The article addresses the category of “provocation” as a forensic term that is an interdisciplinary concept in between the legal legal and linguistic concepts of “provocation”. An expert term “speech provocation” has been developed through an expert analysis where the category of “provocation” has been considered from the legal, linguistic, and expert perspectives. As a part of the consideration of the concept in the expert aspect, the relationship between the legal and linguistic categories has been established. The author concluded that as an expert linguistic term in examinations in corruption cases, the term “speech provocation for an offer/payment of a bribe” is used. In this case, the speech provocation is interpreted as a verbal act which incites one of the communicators to commit an unlawful act – to bribe. That is the linguistic contents of the phenomenon legally called “crime provocation". The article also addresses the methodological aspect of the detection of speech provocation.

Based on the expert analysis of legal norms, using the term “provocation”, the author of the paper is trying to develop an expert concept of “provocation”, which can be used in forensic psychological and comprehensive psychological and linguistic examination. It is demonstrated that the focus of a subject’s communicative activity on incitement to commit particular actions (offer, giving or getting a reward, or readiness to do so) leading to negative consequences in the form of prosecution, is such a concept. This focus expresses as a formation of a particular mental set. The development of consent or offer to commit a specific action seem to be the psychological features of the phenomenon described in law as “to incite, incline, induce, directly or indirectly, to commit unlawful acts (provocation)”. The author proposes the questions which may be put to experts when assigning an examination or a "provocation to bribe” diagnostic complex. The expediency to conduct a comprehensive psychological and linguistic expertise when investigating crimes under articles 290, 291, 291.1 of the Russian Federation’s Criminal code in cases of suspicion that illegal actions resulted from entrapment is justified.

Problems of detecting sweat and grease deposits on porous surfaces are common for forensic practice, and usually, they are successfully resolved with the help of chemical methods. Meanwhile, the interaction process in the system “porous surface – deposit – chemical agent" concerning clarification and identification of the trends within chemical reaction is not reviewed in literature sufficiently. For more comprehensive research of this process, the authors of the article have conducted multiple experiments on the ninhydrin reaction with the sweat and grease of the deposits, analyzed the interaction of the chemical agent with the sweat and grease, with the properties of porous (paper) materials using electron microscopy, and also looked into the display features of pore and edgeoscopic signs in the deposits under different storage conditions.

As a result of the research, it is shown that such parameters of deposits carriers (paper) as porosity and hydrophilic properties and ambient humidity as well as the time of storage have a significant influence on the process of detecting the sweat and grease deposits on porous surfaces and their quality.

The article addresses the capacity of infrared spectroscopy to determine the strength of alcoholcontaining liquids. The method is based on calculating the ratio of optical densities of the characteristic bands of alcohol and water (D₁₀₄₅/D₁₆₅₀) and determining the volume fraction of ethyl alcohol in the liquid according to the calibration graph plotted in advance. The proposed method does not require sample preparation. It allows us to work with a small volume of the investigated liquid when it is impossible to use standard methods for determining the volume fraction of ethyl alcohol (pycnometric, areometric). Infrared spectra are registered on the equipment typical for forensic institutions of the Ministry of Justice of Russia – an IR-Fourier spectrometer using an attachment for liquid samples or an IR-spectrometer with impaired total internal reflection attachment. The proposed method for determining the strength of alcohol-containing liquids is also suitable for liquids containing flavoring agents and coloring substances and does not require preliminary sample preparation such as distillation. The inaccuracy of determination of ethyl alcohol’s volume fraction in a liquid by the proposed method is ± 5 % rel.

Collecting phaleristics is quite a common hobby in all countries. The cost of awards, medals, and other items of phaleristics is determined by their rarity, condition, manufacturing complexity, presence of precious metals and stones.

Forensic research of phaleristics for estimation differs from their appraisal by collectors themselves, appraisers of antique trade organizations, pawnshops, and auctioneers in the legal significance of the costing for interested parties. It is conducted according to the methodology of forensic commodity research to determine the market value of objects of various product groups; besides, there is a need to establish authenticity for certain types of products.

The article presents an algorithm for forensic appraisal of phaleristic objects. It is shown that state awards of the USSR, RSFSR, and the Russian Federation do not have market cost according to the current Russian legislation as they are removed from the civil circulation. For these items, only the cost of the precious metals used in their production can be established. This cost is determined according to the methodology approved by the Russian Ministry of Finance.

