Penis size: Survey of female perceptions of sexual satisfaction

BACKGROUND: Does the size of the male penis, in terms of length or width, make a difference in female sexual satisfaction? METHOD: To study the effect of penis width vs. length on female sexual satisfaction, 50 sexually active female undergraduate students were asked which felt better, i. e., was penis width or length more important for their sexual satisfaction. RESULTS: None reported they did not know, or that width and length were equally satisfying. A large majority, 45 of 50, reported width was more important (p < .001). CONCLUSION: Implications are discussed, including the fact that the data seem to contradict Masters and Johnson about penis size having no physiological effect on female sexual satisfaction

Limits to Poisson's ratio in isotropic materials

A long-standing question is why Poisson's ratio v nearly always exceeds 0.2 for isotropic materials, whereas classical elasticity predicts v to be between -1 to 1/2. We show that the roots of quadratic relations from classical elasticity divide v into three possible ranges: -1 < v <= 0, 0 <= v <= 1/5, and 1/5 <= v < 1/2. Since elastic properties are unique there can be only one valid set of roots, which must be 1/5 <= v < 1/2 for consistency with the behavior of real materials. Materials with Poisson's ratio outside of this range are rare, and tend to be either very hard (e.g., diamond, beryllium) or porous (e.g., auxetic foams); such substances have more complex behavior than can be described by classical elasticity. Thus, classical elasticity is inapplicable whenever v < 1/5, and the use of the equations from classical elasticity for such materials is inappropriate.Comment: Physical Review B, in pres

''Sex changes'? Paradigm shifts in 'sex' and 'gender' following the gender recognition act?'

Gender transformations are normatively understood as somatic, based on surgical reassignment, where the sexed body is aligned with the gender identity of the individual through genital surgery - hence the common lexicon 'sex change surgery'. We suggest that the UK Gender Recognition Act 2004 challenges what constitutes a 'sex change' through the Act's definitions and also the conditions within which legal 'recognition' is permitted. The sex/gender distinction, (where sex normatively refers to the sexed body, and gender, to social identity) is demobilised both literally and legally. This paper discusses the history of medico-socio-legal definitions of sex have been developed through decision making processes when courts have been faced with people with gender variance and , in particular, the implications of the Gender Recognition Act for our contemporary legal understanding of sex. We ask, and attempt to answer, has 'sex' changed

Exponential Barycenters of the Canonical Cartan Connection and Invariant Means on Lie Groups

International audienceWhen performing statistics on elements of sets that possess a particular geometric structure, it is desirable to respect this structure. For instance in a Lie group, it would be judicious to have a notion of a mean which is stable by the group operations (composition and inversion). Such a property is ensured for Riemannian center of mass in Lie groups endowed with a bi-invariant Riemannian metric, like compact Lie groups (e.g. rotations). However, bi-invariant Riemannian metrics do not exist for most non compact and non-commutative Lie groups. This is the case in particular for rigid-body transformations in any dimension greater than one, which form the most simple Lie group involved in biomedical image registration. In this paper, we propose to replace the Riemannian metric by an affine connection structure on the group. We show that the canonical Cartan connections of a connected Lie group provides group geodesics which are completely consistent with the composition and inversion. With such a non-metric structure, the mean cannot be defined by minimizing the variance as in Riemannian Manifolds. However, the characterization of the mean as an exponential barycenter gives us an implicit definition of the mean using a general barycentric equation. Thanks to the properties of the canonical Cartan connection, this mean is naturally bi-invariant. We show the local existence and uniqueness of the invariant mean when the dispersion of the data is small enough. We also propose an iterative fixed point algorithm and demonstrate that the convergence to the invariant mean is at least linear. In the case of rigid-body transformations, we give a simple criterion for the global existence and uniqueness of the bi-invariant mean, which happens to be the same as for rotations. We also give closed forms for the bi-invariant mean in a number of simple but instructive cases, including 2D rigid transformations. For general linear transformations, we show that the bi-invariant mean is a generalization of the (scalar) geometric mean, since the determinant of the bi-invariant mean is the geometric mean of the determinants of the data. Finally, we extend the theory to higher order moments, in particular with the covariance which can be used to define a local bi-invariant Mahalanobis distance

The Semiotic Fractures of Vulnerable Bodies: Resistance to the Gendering of Legal Subjects

While the turn to vulnerability in law responds to a recurrent critique by feminist scholars on the disembodiment of legal personhood, this article suggests that the mobilization of vulnerability in the criminal courts does not necessarily offer female drug mules a direct path to justice. Through an analysis of sentencing appeals of female drug mules in England and Wales, this article presents a feminist critique of the dispositif of the person and its relation to vulnerability. Discourses on drug mules’ vulnerability mobilize the trope of the colonial victim in need of protection, which is often translated into legal mercy. But mercy is rather an expression of biopower which inscribes not only fragility onto the bodies of drug mules by figuring them as exemplar paradigms of colonial subjectivity, but also reinvigorates the dispositif of gender implicit in the legal person. In this set-up, it would appear as if law and politics totalize the registers of life, in this case the contours of vulnerable body. The article suggests we must revisit the image of the wounded body in order to carve out a space for resistance. Drawing on Elaine Scarry and Judith Butler, it suggests vulnerable bodies are marked by a semiotic openness, which renders them subject to appropriation but also able to signify the precarity produced by the law through their resistance to representation

Alternative gaseous-fuels safety assessment

A relative safety assessment of alternative gaseous and reference liquid fuels utilized for light automotive transportation in the public sector was completed. The specific fuels considered were compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and the liquid fuels, gasoline and diesel. The assessment methodology describes and develops the relative hazards of these fuels from an integrated generic physicochemical property and accident scenario point of view. A technique involving a method of eliciting expert judgment combined with a comparative scoring methodology was applied in establishing fuel relative safety rankings. Limitations of this type of assessment are discussed. Selected accident scenarios included fuel leakage in both residential and public garages; fueling line rupture at a refueling station in the presence of user vehicles or delivery vehicles; and vehicle collisions under rural, urban, and vehicular tunnel conditions. Overall, the results obtained demonstrate dependency upon the specific application or scenario. Gaseous fuels have increased relative risks in certain situations and are relatively safe in others. The results suggest that alternative gaseous fuels are not disqualified for public usage. The assessment also provides rationale for the development of selected safe handling criteria and recommendations