Adulteration of foods and beverages with drugs and poisons has frequently occurred with or without intention in various incidents, and has therefore been one of the most important subjects in forensic science. The purpose of this study was to develop a simple, rapid and accurate screening method for allegedly adulterated foods and beverages using probe electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (PESI-MS) with a simple pretreatment procedure. Seven dishwashing detergents, four pesticides and four sleeping pills were selected as foreign substances, which were added to four kinds of beverages: barley tea, sports drink, carbonated beverage and milk tea. These simulation samples were subjected to PESI-MS to investigate the optimal analytical conditions for effective detections of foreign substances. A two-fold dilution of the samples with 2-propanol was adopted as pretreatment for PESI-MS to achieve higher sensitivity. As a result, surfactants, which are the main ingredients in dishwashing detergents, were detected with high sensitivity. The main ingredients were undetectable for some of the pesticides and sleeping pills analyzed; however, coexisting additives like surfactants or lactose were detected with high sensitivity indicating that the tested beverage had been adulterated by a foreign substance. Background subtraction of the reference beverage mass spectra from those of the samples also enabled clearer and more reliable determination of the adulterants. The presented PESI-MS method enables accurate screening in two minutes per sample with only a very simple pretreatment, applicable for large-scale screening of adulterants in foods and beverages. This method can serve as an extremely effective screening tool in combination with confirmatory instrumental analysis methods for identifying foreign products.

 Many unidentified bodies are expected to be discovered during a major disaster. Therefore it is necessary to establish a technique of identity estimation from the DNA of the dead person. Y-STR haplotype is genetically same among male relatives unless a genetical mutation occurs, and it is expected that the same Y-STR haplotype tends to be distributed in nearby residential areas. In this study, we analyzed Y-STR haplotypes and Y-haplogroups from 1,702 samples mainly collected from Miyazaki Prefecture to examine whether the geographic origin can be estimated. Y-haplogroup tended to be distributed differently between inside and outside of Miyazaki Prefecture. Some specific Y-STR haplotypes were intensively distributed in the southern and northern parts of Miyazaki Prefecture. These findings are thought to lead to the construction of a geographic origin estimation system in Miyazaki Prefecture, and are expected to be used in disaster victim identifications and criminal investigations in the future.

　The forensic identification of cannabis is performed by a combination of chemical analysis and morphological examination. Recently, molecular biological analysis using cannabis DNA information has been noticed as a new approach. In this study, the cannabis DNA detection kit using a DNA chromatography chip was developed, and the demonstration evaluation in the forensic chemical laboratory was carried out.

　The DNA detection kit of a “four-line version” which had the function to distinguish fiber-type from drug-type cannabis showed as high accuracy (98.3%) as the current identification method on cannabis identification. However, there was a tendency to mistake a part of the drug-type samples as “fiber-type cannabis”. In the kit of a “three-line version” which was specialized for the cannabis DNA detection, the accuracy of 99.0% was confirmed on the cannabis identification. There were no false positives throughout all evaluations. In addition, some of the combustion residues that could not be identified as cannabis by the current identification method were classified to be “cannabis positive” by the DNA detection kit, indicating the effectiveness of a new approach.

　As a result of this study, it was shown that the quick and accurate cannabis DNA analysis could be carried out by the DNA detection kit even by analytical chemists who didn't have expertise in molecular biology.

　Saliva is often left at crime scenes and its identification can prove useful in investigating criminal cases such as sexual assault. In this study, we developed a reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) procedure for detection of STATH and HTN3 as markers characteristic of saliva, using the QuantStudio 5 real-time PCR system (QS5). Discrimination criteria were then proposed and evaluated on the specificity, sensitivity, and applicability to forensic casework. The assay performance of QS5 was nearly identical to that of the SmartCycler II system (SCII), which has been discontinued. Our proposed cutoff cycle quantification (Cq) values for the positive detection of saliva were Cq<40, 38, and 40 for ACTB, STATH, and HTN3, respectively. The cutoff ΔCq value for STATH was also set at 12. When the proposed criteria were applied, the developed procedure showed higher specificity for saliva compared with conventional presumptive or confirmatory tests. Detection sensitivity was comparable to that of SCII but lower than that of α-amylase activity-based presumptive tests. An evaluation was then made using saliva samples under various storage conditions and mock casework samples. Unfortunately, positive results were difficult to obtain from saliva samples stored for long periods. Cq values of the analyzed genes were increased in samples stored under high humidity and temperature conditions, although ΔCq values for STATH and HTN3 were unchanged. In contrast, ΔCq values were significantly increased in saliva samples collected from a licked body surface, depending on the collection time. Positive results were obtained from saliva stains mixed with 10 times the volume of other body fluids, even though Cq and ΔCq values were drastically changed. In conclusion, the developed RT-PCR procedure has higher specificity and lower sensitivity for saliva, suggesting its potential effectiveness for more precisely identifying saliva when performed in conjunction with current presumptive and confirmative saliva tests.

 We investigated the burning properties of commonly used wooden panel flooring, carpet on flooring and styrofoam tatami, which were burned with liquid fuel gasoline or kerosene. We also confirmed how long detector tubes are able to detect ignitable liquid on the burnt floorings. We obtained the following results:

(1) At early stage of combustions, no distinct difference in burning properties was observed between flooring materials.

(2) When the liquid fuel was spilled on the wooden panel flooring, the liquid fuel moved underneath through the joints of the panels, therefore the fuel was easier to remain than other floor materials.

