The Inquisitorial Trial of a Cross-Dressing Lesbian: Reactions and Responses to Female Homosexuality in 18th-Century Portugal

This article analyzes the inquisitorial trial of Maria Duran, a Catalan novice in the Dominican convent of Nossa Senhora do Paraíso in Portugal. Maria Duran was arrested by the Inquisition in 1741 and, after a lengthy trial, condemned in 1744 to a public lashing and exile. She was suspected of having made a pact with the Devil and was accused by many female witnesses of possessing a “secret penis” that she had allegedly used in her amorous relations with fellow nuns and novices. Her voluminous trial dossier offers a rare and fascinating documentary insight into the often extreme reactions that female homosexuality provoked from both men and women in early modern Portugal. Using the evidence offered by the 18th-century trial of Maria Duran, this article highlights female bewilderment when faced with female-on-female sexual violence and the difficulty that men (in this case, churchmen) had coming to terms with the existence of female homosexuality. It also discusses the case in light of the acts/identity debate among historians of the history of sexuality.     

Difficulties in Diagnosing Sexual Abuse in Children with Condyloma Acuminata in Turkey

Human papillomavirus is responsible for anogenital warts and could be regarded as an indicator of possible sexual abuse in children. A genital wart was detected during an investigation of anti–hepatitis C virus positivity in a four-year-old male patient. No pathological findings of another sexually transmitted disease were found except complete cleft palate and circumferential lesions in the perianal region. No family member was anti-hepatitis C virus positive, but the patient's uncle and his wife had genital condylomata. Although detailed physical examination uncovered no other findings indicative of sexual abuse, suspicion of abuse could not be eliminated. Therefore, we wanted to draw the attention of health professionals to the association of anogenital warts and sexual abuse.     

Simulation-based designs for accelerated life tests

In this paper we present a Bayesian decision theoretic approach to the design of accelerated life tests (ALT). We discuss computational issues regarding the evaluation of expectation and optimization steps in the solution of the decision problem. We illustrate how Monte Carlo methods can be used in preposterior analysis to find optimal designs and how the required computational effort can be avoided by using curve-fitting techniques. In so doing, we adopt the recent Monte-Carlo-based approaches of Muller and Parmigiani (1995. J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 90, 503–510) and Muller (2000. Bayesian Statistics 6, forthcoming) to develop optimal Bayesian designs. These approaches facilitate the preposterior analysis by replacing it with a sequence of scatter plot smoothing/regression techniques and optimization of the corresponding fitted surfaces. We present our development by considering single and multiple-point fixed, as well as, sequential design problems when the underlying life model is exponential, and illustrate the implementation of our approach with some examples.     

Linear Bayesian Inference for Accelerated Weibull Model

In this paper, we present a Bayesian approach for inference from accelerated life tests when the underlying life model is Weibull. Our approach is based on the General Linear Models framework of West, Harrison and Migon (1985). We discuss inference for the model and show that computable results can be obtained using linear Bayesian methods. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach by applying it to some actual data from accelerated life tests. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On the Use of the Concentration Function in Medical Fraud Assessment

We propose a simple, but effective, tool to detect possible anomalies in the services prescribed by a health care provider (HP) compared to his/her colleagues in the same field and environment. Our method is based on the concentration function that is an extension of the Lorenz curve widely used in describing uneven distribution of wealth in a population. The proposed tool provides a graphical illustration of a possible anomalous behavior of the HPs and it can be used as a prescreening device for further investigations of potential medical fraud.