Nepotistic patterns of violent psychopathy: evidence for adaptation?

Psychopaths routinely disregard social norms by engaging in selfish, antisocial, often violent behavior. Commonly characterized as mentally disordered, recent evidence suggests that psychopaths are executing a well-functioning, if unscrupulous strategy that historically increased reproductive success at the expense of others. Natural selection ought to have favored strategies that spared close kin from harm, however, because actions affecting the fitness of genetic relatives contribute to an individual’s inclusive fitness. Conversely, there is evidence that mental disorders can disrupt psychological mechanisms designed to protect relatives. Thus, mental disorder and adaptation accounts of psychopathy generate opposing hypotheses: psychopathy should be associated with an increase in the victimization of kin in the former account but not in the latter. Contrary to the mental disorder hypothesis, we show here in a sample of 289 violent offenders that variation in psychopathy predicts a decrease in the genetic relatedness of victims to offenders; that is, psychopathy predicts an increased likelihood of harming non-relatives. Because nepotistic inhibition in violence may be caused by dispersal or kin discrimination, we examined the effects of psychopathy on (1) the dispersal of offenders and their kin and (2) sexual assault frequency (as a window on kin discrimination). Although psychopathy was negatively associated with coresidence with kin and positively associated with the commission of sexual assault, it remained negatively associated with the genetic relatedness of victims to offenders after removing cases of offenders who had coresided with kin and cases of sexual assault from the analyses. These results stand in contrast to models positing psychopathy as a pathology, and provide support for the hypothesis that psychopathy reflects an evolutionary strategy largely favoring the exploitation of non-relatives

Psychopathy, adaptation, and disorder

In a recent study, we found a negative association between psychopathy and violence against genetic relatives. We interpreted this result as a form of nepotism and argued that it failed to support the hypothesis that psychopathy is a mental disorder, suggesting instead that it supports the hypothesis that psychopathy is an evolved life history strategy. This interpretation and subsequent arguments have been challenged in a number of ways. Here, we identify several misunderstandings regarding the harmful dysfunction definition of mental disorder as it applies to psychopathy and regarding the meaning of nepotism. Furthermore, we examine the evidence provided by our critics that psychopathy is associated with other disorders, and we offer a comment on their alternative model of psychopathy. We conclude that there remains little evidence that psychopathy is the product of dysfunctional mechanisms

SMMR Simulator radiative transfer calibration model. 2: Algorithm development

Passive microwave measurements performed from Earth orbit can be used to provide global data on a wide range of geophysical and meteorological phenomena. A Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) is being flown on the Nimbus-G satellite. The SMMR Simulator duplicates the frequency bands utilized in the spacecraft instruments through an amalgamate of radiometer systems. The algorithm developed utilizes data from the fall 1978 NASA CV-990 Nimbus-G underflight test series and subsequent laboratory testing

Monte Carlo Simulation in the Integrated Market and Credit Portfolio Model

Credit granting institutions deal with large portfolios of assets. These assets represent credit granted to obligors as well as investments in securities. A common size for such a portfolio lies from anywhere between 400 to 10,000 instruments. The essential goal of the credit institution is to minimize their losses due to default. By default we mean any event causing an asset to stop producing income. This can be the closure of a stock as well as the inability of an obligor to pay their debt, or even an obligor's decision to pay out all his debt. Minimizing the combined losses of a credit portfolio is not a deterministic problem with one clean solution. The large number of factors influencing each obligor, different market sectors, their interactions and trends, etc. are more commonly dealt with in terms of statistical measures. Such include the expectation of return and the volatility of each asset associated with a given time horizon. In this sense, we consider in the following the expected loss and risk associated with the assets in a credit portfolio over a given time horizon of (typically) 10 to 30 years. We use a Monte Carlo approach to simulate the loss of a portfolio in multiple scenarios, which leads to a distribution function for the expected loss of the portfolio over that time horizon. Second, we compare the results of the simulation to a Gaussian approximation obtained via the Lindeberg-Feller Theorem. Consistent with our expectations, the Gaussian approximation compares well with a Monte Carlo simulation in case of a portfolio of very risky assets. Using a model which produces a distribution of expected losses allows credit institutions to estimate their maximum expected loss with a certain confidence interval. This in turn helps in taking important decisions about whether to grant credit to an obligor, to exercise options or otherwise take advantage of sophisticated securities to minimize losses. Ultimately, this leads to the process of credit risk management

An intelligent value-driven scheduling system for Space Station Freedom with special emphasis on the electric power system

The Electric Power Control System (EPCS) created by Decision-Science Applications, Inc. (DSA) for the Lewis Research Center is discussed. This system makes decisions on what to schedule and when to schedule it, including making choices among various options or ways of performing a task. The system is goal-directed and seeks to shape resource usage in an optimal manner using a value-driven approach. Discussed here are considerations governing what makes a good schedule, how to design a value function to find the best schedule, and how to design the algorithm that finds the schedule that maximizes this value function. Results are shown which demonstrate the usefulness of the techniques employed

Mikrostrukturelle Aspekte der Rissinitiierung und -ausbreitung in metallischen Werkstoffen

