of the alienating parent while others have argued that there are multiple causes that lead to children refusing contact with one parent. There is also significant controversy about how to deal with alienation, with some arguing for...

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Pediatric Forensic Pathology:

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Chapter 1—Pediatric Forensic Pathology: Some Background

Chapter Overview

Clinical medicine serves patients; forensic pathology serves the state to find out why its citizens die. Being involved in investigating possible crime is very different from treating patients. Medicine has developed quite a strong evidence base to its practice, and this has not been mirrored to the same extent in forensic pathology. The massive expansion in the size of the knowledge base of medicine has had implications for forensic pathology. Forensic pathology is a very small operational medical specialty; pediatric forensic pathology is a subset of cases within forensic pathology, and is not an operational specialty. Knowledge in forensic pathology evolves, not always in a uniform forward progression.

Introduction

Medicine exists to serve patients. Starting with doctors’ training as medical students, everything revolves around the patient. Doctor’s obligations to patients are central. This culture, imbued during medical training, survives intact through to the practice of virtually...

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Strangulation & Suffocation

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It is defined as a mode of violent asphyxial death which result from the constriction of the passages at the neck by any means other than the weight of the body and where there is no suspension. The constriction may be effected by (a) ligature around the neck (b) by hand i.e. by throttling (c) by squeezing between two sticks or by one stick against a hard surface. In strangulation, asphyxia plays a prominent role than in death due to hanging. In strangulation cases, the following post-mortem appearances could be seen: Face swollen and blue, lips blue, eyes opened, eyeballs bulging out, pupils dilated, tongue swollen and between the teeth, •• blood stained froth from mouth to nostrils (Photo-11).Hands clenched due to relaxation of the muscles, urine, and faeces may come out. In cases of strangulation due to ligature, the mark would be in the lower part of the neck, and is transversely circular and complete.

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Bodies Recovered From Water: A Personal Approach And Consideration Of Difficulties

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Introduction

For the pathologist providing a routine necropsy service to the local coroner, examination of bodies recovered from water can generate the most difficult of interpretational problems, and this is probably the prime context where appropriate historical and circumstantial evidence is vital to interpretation and overall conclusions,' although such collateral evidence should always be available before any coroner's necropsy is undertaken. It must be appreciated, at the outset, that not all persons whose bodies are recovered from water will have died from its inhalation, although they may show features reflecting immersion in water. Such bodies should therefore be particularly carefully examined, both externally and internally, to catalogue (and subsequently to explain satisfactorily) all injuries present, to determine whether death indeed followed immersion in the water, and to see whether any natural disease, such as ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and hypertension, may have contributed to, precipitated, or even caused death.

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Forensic II Asphyxia

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Homicides due to asphyxia are relatively uncommon. To better understand the presentation of such cases, the files of the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office were reviewed from January 1, 1985, through December 31, 1998, for all such homicides. A total of 133 cases were found. The largest category was ligature strangulation with 48 deaths (21 male, 27 female). Petechiae were present in the conjunctivae and/or sclerae in 86% of the cases; fractures of the hyoid and/or thyroid cartilage were present in 12.5%. There were a total of 41 deaths from manual strangulation (27 female, 14 male). Petechiae were present in 89% of the cases. In cases of manual strangulation, fractures of the hyoid, thyroid, or cricoid cartilage were found in all the male victims and slightly more than one half of the female victims. Twenty-six cases of suffocation were found; 20 of the victims were ≤2 years of age. Only....

See Also: Homicidal Asphyxia

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Controling Odor and Gaseous Emission Problems from Industrial Swine Facilities

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This paper addresses the complex odor issues associated with large-scale swine production in both Oklahoma and other states. It includes an overview of the nature and effects of these odors and gases, outlines the different odor-reduction technologies available to corporate swine producers, and describes existing odor and gas regulations in various states and countries and the laws that have expedited this regulatory process. Finally, this paper offers recommendations as to how neighboring communities and swine producers can move forward in the pursuit of regulating and alleviating the odor and gas problems associated with industrial swine production. Regulating the gaseous and odor problems associated with swine production is difficult because of the elusive nature of the problem itself. Because it is uncertain as to which specific swine emission is contributing to adverse public health effects, creating health based regulations would be a challenge at this time. The same is true for threshold-based odor regulations.

