Corporate Psychopaths in Public Agencies?

Corporate leaders with psychopathic traits are the subject of a growing scientific literature. Recently, scholars have begun to examine such personalities in public agencies. In this article, we relate psychopathic public leaders to research on toxic and destructive leadership, leader personality disorder, and the Dark Triad/Tetrad of psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sadistic personalities. Via a brief scenario, we illustrate how the term “corporate psychopath” might be used by lay employees lacking psychiatric expertise as a catchall term for any one of the four dark types in a leadership role. We argue that dark personalities are found in public agency leadership and could perhaps be increasing in numbers. We highlight their prejudice toward immigrants and implications for public policy affecting minority groups. After outlining organizational responses discussed in the literature, we consider servant leadership as a screening strategy to help select constructive public leaders. Some areas for future research are suggested

Rimforest Landslides, San Bernardino Mountains, Southern California

The highly visible erosional scars near the crest of the San Bernardino Mountains just east of Strawberry Peak near the community of Rimforest are active landslides. From at least the 1920\u27s to 1988 the primary activity has been mass wasting by rockfall in highly fractured quartz monzonite. Tension cracks in the adjacent area indicate that active landsliding may be spreading. Landsliding in this area had its origin most likely with the uplift of the San Bernardino Mountains and has continued with periods of active movement associated with heavy precipitation and seismic activity separated by long periods of dormancy. The geomorphology of the area suggests that the currently active landsliding may be only a small part of a large ancient landslide

Abiotic Stress Mitigation: A Case Study from 21 Trials Using a Natural Organic Matter Based Biostimulant Across Multiple Geographies

Crop productivity and yields can be greatly diminished by abiotic stress events including drought, extreme temperatures, excess moisture, and saline irrigation water. Multiple stressors occurring simultaneously can further exacerbate the strain on plants. Various types of biostimulants have been shown to mitigate abiotic stress and here, the results of 21 trials on corn, wheat, soybean, and various high-value crops are discussed in the context of the abiotic stress that either occurred naturally or was experimentally induced. Treatments in these trials included stressed and non-stressed plants, as well as either an untreated control or grower standard fertilizer applications alone and in combination with a natural organic matter (NOM)-based biostimulant. While stressed plants suffered compared with non-stressed plants, the stressed plants receiving the NOM-based biostimulant were healthier and larger, as indicated by whole, root, and shoot weights and yields at harvest. Plant response was stronger when stress existed, but the biostimulant also led to healthier plants when no stress occurred. Positive results occurred for 20 of the 21 trials, indicating that biostimulants can effectively mitigate abiotic stress events regardless of the plant species tested or the growing conditions encountered, by increasing sap Brix, enzymatic activity, and nutrient use efficiency

Quantifying the success of feral cat eradication, San Nicolas Island, California

It is usually uncertain when to declare success and stop control in pest eradication operations that rely on successive reductions of the population. We used the data collected during a project to eradicate feral cats from San Nicolas Island, California to estimate both the number of cats remaining towards the end of the project, and the amount and type of surveillance effort required to declare successful eradication after the last known cat was removed. Fifty seven cats were removed between June 2009 and April 2010 and our model estimated that there was a 95% chance that a further 1 to 4 cats remained, with 1 cat being the most likely number. After this time a further two cats were detected and removed and the model predicted this outcome with a probability of 0.25. If managers wished to confirm eradication success at this point, we estimated that 55 km of effort searching for recent evidence of cats over the whole island without detecting any would provide 99% certainty that no cats remained (stopping rule 1). Alternatively, the optimal amount of search effort for evidence that minimized the joint cost of searching and the cost of wrongly declaring eradication was 75 km (stopping rule 2). The equivalent amount of camera-nights (26 cameras were available) required to declare successful eradication were 416 (stopping rule 1) and 1196 camera nights (stopping rule 2). During the confirmation phase, 270 km of sign search effort and 3294 camera-nights surveillance were used from late June 2010, when the last cat was removed, through August 2010, without detecting signs of survivors. Managers can be very confident that eradication has been successful

Study of Earthquake Recurrence Intervals on the Wasatch Fault, Utah: Little Cottonwood Canyon Site

Detailed geologic mapping, topographic profiling, and trenching are being conducted at selected sites along the Wasatch fault zone to measure the cumulative fault displacements in Quaternary strata of various ages and to obtain data regarding the amount of displacement per surface faulting event and the number and recurrence of faulting events that produced the cumulative displacement. These data are used to estimate the frequency of occurrence and magnitude of earthquakes associated with surface faulting along individual segments of the Wasatch fault zone. Investigations have been completed at three sites, the Kaysville, Hobble Creek, and Little Cottonwood Canyon sites. The results of the investigations at the Kaysville and Hobble Creek sites are discussion in our previous reports, which are listed in Appendix A. Detailed geologic investigations were conducted at the Little Cottonwood Canyon site during June, July, and October, 1979. This report presents our findings, interpretations, and preliminary conclusions based on our field investigations at the Little Cottonwood Canyon site

