Search

Permanent facial scars cause serious trauma because the person has to live with a scar which s/he cannot easily hide. Conspicuous scar tissue will have a negative impact on psychology depending on how much importance they give to their appearance. Because of this reason, it is evaluated as an aggravated form of punishment in Turkish Criminal Law. In this study, image processing software was used for the quantitative analysis of facial scars. The scar photographs were taken, and the relative colour difference of the scar region was measured concerning the nearby healthy area. The scar’s physical properties, such as the length and the surface area, were measured by processing the photographs in software. An evaluation of 100 cases showed that the relative color difference rate of 15% is critical for deciding the conspicuousness of permanent facial scar. Above this rate, the facial scar is visible by the naked eye without affecting any factors such as the physicians’ visual acuity, attention, and experience. Otherwise, the scar’s length and the surface area must also be evaluated for a correct decision about the conspicuousness of a permanent facial scar.

The use of psychoactive substances of fungal origin for recreational purposes has become an increasing problem in many countries all over the world. These fungis known as magic mushrooms can be grown wildly however their cultural products has been marketing more often. If their wild products are mistakenly collected and eaten by someone, there is not any infringement of law. Whereas marketing of their cultural products at any form such as fresh, dried, powered or capsulated causes legal responsibility. Because, psilocybin and psilocin are listed as Schedule I drugs under the United Nations 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances as well as they are listed as psycho-active substances according to the 19 th. paragraph of the act numbered 2313 in Turkey. Recently, instead of ready to use mushrooms, mushroom spores, mushroom growing kits, and spawn bags have been marketed by internet to grow own mushroom at home. At this study, two cases who ordered mushroom growing kit from internet are presented. These growing kits which contain soil, mushroom seeds, fertilizer, and grains are seizured by customers. Even though these materials are assumed as mushroom plantation as is seizured, there isn’t any prohibition of these action in Turkish laws and regulations. Illegal plantation of cannabis and opium poppy are merely regulated as a criminal offense in Turkish Law. Therefore, there is a real need to close regulation gaps. It is underlined at the expert witness report that the seizured material has became a psilocin containing magic mushroom in approximately 10 days at the convinient condition. However, it does’nt contain psilocin as is seizured condition. Therefore, the procurement of this material by perpetrator should be evaluated as a preparatory activity of narcotic substance production crime, instead of execution activity.The procurement of this material per se could not be accepted as an attempt to produce narcotic substance, because it is unpredictable whether it grows to psilocin containing magic mushroom. On the contrary, it is accepted that the stage is an attempt to produce narcotic substance when the plant is proliferated in convenient condition.

Over the years there has been numerous problems both in the assessment and percent calculation of disability in Turkey. It seems that the problem of assessment arise from incomplete or wrong determination of malfunction of the injured area. It is therefore essential that forensic examiners follow a method of calculation that is fair both to the victim and employer. The purpose of this study is to present an epidemiology of personal injury leading to disability and illustrate how a percent, age is calculated correctly. The sample is composed of all individuals with occupational injuries who were examined to determine individual percent disability by the Third Specialization Board of the Council of Forensic Medicine during 1994 to 1998. There werel39 people. 135 of them were males, 4 were females. Results indicate that the age group with the greatest number of trauma was in 29-33 years. The most common injury was in the pelvis and lower extremity (31%) and a loss of orthopedic function (e.g., shortening of a leg) was seen in 45% of the group. Of the total percent disability, the highest frequency was in the 10-25% group (32%). Comparatively, the present study shows a number of similarities to previous studies in terms of sex distribution, anatomic location and percentage of injuries. While there are epidemiological similarities, the percent disability calculation presented in the study is a technique that seems to provide the best result that can be employed by other forensic experts.Key words: Disability, Determination of disability, Occupational injury.