Regulation on data utilization by forensic appraisal institutions is the foundation for forensic appraisal data security. There are data security risks in the  forensic appraisal in the “Four Categories”, and forensic appraisal institutions should adhere to a typological approach to identifying data security risks. The Cybersecurity Law, the Civil Code, the Data Security Law, and the Personal Information Protection Law have provided institutional guidance and basic requirements for data security by forensic appraisal institutions. The data security regulation by forensic appraisal institutions should improve the related legal system thereof, establish a data security involved supervision mechanism for forensic appraisal institutions, cultivate their awareness of data security, and improve the legal utilization of data.

At present, besides the forensic appraisal in the “Four Categories” under the management of judicial administrative departments, there are still a large number of forensic appraisal in the “other categories”. The forensic appraisal in the “other categories” have many problems such as insufficient credibility, confusion in application, contradictions with existing evidence regulations, and lack of combination of appraisal management and application. The absence of superior laws, insufficient management capabilities of judicial administrative departments,institutional constraints of the courts, and limited effectiveness in industry management have all posed challenges to the unified management of judicial administrative departments. To achieve the reform goal of unified management of forensic appraisal in the “other categories”, it is necessary to unify legislation on forensic appraisal, take gradual measures to push the unification of forensic appraisal management, strengthen industry management and improve the connection between forensic appraisal management and application.

New psychoactive substances (NPS), as the third generation of drugs after traditional drugs and synthetic drugs, are being abused globally, and have become a prominent issue of priority concern for countries around the world. Novel synthetic opioids are one of the most potentially harmful substances and have been abused increasingly, posing a serious threat to human health and public safety. As one class of novel synthetic opioids, the problem of manufacturing, smuggling and abuse of Nitazenes are becoming more and more seriously all over the world. In this paper, the basic structure, abuse and control, pharmacological and toxicological properties, metabolism and detection methods of Nitazenes were reviewed. Moreover, the development of detection technology of Nitazenes were briefly prospected, in order to provide reference for further study of Nitazenes. 

As a kind of molecular spectroscopy technology, Raman spectroscopy plays an important role in forensic document examination with the merits of quick testing and non-destructive to samples. With the development of science and technology, new techniques of Raman spectroscopy and artificial intelligence tools make it more widely used. After a brief introduction of the principle and classification of Raman spectroscopy, this paper mainly reviews the application and research progress of Raman spectroscopy in the field of forensic document examination at home and abroad in recent years, including the discrimination of inks, analysis of document formation time, identification of altered documents and inspection of special kind of documents. The authors suggested to combine Raman spectroscopy with other analytical techniques, extend testing scopes, and improve the construction of Raman spectroscopy database, to promote the development of document inspection towards a more standardized, scientific, and efficient direction.

Agricultural environmental damage appraisal is an important part of ecological environment damage appraisal. However, due to its wide appraisal range, multiple influencing factors and high technical requirements for personnel, the development of agricultural environmental damage appraisal has relatively lagged behind the development of the whole environmental damage appraisal in our country. Based on the analysis of possible non-pollution damage-causing factors (eg. disease, pest, pesticide and fertilizer) and common pollution factors (eg. heavy metals, soil salinization, atmospheric dust, microplastics and other new pollutants) in the appraisal of agricultural environmental damage, this paper systematically introduced the identification methods of non-pollution damage-causing factors and analyzed the influence of their concentration changes on the growth of agricultural plants. In the analysis of the pollution factors, in addition to the influence of pollutant concentration changes on the degree of plant damage, the descriptive indicators of the damage degree of agricultural plants caused by different pollutants were also summarized. This paper aims at providing some scientific references for the development of agricultural environment damage appraisal and promoting the formulation of relevant system and norms, so as to ultimately realize the effective protection of agro-ecological environment.

Pulmonary fat embolism (PFE) is a common secondary pathomorphological change after fracture and extensive adipose tissue injury, with an overall incidence of 82%-93% after trauma such as fracture. Due to lack of specific diagnosis through routine clinical examination and the inapparent and sudden onset of the disease, post-mortem histopathological examination is still used as the standard at present. Whether traumatic PFE is involved in death, its causal relationship with death, and the relationship between injury and disease are common issues faced in forensic practice. This review focuses on the assessment of the severity of traumatic PFE and the principles of post-mortem diagnosis. It summarizes common issues such as examination methods, orthopedic surgery, and the impact of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, in order to provide reference for forensic identification and research on traumatic PFE.

Objective The development of modern highly imitated stamp technology has brought unprecedented challenges to forensic identification of stamp impression. In order to accurately determine the nature of stamp impression characteristics and draw correct conclusions, it is necessary to understand the impression characteristics generated by different forgery methods. Methods Using Photoshop software, 20 photosensitive stamps were imitated by rubbing real impression with different graphic and textual content. The characteristics, origin, as well as the value of counterfeiting photosensitive stamp and impression were analyzed by comparing impression of imitated stamp with the ones that have been rubbed during the imitation process. Results Our results showed that imitated photosensitive stamp impressions were highly consistent with real impression, leading to significant difficulties in identification. However, the characteristics of stamp and impression were also influenced by the skills of the forger and the conditions of making the stamp, resulting in slight difference. As long as comprehensive and meticulous comparison and evaluation were performed, the accurate and reliable opinions can also be obtained. Conclusion The high similarity between the counterfeiting photosensitive stamp impression by Photoshop software and real impression requires forensic experts to observe and study the questioned stamp impression carefully. By the means of collecting high-quality and large quantity known stamp impressions and conducting comprehensive and detailed feature comparisons, forensic experts could be familiar with the method of counterfeiting stamps and understand the characteristics of stamp impression，and thus accurate and reliable identification could be achieved.

