Homicide, suicide, or accident? Complex differential diagnosis. A case series.

Distinguishing between homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths remains a challenging task. The examination of actual cases, which involve a multitude of variables, significantly contributes to our understanding of these matters. In this context, we present three distinct cases that required the involvement of various specialists to conduct a thorough analysis of the manner of death. In the first case, the integration of on-site inspection, autopsy, radiological, and kinematic data enabled the identification of a homicidal death. In the second case, the combination of circumstantial evidence, autopsy findings, toxicological analysis, and meteorological data revealed an atypical accidental death resulting from an attempted suicide. In the third case, radiological findings, supplemented with criteria from forensic science, indicated an accidental manner of death. In all reported cases, a multidisciplinary approach played a pivotal role in the differential diagnosis of the manner of death.

Amplified spontaneous emission from opal photonic crystals engineered with structural defects.

In this work, we report on the optical properties and amplified spontaneous emissions (ASE) of polystyrene opals engineered with planar structural defects containing a conjugated polymer emitter. Defects in opals give rise to allowed states inside the photonic stop band, which are probed by transmittance and reflectance spectroscopy. The emission spectrum of the polymer embedded in the defect layer is strongly modified and fingerprints of defect states located inside the stop band are recognized. Amplified spontaneous emission for these engineered photonic crystals is clearly observed.