Publications by authors named "Damian Simona"

Background: Identifying skeletal remains has been and will remain a challenge for forensic experts and forensic anthropologists, especially in disasters with multiple victims or skeletal remains in an advanced stage of decomposition. This study examined the performance of two machine learning (ML) algorithms in predicting the person's sex based only on the morphometry of L1-L5 lumbar vertebrae collected recently from Romanian individuals. The purpose of the present study was to assess whether by using the machine learning (ML) techniques one can obtain a reliable prediction of sex in forensic identification based only on the parameters obtained from the metric analysis of the lumbar spine.

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Blast injuries have a unique ability to cause acute harm to multiple individuals simultaneously. The severity and mechanism of injury depend on factors such as distance, released kinetic energy, material properties, affected area, and available protective measures. The resulting explosion wave can cause a range of injuries, from superficial to internal, and potentially lifethreatening.

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Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is a lethal acute hyperglycemic complication of diabetes mellitus (DM) and it represents the initial manifestation of DM in about 15-20% of cases in adults and about 30-40% of cases in children. Postmortem diagnosis of DKA can only be made by applying thanatochemistry. Biochemistry applied postmortem is viewed with skepticism by many practitioners in the forensic field, completely lacking in many forensic services around the world, and especially in the national ones.

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In forensic medicine, the postmortem determination of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) helps identify undiagnosed cases of diabetes or cases with uncontrolled glycemic status. In order to contribute to the solidification of thanatochemistry, both globally and especially nationally, we aimed to determine this biomarker postmortem, for the first time in our institution, in order to identify undiagnosed pre-mortem diabetics, as well as those with inadequate glycemic control. Our research consisted of analyzing a total number of 180 HbA1c values, 90 determinations from the peripheral blood and 90 from the central blood.

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Carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen cyanide (HCN) are two common toxic products of combustion. HCN concentrations of fire victims are not routinely determined in most legal medicine services in Romania. We present the case of a room fire victim in which we evaluated the concentrations of HCN and carboxyhemoglobin (COHb), their contribution to the mechanism of death, and the possibility that HCN concentration can be interpreted as vital sign.

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For centuries children were considered "mini-adults". Together with expressing the need to educate children and putting a stop to their integration in the work field from the earliest years the 19th century also displayed a new image of the child, which clearly separates him from the adults. In this paper the authors analyze the Romanian legislation addressing juvenile delinquency in criminal temporal evolution.

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Unlabelled: Autopsy has been for centuries part of medical education, providing benefits to medical students in terms of knowledge, skills, and development of respect, empathy and compassion.

Aim: To evaluate the utility of autopsy in medical education based on the opinions and attitudes of medical students.

Material And Methods: A questionnaire was applied to 219 medical students.

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Unlabelled: Romanian Government Decision (GD) No. 8/2012 amending and supplementing GD No. 144/2010 regarding the function and organization structures of the Ministry of Health defines health technology assessment (HTA) as "a systematic and multidisciplinary analysis of the existing and new medical technologies, through which medical, economic, social, ethical and organizational information are synthesized so that medical technologies to be used in a transparent and unbiased manner".

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For centuries, death has been defined, medically speaking, as the irreversible cessation of breathing and of nervous and cardiac activity. What radically changed this definition was the introduction of the concept "brain death" in 1968, by the "Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School". According to it, the irreversible coma was associated with brain death and considered to be a criterion for the diagnosis of the deceased individual.

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Article Synopsis
  • Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is the most common enzyme deficiency worldwide, primarily causing severe neonatal jaundice and anemia, but patients can be asymptomatic.
  • The study aimed to clarify the genetic deficiencies in a family with hyperbilirubinemia by using various analytical techniques, including G6PD activity tests and molecular analysis of the UGT1A promoter for associated mutations.
  • Findings indicated that hyperbilirubinemia may result not only from G6PD deficiency but also from mutations related to Gilbert's syndrome, highlighting the importance of testing both genes before certain drug treatments to avoid adverse effects.
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Usually statistical analysis of medical and social data consists the final product of the research activity, the mean values, percentages, deviations etc. being an important information to share with other researchers. This paper shows the alternate possibility, using the statistical analysis to discover conclusions not so obvious from the available data.

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