Biological Interventions for Crime Prevention

This chapter sets the scene for the subsequent philosophical discussions by surveying a number of biological interventions that have been used, or might in the future be used, for the purposes of crime prevention. These interventions are pharmaceutical interventions intended to suppress libido, treat substance abuse or attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or modulate serotonin activity; nutritional interventions; and electrical and magnetic brain stimulation. Where applicable, we briefly comment on the historical use of these interventions, and in each case we discuss the evidence that they are effective, or might become so with further refinement. The chapter concludes with a comment on some potentially significant differences between the varieties of intervention that we canvass

Computing Preferred Answer Sets by Meta-Interpretation in Answer Set Programming

Most recently, Answer Set Programming (ASP) is attracting interest as a new paradigm for problem solving. An important aspect which needs to be supported is the handling of preferences between rules, for which several approaches have been presented. In this paper, we consider the problem of implementing preference handling approaches by means of meta-interpreters in Answer Set Programming. In particular, we consider the preferred answer set approaches by Brewka and Eiter, by Delgrande, Schaub and Tompits, and by Wang, Zhou and Lin. We present suitable meta-interpreters for these semantics using DLV, which is an efficient engine for ASP. Moreover, we also present a meta-interpreter for the weakly preferred answer set approach by Brewka and Eiter, which uses the weak constraint feature of DLV as a tool for expressing and solving an underlying optimization problem. We also consider advanced meta-interpreters, which make use of graph-based characterizations and often allow for more efficient computations. Our approach shows the suitability of ASP in general and of DLV in particular for fast prototyping. This can be fruitfully exploited for experimenting with new languages and knowledge-representation formalisms.Comment: 34 pages, appeared as a Technical Report at KBS of the Vienna University of Technology, see http://www.kr.tuwien.ac.at/research/reports

Chiral Symmetry Breaking from Center Vortices

We analyze the creation of near-zero modes from would-be zero modes of various topological charge contributions from classical center vortices in SU(2) lattice gauge theory. We show that colorful spherical vortex and instanton configurations have very similar Dirac eigenmodes and also vortex intersections are able to give rise to a finite density of near-zero modes, leading to chiral symmetry breaking via the Banks-Casher formula. We discuss the influence of the magnetic vortex fluxes on quarks and how center vortices may break chiral symmetry.Comment: Prepared for the 31st International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory - LATTICE 2013, July 29 - August 3 in Mainz, German

Constraining sleptons at the LHC in a supersymmetric low-scale seesaw scenario

We consider a scenario inspired by natural supersymmetry, where neutrino data is explained within a low-scale seesaw scenario. We extend the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model by adding light right-handed neutrinos and their superpartners, the R-sneutrinos, and consider the lightest neutralinos to be higgsino-like. We consider the possibilities of having either an R-sneutrino or a higgsino as lightest supersymmetric particle. Assuming that squarks and gauginos are heavy, we systematically evaluate the bounds on slepton masses due to existing LHC data.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, 2 appendices; v2: Minor changes, version accepted for publication in EPJ

Karl Marx: Herakles oder Sisyphos?Eine philosophische und ökonomische Untersuchung