Multi-Scale Characterization of the PEPCK-Cmus Mouse through 3D Cryo-Imaging

We have developed, for the Case 3D Cryo-imaging system, a specialized, multiscale visualization scheme which provides color-rich volume rendering and multiplanar reformatting enabling one to visualize an entire mouse and zoom in to organ, tissue, and microscopic scales. With this system, we have anatomically characterized, in 3D, from whole animal to tissue level, a transgenic mouse and compared it with its control. The transgenic mouse overexpresses the cytosolic form of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK-C) in its skeletal muscle and is capable of greatly enhanced physical endurance and has a longer life-span and reproductive life as compared to control animals. We semiautomatically analyzed selected organs such as kidney, heart, adrenal gland, spleen, and ovaries and found comparatively enlarged heart, much less visceral, subcutaneous, and pericardial adipose tissue, and higher tibia-to-femur ratio in the transgenic animal. Microscopically, individual skeletal muscle fibers, fine mesenteric blood vessels, and intestinal villi, among others, were clearly seen

Fate of Allochthonous Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes: A Quantitative Approach

Inputs of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to lakes derived from the surrounding landscape can be stored, mineralized or passed to downstream ecosystems. The balance among these OC fates depends on a suite of physical, chemical, and biological processes within the lake, as well as the degree of recalcintrance of the allochthonous DOC load. The relative importance of these processes has not been well quantified due to the complex nature of lakes, as well as challenges in scaling DOC degradation experiments under controlled conditions to the whole lake scale. We used a coupled hydrodynamic-water quality model to simulate broad ranges in lake area and DOC, two characteristics important to processing allochthonous carbon through their influences on lake temperature, mixing depth and hydrology. We calibrated the model to four lakes from the North Temperate Lakes Long Term Ecological Research site, and simulated an additional 12 ‘hypothetical’ lakes to fill the gradients in lake size and DOC concentration. For each lake, we tested several mineralization rates (range: 0.001 d−1 to 0.010 d−1) representative of the range found in the literature. We found that mineralization rates at the ecosystem scale were roughly half the values from laboratory experiments, due to relatively cool water temperatures and other lake-specific factors that influence water temperature and hydrologic residence time. Results from simulations indicated that the fate of allochthonous DOC was controlled primarily by the mineralization rate and the hydrologic residence time. Lakes with residence times <1 year exported approximately 60% of the DOC, whereas lakes with residence times >6 years mineralized approximately 60% of the DOC. DOC fate in lakes can be determined with a few relatively easily measured factors, such as lake morphometry, residence time, and temperature, assuming we know the recalcitrance of the DOC

Centers of Mass and Rotational Kinematics for the Relativistic N-Body Problem in the Rest-Frame Instant Form

In the Wigner-covariant rest-frame instant form of dynamics it is possible to develop a relativistic kinematics for the N-body problem. The Wigner hyperplanes define the intrinsic rest frame and realize the separation of the center-of-mass. Three notions of {\it external} relativistic center of mass can be defined only in terms of the {\it external} Poincar\'e group realization. Inside the Wigner hyperplane, an {\it internal} unfaithful realization of the Poincar\'e group is defined. The three concepts of {\it internal} center of mass weakly {\it coincide} and are eliminated by the rest-frame conditions. An adapted canonical basis of relative variables is found. The invariant mass is the Hamiltonian for the relative motions. In this framework we can introduce the same {\it dynamical body frames}, {\it orientation-shape} variables, {\it spin frame} and {\it canonical spin bases} for the rotational kinematics developed for the non-relativistic N-body problem.Comment: 78 pages, revtex fil

The Mahogany Peaks fault, a late Cretaceous-Paleocene(?) normal fault in the hinterland of the Sevier orogen

The contact separating Ordovician rocks from the underlying lower part of the Raft River Mountains sequence, northwestern Utah, is reinterpreted as a large-displacement low-angle normal fault, the Mahogany Peaks fault, that excised 4-5 km of structural section. High delta(13)C values identified in marble in the lower part of the Raft River Mountains sequence suggest a Proterozoic, rather than Cambrian age. Metamorphic conditions of hanging wall Ordovician and footwall Proterozoic strata are upper greenschist and middle amphibolite facies, respectively, and quantitative geothermometry indicates a temperature discontinuity of about 100 degrees C. A discordance in muscovite Ar-40/Ar-39 cooling ages between hanging wall and footwall strata in eastern exposures, and the lack of a corresponding cooling age discordance in western exposures, suggest a component of west dip for the fault. The juxtaposition of younger over older and colder over hotter rocks, the muscovite cooling age discordance with older over younger, and top-to-the-west shearing down-structure are consistent with an extensional origin. The age of faulting is bracketed between 90 and 47 Ma, and may be synchronous with footwall cooling at about 60-70 Ma. Recognition of the Mahogany Peaks fault, its extensional origin, and its probable latest Cretaceous to Paleocene age provides further evidence that episodes of extension at mid-crustal levels in the hinterland of the Sevier orogenic belt were synchronous with protracted shortening in the foreland fold and thrust belt, and that the Sevier orogen acted as a dynamic orogenic wedge