(3) The detector tubes were able to detect gasoline up to 4 weeks and kerosene up to 2 months after being extinguished.

 Pull-up reduction feature (PUR) has been available since the update of the Data Collection Software version to 4. There is concern that data obtained from utilizing PUR might have some impact on the review and interpretation in STR typing by forensic biologists, because PUR changes the height of peaks under specific conditions. In this study, we first investigated the amount of reduction in peak height by PUR, then impact of PUR on remarkable peaks (e.g., an artifact comprised of a stutter peak and pull-up) was investigated. Fundamentally, the amount of reduction in peak height between PUR disable and enable showed a positive correlation with the parent peak height except for fluorescent dye red to purple. It was also confirmed that PUR functioned against the stutter peak shared with pull-up and irregular shape peak due to detected on the edge of an allele peak. For the mixture sample, the PUR impacted the minor contributor's allele peak which up to approximately 23.1% of the parent peak. Our data showed that the characteristics of PUR in reviewing artifacts and interpreting the STR typing should be taken into consideration.

　Supported liquid extraction (SLE) is commonly used to avoid emulsion formation; however, it takes a long time to concentrate the eluate and it is difficult to use in multiple samples. To solve these problems, automation of SLE has been previously reported, but no paper has reported the automation of the entire pretreatment operation in one apparatus. Therefore, we applied ATLAS-LEXT, an automated pretreatment apparatus developed to fully automate liquid-liquid extraction (LLE), to SLE and investigated the full automation of the pretreatment operation in a blood drug analysis. Blood samples containing 18 benzodiazepines and 16 other psychotropic drugs were pretreated with ATLAS-LEXT and analyzed using liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS). For all benzodiazepines tested, the calibration curves showed good linearity within the range of 10-500 ng/mL, and the recovery rate was ≥79%. For the other psychotropic drugs, the calibration curve showed good linearity within the range of 10-500 ng/mL, although the recovery rate was low for some analytes. In conclusion, the present study suggests that ATLAS-LEXT is useful for the pretreatment of blood samples for drug analysis using SLE, which has been impossible to fully be automated until now.

　So-called “Ecstasy tablets” are tablets which are expected to contain 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). However, they often contain different drugs such as methamphetamine (MA) and 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine (2C-B). A combination of Simon's reagent and Marquis reagent has been used as a field test for Ecstasy tablets in Japan. We examined the test performance for Ecstasy tablets. Mixtures of MDMA hydrochloride and lactose (1 or 5 mg), mixtures of MDMA hydrochloride and cellulose (1 mg) as well as pulverized Ecstasy tablets (1 mg) [main drugs: MDMA (n=39, 8.4 to 79.9% as MDMA hydrochloride), MA (n=9, 0.1 to 59.0% as MA hydrochloride), and 2C-B (n=6, 4.5 to 13.0% as 2C-B hydrochloride)] were placed on a white spot plate; then, the reagents were dropped. The color change was recorded by a digital camera. When 1 mg of the mixture of MDMA hydrochloride and the diluent was used, the lowest MDMA hydrochloride concentration giving positive was 25%, except when the combination of Simon's reagent and the mixture of MDMA hydrochloride and cellulose (1%) was used. When increasing the sample amount to 5 mg, enhancement of coloration for Marquis reagent was weaker than that for Simon's reagent because of the low sample solubility. All MDMA tablets was positive to Simon's reagent; however, 5 MDMA tablets, whose MDMA concentration was low (≤16.5% as MDMA hydrochloride), was negative for the Marquis reagent. Only 1 MA tablet (59% as MA hydrochloride) was positive for both tests. All 2C-B tablets were judged as negative for the Marquis reagent because of faint color change and influence of tablet color. We concluded that a combination of both reagents i) had acceptable sensitivity for MDMA tablets but may give some false negative results and ii) had insufficient sensitivity for MA tablets and 2C-B tablets. This study will provide useful information about the field test for Ecstasy tablets.

　Within-series variations in physiological activities during the concealed information test (CIT) systematically differ depending on knowledgeable and unknowledgeable conditions. This study focused on the quantification of such variations by using first-order difference of items in pre- and post-stimulus physiological measures. For a laboratory CIT data (n=21) including both knowledgeable and unknowledgeable conditions, first-order differences were calculated for skin conductance response (SCR) and pre- and post- stimulus phases of skin conductance level (SCL) and normalized pulse volume (NPV). Two types of effect size were calculated for each question item as a summary statistics: The first type based on a difference between a given item and other items and the other based on a difference between items presented before a given item and those presented afterward. Detection efficiencies of these measures were estimated using areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) contrasting recognized item and non-recognized items. AUC indicated that first order differences produced significant recognized versus non-recognized differentiation, but their efficiencies were generally somewhat lower than a more conventional approach using raw values. Similar tendencies were replicated in another dataset. These results suggest that within series variations of pre- and post-stimulus physiological activities provide additional information for examining the physiological differences in the CIT.

 A spectroscopic system that enables ordinary microscopes to measure spectra was developed. This system was applied to single fiber analysis and successfully measured the micro-absorption spectra, polarized micro-absorption spectra, and micro-fluorescence spectra. All the spectra showed good sensitivity and reproducibility, and the obtained spectra were substantially equivalent to those measured with commercially available instruments. By means of the developed system in this study, the color information of fibers can be obtained as spectra, which results in more precise and objective discrimination of fibers that have similar colors. This system can easily be attached to various existing microscopes without any modifications, and will improve their performance.