The article analyses errors when appointing and conducting a forensic examination of disputes related to children’s upbringing. When summarizing expert practice in this category of civil cases (based on the study of 97 expert opinions on forensic psychological examination), the most significant errors were identified: incorrect determination of the type of expertise (including the appointment of psychological and pedagogical expertise which does not have a methodological basis as forensic examination), non-compliance with the qualification requirements to a forensic expert and, as a result, the introduction of an improper subject of forensic expert activity into the judicial process, an expert’s going beyond the limits of specialized knowledge and procedural powers, the incompleteness of research, the use of invalid research methods and techniques, and other methodological violations, associated with the incorrect assessment of the results of psychological diagnostics, inaccurate phenomenological analysis of essential phenomena of child-parent relations.

Considering that due to the facts to be proved are essential for deciding on a case, the expert’s opinion is of particular importance and can significantly affect the formation of the court’s inner conviction, which means that expert errors significantly increase the risk of judicial errors. The article substantiates the urgent necessity of the early enactment of a legal act regulating experts’ responsibility for the level of their qualifications and setting professional requirements to experts.

The article addresses the issues of the particular terminology for fire forensic investigations. Definitions for the basic parameters of a fire hazardous area, determining its susceptibility to ignition, and their relationship to the impulses initiating such areas’ combustion are analyzed.

Two main tasks of forensic fire examinations are reviewed: establishing the technical cause of a fire, its organizational cause, and consequences. The author gives definitions for these tasks and the term “ignition source”.

The paper’s relevance stems from the need to prevent mistakes in terminology when conducting a forensic fire investigation. The article may be of use for practicing experts and specialists in fire forensics’ theory and practice.

The article focuses on the present state of digital forensics and its potential when investigating different types of crimes with a “digital” element. It also presents a brief historical overview of the development of digital forensics as an independent type of forensic examination, its theoretical framework.

The paper presents a summary of the practice of the Laboratory of Digital Forensics of the Russian Federal Centre of Forensic Science of the Russian Ministry of Justice over 2017–2019. In the course of the summary, the author analyses typical questions to experts, the percentage of cases’ categories, the most common objects of the expertise, and experts’ opinions, their form, and completeness. Following the summary’s results, the most frequent investigators’ requests for this kind of examination have been highlighted. Also, typical errors at appointing the expertise have been revealed.

The author presents a prognosis for the further development of digital forensics and proposes strategies and measures to minimize the errors at the appointment of the examinations and unsustainable expenditure of resources in appointment and conduct of this type of research.

The article analyses legal regulations of a forensic investigation into intellectual property o jects regarding the appointment of examinations of trademarks and service marks. The matter of necessity of specialized knowledge to conduct such investigations is addressed as well as current expert and judicial practice in this field. The author notes that forensic analysis of trade and service marks should be carried out as a part of a comprehensive examination in complex cases. The investigation should also include a sociological study.

It is shown that the training of state forensic experts in the Russian Ministry of Justice system for intellectual property forensics, among other things to assess its value, will provide fully competent, unbiased, and independent experts and specialists in the field. The author proposes acknowledging and adding to the List of types of forensic examinations conducted in the Federal budget forensic institutions of the Russian Ministry of Justice the new type of forensic examinations – “Intellectual Property Forensics”.

The article discusses the fundamentals of traceological forensic analysis of visual artworks within both the framework of forensic traceological examination and comprehensive forensic research with the participation of expert-traceologists. Works of art are investigated to identify them, diagnose their condition, and establish the origin of various negative changes. Forensic traceology methods can play an essential role in the controversial attributions of paintings, drawings, and sculptures. The necessity and feasibility of developing a modern forensic traceological research methodology of fine artworks are substantiated.

Paper is a multi-component material based on plant fibers, technologically joined together into a sheet. Studying paper tasks are assigned to specialists in the forensic-technical examination of documents, to chemists and materials scientists. Examination of paper can be a sub-task to address specific questions set to other types of expertise. Meanwhile, there is not enough attention to this problem in the specialized literature. There are some publications in various compilations or small sections in works devoted to documents’ materials study. Some of the works that reveal the features of the analysis of the materials science characteristics of paper have been written by the paper industry’s technologists and are far from forensic examinations’ specifics and methodological foundations.

The article’s main objective is to demonstrate the need for new scientific studies and methodological developments in the forensic-technical examination of documents. The article describes the range of tasks solved by this type of examination, identifies the main opportunities for paper studies.

The article is devoted to Alexander A. Gusev’s work as a scientist and practitioner in forensic portrait examination, whose 100^th anniversary will be celebrated in November 2020.

The author gives a brief description of A.A. Gusev’s Ph.D. thesis, the theme of which was physical identification of a person. He defended the thesis in 1955. An annotation is provided for a technique he devised for forensic examinations for the physical identification of a person in 1960. A brief description of A.A. Gusev’s subsequent activities on the development of methodological support for the production of forensic portrait examinations and their practical implementation is given.