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Death Care Industry Regulation Varies Across States And By Industry Segment

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States vary in their approach to regulating the various segments of the death care industry. Twenty-nine states have more than 1 state organization such as a state agency, bureau, or board that are responsible for regulating all or most of the five death care industry segments, whereas 21 states rely on 1 state organization for regulating the death care industry. For example, in Florida, a board within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and a board within the Department of Financial Services are responsible for regulating segments of the death care industry. In contrast, California has a bureau within the Department of Consumer Affairs that regulates the death care industry. Further, in some states, the state regulatory organization focuses solely on the death care industry, whereas in other states, organizations also have regulatory responsibilities for other industries. For example, the Texas Funeral Service Commission focuses exclusively on regulating death care-related businesses, whereas Hawaii’s

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Differential Decomposition in Terrestrial,Freshwater, and Saltwater Environments: A PilotStudy

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The study of decomposition is essential for any forensic anthropologist for estimating postmortem interval. While surface rates of decomposition have been studied, especially in certain areas (Mann et al. 1990), the decomposition rate of bodies submerged in water has rarely been studied using controlled experiments (Haglund & Sorg 2002; Sorg et al. 1997). Most forensic anthropologists simply rely on generalizations, such as a body decomposing one week on the surface of the ground is equivalent to a body two weeks in the water (after Mann et al. 1990). In addition, there has not been much investigation into whether a saltwater environment affects decomposition differently than a freshwater environment. This differential decomposition in diverse environments, whether open-air terrestrial or in fresh or saltwater, is important to consider in Texas because there because of an abundance of freshwater lakes and rivers and the proximity of the Gulf of Mexico. This study aimed to address two questions: 1)

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Pediatric Forensic Pathology As Forensic Science: The Role Of Science And The Justice System

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Pediatric forensic pathology is a field of forensic science. As such, it shares the frailties that many forensic sciences currently share. It was created by the justice system to serve its purpose and as such is an “uneasy partner” with the justice system; uneasy because the law demands a single casual theory in order to attach responsibility for precipitating or aggravating a victim’s condition while science can never supply absolute theories but rather presents findings in terms of probabilities. Forensic results in the relatively new field of DNA analysis represent the pinnacle of the scale of probability. Probabilities can be supplied in terms that approach absolute certainty. Nevertheless, even evidence of DNA analysis cannot be presented in terms of absolute certainty. As one moves down the scale from approaching absolute certainty to uncertainty, it is ironic that the terms in which evidence is presented appear to become more certain. For instance, bite-mark comparison, which has been recently...

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Victims, Victimization and Victimology

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Who or what are victims, and what do we know about them? Such questions are disarmingly and misleadingly simple, appearing as they do to invite a straightforward factual response. In reality, however, questions relating to the concept and identity of victims are highly problematic, often controversial and generally call for highly nuanced answers. It is important to stress this at the outset because our attitudes towards victims and how they should be dealt with are likely to be shaped by the assumptions we make about them, which may not always be well founded. This applies just as much to those who advocate restorative justice approaches as the most appropriate way of dealing with victims as it does to those who are responsible for formulating other aspects of criminal justice policy, or indeed to criminal justice practitioners, those working in the media or the public at large.

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Victimization, Theories of

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The fields of criminology and criminal justice have focused, historically, on understanding criminal offending in comparison with criminal victimization. However, a variety of paradigm shifts, scientific advances, and social and political forces since the 1960s and 1970s provided a foundation from which theories of victimization emerged. For instance, in the latter half of the 20th century, a shift occurred among many scholars toward viewing “crime” as more than just the behavior of an offender. Instead, crime became increasingly viewed as a “system,” involving not only an offender but also a target or victim, as well as a time/place context that ;supports or facilitates the victimization of the target by the offender. Alongside this new paradigm, new sources of information about crime emerged, addressing limitations of data compiled from police reports (reported annually in the form of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program). Specifically, the early 1970s marked the emergence of the...

