Kink, often referred to as BDSM, is an important aspect of a sizable minority's sexual desires, practices, and personal relationships, yet there are few ways to assess kink engagement in a holistic manner. This study aimed to develop the Kink Orientation Scale (KOS), a novel short tool for measuring different aspects of kink sexuality. In phase one, 27 items were created and included in the initial scale based on a literature review and focus groups with kinky and non-kinky individuals. In phase two, the KOS was administered to 200 university students. Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) were used to determine the factor structure and dimensionality of the KOS, and we retained 18 items in the scale and identified five factors. In phase three, the 18 item KOS was administered to a kink sample of 1025 participants as a form of validation. Confirmatory Factor Analyses also identified five factors with a strong overlap to the EFA. The five factors were: kink identity; kink community; kink paraphernalia; kink practices; and sexual communication. The kink sample also provided higher scores on the KOS compared with the non-kink sample. This study shows the potential utility of the KOS in measuring kink engagement holistically.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2024.2387769 | DOI Listing |
J Mech Behav Biomed Mater
December 2024
Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Utah, 36 S Wasatch Dr, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, 101 Bizzell St, College Station, TX, 77843, USA; Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, The University of Utah, 72 Central Campus Dr, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA; School of Engineering Medicine, Texas A&M University, 1020 Holcombe Blvd., Houston, TX, 77030, USA; Department of Multidisciplinary Engineering, Texas A&M University, 101 Bizzell St, College Station, TX, 77843, USA; Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, Houston Methodist Academic Institute, 6565 Fannin Street, Houston, TX, 77030, USA. Electronic address:
The failure of synthetic small-diameter vascular grafts has been attributed to a mismatch in the compliance between the graft and native artery, driving mechanisms that promote thrombosis and neointimal hyperplasia. Additionally, the buckling of grafts results in large deformations that can lead to device failure. Although design features can be added to lessen the buckling potential (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPNAS Nexus
December 2024
Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Ferroelectric nematic (N) liquid crystals present a compelling platform for exploring topological defects in polar fields, while their structural properties can be significantly altered by ionic doping. In this study, we demonstrate that doping the ferroelectric nematic material RM734 with cationic polymers enables the formation of polymeric micelles that connect pairs of half-integer topological defects. Polarizing optical microscopy reveals that these string defects exhibit butterfly textures, featured with a 2D polarization field divided by Néel-type kink walls into domains exhibiting either uniform polarization or negative splay and bend deformations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolymers (Basel)
November 2024
School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China.
The study investigated the effects of a toughening agent and micron-sized toughening particles (TP) on the resin and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites, with a particular focus on compressive strength. The results showed that the addition of the toughening agent improved the overall mechanical properties of both the resin and CFRP but had a minor effect on the residual compressive strength (CAI) of CFRP after impact. Compared to the pure toughening agent, the addition of TP increased the CAI, GIC, and GIIC of CFRP by 74%, 35%, and 68%, respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeliyon
November 2024
Laboratory of Research on Advanced Materials and Nonlinear Sciences, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Buea, P.O. Box 63, Buea, Cameroon.
In the present work, we focus on the longitudinal model of microtubules (MTs) proposed by Satarić et al. (1993) [12], and that considers MT cells to have ferroelectric properties (behaviors) due to dipolar oscillations of dimers within MTs, i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
December 2024
Division of Physics and Applied Physics, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 21 Nanyang Link, Singapore, Singapore.
Topological exciton-polaritons are a burgeoning class of topological photonic systems distinguished by their hybrid nature as part-light, part-matter quasiparticles. Their further control over novel valley degree of freedom (DOF) has offered considerable potential for developing active topological optical devices towards information processing. Here, employing a two-dimensional (2D) valley-Hall perovskite lattice, we report the experimental observation of valley-polarized topological exciton-polaritons and their valley-dependent propagations at room temperature.
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