Objective Instant messaging applications provide convenient services, such as WeChat, QQ, and DingTalk, but their nature also made them a potential target by cyber criminals to conduct malicious activities. As a result, instant messaging records have become an important source of evidence in cyber investigation cases. However, research on the authenticity of instant messaging applications records is relatively scarce, which may make them lose credibility. Therefore, a method for the analysis of the authenticity of android instant messaging applications records is quite essential. Methods In combined with forensic practice, we performed a more in-depth analysis of the storage structure of instant communication records, such as the storage paths and formats of text messages, images, videos, and other data types in the device, to reveal their internal data management and storage mechanisms. Meanwhile, the authenticity of instant communication records was further explored in terms of data characteristics such as timestamps, contents of sent/received messages, and logical rationality. Results Through the study of authenticity forensics cases of Android instant messaging records, the method explored in this paper can effectively identify the tampering traces that exist in instant messaging records. Conclusion The research of related authentication techniques has theoretical research significance and practical application value. The research can provide important references for researchers engaged in digital forensics.

The standardization of forensic science in China is currently undergoing comprehensive development. One of the crucial bases for compensation in personal injury cases and a key step towards achieving a path of fairness and justice is the standardization of disability standards, which should be continuously improved in line with advances in medicine and forensic science. The current focus on refining China's disability standards emphasizes their scientific, objective, and operational aspects. Collaborations across disciplines such as medicine, psychology, and sociology contribute to a better understanding and assessment of the multifaceted nature of disabilities. Simultaneously, it is essential to place emphasis on drawing insights from international experiences to enhance the internationalization and global exchange of domestic disability assessment standards. This review analyzes disability assessment standards in North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania, exploring aspects such as applicability, characteristics, framework, and underlying principles, aiming to provide an international perspective for the development and future application of China's standards for disabilities resulting from personal injuries, offering novel insights for domestic standard enhancements.

 In recent years, with the increasing number of dangerous driving cases, the number of acquittals has also increased year by year. Among them, some of the acquittals were caused by the problem of expert opinion. In practice, the main body of the expert opinion is not qualified, the inspection is not standardized, the source of the sample is not legal, the report is overtime, the application of the identification standard is wrong, etc., often become the reason why the expert opinion is not adopted in the acquittal, which seriously affects the quality and efficiency of the processing of such cases. Therefore, it is particularly important to grasp the principles of review of expert opinions, and do a good job in the “penetrating” review of expert opinions from the aspects of source of samples, selection of blood collection vessels and disinfection reagents, qualification of appraisers and appraisal institutions, appraisal standards and methods, etc.

In the context of diversified expansion of litigation experts,“people with expertise” stipulated in the laws are actually participating in judicial process as appraisers, case-handling auxiliaries, cross-examination consultants and quasi-judicial appraisers. Among them, the traditional criminal expert assistant based on Article 197 of the Criminal Procedure Law is and should be a cross-examination consultant with limited functions. This understanding is not only supported by the doctrine of the law, but also conforms to the trend of China’s judicial system reform, respects the characteristics of the institutional environment, and meets the needs of the construction of differentiated systems. Therefore, the further improvement of the expert assistant system should adhere to its limited paradigm, that is, with the effective exercise of the cross-examination function as the goal, to build its rights protection system from three aspects: the judge’s examination of the cross-examination consultant’s application to appear in court, the clarification of the right to appear in court, and the allocation of out-of-court rights.

The judicial interpretations promulgated in recent years grant rights to people with expertise (experts) testifying in court，which has gone beyond the original intention of the procedural law, and the role positioning and opinion nature of experts need to be re-examined and defined. In order to protect the right of cross-examination, the legislation should not set obstacles for the defendant to apply for expert appearance in court. The current legislation does not require that experts testifying in court must have the qualification of appraisers, but it does not mean that experts do not need to have the conditions to reflect their professional knowledge advantages, only in this way can the opinion rule be applied. The basic function of experts participating in court hearings is to assist one party to cross-examine evidence, thus testifying is an expanded function entrusted to experts by judicial interpretation. The existing regulations lead to the ambiguity of the role of experts, and there are some restrictive factors in the process of the transition from expert assistant to expert witness, such as litigation structure and legalism of evidence. The opinions of testifying in court have a multi-layer nature of attribution, and the opinions regarding expert opinions can be understood as the refutation of evidence. The nature of expert opinions on specialized issues is similar to counterevidence, such opinions have the attribute of evidence, which can be classified into the category of specialized evidence to be cross-examined.

Uncertainty is pervasive in forensic science research, inevitable in the practice of forensic expertise, and intimately linked to the reliability of appraisal opinions. Therefore, it is imperative to use forensic statistical methods to quantify the uncertainty in forensic science so as to ensure the scientific reliability of evidence evaluation and analysis, as well as that of the results in forensic examination report. Ultimately, this will strengthen the credibility of judicial expertise. This article addresses the issue of uncertainty quantification in forensic science from the perspective of forensic statistics, categorizes the uncertainty, outlines the methods for uncertainty quantification in the procedure of evidence evaluation and analysis. Additionally, based on the concept of quantifying the likelihood ratio（LR） of the entire appraisal process, this article proposes the prerequisites and preparations for the application of the forensic statistical methods in judicial practice.