Building and factory fires pose a great risk to human and environmental health, due to the release of hazardous by-products of combustion.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/deg-35.html  These hazardous compounds can dissipate into the environment through fire water run-off, and the impact can be immediate or chronic. Current laboratory-based methods do not report hazardous compounds released from a fire scene at the time and location of the event. Reporting of results is often delayed due to the complexities and logistics of laboratory-based sampling and analysis. These delays pose a risk to the health and wellbeing of the environment and exposed community. Recent developments in person-portable instrumentation have the potential to provide rapid analysis of samples in the field. A portable gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) was evaluated for the on-site analysis of water samples for the identification of hazardous organic compounds at fire scenes. The portable GC-MS was capable of detecting and identifying a range of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds in fire water run-off, and can be used in conjunction with conventional laboratory analysis methods for a comprehensive understanding of hazardous organics released at fire scenes. Deployment of this portable instrumentation provides first responders with a rapid, on-site screening tool to appropriately manage the run-off water from firefighting activities. This ensures that environmental and human health is proactively protected.Recent advancements in person-portable instrumentation have resulted in the potential to provide contemporaneous results through rapid in-field analyses. These technologies can be utilised in emergency response scenarios to aid first responders in appropriate site risk assessment and management. Large metropolitan fires can pose great risk to human and environmental health due to the rapid release of hazardous compounds into the atmosphere. Understanding the release of these hazardous organics is critical in understanding their associated risks. Person-portable gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was evaluated for its potential to provide rapid on-site analysis for real-time monitoring of hazardous organic compounds at fire scenes. Air sampling and analysis methods were developed for scenes of this nature. Controlled field testing demonstrated that the portable GC-MS was able to provide preliminary analytical results on the volatile organic compounds present in air samples collected from both active and extinguished fires. In-field results were confirmed using conventional laboratory-based air sampling and analysis procedures. The deployment of portable instrumentation could provide first responders with a rapid on-site assessment tool for the appropriate management of scenes, thereby ensuring environmental and human health is proactively protected and scientifically informed decisions are made for the provision of timely advice to stakeholders.The objective of this study was to evaluate the main characteristics of adult male offenders convicted of rape or aggravated rape against adult females. We reviewed all convictions (n = 21) based on court documents from the District Court, the Court of Appeal and information from the Swedish Tax Agency in Malmö, Sweden, between 2013 and 2018. The findings indicated that the most common offender characteristics were a single status, mean age of 33 years and foreign background. The rapes primarily occurred within a private setting while the victims (who were often younger and knew the offender) were unconscious. Although assumptions based on these results should be made with caution, our findings provide a clear image of the typical circumstances under which these rapes occurred. This study should be viewed as a first attempt to create a database of characteristics of convicted rapists. As more data are added, more sophisticated analyses can be performed and stronger generalizations may be made. Information of this kind may also be important for further research, classification of rapists in offender profiling, and case linking.Semen stain is one of the most important biological evidence at sexual crime scenes. Age estimation of human semen stains plays an important role in forensic work, and it is rarely studied due to lack of well-established methods. In this study, the technique called attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) coupled with advanced chemometric methods was employed to determine the age of semen stains on three different substrates glass slides, tissues and fabric made of regenerated cellulose fibres up to 6 d. Partial least squares regression (PLSR) was used in conjunction with spectral analysis for age estimation, and the results generated high R2 values (cross-validation 0.81, external validation 0.74) but a narrow margin of error for root mean square error (RMSE) (RMSE of cross-validation 0.77 d, RMSE of prediction 1.02 d). Additionally, our results indicated the robustness of PLSR model was not weaken by the influence of different substrates in this study. Our results indicate that ATR-FTIR, combined with chemometric methods, shows great potential as a convenient and efficient tool for age estimation of semen stains. Moreover, the method could be applied to routine forensic investigations in the future.Sexual assault evidence often contains sperm cells, which are typically separated from nonsperm cells using manual differential lysis procedures. The goal of this study was to evaluate the automated QIAGEN QIAcube for this purpose and to compare it to manual QIAGEN and manual organic differential methods using DNA yields and STR profile data for assessment. DNA yields were determined by qPCR, followed by multiplex STR amplification, CE analysis, and mixture interpretation. The automated method was capable of effective cell separation, producing DNA yields sufficient for STR amplification. Further, sperm fraction humanmale DNA ratios from the QIAcube samples were consistently closer to the desired 11 and STR profiles were less likely to result in mixtures, with 6-8× fewer female alleles detected (median 1.5 alleles). Ultimately, using the QIAcube for automated differential processing of semen-containing mixtures reduces the need for downstream mixture interpretation and improves STR profile quality with substantially less hands-on time.