Die Diskussion um Karl Marx ist lange Zeit nur ideologisch positionell geführt worden. Wer sich nicht als Gegner oder Befürworter der Marxschen Lehre erklärte, hatte es schwer, in dieser Diskussion Gehör zu finden. Im letzten Viertel des vorigen Jahrhunderts hat jedoch sowohl in philosophischer als auch wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Hinsicht eine neue Art der Auseinandersetzung mit den Werken von Karl Marx begonnen. Dabei haben die Kontrahenten sowohl auf marxistischer als auch auf nichtmarxistischer Seite viel ideologischen Ballast beiseite geräumt, und in manchen Positionen hat man sich auch in inhaltlicher Hinsicht angenähert. Trotzdem ist die Diskussion in einem wichtigen Aspekt fragmentarisch geblieben. Auch wenn marxistische und nichtmarxistische Ökonomen nun eine gemeinsame Sprache gefunden haben, so gilt das weit weniger für Philosophen und Ökonomen. Charakteristischerweise zeigt sich das an der Rolle Hegels. Während viele Philosophen dazu neigen, Marx von Hegel her zu verstehen, tendieren Ökonomen und auch der Ökonomik nahestehende Philosophen dazu, Hegel zu vernachlässigen oder ihm allenfalls eine verwirrende oder störende Rolle im Marxschen Denken zuzugestehen. In unserem Essay wollen wir daher herausarbeiten, dass der Bezug zu Hegel und zu der Tradition der Philosophie überhaupt ein konstitutiver Bestandteil der Marxschen Theorie und gerade auch ihres ökonomischen Teils ist. Dabei versuchen wir nichts weniger als eine Gesamteinschätzung der Marxschen Lehre und ihrer oft verwirrenden Vielschichtigkeit zu geben. Im Einzelnen werden wir auf Marx’ Hegelbezug und den historischen Materialismus mit seinen Grundbegriffen, den Produktivkräften und Produktionsverhältnissen eingehen. Von daher werden wir eine Einschätzung von Marx’ Analyse der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise geben und dabei versuchen, ihre qualitativen und quantitativen Aspekte gesondert herauszuarbeiten. Zentrale Aussagen der Marxschen Ökonomik wie die Arbeitswertlehre und das Gesetz vom tendenziellen Fall der Profitrate werden wir im Licht der modernen Wirtschaftswissenschaften diskutieren. Dabei werden auch wichtige Einsichten von Marx hinsichtlich der Umwelt- und Rohstoffprobleme, vor denen wir heute stehen, zur Sprache kommen. Nicht zuletzt gehen wir auf die Konsequenzen ein, die sich aus Marx’ Ansatz für das Problem der Gerechtigkeit und der Einkommensverteilung ergeben. Und schließlich wollen wir erklären, woher bei Marx das notorische Defizit einer politischen Theorie rührt

Waarom de energietransitie van de woningsector niet opschiet

De woningsector kent een grote milieudruk. Dit geldt in het bijzonder voor energieverbruik en daarmee de uitstoot van broeikasgasemissies. Juist omdat de milieudruk van deze sector zo groot is, bestaat er veel ruimte voor verduurzaming. Niettemin zijn er veel obstakels die vooruitgang op dit gebied hinderen. In dit artikel richten wij ons specifiek op de identificatie van deze barrieres en de wijze waarop zij energetische verduurzaming in de woningsector bemoeilijken. Wij analyseren de barrieres vanuit een co-evolutionair analytisch raamwerk, en nemen daarmee zowel de bestaande woningvoorraad als nieuwbouw van woningen in ogenschouw

The Environmental Aspect of “Making People Rich as the Top Priority” in China: a Marxian Perspective

Income inequality in China is severe; measured by the Gini-coefficient it amounted to 0.46 in 2011; wealth distribution is even worse with 0.61. These disparities led to a major shift in emphasis of politics in general and of the Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development by the National People´s Congress in particular. While previously the strategy of the Five-Year Plans had been “Making the nation [our emphasis] rich as top priority”, this was changed to “Making people [our emphasis] rich as top priority” in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), enacted in March 2011.The strategic change from “nation” to “people” indicates that the political decision-makers in China accepted the aim of a fair income distribution as a political issue of great importance. In this paper, richness is defined in the political-philosophical tradition as the right measure for one’s own needs and wants; only its environmental aspect is focused on in this study. The development of the Chinese environmental conditions is compared with the German ones and the former’s future outlook is judged optimistically because of the achievements in the last five years. However, the complexity and fragility of the environmental system will within a decade confront Chinese politicians with the same problems as it does right now in Germany. In order to provide a solution addressing this development, this paper analyzes what Karl Marx had to say on the long-run dynamics of the economic system. He saw poverty as a necessary yet unintended consequence of the capitalistic system and used this insight as a “precision tool for the study of social change” (Elster 1986), which can also be employed to examine the unintended repercussions of economic activity on nature. Marx, who studied environmental and resource issues in detail, thought that the inventiveness of the capitalistic system would finally overcome all of them in the course of time. In view of the fact that three billion people on earth still have a backlog demand to satisfy basic needs and in addition a further three billion are expected to be born until 2050, the future of the natural environmental conditions looks somber. If it is not possible to decouple economic growth from ensuing environmental strain, Marx may well be right after all in his prediction that the capitalistic system will collapse, although in quite a different manner than he thought. This being the case we take recourse to the thoughts of one of the influential intellectual German figures, to Romano Guardini. He foresaw changes in the self-perception of humankind and in the comprehension of nature. These imply a shift in the ethos of government as well, which would in turn pose three great challenges to politics: (i) understanding nature in a new light, (ii) listening to what drives human hearts, and (iii) governing according to law