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Targets Of Predators

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When the novel The Silence of the Lambs was published, it became a best-seller. When the movie was made, it packed the theaters and received numerous Academy Awards. People flocked to the cinema to see the riveting performances of Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. The character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter was suddenly known everywhere, parodied on television comedy programs and the talk of the town. Hannibal Lecter, as portrayed by Hopkins, captured the public’s imagination. Why? Americans, Brits, and Russians, along with nearly all of the rest of the world, have made heroes out of not only fictional serial killers but the real serial killers among us. While their numerous victims lie in their graves, serial killers can still send the press into high gear. They are still remembered years after their crimes. Books, articles, and the press continue to produce copious amounts of ink, hanging on every word these killers say,

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Why a Federal Right of Publicity Statute Is Necessary

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Introduction

The time has come for a federal right of publicity statute. Because of technological advances, expressive works and advertisements are increasingly disseminated on a national, if not international, scale. Right of publicity law, however, remains entirely a creature of state law. Different states have widely divergent right of publicity laws. This divergence results in a multistate patchwork that forces national content producers to engage in self-censorship and tailor their content to the laws of states that provide the least amount of protection to free speech rights. The outsized role of Indiana’s right of publicity law provides a good example. In recent years, numerous lawsuits have been brought against non-Indiana defendants for violations of Indiana right of publicity law by celebrities and heirs of deceased celebrities who have had little or no connection to Indiana. The reason is simple. Indiana’s right of publicity statute is the most plaintiff-friendly in the nation, and it contains sweeping...

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Drug Dealing in Privately Owned Apartment Complexes

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The Problem of Drug Dealing in Privately Owned Apartment Complexes

If you have an apartment complex in your community where drug dealing is occurring, you may have found that simply making arrests has not closed the drug market. What else could be done? Why is this problem occurring? What conditions facilitate the drug market's operations, and what remedies will work best? This guidebook addresses these issues. It describes the types of drug markets found in apartment complexes and provides questions to ask when analyzing those markets. It suggests ways to encourage property owners to take more responsibility for problems. Finally, it summarizes the full range of measures you can use to address drug markets in apartment complexes.

Problem Description

Drug markets in privately owned apartment complexes are most often found in low-income areas where property owners sometimes retreat (out of fear or financial considerations) from investing in repairs and otherwise practicing effective management. In these markets,...

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China Medical University Forensic Medicine Asphyxia

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Abstract

Although China has advanced as a leading economic world power since World War II, its perinatal health outcomes, including neonatal mortality, have lagged behind those of other rapidly developing countries. Some factors behind the relatively high neonatal mortality rate include geographic challenges to providing health care in rural regions and disparities in care across different levels of hospitals. To tackle the problem of neonatal mortality, specifically to reduce birth asphyxia, key stakeholders have worked to implement the Neonatal Resuscitation Program and Helping Babies Breathe initiatives across China in the past decade. These efforts have already borne fruit in improving clinical care and are likely to provide further benefit in improving long-term outcomes.

See Also: International Perspectives: Reducing Birth Asphyxia in China by Implementing the Neonatal Resuscitation Program and Helping Babies Breathe Initiative

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Interviewing in the Bio-Pharma Industry

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How is the hiring manager assessing your technical fit for the position?

Hiring managers need to know that each candidate possesses the relevant technical skills necessary for the position. The keys to the technical questions that will be asked are in the job description. Prior to the phone interview familiarize yourself with the bullets from the required skills section of the job description. Highlight the points in the job description where you see the words required and preferred and begin thinking of examples where you have experience with those skills. Write your answers out and keep them near the phone for your call. You will be asked about the required skills set, so don’t be caught off guard about these inevitable questions. If there are required skills listed in the job description that you do not have experience with, don’t worry. Simply state that you are familiar with that skill and a quick learner, and that you are genuinely interested in developing that experience...

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