Die Ermüdungslebensdauer metallischer Hochleistungswerkstoffe ist häufig bis zu 90% durch die Mechanismen der Rissinitiierung und der frühen Rissausbreitung bestimmt. Diese Phasen des Ermüdungsschädigungsprozesses sind weder durch die herkömmlichen Methoden der zerstörungsfreien Werkstoffprüfung, wie z.B. die Ultraschallprüfung, quantifizierbar, noch können sie durch die gängigen Verfahren der Bruchmechanik adäquat abgebildet werden. Vor diesem Hintergrund befasst sich die vorliegende Habilitationsschrift mit der experimentellen Aufklärung und mathematischen Modellierung von Wechselwirkungen zwischen der Werkstoffmikrostruktur, der lokalen mechanischen Beanspruchung und dem damit in Verbindung stehenden Ausbreitungsverhalten von kurzen Rissen. Anhand von Wechselverformungsversuchen an servohydraulischen Prüfmaschinen in Kombination mit laserinterferenzgestützten lokalen Dehnungsmessungen (ISDG) und eingehenden mikrostrukturellen Untersuchungen, vor allem mit Hilfe der Rasterelektronenmikroskopie und der Rückstreuelektronenbeugung (EBSD), konnten sowohl die Rissinitiierungsorte als auch die Risspfade als Konsequenz der lokalen mikrostrukturellen Eigenschaften, wie elastische Anisotropie oder Missorientierung der Gleitsysteme benachbarter Körner, identifiziert werden. Bei hohen Temperaturen ist die Ermüdungsrissausbreitung zunehmend durch Atmosphäreneffekte beeinflusst. So führen Haltezeiten bei maximaler Zugbelastung bereits bei Temperaturen unterhalb des Kriechverformungsbereichs in der Nickelbasis-Superlegierung IN718 zu einem Übergang von zyklenabhängiger transkristalliner zu zeitabhängiger interkristalliner Rissausbreitung, verbunden mit einem dramatischen Anstieg der Rissausbreitungsrate. Mit Hilfe von Experimenten an polykristallinen und bikristallinen Proben konnte gezeigt werden, dass dieser als "dynamische Versprödung" identifizierte Haltezeiteffekt erheblich von der Struktur der betroffenen Korngrenzen abhängt. Die experimentellen Ergebnisse werden anhand physikalischer Modelle, die im Rahmen interdisziplinärer Projekte gemeinsam mit Wissenschaftlern aus dem Gebiet der Mechanik entwickelt wurden, diskutiert. Diese Modelle ermöglichen eine mechanismenorentierte Vorhersage der Ermüdungslebensdauer.In many cases, up to 90% of fatigue life of high-loaded metallic materials is determined by the mechanisms of crack initiation and early crack propagation. These phases of the fatigue damage process can neither be quantified by conventional techniques of non-destructive materials testing, e.g., ultrasonic inspection, nor be treated by the common methods of elastic and elastic-plastic fracture mechanics. The present thesis gives an overview about experimental studies and physical models on the interactions between the material\u27s microstructure, the mechanical loading conditions, and the corresponding short-crack propagation behaviour. By means of mechanical fatigues tests using servohydraulic testing machines in combination with laser-interference microstrain measurements (ISDG) as well as thorough microstructural investigations, mainly applying scanning electron microscopy (SEM) together with electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD), conditions and locations of crack initiation and short-crack-propagation paths as a consequence of local microstructural features were identified. At high temperatures, fatigue crack propagation rates become increasingly determined by the environmental conditions. For instance, hold times at maximum tensile load applied to the polycrystalline Ni-base superalloy IN718 at temperatures below the creep regime may lead to a transition from cycle-dependent transcrystalline to time-dependent intercrystalline crack propagation associated with a dramatic increase in the crack propagation rate. By means of mechanical experiments on poly- and bicrystalline specimens it was shown that this kind of hold-time cracking can be attributed to the mechanism of "dynamic embrittlement", which seems to depend strongly on the structure of the affected grain boundaries. The experimental results are discussed by using physical models, which were developed in a joint project together with scientists from continuum mechanics, and which can be applied to mechanism-oriented life prediction of technical materials under complex service conditions

Umorganisation der Bankenaufsicht, Mittelstand und Bundesbankstruktur

Bundesfinanzminister Eichel hat jüngst seine Vorstellungen über die neue Struktur der Bankenaufsicht und der Deutschen Bundesbank vorgelegt. Welche Änderungen werden diskutiert? Wie sind die möglichen Auswirkungen einer solchen Reform auf Bankenaufsicht, Kreditwirtschaft und Mittelstand zu bewerten? Landeszentralbankpräsident Professor. Hans-Jürgen Krupp setzt sich in sechs Thesen kritisch mit den Vorschlägen auseinander

Was kann die (National-)Ökonomie zur Gestaltung der Wirtschaftspolitik beitragen?

Der Beitrag der Ökonomie für die konkrete Ausgestaltung der Wirtschaftspolitik scheint geringer zu werden. Sind die Ursachen hierfür in der Profession der Ökonomen selbst zu suchen? Ist Politikberatung für einen akademischen Ökonomen eher schädlich als nützlich? Wird an den Universitäten eine realitätsferne Ökonomie betrieben